NESTEGG had told them to hold fire. JACKAL had moved in and
was working on the convoy and the last thing they'd need
would be to have friendly fire rain on them. Still, she kept a
watchful eye, waiting to take out any strays that would get away
from JACKAL. The waiting was the worst part. She hated not
knowing what was going on, the feeling like she could be doing
more.
Just got some bad news from NESTEGG. Long Range
called through the radio. Bird Zero-One is down, three
Hotel Alpha are down, and Hotel Bravo has two down. Stay alert
THUNDER, we may not be done yet. Reacting before thinking,
she keyed her radio.
Any word on who She asked, catching herself
before finishing the question. Fuck. She had no way of knowing if
Repeater and Fastdraw were Alpha or Bravo but even knowing
that would be little comfort unless they knew who was down.
Negative Eight-Two. He replied, before adding:
We don't know if it's any of your team
that's down, but whoever they were, I'm sure
they're important to somebody. He emphasized the word
'your'. Who the fuck did this guy think he was?
First off, I'm sure it ain't any of my team,
second, if God forbid it is, you can be sure it ain't
because of anything they did, but rather because some dumb
motherfucker fucked up and caused it, okay? The last thing I need
is some know it all sergeant sitting here giving me shit because
I ask about the status of my team. It's not like I fucked up
what I was supposed to do here, because I didn't. So excuse
the fuck out of me for giving a fuck about the six other people
that I count on..
You know, Spec, you cuss a whole fucking lot.
You know what, Sergeant?
Choose your next words carefully. He warned, causing
her to click off her headset for a minute before saying something
she might later regret.. Hotseat was a far better leader than
this guy could ever hope to be. At least Hotseat deserved
respect. She clenched her teeth and averted her eyes, once again
maintaining her composure before swinging an icy stare his way
and keying up the radio.
Just send me in, sounds like they could use a little
Wolverine support. She tried. Wolves were primarily
designed for close range combat, this artillery shit is
secondary. The waiting was the worst, hearing the calls
come in, powerless to do anything until they received orders to
move, at least if she was there, she could give them some back
up.
"Again, negative. They'll call for support when they call
for support, and then you can volunteer your ass all you want.
Until we hear it from NESTEGG you're still on THUNDER, and
THUNDER waits here until we get told otherwise. Clear?" A
call came across the air from Falcon before she could respond.
"NESTEGG this is team HUNTER, have encountered two hostile
tanks and multiple infantry, requesting some tank support.
Tank support, the Wolverine could handle that, it was designed to
handle that..
Hold up, Eight Two. Long Range warned. No one
moves until we hear it from NESTEGG. Fuck. Hotseat
wouldn't be so worried about the chain of command,
that's how he got shit done. HUNTER called for support!
THUNDER had the ability to provide it, but they were just sitting
there. Artillery was bullshit.
JACKAL, this is NESTEGG. HUNTER needs some back up.
Status? Psyche Out called into the radio.
Negative, Negative. From Steeler, the el-tee in
charge of JACKAL. He was at A10. Convoy not destroyed,
JACKAL still needed, requesting back up. She swung her eyes
back towards the near defeated convoy, back up? Shit, Wolverine
could handle that too. What the fuck was Long Range waiting for?
THUNDER, clear to send in Tango to assist JACKAL. Send
Second Tango to assist HUNTER. From Psyche-out. It was
about fucking time.
Before she could move, Long Range responded with a Tango
Eight-one, I'm on JACKAL. Eight-Two He paused
for a second, her starting to move before he could continue.
They'd gotten the clear to go, she'd waited enough.
Eight-Two support to HUNTER. He finished,
after-the-fact, leaving Grand Slam next up in charge of THUNDER.
She'd made it half-way into position when the next call came
through.
"THUNDER this Kilo Bravo Zero-Three, I need fire mission at
my coordinates, I say again, bring down Arty on this
transmission, over." A smile briefly played over her face.
Ripcord. The smile was cut short as she listened to his voice.
Something was wrong. Arty on his transmission? Did he mean
"Negative, Bravo Zero-Three, no range." Grand Slam
reported. What the hell was Eight-Three's problem? Stupid
bastard, she thought she could count on him. He was at A10. He
called for Artillery, you wait for the signal he's out, you
fuckin' volley. No range? What kind of shit was that?
"I have multiple tracks concealed at my location and GOD has
reported expended all stores, insufficient weapons to counter, I
require fire mission over." It sounded like he was calling
through gritted teeth, anger straining his voice.
