by Peter Nealen
He met my gaze for a second, then looked away. “Fair enough,” he muttered.
Damn right. The chip on Jordan’s shoulder was going to cause a problem, one of these days. But right then and there, less than half a klick from armored vehicles that might or might not be hostile, was not the time to deal with it. And Jordan was enough of a pro that I knew I could trust him not to push things to the point of putting us into an untenable position in combat.
But he was going to have to quit expecting the worst from everyone around him if the team was really going to hold together.
“Phil, get us back to the rally point,” I whispered, glancing up at the pair of Tigers as they snarled overhead, circling around to the north. “Keep us under the trees as much as possible.” It wasn’t just the helos I was worried about, and I was pretty sure Phil knew it.
Phil got to his feet and started back, moving even more carefully than he had been before. I glanced back at the glowing hulks of the tanks squatting on the 501, then followed.
***
I could hear the drones whining overhead as we moved back up the hill. It sounded like they were getting closer. Maybe it was just my own fears talking, making me hear the drones getting louder simply because I was scared that they were going to come this way and spot us. But that sense of urgency kept driving me forward, and I had to temper it, even as I caught myself catching up with Phil.
I wasn’t the only one, either. I turned and looked back to find Greg almost on top of me. His body language was a little sheepish as he fell back again. He glanced up as I started to turn back forward, and I just nodded.
But the closer we got to the top of the hill and the meadow where our companions were gathered, the more I was increasingly convinced that I wasn’t imagining it. The drones were getting closer. Which meant it was only a matter of time before we were made.
“Deacon, Weeb, we just got buzzed by a drone.” Scott sounded tense, but he wasn’t freaking out. It wasn’t like Scott to freak out, anyway. He’d be more likely to either make a joke, or get more overtly laid-back. It was his way. “No ID.”
“Weeb, Deacon,” I replied, without slowing down. “Consider it hostile until we know more. Tell Doomhammer to get his vehicles under cover if he can. We’re about five minutes out.”
Being on the back side of the hill, Phil was starting to speed up, and I didn’t try to slow him down. I looked up, searching between the leafy branches for the drone. I knew that if it was flying low enough that we could hear it that clearly, or that Scott could have seen it to know that they’d been buzzed, it probably wasn’t armed; the armed drones in regular use were still about the size of the old Reapers, and tended to stay at ten thousand feet or higher. We’d never have known that it was there until a missile smacked into a vehicle.
But those Tigers were weighing on my mind. “Doomhammer One Five, Golf Lima Ten Six,” I sent. “If you’ve got anti-air defenses, I suggest you get them ready now.”
“We’ve got a couple of .50 cals,” Killian replied.
“Get men on them now, and watch the sky,” I said. “Just in case.” I didn’t want to transmit more than that in the clear. If, somehow, the EDC had something to do with the destruction of FOB Keystone and the jamming of the SINCGARS network, then they were probably listening in on the open channels.
Damn, if this really was as bad as I was afraid it was, we were screwed.
I caught a glimpse of the lighter patch that was the meadow ahead, just as Phil dropped to a knee behind a tree and signaled with the IR light built into his NVGs. A moment later, an answering flash signaled that Tony saw us, and we were clear to come in.
Even as Phil got to his feet, I heard the rising growl of rotors behind us.
“Down!” I hissed. It was still possible that I was barking up the wrong tree; that we had nothing to fear. Maybe Keystone had been taken out by a terrorist attack, like the strike on the old FOB Bastion in Afghanistan back in ’12. In that case, the EDC peacekeepers might just be watching and searching for survivors. The tanks might just be there as security, in case the insurgents—whichever side they were on—tried again. After all, the Americans weren’t the only ones who’d had problems with the jihadi militias. They had a real tendency to bite the hand that fed them.
To listen to Dwight, only an idiot would have expected anything else. And he really wasn’t wrong.
But something about the whole situation was still nagging at me. Something wasn’t right. It should have taken more than a handful of Kosovar Albanians and Arabs to level an American FOB. A lot more.
