by Dave Hazel
“So we’re getting close to the army of bad guys?” Mykal asked and was somewhat relieved that he could abandon the sad emotions that were plaguing him and turn on, or rather allow the ‘bad guy’ emotions to take over. He knew he would enjoy killing the hateful enemy that wanted to kill them and take Doninka away.
The vehicle slowed to a stop and Mykal was sure all the vehicles ceased moving. “We’re about to be hit by some bad guys Myk,” Sergeant Barry announced. “That’s why we stopped. Captain Diaz wants us to take out as many as we can before we try to plow through them. It sounds like there is a hellova lot more in this group than the last group.”
“And there is also another group coming from our left hand side,” Mathis said while nodding to the voice speaking into his ear. “And we have to be concerned about the army that is coming up on us from behind also,” he added in response to the additional information spoken into his ear.
“Everyone, get out quickly,” Barry ordered. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
Mykal followed the others and the six vehicles were set up more like a V pointing toward the approaching enemy. The enemy coming toward them could be seen clearly, but the group coming from their left weren’t visible. Part of the problem was the land to the left was an incline. Mykal couldn’t see the approaching force to determine how large, what the make-up was or how far away they were. There was still the army coming from behind that had at least six Things in their group.
The vehicles remained in the V formation pointing toward the oncoming army that posed the most immediate and more serious threat for the time being. Mykal and all the men exited the vehicle and lined up in between the vehicles. The transportations teams scrambled to remove the 75 pound Mk-19s and place them on the ground with their tripods that enabled them to use them outside of the turret of the vehicle, thus the machine gunner of the vehicle would be able to operate the .50 caliber machine gun from the turret of the vehicle. The .50 caliber would be the heavy machine gun compared to the smaller M-60 machine guns of which they had eight.
Mathis and the Dosch brothers stayed close to Mykal and Towbar. Towbar’s five soldiers rushed to his side to see if he had any specific orders for them. The giant told them to stay by their vehicle and if the enemy encroached close enough to engage in hand to hand combat he expected them to fight like the true warriors they were. Nordad and his men along with Hidtotim and his men stayed close to Captain Diaz and the Elves. They would only be used if faced with hand to hand combat. All the men appeared to be anxious and ready to show the enemy they would not be pushovers because they were not from this world and they had more advanced weapons.
Doninka stood in the doorway of the vehicle to carry on a conversation between her, Mykal and Towbar. Mykal wanted her to wait inside the vehicle, but he could see she was fearful and helpless at the same time. She was still recovering from her injuries and though she was a princess, she wanted to do her part to help. Mykal explained to her several times that she would make it more difficult for everyone if she exposed herself ‘to help’ because the enemy would target her solely. If the enemy couldn’t see her they wouldn’t know where she would be and it would make it much easier for the men involved in the battle since they wouldn’t have to protect her from a direct assault on her.
“I don’t understand why we stopped here,” Mykal complained quietly to Towbar. “We’re in the worst friggin spot possible. We should be on the high ground,” he whispered because he didn’t want the men to hear that he had something negative to say about those in leadership who gave the okay to stop.
They weren’t in a valley or a gulley, but they were on a lower elevation than from where the enemy was coming from. Mykal felt they were at somewhat of a disadvantage because their view and line of sight was limited when they had the weapons that could clearly shoot at the enemy from long distances. They could see the enemy about four to five hundred yards away, but as far as the enemy that was approaching them from their left side they wouldn’t see them until the enemy was literally right on top of them. Mykal felt so concerned that he was ready to call someone out for their positioning, but just before he spoke up someone gave the order to Sergeant Barry to have the men on the Mark 19s to open fire with their rapid fire, belt fed, 40mm grenade launchers.
