[DATE REDACTED]
Eastern Europe City of Mercia Poland
"Very well then, we stay here."
There was a sigh of relief all over the small basement. None of us wanted to really risk our lives again to move to an uncompromised position, we were too tired for that, even if it was an uncompromised position.
I sat back down on the empty ammo box, it was no good for anything other than sitting on now, my M16A4 leaning against the wall within arm's reach. I glanced at the other marines, they all looked like shit, most had been hit by some projectile or other in the past four days.
I winced as I strained a muscle I had torn in my back. A Helicopter crash will do that for you. I tried shifting my back a little to get it used to the pain, but stopped after a couple of minutes, too tired to keep going. I tensed up a little as the ceiling shook and the single light bulb there flickered for a few instants. The reason they put that scene in the movies so often is because it is scary as hell. It means an explosive just landed nearby...
The room we were in couldn't have been more than 20x20 feet. There were currently eleven people cramped up inside. Myself, as well as nine marines, all of them either PFCs or privates, and their leader, Lieutenant Buchanan. The last man inside the basement was named Mikah Shihat. He was a pilot that had been sent to rescue us after we had knocked out some Sangvis AA. You would think the big guy up there would reward you whenever you did good for humanity, not have your evac shot down and crash into enemy held land. Shihat was in bad shape, he had received a piece of the Blackhawk's cockpit right in the belly, the wound had been infected and the man had been unconscious since yesterday. A few of the marines talked about leaving him, but I knew none of them really meant it.
Other than the eleven of us, we had another guy doing his watch overhead. The sentries were the only ones entitled to a single cup of coffee during their duty. It was terrible coffee, made with old beans we found inside another house and rainwater. At least it did the job though.
"Small patrol!" came an urgent whisper. "Hundred meters out and closing in on our position," our sentry warned.
"Ok," Lieutenant Buchanan said. "Ammo count."
"Three mags."
"Two."
"One."
"One and a half."
"Three," I said.
"One."
"One."
"Just shy of two lieutenant."
"And I've got two plus three rounds for my M4," Buchanan said.
The guy above didn't answer, he had returned to watch the covvies and we all knew that he had almost four magazines.
"Ok, we can handle them if they decide to come at us," the Lieutenant said. "Might as well pick up their weapons if they do…"
Buchanan pointed at two marines and they climbed the stair carefully. I was to tired to get up right now, but I could already feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins, taking away some of the weariness I was feeling. I grabbed my rifle and tapped its stock nervously. It was something that I had never done before in my life, but had been using to calm myself a few days ago. This was horrible, waiting for an enemy to pass right by you knowing that they could spot you any second and actually kill you. The fact that there was nothing you could do about it only made it worse.
"One Officer, five jaegers and five grunts."
We sighed again, we didn't know if it was relief or not, but we were tired and we fucking felt like sighing whenever we wanted.
"Looks like they're simply going through, not stopping to check any of the houses."
"Then why would they stop to check this wreck," someone muttered optimistically.
"Quiet!" Buchanan ordered.
We all complied and waited for a few tense minutes while we received no further word from the three sentries. Our 'house' was more like a first floor partially covered by rubble from the second floor. There were a couple of semi-intact walls that had served as cover during our last engagement against the Sangvis, but other than that we had about nothing else in the immediate vicinity to put in between us and them, that's why we were holed up in a basement. Well, that and the Sangs were shelling the hell out of Mercia.
For a few instants everyone held their breaths. It was eerily quiet, it even sounded like the shelling had stopped for a few instants. A nearby shell brought me back to reality. I tried to focus. I could see the sweat coming down from under the marine's helmets. I could see how they shook and how they mouthed prayers to whatever deity they believed would protect them. I could see the blood-soaked bandages and the wounds that hadn't merited anything to cover them. I recognized that as signs that I was sinking back into combat-mode...
"Shit," I heard through the stairs.
There was a loud crack and then an even louder girly squeal that belonged to a grunt. No doubt she had wandered off a little bit to take a piss, perhaps even to look for something shiny. The next noise I heard was thankfully a burst of M16 fire and not AK gunshots, that meant we got the first strike.
"Go! Go! Go!" The Lieutenant ordered.
We all climbed the stairs and jumped out into the damaged house, we looked for cover for a few instants and located suitable walls or piles of rubble to do the job. I fired as I moved to cover, taking out a surprised Jaeger. The other marines might've been tired, but they did a commendable job, taking out the other four grunts and another jackal before taking cover. It was now only three jaegers and an Officer.
