One aspect that I have found enjoyable about writing battle scenes is throwing 'oh shit' moments at characters. "No Op-Plan survives first contact" is one of Murphy's Laws for Combat, and man does it ever apply here. Both sides were optimistic about how this fight would go. O.W. figured the police would come to their senses and there would be no fight at all; or at the very least realize O.W. was serious and back off. The police had it in their minds they would sweep aside any token opposition and cruise into town and a ticker-tape parade. If you think your plan is going well, you have no idea what is going on.


. . .

"C'mon, c'mon!" The driver of Patrolman Hynen's MRAP was fighting with his vehicle to keep it moving forward. "Don't, no, not now, not here! Shitshitshitshit!" Their wheels caked with mud and the ground saturated with rain, sixteen tons of armored truck began floundering as its wheels lost traction. To their left and right, Hynen could see other vehicles were having similar difficulties.

"Star-Actual, we are not going to make it!" One of the Sheriff squad leaders called out over the radio. "Half my vehicles are stuck or will be. We either have to stop and dismount, or turn back."

"Star-Actual, same here for us!" Philipsburg Police were having just as rough of a time. "My vehicle is already stuck! We are going to be sitting ducks out here; what am I supposed to do?!"

"Deploy smoke as cover, wait for further orders!" Sheriff Sarabyn sought to buy them, and himself, some time to make a decision. Roof mounted launchers popped off smoke rounds and put up a screen. Mercifully, the amount of fire hitting their vehicles dropped off and they received a reprieve from the noise. Into their own smoke bank they moved, now hesitantly and unsure what to do.

"They'd better figure out something real fuckin' quick." The trooper next to Hynen said. "We've gotta be getting close, we'll be on top of them soon; if we don't get stuck that is."

"All vehicles, all vehicles, halt, halt halt!" Sheriff Sarabyn ordered. Hynen's MRAP stopped as commanded and they could feel it list to one side as they settled on the soft ground. "All call signs: disembark and form a double skirmish line, then advance and engage. Vehicle gunners, continue to provide suppressing fire!"

"DO FUCKING WHAT NOW?!" Hynen roared as the order came down. He could see the tops of the trees above the smoke. They were still at least one hundred and fifty yards away from the trees. "Disembark?! Does the Sheriff have a fucking death wish?!"

"You heard him, Trooper." Hynen's squad leader admonished and pointed at the rear hatch. "Get that hatch open and get lined up!"

"We're gonna die, we're gonna die, holy shit, holy fuckin' shit…" The trooper next to Hynen muttered as he followed Hynen out the hatch and onto the field. Immediately they were over their ankles in mud. "Oh God, what are we doing, we're gonna die out here…"

"Line up, form a line, form a line!" Sergeants and corporals jostled their squads into order, all while bullets still sang around their ears. "Lieutenant, squad is ready!" Squads sounded off to lieutenants, who sounded off to their chief or captain, then all to Sarabyn. "Ready to advance on your go!"

"All signs, cover your assault and advance!" They fired from the hip as they slogged through the smoke, fog and mud. All around him, troopers slipped and slid, or dropped with heavy splats when shot. The trooper that had been next to him in the MRAP ran with him now, then lost his footing.

"Get up, we've gotta get out of the field! Get up!" Hynen grabbed the drag strap on the collar of his neighbor's plate carrier and started pulling him up and forward. Almost on his feet again, there was a heavy TH-WHAP! Hynen's gun port neighbor was hit in his upper chest. The struggling human in Hynen's hand turned into dead weight. To keep moving, he was forced to drop the body and it landed face down in the muck. In the thick of the fog and smoke, he couldn't see how much farther it was to the trees. Mild panic was growing, shouldn't he have made it by now? Why was it taking so long to get through the smoke? Why were they conducting an infantry charge when not a single one of them possessed a bayonet? Were they actually twice as far as he'd thought? Was he lost, turned around, heading the wrong way?! Keeping with his line was the only way to maintain some form of direction. After an eternity, in reality a few seconds, they broke through the smoke and into the clear. Only there did they realize the smoke was short, and there was still one hundred yards to cross.

. . .

"Adjust drop up by two inches, hold right three inches." Naota called the shot adjustment for our newest target: a turret gunner in one of the MRAP's.

"Up two inches, hold right three inches." I confirmed and readied to fire. To my and Naota's disbelieving amazement, the police line had come to a complete halt two hundred yards shy of the tree line; what vehicles had made it that far. A dozen or so were either stopped dead from damaged engines, or were stuck fast in the mud. Once halted, they had popped smoke, then all the back hatches of their vehicles simultaneously opened. Officers in dark blue, brown and khaki, and blue-grey disembarked and formed into skirmish lines, then began to advance through their smoke. I held my adjustment between the shoulders of a turret gunner as he provided covering fire. Squeeze the trigger slowly. Take your time. Control your breathing. Fire on an empty set of lungs. Listen to your heartbeat's pattern, fire between the thumps. The shot comes as a pleasant surprise. I try to spot each round's impact, the splash, but my eyes aren't quite good enough to do it past five hundred yards. This one I didn't need to follow. Three quarters of a second later there was a spray of red, the gunner slumped forward over his weapon and his firing stopped.

Up on the bolt, with the knob at the crux of my thumb and index finger, pull with the base under my index finger, all the way back to the bolt's catch, push all the way forward with the base of my thumb in one smooth, firm motion to pick up another round until the bolt stops against the chamber face, all the way down. Do not move your head away from the stock or eye away from the scope. Finger back on the trigger. Naota will call a target, you will find it, and then both of you work out the adjustments. Once those mesh, go about firing again. Breathing control, heartbeat control, trigger pull control. Consistency. As long as the math is good, variables known and accounted for, practiced motions done the same way each and every time, the gun will put every round where I want it…each and every time.

