Escalation

by Peter Nealen

  Finally, we got to the end. The nearest Puma was rumbling about two hundred fifty yards away. But we were out of cover; the trees stopped at the edge of the railroad tracks that paralleled Highway 487.

  I put my hand on Phil’s shoulder, watching the Puma stationed on the road. It was awfully close, but our options had been limited. I could also barely see its prow; I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it for sure if it hadn’t been for the two men with rifles who had wandered partway down the road toward us before turning around and heading back.

  I stayed in place for a long moment, taking in the lay of the land and what I could see of the enemy dispositions. I thought we could dash behind the nearest house without exposing ourselves to that armored fighting vehicle, but I wanted to be as sure as possible before we moved.

  After a couple of minutes, I was as confident in our route as I was going to get. I pointed it out to Phil as best I could with hand and arm signals, and he nodded after a moment. He got the gist. I turned back and passed it on to the rest of the team.

  Then Phil stood up and started toward the nearest house.

  He didn’t dash. Didn’t run in a half-crouch. He walked normally, upright, just like we’d patrolled through the woods and over the hill. No hurry, just moving from place to place with some purpose and alertness.

  That was deliberate. In the event we got spotted, we knew that everyone with a weapon still in the town was an enemy. The EDC didn’t. Even if they were pretty sure that there shouldn’t be a patrol out that way, they would have to check. That would give us the momentary advantage we needed to break contact and run for it.

  A good infiltrator doesn’t sneak in a way that would appear suspicious. If there’s an unavoidable chance of being spotted, he acts like he belongs there.

  We’d gotten a lot of practice at that in places like Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, and Baltimore.

  In fifty yards, we were out of sight, disappearing into the shadows of a two-story farmhouse with a peaked roof. The road ahead of us looked clear. We started to move more carefully, weapons up and scanning for contact as we moved toward the road itself.

  There wasn’t a lot of cover at the road itself. There was no sidewalk. Some of the fences had concrete bases, but were otherwise just built of wire or pickets. The houses, most of which were timber and plaster, were set back from the road, and those that weren’t had fenced front yards.

  Frankly, even in the dark, the town looked less European than anywhere else we’d been in Slovakia. If I hadn’t known that we were less than seven klicks from the Polish border, I could have sworn we were in Idaho or Montana.

  We paused, still partially sheltered from the road by a small, boxy house with a flat roof and a porch that faced east instead of the road to the north. It wasn’t ideal, and I knew that if anyone inside looked out their window, we were screwed. But it was all we had to work with.

  Of course, I suspected that the local Slovaks weren’t going to be in a hurry to alert the EDC invaders who had occupied their town of something strange, provided they didn’t simply dismiss us as more EDC soldiers patrolling.

  I didn’t want to speak. I just signaled, tapping my shoulder and pointing to the ground. We started dropping rucks, taking turns to avoid dropping security. Just because we couldn’t see any enemy troops on the road didn’t mean they weren’t around the bend.

  I pointed to Phil, David, Jordan, Chris, and Reuben. Scott would cover the rear with Greg, Tony, and Dwight. Dwight had already dropped his ruck and moved ahead, to where he could see down the road to the west, dropping prone behind his Mk 48 and settling in to cover that direction. Tony was setting up pointing the opposite direction.

  With security set, the rest of us, weapons slung and laden with the IEDs and initiation systems we’d pulled out of our rucks, started moving toward the road.

  We were going to make sure that the enemy couldn’t reinforce Vysokà nad Kysucou when the column hit it.

  Most of the IEDs weren’t that large, being about the size of a large coffee can. They were still heavy; shaped charges embedded with copper cones to make Explosively Formed Projectiles aren’t exactly light.

  We worked quickly, both because time was of the essence—Medved wanted to try to punch through just before dawn, which was getting closer with distressing rapidity—and because we didn’t know just when a security patrol was going to come down the road. The EFPs needed to be placed carefully, snugged into the ditch on the side of the road with the inverted cones pointing up and inward. Then the initiation system, thin wires with small contact points at regular intervals, was wired into them and threaded across the road to the other side.