I heard the familiar sound of a AK rifle firing, but heard nothing to indicate that it had made contact with a human being.
"Fire and maneuver!" Buchanan ordered. "Squad one, provide cover!"
I put my rifle over the destroyed wall and fired three shots blindly, regretting the waste of bullets but knowing that it was necessary. A few other marines joined me. Squad two took advantage of the situation and switched positions to pre-designated piles of debris or overturned cars in the street, flanking the enemy patrol. A couple of instants later it all ended with a shotgun blast to the head of the Officer.
"Ok, we're moving out," the lieutenant ordered. He knew that we were pumped up and wanted to take advantage of our energy right now. "Klaus, go downstairs and get Shihat. Rolo, Cook, you take anything else that we might need. Everyone else, prepare to move out."
A few seconds later Rolo and Cook emerged carrying a couple of gallons of water each, Klaus was trailing behind them with the unconscious pilot over his shoulder. He tossed me his shotgun and I slung it around my back. I knew that the marine manhandling the pilot like that couldn't have been good, but it was certainly better than leaving the wounded man alone here to meet a certain death.
We started moving away from our house and westwards. That was the direction of the main front, but it would be impossible to get through with our numbers, it meant, at best, that we could probably pick up some ammunition from human corpses or abandoned strongholds. Once we did that we would cause a little mayhem. That had been the original plan when we found out about the Sang offensive that cut us off from the bulk of the Allied forces. We still hadn't gotten anywhere nearer our objective.
We were formed up in two five-man columns with a scout fifty meters ahead. Right now, that scout was none other than me. I peeked around corners and signaled when we were good for coming through. I was the first to cross while the two squads provided cover for each other on open ground. All the while I was looking for a nice place to hunker down in.
We got our first scare from a shell, a human artillery shell. They had been firing constantly at the sangvis lines, that's what had thrown them into disarray and prevented them from continuing their advance, for us, they simply meant that we could be signaled as a friendly-fire casualty once this was over or simply as MIA, depending on how the battle went. The shell landed in between me and the rest of the marines, we dropped to the ground as soon as we heard it coming, but it was far enough away that no piece of shrapnel hit any of us.
"Go," The Lieutenant ordered.
I looked behind me and spotted the rest of the marines safe and sound through the dust raised by the explosion. They looked ghostly in the darkness of Mercia's night. I turned a corner into a wide street and saw something that looked familiar. It was a piece of metal about five inches long popping from a hole on the wall. I stopped and examined it more carefully, I was able to make out the flash suppressor and relaxed, tension left my body as soon as I knew that there were marines on the other side of the wall.
"Hey," I whispered. "Hey!"
No answer.
"You, over there," I said. When I failed to get an answer I banged a couple of times on the wall. Next I poked the barrel of the gun with the barrel of my own gun. Yeah, poor choice of words, but that's exactly what happened. The gun tilted slightly upwards and then slanted down. I had braced for gunfire, but was surprised when I heard none.
"Shit," I muttered.
I went back around the corner and signaled for the rest of the squad to halt and take defensive positions. They all took a knee and aimed at different sectors, I couldn't actually see their expressions from here, but I could've sworn they were glad for the rest.
I returned to the other side of the corner and moved underneath the barrel of the gun, not throwing prudency away. I realized that the hole in the wall was bullet-made, probably from an autocannon or a large Gatling. I grabbed the barrel with my hand and shuffled it around, finally, I pushed it backwards and into the building, I heard the clatter of the gun as it hit the floor. I was alarmed for a moment, but went along the wall until I came across a door. Like most doors in Mercia, this was a wooden door that looked like it belonged to the 18th century. I took two steps back and took a deep breath.
I kicked the door open without any backup, something that probably would've gotten me lynched in any police department in the entire universe, but was the only option right now. I scanned the area while moving in a typical clearing pattern. It took an instant to take in the ambient light and grayish image of the place I was in through my helmet's visor. At first I was relieved, then I was horrified, then I was relieved again. I quickly noticed that there was no one firing at me and then that there were no enemies in the room, then I noticed the unmistakable shapes in the floor and tensed up at the though of whatever killed this army unit, then I relaxed a bit and actually smiled when I saw that there were a couple of boxes of ammunition in addition to all the weaponry still on the floor.
I took a moment to examine the bodies, I noticed that all of them presented injuries from a blade, most were from a sword while a couple were from another smaller blade. I cleared the rest of the house before leaving again. I went around the corner and waved at the hunkered down group of soldiers. One of them waved back. I signaled for a single member to come to me and soon enough a PFC was trotting towards me.