Hollyweird movies want to paint snipers, or even marksmen, as eclectic and quiet mysterious loners, soft-spoken and in some cases, edgier than a box of straight razors. All of this due to a sniper's line of work being more 'personal' than your average rifleman or machine gunner. To me, it felt no different than if I'd used an AK, a shotgun, or a pistol. It was just another role, my assignment: provide deliberate, accurate and precise fire on priority targets. I actually took comfort in the calculation of my method of engagement with our enemy. I was not suppressing an area with a belt of 'To whom this may concern' from a machine gun, nor was I wildly wounding with a hurried shot at close range like one of our riflemen. I had only fired twelve shots by that point, and I had hit, and either killed or fatally wounded twelve targets. Each round had either been through the head, or both lungs, or the heart. All three would guarantee a quick, non-suffering, kill. There would be pain in a lung or heart shot, of course, but it would be very quick; a few seconds. I found no joy in what Naota and I were doing, and I know he didn't either. But we could pride ourselves on making every shot a quick, one shot kill, both doing our job and minimizing the human suffering for all involved at the same time.

"Good hit. One machine gunner down." Naota confirmed as the gunner's body was dragged off his gun and down into the truck. "They might be putting another guy on the gun, stay on the truck." I watched the turret, waiting for a head to appear in the hatch. Sure enough, about thirty seconds later, one poked his head up and peered around the hatchway and turret. This shot had already been figured, the wind had not changed, and I knew my hold off. Up two inches, hold right three inches. The rifle's shot surprised me again as it went off. Just as it should. There was a puff of splintered helmet and the cloth covering over it as the bullet struck forward and above his temple; right above his helmet's brim. A second spray of blood splattered onto a turret shield plate behind him. Your standard K-Pot style Kevlar helmet will not stop a full-sized rifle round going twice the speed of sound. This second man also disappeared into the MRAP and no one climbed up to replace him. "Make that two machine gunners down."

"Any sign of a V.I.P. target?"

"No, they have not left their command vehicles; as far as I can tell." We had on the table playing card sized pictures of State Patrol Captain Chojnakci, Sheriff Sarabyn, Philipsburg Chief Strong, and Osceola Mills Chief Warburg, and a few different pictures of M-M Marine uniforms; just to be absolutely sure. The Man in Black needed no such guidance to identify. "Whoa, wait a minute. Something's going on with that black tank."

"The Gage Commando?" I shifted my sight left and picked up the four-wheeled armored car. Four hundred and some change yards away on the road, it was in the pocket of the police wedge; prime spot for a commander's vehicle. The small forest of radio antennae on its roof made it all the more obvious. A closer look found the viewing periscopes and rooftop turret (this one a closed top turret with the stubby barrel of a grenade launcher) were all moving back and forth, scanning in a manner I'd call frantic. While Naota and I could see the back of the smokescreen, we couldn't see into it, or in front; where the dismounted police had actually charged. So something was up. "Yeah, their periscopes are moving a lot, so is the turret. I wonder if their charge isn't going too well?"

"Could be…can't see through the smoke. Ohhh…okay." The side hatch on the Commando opened and began to drop down. "The hatch is opening, I think someone's coming out!"

"Let's work out a solution, and quickly!" I readied my rifle and started the necessary math.

"Hold will be…" Naota and I scribbled on our notepads. "Up four inches, wind has died off. No hold left or right."

"I got the same." It was actually three and three quarters, but we both rounded up. Same difference at this range. "Hold up four inches, left-right dead-on." I settled into slowing my breathing and listening to my heartbeat. "Now we wait. First man down the hatch, is a dead man."

. . .

"If we can't do something about that fifty-cal, we're screwed."

"Has anyone tried suppressing it?" Sheriff Sarabyn needlessly asked.

"We've tried, but no one can get good fire on it. And when they can, it's dug in so well that our shots don't seem to do anything. Star, we can't take much more of this!" One of Sarabyn's surviving lieutenants honestly summed up the situation. "Either we do something different, or we fall back; sitting here is getting us killed!"

"I know; alright?!" Sarabyn snapped, worrying about The Man and the Red Star Marine with him in the vehicle; and the hailstorm of bullets outside. None of this had been expected, none of this had been planned for. An ambush at a place of their enemy's choosing, backed up by machine gun fire, and protected by excellently dug fortifications, and all by an enemy that seemed to know each other's thoughts when communicating, was overwhelming the Sheriff's abilities. At this time, he was supposed to be leading a liberation parade through Osceloa Mills. Instead they were stalled in a field two and a half miles out of Philipsburg. Vehicles were getting stuck and floundering, officers were confused and overall discipline was unraveling as they began to panic, and the general order of battle was going from annoying, to bad, to worse, to a nightmare faster than Sarabyn could understand; let alone react to.

"Star?! Star-Actual, respond!" The lieutenant shouted and his voice filled the vehicle. Sheriff Sarbyn looked over at The Man and the commander of the Marine detachment; a captain. Both sat quietly and calmly; not a thread on their uniforms out of place. The Marine Captain was even more composed, with his face completely hidden. "What do we do?!"

"I….I-I don't kn…" Before Sarabyn could utter those fatal words, The Man snatched the radio from his hand. "What…what are…?"

"Sheriff, you're relieved." The Man stated. "I'm in command now. Lieutenant, begin rallying your officers and return to your vehicles. We will be pulling out soon." He ordered, while ignoring Sarabyn's half-hearted face-saving protest. The Man hailed the rest of the group and repeated his orders. He then turned to the Marine Captain. "Shayod?" (Well?)

"Kik ooshayod ahshayod badeg kiknit; badeg ookiksapola o milyosah." (Vinculum: I came here to fight; not admire the scenery.)

"Inyos oygabr o Humans gabr kik kik gawidshayod." (Vinculum: Then show the Humans how it is done.)

