With no clear shot at the commander, Kilkenny tracked the closest of the three with the barrel of his MP-5. At twenty feet, Kilkenny fired a three-round burst that pulverized the man’s face.
Duroc saw the muzzle flash in the dark space beneath the station module. The soldier to his left suddenly jerked around, his head thrown back, his face exploding. Blood and torn bits of flesh and bone splattered against Duroc’s face, covering his goggles and balaclava. The remaining soldier opened fire on Kilkenny’s position.
Duroc could feel blood seeping through the fabric that covered his face, and his goggles were smeared with the rapidly freezing fluid. He flipped back his hood and stripped everything off his head. The frigid air stung his exposed skin.
A fusillade of bullets bore down on Kilkenny’s position as the second soldier fired his weapon on full automatic. The two bodies stacked in front of him absorbed several rounds; the rest either punched holes in the module’s aluminum skin or chiseled into the ice.
From beneath the module, Kilkenny had a protected field of fire to the front and side, but was vulnerable to a wide sweep around the rear. The instant the soldier emptied his weapon, Kilkenny popped up, found his target, and fired. The man spun and dropped to the ice.
‘Merde!’ Albret cursed. ‘You two, cover the commander. The rest of you, get this plane closed up and ready to leave.’
Search, aquire, fire. The words played in Kilkenny’s mind like a mantra. Once he was sure the second soldier wasn’t going to get back up, he sought out another target. The commander was lying on his stomach, facing Kilkenny with a pistol. The man had stripped off all the protective gear from his head, and Kilkenny got a clear look at his face. As he lined up the MP-5′s site, the commander fired. Kilkenny saw the muzzle flash at the same instant as the bullet struck his helmet an inch above his left eye.
The impact snapped Kilkenny’s head back so fast his neck hurt. He dropped behind his barricade, gripping the MP-5 tightly, waiting for his vision to clear.
The two soldiers sent by Albret were more selective with their fire, squeezing off rounds individually to keep Kilkenny pinned down. Duroc and one of the soldiers grabbed hold of the two bodies and dragged them back toward the aircraft while the other man covered their withdrawal.
‘Albret, I hit him,’ Duroc said. ‘Head shot, but he’s wearing a helmet. I don’t know if it got through.’
Three shots flew out from beneath the module and struck the fuselage of the plane nearby.
‘There’s your answer,’ Albret said.
‘Where did this sniper come from?’ Duroc demanded.
‘Unknown. Except for the transport, the radar has been clear since we arrived. The rest of the perimeter is secure, no sign of any additional threats.’
‘He’s not one of our men. How did he get here? How did he know?’
‘We won’t learn that unless we capture him, sir, but we have a more important problem – the aircraft. They are in the open and, as you can see, very difficult to protect from weapons fire. Both are ready to go, and I think we should get them airborne before either is damaged too greatly.’
Duroc considered his executive officer’s suggestion. ‘See to it. Position the men to protect the first plane. We will depart on the second.’
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