"What?" she asked, to tired to say anything else.
"Army unit, all dead, tons of ammo, good place to spend the night," I said. I spoke in short and sharp sentences, but it was because I didn't want to say anything else that wasted my breath.
The PFC nodded and returned to the rest of the marines, after a couple of instants they all stood up and started in my direction. We went inside the house, moving all the corpses into a spare room and ridding them of any usable equipment. They were then placed side by side and their arms were crossed over their chest, the universal position for dead people. It was done as a sign of respect for their sacrifice, they had died so that we could survive, if only just a little longer.
I had taken advantage of my earlier arrival and bagged myself three magazines for my rifle, filling up most of my ammunition pouches, then I climbed up the stairs and hid an unopened candy bar that I had thrown into my pouch. I would eat it later, after someone decided to take the time to actually heat up the MREs that the army dudes had left uneaten. This was turning out to be quite a find, ammunition, weapons, food. Oh, I forgot to mention, the original barrel I had seen poking through the wall was none other than an M240. Yeah, no 9, a good 'ol fashioned M240 machine gun. Quite a find indeed...
We all hunkered down on different rooms, this was actually quite roomy for ten marines that had been used to living in a cramped basement for the last few days.
I got a place on the roof. It actually wasn't so bad, there was this little concrete box thingy where there was an empty space and I dug in. I was supposed to be slightly alert, but I'm pretty sure that the only one that wouldn't go immediately to sleep was our sentry, right now it happened to be Klaus. I chuckled at myself as I took of my helmet and the large chest piece of my armor. I wondered whether it was a good idea to open my armored boots without really taking them off. I decided that I could spare the second and a half that it took me to push the front of my armored boots to my shins. I grabbed the candy bar that I had found and opened it. I took a bite of the thing, it was old, tasted slightly stale, and I'm pretty sure that it was beyond its expiration date by at least two weeks. It tasted so wonderful that I fell asleep on the third mouthful.
Unsurprisingly I was woken up by a relatively hard kick to my stomach. I huffed and gasped for air for a couple of instants before I heard the firefight.
"Rise and shine!"
I muttered something that was meant to sound a little bit like "Way to wake up a man during a firefight," but probably went slightly differently.
I avoided hopping up on instinct and instead took the time to close my boots, attach my chest piece and put on my helmet. I grabbed my rifle and pulled back the slide, I felt the sparks of adrenaline just as my brain processed the familiar noise the gun made. I was ready to kick some serious ass.
"Sitrep," I asked the marine that had woken me up.
"Bad," was all he said before he headed towards the edge of the building and opened up with his assault rifle on a large group of unseen enemies. The man had balls, he had just woken up a Spec Ops with a kick to the stomach.
I sighed and took a moment to look at the flashes of gunfire and tried to make out the direction they were coming from. We were under attack on both the sides that the house bordered with the street and there was gunfire coming from the alley that connected our street to another one. At least it was NATO gunfire.
I moved up towards the ledge and slid down. There weren't any sangvis that were aware of my position, so I popped up completely and took five shots at five grunts, killing four of them and shooting another one in the neck. I was dismayed at the number of enemies that we were facing. The street in front of us actually looked crowded. Crowded for fuck's sake. When does a wide street look crowded during combat. It is fucking horrible, that's what it is. There was a transport with a blown up turret and at least two Jeeps firing at the ground floor walls, trying to shoot through the rock and concrete. I looked around as I ducked behind cover. There was three people on the roof, myself and two marines. If it was necessary I could try making a run for it through the roofs, but didn't seem likely to be an option, especially with a whole fucking battalion knocking on our doors.
Just after killing a Jaeger preparing to take a potshot I heard the worst possible noise that you could've heard in a situation like this. Well, second worst. I heard the familiar noise that Artillery makes when it fires.
"Arty!" I yelled, but the marines were smart and had already turned their heads to the sky, looking for the incoming projectiles and considering cover options. The blast went wide, landing a couple of houses away, no doubt coming from one of those long-range pieces a good distance away. That was bad, it meant that there was nothing that we could do while it zeroed in on us. I got tired of having to take cover every moment that I tried to fire, so instead I fired at the waist-height wall that I was using for cover a few times. That made a sizeable hole that I could fire through without exposing myself. From there I managed to take out one of the Jeeps's driver and gunner, then killed two grunts that tried to re crew the vehicle and forced an Officer to stop just short of reaching it. By stop an Officer I mean put a round through its head clean through.
