Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) by Nicholas Sansbury Smith Page A

tumbled backward. The wind picked up again and sand shifted in front of his view. He lost sight of the window a second later.
    “Enemy is down,” Fitz said over the comms.
    Garland brought his spotter’s back to his eye. “Shit man, you got him? I didn’t even—”
    “Her,” Fitz replied, hoping the hiss of wind would hide the regret in his voice. He wasn’t used to killing women, but she was the enemy. As much as he tried to tell himself that, he still couldn’t quite come to terms with the fact he had just killed a woman. She had been someone’s daughter, possibly a wife or a mother.
    She would have killed you if she had the chance.
    The storm blew out of Fallujah and the mechanized unit lurched forward. Fitz drew in a breath that tasted like sand. Before he could exhale, a flurry of small arms fire rang out down the street. The heavy crack of a Dragunov followed.
    Fitz knew by the echo of the shot that the sniper was too far for him to hit. He did a quick scan of the rooftops just to make sure, then said, “We need to move. Get back to the street and work our way ahead of the platoon.”
    “We got another sniper,” the Platoon Sergeant said over the comm.
    There were other responses. Something about an ambush and a potential suicide bomber. Each transmission made Fitz’s heart rate spike even higher.
    He pushed himself to his knees and backed away from the ledge on all fours. Garland picked up his rifle and followed suit. They entered the dusty building the way they had come out and loped down the stairway. When they hit the street, Fitz ran from vehicle to vehicle, stopping when he got to the command Humvee. The platoon sergeant was crouched behind the bumper.
    “Fitz, what the hell are you doing? You’re supposed to be in position,” the man snarled. The bulky Marine spat a chunk of chewing tobacco on the street.
    “I couldn’t see shit up there. Garland and I need to get ahead of the platoon.”
    A second crack sounded, and the comms flared with the report of another Marine down.  
    Small arms fire broke over the cough of the diesel engines. The Platoon Sergeant dragged a sleeve across his face, and stared for a moment like he didn’t know what to do.
    “Sergeant, we got to move,” Fitz insisted. “I have to get back out there and cover the Marines in the street.” 
    The platoon sergeant said something into his headset. He scrambled to the side of the bumper and motioned at two Marines hiding in the entrance of a building. “Walters, Duffy. I want you to escort Fitz and Garland to a new position.”
    Walters and Duffy were both privates. Fitz hardly knew them, but Duffy had a reputation for shooting anything and everything that moved. Fitz didn’t like that. The Marine was a liability, but he didn’t have time to protest. They darted across the street in combat intervals, taking an alleyway that opened into a ghetto. Fitz called this place the O rphan Zone .
    The shelled out buildings here were far from abandoned. Clothes and towels hung from balconies. Fitz glimpsed several kids looking through the iron bars. They melted back into their homes when they saw the Marines.
    “Eyes up,” Fitz said.
    They ran into a second alleyway that curved between the structures until they came to another street. Fitz stopped at the sidewalk to search for contacts. The pop of insurgent gunfire echoed through the city.
    Another transmission crackled over the comms; another brother had been lost. Heart pounding, Fitz resisted the urge to run out into the middle of the road. He had to do something, and he had to do it soon. Halfway down the street stood a five-story hotel. It was the tallest structure in the area, and would have a view of the street where the armored convoy was pinned down.
    “There,” Fitz said when the other Marines caught up. “Cover me.”
    Garland mumbled a protest that Fitz ignored. He took off across the street like he was running in a sprint relay, nearly stumbling from the