"Oo Kik badeg ooee ag sapola badegoo, badeg badegah oy sapolaleoh?" (Vinculum: Am I to attack and push forward, or cover our retreat?) The Man shook his head and sighed.

"Shayod kik shayod sapolaleohee. O kiknit seyshayod sey, badeg Kik kik badeg oy ag badeg makitoo ooshayod Kik ag." (Vinculum: We will be retreating. They might pursue us, so I will go out and do what damage I can.)

"Seylahpdut." (Vinculum: Understood) The Marine Captain took the radio and signaled to his squads they were to deploy and rally on him for orders.

"Deputy, open the hatch." The Man ordered, doffing his coat and jacket. "We're going out."

"Yes sir." The deputy dropped the locking lever, then let the hatch fall. He began to walk down the hatch door steps so he could cover The Man and the Marine Captain as they exited the vehicle. The Marine was right behind him, The Man after him. Halfway down the steps, the deputy was struck dead as a bullet slammed into his right jaw joint, plowed through the bottom of his skull, blasted through his spine, bounced off the hatchway and into the Commando; putting a hole in the brim of Sarabyn's hat. Flecked with the dead deputy's blood, the Marine had seen the bullet's entrance and exit wounds, and realized the shot had not come from their front. Rather, it was from their flank; almost behind them. Within the half second it took for him to figure that, the rifle's report caught up; a piercing super-sonic crack.

'Half a second between shot and report.' He thought, stepping past the dead deputy and looking for where he would have been if he were a sniper. 'That would put the sniper right about...' With an estimated circle of range, the most logical place for a sniper's nest was a three story building back off the road; and a set of windows on the top floor was open. 'Right there.'

"Uhisnebrebgwis!" (Vinculum: Operative!) He got The Man's attention, then put his left hand to his eye in a circle around it and tapped his goggles; like he was putting a telescope to his eye. He then kept his arm close to avoid drawing attention with an extended limb, and pointed at the house. "Eshkikah! Badeg-kiknit tuggabr!" (Vinculum: Sniper! Top-right window!)

"Gunner!" The Man immediately scaled the side of the nearest MRAP, scaring the rooftop turret gunner half to death as he appeared next to him. "Shift your fire onto that house, third story window, right side. There's a sniper up there!" The gunner swung his M240 and turret around and laid into the house. By now the Marine's squads had reported in. They were twenty in number, the lightest armed with their SCAR-H rifles, and demanded orders.

"Shayod oosapola sapolaoo, Kik! Makitoo kik oy ooyoh?!" (Vinculum: We are ready Sir! What is our task?!)

"O Humans ooshayod shayodbadegis nebbadeg ooseytugshayod sey. Oshayod sey ag okik sapola seyp shayod sey oy badeg ahkikshayod; badeg shayod kik gawidtugseyshayod seyahee ooo ooseyin. (Vinculum: The Humans have deployed two machine guns. These guns and their crews must be put out of service; or we will continue suffering heavy casualties.) The Man explained. "O oobadeg ooshayod oo Hunter oogawidp okik ag. Ootug, ooshayod kikp okik ooo sey, inyos okik rooah gawidshayod. Kik kik seyoo oy kembadeg okik Hunter. Seylahpdut?" (Vinculum: They also have a Hunter among their ranks. Captain, take first their heavy gun, then their smaller one. I will guard you from their Hunter. Understood?)

"Seylahpdut, Uhisnebrebgwis." (Vinculum: Understood, Operative.) The Captain gave his orders briskly. "Shayod Badegookikgawid! Lukoo Gawidshayod oh, Nebbadeg Shayod, Insapolashayod Kiknit, Oy seybadeg. Shayod seyp badegshayod keylobkikee ag shayod shayodkikyos, inkik badegahookikgawid kikshayod badeg in kikin sey. Badeggabr shayod!" (Vinculum: Wedge Formation! Squad One leads, Two Left, Three Right, Four Supports. We must move quickly and be efficient, this operation lives or dies with us. Follow me!)

. . .

"On the floor; NOW!" Rig was halfway through a magazine change and Naota only spotted the machine gun aiming at them half a moment too late. He left everything on the table, spotting scope, notes, calculator and all, and pitched himself backwards; off his chair and onto the floor. Rig did the same, pulling his rifle with him as he fell. A burst of machine gun fire riddled the wall in front of them, showing both with flakes of drywall, wood frame splinters, and glass from the windows. Their tables were ripped to pieces, their radio hit with a through and through shot, his spotting scope knocked off and shattered, the elevation bag and front rest Rig had been using were cut open and the sand within both was spilling out. As the machine gunner took the room apart, Naota dragged his rifle over to him, then followed Rig on a belly wriggling crawl out the door to the stairs.

"Do the Marines have super vision or some bullshit?!" He asked as they crawled along, bullets still punching through the house, snapping overhead and making a horrendous mess of the place. "How'd he see us?"

"No; not that...I know of." Rig pushed himself along with his left leg. "I don't think he actually saw us. They're just really, really fuckin' smart. He saw where the round hit, where it exited, and heard my shot. The math's pretty easy."

"They didn't have to shoot up the damn house." Naota grumbled while they slid down the stairs on their backs. "Look out below!" A round clipped the chandelier chain, and the glass and gold fixture plummeted three stories and exploded on the foyer floor. Shielding his face with his arms, his uniform caught the worst of the glass shards. "He's going to take this place apart!"

"Let's hope our dumb luck's held and he hasn't hit the quad. We stayed here too long anyway." Rig lead the way through the kitchen and out back. "It's way past time to relocate. You remember where?"

"Uh-huh." Naota had their map burned into his memory. "Through the back fence, onto the gas line, right hand turn, follow the line four hundred yards to the radio tower."

"Or, just head for the tower; but good on you for remembering." Rig nodded at the cell and radio tower. It was farther away from the front line by four hundred yards east, but was their second post should they need to relocate. With their cover blown and post ventilated by machine gun fire, there wouldn't be a better time. Rig hopped onto the quad's back cargo rack as Naota gave the quad a once-over for holes. "I'm settled, lets' go!"