  We had to be sneaky with the initiators. The idea wasn’t to hit the lead vehicle first and then leave the rest of the IEDs ahead of it, essentially useless. We had them daisy-chained, with the initiation system at one end. By the time a lead vehicle rolled over the contacts, the bulk of an enemy formation should be inside the kill zone.

  The IEDs wouldn’t kill everything. There was a good chance that more than a few would miss. We tried to avoid pointing them at buildings, but there was going to be some collateral damage.

  I just told myself that we had no other choice but surrender and execution. I hoped that God would see it the same way.

  I hoped that most of the civilians had already headed for the hills when the tanks and IFVs had showed up.

  With the IEDs set and armed, we moved back to our staging area and picked up our rucks again. Scott pulled Dwight and Tony back in, and I pointed to Phil. He started across the road, making for the woods behind the houses to the north.

  We dashed across in pairs, no longer as concerned with looking normal. We hadn’t been made yet, which told me that the drones weren’t watching the town itself. And we were still way too close to those IEDs. I wanted some standoff. Besides, we still had half a dozen more in our packs, that needed to be set on the other side of town, about a mile to the east.

  We hurried through the thick pine and fir woods, our packs noticeably lighter, and came quickly to what might have once been a clear-cut. There were still strips of woods standing, but there were straight, rectangular clearings between them.

  With time getting short, we didn’t get too sneaky. Phil turned north and pushed uphill until we had enough trees between us and the town that we could cross the open area without too much risk of being spotted. Only then did we turn east again, heading downhill, moving quickly from tree to tree.

  We’d gotten so fixated on avoiding notice from the perimeter around the town, and the trees were thick enough, that we didn’t even see the small farmhouse squatting in a clearing a good three hundred yards farther north than we’d expected, until Phil burst through the trees and found himself facing it, about fifteen yards away.

  And the half-dozen EDC soldiers looting the farmer’s chicken coop.

  The EDC soldiers had frozen at the same time Phil had, and I caught up with him on the inside of the treeline to see the tableau of six men, all but one with their rifles set aside, their hands full of chickens, and Phil, almost frozen, but already starting to bring his weapon up.

  The one with the rifle yelled and snapped his rifle to his shoulder. I shot him, the crack of the report echoing across the hills in the quiet of the night. His head snapped back, dark fluid splashed against the chicken coop, and he dropped.

  The other five dropped the birds and dove for their rifles, but Phil, Greg, and I were already shooting. Bullets smashed through heads, ribs, lungs, and stomachs. In seconds, it was all over, the last of them gasping out his final breaths with a horrible gurgle. The chickens had gone berserk, flapping away with squawks drowned out by the rifle reports.

  But it was too late. The echoes of the gunfire were still rolling across the valley.

  We were made.

  Chapter 34

  Phil was still rooted to the ground, his weapon pointed at the bodies of the men we’d just gunned down. I could hear his ragged brea
thing; he wasn’t panicking, but he was definitely rattled by the close call. On top of everything else that had happened, Phil wasn’t doing too good.

  “Let’s move,” I told him, stepping up next to him, my own rifle pointed at the darkened house. We had a little time; I doubted that the soldiers down below would immediately think that their men had been ambushed. It was more likely that they’d shot up the farmhouse themselves. However, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t send someone up to check it out, anyway. And once they found the bodies, the hunt would be on.

  Not to mention the fact that, intervening hill or not, Medved and the others had to have heard that burst of gunfire. They were going to be on their way; Medved had made that clear enough before we’d left.

  Bradshaw would probably have shot him if he hadn’t.

  Half-pulling Phil, I forged across the lawn and into the trees, my rifle held muzzle-high, scanning the sky overhead as I realized that the enemy didn’t need to wait until another fireteam or squad could come up and investigate the gunfire. They just had to reroute a drone.

  Unfortunately, we didn’t have quite as much time as I’d hoped.