Fuck this. Ripcord needed back up. She keyed the radio.
"Zero-Three, this is Tango Eight-Two, Im on it. Get
your ass outta there, gimme a go when clear." She repeated
the coordinates to him, before moving the platform into range.
Let them bitch and moan about it later. About a minute passed.
Nothing.
Zero-Three, say again, Tango Eight-Two. Holding fire until
clear signal received. Still nothing from Ripcord. Shit!
Was he wounded? His voice sounded strained, anger or maybe hurt?
Shit! Fire, she'd run the risk of taking out one of her own.
Ripcord or no Ripcord, was one of their own. The fact that it was
Ripcord made the matter even more complicated. On one hand,
Skyboy was good. He knew what he was doing, she trusted that,
trusted him. On the other, she knew he'd sacrifice himself
for the mission, for the others. Fuck! Why didn't he just
answer? She flipped up her display and readied missiles 7-12. She
flexed her fingers a few times, checking her watch. Another
minute and a half passed. Just answer. She hesitated.
She'd give him one more minute then fire. The seconds never
seemed to move faster. Still no word from Ripcord. Fuck this
artillery shit. She hated the idea of firing blind, artillery
sucked. With armor, you had a visual. See your target, fire, see
your target disappear. You knew instantly if you hit your mark or
not, how many missiles connected, how many you wasted, and more
importantly if there were any friendlies in the area. With this
you had to count on someone else being there to tell you if your
task was complete. You best be out of there, Wally, please
be out of there She said aloud to no one as time ran
out. She took one more breath, ready to deploy 7 and 8.
"Damnit Tango Eight-Two, where's the fire mission?" He
called angrily. He was all right.
Holding until clear signal received.
Clear! Volley, dammit! Ripcord shot out before she
finished, her first two missiles shot out before he was finished
talking. Three more quickly followed. All sounds of distant
fighting stopped as she pressed the releases, the screaming of
projectiles through the air the only thing audible to her,
followed by several other distant explosions.
"Tango Eight-Two, repeat, repeat, repeat." The
explosions were magnified by his call, he was fucking close.
Repeat? Holy shit, how many of them were there? She didn't
question, him, repeating the volley until she was down to three
missiles.
"Tango Eight-Two, status."
Four remaining, say again four. Status Zero-Three?
"-am missiles." She caught the tail end of something he
said in a subduded voice. She was about to ask him to say again
when a louder transmission came through the headset.
"Recomend rearm. Zero-Three will attempt to eliminate
remaining tracks."
"Goddamn Three, how many are fucking left? Will volley two
more, again, two more then copy, rearm.
"Count zero-two tracks undamaged, zero-three
functional." Holy shit, what kind of stores did they have?
Eight fired, still five tracks? Did she miss? She punched the
control screen in frustration before taking a deep breath and
responding.
Copy. Volley Two. Paden, White, ready reload, Still two on
move. She released four and three before more screaming was
heard, this time from a different direction. Fuck, missile, from
where, from where? She didn't have time to look, barely
enough to cut a hard enough reverse right as she could as the
projectile streaked by landing close, too close. She could heard
shrapnel bouncing off of the vehicle's armor as the missile
connected with the ground her platform had rested on just seconds
ago. Sons of bitches weren't going to get her Wolverine. She
looked up to find the offender, a Heat-Viper hitching a ride on a
lone STUN, most likely a stray from the convoy.
Way to fuckin' go, Knock-Out man. She said with
scorn as she readied her shot by visual. One shot, make it
count Krieger. She flipped open missile two and launched.
One left. The missile hit it's mark, causing the small craft
to disappear in a haze of fire and sand, but not before a second
shot was fired from nearby. Once again she cursed, pushing the
Wolverine forward as fast as it could from a dead stop. The
second missile was also too close, the whole platform jerking so
violently she thought maybe she'd been hit, closing her eyes
to await a secondary explosion which never came. Sonsabitches! It
looked like a civie, a jeep of some sort with a meancing looking
missile tube rigged to its frame, not Cobra black and red, but it
fired first. She visualed and released her last missile, not even
taking the time to give a single 'one shot' chant as the jeep too
disappeared into a charred haze. Fuck. Spent, and a ways to go to
hit the reload site.
Without the added weight of the missiles, the craft should have
moved more swiftly, but it was dragging. Something had to be
wrong. Flipping the cockpit's hatch open she crawled out of the
craft onto the deck, carrying her M-4 just in case. She noticed
for the first time how bad things looked from her missiles.
