Fireteam Delta, J. Halpin [online e book reading .txt] 📗

“Uh, good. And don’t worry. You’re not just farmers.” Summers patted the weapon at his side. “You’re farmers with guns, and just enough brains to use them. That’s a scary fucking thing where I’m from.”

Summers heard something from the side of the bunker and saw Cortez readying her gun.

“There’s a couple hundred out there now, Sarge,” Cortez called over. “And from the sounds of it, that big bastard’s headed this way, too.”

The twins made way for Summers as he moved to the front of the bunker.

Through the window slit, Summers caught sight of the thin man, his tar-black skin standing out against the light scattering of brush at the bottom of the hill.

Summers felt something bump into his back and immediately went on alert, until he realized it was Bard quite literally pressing his back into Summers’ own.

“Bard, I didn’t mean—” Summers stopped as something occurred to him.

Both times he’d been attacked by the thin man, he’d created a portal behind them. And that portal went both ways. Meaning that as long as he had someone watching the inside of the bunker, they could fire outside reasonably safely.

Considering the twins were their worst shots by a wide margin, that would be an excellent use of their talents.

“Scratch that. You’re a goddamn genius. Keep doing what you’re doing. You see something odd in here, you shoot it, understand?”

Bard nodded as his brother took up a post beside him.

Then, Summers saw some of the men outside walking forward.

“Shit. Sarge, if we’re going to do something, it should be sooner than later. I’m starting to see movement.”

“I get it!” Nowak shouted, keying the mic. “Oscar Zulu Three, can you assist or not?”

“Negative Bunker Three,” the woman responded. “We’re en route, but our ETA is three hours, at least. Can you hold?”

“Guys?” Nowak looked at them questioningly.

“Maybe if they were people. But these things don’t seem to mind dying too much.”

“Sarge!” Cortez shouted.

“Shit. Negative!” Nowak replied into the radio, sounding a little more frantic than before. “Is there anything else—”

Before Nowak could finish, the fire of Cortez’s rifle cut him off.

“Get down!”

Summers hit the ground, along with everyone else, just as the bunker exploded.

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“Everyone good?” Nowak called out.

Summers coughed as the smoke began to clear and his ears stopped ringing.

“What the fuck was that?” Summers looked to Cortez.

“Grenade. They have guns. Didn’t see them until they were on us.” Cortez poked her head over the window, ducking down a moment later. A stream of gunfire slammed into the concrete in the next instant.

“Fucking great.” Summers looked around.

Nobody looked to be hurt. But that wasn’t going to last if the enemy managed to get a shot inside the bunker.

“Pat, Orvar, do what you can to suppress that group on the left!” Nowak shouted as he sprayed down the area in front of the window.

Summers got his head up long enough to see nearly two dozen men charging up the mountain. He fired into the closest. The man dropped, only to get right back up a moment later. In the back, he saw a soldier with his rifle leveled on him. Summers managed to duck behind cover just before a shot slammed into the concrete beside him.

There were six men with guns at the bottom of the hill, weapons trained right on his position. He winced as flecks of concrete rained down from the constant barrage.

“Oscar Zulu Three, can you hear me?” Nowak was keying the radio, but there wasn’t any response. Summers could only assume the explosion had knocked off the antenna.

“Where’s the handheld?” Summers yelled over the gunfire. “That might be in range!”

“Outside!” Pat answered.

“Fucking great.”

Summers took a deep breath before noticing the duffel bag shoved into a corner beside Asle. The gunfire hadn’t stopped since he’d taken cover, and he was fairly sure it wouldn’t until the bulk of the group had overrun them.

“Asle, throw that bag over here!”

Asle covered her ears, crawling to the bag and sliding it his way. Summers winced as the grenades inside rattled.

He’d had sincere nightmares about this bag, but it was about to save their lives.

He unzipped the top to find the long string of grenades Cortez had altered. She’d removed their pins, replacing it with a thin layer of tape over the levers. All of that could be severed with a single length of wire that ran through them. It was a big, makeshift bomb. But that was for the big guy, and right now, they had to worry about the others.

Summers pulled out a grenade at the end, tore the tape, and launched it out of the window with surprising force. He’d aimed for the bottom of the hill, somewhere that was decidedly out of grenade range, but he’d been banking on the fact that logic no longer applied to his strengthened body.

Boom.

The distant, satisfying explosion preceded a break in the gunfire. Summers didn’t hesitate. He popped up to find one of the shooters on the ground, the other two stunned. He fired once, twice, then emptied his weapon into the approaching horde running up the hill.

“We got—”

Cortez was cut off as a man rushed into the bunker’s entrance from the opposite side. Just as he cleared the doorway, Orvar swung his weapon like a club, taking the man off his feet. Cortez made sure he stayed down with a quick burst from her rifle.

Summers readied another grenade as a cluster of men emerged from behind a rock, one with a grenadier’s rifle, the under-barrel attachment in a distinct firing position.

Summers threw the grenade with enough force that he didn’t see an arc. It shot straight into a man beside the one he’d been aiming for and shattered, then exploded.

The blast took most of the