  Phil saw the straggler first. He had turned to look back toward the house and the chicken coop as we pushed for the trees, and suddenly stopped dead, throwing out a hand to grab me before hurling himself backward, dragging me with him. I felt the bullets snap past my nose before we landed in a heap behind the coop.

  I was on my back, weighed down by my ruck, which was lighter, but still not light. I scrabbled backward, the rucksack acting like an anchor, keeping me from moving far. More rounds kicked up dirt near my boots, and I pulled my feet back, which didn’t help me get my balance any.

  Greg pushed past me and opened fire in return, leaning out just past the corner of the coop and hammering a fast series of five shots back at the town. But when he pulled back and reached down to help me up, he was shaking his head.

  “He’s running,” he said, breathing hard. “I didn’t get a clear shot.”

  I gripped his hand and heaved myself up, the rucksack threatening to drag me back down until I got my feet under me. “Let’s move,” I grunted. “We need to get under cover now.”

  I could already hear the faint buzz of motors above us. The drones were coming, drawn by the gunfire. The initial burst of fire might have been the soldiers murdering the house’s owners, but the second series of shots would have told anyone paying attention that there was trouble up on the fringes of the town.

  Jordan was already hauling Phil up. “I don’t think we’re going to get close to the road, now,” he said.

  “I doubt it,” I agreed, as we pushed into the forest. “Plan’s out the window. Medved’s going to be moving. We need to break contact and get into position to support the rest when they come up.” I was already forcing my tired brain to think ahead, even as the buzzing in the air got louder, and I started to hear the rumble of engines down below. The EDC was moving, responding to the contact on the north side of their perimeter.

  I pointed uphill, and Phil started moving, the rest of us falling into a rough V formation behind him.

  The hill was getting steeper and the trees thicker. On one hand, that was an advantage; thicker trees meant a better chance to hide from the air. On the other hand, it was slowing us down, especially being as tired as we were, and the enemy was coming. And they were, presumably, better-rested than we were.

  Footing was getting treacherous, and we were getting spread out through the trees, but we kept moving. Phil was lagging; I was gaining on him despite my exhaustion. His shorter legs were working against him. As I glanced back, I got a glimpse of a ragged mob of eight more heat signatures moving through the trees. The burly one that was Dwight was noticeably falling behind.

  The buzz of a drone was getting louder. It didn’t sound quite like the kamikazes that the enemy had been using in Nitra, but I couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t like my hearing was the best anymore. Worse, I could hear the growl and rattle of a Puma IFV behind us. It wasn’t going to be able to follow us into those woods, but let the gunner get a glimpse of a thermal signature, and the trees weren’t going to do much against that 30mm.

  I paused, the breath heaving in my lungs and my quads on fire, turning back to make sure that Dwight didn’t fall too far behind.

  Then the world exploded.

  I can’t say I heard the strike. I saw it as a sudden blinding flash, felt it like a hammer to the skull. Everything went black for a moment.

  Everything was still black when I opened my eyes, but I quickly realized that was because I’d been thrown on my face, with my ruck over my head, holding me down. My NVGs were digging into my eye sockets, pointed down into the dirt.

  Remembering the explosives in the pack, I hastily scrabbled for the quick releases on the straps and yanked on them, freeing myself only to just about slide down the hill into a tree. I caught myself, though unfortunately with my rifle rather than my hand. I had to check it by feel as I got up, since my fusion goggles were still askew, but it didn’t feel like the scope was broken. I’d put it through worse.

  I snatched the goggles up so I could see. My ears were ringing, every sound deadened as if I was underwater. My ruck was smoking, and I quickly heaved it downhill and away from all of us, just in case something was about to blow. It didn’t get nearly as far as I wanted it too, but I needed to assess the situation, and it hadn’t blown up yet.

  The HOT-3 missile had missed; if it had hit, I’d have been dead. We all would have been dead. I’d seen up close and personally what a Hellfire could do to a small unit in a small area, and the HOT-3 wasn’t all that different.