Barely indentifible bodies mixed with the fire-blacked metal
littered the sandy spots where each of the enemy vehicles had
once stood, the bodies looking almost like the product of a low
budget slasher flick. She averted her eyes and went back to the
assessment of damage. Fuck! Track left, rear idler bogie was near
destroyed. Sonuvabitch! She'd be able to ride it back for
reload, but no way would it hold with the added weight of the
missiles. Bogies would take hours to repair. Without mobility,
the Wolverine would be as useless as the Sluggers. Stupid
cheap piece of shit! She said before crawling back inside
the cockpit and making the call back to Grand Slam. Tango
Eight-Two, hit, major damage track left. Need to She
paused for a second looking back out towards the distant pillars
of smoke in the directs of the camp and the convoy. Need to
pull back. She rubbed her hand across her forehead to wipe
off the sweat which was accumulating above her brow before slowly
easing the vehicle back. Sorry boys.
Fastdraw yelled to Long Arm, as he pulled him
back, taking cover in the crater. He took a minute to change the
magazine on his weapon before peering out to fire a few rounds at
the stray terrorists, smiling as he caught sight of Repeater
doing the same in the nearby foxhole that Falcon and an RTO were
also holed up in. He'd lost count over how many bastards
he'd offed. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the
two tanks in the distance. Where was the old man and the
chicken-shit when you needed them? He still had a single LAW
rocket to go, but would save them until the last minute possible,
knowing full well that from that distance they'd practically just
bounce off the heavy armor anyway. He felt a large hand grab the
back of his neck, and he was forceably thrown to the bottom of
the hole as a few bullets wizzed overhead. He'd been
focusing on the tanks and hadn't seen the two hostiles
approaching. Luckily Leatherneck did. After pulling him to
safety, the large marine cut the strays down in succession. The
Sarge in charge. Always good to have a big marine.
He heard the missiles streak in the distance and took a chance to
once again peer out of the trench. In the distance, he could hear
the artillery getting closer, one explosion after the other from
the opposite direction of JACKAL. What the fuckover? They had two
tanks firing on them, and yet THUNDER was dicking around?
Leatherneck said Falcon called in for support. He figured it
couldn't be Krieger, shed watch for the team first. He
rolled his eyes as he dropped back into the ditch. Unless it
involved Skyboy.
He took a quick drink from his canteen before rejoining
Leatherneck in helping to ward off approaching hostiles, a feat
made more difficult by the firing tanks. They were pretty much
sitting ducks at that point, where the fuck was backup?
An eternity passed, still more explosions from the distance, the
two tanks slowly approaching their postions. Fuck this. He wasn't
about to wait in a predug grave and die. He took one final peek
out of the foxhole before unslinging his final LAW.
Before he could climb out, another explosion was heard closeby.
They were still pinned, he hated not seeing what was going on and
worse, not being part of it. Another lesser explosion, then
momentary silence. He slowly peered up and out to see smoke
coming from one of the two tanks, the other engulfed in flames.
Where the hell did it come from? He didn't hear any approaching
anti-tankers... Didn't matter where it came from, was about damn
time it did.
Gunshots. Psyche-Out could hear a few distant gunshots getting
closer as he briefly removed his headset. From the sounds of the
reports coming in, sounded like a hornet's nest worse than
Intel had figured. He looked about the tent, quickly taking
stock.
McMillan, Law, Ashleigh, get out there, consider yourself
SPYGLASS until you hear otherwise. Take down anyone that's
not one of ours. No one reaches the command center. He knew
any terrorists that were out that far were just lone stragglers,
but then again, with the way things were going, he didn't
want to take chances. He patted Sparks on the back while taking
another breath before slipping his headset back on.
Psyche Out nodded his head slowly, listening to yet another grim
report, two more soldiers down. He didn't allow the gravity
of the situation to alter the calm look on his face, though
inside he feared the worst. It wouldn't do the men in his
command any good to see him phased, he rationalized. Their two
remaining functional Tomahawks could do little more than circle
the camp at a distance, taking out any strays which tried to make
a break from the encampment due to the high fire intensity.
Wounded were still on the battlefield, he had no way of sending
in any extractions. HUNTER was pinned down, KILLER was scattered
to the winds. JACKAL was having trouble containing the convoy,
chances are they'd need a second THUNDER strike, and THUNDER
was dangerously approaching the spent limit as it was. GOD still
needed another 30 minutes give or take to refuel and rearm before
another air strike was possible. On top of that, he had a sinking
feeling things were going to get much worse before they got
better.
