by C. R. Daems
They spent the next hour attaching a small transmitter to Peters and Cain and a switch to activate it to their palms. When they saw a spot they thought looked like a potential bomb, they would activate the transmit and then point to the spot with their elbow. The men operating the cameras would be focused on the runner. When they heard the buzz in their headphones they would begin taping for several seconds. The video would be reviewed later with the runner and the exact spot located for the snipers.
It was decided the runners would try to get closer to the pass.
An hour later, two Tasmanians began a slow and moderately evasive jog parallel to the roadway. As they reached halfway they increased their speed and evasive movements. Less than a minute later dirt exploded near the runner on the right side and almost simultaneously a loud clap sounding like the report from a fifty-caliber rifle. The two runners immediately crisscrossed the road and continued toward the pass, moving faster. Twenty meters later they crisscrossed again, went another five meters, and crisscrossed again as multiple shots rang out echoing in the distance. This time the runners reversed direction and sprinted at full speed back toward the army vehicle, which was firing back. I doubt they hit anything as the gunner in the trucks couldn’t see the snipers. Nevertheless the sniper fire soon stopped, probably because the runners had reversed course.
That stunt renewed my respect for the Tasmanians. You had to be damn brave to run totally unprotected and with no cover toward known snipers. You had to be crazy or a Tasmanian to continue running toward them after they began firing.
They slowed as they neared us. “Damn good thing they’re lousy shots,” said the tallest and leanest of the runners between gulps of air. “Those fifty-caliber bullets hurt.” In fact, if a fifty-caliber slug hit him anyplace he would be going down and unlikely to get up.
The twelve of us, squads four and five and the two runners, spent the next two hours reviewing the video and discussing the exact spot where the runner felt he saw the ground disturbed and potentially contained a bomb.
“What do you think, Sadler?” Lacy asked as we finished marking the pictures with the estimated location of the eleven potential bombs.
“We have four primary snipers so in the deal I’d prefer assigning each three targets and taking them in rapid succession, beginning with the bombs closest to the pass and working back toward us. Hopefully that raises a blast cloud between the Hihari snipers and us. But our snipers would require ten to fifteen seconds to make the three shots and that assumes they hit each bomb the first time. Depending on where the Hihari are located relative to the blast cloud and how good they are, that’s enough time to target our snipers and fire.”
“What if we use your strategy but have the snipers move to a new location after each round?” Lacy suggested, frowning in thought. When Sadler nodded he looked to Naylor and me.
“I’d like an infrared camera or two set up to try and determine where the Hihari snipers are located when they fire at us,” I said, knowing they weren’t going to be easy to spot as they would have trees and boulders for cover and could have ghillie suits or some equivalent camouflage. Lacy and Sadler nodded. It took another hour to determine our initial positions, two alternatives, and set up cameras.
“When I’m finished, go to your starting positions and acquire your targets. Fire when I give you the order. After the bomb explodes or you determine there is no bomb at the designated site, retire to your secondary position and acquire your next target. Wait for my order to fire. Afterward, go to your third position and again wait for my order to fire.” Lacy waited for each of us to nod before continuing. “Dismissed. Signal when you are in your primary positions.”
I picked up my CheyTac rifle and began walking with Patten following just as several trucks began moving like they were changing positions. In reality they were a distraction meant to hide our movements as we settled into our pre-dug trenches. Since the terrain sloped upward we didn’t need to be elevated. The only problem was getting to the trench without being noticed as the position was in the open field only twenty meters from the trucks. Once there we would be invisible so long as we didn’t make any sudden moves.
“Wind seven meters per hour from the west. Distance nine hundred fifty-six meters,” Patten said after we had settled into position. I made the slight adjustments for the wind and distance which I had previously estimated. I liked to estimate wind and distance before Patten gave me the official numbers for practice in case my spotter got injured or I found myself alone.
“Target acquired,” I said as I found the spot I wanted in my scope and gently placed my finger on the trigger.
