Lethal Strike

by Nick S. Thomas

  The magazine was out in no time, and he reached for another. Their fight was calming down. But they could hear the cries of people and gunfire in the distance as the attack on the camp continued.

  "What do we do?" Donny asked.

  Ramos kicked a wounded enemy to the ground and put one more round into its head.

  "We're going that way." He pointed at the battle that was ensuing.

  "Not much of a plan," replied Burns.

  "You got a better idea, I'm all ears," he replied and ran onwards.

  Burns looked to Donny, as if he might have answer, but he just shrugged.

  "Christ, come on!" They rushed on after Ramos once again.

  As they closed the distance, they saw how dire their circumstances were. The camp was completely overrun. Dozens of enemy soldiers were swarming among their positions, but the group was mostly dividing between foxholes and crude bunkers they'd recently built. They were little more than foxholes with wooden walls and a roof, but better than nothing. Muzzle flashes lit up all around them. An explosion burst out on the far side of the camp as a charge ignited, and they could see Payne and two others rushing towards the cover of a bunker.

  Fire continued to rain down from the sky. Fallen trees were strewn amongst the camp, some burning from the intensity of the fire. Another tree exploded before their eyes. They ducked down for cover, but Donny felt something sharp strike his arm. They hunkered down low as the tree showered them.

  "You okay?"

  He wasn't sure, but Ramos could see by the look on his face, something was wrong. He looked him over, and that's when he spotted something protruding from his arm. Donny had been following his gaze. A slither of wood was embedded in his arm.

  "Oh, for fuck’s sake!" He reached over and took hold of it.

  Ramos was too surprised by his reaction to say and do anything as he ripped it out of his arm. Blood spewed out from the wound, but he gritted his teeth, taking the pain like a champion. Ramos was stunned while Burns was busy engaging the enemy.

  "What, you think growing up around here I never got struck by a few things? I've had worse."

  Ramos was taken aback and smiled a little as he helped him to his feet. They took a moment to survey the scene. It was utter chaos as shots flew back and forth in what seemed like every direction. Donny looked pained, but he was hiding it, and it didn't seem to affect the use of his weapon.

  "What are we doing here?" He looked at the chaos all around them.

  "They know where we are, so we can't stay here. Spread the word. We're getting out of here. Everyone knows what to do, get to it," replied Ramos.

  He looked over to see if Burns had heard him. The older Marine nodded as much as he grimaced. It was enough for Ramos, who rushed off to find the others.

  "If any of us make it out of here it'll be a damn miracle, you get that, right?" Burns asked him.

  "We didn't make it this far to fail now. This isn't the end."

  "We're gonna have to go through hell."

  "Then let's do it."

  "Fair enough, good luck out there. Remember, we do what we can for the others, but the most important thing right now is numbers. As many of us have to make it out of here as possible. So go, and do what you can, but don't get yourself killed. There's no glory to be had here. Just do your job."

  "Yes, Sir," replied Donny with a smile.

  Burns wasn't impressed. He'd been used to being called that at school, but that’s not why Donny was using it.

  "Damn kid," he smirked.

  They watched in awe as Ramos rushed through trails of gunfire, firing as he went. He was moving at such speed that he came face-to-face with one of the enemy. He knocked its rifle aside with his own, kicked it to the ground, following up with two shots before it could recover. He turned to another but found his magazine empty, yet it hadn’t spotted him yet. He rushed forward, clubbed it over the head with his weapon, and kicked it to the ground. Another appeared beside him, but he drew his pistol like a flash, getting off two shots before reaching to the cover of a fallen tree, enabling him to reload his rifle.

  “You heard the man. Let’s get this done. And don’t do anything stupid, Donny, you hear me?”

  “Got it.”

  “Go!”

  They rushed out and immediately fanned out to cover more ground. Donny spotted movement within seconds, but as he lifted his rifle, a volley of fire from a bunker ahead cut down the two enemies he’d seen.

  “Donny?”

  He focused more carefully and saw Emma looking out at him.

  “Come on, get in here!”

  He scrambled forward, shots zipping past his head. He tripped and stumbled, but managed to keep his footing as he crashed through the small door in the back of the tiny bunker. Emma hauled him in further as an explosion rang out where he had been seconds before. A few others were in the bunker, and a couple were firing out. One reloaded, while another huddled in a corner, terrified. There was a desperate and tragic feeling among them all. Donny couldn't be surprised by it, but the shock still took him a moment to get over. They looked like they were just counting the minutes until their deaths. Even the two firing out from the position were losing heart.

  "It's over, isn't it?" Emma asked.

  "What?" he asked softly.

  "We're finished. We're all going to die," she wept.

  Donny tried to find his words. He was in shock himself, but he hadn’t expected to find them in such a dire way. They weren’t hurt, but they were broken. He sat up confidently, knowing he must take the lead.

  “We aren’t dying here today. No way. We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “You want us to go out there?” Emma asked with a shaky voice.

  “We don’t have a choice. The enemy know where we are now. They’ll keep hitting us until we’re finished.”

  “Or we ride this out? We built these defences for a reason,” said another.