"Ammo run," one of the marines called out. The other guy nodded and half-crawled to the door that lead downstairs.
I opened up at a couple of grunts that I could make out through my firing position. I knocked them on their asses and the grenades that they were carrying blew them up. I chuckled out loud, now deep in a combat trance that I knew was very likely to be my last. I moved the barrel of my gun and shot the last of three Jaegers that were entering the house across the street. It was carrying a carbine, so at least one of the other two was carrying the same.
Just then the second marine returned with two crates. One he tossed to the other marine, who promptly grabbed two magazines and slammed one on his rifle. Then he started filling up the empty mags lying around him with what must've been record-breaking speed. The other crate he positioned in a position in between the three of us, so I assumed it was grenades. When the marine that had brought the crates up tossed me three frags I almost cried with joy.
"On my mark!" I called out through the noise of the gunfire. "Now!"
Three grenades were lobbed and three equivalent explosions followed soon after. I heard the screaming of grunts and the familiar wet noise that bits of flesh made when they hit a hard surface. I heard those noises even through all the firing going on around.
"Throw!" I called out again.
As one of the marines threw his frag, a large caliber bullet severed his left hand clean of his wrist. The man looked in shock at his stump, then at his smoking hand, and then back to his stump. He started screaming in what I could only compare to a bad actor, he hadn't even processed it yet.
"Calm the fuck down!" I said. "And keep firing!"
The man stared at his stump for a second before he nodded slowly and opened fire. I shifted my aim to the building in front and pulled back my gun barrel from my firing hole as to avoid being spotted. I spotted what looked like an elbow inside the lower half of a window. I didn't have a wide enough field of fire to kill the sniper, so I shot at the elbow of the sharpshooter. Fortune smiled upon me and the enemy recoiled right into my crosshairs. Another shot killed the bastard.
"Sniper down!" I informed.
It went like this for perhaps three minutes more, even though it felt like hours. We managed to hold off the massive Sangvis forces while we burned through ammunition. Yesterday we would've lasted perhaps half a minute, today we could last half an hour.
"I'm out," I said after my gun clicked. I headed towards the door and a couple of carbine shots bounced of the frame a couple of inches above my hand. I turned and fired blindly from my pistol at the general direction where I had been shot at. The quiet noise that the silenced gun made seemed weird in comparison to the racket going on. I jumped downstairs before another bunch of carbine shots decided to land near my head. I dusted myself of and let two marines pass in front of me before heading downstairs. I had to duck a couple of times as stray bullets made their way through the walls. I finally stopped in front of a small tower of ammunition boxes. I found the appropriate one and opened it. I grabbed five magazines and a bunch of spare rounds that I shoved down one of my utility pouches on a whim. I climbed back upstairs and was halfway up the flight of steps that lead to the roof when I heard another noise. This was the worst thing I could've heard. The familiar thumping-like noise made me look in the direction of an Sangvis AH-6. There were four of them, flying side by side.
"Little Birds!" someone cried out in horror. It took me a second to realize it had been me.
I climbed back down and tapped the marine manning the machine gun on the back.
"What?" he yelled.
"I need that gun! Go get the Stingers!"
"What?" he repeated, this time because he was confused.
"Little Birds!" I screamed over the sound of the M240.
The marine stopped firing for an instant and then opened up again. "Ok, cover for me while I get the rockets."
I grabbed the machine gun and burned through a few Stalkers before Klaus shoved me out of the way and positioned a M60 on the ledge of the window. I grabbed the heavy M240 and placed it over my shoulder. The original gunner tossed me a box of ammunition and went downstairs, most likely to occupy the place that Klaus had left.
I went upstairs and was immediately forced to jump sideways as the Little Birds strafed the roof. They had decided to take us out before they went around wasting their rocket pods on the house itself. A 7.62 bullet landed between my calves, singing my armored boots and giving me some very nasty bits of shrapnel. The marine missing a hand was unlucky enough to receive a bullet right in between his shoulder blades. The other man was missed completely by the enemy fliers.
"Help me out here," I said.
The marine wordlessly ran to my position and helped me set up the machine gun on its bipod. It was already loaded, so I had half a box of ammunition to burn through before I was forced to reload. I cocked the massive gun and took aim at the blurs in the distance. I steadied myself and moved the sights forward a couple of inches ahead of the enemy aircraft. I depressed the trigger of the M240 machinegun and felt the comfortable kick on my shoulder. I saw faint sparks on the hull of the helicopter I was aiming at and instants later it lost altitude and disappeared from sight behind some buildings.