“P-1 Command, five one in place and ready,” Patten said, indicating squad five, shooter one, which was me. Then several seconds later I heard, “Fire.”
I breathed out slowly as I began to tighten my finger on the trigger. I heard several muted claps but ignored them. My target, which was on my side of the highway and the closest to the pass, became the center of my universe. My rifle bucked against my shoulder as the supersonic bullet simultaneously hit and the ground erupted in a cloud of sand, rock, and debris. When I looked up most of the lower half of the hills guarding the pass was obscured by the cloud of debris. I held Patten when he began to move, preparing to change to our secondary position. Bang, bang, bang rang out. As I had suspected, the Hihari were high up in those hills, and although unlikely they had our sniper positions, alert shooters would be looking for the snipers and would shoot at any movement. After a minute and the cloud had risen enough to obscure the higher elevations, I nudged Patten and we raced to our new positions. I found my target, reset my distance, and waited for Patten.
“Wind seven meters per hour from the west. Distance eight hundred ten meters,” he said shortly afterward. I made a small adjustment to my distance, centered my target, and placed my finger inside the trigger guard and lightly touched the trigger.
“Ready,” I said.
“P-1 Command, five one ready,” Patten said into his TCom device. A long delay, then, “Fire.”
Although it was what I thought an easy shot, my father had always stressed a rushed shot is frequently a missed shot and a lost opportunity, so I took my time relaxing, slowed my breathing, and tightened my finger on the trigger. Bang. The ground erupted and a loud explosion. Again, three other clouds of debris were rising. I nudged Patten as I could barely see the hills. The third round went smoothly and I had to admire the runners. They had good eyes and each target had been a bomb. Whether they got them all or not was yet to be seen, but at least eleven were dismantled without injuries.
“We’ve confirmed their shooters are alert and pretty good shots, as Chester learned. He moved shortly right after his sniper had hit his target. According to our video three different Hihari fired at him. They missed but not by much. One bullet hit close enough to spray him with debris and his legs were cut up enough to require treatment,” Sadler said when we met as a group an hour later.
“I’m beginning to like snipers,” Humphrey said and a wry smile appeared. “Tasmanian snipers, even the slow ones.” An obvious gibe at me since I had been the last to fire in each case.
“The other snipers pay my spotter to delay giving me the distance until after they’ve fired,” I said, trying to look hurt.
Patten gave a laugh. “Jolie waits for me to give her the wind and distance so I’ll feel like I’m contributing. She already has it dialed into her scope. She’s not slow. She’s careful.”
“Simon selected the four best snipers in the Tasmanians and the spotters are a close second,” Lacy said.
“Thanks, everyone. You’ve not only saved us a lot of time but also lives,” Humphrey said. He gave a thumps-up gesture and wandered back toward the army’s command center, which was in one of the armored trucks toward the rear of the convoy.
“Jolie, that was a good idea with the cameras. I think we have the position of the three Hihari shooters. If they don’t move they may be easy targets when
the army tries to enter the pass. I doubt we’ve cleared all the bombs and runners aren’t going to work again.”
* * *
“The army plans to begin moving within the next fifteen minutes,” Simon said to the assembled twenty Tasmanians accompanying Company One, the initial assault force. “I’m going to hold squad one in reserve for when we penetrate the pass. Until then, Sadler, your squad take the mountain on the left side and, Lacy, your squad take the right. Do what you can to support the army’s advance. The Hihari rifle men in those mountains are going to be a major problem.”
“Lacy, where do you want us to set up?” Patten asked as the army trucks began to move.
Lacy looked toward the pass frowning in thought. Then he turned toward Sadler, who shrugged.
“Naylor, Luan?” he asked.
“I thought I’d just walk along with the trucks and decide after the fighting started,” Naylor said and looked to me.
“I’d like to pick a spot about a hundred or two ahead,” I said.
“That’s a long shot,” Lacy said. “Eight hundred meters or more.”