  Donny didn’t know his name. It was one of the men they’d rescued from the prison camp. He knew his face from years back, but that was all. He was at least ten years older than him, and clearly didn’t like being told what to do by someone so much younger.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jacob…Jay,”

  “All right, Jay. We don’t know what strength the enemy has, but we do know it’s a hell of a lot more than ours. They’re coming for us with fire and fury. So, let’s say we last this out, what will come next? There could be a whole army on the way for all we know.”

  “And if there isn’t? Ross told us to hunker down if trouble came our way.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “Probably in cover, like us.”

  There was an almighty blast overhead. The force threw them down onto their backs. The roof of their bunker was blown off, exposing them to the violent night sky. It was like the worst storm they’d ever seen. But this storm brought more than just the rain. A deadly barrage and battle was raging, and a craft banked slowly overhead.

  “We don’t know where Ross is, but we can’t stay here!”

  Donny pulled Jay onto his feet and yanked him out of the bunker.

  “Come on!” Emma shouted to the others.

  They were a few steps from the bunker when a burst of light crashed into it, igniting like a bomb. They were thrown clear as they felt the heat of the blast. Donny landed hard but was soon back on his feet. Jay was frozen stiff, looking open mouthed in horror at the burning wreckage of their shelter. An inferno none of them could have hoped to have survived.

  “I…I didn’t…” he stuttered.

  Donny picked up the man’s weapon and thrust it into his hands.

  “Get up and move!”

  He pointed in the direction he wanted them to go. He hauled Jay up and pushed him on. He didn’t hesitate as he ran forward with the others. Donny took aim at an enemy soldier that was turning to face them. Two shots and it went down. He gasped for a little air before turning to find another target.

 
; “What the fuck has my life come to?” he whispered to himself.

  A few weeks ago he’d never seen combat. He was a young soldier who’d not served anywhere dangerous. Now it felt like he’d been fighting for years. It no longer shocked him even though he lived in fear all of the time. But that fear was fuelling him on, as he found another target. The enemy soldiers were far from particularly challenging or effective, but made up for that in their unwavering aggression and staying power. Gunfire struck the ground around him from a craft strafing his position. He leapt into a run as shots landed at his feet. He ran after the others at a sprinting pace. He caught a glimpse of more enemy soldiers to his right flank, but all he could do was keep on running, and hope for the best.

  Another shot nicked the back of his webbing, and one flashed in front of his eyes. He could be shot and killed in any moment. He desperately wanted to hit the ground to go prone. It’s what his training had drilled into him under this kind of fire. But this wasn’t any normal kind of situation. He rushed past a body of one of those they’d rescued recently. He’d never even learnt the man’s name, and he soon came across another, of which her name is all he knew. He shook his head in disbelief but kept on running. Explosions rang out in the sky above, and he saw Payne laying into the one hovering overhead with his MGL. It went up in flames as it banked to one side and crashed into some trees, going up in a ball of flame.

  “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!”

  Payne didn’t look convinced, but Ramos rushed up beside him. His face was cut and his arm bleeding from what looked like a gunshot wound. He was panting heavily.

  “He’s right. We’ve got to move, now!”

  That was all Payne needed to hear. They took aim at a wave of soldiers breaking through the undergrowth. Payne’s MGL rained down fire as explosions ripped through the enemy wave attack. The others supported with their rifles. Payne finally slung the launcher over his back and pulled out his rifle.

  “Where’s Ross?”

  “I thought you’d know,” said Ramos, who had led five of the group to them.

  Payne shook his head.

  “Where the hell is he?” Donny asked.

  “No idea, but we can’t wait any longer. I’ve been bunker to bunker, and every foxhole, too. He’s nowhere to be seen.” He drew out a flare.

  “Everyone knows what they have to do. They know what this means. Any other survivors are on their own now. We have to go while we can.”

  He fired the red flare into the sky.

  “What if we have people trapped?” Jay asked.

  “We can’t help them anymore. We can barely help ourselves. You know where to go. Move, now!”

  They rushed on through debris and fallen trees as the gunfire continued. Ramos stopped a hundred metres from the edge of their camp to look out one last time. Fires raged throughout the forest. It was hard to imagine anyone else would make it out alive. Several of his team were missing, not just Ross. But he had no words for it. He didn’t know what else could be done in the face of such a brutal onslaught.

  “We, we left people behind,” Donny said sombrely.

  “But we also got people out. There might be more survivors yet. There’re plenty of ways they could have gotten out.”

  “You think others did?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because the alternative sucks.”

  Donny managed the slightest of a smile. Finally, they vanished into the night, far away from the inferno they had left behind.

  Chapter 5

  “All right, let’s take a break here!” Ramos called out.

  Donny groaned and slumped down onto a rock. He laid his weapon down beside him and drew out his canteen to take a sip of water. He found it was the last he had left. He feet were aching. They’d walked for many hours through the night and day. He was utterly exhausted, as much mentally as physically, but the will to survive was keeping him going.

  "We need a head count."

