Midnight Skills

by William Allen

  “Twenty yards,” he broadcast, and Luke was surprised his voice sounded so steady, even to his own ears.

  “Fire.”

  Matching deeds to words, Luke rose up ever so slightly, angling the rifle in his hands to expose the M203 grenade launcher affixed to his M4, and released the first 40mm grenade into the lead vehicle. He was only a little over one hundred meters away, well within the weapon’s effective range, and he paused for a foolish second to watch when the grenade impacted the flank of the lead vehicle just a few inches below the driver’s side window. He’d learned the hard lesson of trying to disable one of these beasts with a frontal shot, and as a consequence, adjusted accordingly.

  Four other grenadiers, all they had on this side of the defensive line, fired their weapons at nearly the same moment, with varying degrees of success. Two shots, fired by inexperienced operators, missed completely, detonating in the nearby open field, and one struck a glancing blow to the side of the MRAP on their left, the high explosive round blowing out a wave of shrapnel, but doing no obvious damage.

  The last of the 40mm grenades, fired low and at first appearing to be a wasted shot, threaded the needle between trucks and ended up shredding the front passenger side wheel on the rightmost truck. A mobility kill, since that truck wasn’t going anywhere without a replacement wheel and likely some garage time. Luke absorbed all this in the blink of an eye, and then he was diving to the ground when the remote-controlled machine guns mounted on the heavy trucks began chewing up their surroundings.

  One down for sure, Luke calculated as he cycled the action and forced another grenade into the breech, then rolled to his side and prepared to trigger the next shot at the rapidly approaching lead truck. He caught glimpses of tracers, and sparks dancing across the front of the reinforced windshield while he lay on his left shoulder and lined up his shot. Jeez, I hope I still have enough range for the grenade to arm, was his last thought before tightening his grip on the rifle magazine and squeezing the fat trigger.

  He heard the big Caterpillar diesel engine growling, the sharp chatter of the MRAP’s medium machine gun as it sent rounds pounding out, and the dull WHOOMP when his grenade struck in the same general vicinity as his last shot. He’d been aiming to punch through the side glass, hoping to dump a bit of that high explosive hell into the cab of the truck. He might not stop the big armored behemoth, but he wanted to at least let the fuckers know he was here.

  He didn’t stick around this time to admire the view and instead, forced his body into a series of rolls that bruised his hips and thighs, but brought him nearer to the back end of the truck, hunkered behind a flat rear tire. He could feel the sheet metal of the truck vibrate when rounds impacted the bed and punctured the air only inches from his cowering form.

  He wanted to retreat further, back into the nearby ditch, but he could see rounds pounding the frozen grass stalks there when the machine gun slew back and forth, unleashing a firehose of random hate. The truck’s rear axle seemed to offer at least the illusion of cover, but any second, he expected the lead MRAP to come charging past, and then he would be chopped to pieces by the obviously irritated remote weapon operator.

  The next explosion seemed to squeeze the air out of Luke’s lungs, and he bounced a few inches off the ice and gravel before he fell forward, splayed out on the asphalt. A flash of light seared across his vision, and Luke felt a wave of heat roll over him, like a pound of pure sunshine striking his abused body. He thought he could smell something burning, and he idly wondered if his hair was on fire. Nope, he realized, still got that damned helmet strap digging into his chin.

  His immediate reaction, to curl up in a ball and drool, passed in a fleeting moment, and Luke found himself clawing at the ground while his scrambled brain tried to reset. Oh God, he thought bitterly, not another concussion. Reaching down, he noted the uncomfortable lump under his chest plate and rolled over once again. This time, coming up with his carbine, his right hand wrapped around the pistol grip.

  As his senses started to clear, he could make out the snap and pop of gunfire all around him, then the heavier staccato bang of a medium machine gun ripping out long bursts. When the deep rhythmic chugga, chugga, chugga of a Ma Deuce began to rip the air, he knew his men were still in trouble. His force didn’t have any of the big fifty caliber machine guns, which meant the enemy still had one on action.

