Doug: We're not going down without a fight.

The assortment of weaponry laid out on the table in front of me would have impressed me a few years ago. Now I found myself wishing for a few more sticks of c-4 and wondering if ten magazines of 5.56 would be enough. Grenades I had in plenty, but too much of everything and even I wouldn’t be able to move efficiently.

“Suicide mission. That’s what this is.”My best friend’s grunt came from behind and to the left.
“I do have the element of surprise, that might count for a little. I’m going, regardless. We have about two hours before they decide to get really persuasive with her.”

Abe moved up next to me and picked out a Mossberg 500 series shotgun and started loading shells into the lower magazine.

“I can’t carry that and my SR.” I said, loading my vest with magazines until it looked like I was pregnant with rifle ammunition.

“We.” He said, still loading the Mossberg. “You’re mixing up your pronouns again.” He looked up at me as he racked a shell into the chamber. “YOU cannot carry a rifle and shotgun. WE together can carry a rifle, a shotgun, more ammunition, and…” he grabbed a handful of frag grenades and stuffed them in his cargo pockets, “more of my favorite room clearing device.”

“You aren’t coming.” I said. I had no illusions, this was probably going to be a suicide mission. Get the girl, and make sure the bad guys don’t get what’s in her head. If rescue is possible, that’s great, if not… well, I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Abe laughed as he strapped on his tac-armor vest. “Yeah, right man. And miss out on all the fun? I’ve been wondering how awesome a fight with just you and me against everybody would be since middle school.”

“Dude, we’re going to die.”

He looked at me, his eyes burning. “Fuck that. We’re going to kill EVERYONE. And after that we’re going to smoke these,” he held up a pair of cigars, “in the field of bodies we’ve created.” He held out the cigar, I looked at the label. Cuban, of course Abe would somehow have access to illegal Cuban cigars. Of course.

I took the cigar. “As if there was any doubt.”

***

We are on the 6th floor of the Nakatomi building, and things are not going well.
The lights in the elevator dim and our ride to the tenth floor comes to a sickening sudden halt.

“They cut the power.” I muttered.

“Really? I thought elevators were supposed to do that.”

“You’re just unhappy because you haven’t gotten to kill anyone yet.”

“C-4 kills count as kills.”

I use my rifle to poke out the top grating of the elevator. “Throwing a one pound brick of c-4 into the lobby and detonating doesn’t count. You don’t even have to aim.” I reach my hand down and help him to the top of the elevator. “Climb up the shaft or break into floor seven and take the stairs?”

As he opens his mouth to answer me the elevator makes the decision for us and rises to level seven. Abe raises his finger to his lips and digs a grenade out of his pocket.

The doors open and a hail of gunfire utterly obliterates the wood paneling where we were standing moments before. There is a confused “Hold your fire!” as whoever’s in charge of the trigger happy motherfuckers downstairs realizes their wasting their bullets. I can almost see Abe’s feral grin as the tread of boots on tile comes towards the elevator.

“No one in here.” The grenade hits the unlucky explorer in the top of the head as Abe and I both jump to the adjacent pair of cables, hanging on with pure upper body strength. Two seconds later a wall of shrapnel and smoke erupt out of the grating that we had exited through. Shrapnel has punched through the walls of the elevator and little rays of light peek into the dark elevator shaft.

“Stairs.” Abe says to me, swinging back over to the destroyed elevator. I wonder about structural integrity for a moment, then remember the backup magnetic clamps all elevators have. “I think it will be more fun.”

We drop from the elevator into a gore spattered nightmare. The energy of the grenade funneled out of the elevator and into the hallway, overpressure and shrapnel turning the security squad into something that resembled hamburger. Abe wrinkles his nose. “I hate when they shit their pants right before they die.”

The humor is so out of place that it’s funny. I can’t help myself, and chuckle. This suicide mission is going well, neither of us are even scratched.

Of course, when that occurs to me is when the second squad of security guys show up. And when I get shot.

“Fuck!” I yell, the ripping, tearing, hot, pain in my shoulder overwhelming anything else. I force open my eyes to Abe racking and firing his shotgun faster than anything I’ve ever seen. My SR-556 raises of it’s own accord and the lighter ‘snap snap’ of 5.56mm ammunition joins the thunder of 12 gage auto.

The guy who shot me doesn’t even stand a chance, his face erupting in blood and meat. His buddies have enough time to squeeze off about five shots, but die just as quickly as their friend. I stumble to my feet, gritting my teeth as Abe grabs my bad shoulder and ‘helps’ me up.

“These guys are too easy to kill. I thought this would be a lot harder.” He says, grinning and loading shells into his shotgun.

“You didn’t get shot.”

“I know, you have all the luck. Let’s go.” He charged down the hallway, me barely keeping up.

***

“Remember what you said? About these guys being easy to kill?” I said, just as a grenade bounced it’s way over the barricade and right next to me. I picked it up and threw it back without even blinking. I’d been shot, twice by now actually, Abe had been stabbed twice, and shot once as well. At this point, grenades were getting to be kind of a joke.

It detonated and one of their guys started screaming. I peeked round the heavy metal table we were using as cover and saw the screamer crawling towards a bend in the hallway. His buddies were holed up in the corridors on either side of the hall. He’d almost made it before I shot him.