The two Tigers came in fast and low, their rotors lashing the trees overhead. And as they came, rockets roared off their stubby wing rails, the flashes lighting us up under the trees.
My stomach turned over as the white streaks of the rocket motors arrowed down into the clearing. All of that, trying to get those soldiers out of Borinka, when we could have just climbed onto the birds and flown back to Hungary, for nothing.
But a moment later, the stuttering, metallic hammer of heavy machinegun fire answered out of the cloud of smoke. And unless I missed my guess, there were at least three guns in that mix.
Tracers stabbed upward, and the two Tigers split away, banking sharply and heading for the trees. They’d gotten the first shot, but they must have used dumb rockets instead of ATGMs, and somehow, they’d missed. Maybe they were relatively new at engaging armor. Or maybe they’d used all their ATGMs already, and just had the rockets left.
A moment later, the Powell opened fire with that 50mm, the heavier and slower chunk, chunk, chunk actually making the .50s sound like popguns. Killian’s gunner was too slow, though; the helos ducked below the trees and disappeared, leaving the rounds to sail off into the distance.
Hopefully they didn’t hit any civilian houses.
“Golf Lima Ten Six, this is Doomhammer One Five,” Killian called. “What the hell just happened? Those were EDC birds!”
“Yes, they were,” I replied. “And if you want to survive, then pop smoke and move out. We’ll follow, but if you’re still stationary when those birds come back, or the armor on the highway comes after us, then you’re going to be sitting ducks.”
There was a pause, almost as if he wanted to say something. But the harsh reality of the situation seemed to finally penetrate. “Roger,” he said. “How will we link up again?”
Damn. That was a question. I didn’t dare send rendezvous coordinates in the clear, and just because he’d asked the question made me think that Killian had thought of the same thing. “We’ll offset a couple klicks, and contact you later,” I said, hoping and praying that he’d get the message.
“Roger that,” he replied. “We’ll see you on the flip side. Be safe.”
I’d gotten back on my feet. I could still hear the helicopters in the distance, but they didn’t seem to be coming back soon. That 50mm could go through a Tiger long-ways, if I wasn’t mistaken, and the pilots probably didn’t want to risk it, particularly after they’d missed with their initial salvo, then just about gotten gutted by ground fire.
“We need to get the hell away from here,” I said. “Scott, can that little toy of yours create some distractions?”
“Ask Dave,” Scott replied. “It’s his toy.”
“Peanut,” I hissed, but David was already ahead of me.
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s got a limited ECM suite on it. It won’t do shit for visual or infrared, but we can send some radio messages with it that they might DF on.”
“Provided they don’t just blanket jam everything,” Greg put in.
“Since when did you start getting as cynical as the rest of us, Strawberry?” Phil asked.
“Enough,” I said. I could still hear the Tigers, and I wanted to get well away from there before they came back. Or before the bad guys decided to bring an armed drone overhead and start dropping on anybody they saw moving in the clearing. “Get that thing up and start it doing its thing. Then we’ve got to move.”
I didn’t have a rendezvous point picked out for Killian yet, but that could wait until we were gone.
Dave started digging in his ruck, and came out with the compact drone. It looked like a simple quad-rotor, no different than a kid’s toy. But it had cost a lot, and there were a lot of electronics packed into it. He switched it on, pulling out the tablet that controlled it, hunching over it to shield the light.
“Dwight, go cover your son so he doesn’t backlight himself for everybody within ten miles,” Scott whispered.
Dwight grumbled something unintelligible, but moved to stand over David, blocking most of the faint glow of the tablet with his bulk. Dwight had been the one to give David his callsign, “Peanut,” when the much smaller, and younger, man had been talking a lot of shit, which had immediately led to the jokes about Dwight being David’s real dad.
David rapidly tapped controls on the tablet, then stepped away from Dwight to toss the drone into the air before blanking the screen and stuffing the miniature computer back into his ruck. “There,” he said. “It’s autonomous until I retake control, or it runs out of batteries.”
