Read Arisen : Nemesis for Free Online

could just make out that reversed ball cap in the rippling, non-stop muzzle flash of the machine gun. The dude wearing it was standing upright now, with this heavier weapon braced on the railing before him, and he was tracking with the bucking and discharging beast, its angle seeming to follow that of the rapidly crescendoing engine noise an—
    And then Kate’s feet were yanked out from under her, and she found herself actually eating dirt as she sprawled out face down, her body pummeled and her senses overloaded.
    Whatever had just exploded made the earlier rocket hits seem like Fourth of July Roman candles. It seemed to shake not just the whole camp, but the entire Horn of Africa, and sent a pillar of fire hundreds of feet into the black night sky. It was almost immediately followed by a shitload of small-arms fire, full-auto 7.62 from AKs and maybe PKP machine guns, all of it coming in from the north.
    Kate rolled onto her back, trying to get back her wind, which had been completely knocked out of her. Her eyes were wobbling, but she locked onto that shearing muzzle flash up in the tower as a visual, and emotional, anchor. Good old SEALs, standing tall and banging away.
    And then a barrage of RPGs, at least half a dozen of them, went streaking through the darkness and up toward that tower, which erupted in a giant gout of flame that went shooting out the back for at least fifty feet.
    Kate had never watched men die right in front of her.
    Her mouth was filled with dirt, and she was still trying to spit it out, when she saw both Elijah and Jake standing over her, backlit in flames like superheroes. If either were hurt, neither showed it. Each grabbed one of her arms and hauled her to her feet. By the time her vision stabilized, she could see more guys running out the door of the med shack behind them, yanking off their scrubs – and chamber-checking weapons. It was every man to the walls now.
    The wire had just been breached.

Heavy Weapons
    Camp Lemonnier - Near the North Fence
    Debris was still falling to earth, bodies were still down on the deck, one guy was rolling another guy around on the ground – who was stillon fire. Carnage and chaos. “What the fuck just happened?” she shouted.
    “VBIED!” Elijah shouted back. “Drove right up to the wire! The fence is knocked down, for like fifty meters. We’ve gotta reinforce the breach!”
    She could see not only guys with weapons rushing to the yawning hole in the fence, but combat engineers rolling out to begin reconstructing it. Kate saw a small Bobcat earth-mover already rolling and was amazed at how quickly it got into play. Rounds were flecking off it but nobody seemed to care. These guys were like Bob the Builder crossed with Achilles – skilled, badassed, and completely fearless.
    “Come on!” Elijah shouted, his rifle held at high ready. Kate could see Jake was already advancing on the still-burning area of ex-gate. Out past it were constellations of muzzle flashes, AKs going crazy. She tried to think. She knew not to panic about the AK fire, which was never accurate when it was that exuberant. But she also knew there could be more suicide bombers. She got her own rifle up, but didn’t try to put out any rounds yet. She needed to have a better idea of what was going on, and where people were.
    First, do no harm – i.e. don’t shoot your own guys in the back.
    Soldiers, some of them in shorts and shower-sandals, were setting up something like a perimeter. And now, reflected in the flames, Kate could finally make out some of the enemy: black-hooded guys moving like wraiths, hopping from cover to cover, and advancing on the hole in the wire. Coming for them. And she shivered with fear. It was like seeing the actual bogeyman, after hearing all the scary stories.
    There they were, right fucking outside .
    She once again heard the booming of a very large-caliber single-shot weapon, and wondered if the SEALs had somehow survived having their guard tower