Hunted (Disconnected Series Prequel) [PAPERBACK]

Every physical book you order is printed especially for you.

Rather than storing thousands of copies in warehouses, each book is produced on demand using modern printing technology. This reduces waste, lowers environmental impact, and ensures every copy is fresh off the press.

How it works:

1. Place your order on the store.
2. Our printing partner Bookvault prints and ships your book(s) within a few days.
3. Your order arrives shortly after, ready to be enjoyed.
   

This approach allows G.A. Everett to focus on what matters most: creating great stories while delivering high-quality books directly to readers.

Typical production time: 2–4 business days before shipping.

All books are printed on demand and shipped by our premium print partner, Bookvault. This ensures every copy is freshly produced with minimal environmental impact.

Typical delivery times:

• UK & US: 7–10 days

• International: Delivery times may vary depending on location

Printing locations:

• Paperbacks: Printed and shipped from the UK, US, Canada, or Australia (whichever is closest to you)

• Hardbacks: Printed and shipped from the UK

Shipping costs are calculated automatically at checkout.

For international orders (outside the UK, US, Canada or Australia), additional delivery time or local import charges may apply. Please refer to our Shipping Policy for full details.

‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with G,’ Zaheera said.
‘Goggles?’ Johnson guessed, tapping the visor on his helmet.
‘Nope.’ Zaheera undid the lid of her water bottle and emptied its contents into her parched throat. The water was boiling. Everything was boiling here. The heat was as unbearable today as every other day she had spent in Helmand province in the last three months. She looked out of the small rectangular slit that passed for a window of the fifteen-ton armoured security vehicle and checked either side of the dirt road.
So far, so good.
‘Glock?’ Johnson asked, this time tapping the pistol currently secured to his side.
‘Nope. Give up?’
‘Never. Give us a clue, Major.’
‘Yeah, inside or outside?’ Rodriguez chimed in.
Zaheera made a pretence of scanning the convoy ahead. ‘That’s a tough one to answer. For the sake of you two morons, let’s say inside. And you,’ she looked at Rodriguez, ‘you keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes straight ahead.’
‘Come on, boss. Johnson needs all the help he can get.’
‘It’s true.’ Johnson was sullen. ‘I hate this game.’
‘Fine. You pick the game, Private.’
‘Man, I haven’t got time for games,’ Johnson complained. ‘I’m hot, I’m tired, and I’m hungry. How about we play a nice game of everybody-gets-six-months’-R-and-R?’
‘Pshh.’ Rodriguez laughed. ‘What the hell are you gonna do with six months’ R and R, fool? You got no home to go to.’
‘He’s lying, Major.’ Johnson threw an empty water bottle at Rodriguez and hit the driver on the back of his helmet. ‘He just doesn’t like that when we get back to New York, I’m gonna be out clubbing every night while he’s at home changing diapers. Now there’s a war zone for you.’
Zaheera wondered what she would do with six months’ rest and recuperation. Sit in her dingy Brooklyn apartment and wait for the break to end, probably.
‘What would you do, Major?’ Johnson asked.
‘With what?’
‘Six months, all to yourself. Budget notwithstanding. What would you do?’
‘Dance with joy for every moment I’m not trapped in a moving oven with two of the smelliest pricks known to man.’
‘Ah, you’d miss us too much.’
‘Damned straight,’ Rodriguez added. ‘Major here wakes up every morning delighted to be stuck with us lot. Ain’t that right, Major?’
‘You sure you haven’t been smoking some of the local supply, Corporal?’
‘Shit, I wish.’
‘I never heard that.’
The convoy stopped up ahead. Zaheera got on the radio and checked what was going on. Something about stray goats crossing the road.
‘Fucking goats,’ Rodriguez complained.
Zaheera opened her portable screen and checked the drone footage.
All clear so far.
‘Goats!’ Johnson exclaimed.
‘What?’ Zaheera said.
‘Goats. As in goats with a G. That’s it, right?’
Rodriguez laughed out loud. ‘Man, how fucking stupid are you? She said inside. You see any fucking goats hopping about in here?’ He pounded the steering wheel as he savoured Johnson’s exasperated expression.
