"A little bit of hellfire to brighten your day." Bull’s words picked up over the comms network as he rotated the round selector to the appropriate position and ensured the fire-selector was set to semi; no sense in wasting more than one round on this garbage.
For his size, Bull could be incredibly light on his feet. Years of martial training and rumors that he never denied or confirmed, ballet, gave the big man grace and deftness that his mass belied. So, it was no surprise to any of his squadmates how smoothly Bull spun from behind his cover, the butt of his cannon already rotating up into the pocket of his shoulder to come onto target as he dropped to brace himself on one knee for more support. He kept both eyes open to avoid restricting his peripheral vision as the pad of his finger came to rest on the trigger; the slightest pressure and he felt time slow around him. The kick of the weapon punching into his shoulder still caught him by surprise; the flash of the mini-rocket igniting as it exited the barrel was what he had been waiting to see before twisting back into cover. Bull's exit from cover, alignment on target, shot, and return to cover came so smooth and quick that it wasn't until he was back behind his piece of rubble that the sniper's final shot struck the broken street where the Recon Marine had knelt.
Hellfire rounds were an interesting invention; some called them inhumane, but only those who had never fired a shot in anger. A small powder charge expelled the shell from the weapon, at which point an internal rocket would fire, launching the round downrange. After approximately thirty meters of flight, the protective casing of the round sloughed off, revealing a ceramic round containing an incredibly flammable compound that would ignite upon contact with oxygen. Perfect for use against enemies ensconced behind cover or, in this case, snipers hiding in buildings.
The round launched from Bull's weapon smashed through one of the few still intact windows left, two rooms down from the enemy fighter who had recently fired. To his credit, the sniper had been keeping true to the art of his craft and repositioning. His luck failed him when he stepped into the room as the round pierced the lead glass of the window pane; small mercies, the explosive rush of oxygen to feed the fireball dragged the last breath from his lungs. The explosive asphyxiation saved him from suffering the agony of his skin splitting and running like melted wax in the raging inferno erupting with the fury and violence that had given the round its name.
As the flames crawled through the interior of the building, gutting the remnants of what had survived the initial firestorm started by the Renks, Reaver motioned for his squad to move out. Harlequin and Bull retrieved and secured their packs, Bull returning the round selection switch on his cannon to the standard anti-personnel notch. As the Marines resumed their trek through the backstreets of Craxus, they did so with a heightened sense of alertness; before, enemy contact had been a possibility, now it was a guarantee. What had once been merely the ruins of an allied city was now bad-guy land. Operating within enemy territory was nothing new to Recon, and the sensation of what could have been safe ground suddenly shown as not was new to only the newest member of the team, and Harlequin was learning quickly.
Reaver tapped into the relay network, sending a burst packet bouncing through that they had neutralized a sniper within Craxus. With no other enemy contact or sightings, they were proceeding toward the agreed upon rally point with Recon squads from the Baltim and the Salamis, two of the destroyers assigned to Task Force Fury. Getting through the city was going to take them at least another day, more if they came into further enemy contact. How had the Renks managed to evade the fleet's scans of the planet before the Marines' insertion? If they didn't find an answer here, this could be repeated on other planets. Or was it already happening?
Reaver shook his head to clear his thoughts; no sense worrying about what was happening elsewhere, he had his own war to fight. At the head of the squad, Harlequin signaled the halt followed by a 'come up' hand gesture. Reaver made his way toward his point-man to see what had his attention. Each member of the squad moved behind what cover they could find, plentiful in the debris-strewn street. Harlequin had secured himself within a recessed doorway, and as he moved toward the location, Reaver saw what had caused the halt. The street ended just beyond the building and emptied into a large square fed by what appeared to be four other side streets. In the center of the square, a pedestal for what may have been a statue now stood bare and vacant; debris littered the entire courtyard, erasing any indication of what purpose the clearing had once served.
Harlequin threw his thumb over his shoulder. "Check the next street mouth, tell me what you see," he spoke sub-mic.