"You'd better hold on." The quad had not been hit and roared to life. Naota took them as fast as he dared. Meanwhile, Rig used his personal radio to tell Tommy they had been evicted, and their observation and support would be down for ten minutes. "How do you think we're doing; are we winning?"

"Can't say. We ain't dead yet, and it didn't look like the cops had smashed through the line. And if they had, they'd run into Voyze and King; who'd give 'em a good beatin' too. I dunno, never done this before."

"You and me both. Almost there." The tower loomed above them. The top half was hidden in the fog, even the aircraft warning light was hard to pick out.

"Park us right under it." Under the legs of the Eiffel Tower shaped structure, Naota stopped the quad. A set of left and right alternating pegs on one of the tower's legs was their ladder, and the first platform at the intersection of the tower's legs was their intended post. It was going to be a climb of one hundred feet, and Naota was not looking forward to it.

. . .

Patrolman Hynen turned his head to watch the Red Star Marines pass by, relieved that at least someone on the field knew what they were doing. The Marines were shooting their SCAR-H rifles with pinpoint accuracy, even while on the move. Rounds seemed to bend around them, any hits that were made skated off their armor plates, and not one dropped any form of composure while under fire. Each squad also had a gunner with a HAMR, upgraded to 0.308 like the H-models; judging by its thundering report. They advanced in crisp formation, making quick, precise adjustments in their own strange tongue, and bore down on the M2 machine gun that had been giving the police so much trouble. The middle squad stopped and either went prone or knelt, laying down a withering suppressive fire on the M2's position. The squads on their left and right split and closed on the M2 in a pincer. The fourth squad stayed back, swatting away anyone trying to get counter fire on the suppressing squad. Finally, the pincer's jaws closed and the flanking squads silenced the M2 in a final burst of automatic fire and the screams of the dying crew. A lull fell over the field when the M2 stopped; both sides sensed something had gone either right, or horribly wrong. Their first task complete, the Marines adjusted their tack without celebration or fanfare, and continued on their way towards the M1892 machine gun. The entire maneuver took less than two minutes.

. . .

"Tommy! Fuckin' hell, Tommy!" In their panic, radio etiquette was forgotten. "The M2 team just got fuckin' rolled!"

"What?! How, who?!"

"Fuckin' Marines, that's how!"

"Where are they headed?"

"Towards the Digger, and fast!"

"Roger that." Tommy, on the far right end of the line, had to think fast. He grabbed the first two squads he saw and sent them to retake the M2 and get it firing again if they could. At bare minimum, they were to keep it out of police hands. Second, he called for his one and only option to deal with the Marines. "Hunter come in, Papa-Actual requests assistance."

"Papa-Actual, Hunter is moving to engage." Shifty was coming from his post at the corner of the line's L-bend. His breathing through the radio sounded like he was running at a full sprint. "Stand by, thirty seconds."

Shifty had seen the Marines cross the field and being engaging with the M2. He had dropped most of his gear except for ammunition and his H&H Royal Double Rifle. From a small lock box in his pack, he pulled out a Vial. If there were ever a time warranting its use, this was it. A practiced hand found a vein immediately and pushed the plunger home. Once he'd tucked his glasses safely away in his pack, Shifty stood with his aging vision now perfectly clear, and eyes shining the brightest blue. With two 0.700 Nitro Express rounds loaded, and another four between his left hand's fingers, Shifty charged the unsuspecting Marines.

"Makitoo kik inoo oo Human badeg...…HUNT-Guugghghggg…" (Vinculum: What is that mad Human do…HUNT-Guugghghggg…) CRA-K-THOOOM! The first Marine recognized the crazed human charging him for what he was a second too late. Moving faster than even a Marine could track, Shifty had fired his first shot. The round smashed a hole through the Marine's front chest armor, pulling the ragged edges of the hole into its wearer, as if the round sucked in anything around it, and then exploded out his back in an exit wound big enough to fit a softball. The first Marine's body had not even hit the ground and Shifty fired again, hitting a second Marine in a similar, gory fashion. Rounds spent, he opened the rifle, empty casings auto-ejecting with a plume of smoke, and dropped the two fresh ones in.

"Makitoo tug Syrinx oo inoo..." (Vinculum: What in Syrinx was tha…) CRA-K-THOOOM! CRA-K-THOOOM! Two shots, two more dead Marines with fist sized holes punched in their X-rings. With four shots and four downed squad mates in less than half as many seconds, the rest of the Marines realized something wasn't right. A HAMR gunner found Shifty first and opened fire. As Shifty moved from left to right, the HAMR gunner couldn't track him. While Shifty didn't disappear and reappear in a flash, he moved with just enough haste to stay in front of the tracers. Even shooting and bringing his gun around as fast as he could, the Marine's burst missed and he paid dearly. Not having a chance to reload, Shifty swung his double-rifle around in his hands and drove the metal plate of the butt stock through the Marine's face. The momentum and force of the blow shattered the Marine's goggles and respirator, caved in his skull's facial plate, and knocked him fully horizontal with his feet up in the air and pointed at the sky.

'One squad down.' Shifty thought, tacking on an N.O. flow that carried him up a tree trunk for an up and over, downward attack on the next squad. 'And three to go…but where's THAT Man?' As he used a Marine's face as a landing pad for both of his feet, following the unfortunate soldier's head all the way to the ground in a skull-crushing finish, he got his answer.

"HUNTER!"

'There he is.' One hundred yards down the line, The Man emerged from the smoke and fog; armed with his Coonan pistol and Applegate-Fairbairn knife.

"Your blasphemous abuse of N.O. ends now!" The Man proclaimed. "I will not suffer a Heretic, especially a Hunter, to live."

