0110 – North of Kongwon Bo mountain range
Witt and his team had a split second head start on the Russians and that was all they needed to riddle six of them with bullets. The other four whirled behind the walls and out of the lines of fire.
"Go just go!" Witt shouted and shoved Long forward as he trained his rifle on the door. They'd have to get out quietly if they wanted-
A burst of automatic fire told Witt that the Russians had the same idea. That burst of gunfire would alert everyone downstairs. He pulled the pin on his last stun grenade and tossed it into the doorway to discourage chasers. The three ghosts sprinted as quickly as they could down the stairs. Long rounded the corner and snapped his rifle up and was immediately rebuked by a volley of shots.
"Shit." Long said and poked his head out for an instant. "Full platoon downstairs."
"And maybe another up." Park muttered as he heard boots overhead. "What do we do?"
"Head upstairs, maybe we can rappel from the second floor." Witt said. "It's a long shot but we have to try."
"Sounds just as bad. They'll be waiting for us." Park said. "And we can still get sandwiched."
"Not if I hold them off." Long said. "I still have my grenades. And you guys wouldn't be here unless it were for me."
"What are you saying?" Witt shoved him.
"You better move. We have a second. I'm not accepting any arguments." Long shoved Witt back. "Go. Sir."
"You've never called me sir before."
"Move." Long said as he pulled a grenade from his vest and flicked it around the corner. There was a shout in Russian followed by the crump of an explosion. Park moved upward first, Witt followed and looked back for a second to see Long drawing a C4 cube and detonator from his belt and unhooking his sniper rifle. He removed the scope last.
Park charged up the stairs smashing his rifle stock into the first Russian that was coming down and knocked him into the wall to be finished off by a three round burst by Witt. Witt took the second Russian with another burst, then unloaded his magazine into the rest of the squad that was funneling down the stairs. Park and Witt sprinted the rest of the way up the stairs amid the noise of the Intervention booming from the floor below.
Witt rolled into the doorway of the long hall, a burst of gunfire just skinning his knees as he did so. He didn't know what made him roll like that; it wasn't part of his training but it obviously had done some good. He tracked his rifle rapidly to the right and put a burst into the Russians chest. Park entered a moment later and snapped his rifle to the left.
"Clear left!"
"Clear right." Witt responded.
"Windows there." Park said and gestured to the doorway of the nearest room. The two of them stacked on the door, Park kicked it in and Witt swooped in, hunting for threats. There was nothing. Outside they could hear bursts of gunfire and the thunderclap of a tank gun shooting close by. It was so loud in fact that the windows actually shattered from the shockwave. Witt felt it reverberate on his face. He walked over to the window and poked his head out; the little town was a scene of carnage. Russian soldiers ran from building to building and traded fire with Chinese infantry. APCs with what looked like were Anti aircraft guns prowled the streets at slow paces, careful to riddle any house that the Russians pointed at with a hailstorm of rounds.
"Shit."
"Take it slow." Park suggested and Witt nodded. He unhooked his rapelling line and strapped it to the edge of the window-
"Tank on the road!"
It hadn't been there in the six seconds it took for Witt to secure the line but now there it was rumbling down. Its turret was facing towards them and Witt was sure that it had some sort of thermal sight. It could see the two ghost's perfectly.
"Jump!" Park shouted and in that second the fact that Park wasn't even Witt's superior failed to register. All Witt knew was that someone had given him a suggestion that sounded like an order and now his body was moving. Witt leaped out the window, his rifle cast to the side as time diluted itself. He could see everything as though it were caught in water, the entire town's movements were sluggish, below him a team of Russian soldiers had their weapons point up but they didn't fire. He caught the tail end of expanding air and heat that washed over his body as a 150mm smoothbore round lanced below him, pushing him just slightly higher up as it did so. Then he heard the explosion and crash of concrete and wood behind him the instant Park's vital signs flatlined.
Time resumed its normal pace then and Witt felt a sharp tug on his waist as the secured rope went taut and then snapped when the tank round hit and Witt continued to sail forward and eventually hit the road, seeing nothing but black and feeling the heat ebb away…
1210 – Washington D.C.
"My God look at that!" Dominique said and pointed toward the mass of red enemies that had just entered the battle space. "They have so many aircraft!"
"Russians aren't weak." Becerra muttered and put another spoonful of the delicious macaroni into his mouth. A number of US aircraft idling higher than the other aircraft turned toward the mass of enemy fighters. More movement caught his eye. "They have tanks too."
"How many of them are there?" Dominique asked as her eyes widened.