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s move.” I keyed my radio. “Flat, Deacon. We’re heading out. We’ll take lead.”
“Roger,” Bradshaw replied.
Phil was already moving. Despite the banter, nobody wanted to stick around that clearing any longer than necessary, especially with the growl of the Tigers’ rotors still audible in the distance.
***
We moved fast; it wasn’t a patrolling pace but more of a forced march through the woods and over the hills. We’d covered almost three klicks before I finally called a halt. We were under the trees and should, hopefully, be concealed from the air.
“Greg, see if you can raise Killian,” I said, once we were circled up and security had been set. I was crouched in the center, next to Greg and Bradshaw, scanning the woods through my fusion goggles, my rifle held over my knee.
Holy hell, was I tired. We were going to have to stop for a rest soon, or we were going to start making mistakes. Despite the fact that it was early fall, and starting to cool off, especially at night, I was soaked with sweat under my gear and my ghillie hood. It was starting to chill me as I knelt there in the leaves, resisting the urge to do the rucksack flop. I’d be hard-pressed to get up if I did that, at that point.
“Got ‘em, Matt,” Greg reported. “There’s a lot of noise; some of it’s probably the terrain, but somebody might be trying to jam the open channels, too.”
I just nodded silently. It wasn’t terribly surprising, especially after that little dustup back there. Whoever had orchestrated the destruction of FOB Keystone had to know that we were using open radio chatter, and if they couldn’t use it to follow us, they’d jam it so that we couldn’t use it.
I reached up to my chest rig, and pulled the tablet out of its pocket. With a little time to work with, I pulled the blackout cover out of the top pouch on my ruck and spread it over me, so that the screen’s glow wouldn’t spotlight me in the woods like a will o’ the wisp.
It took a few minutes to locate our position, then figure out a rendezvous point far enough back in the “Little Carpathians” that we’d be less likely to get discovered, while still being reachable for Killian’s vehicles. It took some searching. My brain was getting sluggish.
Finally, I blanked the screen, pulled the blackout cover off, and took a deep breath of the chill air. It got stuffy under that cover. “Tell him it’ll take a couple minutes, then send these coordinates,” I told Greg. I rattled off the eight-digit grid coordinate, deliberately changing the second digit of each quartet by two. I just hoped that Killian would get the message. We hadn’t exactly been able to coordinate our code.
Greg sent the message, then listened for a moment. “He said he’s got it, and will be there in two,” he relayed. I nodded gratefully. For all the problems I’d seen with his unit, Killian was smart. He’d figured it out.
I heaved myself to my feet. “Time to get moving,” I said, to Bradshaw as well as my own guys. The RV point I’d set was about another five klicks away, as the crow flew. As the crow walked, it was more like seven. It was going to be a rough night.
Not that it had been great so far.
***
Killian beat us to the rendezvous. No great surprise.
What was a bit of a surprise was the fact that he hadn’t just circled the vehicles and called it good. He’d made his soldiers dig in. When we hiked inside the perimeter, it was past hasty fighting positions that had been dug in between the trees, manned by two soldiers apiece. The ramparts were a little on the small side, and the holes were shallow, but they couldn’t have had much time to dig before it started getting light.
He’d also moved the vehicles under the trees as much as possible and put up camouflage netting. I had to hand it to him; he was taking the situation seriously, and exhibiting more tactical acumen than I’d given him or anyone currently on Active Duty credit for.
He met us near his Powell, which was powered down, though the turret was still humming slightly. The IFV must have had some serious battery backups to run the weapons and comm systems while the engine was shut off.
“You made it,” he said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Any more contact en route?”
He shook his head. “Not that they weren’t looking for us,” he said. “Lots of drone traffic. It just seems like none of it’s ours.” He took his helmet off and rubbed his scalp. “We can’t raise any adjacent units, either. I know for a fact that there were three other patrols out at the same time we were. But the comms are silent.”