"Bold words for someone about to take a tomahawk to his skull." Shifty snapped his double rifle closed on his last two free shells. The others he wouldn't have time to draw from his ammunition belt.

"I admire your optimism." The Man smiled and advanced. "But if you think you can, you're welcome to try!" Shifty fired off the last two rifle shots he was going to get. The Man pitched himself up and over the twin rounds. While this meant he would land unscathed, it gave Shifty enough time to toss aside his rifle, and draw his tomahawk and own pistol: an S&W 460. Before he could use either, he had to get out of The Man's way. Coming down from a leap, The Man missed Shifty by a whisker and instead cratered with his fist a two foot wide and six inch deep hole in the dirt; shaking the ground.

Shifty responded by firing one of his revolver's five shots. He knew he wouldn't get a chance to reload his revolver either, so he would have to make them count. This one missed The Man's head, but ruffled his hair as it went by. The pair charged each other, slamming together with the force of colliding freight trains. Shifty was knocked back, then The Man worked his foot between the two and with a hefty shove, threw Shifty against a tree. Dazed, he wildly fired. The round missed his intended target, but nailed an unfortunate Philipsburg officer in the shoulder; separating the limb from his body. The Man fired as well, two shots. One took off Shifty's hat, and the other was stopped by his body armor. Even with the hard plate, and trauma pad underneath, the shot was still a hammer blow. Bracing against the tree trunk, he threw himself aside. Where his head would have been, a basketball sized gouge was carved out by The Man's left hook and the displaced wood exploded in a ball of splinters.

"Hunter, oh Hunter." The Man shook his left hand, the glove's knuckles cut away and his skin ripped open. "You're hopelessly outmatched. Barely fast enough to be difficult."

"Oh? Am I annoying you?! GOOD!" Shifty took a swing at The Man's head with his tomahawk, who ducked under the blow with ease. Mid-swing, Shifty fired for a gut-shot; even just wounding him would be wonderful. Righting himself, The Man had no longer than the twitch of an eyelash to address the bullet headed for his stomach. He turned to his right, bringing his knife around to just barely brush the bullet; enough that it missed his skin, but still put a hole in his vest and shirt. In retaliation, he fired three shots: one a clean miss that buried itself in a tree trunk, the second along Shifty's shoulders and back, leaving a shallow burn, and the last blew off a chunk of Shifty's right cheek between his upper lip and eye socket. Face opened and bleeding, Shifty brought down his tomahawk in a skull-splitting swing. The Man's knife caught the blow and he shoved Shifty's arm back and away, firing at Shifty as he fell. Two shots came down at him, one between his legs, the other clipped the outside of Shifty's thigh. Landing hard on his back, he took aim at The Man's right shoulder and loosed a round. It zipped up The Man's shirt sleeve, chipping his elbow, and plowing a channel across his right shoulder. Wincing at the sudden pain, The Man took a step back.

Shifty completed his backwards fall by rolling, ending up in a crouch; but on his feet. Seeing his enemy down, but not out, The Man dug in his heels and stopped his backwards stagger. Both charged forward again, each firing his last shot at the same time; and same target: the other's gun arm. Between them, both watched in stunned disbelief as their rounds collided in mid-air. The larger 0.460 enveloped the smaller 0.357, but the impact knocked both off course and to the side. Then both again slammed together, Shifty dropping his revolver as its front sight snagged on The Man's vest. Shifty pushed back this time, using the bottom of his tomahawk's curved main blade to hook the back of The Man's pistol. With a near shoulder-separating yank, Shifty pulled the pistol from The Man's hand; who's only other option was to have his trigger finger and thumb broken trying to hold on. Now they were down to the edges of their blades.

Both switched knife and tomahawk from left hand to right. Round and round they circled each other, The Man looking for the perfect moment to strike, and Shifty hoping his opponent made a mistake. Neither had long to wait. The Man lunged forward with his double-edged dagger, his reach just shy of Shifty's abdomen. Shifty again swung down, and his blow was stopped mid-swing. The Man's hand had shot out and caught Shifty by the wrist; squeezing so tight Shifty's fingers went numb and his grip on the tomahawk began to fail. The Man lunged again, trying to force Shifty's right arm up so he could deliver an uppercut stab below Shifty's ribs and into his heart. But now, because of his inability to get away, and The Man's unwillingness to let his quarry go, Shifty had The Man right where he wanted him. Wrist bones beginning to crackle under The Man's grip and fingers numbing white, Shifty let his tomahawk fall and kicked with his right leg at the same time. Now, The Man had a choice. He could let Shifty's leg hit him in the side and kidney, but knock aside the falling weapon and deny Shifty a fleeting chance to catch his tomahawk. Or, he could land a blow on Shifty's leg and gamble Shifty wouldn't catch his tomahawk at all; let alone land a blow. Figuring the odds of Shifty making the catch were low, and the benefits of getting in a crippling blow high, The Man buried his knife's blade to the hilt in Shifty's upper leg and stopped the kick. Immediately, The Man realized he had chosen poorly. Shifty caught his tomahawk, in a backwards grip with the ax blade back to him, but the spiked side of the head pointed out. With no time to spin the handle, Shifty swung and planted the four-inch long spike in The Man's upper arm. Neither let out a scream or cry, but instead stared at each other with the burning hatred of a thousand suns. Neither would let the other go, Shifty by pulling out his tomahawk's spike, or The Man by taking his knife out or releasing Shifty's arm. Now it was a fight to see if The Man could keep his grip, or if Shifty would bleed to death first.