Zaheera scanned the horizon as best she could. This was taking too long for her liking. Roadside ambushes had caused at least fifty casualties in the last few months and Zaheera had no desire to be the fifty-first. The drone’s footage didn’t show anything to worry about. But then that would have been the same for the other roadside attacks. No matter how advanced an army came to Afghanistan, it didn’t seem like any fared better than another to Zaheera. The hills were stained with the blood of the fallen from countless failed attempts to tame this land. She radioed in again to see what the hold-up was and told the private on the other end that he would spend the rest of the month cleaning the latrines if they weren’t on the move again soon.
His powers of persuasion must have improved rapidly in the time after their chat, because they were soon inching along again. Zaheera pulled out a notepad and jotted down the GPS coordinates for the location of their unplanned delay. She looked at the two soldiers in the vehicle with her and saw that they were trying to mask their unease as much as she was. Rodriguez’s hands were practically fused to the steering wheel in a steel grip. Johnson was trying his best not to stick his head up front with them and peer out. Zaheera felt him leaning forward as subtly as he could on occasion. She tried to ease the tension by breaking out some day-old cookies she’d brought with her. ‘Bagels,’ she said.
‘What was that, Major?’ Johnson asked.
‘You asked what I’d do with six months’ R and R. I’d get down to my favourite bagel shop in Brooklyn every morning and stuff my face with bagels. Then I’d take a coffee and a book with me and walk over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and spend the day in Central Park.’
‘That sounds nice, Major,’ Rodriguez said.
‘Don’t you have any family in New York?’ Johnson asked.
‘No,’ Zaheera answered. ‘My mother lives in the UK.’
‘You wouldn’t want to visit her?’ Johnson asked, not quite sensing Zaheera’s tone.
‘No.’
A small object hit Zaheera’s windscreen and bounced off. Zaheera turned front and centre and looked for any sign of the object. A second later she knew.
‘Grenade!’ Rodriguez shouted and launched himself as best he could from the driver’s seat to cover Zaheera.
The grenade exploded in front of the vehicle, doing minimal damage. Bits of shrapnel ricocheted off the windscreens and bonnet while the cloud of smoke and dust blocked their vision. Zaheera heard shouting coming from the vehicles in front and behind in the convoy. They were under attack.
‘Thanks,’ she said to Rodriguez. ‘I’m good. Get on the mic and find out what’s going on.’ She popped the hatch in the roof above her seat and aimed her assault rifle out across the horizon. An RPG whistled towards their section of the convoy and hit the front wheel of the vehicle in front, sending it airborne for a second before it crashed onto its side in the ditch beside the road. Zaheera saw one of the vehicles in the convoy fire two bursts in the direction she’d seen the RPG coming from. She couldn’t see anything in the distance. Nothing but dust and sparse shrubbery and the relentless torture of the sun. Why didn’t the drone pick anything up?
To her right a group of individuals appeared from behind a rock, throwing down the cloaking devices they had been wearing to avoid detection while they had waited for the convoy to cross their path. Pretty expensive tech for resistance fighters. Zaheera counted at least eight of them. They opened fire on the convoy. She heard Johnson climb into the harness of the heavy machine gun behind her and made a mental note to congratulate him later for his quick thinking. He let rip a hailstorm of fire at the insurgents, each shot a thunderous clap.
Zaheera saw two of the Taliban fall to the ground. The others scattered. Dust rose in every direction as bullets kicked up small clouds of dirt. Something leaked from the overturned vehicle in the ditch. Zaheera didn’t want to stick around to have her worst fears confirmed. She slung her rifle over her back, leapt out of the armoured security vehicle and made a beeline for the overturned vehicle. It took two hard pulls at the door before it came loose. A soldier spilled into her arms as she looked inside, his face burned from the explosion that had flipped his troop transport vehicle. He was out cold. Zaheera pulled the unrecognisable soldier from his seat and propped him over her shoulder. The sonofabitch was heavy. She staggered sideways a couple of steps before regaining her composure and zigzagged her way across the ground, hoping to all hell that no Taliban were hiding on this side of the road. The lack of cover gave her hope that they had all hidden in the rock cover on the other side.
