Apache Dawn, - [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

40 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts

22,000 feet over Worcester

Cooper woke when up he felt a firm grip shake his shoulder.

“It’s go-time, LT,” yelled Jax, a big grin plastered on the man’s face.

Cooper nodded and sat up, taking quick stock of his surroundings on the rumbling C-130. He and the remainder of his team were in the cavernous cargo area, bathed in red light. The cargo crew was securing themselves by the rear hatch. His own men were still in their seats, examining gear and parachute straps one last time. He put on his high-altitude jump helmet and watched as the others followed suit.

Cooper took a deep breath and nodded again. He watched as the cargo master hit a button and the flashing red light started blinking overhead. The rear hatch began to lower sedately, letting in the howling, cold wind as the opening grew wider and wider. Cooper watched the dark hole grow in size as the big cargo ramp dropped out of sight.

The red light turned green.

“Let’s go, ladies!” Cooper stood up and hobbled his way aft toward the opening. His gait was made awkward by the parachute, the gear, the weapons, the High-Altitude/High-Opening jump gear, and oxygen tank, all strapped to his body. He prayed his knee didn’t lock up before he made it to the ramp.

A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed his SEALs were lined up right behind him, moving like their namesakes in an odd wobble-shuffle toward their date with the open sky.

Cooper stood at the edge of the ramp and switched on the latest-generation heads-up display inside his helmet. In the upper-right corner of his field of view, he saw the rest of his team behind him through the rear-facing camera on his back. Altitude, windspeed, air temperature, O2 levels, and GPS coordinates were displayed on the left side. He moved his eyes to the far left of the helmet and the screen switched to night vision. I love these things.

“Radio check,” he shouted over the muffled roar of the wind.

“Two,” said Charlie.

“Three,” said Jax.

“Four,” replied Swede.

“Five,” muttered Mike.

“Six,” said Sparky.

The cargo master slapped Cooper on the shoulder and gave him the thumbs-up.

Cooper nodded. The little rearview screen showed Charlie’s insect-like head nod to the cargo master as his XO stepped up in line.

One more step. Cooper closed his eyes and savored the moment. The start of a new mission. Everything was green. Everything was before him, the past was gone. His head was clear, his mission was clear, his world was focused. He was ready.

Please let my leg hold up on the landing…

He leaned forward and fell out the back of the plane, grinning like a schoolboy at the familiar feeling of free-fall. The roar of the plane vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by the roar of the wind as it screamed past his helmet, trying to freeze him as he approached terminal velocity. It was just one of the perks of his job he would miss the most when he retired: the complete freedom, the near weightlessness, the odd sensation in his stomach that told him he was in free-fall—he loved all of it.

He watched the mission timer on the left side of his screen. When the little green clock ticked over to fifteen seconds, he pulled the D-ring on his chest and braced for the jolt of the main parachute unfurling above him. With a muffled snap, the ‘chute filled with frigid air and halted his uncontrolled descent.

The voice of the wind softened to a gentle whistle as he watched his airspeed slow and his rate of descent drop into the controlled stage. He flicked his eyes to the right and watched the rest of his team deploy right on cue, one after the other. He could just barely make out the the dark shape of the C-130 as it turned against the star-field and disappeared from sight in the distance. When Mike’s ‘chute opened and Cooper was confident his entire team was secured and on target, he turned his attention back to the ground, still thousands of feet below.

Worcester was already falling under his feet and moving behind the SEALs. The darkened city was a large, black hole in the landscape below, marked by a few random points of light. The mission briefing had revealed that the locals would likely be burning fires in backyards. Power was sporadic across the region, due to workers falling ill with the rapidly spreading influenza.

As far as he could see at this considerable height through the light clouds below him, there were dark green fields and darker green forested areas—all interconnected by the black ribbons of roadways. Everything was calm, everything was quiet, everything was dark.

“One, Four. Check your two o’clock low.”

Cooper frowned at the break in radio silence but looked where Swede had directed. He flicked his eyes to the far right of his HUD and the rearview screen cycled to a map of their area of operation. The glowing green dots represented his team, the blue triangle was Cooper himself. They were passing over the intersection of Interstates 495 and 95. He noticed on the map that two o’clock low corresponded to the darkened city of Framingham.

Looking back down at the ground, he saw what had attracted Swede’s attention. A line of vehicles, tiny little specks down below on I-495, led by the lance-like beams of their headlights. There were twelve vehicles, all traveling on the interstate at perfectly maintained spacing. It was a military convoy, and they had just left Framingham in flames. It looked like half the town was on fire.

The Germans are ranging out of Boston. Must be a retaliation raid or something…

“Copy that, Four.”

Cooper made a mental note to remember the convoy roaming around behind them when they landed. He squinted his eyes and looked forward at Boston, nearly straight ahead and at the far edge of his vision. He glanced at the distance-to-target number on his HUD: 25 miles. The number was dropping quickly. His altitude was down to 16,000 feet and falling.

He lost track of Boston in the distance as he dropped into some thin clouds and his vision went white. It was an eerie sensation, knowing that his body was falling out of the sky—hanging by just a few threads connected to a billowing sheet of silk thousands of feet above the ground, surrounded by clouds and the nocturnal darkness. Without the advanced tactical night vision built into his HAHO rig, Cooper would’ve been completely blind. He looked around and could barely see his hands and feet—then suddenly he was through the cloud deck and was bursting into the night once more.

The ground below sprung into sharp clarity; a much better view than when he’d been above the clouds. In the distance loomed Boston, a giant black hole on the edge of the starlit ocean. A ring of lights were visible—even at a distance of nearly 20 miles—fires and spotlights that ringed the besieged town. It appeared the largest concentration of lights were clustered due west of Boston and located, according to his map display, around Newtown. That had to be the German base.

Random flickering of lights down below gave away the position of people trying to survive the crisis. As he drifted through 10,000 feet, Cooper noticed whole neighborhoods had lit bonfires so entire blocks could share the light and heat. It was truly a desolate scene below—there were no visible indications of cars or trucks moving about, no houses with lights, nor a single strip mall. It was as if he had traveled back in time two hundred years, back to a time when the only light was provided by a candle or a torch.

As they passed through 5,000 feet and came within ten miles of their landing zone, Cooper continued to keep a wary eye on the sky for German aircraft and drones. His night-vision enhanced HUD showed no aerial threats yet, but he was still cautious. The last thing they needed was to be spotted by a damn drone or some Luftwaffe pilot flying CAP over Boston.

The great northern city grew ever larger, filling his green-tinted HUD. He could make out skyscrapers and the downtown district now, out on the wide peninsula in the bay. There were lights in many of the windows of the bigger buildings. He could see fires burning in the streets and groups of vehicles prowling the outer fringes. It looked like a restless night.

They sailed, silent as a whisper, over the I-95 loop where it intersected U.S. 90, the Massachusetts Turnpike, heading into the heart of the city. The Germans were just below them now; he could easily spot their sprawling base. It was the large area full of heavy equipment, neatly parked rows of half-tracked vehicles