With a four inch spike buried in his arm, completely through his bicep, and Shifty leaning back and putting all of his weight on it, The Man's arm began to shudder. If it meant pulling his shoulder, elbow, wrist, and even fingers, out of socket, Shifty was determined to rip The Man's bicep muscle off his bones. The hole around the spike began to widen and there was a small ripping noise as the flesh tried to hold together. Unwilling to sacrifice his arm, The Man solidified his grip on Shifty's wrist. In one motion, he pulled his knife from Shifty's leg, then spun to his left. This pulled the spike from his arm, while launching Shifty free and clear; end over end. He landed hard and rolled, quickly scrambling to his feet in anticipation of a follow-up attack. Neither were in the shape for continuing their fight, The Man's right arm unable to move up and down, and Shifty barely keeping on his feet. By now, The Man had given the Marines ample time to withdraw, and kept Shifty from ripping the police ranks apart. His objectives were complete, and the prudent choice would be to cede the field and fight another day.

"Ad…admirable. For a Human." The Man acknowledged and sheathed his knife. Not taking his eyes off Shifty, he stooped and collected his pistol. "I haven't had a good fight in years. Thank you, for being a challenge."

"It was…good, for me…too." Shifty didn't put away, but did lower, his tomahawk. "And, I'm not going…anywhere. Come back, when you're ready for another round."

"I'll hold you to it." The Man stowed his pistol, then tipped his hat. Shifty, hat-less, dipped his head and gave a small salute in return. Both parted ways. Shifty picked up his hat, rifle and pistol, found a stump to sit on, and began binding his leg. The Man returned to the police line. The entire exchange had taken three minutes, and the battle still raged on in bloody fury.

. . .

"Harvey! Shift your squad right, cover those trees!" Stuck out in the open, moving forward painfully slow and taking casualties all the way, Sergeants, Corporals, and even Patrolmen, were finding themselves in charge of squads. Patrolman Hynen found himself in just such a position. Now he was trying to jostle his own squad, and the ones to right and left, into the shelter of the trees. It looked like they were just about to manage it. The M2 gun had been silenced, incoming fire had slackened, and a light breeze pushed their smoke screen with them. But the squad to his right, Corporal Harvey's now, was bunching up too close to his. Screaming in Harvey's ear over the radio didn't seem to be doing it, not with the deafening din. Waving his arm frantically was the only way to get the man's attention. He got Harvey's, and unfortunately an I.P.A. rifleman's attention as well. "You're too close! You're bunching up, move to your…" THR-WRACK.

The rifleman shot him in the head; almost. An AK-47 round sledgehammered the side of his head, spinning his helmet around in front of his eyes, and took his legs away. Lights flashed in front of his eyes, but past those was nothing but black. The impact set his ears ringing and no other sound reached him but the dull buzzing. For a moment, with no sight, sound, or much feeling at all, Hynen thought he was dead. Then his eyes adjusted and he could see the liner inside his helmet. He rotated the Kevlar bucket around and now stared up at the bleak, grey sky. His fingers found a ragged hole blown in the side of his helmet, both where the round had entered and exited. Able to see again, and some feeling coming back, he couldn't force himself to stand. Nothing seemed to be working, except his eyes as he blinked out the rain. From his shoulders on down, feeling slowly returned and he became aware he was soaked cold with mud all down his back.

'Uhhggghh…aw shit…it's all soaked into my uniform…got mud and water in my crack…this's gonna chafe like a motherfucker…' He sat up, ears still ringing, vision blurry, and head reeling. 'I'm gonna get swamp-ass for sure…attack during a fuckin'…rainy day…shit, my head hurts…' A pair of shoes stopped next to his left leg. Black shoes. Expensive…black shoes. Expensive black shoes encased in mud, but there they were. Who would be wearing those out here? He looked up.

"What in Syrinx are you doing, Patrolman?" The Man sounded more disappointed than anything. "Have you been ordered to take a rest?"

"N-no, Sir." He lifted a wavering arm and tapped the holes on his helmet. "Took a hit here...and I'm just, a little…woozy, is all."

"Be that as it may, right now is not the time, nor place, to be lazing about. On your feet." The Man picked Hynen up by his carrier's drag strap like he was a human sized grocery sack, and set him standing. He then picked up Hynen's mud-caked M16 and pressed it into his arms. "We are retreating, back to your vehicle. Move!" Hynen nodded and splashed through the now churned up ground, The Man right behind him. Once in he'd gotten Hynen back into his MRAP, The Man continued on to Sarabyn's Commando.

. . .

The climb onto the radio tower had not been as bad as he'd feared. Actually lying on a cardboard sheet across the grate decking was worse. Unlike the house, there was nothing for him or Rig to hide behind except a thin plate of corrugated tin. His bayonet could pierce that tin if he stabbed hard enough. But they would be difficult to spot and now five hundred yards from the road, harder to hit. And with the battle fully enraged, no one was paying them much mind anyway.

"Sounds like they've got the M2 working again." Rig remarked as the heavy machine gun's thudding resumed. "Thought we were done for when that Marine group set out. Looks like Shifty's pushed them back."

"I still can't believe I saw that." They had watched the brutal knock-down fight in open-mouthed amazement through their scopes. "Like…watching two myths go at it. Was that how it was to fight Haruko?"

"I can't give myself anywhere near that kind of credit." Rig put another ten-shot magazine into his rifle and chambered a round. "Ours was a lot more lopsided. It was me just waiting for her to maybe slip up, and her just whuppin' on me until her arms got tired."

"Looks like you and Shifty both gave as good as you got." Naota watched The Man cross the field again, holding his wounded arm to his side. "Can you hit him from here?"

"If he'd stop moving…" They tried to figure a solution, but The Man was moving too quickly and erratically for them to pin down; especially at their new range of over eight hundred yards. There were too many variables for a moving target at this range for them to be sure of a hit. "Let's find a different target; something stationary."

"Got one; possible V.I.P." Naota's eye was drawn to a blossoming plume of smoke. A Cadillac Gage Commando had caught fire, smoke roiling form its engine compartment. "Center of the line, burning vehicle. No one has left it yet."

"That's the Sheriff's command vehicle." It was impossible to not see the burning vehicle; even from this range. "Okay, let's set up a solution."