  It had blown half a dozen trees apart, one of them having fallen almost on top of Phil. He was flat on his back, not moving. Neither was Greg, a few yards away. Greg was halfway under the top of the tree, which had been partially denuded of branches and needles by the blast.

  Downslope, though the sound was muted to my traumatized ears, Dwight opened fire, the bright flash of his Mk 48’s muzzle blast flickering in the dark. A moment later, David joined him.

  Push the fight. Hartrick’s mantra went through my mind without my even consciously thinking about it. Phil and Greg might be dead. They might be alive. But if we got overrun in the next couple of minutes, it wouldn’t matter for either of them.

  I skidded down the hill, almost bouncing off of a tree in the process, Jordan not far off to my left. Neither of us were moving all that well; the HOT-3 might not have killed us, but the near-miss had still been a hell of a shock.

  I stumbled against a tree, whipping my rifle up as I spotted a glowing thermal shape dash toward another tree off to the right and downhill. My first shot missed, smacking bark off the tree he’d just ducked behind. It was a bad shot, and I knew it even as the trigger broke. It wasn’t because I’d knocked my scope off zero when I’d hit the tree.

  Rifle and machinegun fire rattled and roared in the woods, echoing between the trees, muzzle flashes briefly lighting the night. Then it all turned into insignificant noise as that Puma opened fire with its 30mm.

  The gunner didn’t have much of a target, which was the only reason that none of us got pulped. Massive shells hammered through the trees, exploding trunks and shattering branches, showering us with splinters and smashed bark even as the shockwaves slammed at us. I dropped flat, getting as small as possible behind a tree, my hindbrain gibbering and telling me that now was the time to curl up in the fetal position and hope it all went away.

  But I couldn’t listen to the animal part of my brain. I knew it. So, I popped out from behind the trunk, shot the EDC soldier who was charging uphill under cover of the Puma’s fire through the skull, and started crawling forward.

  I wasn’t just advancing for the sake of advancing. I had seen a fallen rucksack with an RPG-75 sticking out of it, lying against a tree a few yards down the slope. I didn’t know whose it was; Chris, Reuben, and Scott had all been carrying the 75s. All I knew at that point
was that that tube sticking out of the ruck was our only hope against that vehicle.

  Of course, I was probably going to die before I could kill the Puma. The small arms fire was getting thicker, bullets snapping past my head, smacking into tree trunks and kicking up gouts of dirt and leaves around me, and no matter how much return fire Tony and Dwight could put down, we were still getting pinned down and suppressed by that damned cannon.

  All this damned way, just to die in the woods six klicks from the border.

  Movement caught my eye; down on my belly, I was going to be hard-pressed to get a solid look at anything through the NVGs, as the mount and the weight bore them down toward the dirt. I rolled halfway on my side, snapping my rifle up just in time to hammer two shots into the man running toward me from the flank, just as he fired over my head.

  He hadn’t been aiming at me. I heard Dwight grunt, and then his Mk 48 went silent.

  I rolled back over. Dwight was down on his face. He wasn’t moving.

  The 30mm had ceased fire for a moment, but I kept crawling toward that ruck. It was barely three meters in front of me…

  Another 30mm shell blew up the tree over my head, showering me with smashed bits of wood pulp, splinters, and broken branches. I tucked my head as the debris cascaded down on me, waiting for the top of the trunk to drop down and brain me. But it fell behind me, crashing down through the branches around it with a noise that would have been catastrophic if not for the 30mm rounds blasting its cousins to splinters around it.

  Finally, throwing caution to the winds, I got up on all fours and scrambled the last couple of yards to the ruck.

  Letting my rifle dangle on its sling, I ripped the RPG-75 out of the rucksack and prepped it as fast as I could by feel. Not being terrifically familiar with the weapon, I fumbled it a little, even as I crouched as low as I could. Tony was still in the fight; I could hear him hammering away, the muzzle flash flickering off to my left. Other rifles were still blasting away, so we weren’t alone.