I just shook my head. “Any number of possibilities at this point,” I said. “We can talk about it later. Unfortunately, right now my team and I are running on about four hours of sleep out of the last seventy-two.” I wasn’t hallucinating yet, which was a little surprising. I’d seen some very interesting things that hadn’t been there during Grex Luporum Selection, on slightly better sleep than I’d had lately. “We’ll set our guys on security, then we need to initiate rest plan. Otherwise, we’re gonna come up with all sorts of stupid stuff, and probably get somebody else killed.”
He squinted at me, then nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I’ve been there. We’ll talk later.”
I nodded and shambled toward the perimeter. Bradshaw already had most of his section on security, and as I started to find spots for my team, he intercepted me.
“We’ve got this, Matt,” he said. “We got some sleep before insert. I know you guys didn’t get much. We’ll get you up when it’s time.”
I just nodded my thanks, found a spot against a tree, and was passed out in seconds.
Chapter 9
I went down hard. By the time I woke up, the light was getting dim again. The high overcast hid the sun, but it was definitely getting close to sundown.
Stifling a groan, I levered myself upright. I was pretty sure I hadn’t moved at all since I’d gone down. I just hurt. My joints and muscles had stiffened as I lay on the ground. I wasn’t eighteen, anymore.
Bradshaw heard me anyway, and came over to crouch next to me, cradling his rifle. “Good, you’re awake.”
I squinted at him. “What time is it?”
He checked his watch. “It’s about 1830,” he replied. He glanced around at the rest of the team, which was mostly stirring except for Phil, who was up and cleaning his weapon. “You guys needed the rest. But I’m glad you’re up. Things have been getting a little tense.”
I looked around at that. It took a minute, but I started to see what he was talking about. Several of the soldiers in the nearest fighting holes were stealing glances at us, and they were alternately suspicious and slightly awestruck. “Oh, hell,” I said. “They been asking questions already?”
“A few,” Bradshaw answered. “We’ve been stonewalling them, mostly, but the whispers have started. And not all of them are friendly.”
I didn’t expect that they were, espe
cially given the treatment that the Triarii had gotten in the press. “You’d think that they’d have more important things on their minds.” I glanced toward the hulking silhouette of the Powell, obscured by tree trunks and camo netting. “Is Killian up?”
“I don’t think so,” he answered. “Not yet. He told me he was going down about four hours ago.”
With a glance at the sky, I dug into my ruck. “I’ve got time to eat, then.” Pulling out a ration package, which was simpler but considerably better than the “Expeditionary Rations” that the Army had, I ripped it open and started eating. Italian Pepper Steak. It was odd, just eating it freeze-dried, but I didn’t want to take the time to heat the water up.
As I was eating, the rest of the team got up and started squaring themselves away. I was thinking as I ate, getting my sluggish brain back in gear. We had several problems to deal with, and no good solutions to any of them.
“Have you still got contact with the mortar section?” I asked Bradshaw.
“Yeah,” he answered. “They’re set up about two klicks to the northeast, but they’re low on ammo. They’ve got about one more fire mission in ‘em, and then they’re going to have to either bury the tubes and E&E, or start humping for the border.”
At least they were still on the loose and alive. There was that.
My thoughts were interrupted by one of the soldiers getting out of his hole and coming toward us. I frowned as I watched him, glancing around at the rest. No one seemed to be calling him out. Was this because Killian was asleep?
“Are you guys Triarii?” he asked, mangling the Latin name.
“Why are you out of your position?” I asked in reply. My voice might have been more than a little harsh. “You know we’re still in hostile territory, right?”
“I was just asking,” he said. The kid looked about twelve to me, which meant he was eighteen or nineteen. And I was far from the old man among the Triarii, either. “We’ve been talking, about who you are. If you were Delta or SEAL Team Six, you’d have M37s, like us.” He pointed to my OBR. “That’s not any kind of US military issue. Not anymore, anyway.”