"Each tank stands for a four vehicle squadron I think." Becerra eyed the two and half dozen tanks that were moving alarmingly quickly toward his men. It was funny, the higher people got in the military, the more distant they became and also the more controlling they wanted to be over the battle. Becerra was Commander In Chief of all military operations and yet here he was, forced to sit on the sidelines and watch his boys and girls die like gnats under a blowtorch. A blue fighter dove low towards the tanks and released bombs, showering the tank holograms in fake explosions that the hologram took time to pause before showing that the bombs had destroyed two squadrons. It wasn't nearly enough.
"Can't you do something honey?" Domionique shook her head.
"Not from here. The boys there have a much better picture of what's going on than we do." Becerra stroked his goatee and frowned. It wasn't easy just watching this. That infantry unit on the right flank had alarmingly disappeared but the hologram still showed that there were Russian units shooting there and there was an APC squadron rolling towards them at a rapid pace.
"Do you want more Macaroni?" Dominique said as she got up to get herself some more.
"No thank you."
0110 – Kamatchka combat space
Goff put another two second burst of rifle fire through the window provoking a cry from the Russian she hit in the shoulder. This was a dicey situation; her platoon was split into fire teams, spread among the two streets by about three blocks in length. She ducked back behind the crates of machinery equipment to reload as a Pioneer to her left pulled out his Zeus rocket launcher and one through the support beam of the watchtower down the way, toppling it on top of the sandbagged machine gun below.
Goff flicked her eyes left and right to check on the position of enemy tangos and selected one for her target. The advanced HUD that was now regular use in US military forces allowed her individual troops better target identification and situational awareness. True, it took a month or so to actually get used to all the blinking lights in the middle of combat where red and green tracers crisscrossed and melted with explosions, dirt and smoke that were tossed in as well but that was why they were the Joint Strike Force. They were the best.
Goff popped up and took her shots, placing a six round burst down range and forcing her target back under cover of his crates which sparked with something metal when it struck. Her FMJ armor piercing rounds wouldn't do much good penetrating that. The angle of the machinery inside was sharp and would deflect incoming rounds to the sides. Ricochets could be lethal but it wouldn't drop her target. She ducked back down as a round snapped to her left.
"Squads sound off!" she shouted into the crosscom.
"Second squad's up!"
"Third's squad's pinned, but we're up! Taking fire from all sides sir!"
"Fourth squad's up! Gimme your position, Daniels, I'll loop around to you-"
"Second Squad what's your situation?" Goff heard the wet thwack of a round hitting the ghost next to her. She snapped her head over and saw him gritting his teeth and holding his shoulder.
"I'm up." He nodded.
"Sir! Enemy is pulling back here, I'm regrouping second fire team to me."
"Get over to me as quick as you can." Goff ordered and touched the side of her helmet to mark a GPS nav point that would show up on the sergeants HUD. "Take the left flank and circle the building. Breach and clear sergeant!"
"Understood sir."
"Okay!" Goff called to her own squad on their channel. "Second squad is going to swing around to the left and enter the building from there. We're going to lay down some covering fire so they can control the building, understood?"
"Yes sir!" her men shouted back.
"We own the night!" Goff tossed her spent magazine and loaded a fresh one. She was down to maybe four now. She'd lost track. "Covering fire!"
She popped up and put precise three round bursts into every window she could see. Some had targets, some didn't. Goff didn't care, her HUD couldn't always be right. It was only a few seconds before she had to reload-
"RPG!" she made the mistake and poked her head back up just as the rocket tore the air above and exploded behind her, tossing her onto the flat street without any cover, or a weapon. Goff couldn't hear anything, just the garbled chatter of the crosscom that didn't seem any louder than the muffled sounds of gunfire. She felt hands on her body and she was turned over, somebody was pressing against her chest. She pushed a hand aside.
"No sexual deviances today trooper." She gasped at the woman medic who was trying to find the wound. "I'm fine."
There was a ripping sound not unlike rifle fire but the note was deeper. Bigger rounds were coming into play. She turned and saw four Fastback IFVs rumble down the road, spraying rounds into the upper floor of the building. Goff began to mouth her orders but saw that her second in command had already taken the initiative, her Ghosts were sprinting up to the side of the building while the Fastbacks laid cover fire.
"Roll in breach. Go!"
One of the Fastbacks revved its engines up and smashed into the side of the building, creating a sizeable hole. It backtracked rapidly and Goff's ninjas piled through the hole shouting.
Goff lay her head back and saw the medic look over her. Her hearing faded away and the medic mouthed something and then Goff was swimming in blackness…