Free Philippine Hardpunch by Jim Case

targets.
    Murphy’s eyes were on the chopper where it sat, its idling rotors catching and refracting sunlight.
    “Something’s wrong.”
    Cody caught it then, too.
    No sign of life stirred from within the chopper. By now the two-man crew should have already swung the hatch open to assist
     Cody and his group in a hurried boarding, but… nothing.
    “I suggest, when in a bind, that you first consider the benefits of riding with Caine’s taxi service,” Caine commented dryly
     from the Chor-7.
    “The teabag’s got a
grand
idea.” Hawkins mimicked his buddy’s English accent on the word “grand,” but he wasted no time in ushering the Jefferses aboard
     the vehicle while Caine moved to take over driving chores from Mr. Jeffers.
    Murphy climbed behind the M-60, naturally.
    Figures emerged into sight down along the trail, well out of range of the pistols.
    “Rufe, downrange!”
    Murphy cranked the mounted M-60 at the command, saw the first of Locsin’s foot soldiers starting to catch up with them.
    The M-60’s ear-punching muzzle blast exploded over their heads, eliciting much activity along the backtrack: figures diving
     for cover, others slammed off their feet like wheat chopped down by a razor-sharp scythe.
    Cody and Hawkeye leaped to opposite sides of the Chor-7, bracing themselves again as Caine sent the vehicle zipping across
     the clearing in a semicircle around the strewn corpses before angling toward that chopper.
    Cody watched the skies during the short, bumpy ride but saw no sign of the fourth Huey that had so discreetly withdrawn before
     the real fracas got under way.
    Caine braked the Chor-7 to a jolting stop alongside the chopper.
    Mortar fire blazed on them again from the treeline, the first incoming impacting well behind them, the boom of geysering earth
     and explosives adding more wafting smoke and soot to this hazy, sun-splashed killground.
    Another hit, downrange.
    Murphy kept the heat on the M-60, peppering that treeline.
    Cody and Hawkins leaped from the vehicle, their pistols useless at this range. Cody waved the Jeffers family toward the yawning
     side door of the chopper.
    Caine came around to assist the ladies aboard, then followed them in with Mr. Jeffers, the steady racket of Murphy’s busy
     M-60 enveloping the scene.
    Cody and Hawkeye climbed in and rushed toward the cockpit.
    Cody knew what to expect when he saw the puddles of scarlet behind the cockpit seats rivuleting backwards into the bay because
     of the slight tilt, at which the chopper rested.
    The seats were armored, but that had not been protection enough for the pilot and copilot, the two-man crew of this gunship,
     who had caught enough shrapnel from that glancing mortar hit, through a jagged hole in the Plexiglas, to render them into
     burbling, unrecognizable masses of butchered gristle and gore.
    Cody and Hawkeye threw themselves into the unpleasant task of unstrapping the two seated dead men and setting them on the
     deck behind the seats.
    Hawkins then strapped himself into the copilot’s seat, familiarizing himself with the warbird’s weaponry systems.
    Cody dashed back past where Caine was, snowing the Jeffers family where to stand, well away from the side doors, gripping
     wall straps.
    Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers and Ann saw the remains of the dead men before averting their eyes, and in those eyes Cody saw the awareness
     that the same thing could happen to any of them at any second.
    He gained the door and shouted above the hammering and yammering of Rufe’s M-60, firing white-hot from where the big guy from
     Mississippi kept the trigger depressed.
    “Rufe…
Rufe!
”
    Murphy heard that, ceased firing and left the Chor-7 in a leap to gain the chopper, reaching Cody’s side in two long bounds.
    “Just about out of ammo anyhow.” He grinned, sweating.
    Cody spotted camou-clad figures emerge from the treeline again to set up mortars. He threw a thumb in the direction of the
     cockpit.
    “Get us the hell out of