“See, they do die easy.” Abe said, indicating my kill. Gunfire made him duck back down behind the table. “But, like lemmings, there’s just a whole lot of them.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“That’s not my goal.”

“Your goal should be getting us past these guys and into that room down the hall. You know, the room they have the girl in.”

“It’s always about the girls with you isn’t it?”

I get defensive, I have a weakness for women. “This one’s important!”

“Oh, yeah, they’re always important.” He rolls his eyes and mutters, “You’re not even sleeping with this one.”

“Focus.”

“Fine.” He tosses me a grenade, “How good is your fastball?”

“Could have been a Major league pitcher.”

“I doubt that. I’m going to cover you, you’re going to throw the grenade so it bounces down the right hallway. After releasing the spoon so it has a few seconds to cook.”

“It’s going to blow up in my hand.”

“Throw the grenade you pussy.” He stood up and caught a round in the chest armor.

“Cockstain!” he roars at the offending bullet while raising his shotgun and pumping round after round down the hallway. I rise a second later and pretend real hard I’m a major league pitcher.
BLAM. The grenade blows up in mid air just as it bounces off the wall and into the right hallway. I am already pulling Abe to the ground behind cover. A piece of metal slashes into Abe’s calf and he grunts in pain.

A second later I am pulling both of us to our feet, half dragging Abe towards the blast zone. I know we only have a few seconds before the survivors recover.

I pump two rounds into a guard trying to raise his pistol as we turn round the corner and Abe’s shotgun blows away another who is fumbling with his own shotgun. Just beyond the scene of our carnage is our objective, the holding cell.

I kick down the door, take a bullet in the chest and fly backwards onto the floor. The armor I’m wearing has saved my life, but it feels like a sledgehammer has impacted with my lungs. I can barely lift my head to see the man in the business suit raising his 9mm for a coup de gra on my face. His chest erupts into blood as Abe turns the corner into the room and blows him away. I want to yell something about checking targets, but I can’t seem to draw any air into my lungs.

Beyond the dead man I see our objective.

She’s about 5’ 7” and brunette, pretty, but not in a spectacular way. Her brown eyes are wide with fright and pain. She’s strapped down to a chair and hooked up to an IV. I see an array of needles laid out on the table. Looks like we came just in time.

Abe grabs me by the chest armor and pulls me to my feet. “Guard the door.” Guard the door? I can barely think. Or breathe. I dig the strength out of somewhere though and post on the doorway. Behind me I can hear Abe working on the girl’s restraints.

“Who … are… you…” She asks Abe, her voice hazy from the truth drugs.

“I’m Han Solo, and this is Luke Skypussy.” He indicated me with a nod of his head. Despite my injuries I start to laugh. My body shudders in pain and I think better of it. Abe and I share the same high opinion of Luke Skywalker.

She doesn’t get the joke. “Please… save… me…”

“Workin on that right now.” He lifts the radio attached to his vest and speaks into it. “Retrived package, prepare for roof extraction.” Then he lifts her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and looks at me. “To the roof.”

“To the roof.”

***

I have no idea how we got to the roof. I do know that I’m dying, and Abe is too. He covers the door, stemming the seemingly endless tide of security personnel while I haul the girl to the waiting helicopter. The door gunner grabs her and I yell into my radio to Abe. “Time to leave!”

A pause, and then “They’re trying to bring up AT-5 missiles.”

Shit. If just one of those guys gets to the roof with one of those, the chopper’s toast, along with the entire mission. All that blood and effort. Abe and I both know what this means. I signal the chopper to lift off.

“We’re gonna hold the line.”

The gunner understands, the pilot tries to say something noble, like, “we’ll come back for you.” But it’s all bullshit. There isn’t going to be anything to come back to. That last time I’d gotten shot in the armor the round had gone into my lung, Abe had tied off his gushing leg wound with a tourniquet, but there was no way either of us was going to make it to hospital. The only thing keeping either of us going is adrenaline.

I wave the chopper off and then return to the roof exit. Abe is relentlessly pouring hate and discontent down upon those that are attempting to storm our high ground, but I can tell the fire is dying. “Ten shells left.” He says. I don’t have to tell him the chopper is gone.

“Two mags.” I say back, and pull my last grenade out from my pocket and toss it casually down the stairs. The explosion gives us just enough time to realize how hurt we really are.

“Told you this was a suicide mission.”

“Hey, we got the girl out.”

He nods. “Well, this has got to be the most epic thing since… well, ever. So I guess that means it’s a win.”

I laugh. The laugh is infectious, he laughs. It hurts.

We are both out of ammunition. A brick of C-4 is the only thing left out of all the hardware we brought into this building. I can hear the boots on the stairs. We close and bolt the door, it will only hold for a second.

Abe holds up the brick. “Only one thing left to do.”

“Seems a shame, I always thought we’d go out with a bigger bang.” I crawl over to his side.

“No one I’d rather go out with.” We fumble a little, trying to get both our hands on the detonator at once. Suicide is really a team sport.

The door bursts open. The lead security guy’s eyes widen as he recognizes the brick in Abe’s hand. I wink at him. Abe pulls strength from somewhere and yells, “Surprise motherfucker!”

We push the detonator button.

White, white light.