The men were hooting and hollering at the use of the powerfully explosive weapon and though they couldn’t see the devastation the weapon caused up close, they could see the results of the impact. Explosions ripped throughout the enemy’s forces throwing bodies in all directions which were hidden by plumes of white smoke. The reaction of the enemy helped bolster their confidence. The enemy scattered, or rather, tried to scatter in all directions to get away from the mysterious explosions that killed by ripping their fellow comrades apart, yet there was not an enemy there to inflict the damage and destruction. When the enemy tried to bolt, they had leaders there who would prevent them from escaping. They maintained order and discipline.
Mykal wondered why the .50 caliber machine guns weren’t opening up as the Mark 19 teams were breaking down their weapons to get them back inside the vehicles and then it occurred to him that since they were on a slight slope the machine gun wouldn’t be as effective as if the enemy came at them on flat ground so each round would have the potential of killing more than one person. Whoever made the decision to stop here didn’t want to waste the ammo since they were shooting up on a slight angle. The situation frustrated Mykal and he wanted to regroup, depart and redeploy so the field of fire would be more advantageous for his men. However, with the enemy so close it was too late to make such a radical change. He would be sure to bring this up before any more major decisions were made again.
The enemy was getting close enough that Mykal raised his rifle and began taking shots and knocking them down. His men all seemed to be excited about picking off the enemy charging in on them. Though his men were shooting rapidly with M-16 rifles, M-203 grenade launchers and M-60 machine guns, the enemy was advancing as if they only suffered some mild setbacks. Their numbers were bigger than anything they had seen on this side of the world. The enemy got close enough that the Elves began shooting arrows with their bows to help. The .50 caliber machine guns on top of the vehicles opened fire to help stem the flow so they wouldn’t be overrun.
Mykal was getting angry. He felt they put themselves in a dangerous position and he didn’t like the way this was being handled. Thankfully it was only soldiers charging at them. Something inside Mykal made him look to his left and as he did he saw hundreds of soldiers on top of the small hill aiming their bows down on his men.
“Shoot them friggin bastards,” he yelled as loud as he could. He quickly swung his rifle around to the top of the hill and began shooting. The arrows let loose upon his men seemed to darken the sky. In anger he wanted to punch in the face ‘whoever’ decided this was the ‘best place’ to stop.
He didn’t know if it was because of his yelling or because others saw what was happening, but a couple of the .50 caliber machine guns turned their weapons above them to the top of the hill and many of the men closest to that threat change the direction of their attack to counter the assault from above to their left. The battle seemed to intensify and heat up. By the scrambling around Mykal knew some of the men on the left side of their formation had been hit, but he didn’t know how bad they were or what the extent of their damage was.
“Get in the damn vehicles,” Ratner yelled loud enough for any who could hear him. “We need to escape,” he yelled to those near him. “We need to retrograde,” he yelled because ‘Marines never retreat they always advanced in another direction’.
Mykal was angry because it seemed like his men were about to be overrun. He continued to shoot and he heard his men shooting and fighting all around them. Only a hand full of the soldiers made it to within range of the vehicles. Towbar and all those armed with weapons other than firearms rushed out to meet the enemy head on.
Staff Sergeant Barry repeated Gunnery Sergeant Ratne
r’s calls to board the vehicles so they could depart and regroup. It seemed to happen quickly and smoothly. Mykal was inside the vehicle and it seemed like the vehicle backed up rapidly and departed. The machine gunners in the turrets continued ripping apart the enemy that came too close. All the vehicles departed the area quickly and many of the men were laughing at the close call they experienced. Those that laughed at the ‘near miss’ of an attack didn’t realized they had suffered several losses.
The vehicles drove and Mykal couldn’t understand why they put themselves in such a dangerous position when they knew the enemy was coming after them to try to take the princess away. And if the enemy couldn’t take the princess away, they wanted to kill as many of the foreign intruders as they could.
“Mathis, get Diaz on the phone,” Mykal barked and came across as angry.
“Here Myk,” Mathis said and handed the handset to Mykal.
“Diaz here.”
“What the hell just happened?” Mykal snapped. Those around him were surprised. No one had ever heard Mykal speak harshly to Lieutenant Finley or Captain Diaz. “How the hell did we get into such a damn spot?”
