January 2, 2028, 1:13 AM – Border between Montana and Canada – Corporal Ridge – 1st Fireteam – 31st Rifle Platoon - Foxtrot Company

That last leg of this journey really did us in. This operation was pretty uneventful until our squad got ambushed. We went from twelve to three people in the space of a few minutes. Two fireteams with competent leaders down. Knowing my luck, I'd get blamed for the casualties. If we made it out alive, that is. It's not my problem if I was assigned the leader of a squad at the rank of Corporal. Doesn't help that half my squad were grunts fresh out of boot camp. I'd have failed them for lack of any combat knowledge, or intelligence for that matter, but they paid for it in the field. Too bad they got a couple of people who could actually do some good killed, too. But, just Fireteam Alpha left. Beta and Gamma down. Okay, they're 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Fireteam, officially. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma isn't really standard. Sounds kickass, though.

Besides, we didn't even have all of the 1st Fireteam left. Private Parker got a bullet to the head. Just Private Lin and Corporal Raptor left. We were about to reach our objective. Oh, yeah, we had call signs. Lin was "Chun-Li", Raptor was "Guile", and I was "Ryu". Hey, I made the callsigns, and we agreed. The people I knew agreed because they got the reference, and the others because they couldn't think of anything better.

Ahead, I could see our objective, though it was the dead of night. Night vision goggles are great for that. It was an open machine gun nest that we'd heard had been the death of an unsuspecting squad during a previous skirmish up here. Our mission was to take it out. We were supposed to have air support by now, but we're also supposed to take it out before dawn. With or without support. This would be a lot easier with all three fireteams, even without all the people in them. Instead we had three people. No, you can't call one person a fireteam. All we had were our pistols and a couple of grenades left. We'd have more if we'd been able to get ammo from the fallen fireteams, but we couldn't find them, and that ambush drained our ammo for our heavier arms.

We were under the cover of the trees, still far from our objective. "We need a plan." I whispered. Thanks to our throat mics, it sounded louder to us. "I say we flank the machine gun nest and grenade it, sweep up the remains with our handguns."

"There's not really much way to flank it, Ryu. It's a machine gun nest." Lin said. She had a surprisingly, um, how do I put this? Ah, masculine voice. It was a bit strange.

I paused. Right. That was stupid of me. I looked at the nest again, more closely. "Okay, true, but there's less people paying attention on that side, from the looks of it. At least it's a lone nest. Nothing within supporting distance." I replied.

Raptor nodded. "All right, Ryu. You and I should take a grenade. We'll signal each other, and throw them both in at once. It'll toss them all into disarray."

"All right, Guile. Sorry, Chun-Li, but we are better at throwing them. You can throw them farther, but, accuracy is essential here. We keep in cover until the grenades go in and explode. Then we go in and get rid of as many enemies as we can while they're startled or injured."

We all quickly agreed on a plan of action, going quietly through the wooded area around the nest, staying far away. The less time we spent with any risk of being spotted, the better. We split up, each keeping behind cover as we advanced. We'd worked in the night so often, our biological clocks were backwards. I don't think the same could be said for the nest's occupants.

"Grenades on three..." I said quietly. Raptor and I pulled the pins out, holding the grenades tightly to make sure the grenades didn't go off early. "One..." we positioned our arms back, ready to throw. "Two..." we slightly loosened our grip, setting the fuse. "Three." we threw the grenades, they going straight into the nest and exploding. "Bullseye!" I said as we sprang to the next layer of cover, tall grass not too far away from the nest, adrenaline kicking in in my body as we started shooting at the stragglers, blood soaking the grass as our high-caliber bullets pierced the soldier's bodies and heads. They were disoriented from the sudden shock of being attacked, making it easy to kill them.

My mind worked with efficiency, my arms and hands steady, each pull of the trigger striking down another enemy with lethal force, either making them fall backwards to the ground or collapse in a crumpled heap. Soon enough, there were dead bodies all around the nest, blood soaked into the grass and spattered on the trees. "Into the nest, advance with caution, there might still be someone inside." I said, motioning everyone forward on my lead.

We went into the nest, thinking we'd cleared everyone out. However, just when we thought we'd secured our objective, there were gunshots right outside the nest! You'd think it would be our turn to be confused and disoriented, but this wasn't my first time getting shot at. We took cover behind a wall, not using the machine guns. That would be where they'd expect us to be, and there was no point shooting bullets everywhere against one or two people whose location was unknown.

I could see somebody out there, quickly taking aim and blasting a round into his chest. As I did, I felt a searing pain in the back of my right shoulder, falling to the ground and growling. Someone must have shot at one of my squad from behind me and missed. "Agh, dammit! Hostile at my back! Six o' clock!" I yelled. The impact of the bullet had made me drop my gun, and I had to pick it up with my left hand, using my right hand to weakly support it. As I was kneeling behind the wall, suddenly, there was a bright flash of light and a loud bang! I didn't hear anything land in the nest. It must have been a flash-bang grenade, but it didn't land in the nest. I could hear Lin and Raptor cursing, although, it was very quiet to me, drowned out by the ringing in my ears. I wasn't looking into the flash, though, so I wasn't blinded. If I didn't have a bullet in my shoulder, I'd feel more confident about this situation. Then again, if I hadn't been shot, I might have been blinded, too. I wasn't thinking about what could have happened at the time, though. In situations like these, you play with the cards you're given. Think quickly. You hesitate, you could be dead.