"Suck on that you motherfuckers!" I said. Yeah, I know, very elaborate.
Unfortunately, the three remaining AH-6 helicopters had already turned around and were coming down on us. I fired the rest of my ammunition on the lead craft, I ran out of bullets just as it started spewing smoke from its hull, but it didn't go down.
"Get out of the way!" I said.
I jumped sideways as gunfire made new scorches on the floor at the same time the other marine did. I ran to the edge of the building and the Little Bird fire missed me completely, but a couple of bullets passed uncomfortably close to my head. I was about to head back to the gun when I felt a small explosion on the floor. Ok, small is an understatement, a large part of the façade was brought down by an explosion from those new fancy enemy grenade launchers and I was forced to jump forward to avoid falling down to the street along with the debris. I quickly slid back behind the short wall.
I spotted the other marine on the other side of the building, he was already done reloading the M240 and was pulling back the cocking bolt. As soon as he had done that he opened fire. I couldn't see the results, but I fired blindly through the broken wall next to me before I peeked half of my face to take a look. I was just in time to spot a crashing AH-6 and another one stumbling and starting to go down. Then gunfire started raining around the marine gunner.
"Get out of there!" I yelled.
When the marine didn't comply I yelled at him again. "That's an order you moron!"
Bullets started raining all around the soldier and he just kept on firing, unfazed by the close calls literally inches around him. I saw the last helicopter trailing smoke as it flew overhead the house and heard it crash a couple of buildings away. The marine looked at me like he didn't believe it. The same look was on my face, but the man only saw his own distorted reflection on my visor. The mirror capabilities of the visor couldn't have been that good, because the man failed to notice the Stalker taking aim at him.
A single bullet from a long range rifle appeared on his shoulder and flew at me. It embedded itself in the wall next to me and was followed by a trail of blood that splattered into my visor and shoulder. I switched to full auto and yelled as I fired at the Stalker, the sustained burst forced it to its knees, but it started running towards me. It looked confused when I started sprinting towards it, but I grabbed the M240 just as it jumped to my building. The machinegun obliterated my foe and the Stalker fell dead two feet away from me, its jaws wide open. I relaxed for a moment before I realized that the Marine was still alive. It took me a few minutes, but I patched up his wound and gave him my handgun to guard the stairs. I sighed and grabbed the gun, I dismounted it and placed it on the ledge of the rooftop. I opened up without even bothering for cover. I was aiming at the houses in front of me, trying to take out the few turrents that had been set up and the snipers. I smiled a little bit as dust exploded from the walls and firing stopped, when I was satisfied I was done with the building directly in front of me I switched to the enemies on the ground. They had the shadow transport, the two Jeeps, and several wrecked cars for cover, there was a significantly smaller number of them than before, so the cover was more than enough. Still, I managed to kill two Stalkers and a Jaeger before a lucky bullet hit the barrel of the M240, denting it. A couple of bullets slammed into the closed opening and the gun almost exploded in my hands before I released the trigger.
"Shit…" I muttered.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" I said louder, but
I tried to make my way downstairs but I was met by a shove from Klaus and three other marines carrying boxes of ammunition each. They closed the door leading to the roof and one of the marines sat down in front of it with his rifle aimed straight ahead. The wounded marine was on his feet again and I had thrown him the shotgun I got from Klaus.
"We're overrun," Klaus stated.
"Shit," I said yet again.
We must've stood there for a couple of seconds, but then an explosion knocked me on my ass. I felt that familiar sense of helplessness and dizziness as the ringing in my ears blocked out all the noise. I could see Klaus reaching for his Assault Rifle while unfastening his sidearm. The other two marines were both grabbing at their ears and rolling around, the wounded marine no where in sight. I felt wetness on my earlobes and knew that the situation was bad. I saw as the door was noiselessly kicked down by a red Stalker, it looked at the marine closest to it and fired with it's rifle. It fired a long burst, it was its downfall. I saw its shields shimmer and then noise started coming back. I realized that I was the one shooting at it when I felt the kickback of my rifle. The Stalker looked at me after being slightly pushed backwards and then it was suddenly missing half of its torso.
The body fell to the floor, revealing the wounded marine, the shotgun at his hip.
"I got your back," The wounded marine said as he cocked the weapon.