Thankfully no Taliban were lying in her path and no stray bullets made unwelcome appearances. She could hear the bullets hitting every vehicle in the convoy. The lead hit steel and glass in a cacophony that reminded Zaheera of those winter hailstorms in Brooklyn when she would sit up with Dad and play cards to take her mind off the crackle of the lightning.
She placed the soldier down as gently as she could and headed straight back for the rest of her team. Johnson was still in the turret unloading the taxpayers’ finest into the opposition. The other gunners were firing in the same direction as Johnson. Bullet shells rained down on the ground in a brass symphony. Another RPG whistled across the Afghanistan countryside. Zaheera heard it too late. It hit the underside of the overturned troop transport vehicle and caused an explosion unlike anything she had ever seen. She was thrown from her feet, spinning in the air and landing face first in the unforgiving gravel.
Her ears rang in the aftermath of the explosion as she lay in the caked earth. What the fuck just happened? She gave herself a quick pat down. No limbs appeared to be missing. At least that was something. She sat up on her haunches, her head still dizzy from being thrown back with such force. Slowly her vision managed to centre itself to the point where she was only seeing double.
Zaheera heard screaming nearby. A black cloud billowed from the burning troop transport vehicle; the smell of flaming rubber and diesel filled her nostrils. She looked around again and realised the screaming was coming from inside the shell that remained of the burning vehicle, as if from victims inside a brazen bull. Zaheera forced herself to her feet and hotfooted it to the nearest door.
She recoiled in agony as her hand touched the broiling handle. It felt worse than grabbing a steel pan left on the barbeque. The sound of gunfire still filled the air. Zaheera guessed that the remaining insurgents had retreated to their rock cover and were now holding out as best they could. Holding out and regretting their decision. The window of the door she had just tried to access blew open as the heat proved too much. Zaheera looked inside but could see nothing through the flames and smoke.
The screaming had stopped.
Rodriguez, now standing outside the armoured security vehicle, was taking potshots round the side and intermittently lobbing what grenades he had at the opposition. Zaheera recalled him bragging on a recent march how he’d played quarterback all through college. Almost went pro, he’d claimed. At least school taught him something. She hopped the gap between the two vehicles and took a knee. ‘Sitrep?’
‘Not sure, Major Bhukari. Johnson’s giving them hell but we can’t hear shit on comms with all the gunfire. Looks like the two lead vehicles got hit pretty bad, too.’ He pointed further up the convoy.
Only then did Zaheera realise just how bad it was. In all the chaos, she had assumed it had only been the troop transport vehicle in front of her that had been hit. Now the carnage was revealing itself. ‘How many?’
‘Dead? I don’t know,’ Rodriguez said.
‘No, how many of them?’
‘Hard to tell.’
He was out of breath and struggling to get the words out. Zaheera gave him a moment to gather himself and handed him her water bottle.
‘I count at least fifty,’ he said. ‘They’re spread out among the rocks. It’s damn near impossible to hit them from this distance. Johnson’s giving it the old college try, though.’
Shell casings rained down from above as Johnson’s now hoarse voice continued to bark obscenities as he swivelled with the heavy machine gun, methodically firing in short bursts across different areas of the rock formation, barely giving the Taliban much of a chance to peek their heads out, let alone fire back.
By Zaheera’s count there were still three other vehicles that hadn’t been taken out, two ahead and one behind, in the convoy. She wasn’t sure if everybody in them was still alive but the gunfire emitted by them meant at least some were. There was hope yet. ‘Stay here and keep Johnson covered. I’m going to go check on the others.’
‘Affirmative, Major.’ Rodriguez turned and engaged the enemy once more.
Zaheera, leaving her assault rifle slung over her back, pulled out her pistol and checked it was loaded. Staying low, she lugged her aching body to the vehicle behind. ‘Sergeant Miller, you all right?’