  Peeking under the bottom of the pickup, Luke could make out the dark shape of the lead MRAP, sitting at an angle in the road and steadily belching smoke into the air. Maybe ten yards away, he quickly estimated, and still on fire. One of Captain Bishop’s boys must have hit it in the ass with one of their precious LAWS rockets. That had been the hastily formed plan, after all.

  Luke’s squad was designated as a combination of speedbump and bait, intended to distract the gunners aboard the armored trucks. This was to buy time for the teams of soldiers while they raced to the site of the initial ambush to dispatch the MRAPs with well-placed rockets. Luke wondered how successful they had been, then nearly facepalmed when he remembered the radio. Feeling around the side of his head, Luke traced the wire until he reached the earbud, no doubt dislodged during the explosion. Unfastening the chinstrap on his helmet, Luke replaced the device and shivered when the cold plastic touched his ear. Then he started trying to piece together the situation.

  “Give us five, then pull the wounded back to the rally point for your medic! We’ll be able to provide cover then. Out.”

  Luke thought he recognized the voice in the transmission as belonging to Master Sergeant Garza, but he wasn’t sure. A year ago, he would have been frozen in terror at the sights and sounds of battle, and even six months ago, when he was still trying to figure out how to be a successful guerilla fighter, he might have found the situation overwhelming. Now, he was just trying to get back into the flow of the fight after being briefly out of sorts.

  Still, finding out they’d already taken casualties this early in the operation was a kick in the teeth, and for half a moment he wanted to ask who was down, but again, experience told him to wait. He couldn’t do anything to help at the moment, and the fight was still ongoing. He now knew the realities of combat. Shit happened, and then you tried to mitigate the damage as soon as the bullets stopped flying.

  “Get that MG! We’re pinned here!”

  “Resetting now. Hold one.”

  He also recognized that last voice as Corporal Castillo. Eddie. Calm and steady, even when Luke could tell he was running with thirty plus pounds of weapon and ammunition slowing him down. Time to get back in the saddle, Luke realized, and he thumbed the switch on his radio.

  “This is Shamrock Six. Five, what’s the status with the hostiles?”

  The reply came almost instantly.

  “Lead truck is down and on fire. Tail truck is also burning, and we have one more down with a blown wheel. The other two are trying to maneuver free, but hampered by the ones we’ve swatted and the proximity to the river. They’ve dropped off approximately thirty, that’s three-oh, dismounts for cover.”

  Shamrock Five, Corporal Silcott, said a lot in a few words. They’d at least temporarily slowed down the enemy advance, Luke reasoned, but now faced nearly a platoon of enemy soldiers on the ground, as well as two Cougars still mobile, if hemmed in by the ones Second Squad managed to damage.

  “Any more LAWS left?”

  “Negative. Your dad is coming with reinforcements, and he’s bringing two more, but they are still three mikes out. Over.”

  “Well, I still got three of those forty mike-mike firecrackers left, and I don’t want to have to carry them home,” Luke broadcast over the squad channel. I might sound like mindless bravado, but Luke didn’t think it was misplaced given the circumstances.

  Converting words to action, Luke stuck his left arm down through the armhole of his now-filthy smock and fished another grenade from the small bandolier velcroed to the side of his harness. The Army made standard MOLLE pouches for the grenades on the har
ness, but Luke found he preferred this placement for ease of use, but he hadn’t thought about having to fight with the dirty smock he wore.

  The action caused Luke to flash back to an old memory from his childhood. He recalled standing in line with his mom at a McDonald’s in San Diego, and seeing something awful he needed brain bleach to fix. Now, he suddenly felt like that fat lady, fishing around in her bra for cash.

  After reloading the grenade launcher, Luke shimmied under the sagging pickup and crawled forward rapidly, relying on his elbow pads and corresponding kneepads to absorb the shock and rough terrain until he finally got a fresh view of the battle space. He also nearly ran face first into a defender wearing the hated blue camouflage of the Homeland stormtroopers when the other man threw himself under the same pickup, in a desperate bid for cover.