“It’s more to watch the action.” I smiled.
“Watch?”
“We don’t know how many, where they are positioned, types of rifles, night vision scopes, or how good they are. And eight hundred meters isn’t that far. I’m not throwing rocks at them,” I said before I considered I was an unproven new Tasmanian and was talking to the squad leader. I held my breath awaiting a rebuke. But to my surprise, Lacy laughed.
“Simon did warn me you took Ready, Aim, Fire very seriously in everything you did, and that was the reason you qualified for the Tasmanians. Just don’t take too long to get Ready.”
“Thank you,” I said, understanding his concern. Every minute I took watching lives were being lost to Hihari shooters that I could have saved if I hadn’t been watching. A valid point as far as it went. But I believed watching would make me more efficient and therefore save more lives in the long run. Time would tell, I mused as we followed the army slowly moving forward.
“Patten, over there.” I nodded to a small rise off to our right. It wasn’t more than ten meters higher than the road but it had a lot of shrubs and small boulders the size of watermelons. It looked to be just over eight hundred meters from the mountains guarding the pass. Patten shrugged and followed me. I slowly drifted in that direction and when we reached the beginning of the rise we sat. Over the next ten minutes, we slowly put on our ghillie suits and ten minutes later began a slow crawl to the top, where we settled. “Patten, get a video of the pass and the mountains guarding it,” I said, preparing to wait.
“What are you hoping to find, Jolie?” he asked, a little frustration evident in his voice.
“They’re seasoned mountain fighters. I’m hoping to find a weakness we can exploit,” I said, watching the action through binoculars. As time passed and the army units grew closer the action intensified.
“Jolie, they are good shots and the army is taking a beating. Looks like twenty on each side and they have excellent cover.” He sounded on the verge of panic, wanting me to do something.
“It’s time,” I said, putting away my binoculars and shouldering my rifle. “Review the video, pick out a shooter, show me the location, and let’s kill him,” I said. He looked at me blankly, then smiled. He rewound the video, selected a rifle flash, and gave it to me. While he determined the distance, I found the spot and waited to see movement.
“Eight hundred twenty-five meters, wind out of the north at fifteen kilometers per hour,” Patten said, his voice now all business. I made a few minor adjustments for the wind, which was directly in our face, and waited. A few seconds later, I saw a head on the side of a one-meter rock I had been watching. He fired as I did.
“Got him!” Patten shouted in triumph.
“Next?” I asked. Patten shook his head and activated the video.
“There,” he said, pointing to a shooter near the top of the mountain. I saw a muzzle flash as I searched for the spot. The shooter was lying next to a small ten-meter tree but the trunk was less than a fourth of a meter and while it hid his head, most of this body while under leaves, was a visible outline. I aimed for where I thought his rib cage and major organs would be and fired, knowing a body hit with kinetic energy from a thirteen-point thirty-six-millimeter supersonic bullet would cause catastrophic damage and instant death.
“Nice shot…here,” he said, pointing immediately to the next target. This time the shooter was behind two boulders and all we could see was his rifle barrel and part of his scope. For a moment, I was tempted to move on to the next shooter. Then I aimed at the inside boulder about eight centimeters in and just about level with the barrel of the rifle, thinking the bullet would shatter part of the rock, which would ricochet with the bullet toward the shooter. I fired. A second later a man’s head appeared, hands covering his face. I fired again.
“How?” Patten asked, looking toward me. Then he shook his head and looked back at his video. “This one.” Time was a blur as Patten identified targets using the video. I acquired the target and fired, over and over again. I killed fourteen over the next forty minutes and there appeared to be only a few shooters firing.
“No, Lacy. We aren’t taking any fire,” Patten said, a grin on his face. “Jolie, Lacy says the other three teams are under intense fire.”
The irony was that we were so far back from the fighting that we had gone unnoticed with the hundreds of rounds being fired every minute. The other three snipers, who were closer, were getting noticed and taking the Hihari snipers’ fire.