“That’s my fault Mykal,” Diaz admitted. “I was taking info from several different people and I made a poor choice. This is on me and no one else. It was me who made the wrong decision.”
“How bad did we get hurt by that attack?” Mykal asked and realized it was Diaz he wanted to punch in the face.
“I’m still gathering information from all the vehicles. Let me get back to you in a few minutes.”
“Alright,” Mykal said and slammed the handset down on Mathis’s palm. Suddenly Mykal realized he was taking his anger out on the wrong people. “I’m sorry,” he apologized to Mathis who looked shocked. Mathis looked like he had been accused of a crime that he couldn’t possibly have committed.
“What’s wrong Myk?” Mathis asked.
“I dunno. I’m pissed off of course. I’m responsible for all these guys and that was just friggin stupid what we just did there. We knew bad guys were coming from our left and we put ourselves in a dangerous spot that was the worse place possible. We had no idea the enemy was there and had an opportunity to open up on us.”
“Hey Myk, it’s Captain Diaz,” Mathis said while holding his handset to his ear. “He’s right here Sir.”
“Myk here, and Captain Diaz I need to apologize to you. I would never snap at you like that, but it just pissed me off that some of our guys got hurt that I blew up on you cuz you were the first one I talked to so I took it out on you.”
“No Myk. I’m the one who needs to apologize. I made a wrong decision. I’ve got bad news. We’ve lost six men.”
“Awh damnit,” Mykal sighed. “Who’d we lose?”
“Two Green Berets. Staff Sergeant Flowers and Staff Sergeant Carrie.”
“Awh man. Finley has gotta be spitting nails over that. Right?”
“Yes. He’s not taking it well,” Diaz acknowledged.
“Flowers was the black guy immediately under Lemon, am I right?”
“Correct. We also lost one of Towbar’s men. It was Gloditfine who was one of the soldiers who just joined us on this trip. He was standing beside the Delta vehicle,” Diaz said in reference to the transportation vehicle. “We lost two of that four man team. They were Sergeant Gonzales and Private E2 Voinovich. Voinovich was the one who had just been stabbed the day before by Yelchin. Yelchin was the one Lieutenant Finley had to shoot because they had been affected by that yellow smoke and were all dancing like they had lost their minds. And we also lost Bravo team leader Sergeant Walker.”
“How the hell did we lose so many so quickly?” Mykal asked and did his best not to come across as angry. His anger could only be directed at one person, Captain Diaz, and he didn’t want to be angry at Captain Diaz. He knew they had been rained on with a storm of arrows and assumed they all died by the missile attack.
“They were the ones who were all on that side when the enemy appeared at the top of the small hill and they opened fire with bow and arrows before we knew what happened. They were all caught off guard. There were only a couple of very minor injuries so they should be fine. Once again Mykal, I take full responsibility for these losses. I trusted in faulty information rather than checking the situation out for myself.”
Mykal wanted to explode with anger and was tempted to get to the bottom of it by demanding who gave him the faulty information. But Mykal realized that it still came back on Captain Diaz and he didn’t want to be angry with Diaz. “Well, we can’t do anything about it now.”
“I don’t want you to blame anyone other than me Myk,” Diaz said.
Mykal knew Diaz would beat himself up more than anything he could do to Diaz. He changed the subject. “So now we’re driving away from the city and driving back toward the big army with the Things in it, right?”
“Yes. We’ll stop shortly and regroup,” Diaz suggested. “We’ll come up with a plan.”
“Good, cuz I don’t wanna have to come face to face with the Things that are coming after us. Plus, it will give Towbar an opportunity to try to make contact with Nidious through Mind Talk.”
During the short drive before they stopped Mykal felt the green fog in his hand and arm a couple more times. It told Mykal that someone, probably Zizmon-Tarl himself, was more than likely maneuvering more forces to try to encircle and trap them. Mykal knew they were serious about destroying them and more importantly capturing Doninka, the princess to be used in the trade in just a few days. As Mykal thought about it, he was grateful he stuck his arm into the green fog back on June 23rd because he would have no idea of these field movements taking place around them if he would never had done that.
