of bullets. The soldier cursed and began switching magazines.
Jake heard a helo now, and it was much closer than before. He hit the dirt and began crawling away.
Tito slapped another magazine into his weapon and stood there, firing into the starry sky.
Jake crawled, and he kept glancing up. The whomp-whomp of the helicopter had become loud. The way Tito kept firing, he must have lost it. They’d all been on edge since the lieutenant had bought it, ready to call it quits and surrender. They’d been without food for too long. Starvation, more than anything else, sapped a man’s courage.
In the sky, way up there with the stars, a Chinese Gunhawk opened fire with heavy machine guns. It was a horrifying sight: a menacing Fourth of July fireworks that killed with brutal efficiency. Bloody body-chunks ripped off Tito, the heavy bullets shredding the soldier where he stood.
The sight—Jake gasped, unable to breathe, but he kept on crawling. He kept his head down now and moved. He heard more hissing sounds, and that indicated Chinese jetpack flyers. The bastards must be searching for the rest of them, coming down low to finish the job.
“The Sergeant’s hit!” a soldier shouted in the darkness.
Jake squeezed his eyes shut and shoved his forehead against the ground. It was hard to think. He wanted to rave like a lunatic. He wanted this nightmare to end. Why couldn’t it ever end?
The Gunhawk continued to blaze fiery death, showers of bullets. It was Armageddon for the seven survivors. This was it, die time.
“Die fighting,” Jake whispered to himself. His grandfather used to tell him that and so had his dad. Yeah, his dad had told him hundreds of stories of brave last stands: Thermopylae where three hundred Spartans had faced off thousands of Persians, the Alamo where American heroes had given the bird to the Mexican Army and William Tell the crossbowman who had taught the Austrian knights what tough Swiss mountaineers could do.
It was so different crawling in the dirt under Chinese heavy machine gun fire than it was sitting on the rug at home listening to your dad talk.
“Screw it!” Jake hissed. He trembled from fear and adrenaline. He couldn’t stop it. But the thought keep pounding through him: How many times can I die?
With a convulsive shrug of his shoulders, he slid off the ammo pack. It thudded onto the dirt beside him. He shoved up to his feet and he ran for the sergeant. Were the Chinese using night vision? Sure, it was almost a certainty. What did it matter, though? You only died once.
Jake felt something: a terrible premonition that meant death. His neck hairs bristled and his body went icy. He launched himself off his feet as if doing a flying tackle. He thrust the M-16 in front of him and he hit the ground hard with his chest. The breath knocked out of him. Inches behind him something exploded. It lifted him, blew him forward so he tumbled head over heels. If he hadn’t had jumped, it would have blown him in two.
He lay dazed on the ground. It was crazy. The world spun. But something in him was on fire. Mechanically, he rolled onto his stomach, and he kept crawling. He spied the sergeant, the long twisted figure of a soldier.
“Sergeant?” Jake asked.
There was no answer from the man. There never would be. The sergeant was dead.
Jake lunged forward and wrestled the last Blowdart missile off the sergeant’s back. The tough guy had insisted on carrying it, saying he would decide when they needed it.
The Blowdart was a hand-held, expendable anti-air rocket launcher. Jake grabbed it, flipped the switches and lifted up onto one knee. He aimed the sights at the Gunhawk way up there, too high for their last .50 caliber to reach. The Blowdart beeped. He had lock-on, baby.
Jake muttered a curse against the Chinese and pressed the trigger. The Blowdart whooshed. He felt the blast on his shoulder. The rocket launched with vengeance and sped upward into the darkness.
Jake hurled the tube away. It hit on an end, flipped and landed on gravel. He grabbed his M-16 off the ground, climbed to his feet and ran. He didn’t look up. Instead he hunched his shoulders and concentrated on running as fast as he could.
Time seemed to slow down. He could feel his thudding heart. Air burned down his throat and each crashing pound of his feet seemed to send spikes up his shins. The shock of