"I guess you do," I replied.
I was about to stand up when for some reason I decided to look up. A B2 bomber flew over our position. I saw four orange flashes. I recognized them immediately of course, but I was still shocked.
"Four?" I asked. "Only four? Are they trying to get themselves killed?"
The wounded marine looked up and failed to answer. Perhaps he did answer, because the next thing I knew four drop pods slammed into the ground and everything went quiet for a few instants. I stood up and went over to the ledge of the building, all regard for my safety gone now. There was dust blocking some of my sight, but I heard the noise that the pods make when you blast open their doors. They had all landed within meters of one another in the wide street in front of us. The doors flew off the pods and all of them slammed into some dazed Sangvis, crushing them. What I saw emerge from those pods was not a Spec Ops squad, but something far deadlier...
Hounds.
Let me say that again...
Hounds.
This weren't some tallish Spec Ops warriors, they were full on augmented soldiers from ARTEMIS.
They emerged quick and deadly, their movements seemed as fluid as water. They fired at the Sangs and every shot that left their weapons made contact with an enemy. They cleared the area around them in two seconds, they killed the rest of the enemies in a thirty meter radius in ten. They did that with a combination of traditional combat and acrobatics. One of them punched an Stalker and knocked it to the ground, then broke the Sangvis's neck with its boot. Another one of them moved so fast that the soldier was almost impossible for me to track. Another one of the hounds made use of a couple of combat knives in a way that would've shamed me deeply and made me look as a novice. The last Hound was the most impressive of them all. The soldier didn't go for flashy techniques, instead took a knee whenever he spotted a target and took it down instants later. His M4 rifle barked and took down whatever the bullets connected with. Finally, they took on a pair of Goliaths that had just recently arrived. The one that had impressed me closed in on one of them and jumped at it, landing with his feet first. He pushed the Shielded enemy a couple of feet forward.
Impossible as it seemed, the Hound managed to twist himself and land on its feet. It opened fire on the unprotected belly of the Goliath before it fell back. The other Hounds took aim at the enraged Sangvis and brought it down in a matter of seconds. The second Goliath was quickly killed with three grenades.
By that time, I was already heading towards the door, I was going to ask them what in the hell they thought they were doing. I reached the ground floor and felt reassured that the wounded marine was beside me. I had just seen what those things had done and they had a reputation.
The four Hounds were now standing together in between their pods, all of the enemies around them were gone. Not to take credit away from myself as well as the marines, but they had saved us, even if I was to stubborn to admit it right then. The four soldiers were talking to one another while they grabbed supplies from their drop pods.
"Hounds," I called out.
The four figures turned at superhuman speeds and trained their weapons on me. I didn't react, instead took two steps forward and stopped three feet away from the mysterious warriors. Their faces were covered by balaclavas and combat helmets.
"Damn, I almost killed the little fucker," one of them said. The voice was distinctly American. He was the one that had broken the elite's neck with his boot.
"Easy Four," the Hound with the surreal ability to cut up stuff with knives said. The voice was distinctly female.
"Sorry boss," said Four. "Forgot that there was a small unit here."
"You're kidding me?" a different Hound with an obviously female voice said. "That's pretty much the reason we were redirected here." As she said that she out her hand on her hips, a pose so natural that it seemed almost laughable.
"Are you Sergeant Percival Cameron?" The Female Hound said, pointing at me.
"Yes." I said.
"Very well then, our job here is done," said the one with the combat knives. "We're done here, let's send the message and be done with this."
The Hounds looked at one another and started moving out. The one that had impressed me the most looked at me and he lingered behind a little longer. I took off my helmet and held the stare of the soldier. I suddenly remembered the stories about how a Hound had killed a couple of Spec Ops in a boxing ring on some carrier out in the Pacific. I held my helmet under my arm. I had no doubt my face looked tired, underfed, and probably hollow. I must've made for a very unthreatening Spec Ops Marine.
"Don't look so innocent, Bastard! Where were you two days ago?" I asked with venom in my voice. "My entire unit..."
I might've imagined it, but I could've sworn that the man recoiled at that. He left after his friends without a word. I remember the white paint on his chestpiece, old and damaged.
I heard Little Birds, Chinooks, and Blackhawks overhead, no doubt the leading strike of a major offensive right after the ARTEMIS squad. I felt the whirring of an engine as a Blackhawk landed behind me. The last Hound turned the corner and my gaze was broken. I headed back towards the Helicopter with the image of the flinching Hound still on my head...