Reaver edged forward, his right arm crossing over the butt of his rifle slung across his chest while his hand kept a loose hold on the weapon's grip to give him a smooth and rapid transition to a firing position. It also served to keep him conscious of where his weapon was and prevent it from clattering against any obstacles, a noise sure to give away his presence and position. Nearing the corner of the building and keeping his body low, Reaver slipped his head out of the alleyway and hooked to the right, spotting what Harlequin had seen. Debris in the mouths of the other streets was strewn randomly; here the rubble had been moved to either side, forming a funnel and clear space down the center of the road.
Slipping back to the doorway where Harlequin was secured, Reaver passed his left hand back and forth in front of his face, rapidly, to get his squad's attention. With quick hand motions, he explained the danger and his solution: two smoke grenades would go into the mouth of the street. Ten seconds after that, the entire squad would move, juking around the far side of the square using the concealment of the smoke and cover of the debris to get to the street across from their current position. If there were bad guys down the marked lane, then they would make their presence known, and the Marines would respond as needed.
Reaver thumbed a smoke grenade out of the bottom slot of the storage canister hanging from the left side of his bat-belt; each grenade was perfectly round with a three-centimeter diameter and only a centimeter and a half thick. The compound held within could produce a thick veil of smoke, color depending on the selection made before deployment, to obscure or mark a small to medium sized area depending on terrain and weather; within the tight confines of the ruined city streets, two grenades would blanket the street mouth and completely obscure the Marines from visual observation.
Harlequin pulled his grenade out, and he and Reaver moved forward to the edge of the building, letting their weapons hang free as they transferred their grenades to their right hands for a more accurate throw, and ensured that each grenade was set for black smoke. Just above an under-his-breath tone as his hands were too busy for the PPT button, Reaver spoke. “On my mark. Three, two one, mark."
Reaver and Harlequin stepped out from cover and, with overhand slings, sent the explosives hurtling through the air toward the intended target. The two Marines ducked back behind the building before the grenades landed. The telling sound of metal striking stone was audible in the silence of the abandoned city, followed shortly by the sharp pops of the charges detonating and exposing the compound to its activating agents: heat and oxygen. Thick plumes of black smoke billowed from the grenade casings, and in a matter of seconds, a blanket of smoke lay over the exit, obscuring the square from view by anyone looking down the street.
Reaver completed the internal ten-second countdown he had started after hearing the pops of the detonators and gave a sharp 'follow-me' gesture before slipping into the square and working his route away from the now blacked out side street and around the open area. The Marines of his squad followed him into the open and away from the perceived safety of the enclosed street. Each Marine varied the speed at which they progressed, sometimes right on the heels of the Marine in front of them, other times creating distance. They darted behind pieces of rubble and attempted to keep their movements as quiet as possible. No matter how hard you try, no matter what techniques you employ, it is impossible to keep the passage of eight Recon Marines
carrying full combat loads entirely silent, especially when crossing broken and uneven cityscape.
Reaver was beyond the pedestal of the shattered statue, and perhaps twenty meters from the side street he had set as their objective when the enemy weapons opened fire. They heard the heavy feathering of metal passing metal as the barrels began to spin. Reaver had a fraction of a second to drop behind a jagged piece of graphcrete before a heavy cough echoed from the enemy position preceding the roar of each barrel firing in quick succession as they passed the actuator. The soft sound of linkage and casings being ejected from the weapon almost drowned out the racket of the weapon’s thunder as rounds shredded through the masking veil of thick smoke and into the square in hopes of finding a target.
With no way of knowing how far back into the street the Renks had set up their weapons nest, Reaver had no means of determining the field of the weapon’s fire. If they were near the street's entrance to the square, then their field of fire would be much wider than if they had positioned further back.
Reaver turned his head over his shoulder to check on his squad; Harlequin and Bull were secured behind cover not far from him. A muffled grunt and curse, loud enough to be heard over the roar of the gun, yanked his attention further back to see who had been hit. At first it looked like Bard was down, but Bard had just been the closest to the wounded. He attached a drag-cord to Space Case's combat vest and was using the tether to stay low and move his fellow Marine out of the line of fire, toward a larger piece of rubble Alice already hid behind. Beyond the curtain of lead being laid down, Reaver could see Wolf and Titan huddled behind the graphcrete base surrounding the pedestal. His earbud crackled in his ear, and Wolf's voice came through. "Guess the smoke was a good idea. We almost made it without a problem." Her tone was chiseled from ice, with no indication of stress or concern.