“Next,” I said.
* * *
An hour later the army had the pass secured and the Tasmanians from squads two and three were prowling both sides of the mountain to ensure no Hihari snipers were left and blocking any replacements from joining their dead comrades. When it looked safe Patten and I join Lacy and the other Tasmanian snipers.
“How many?” Lacy asked Patten.
“Twenty-two. We shot a couple on the left side when the right side ran out of targets.”
“You didn’t get fired on?” Lacy asked, frowning at Patten.
“Nope. It was rather boring. Like being on the shooting range,” Patten said, trying not to smile.
“That’s because everyone was firing at us,” Brady said. He was one of the spotters from Sadler’s squad. Then he laughed. “That was sneaky, Luan. How did you find so many of their shooters so fast?”
“She had me sit and take a video of the mountain. At the time I wanted to scream at her to do something, find a target and start shooting. Finally, she told me to review the video and pick a target.” Patten snorted. “So I’d point to a muzzle flash, she would acquire the shooter while I determined distance and wind, and she would shoot.” He gave a wry smile. “When we ran out of targets, I switched to the left side of the mountain.”
“Welcome to the Tasmanians, Jolie Luan,” Sadler said. “I’m proud to call you sister.”
I saw nods and heard several expressions of agreement. It felt…like I had been hugged and my eyes were misty but I didn’t care. I had passed all the tests but knew you weren’t a real Tasmanian until you had been judged in combat. Someone they could trust. I noticed that Graham, one of Sadler’s snipers, was missing and found out later he had been wounded—shot in the leg. It was serious but he was expected to make a full recovery after months of therapy.
“Like Patten,” Lacy said, staring at me, “I was frustrated when you stayed back and said you wanted to watch. I admit I had my doubts about you.”
“I never make mistakes,” Simon said from behind me. He must have wandered in while we were talking. “Jolie’s Tasmanian-grade metal. Most Tasmanians are wolf-like. Jolie is more of a wolf-fox mix.” He paused for a moment. “Stay there for now,” he said into his mic. “Weiss’s squad found a few shooters who were wounded but still alive and encountered a few replacement shooters trying to sneak back. They found thirty-five dead,”
Simon said, relaying what he had just heard from Weiss. “Humphrey was impressed. He said without the Tasmanian snipers he would have lost the entire company and understood why the Hihari couldn’t reach Hilan City. Those shooters are impossible to see and therefore to kill.”
“What now?” Lacy asked.
“Rest until we are needed.”
“Can I go up into the mountains?” I asked, interested in what I could see from the top of Kobby Pass.
“Why?” Lacy asked.
“Reconnaissance…and curiosity,” I said, thinking it would be interesting and possibly informative if we encountered more snipers ahead. Lacy looked to Simon, who nodded.
“Take Patten with you and keep us informed as to your location,” Lacy said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Planet: Harari: A Big Surprise
“What do you expect to find on the mountain?” Patten asked after several hours of climbing.
“I’m not sure, Gary. But I doubt this will be the last time we encounter Hihari snipers. So I’d like to see what they can see from up here, the kind of cover they have, the general terrain, and to see what’s ahead.”
“Your father’s training?” Gary asked as we continued to climb. The mountain was less than four thousand meters high, steep, but had animal trails that made the climb strenuous but didn’t require climbing gear.
“Father always emphasized preparation was important, mental and physical. You have to be focused on what you are going to be doing and then your body has to be up to the task,” I said, thinking back to my father’s methodical approach to everything he did.
“But what if circumstances don’t permit you to focus or you are injured or…”
“Then you’re less likely to succeed. Focus can be considered a two-part process. The first part is clearing your mind of distractions and the second part is deciding what you are trying to accomplish. So, if you’re injured, the question becomes with my current limitations what is the best way to achieve my object or alternatively, with my current limitations what are the things I can accomplish and which are the highest priorities—focus.”