Page 60 of Strike Fast

She watched out her cockpit window and down through the chin bubble, catching sight of the heavy braided rope as it snaked toward the forest floor. She kept the hover steady while each member slid to the ground.

“Team’s on the ground and rope’s secure,” her crew chief reported a minute later.

“Copy that.” She toggled the switch on her headset to speak to command. “Package delivered. Chalk two leaving DZ.”

“Copy, Chalk two. Withdraw to assigned coordinates to await extraction.”

“Roger.” With one last glance at the team of men fanned out beneath her aircraft, Tess eased the cyclic forward, nosing her bird forward as she pulled collective and began to climb.

“Ground team’s taking fire, captain,” her crew chief said as they hit five hundred feet.

Tess automatically looked out her window, trying to see them. A streak flashed by in her peripheral vision.

“RPG!” the crew chief yelled.

She didn’t even have time to react. Another streak flashed by, and then a loud thump sounded over the noise of the rotors. The helo lurched.

Tess’s gaze flew to the instrument panel.

“I’ve got a caution light,” her copilot said beside her.

“Yeah, I see that,” she muttered, pumping the pedals, but it was no use. Her pulse tripped. “Pedals are stiffened up.” Shit, it had cut hydraulics to the tail rotor. “I’ve lost tail rotor authority.”

The helo swung hard to the right, but there was nothing she could do to counteract the sudden yaw except pull collective and increase the angle of attack of the main rotor. Trying to pull them higher and buy them another minute.

But they were flying on borrowed time.

“We’re going down.” She anxiously scanned the terrain below for a possible place to put down. Up ahead she spotted what looked like an old logging road through a gap in the trees. It would have to do; she didn’t have time to try and find a different option.

Tess’s mind raced with all the emergency procedures she’d learned, fighting her body’s natural reaction to the crisis as she focused on getting them down on that road. “Everybody brace,” she commanded the crew, dropping the Blackhawk lower. The road was narrow, and coming up fast. She only had one shot at this.

They were still turning to the right, and going too fast. She had to slow them down enough to do a run-on landing on that road if they were going to have any chance of walking away from this. “I’m gonna drive it in,” she said to the copilot, all her concentration on hitting that road.And then hope we don’t die.“As soon as we stop, you pull the fire levers.”

“I’m on it.”

Tess eased the cyclic back to slow them, her eyes fixed on the rapidly approaching strip of dirt that would serve as their runway. The helo’s nose came up but without the tail rotor to keep them straight, they were still moving to the right.

Dammit. She had to time this just right and land nose-first, otherwise they’d flip over and over and crush everybody on board.

Her muscles tensed, her body bracing for impact as the nose swung around to face forward once more. The narrow strip of road loomed nearer, rushing at them as she cleared the trees.

Now!

She drove them down hard into the ground. The wheels hit with such force it snapped them forward in their harnesses. Tess grunted and reached for the power levers as they shot off the ground for a second, then bounced again.

She buried the cyclic, but the trees ahead of them were coming up too fast. The Blackhawk skidded across the dirt surface, somehow staying right-side up. She half-turned in her seat as they screamed toward the far tree line, instinctively angling her body in an instinctive attempt to steer them, but it was no use.

The tip of the main rotor then the nose smashed into the trees with a bone-rattling thud. Glass and metal crunched around her.

Tess’s four-point harness jerked taut over her shoulders. Her right collarbone snapped. She swallowed a scream, a thin cry escaping her as needles of agony shot out from her right shoulder.

Through the haze of pain, she was dimly aware of the main rotor slashing through the tree trunks, getting chewed to hell, bits of metal and debris flying through the cockpit. Something stung her left cheek like an angry hornet. She gasped, fighting for breath, her left hand still on the collective, her right arm hanging at her side.

Beside her, the copilot quickly pulled the fire levers, arming the onboard fire extinguishers and instantly shutting down the twin turbine engines.

Tess fought to clear her head, struggling to breathe through the pain. Smoke filled the cockpit, the acrid stench of hot oil heavy in the air. The windscreen and chin bubble were destroyed, the front end of the aircraft distorted around the tree trunks they’d slammed into.

Get out.

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