5 km Outside Pawas
Afghanistan
Sol III (Terra)
15:43 Local (11:13 Zulu)
November 24th, 2552 (Military Calendar)

After what had been a hard-fought half hour, the five remaining marines of First Squad of Third Platoon were at as much rest as is possible in a hot zone. As the entire planet had been turned into a hot zone, that didn't mean much.

The "evens" from the squad—L/Cpl Maxwell Julian (callsign 3-1-2) and PFC Maria del Toro (callsign 3-1-4)—were racked out in their fighting positions in the most westerly of the two ruined buildings. Their "odd" squad mates—SSgt Patrick Murphy (callsign 3-1-1), Pvt Takashi Okada (callsign 3-1-3), and Pvt Eric Williams (callsign 3-1-5)—were standing their posts, weapons readied and pointed out over the no-man's-land that they had been assigned to cover.

Okada keyed his COM and reported quietly, "Staff, seven tangos, bearing one-four degrees. Range at just over four-zero-zero meters. Looks like a grizzly hunting party."

"I see 'em. Look sharp, marines. Do not engage until they reach two-five-zero meters. That's two-fifty. Understood?" replied Murphy.

A chorus of, "Clear," "Aye, aye, Staff," and "Understood," came back over the COMnet.

Twenty-five glutinous seconds stole past, their passage only marked by the eerie whistling of the dusty wind outside and the grunting, snarling speech of the grizzly squad headed straight for the marines. It appeared that the brutes weren't worried about anyone in the area; they sauntered in an open group, close enough for a single grenade to hit all of them.

As the creatures reached the two hundred and sixty meter mark, Murphy ordered, "Concentrate fire on the commander—that's the gold-armored bastard. Secondary targets are being marked in the TACCOM now. By the numbers, people."

The brown-furred, eight-foot-tall creatures suspected nothing until the rattling "Crack-crack-crack!" of assault rifles being fired rapidly in burst mode rang out over the empty, rubble-strewn plain. The leader's shield flashed golden for a moment and then failed under the massive amount of kinetic energy imparted by dozens of 9.5mm slugs. Its armor, and then its tough hide, followed in rapid order, felling the creature in a welter of gore.

Showing little unit discipline, half of the remainder of the squad attempted to go to ground and return fire while the other half charged, roaring a fierce battle cry in their guttural language. Quarter-inch diameter, red-hot, hardened tungsten spikes spewed from every single grizzly's weapon, however.

Some of them struck home. Murphy watched as Williams's IFF indicator shifted from a combat-capable jade to a flickering amber that indicated a disabling wound. Okada's went to a flickering scarlet that meant he would die without immediate medical care.

The rest of the squad continued concentrating their fire, however; the grizzlies died by ones and twos, none of them getting closer than seventy-five meters to the marines' positions.

As the last alien choked out its final, blood-filled breath on that dusty plain, Murphy raced from his firing position to Okada's, snapping into the COM, "Evens, keep a sharp eye out. That'll probably bring any of the fuckers left in the area down on us. I'm tending to wounded."

As Murphy thundered down to the second floor where Okada had taken cover behind a busted-out window, Okada's IFF went to the flat scarlet that indicated a dead comrade.

SSgt Murphy cursed under his breath and then continued on up to the third floor, pausing only to check for a pulse on the off chance that the bio readouts from Okada's armor had been in error. They weren't.

The third floor had been impacted by either a plasma mortar or something else that did one hell of a lot of damage at some point during the fighting; it was nearly riven in two. Murphy and Williams had taken opposite sides of the huge hole in order to cover the portions of the killing grounds outside that would have become blind spots otherwise. Almost thirty seconds of running after Murphy left his position, he reached Williams. Williams was lying on the dirty, broken floor, a six-inch-long spike stuck through his calf.

He looked up at Murphy's entrance and said, quite clearly, "Staff, I'm going to yank this out. I think I'm going to pass out at that point; so, if you would be so kind as to hit me with some biofoam, that'd be just shiny."

Never one for waiting, the young Brit pulled the spike out and then, true to his word, passed out cold on the floor. Murphy grabbed a canister of biofoam from his ruck and filled the massive cavity with it, bandaging the wound and removing the youth's helmet to prop Williams's feet up with it.

Murphy keyed his COM over to the channel assigned to the company, "Bravo Six-One, this is Bravo Three-One-One. Come back."

A pause of three or four heartbeats ensued as his words were scrambled and encrypted, then broadcast via LOS laser links that the squad had dropped on their way in to a microwave repeater nearly two klicks away. It took a moment for 1st Sgt Wilson's rough southern drawl to respond, "Go ahead, Three-One-One. Whaddya got?"

"Top, I've got one kilo-india-alpha and one whiskey-india-alpha. I need a medevac for the latter, and I'm down to three effectives. I am uncertain as to whether I will be capable of carrying out my mission if reinforcements are not forthcoming soon," Murphy replied.

"Damn. Well, we've got ourselves a problem, Staff," Wilson responded. "We've got a full-court press to the southwest; it seems that the grizzlies want to get to something in this town. You're all I've got up there, and the Old Man has his hands full at the moment putting out fires down here. I might, repeat might, be able to shake some CAS loose for you. I can't promise nothing, though. Wait one."

As Murphy waited, he moved his wounded trooper over into some better cover and turned up the heater on Williams's armor; it was cold up at the altitude they were, and the young man could easily go into shock.

He had just moved back to a sentry/firing position at the window when Wilson contacted him again, "You're in luck, Three-One-One. Pelican Golf Three-Five-Niner, callsign 'Cheyenne', is in the area. He's on COMchan Five. Again, that's Golf Three-Five-Niner, on COMchan Five. Oh, and our 'friends' are going to be a little late to the party. At least another hour is the best ETA I've gotten thus far. Good luck and Semper Fi."

"Aye, aye, Top. Semper-fucking-Fi."