The sergeant’s poker face wasn’t worth shit by Zaheera’s reckoning. Fear was carved into every pore on his face. He looked in over his head. She peered over his shoulder at his vehicle. Splatters of red on all the windows confirmed that she needn’t ask the question. ‘There’s a man out there.’ She pointed in the direction of the burned soldier she had carried to safety. ‘I want you to haul ass over to him and keep him alive. You’ll be far enough from the gunfire that you can call in air support without being drowned out.’
His eyes glazed over. Zaheera figured he was reliving whatever atrocity had just happened in that abattoir of a vehicle. She slapped him hard across the face. It did the trick. ‘You listening, Sergeant?’
‘Sorry, Major. Yes. Radio in for air support. Confirmed.’
He bolted across the dirt before she had a chance to give him an alternate order.
Zaheera turned around and ran the length of the convoy to the two remaining vehicles ahead of Rodriguez and Johnson. Bullets continued to rattle against the other side of the vehicles as she ran past them. A stray shot clipped the top of her helmet and sent her sprawling to the ground. Thankfully, it hadn’t penetrated the helmet or anything else. For the second time that day, Zaheera bit the dirt. One of the soldiers from the vehicles she had been trying to get to leant over her and pulled her up onto her feet.
‘You all right, Major Bhukari?’
‘Fine, thank you, Private Ramirez.’
His face was covered in dust and blood. From what Zaheera could make out, none of the blood was his. His hands, too, were stained a dark red, almost black.
‘Who?’ she asked, indicating the blood on his hands and uniform.
‘I forget.’
‘Who’s still fighting?’
‘Just me.’
‘Just you?’
‘Just me, Major.’
‘But what about the vehicle in front?’
‘Just me, Major.’
The realisation they might not make it out started to sink in. She needed an exit strategy. By now, Sergeant Miller should have called in air support. The question was whether they could hold out until support came or whether it might be best to retreat to safer ground. Either way, having the remaining survivors spread out was pointless. ‘Follow me,’ she said, and made her way over to Sergeant Miller, who was by now sitting with the injured soldier she’d carried out of the burning vehicle.
‘How is he?’ she asked.
Sergeant Miller sat on his haunches and looked at the burned body beside him. ‘He didn’t make it.’
It was all Zaheera could do not to slap the bastard again. She pulled him up by the collar so that her face and his were only inches apart. His breath smelled like something had curled up in his mouth and died days ago. She wrinkled her nose up whilst she held her breath and stared into his apathetic eyes. There was no use trying to convince him. He didn’t want to fight. Hell, he didn’t have any fight in him. ‘Did you at least call in air support?’
‘Affirmative. Fifteen more minutes.’
Fifteen minutes was going to be a long time to hold out in the open. In lieu of a better option, though, they were just going to have to make it work. She shoved Miller in the direction of the convoy where Johnson and Rodriguez were still holding their own. He stumbled and caught himself before he went over. Zaheera knew she was being a little rough considering the scene in his vehicle when she’d found him, but now wasn’t the time to give an able gunner a free ride. She marched Miller and Ramirez ahead of her and instructed them to each take one side of the armoured security vehicle when they got there. A quick check of her watch showed that they only had another hour or so of daylight left. She did not feel like spending the night out here. Fifteen minutes, just fifteen lousy minutes and we’re home free.
Zaheera heard the bullet sink into flesh before her eyes registered what had happened. It fizzed through the air and sank home with a wet thunk. She saw the heavy machine gun spin as the bullet threw Johnson off balance and spun him in a balletic horror. The air filled with a red mist as two more rounds buried themselves into Johnson. The kid didn’t scream. But he didn’t remain standing either. His body flopped in on itself and he disappeared from view as he dropped into his metal coffin below.
Zaheera couldn’t remember how old Johnson had been. She knew it was eighteen or nineteen. The kid had been braver than anybody else in the convoy. While they had all scrambled to find a safe way to fight back, the kid had hopped straight into the harness of the heavy machine gun and hadn’t stopped firing until that one fatal bullet found its target. Why are the brave always the first to go? She cursed herself for still being alive in that moment.