  Luke registered the man’s presence a heartbeat before the stormtrooper, who’d been looking over his shoulder and shouting something, turned back to face forward. The man, for Luke could just make out the harsh planes and scowl lining the soldier’s face, took a moment to process the image of the snarling beast less than a foot away. In that frozen instance of time, Luke transitioned his grip from the frame of the grenade launcher and smoothly stroked the trigger of his M4, cratering the Homeland trooper’s skull with a pair of 5.56 rounds.

  At the sight of his hated enemy, Luke felt the beast inside surge forward with a charged mixture of adrenaline and fear. He regarded the ruined features of the dead man and dismissed the corpse, eager to find his next target. Peering further, Luke made out a half dozen Homeland stormtroopers sheltered in the shadow of the disabled MRAP out front. They were only thirty yards away, too close for the M203’s grenade to arm itself, but then he saw the armored grill of the next MRAP only ten yards further. The knot of enemy soldiers were hunkered down, rifles shouldered and probing for trouble with random shots.

  The beast inside wanted to open fire with his carbine on full auto, spraying the soldiers, but the cold, analytical part of Luke’s brain seized on another plan entirely. He recentered the rudimentary ladder sights of the underslung grenade launcher and pulled the trigger.

  This time, Luke didn’t wait around to see what happened. He knew the flash of discharge from the relatively slow, fat, incoming round would draw attention to his position, so Luke was already on the move, as soon as his grenade left the short barrel. Repeating his earlier motion, Luke rolled once, twice, three times, and tumbled into the ice-lined drainage ditch, even as the thunder of the 40mm grenade’s detonation caught up with his ears. He felt rather than heard the passage of bullets through the space he’d just vacated, and then the screams started.

  Luke hadn’t aimed for the cluster of men. Instead, he’d targeted the front of the nearby MRAP, even knowing the high explosive grenade lacked the power to penetrate armor. No, the armor, instead reflected much of the force back into the men only a few steps away, and the air shrieked in sympathy when the explosive force drove steel splinters into exposed flesh.

  The vengeful CROWS operator on the second MRAP sent a buzz saw of thirty caliber hate into the side of the now-shredded truck bed, walking the rounds back and forth over the already perforated sheet metal.

  “Scratch six stormtroopers near the first truck,” Luke broadcasted. “Where’s the next concentration?”

  “I got five pinned down by the Jersey barrier,” Abbie replied immediately. “They’re getting cover fire from the truck with the busted wheel. There’s another three trying to flank me on the left, though.”

  “I’ve got the three on your left, Abbie,” David said, sounding like a golf commentator. “Go ahead and change shooting positions.”

  Okay, so that meant at least two of his soldiers were still in the fight, Luke noted. He knew where Abbie was talking about, since the only concrete barrier on this stretch of road was placed to mark the mouth of a drainage culvert.

  “I’m in the ditch, land side, about ten yards west of my start point. Moving toward the barrier,” Luke announced, checking in. “Don’t shoot me.”

  “Roger that,” came several voices over the squad network.

  Crawling further up the ditch, Luke saw a slight bend in the excavation and slowed his pace. Bullets continued to scythe through the air just inches over his head, but Luke sensed this was more reconnaissance by fire than a concerted effort to kill him.

  Sliding quietly through the sticks and debris accumulated in the ditch was not easy, but Luke relied on the sounds of battle all around to cover the noise he made while he advanced under fire. While he moved on his elbows and toes, Luke’s hands remained in motion, and he withdrew his next-to-last grenade from the bandolier and eased the shell into place. Relying on an old trick, he’d kept each grenade in the bandolier stuffed into a pair of his spare woolen socks, so the metal of the casing remained muffled when he moved. Extracting each one took a few extra seconds, but in a world where stealth was life, Luke didn’t begrudge the extra time. Besides, firing that thing in the confined space of the ditch would have been a boneheaded, and likely fatal error.

  Reaching the curve in the ditch, Luke risked a quick peek around the corner. An eyeblink was all it took to confirm the next section of the drainage ditch was unoccupied, but he caught movement just beyond the edge of his vision where the I-beam-shaped concrete barrier rested. Still there, Luke was pleased to see.