"Do we have time?"

"…Fuck it. Dial-A-Shot."

"You got it." Naota tapped in updates to their variables: 0.55 Ballistic Coefficient, Velocity 2,200 FPS, Weight 195 Grains, Range 870 yards, Wind 2 MPH, Wind Angle 10-degrees, Temperature 45-degrees, Humidity 95-percent. "Come on, come on…"

"Computer get out of bed yet?" Rig scratched on his notepad with his left hand. How he could read his off-hand scribbles was beyond Naota.

"Got it. Adjustments are…Come up three-hundred-thirty-nine-point-eight inches, hold right two-point-six inches."

"Three hundred forty inches and two point six inches, yep, math is good." Rig and Dial-A-Shot were in agreement. "That's…twenty-eight feet and four inches high. Oof."

"What?" Both watched the smoke thicken and the flames now reached past the engine grating cover. The side hatch began to open. "What's oof about a twenty-eight foot come up?"

"The bullet's gonna drop on top of him; not go through him. Here we go." With the hatch down, smoke rolled out of the hatchway. The passengers and crew would be bailing out soon. With a time to target of 1.2 seconds at this range, Rig would have to fire early to hit his target. As soon as a pair of boots appeared in the hatchway, Rig fired.

. . .

Arriving at the silenced M2, the squads Tommy had sent pulled the dead crew off their weapon and immediately got it firing again. This time they targeted Sheriff Sarabyn's Commando, now that the smoke screen was beginning to thin out. Its driver turned right, trying to hide behind one of the department's MRAP's. One of the M2's rounds found a weak point in the Commando's side rear armor, and penetrated into the engine compartment. The hefty 0.50 caliber round cracked the engine block. Oil and fuel began leaking as the engine knocked and sputtered; trying to force a dead piston to cycle. The leaked fuel and oil caught fire and the vehicle began to slowly fill with the choking smoke.

"We're going to have to bail out!" The driver watched his temperature gauges turn to red-line, as his tachometer and pressure gauges dipped to zero. "The engine's hit, we'll either catch fire or get stuck out here."

"Put the hatch away from the front line, and stop." The vehicle's commander ordered. "Then we'll get out and find the Sheriff another ride." With its last gasps, the Commando was turned so its hatchway was facing away from the main line and they could use vehicle itself as cover. "Okay Sheriff, you're closest to the door, so you'll be out first. Drop that lever all the way, the door falls on its own. Once you're out, wait for us Sir."

"Okay, okay…mm-huggh-ughkk!" Sheriff Sarabyn coughed as smoke stung his eyes and throat. "Here I go." The lever dropped and the hatch opened to what looked like shining light; compared to the darkness inside the Commando. Sarabyn bent double to squeeze out the tight hatchway, then stepped forward. He never heard, saw, or knew, what happened next. A thunderbolt dropped from the sky and crashed onto the top of Sheriff Sarabyn's head. The bullet, because of the angle needed to compensate for drop, came down from above him. At this range it had lost much of its energy, but still had enough to smash through Sarabyn's helmet and bludgeon into his skull. Sarabyn dropped like his strings had been cut, landing face-down flat on the ground; with nary a sound or an out stretched arm to cushion his fall. Two seconds later, the rifle's shot echoed.

"Holy shit, Sheriff's down!" The next man out stumbled down to avoid stepping on his commander. "Pick him up, let's go; get him out of here!" The fleeing crew and command radio team each grabbed a limb or equipment strap, then hefted Sarabyn across the field and into the back of a waiting Bearcat.

"Where's he hit? I don't see no holes." The medic looked over Sarabyn's front, his legs, arms, chest, but blood was pooling on the Bearcat's deck all the same. "Where's he…oh no..." Even with a bullet lodged in the upper portion of his brain, Sarabyn was still alive but non-responsive. The medical team patched over the hole and strapped him into a backboard to keep him from moving and risking any further damage.

"Did anyone radio Patrol? We gotta let them know."

"I got it." The Gage's commander hailed Captain Chojnacki. "Patrol-Actual, Patrol-Actual, this's Star-Commando. Do you copy?"

"Solid copy, Commando." Captain Chojnakci answered. "Patrol sees your vehicle, do you need assistance?"

"Negative Patrol. Star-Actual and Star-Commando are down and non-combat effective. I say again, Star-Actual and Commando are down. Transfer of command in effect; we're all yours."

"Roger, Patrol-Actual has command." Chojnacki assumed charge of all four departments. "Attention all call signs, attention all call signs! Patrol-Actual has been transferred command. Initiate Fallback Plan Bravo, we are leaving!" All officers still on the ground scrambled back to the nearest vehicle with an open hatch; dragging their dead and wounded along. Patrolman Hynen was about to close the hatch on his MRAP; relieved to be sitting down and the ordeal almost over. He gave one last look outside, and saw both the burning Gage Commando, and The Man running away from it. The Man's clothes smoldered and smoked, he had gone back into the burning vehicle to recover his coat, jacket, and case. Spotting the nearest open hatch, he ran to Hynen's vehicle.

"Room for one more?!"

"Yes, but hurry!" As soon as the hatch clanged shut, the driver threw their vehicle in reverse and drove rearward at flank speed with the rest. As the police retreated, they deployed any and all smoke rounds left, carpeting the field again in grey clouds. The remaining force drew back and formed a semi-circle, sheltering each other as they got turned around and sprinted back up the road; the last keeping in reverse until out of range. Then even Jeff and Naota lost sight of the police column.

. . .

A rousing, joyous yell went up across the I.P.A. line. They had done it! They had bent but not broken, and thrown back four police departments in their armored behemoths, and four squads of Red Star Marines; and even a Man in Black! The optimism quickly faded as the grim reality of their victory settled in. Groaning, screaming wounded, irreplaceable dead, several houses splintered by gunfire, the rolling countryside and trees ripped to shreds, burning and smoking vehicle hulks blackened the sky, and renewed rain snuffed out their jubilant mood.