6.
“Let’s make this meal quick,” Mykal said to the leadership when they halted. “And make sure our eyes are open in all directions. If you didn’t know it, while we were driving I felt the green fog a couple of times. I believe Ziggy is trying to get more forces closer to us to really hit us hard, but I’m sure their main goal is to take Doninka. Make sure the men know and understand that while we’re here on the run our main goal besides protecting ourselves is to keep her safe and to prevent the enemy from grabbing hold of her. If they get her then they can force the trade for her father which will result in the loss of Towbar’s land to the bad guys. That’s why I told Doninka she’s gotta stay hidden inside the vehicle when we stop like this. I don’t wanna take a chance of one of the flying things dropping down from above and grabbing her.”
“That’s a great idea Myk,” Finley said and nodded while looking upward. “I would never have thought of that.”
Mykal was going to comment that he watched the Tah-kahseebowns pick up William and carry him away, but that would change the course of the discussion and take it to an area he didn’t want to venture into. “The poor girl,” Mykal said with a sad smile. “She’s like a prisoner while she’s here among friends. But she understands why I want her to stay hidden away,” he added with a chuckle.
“Yes, but hopefully it will only be for a short time,” Finley replied with a sympathetic smile.
“Where is Towbar Myk?” Captain Diaz asked.
“He’s trying to make contact with his mentor and friend Nidious,” Mykal answered. Mykal wanted to use Nidious’s proper title of wizard but he knew Captain Diaz didn’t believe in or rather didn’t like magic so he wanted to avoid a discussion concerning magic. Diaz stated previously that he believed in magic, though the origins of magic would be demonic and satanic, thus it goes against his spiritual convictions and everything he believes in, concerning his belief in God.
“Do you think his friend Nidious will be able to help in any way?” Finley asked.
“I hope so. But hey, what is our overall plan if we can’t get outta here?” Mykal questioned.
“The only thing we can do,” Captain Diaz said and looked at all the men who were looking to him for the answer for survival. “We must keep running and avoid the
enemy for as long as we can.”
“Well look,” Mykal said and looked to the sky. “It’s almost dark. Do you think we should set up camp?”
All the leaders discussed it and all agreed they thought they should be safe. “I would say we should set up a camp,” Gunnery Sergeant Ratner finally spoke up. “They haven’t hit us at night so I would think we should be safe.”
“What happened with all the bodies of the six who got killed?” Mykal asked and suddenly the discussion took an abrupt turn. “Did they all get left behind back there where they were killed?”
“No. Only Sergeant Gonzales and Towbar’s soldier Gloditfine were too far away from the vehicles to recover their bodies,” Sergeant Lemon replied. “The other four are inside of the vehicles because they either died inside the vehicle or were pulled inside the vehicle when they fell.”
Mykal paused for a moment. He wanted to bring up the point that if Gonzales and Gloditfine weren’t too far away from the vehicles when they were struck by arrows they would possibly have still been alive. But he didn’t want to do that to them or to himself. He had to believe the two men who were left behind were confirmed dead.
“I’m going to have the men dispose of their bodies after we decide on what we’re going to do,” Ratner said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he added and shook his head and grabbed his forehead with his hand.
Mykal saw the concern and hurt in Ratner’s face. Mykal knew Ratner was the tough NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge), but he lived with and interacted with those men on a regular basis. For Mykal it was easier to accept because he hadn’t seen their bodies. He had only heard of their deaths and though he knew who they were it didn’t really strike him yet. ‘Or am I so numb to death and the dead since I’ve seen so much of it during the past year?’ He wondered while he listened to the men talk.
“Here comes Towbar,” Finley pointed.
Towbar looked disappointed. Not angry, not frustrated, but just disappointed.