Third Person - Complete

Zulu Life

"How is he?" Patch asked Cromwell, thumping across the empty parking lot.

Roberts held his thumb up, trying to smile and not cough. Roberts knew he was sweating like a pig, but the pain in his back and inside his chest kept rippling through the painkiller and taking his breath away. Roberts was woozy, Cromwell having worked on him in the back of a moving truck to keep him from bleeding out after he'd managed to get to the truck with Taggart.

"He's holding on. Either we get him to a hospital or we have to stay long enough for me to operate on him," Cromwell said, turning to Roberts. "Your chest starts to feel like you're being crushed, turn that valve, it will let the air out."

After Roberts nodded, Patch motioned to Cromwell, who followed him a little ways away. Roberts tilted his head slightly to eavesdrop.

"How bad?" Cromwell asked and Roberts wondered why she was asking about him.

"They're trying to push us across the 1K Zone," Patch said, shaking his head. "We're in no man's land out here. The Germans abandoned it after the wall went up in the 50's."

Roberts looked around at the few buildings remaining. He could believe it. Most of them were collapsed, or just foundations. It looked like old World War Two damage to him. Most of the yards, building foundations, even the road had trees grown up in them. The large parking lot was mostly overgrown.

His whole back hurt. He'd been running when he'd taken the hit, sending him stumbling forward. Taggart had ended up half-carrying him as they'd ran the last half-mile to the truck. She'd urged him to drop the M-60, but instead he'd held onto it, concentrating on its weight and solidity to keep going. It was laying in the bed of the truck, useless, the barrel warped out of true by running the belts through it till it had glowed cherry red.

Roberts looked at Lewis, who was laying on her stomach. Her BDU pants were closed with 100 MPH tape after Cromwell had sliced them open to staple shut the bullet wound on her outer thigh as well as the three bullet grazes across her butt.

Lewis looked back and smiled, her eyes glazed with painkiller. Roberts gave her the thumbs up, a big goofy grin on his face from the morphine. She had blood all over her leg and on her the butt of her pants. Cromwell had torn her pants open, stapled her up, then taped her pants shut.

"Think they know?" Cromwell asked.

"They have to. They must have killed the GSG-9 guys, maybe even the Rangers," Patch said, lighting a cigarette. "Be worth it if they can grab this shipment."

"What is it? It looked like eight inch artillery shells," Cromwell said, lighting one of her own. Roberts noticed her hands were stained with blood and it had soaked her sleeves.

"They're Whiskey Seventy dash Three Delta Two warheads," Patch stared at the two five-ton trucks. "They're new. Next-Gen nuclear weapons. Real hot shit stuff."

Cromwell winced. "How new?"

"First run. They're... different. Low net explosive weight yield with a variable charge setting, enhanced radiation output," Patch said. He blew smoke into the morning air. "It's a new tank killer design. Based off the salted cage system. Neutron radiation fries the crews inside the tank even if the tank can survive inside the detonation zone of a conventional nuclear weapon."

Roberts frowned. It didn't make much sense to him. Wasn't nukes all about massive destruction with a single round.

"More Special Weapons toys," Cromwell said, shaking her head.

"We didn't make the world," Patch shrugged.

"You're just going to burn it," Cromwell laughed.

Roberts shivered, then gasped in pain, at the two soldier's words.