"Carson! We need to move, now!" Pike was directing his foremen to get their squads ready to fall back. "We can't stay here; they could be regrouping to charge again."

"You're right, we can't take another charge like that. Good call." Tommy ceded to Pike's experience and gave the order to withdraw to the Abundant Life Church. "Pointer, are you still with us?"

"Roger, Papa-Actual. We're getting rained on, but we're here."

"Do you see any police vehicles; does it look like they're regrouping?"

"Negative. They formed up and rolled out. Fast as they were moving, they're halfway back to Port Matilda already."

"Roger. Continue to hold and observe until Papa has withdrawn. Then make your way to the F.O.B. How copy?"

"Solid copy. Pointer out." Naota and Rig waited on their perch for another ten minutes, watching an empty road. Only when Tommy gave the all-clear, that everyone living and dead had been secured a place on a truck, did they climb down.

"Just take us across the field here and onto the road." Rig said as Naota started the quad up. "I don't want to get stuck out of the gas line; and the road should be clear."

"If we get shot by a straggler…" Naota eased them off the concrete base and onto the grass. "I'm blaming you."

"We'll have bigger things to worry about; but that's fair." They drove through the middle of the battlefield, swirling with smoke, burnt metal, gunpowder fumes, and the stench of stagnant, bloody water. Of the one hundred vehicles that had charged their line, twenty had been abandoned. Twelve were burning from fuel leaks or blown engines. Eight had bottomed out in the mud up to their axles, and were hopelessly stuck. To their credit, even in their hurry to retreat, the police had left no one behind; living or not. But the signs of human struggle remained. Helmets, scraps of uniforms, a boot and its foot lying in the middle of the road, bloody bandages and dressings, the seeds of a brass mine made from spent shell casings, mud-caked rifles stuck out of the ground, and most visceral of all: pools of congealing blood, piles of spilled guts, and scattered body parts deemed un-reparable or not worth saving. Ahead, the trees were pockmarked and some shattered with thousands of holes; leaves, branches and limbs blown off. Trees well over a hundred years old, now dead from under an hour's worth of fighting. Amid the wreckage, Rig ordered Naota to stop.

"Look around Naota, take it all in. See this? All of this?" The sights, and especially the smells, were making Naota sick; but he swallowed down his rising bile and forced himself to look.

"Yeah, I see it alright. Jesus Christ…"

"THIS, right here, is what Medical Mechanica, what The Red Star does. Earth wanted nothing to do with The Red Star; we had no quarrel with them. Before the war between The Red Star and Galactic Republic started up again, Earth was perfectly happy to leave The Red Star howling at their moons and worshiping their cult idol. We weren't even terribly interested in joining the Republic. But The Red Star isn't content going off by themselves into the wilderness to commune with the spirits. They are bound and determined to drag each and every one of us with them, and will murder anyone that resists or tries to stop them. There are, and will be, people that will hate you and me for what we did here this morning. They will call us murderers. They will say we gave in to hate, or that we provoked this. And when they do that, when they try to guilt you into giving up, I want you to remember this field. Remember Sheriff Sarabyn throwing Tommy's offer in our faces. And I want you to remember most of all: WE DID NOT START THIS. We did not infiltrate a Red Star Planet. We did not turn their elected officials against their own people. We did not recruit their local law enforcement and turn them into our own private army. We didn't kick in their people's doors, we didn't smash up their people's houses, we didn't set up a super weapon to turn half their planet into mush-brained zombies at the flick of a switch. We didn't glass every major city on a planet that refused to yield, then starve and murder nine tenths of the population. We did not rejected every armistice, every ceasefire, every peace deal offered. We are not the ones that decided they cannot leave the rest of the Galaxy alone, and we did not make it our sole purpose to push our flawed, stupid, ass-backwards beliefs on everyone else; and murdering anyone that complained. THEY. DID. So, next time you have doubts, wonder 'what does it all mean, and what all is it for?' I want you to come back to this memory right here. Because this is what The Red Star does; this is what their true face looks like. And if we let them have their way, if we lose…this is what the future will be. Bloody, broken, burnt and ruined."

"A boot stamping on a human face, forever and ever…"

"Ahead of his time, that man." They sat in silence, listening to the flames eat the paint off burning trucks. "You ready?"

"Whenever you are."

"Then let's get the fuck outta here." Rig spat tobacco. "Such a fuckin' waste, all of this; and none of it had to happen. Get me outta here before I lose my cool." Naota dropped the quad into gear and took off for home. Back at G&R, the mood was bittersweet. It appeared they had won the day, but no one felt good about how they'd been forced to go about it. And the rain didn't help.

. . .


So that's the first really-really-real battle behind us and in the record books. I don't think either side anticipated the outcome, and learned both strengths and weaknesses about their enemy. There will for sure be S.W.O.T. analyses, and if you don't know what that means: bless you. But now there are definitely no illusions to the other about resolve or will to fight. And with the introduction earlier of Caleb Kauffman, you can be sure at least the police will be trying to manufacture some advantage over O.W.

Hands-down, my favorite lines in this chapter were: "Bold words for someone about to take a tomahawk to his skull" and "DO FUCKING WHAT NOW?!" I've found myself saying the second phrase during airsoft matches when the team C.O. orders my three man squad to take an objective, especially one waaaaaay behind enemy lines, by ourselves.

Humor aside, this battle, like most, doesn't really have a clear-cut winner. At best, both sides will lick their wounds and fight another day; which is what both sides were hoping to not have to do. Who will break first? The police, with an M.I.B. and Red Star Marines at their back...or Overwatch Forces with their backs to the wall?

Thank you again so very much for reading, and being a well-spring of saint-like patience. Hopefully you enjoyed this latest batch, and you'll let me know! Thank you!