No sooner had Bran and Mason watched the dead bodies of the men who’d been trying to sneak aboard the cutter slip back into the sea than the sound of return gunfire echoed from the cruising boat. Only ithadn’tbeen return gunfire. At least the shooters hadn’t returned fire at Bran and Mason.
Instead, the yachtsmen had pulled pistols and carelessly put bullets into the brains of the medic and the Guardsmen who’d boarded with him. Bran had peeked around the corner of the cutter’s bridge house in time to see blood spraying from their skulls as their bodies crumpled to the deck.
One of the Coasties still on the cutter had screamed his rage before rushing over to the closest 50-cal. and letting loose with a barrage of lead that chewed up the side of the yacht and took down one of the mercs. The Guardsman was still laying on the trigger, doing his damndest to destroy the vessel all by himself.
Theping-pingof empty shell casings was a sweet melody compared to the loud roar of the weapon. The smell of spent gunpowder hung heavy in the air.
“On your right!” Bran bellowed again, flaying his vocal cords in an effort to be heard. The merc the Guardsman had missed was bellied up to the edge of the yacht’s deck, aiming his pistol straight at the head of the Coastie. And Bran didn’t have a shot. Because of the angle, the Guardsman’s head kept slipping into his line of fire.
“Mason!” he yelled over his shoulder. Mason had moved to the back end of the bridge house. “You got a shot?”
“Negative!” Mason yelled back.
“Shit,” Bran cursed, once again sighting through his scope. “Come on! Come on!” he gritted between his teeth. “Keep your head to the left. Just keep your goddamn head to your left!”
Bran’s heart slowed. The breath left his lungs on a hot breeze. And the world around him disappeared until there was nothing. Nothing but the two-inch piece of real estate between the eyes of the mercenary when the Guardsman finally shifted left.
Boom!He squeezed his trigger. His bullet flew true, plowing into the merc’s skull and killing him instantly. But it was too late. The mercenary got off his shot. And the Coastie dropped to the deck, clutching his neck as dark, wet blood spurted between his fingers.
“Damnit!” Bran yelled. Then, “Mason! Cover me!”
Bran waited until Mason raced back to him before scooting from behind the bridge house to snake his way across the deck towards the writhing Guardsman. After the roar of the 50-cal., the silence that hung over both ships was eerie, weighty, like that inside a casket six feet below freshly shoveled earth. It was made even more macabre when the wounded man began to gurgle.
Bran slung his M4 across his back and grabbed the Coastie beneath both arms. As quickly as he could, bare feet sliding on the slick deck, he dragged the man backward, toward what little safety the far side of the bridge house provided.
“P-please help,” the Guardsman burbled, blood staining his lips.
“I’m doing my best, buddy,” Bran told him, grunting as he finally managed to heave the wounded man around the corner.
He was down on his knees a second later. “Let me see.” He gently removed the Coastie’s hands. Carnage met Bran’s eyes and a hard stone of remorse settled low in his gut. Carefully applying pressure to the awful wound on the man’s neck, he looked up to see the muscle beneath Mason’s eye twitching. They both knew a mortal injury when they saw one. The Guardsman only had a minute or two of this world left in him, and then he’d be on to the next.
“H-help me,” the Coastie pleaded again.
Bran gave him the only help, the onlycomforthe could. “You are one brave sonofabitch jumping on that saw gun like you did. May have saved everyone on this boat.”
The man’s eyes focused on Bran’s face, wide and terrified. “Am I—” He coughed on the blood filling his mouth. It left slick, dark droplets over his face. “Am I dying?” he garbled.
“You’ve got a shredded carotid artery,” Bran told him, having learned it was better to give a dead man the truth. Somehow it lessened the fear and sped up the journey to acceptance. “Is there anything you want me to tell anyone? Anything you want me to do?”
For a second, the brave Coastie searched his face as if hoping he misheard. Then he said, “T-tell my wife and kids—” More coughing. More blood. “I love them.”
“I will,” Bran vowed, feeling the man’s blood pumping hot and heavy against his hands. The Guardsman’s life was slipping through his fingers. “I’ll tell ’em you were a hero. And that your last thoughts were of them.”
“I d-don’t—” Now the man was struggling to breathe, struggling to hold on to that last, waning vestige of life. The fabric of Bran’s already tattered soul shredded just a little more. He could not believe he once again found himself ferrying a fine man to the other side. “I don’t want to…to die…”
With those awful words, the courageous Guardsman breathed his last. His eyes went opaque as the life left them, his skin gray and already cooling from lack of blood. Bran gently removed his hands from the man’s ruined neck and wiped the blood on his shorts. His jaw clenched so hard he was surprised he didn’t shatter his teeth.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Mason muttered, still standing over them, weapon raised, guard up.
“I thought we were finished watching good men die,” Bran said. “I’dhopedwe were finished.” He took a second, a moment of silence for the fallen sailor, before asking, “So how many friendlies we got left?”
“At most two,” Mason said. “The captain and one more.”
“And we have no idea how many mercs are still out here.”
“I say we untie, start the engines, and get the fuck out of here.”
“Roger that,” Bran agreed, pushing to his feet just as movement at the back of the boat near the ramp where the Coasties launched their rescue dinghy caught his attention. “Behind you!” he yelled, grabbing for the M4 strapped to his back.
