My gut is a cold pit, my knuckles white on the wheel. I’m used to making people feel like this, not feeling it myself. Fear. As I turn the ship back, behind the trucks again for another pass, I imagine your body swinging out, a strap breaking on the harness, and you sailing away from me forever, broken to pieces on the ground below. It’s too late to run now. Nothing left but to finish, and finish quick, before they start shooting at you.
The wind rips at my hair and face, and makes me glad for the goggles provided near the hatch for just this purpose. It is a mercenary ship, afterall, an irony I’d laugh at at any other time. I don’t have the luxury right now, as the first truck comes into range.
There are about six of them. I hit the slowest, in the back. It’s low-slung, riding on tracks. Take out the tracks first. It’s not hard, I’m a sniper afterall. A lucky guess as to the location of a fuel tank doesn’t pay with the first shot, but it does with the second, and the truck explodes in a boiling cloud of black, acrid smoke.
The rest of the trucks slow down, and I take out a second one before they manage to get stopped altogether. The trucks themselves aren’t armed, little more than transport vehicles. They’re open, like jeeps, and between the four that are left, contain around a dozen men, who pour out of the vehicles, armed, and try to make for whatever cover they can find.
Stitch a line of fire along the track of one, killing four of the mercenaries crouched for cover there. Down to roughly eight now.
We’ve overflown the trucks. I look up to the sheild up ahead, a few feet in front of me. You’re looking back, your lips nearly white. I make a small circling motion with my hand. Go back. You hesitate for a second, and I worry that you will just keep going, but you turn.
The remaining eight mercenaries make a break for it. Where they think they’ll manage to run to, I have no idea. I take a great deal of pleasure in thinking how many men those particular mercenaries may have run to ground in just this way. The gun barks. It’s overkill, but that’s no longer a concern for me. One last scan over the ground. One last shot, as a head peeks out from a patch of scrub, and it’s done.
I flash an okay to you as you look back again, when we overfly the area.
Need to find a place where it’s safe to hover for a minute , to bring you in. Back out over the flats, to the river. Try to stop my hands from shaking. You’re at the hatch by the time I get there, but can’t quite get out of the harness. I grab you, harder than I mean to. I can’t help it.
“Next time we just run, Ava!! Next time you WILL fucking listen to me!! I…..”
I’m screaming at you. I struggle to stop. I manage to let go of your arm before I leave bruises.
I wait til you’re done, and step close enough to let you hold me, tight enough that it’s hard to breathe. I stay like that until your trembling stops.