Zaheera dropped to the ground and fired under the vehicle at their attackers, taking care to keep most of her body hidden behind the tyre. She couldn’t make out how many were still left from this distance. They were sitting ducks in the road. What would her mother say? She’d finally be able to say she told me this would happen.
She climbed into the driver’s seat of the vehicle and got the drone’s control out, doing her best not to look at Johnson’s slumped body in the back. It was hot and humid inside and the air stank of warm flesh. Zaheera got herself out of the vehicle as quick as she could and slammed the door behind her. The screen showed the drone’s field of vision, circling above. It counted five moving heat signatures camped out in the rocks on the other side of the road and a few other not so hot heat signatures that didn’t appear to be moving. Assuming there weren’t any others still hanging out under cloaking devices, Zaheera figured they still had a chance.
A distant sound of thunder rolled overhead, which sounded out of place in the baking desert heat. Air support was nearby. She ordered everybody to take cover and hoped like shit that Miller had given the right coordinates. Two jets whistled through the sky above them on their strafing run. A second later the ground where the Taliban were camped lit up like a firework display. Dust filled the air as Zaheera scanned for any survivors. Overhead, the jets circled round and lined up for another strafing run. Again she ordered everybody to remain in cover and again the ground lit up like the Fourth of July as the jets whistled past before returning to base.
Miller leapt to his feet as the jets headed home. ‘Yeah. Get some,’ he shouted towards the rock formation.
‘Miller, get down,’ she ordered.
‘Take that, you lousy sonsof—’
The bullet hit him directly in the forehead. He didn’t flinch or falter. Just stood there all dumbstruck for a split second with his eyes closed before he went to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Ramirez ran out from cover to tend to Miller.
‘Ramirez, no!’
Too late.
He was hit in the back as he tried to pick Miller’s corpse up. Another bullet hit him as he lay there in the dirt. Whatever sadistic fuck was out there with the sniper rifle really did not want to leave any stragglers behind. Zaheera, crouched behind the front wheel of the armoured security vehicle, looked at Rodriguez crouched behind the back wheel. ‘You okay?’
‘Yes, Major.’
‘All right, it looks like we’ve got a sniper on our asses. Still, it’s you and me, Rodriguez, and only one of him.’
‘What’s the plan?’
‘We need to get away from these fucking vehicles.’
‘But there’s no cover, Major.’
‘There will be soon,’ she said, tapping her watch.
Rodriguez looked towards the sun’s low arch on the horizon and smiled. ‘We’ve got this, Major.’
‘Damned straight. Get your night vision goggles out of the vehicle. As soon as the sun drops over the horizon, we’re going to go teach this bastard a lesson.’
Rodriguez and Zaheera both ate what little they had on them as the darkness set in. Zaheera chewed on an old nut bar she had been saving for the journey back but, given the circumstances, now seemed as good a time as any to chow down. She rested against the front tyre she had been sitting up against for the last few hours while Rodriguez took his turn on watch. Night vision goggles on, he lay prone in the dirt just to the left side of the rear tyre. The drone had long since been shot out of the sky by the sniper. The comms radio was still strapped to Miller’s corpse only a few feet from where they lay, but unfortunately a few feet too far. It wasn’t worth the risk of trying to retrieve it; Ramirez had paid the mortal price for trying to get near Miller’s body. Zaheera knew that the footage from the jets would by now have been analysed back at the base and that some kind of rescue strategy would no doubt be planned or already in motion. She hoped for the latter. Until then it was going to be her and Rodriguez up against this sniper and Zaheera had no plans of letting the sniper take anybody else when they came to rescue her and Rodriguez. There was also the niggling feeling that the sniper might well have his or her own comms device and might well already have his own backup on the way. The only way to solve the problem was to end it.