I switched to the infrared in my goggles almost immediately after the flash-bang exploded, shakily taking aim, shooting at him, hitting him in the arm before he could get his gun back out again, the next couple of shots hitting him in the chest, he falling over. I kept watching him, making sure he was dead. When I saw his heat signature growing dimmer, I knew he was dead, along with the other sixteen out there, and the nine in here. Twenty-six in all. I looked around and took count twice, making sure no other hostiles were still alive. "Kill confirmed. Nine bodies inside the nest, seventeen outside, twenty-six total. We get our air support to pick us up and destroy the nest, and we're done here." I said loudly. Mostly because of the fact it was hard for us to hear for now.

Lin sighed in relief. "Oh my God...we actually did it."

Raptor grinned. "Hell, yeah, we did!"

I started "Because we..."

Raptor continued "are..."

Lin finished "Marines!"

We all high-fived each other, simultaneously yelling "Hoo-ah!". Then I winced at using my right arm, especially since the adrenaline from the tense moments before had worn off. "Ah! Ffff..." I started, stopping myself from cursing.

Suddenly, we heard a helicopter approaching. We ducked down, afraid that it might end up being hostile reinforcements. Switching to night vision again, I could see the Air Force insignia on it. "Hah. It's about damn time someone showed up to provide the air support we asked for hours ago." I shook my head. They promised us timely air support. Must have had something else come up. "Oh, well, forget it, that's our ride home now."

"I'm sorry, sir. There was an attack on the base, and when I got out here, you guys were hard to find. Up until that explosion, anyways. What the hell happened out here?"

"We'll tell you later." Raptor said. "Come on, let's get the hell out of Dodge." he said, we sitting down in the back. Airmen were manning the side guns.

"Might want to cover your ears!" said the pilot, as a rocket flew from the side fin of the helicopter, flying into the nest and exploding, sending equipment, shrapnel, and dead bodies flying a little ways from the explosion. After this, the helicopter started flying away from the base, backwards from the way it was facing, it turning around until it was facing in the direction it was traveling. We probably needed a medical crew now, but we had pulled off quite the operation!

January 2, 2008, 2:05 AM – Home – Wichita, Kansas

"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"

"Yeah! We did it, we did it!" I said gleefully, pumping my fists into the air, controller in hand, as the game allocated our experience to our characters. With reductions for all the casualties, of course. Hey, shut up, we still made it! Ah, about me, let's see. 17 years old, pale, dark brown hair, hazel eyes. That's me, Dallin, skinny gaming nerd, playing the latest tactical military simulation game with a few friends online. By this point, most of the other people left the game lobby, so we did, too. "Er, whoops. Hope I didn't wake anyone up here. We need a better team next time, though. We lost three quarters of our team to an ambush. Told them to be alert, but did they listen? Noooo..."

I could hear Tanner, "Corporal Raptor", on my headset, though he was up in Montana. "Yeah, but we finished the mission, at least. Usually the Sergeants are Squad Leaders but that...went well enough. Especially considering we didn't know most of those people."

"Yeah...I didn't get picked for much of a reason. People pretty much just said "Oh, hey, there's the first corporal to come in," and, yeah." I chuckled. Dunno why they picked me, it was pretty clear most of my experience was in light weapons and explosives. Which worked out pretty well with what we were left with at the end of this mission. Now I have some in squad leadership, though. Albeit not a whole lot, since most of the squad I was leading got killed. Go me. Not that it was my fault, but the stigma is there.

"We didn't get the smartest group around, but the end of that was epic."

"Oh, yeah, it was. Even though I'm pretty sure that girl was actually a guy. I'm not surprised, really. It's the internet, after all." I said with a chuckle, before yawning. "Ah, geez, it's two in the morning already? At least it's a Friday." I paused for a second. "Eh, technically, it's Saturday now."

"Yeah, we should get some rest."

"Good night." we both said, I shutting off my game console and taking off my throat mic. Hey, say what you will, these worked pretty well. They let me talk a bit quietly so I don't alert anyone. Anyone in my house, that is. Not because I don't want them knowing about the game, but because they don't like being woken up. I'm surprised I didn't wake anyone up tonight, though. I was a bit loud at least once.

Yes, I live a pretty nerdy life. But, I was happy with it, for the most part. It had its ups and downs. I did well in school, though there were bullies. My brothers liked some things I did, though we do fight sometimes. I also had friends, but they usually lived far away. All in all, pretty average, with the possible exception of the last statement.

I would say that I got into bed, covered up, and contemplated my life, or maybe the fact that I should get one. I would say that I thought about my future as I lied there, looking up at the ceiling. Those would be lies, though, because I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow that night, tired from my lack of sleep, and the crazy video games. Mostly lack of sleep.