Into the Wild

Posted on Sun Jan 12th, 2025 @ 4:03pm by Lieutenant Matt Zemke

1,143 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Towers of the Void (Series Premiere)
Location: Unknown; somewhere in rural Virginia
Timeline: Judgement Day

Matt came to, hanging against his safety harness’s shoulder straps. Taking stock of his situation, Matt saw that he was staring down at the wrecked control panel of the Chinook. To his right, the IP’s seat and the right side of the cockpit were skewered by a piece of steel guardrail from the highway overpass they’d struck on impact. Movement to the front of the cockpit caught Matt’s attention. He could see several machines of the type that had opened fire on him were attempting to move closer to the wreckage, but their efforts were hampered by the amount of rubble and debris between them and the downed chopper. Matt urgently began working to free himself from the harness, but the buckles were jammed. He reached into one of the pockets on his uniform and extracted a belt cutter. After several moments, Matt sawed his way out of the harness and slid forward against the smashed control panel. The cockpit had come to rest so that the deck was sloped up and away from Matt at about a 45-degree angle. Matt squatted down on the control panel and looked around at his surroundings. He remembered his SIG Sauer M17 pistol, secured in a shoulder holster under his left armpit. Instinctively, he took the pistol out and chambered a round.

“This ain’t doin’ shit,” he said to himself while looking out the front of the stricken helicopter at the approaching machines. He quickly holstered the pistol and reached for the bulkhead.

Matt pulled himself out of the cockpit and began looking for anything salvageable. The first aid kit mounted on the bulkhead behind his seat was intact, so he liberated that. The drive shaft had shorn the helicopter’s fuselage at the point where the cockpit met the cargo area, just behind the crew chief stations on either side of the body. Matt smelled kerosine and looked at his gloved hands.

“Musta hit the sponsons,” he muttered to himself.

A quick glance told him that both M240 GPMGs were gone from their mounts; the twisted and broken mounts said they were casualties of the crash, not scavenged. Matt turned back to the bulkhead. One of the M7 rifles assigned to the crew was still in its mounting brackets. Matt freed the rifle and checked the magazine. The polymer mag held a full load of 20 rounds; Matt quickly slapped the mag back into the rifle and chambered a round before setting the rifle’s safety. The sound of the crunching glass and screeching treads urged Matt to speed. He stripped off his flight helmet, tossed it at the cockpit, and crawled out of the rear of what was left of his helicopter.

“Just like Korea all over again,” Matt grumbled as he pulled himself up and out of the wreck. He crouched momentarily in the shadow of the Chinook, gathering his bearings and forcing his subconscious to ignore the looming mushroom clouds on the horizon. He spotted the rest of his helicopter about half a mile from him. The ragged and battered fuselage was resting amongst a copse of trees off to Matt’s left, its rear ramp pointing at the sky.

Matt nodded to himself and set off for the other half of his chopper, crouched over and weaving in and out from between the other vehicles.

SOMETIME LATER…

The other half of the Chinook was just as battered as the half Matt had been in. Hydraulic fluid and avgas had sprayed all over the interior of the cargo area, saturating the torn and battered bench seats on either side of the chopper. Both exterior sponsons were ripped open, spilling the remaining avgas onto the soft ground.

Matt peered over the open rear cargo ramp and spotted the body of the junior crew chief, a Specialist named Gorsky, crumpled and at odd angles near the front of the wreck. Beside him was the senior crew chief, Corporal Lana Delgado. She was crouched down, tugging on something tangled in the mess of the seats.

“Hey, Delgado…” Matt hoarsely whispered. She turned, startled at the sound of a human voice, and pointed her own M17 pistol at Matt.

Matt quickly put both hands up, letting his rifle hang from the sling around his chest. Delgado’s eyes widened in recognition and she lowered the pistol.

“Lieutenant, come help me get these rucks out of this mess,” she said, holstering her pistol and turning back to her labors.

“We gotta hurry, Delgado. Those damn machines were headed this way,” Matt explained, an edge of urgency creeping into his voice. He rotated the rifle so that it was slung across his body and pulled himself over the cargo ramp. He cautiously worked his way to Delgado’s side and took a look at what she was working on.

Two of the crew’s rucksacks had been stowed under the starboard side seats for the flight. Matt reckoned that they might need whatever the bags held, so he set to helping Delgado free the bags. After several moments of trying to move the aluminum seat support back and forth to loosen them, Matt hit on an idea. By reaching through the crisscrossing supports and moving the rucksack back towards the ramp along the floor, they could free the bags at the rear of the aircraft.

“Like it’s a tunnel…” Matt quietly explained. Delgado instantly got the idea, and both bags were free soon. Delgado was about to open hers when Matt’s left hand shot out to grab Delgado by the wrist. She was about to protest when Matt held a finger up to his lips and then tapped his ear with the same finger. Delgado nodded, and they both listened for several moments, their respective heartbeats pounding in their ears. The unmistakable crunch and scrape of treads could be faintly heard, as could a whining mechanical sound. Matt released Lana’s hand and carefully moved his rifle back to the front. He then picked up the ruck he’d freed and put it on his back. Lana followed suit and donned her rucksack, nodding her readiness to Matt. Matt, for his part, nodded and then climbed out of the rear of the aircraft.

Neither Matt nor Lana took the time to see how close the machines had gotten to the wreckage. Instead, they picked their way through the rubble, putting as much distance between the wreck and themselves as possible. Matt wasn’t sure what, if anything, was left in the area, but he was holding out hope that the Army’s presence in the Military District of Washington, DC (MDW) hadn’t been completely wiped out. If it was, he reckoned to himself, they would try to make it to one of the Army’s posts in Virginia or maybe Maryland.

 

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