She knew she should be feeling upset or scared, or a combination of both, but in truth, she felt alive. Perhaps it had something to do with the adrenaline of the afternoon’s fighting, or the knowledge that there was still someone out there waiting for her to make one wrong move. Whatever it was, her nerves were on edge, her senses dialled up to the maximum, and if she was being totally honest with herself, she felt at her most comfortable. This is where I’m supposed to be.
Rodriguez sat silently, switching between checking his scope and checking the night vision goggles. Zaheera noticed his gooseflesh-like arms and wished they could make a fire. The desert heat had disappeared in a heartbeat and had been replaced with a bitter cold. It felt worse than Brooklyn in the winter. A fire was out of the question, though. That would unfortunately mean certain death. She tapped the ground gently to get his attention.
‘What is it?’ he whispered.
‘Time to make our move. You stay here. I’m going to flank right. You see anything move out there that isn’t coming from the right, you shoot it.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ he snapped back under his breath. Clearly all nerves were shot to shit and any adherence to the chain of command were now gone. This was just two people trying to survive.
Zaheera didn’t like her plan any more than Rodriguez did but she wasn’t about to let them die from hypothermia or let an ambush get them in the night. It was now or never. ‘You want him taking potshots at anybody else when they roll up to get us, huh?’ she hissed under breath. ‘Just keep your eyes peeled. Shoot fast and shoot true.’
‘What if I shoot you?’
‘I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell the difference.’
‘Between a man and a woman in the dark at a hundred or more yards? You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘You don’t know it’s a man. But you know I’m in fatigues. You see anybody in your sights that ain’t wearing a helmet or some kind of US combat uniform, you take ’em down, you hear?’
‘Yes, Major.’
‘Good. Now if you don’t hear anything for a while, don’t come after me. You’re my best chance of survival if you just stay here.’
‘Affirmative.’
‘Good.’ She got into a prone position and started to crawl sideways on her front.
‘Major?’ Rodriguez asked as she crawled passed him.
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing. Good luck.’
‘See you in a minute.’
‘I’ll have the fire ready.’
‘See,’ she smiled, though doubted whether it showed in his night vision goggles, ‘I knew you’d eventually prove useful.’ She inched along, careful not to make a sound, until she got to the vehicle behind hers. Hours earlier, Miller had been only too keen to depart from this spot and hunker down safely a few hundred yards back. Blood pooled on the ground where it had leaked through door seals. Zaheera gained a new respect for her attackers then. They had hit the front and rear convoy vehicles, caging in the rest and leaving them ripe for execution. That too had been done well, she had to accept, considering the vast differences in resources, although their budget had improved dramatically since her last tour in 2028. A couple of years ago, they didn’t have cloaking devices. That one she had not expected. War, it seemed to Zaheera, was simply an endless battle to be the guy with the bigger stick. Whatever new technology they brought, the enemy figured out a way to counter and vice versa. At least at the end it came down to a battle of wits. Right now it was just her, the sniper, and hopefully her backup. Forget all the technology. Forget the large armies. Forget the location, the politics, everything. It was just hunter versus hunted. This was much more Zaheera’s style. Just like hunting deer with Dad.
Zaheera paused as she rounded the back of the tail vehicle and gave Rodriguez a thumbs up. No turning back now. She removed her pistol from its holster and checked it still had a few rounds in it. Hobbling over rough terrain with a rifle in hand was going to be too noisy and she doubted she could swing the rifle into position quick enough if it came down to it. At least with a pistol she could keep it in her hand, ready to fire, and still manoeuvre without any unnecessary difficulty. The problem with a pistol and firing at a target in the dark was the guarantee of inaccuracy. In the end she decided to sling her assault rifle over her back and bring it, just in case. Her night vision goggles provided a spotty green-and-black view of the night. Nothing moved in her line of sight and so, moving even slower – if it was possible – she crept forwards into the ditch on the other side of the road. There were no more vehicles to protect her. Barely any shrubbery, either. Thankfully the ground was