  “Abbie, when you are in position to resume fire on your targets, give me a three count before you fire. I’m in position to flank them to the east, twenty yards out.”

  “Sarge, watch out for the trucks. Two of them are still mobile, and they all still have their remote-operated guns working.”

  That wasn’t what Luke wanted to hear, but it explained the volume of fire they were facing. They needed to find a way to take out those guns. Then, he had another thought.

  If his men could disable the MRAPs right here, then the grain elevators would be a lot closer to remaining secure. Luke was confident that without their gun platforms, the Homeland slugs had no chance of driving off the Allied forces. That was the real mission.

  “All right, folks, I’ve got a new plan” Luke announced, suddenly sure of how they could win this engagement. “Focus fire on the front wheels of the two Cougars still mobile. Run flat doesn’t matter if we chew the rubber off those tires. Copy?”

  This time, when the affirmatives came, Luke thought he heard Corporal Silcott’s voice again. Well, that’s three members of his squad still up. Then a familiar voice chimed in over their frequency, and Luke found himself resisting the urge to sit up at attention when he heard his father’s voice.

  “Shamrock Six, this is Buster Five. My squad is setting up now. We have two more M72s, and we can make sure these trucks stay in one spot. Can you keep their attention for another thirty seconds?”

  That was likely what’d cost them two of the LAWS launched earlier that went off target. The weapons were simple to use, but the operator needed to be able to line up the warhead on the target. That meant the person needed line-of-sight, and that person would be exposed to incoming hostile fire.

  “Can do,” Luke replied, then switched his attention back to his squad. “Abbie, I want you to take that shot we discussed. Get those five looking your way, and I’ll be able to take them out while also drawing the attention of the remaining MRAPs. Everybody else, be prepared to give me some covering fire. On three, got it?”

  “Son, what are you doing?” Sam Messner asked, and now, he sounded much more stressed than ever before.

  “My job, Dad,” Luke replied solemnly. “If Abbie can give me that distraction, I can take out these five and trust me, the operators will be looking my way when you need them to be.”

  When Luke shifted the M4 in his hands, tightening his grip, he heard his radio crackle with another transmission, this one sounding frantic.

  “This is Shamrock Four!” the speaker cried out. “I need a medic at this location! Drew’s down, and I don’t think he’s breathing. Medi
c! I need…”

  The words faltered and Luke, as well as the rest of the squad, heard what sounded like gagging, followed by a shuddering sigh.

  Luke recognized the voice. It’d belonged to Gus Pappas, and they were forced to listen to his last, gasping breath.

  Luke knew he might lose men on this mission. He knew his father and several of their close friends were here, risking death or worse in a bold strike that promised to bring the war to a rapid conclusion. In his head, he knew these things. In his heart, though, he’d thought they would all survive.

  Gus was dead. Drew likely was gone as well. He didn’t know Gus that well, but Drew was a friend. A quiet, sarcastic, funny addition to their squad who everyone liked despite his barbed comments, because he was so often the butt of his own jokes.

  “Fuck!” Luke growled, and he felt his emotions surge, and the beast threatened to slip free once again. The beast, tamed by Luke’s will, making him more dangerous than ever. Anger and hate, fueled him, but time and experience had taught him how to harness the madness. Or at least, direct it to suitable targets.

  “Abbie, get ready,” he huffed out, his voice ragged and sharp. “One. Two. Three!”

  Over the sound of the machine guns, he heard the dull boom of the big .338 Lapua round splintering concrete, and Luke was up on his knees, triggering his M4 so fast, the single shots ripped off like automatic fire. He fired into the exposed soldiers huddled in the shadow of the thick concrete barrier, emptying his magazine in only a few seconds as his rounds riddled the men sheltered there. He aimed first for their legs, then raised his aimpoint for headshots to finish the ragdolled stormtroopers, expertly bypassing their body armor.

  While he fired, Luke pushed off from the frozen ground and heard his boots punch into the ice like broken bone when he threw his body forward. Despite the creeping cold, the long, sleepless hours, and the heavy clothes he wore, Luke moved like a striking rattlesnake, fangs out as his berserker rage took a solid grip on his body.