  Ramos realised they'd not even stopped to consider who had made it out. Donny nodded in agreement. It was a fact none of them wanted to dwell on too much. They'd left with little over half the number they'd had the day before, and some of them were good friends.

  "You did well back there," said Lee.

  Donny looked up to see his brother was as weary as he was.

  "Yes, he did. You all did," replied Ramos.

  "How can you say that? Look at us. Running scared, half of us gone, missing, and probably dead. How did we do well?" pleaded Emma.

  The group was silent, clearly all thinking the same. It was hard not to. Ramos wished Ross were there. He would know what to say.

  "Well?"

  He coughed to clear his throat, not expecting to have to actually answer.

  "This is war. There are casualties," said Donny.

  Ramos nodded in agreement.

  "This isn't a war, not anymore. We lost, can't you see that?" Jay yelled.

  "Lost?" Ortiz gasped, "What the hell do you think we’re doing here?"

  "Getting killed. Much longer, and there'll be none of us left!"

  Emma hadn't intended to take it that far, although she was in agreement. Many of the others grunted in approval, but Ramos became more and more angry. He stood up tall and proud to address them, still not knowing what to say. All he could wonder was how would Ross handle this.

  "You've lost a lot. We all have. I'm not gonna try and make it sound better, because I can't. I never saw this coming, no more than any of you did. We never trained for this. We never imagined it even being possible. But this is our reality now."

  "So what, that's it?"

  "Yes, Jay. Accept it, and deal with it. Because the alternative is one of those camps."

  "They don't sound too bad," said Lee.

  "Really?" Ortiz asked.

  "Yeah, better than this."

  "Don't be a fool."

  "At least people weren't dying in those camps. They weren't living like wild animals, desperately trying to survive. They were fed and given beds to sleep on."

  "And that’s enough for you?"

  He shrugged.

  "Exactly. Don't accept that, or our ancestors fought for nothing."

  "Who gives a shit about them? They're long gone!"

  "Those camps, you know that's just how it starts, right?" Ramos asked.

  "What?"

  "Come on. The Jews in WW2, and anyone else the Nazis didn't like. Those camps they set up, the gas chambers and extermination camps. They didn't start that way. They marketed them as somewhere for those communities to go. Made them out to be something you'd want to get on board with."

  Lee didn't look convinced, and Donny shrugged, as he had no idea if it were true. So they both turned to Burns, the one person they trusted more than anyone there, a hardass teacher who never lied to them.

  "Just as the man says. Before you know it things can go South. You go to those camps, and you’re completely at the mercy of an enemy. An enemy, think about that! You have no idea what they want, but it can't be good."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Because they didn't exactly come knocking on doors asking our opinions!" Emma yelled.

  Donny nodded in agreement as he was starting to come around.

  "Don't you..." she began.

  "No, don't put this on me. This is a shit situation, but we have to get through it, no matter what. If any of you want to give up and go to one of those camps, do it. Fuck off, because we can do without you. We've fought too hard to get this far to put up with this shit."

  Donny’s tone was one of anger and disappointment. He was too tired to be tactful.

  "Go easy on them, hey?"

  He shook his head at Ramos.

  "I will not, because the enemy won't. Suck it up and do what needs to be done, or lay down your arms and give up. Those are the choices."

  "You think life is that black and white?"

  "In this case, Emma, yes.
They've made it an easy call. I'm not living behind bars to be at their mercy, whoever the hell they are. I'm gonna fight. No matter the cost, and no matter how long it takes. If I die along the way, then so be it. I'd rather live one day free out here than a decade in their prisons."

  "I don’t want to die.”

  “None of us do, but I’d rather die on my feet out here than in one of their prisons.”

  “So, what are we gonna do?” asked Jay.

  They expected Ramos to have the answers, and yet he had none.

  “We’ve gone as far as we can for now. We’ll make camp here and get some rest. I need time to think. We all need time to think.”

  They were all relieved to take a break, and it quickly became apparent how woefully unequipped they were for spending a night in the wilderness. They’d not really noticed it on the forced march they’d made through the night. They had almost no food or water, no shelter nor blankets.

  Ramos’ team gathered around him as the others tried to find what comfort they could. Donny, Pope, Lee, and Emma joined them, too.

  “We’re gonna need to find shelter before long,” said Emma.

  “Start again, somewhere new?”

  “Like where, Lee?”

  “A farm, anything like that out here?” Ramos asked.

  Donny looked around to get some sense of his bearings.

  “Maybe, but I’m not sure where we are. You know how far apart folks are around here? You could walk for days, even weeks and find nothing but this.”

  “We’ve been tracking Northeast pretty much most of the way.” Ramos checked his compass.

  “Then I guess we could be near a ranch that is out this way, but we could easily have missed it by a mile. I’d need to get to some high ground. Get some sense of where we are.”

  Ortiz groaned.

  “What is it?” Ramos asked.

  “Just sucks to be back in the dark ages. What would I give for a working sat phone?”

  “Yeah, well, tough shit.”

  “So, what are you thinking?”

  “At first light I want you to go for high ground. You know the area the best, and take Dunn with you.”

  “What about me?”