fairly uneven and interspersed with small and medium-sized rocks. In between the rocks on occasion were small shrubs – completely ineffective to stop firepower if it came down to it, but potentially at least cover as she crawled along the ground towards the sniper. Zaheera hoped it would be enough. She thought of how she would tell others about this if she made it out alive. Most of the people she’d have any interest in talking to were lying behind her in their own blood. Nobody back in New York would understand the day’s events in any real way and there was no way she going all the way to the UK after this to see her mother, only to be told again how ridiculous this career choice was. At least there was Rodriguez. Zaheera hoped he still had her back.
The ground was still warm beneath her. Nearby a hare shuffled slowly through the night looking for shrubbery to eat. It paused every moment or so and raised its head to check for predators. That’s what happens when you don’t have backup. Zaheera crawled forward again, careful not to spook the hare.
She made it to the rock formation without any further sightings. The air smelled of blood and faeces. Flies buzzed around, taking advantage of the feast on offer. Zaheera held her breath as she moved through the rocks, breathing through her mouth when she absolutely had to in order to try and stifle the pungent aroma of rotting flesh that filled her nose. There was no escaping it, though. She wondered how the sniper had stayed here all day, lying among his or her fallen comrades, whether he or she was as on edge as she was. She hoped so.
Something moved up ahead and Zaheera aimed the pistol in its direction. She readied herself to fire.
Silence.
She crawled forward again, keeping the direction of the sound she’d heard in mind. The cold Afghan night was lit by a half moon. Not quite enough to work without the night vision goggles but enough, she thought, that the sniper might still be able to get the jump on her if she was spotted first. A big boulder ahead offered her the chance to get up into a crouched position. She waited a moment until her breathing steadied. This wasn’t a moment for shaky hands.
Something scraped against tin. The sniper was eating. The sound came from the other side of the boulder. Zaheera placed her pistol back into its holster and pulled her assault rifle from her back. Less requirement for accuracy. She kept close to the boulder, rifle out in front and ready to end the sonofabitch.
The tin scraped again. This was her chance. She leapt out from the cover of the boulder and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Fucking piece of shit.
The rifle had jammed. Whether it was dust or just a mechanical failure, she would never know.
The guy sat in front of her rolled to his side, grabbed his own weapon and fired two shots. Both hit Zaheera in the stomach. She staggered back, right hand reaching for her pistol.
The guy pulled the trigger again but this time Zaheera only heard a soft click.
Empty.
She fell to the ground, her night vision goggles disconnecting from her helmet and crashing off into the dirt somewhere behind her.
The sniper pulled a knife from his belt and leapt on top of her, bringing the blade down with his full weight behind him. Zaheera covered her face with both arms in an X and let out a scream as the blade sliced through her forearm, sending the pistol from her grip in the process. A white hot flash of pain shot through her. She did the only thing she could think of and brought her knee up into his balls.
He keeled over with a teen-like squeal and grabbed at his bruised manhood in agony.
Zaheera heard what she hoped was Rodriguez running over the ground and up the rocks to her. He called out in the night.
She rolled over and saw the pistol between her and the sniper. He noticed it too. Her vision was becoming blurred with the loss of blood. The two bullets in her stomach and knife in her arm hadn’t exactly levelled the playing field. In the end, the sniper had been much quicker than her.
Rodriguez came bounding over the rocks without a care for his own safety. He’d clearly heard her scream and wasn’t about to let any more time go by. He met the sniper face on and emptied the entire clip into the sniper’s chest.
Not before the sniper got a shot off, though.
Zaheera saw Rodriguez’s neck darken as he dropped onto his back.
Everything went silent.
Somewhere in the distance she heard a wolf howl.
She lay on her back and admired the stars.
So this is how it ends. At least Mom can say she told me so.