In an action movie this would be an excellent time for the relief force to come thundering over the horizon. But Smith didn't believe in Hollywood anymore. Incrementally he lifted his head and peered around, judging his terrain. No, on second thought, he wouldn't fall back any farther. If the Russians reached the first hut, they'd have a line of sight and fire on the helipad. He'd make his stand here.
It was interesting, he noted, how abstractly a person could decide on his dying ground. The scientist and diagnostician within him said it was due merely to the numbing effect of shock and emotional overload. Psychologically, he was not actually comprehending the concept of his own death.
The romantic and the soldier counterpointed that one man's life really wasn't that important in the greater scheme of the world, and if it could be expended in the saving of things and people one cared about, the spending was not so bitter.
Behind him he heard the rising metallic whistle of a helicopter's engines. Good girl, Randi, you always manage. That bastard out at two o'clock would have the best angle of fire on a departing copter, so Smith nestled his cheek against the chill stock of the SR-25. Laying the sighting crosshairs on the knob of snow the Russian was crouching behind, he started knocking chunks off it.
The whine of the turbines intermixed with the drone of lifting rotors. That was it. His people were out of it and clear.
And then Smith realized the drone wasn't drawing away; it was coming closer. He twisted around and bellowed an incoherent curse.
Hovering in ground effect at a mere ten feet altitude, the Long Ranger was sidling in over the station, snow and smoke swirling in the lift wash. A slender gun barrel protruded from the open side hatch, the venomous crack of Valentina's Winchester echoing as she put fire in on the Spetsnaz positions.
To rage, hesitate, or even think would see them all dead. One end of the laboratory building was not yet fully involved; its roof not yet burning. Scrambling to his feet, Smith backed toward the lab hut, emptying the SR-25's magazine, not hoping to hit, but just to keep hostile heads down for a few critical seconds.
The bolt slammed on an empty chamber, and he turned and sprinted the last few yards. He threw his rifle at the rooftop, swearing again as it rebounded and skidded off. There was no time to fool with it. He vaulted for the roof edge, straight-arming himself onto the unburned section. It proved to be not nearly as stable as it had looked, and flame licked at him.
Randi had him spotted, and the Long Ranger moved in, easing past the wind turbine tower, the starboard pontoon pushing closer through the smoke.
Wind-whipped embers seared Smith's face and charred his clothing. He sprang again, throwing his arms over the top of the float, the helicopter bobbling wildly as his weight came aboard. Squad automatic fire tore into the compressed foam beside him. "Go! Go! G-" His yell strangled off as Valentina grabbed the hood of his parka, heaving furiously to drag him in through the hatch.
Centrifugal force swung his legs out as Randi pivoted the Long Ranger around its rotor mast, putting its tail to the enemy. The nose dipped as she firewalled the throttles, powering away from the firefight.
Smith got a leg up on the float and lunged into the helicopter's cabin, collapsing on the deck. Valentina collapsed next to him, glaring.
"Don't start about us coming back for you, Jon!" she yelled over the growing wind roar. "Just don't even bloody start!"
The last two members of the Spetsnaz platoon, the radio operator and the junior demolitions man, watched the small orange helicopter buzz away over the central ridge. The senior demo man had died spectacularly in the last moments of the fight. Standing to fire at the aircraft, his head had exploded like a bursting balloon, struck by a bullet traveling at some ungodly velocity.
There was nothing to be done for him, and the pair of survivors were unsure of what they could do for themselves. At the moment they were among the most helpless of men: Russian soldiers without an officer to give them orders. They exchanged a few quiet words in their native Yakut tongue; then they started to trudge back toward the dead body of Lieutenant Tomashenko and the stranger he had shot down.