Reaver sent a thumbs-up to Wolf showing he had heard her transmission and agreed, then thumbed his transmit switch. “Bard, give me a status on Space."
"Through and through, left leg. Caught him midstride. It's gonna hurt like hell, but he'll be able to walk." Bard's answer came rapid fire, and Reaver breathed a silent prayer of thanks that it wasn't worse.
Reaver thumbed the switch again. "Y'all sit tight and stay frosty. I'll take Bull and Quinn. Let's see if we can change this fuck's tune." Cutting the transmission and motioning for Bull and Harlequin to come with him, Reaver moved to the outer edge of the square and began working his way toward the smoke-marked street. The three Marines had to cross an open street mouth before they could reach the road still wreathed in thick plumes of smoke; as they passed into the shadow of the next building, Bull hissed at his teammates. Reaver and Harlequin looked back at the large Marine, who quickly signaled three enemy spotted, then motioned down the lane they had just crossed. Reaver cursed under his breath then mouthed, “They see you?" Bull shook his head in response.
They crouched in the shadow of a building that split the two streets where the enemy combatants were firing from and towered five stories over the square. A doorway, sans door, faced into the square, and Reaver led his team into the darkened interior. Some smoke from the Marines' earlier grenades had filtered into the building. Inside the structure, the heavy staccato of the weapon firing on their squadmates outside was lessened, quieted by the still intact walls.
Moving cautiously, the three Marines searched through the building; finding stairs, they began working their way upward. The second floor showed the building to be some form of residency, either a hotel or apartments, as doors stretched down either side of the hallway, and the stairs continued upward. As the Marines continued their upward trek, Reaver thumbed the transmit switch on his rifle. "Keep an eye on the street to the left of the one marked. Bull spotted movement down it, and I've got a feeling we may have some visitors shortly."
On the fourth-floor landing, they paused long enough for Reaver to send a burst message across the relay network that Craxus was a hot zone, and to let the teams they were supposed to rally with know that Dragon Two was hard contact and not going to make the link up on schedule. Acknowledgments filtered through his earbud, and he tuned them out.
On the fifth floor, they found fewer doors, and Reaver signaled Harlequin to find a firing position to shoot down the street toward the heavy weapons fire. He motioned Bull to the opposite side of the building to set up an elevated ambush position to take out anyone coming at the Marines on the ground, from the street he had sighted enemy movement. After the two Recon Marines selected their firing positions, Reaver made his way to Harlequin's side of the building to check on his sniper. He found Harlequin in the master bedroom of a suite nearer to the stairs than he expected. What further surprised the squad leader was that Harlequin had not set up his rifle for long-range shots; instead, he was peering out the window at the street below. The Marine sniper turned as Reaver came through the bedroom door, and motioned, with a finger to his lips, for his Staff Sergeant to be quiet, then pointed out the window and down, a broad grin cracking as mischief lit his eyes.
Reaver moved to the window to see what had Harlequin so excited and when he looked down realized what the sniper had in mind. The enemy's weapons nest was directly below the window, set far enough back that it hadn't been visible when the two Marines had spotted the cleared debris. The position didn't afford the weapon a full sweep of the square, limiting its zone of fire to about only a twenty-degree arc, but it was enough to keep Wolf and Titan pinned as the operator simply fanned the weapon back and forth along the arc available. The nest consisted of three enemy soldiers, each wearing black balaclavas to cover their faces: the weapon operator, an ammunition feeder, and a third soldier who was operating a radio. It was a fair guess they had reported the Marines' presence, though there was no way the Renks could know how strong a force was in the city. Time to cut out one of their eyes.
Harlequin had already secured a fragmentary grenade from his belt; three times the size of smoke grenades as more material was necessary to fulfill its purpose, and with a more cylindrical shape rather than flat and circular. Reaver drew one of his grenades and set the detonator to three seconds.
Cooking a grenade was no longer required as the explosives could be set to trigger at an exact time after the spoon had popped; if no time was set, then the grenade would default to five seconds. Pulling a pin was a relic of the past; today, the explosives were actuated by depressing a button on top of the grenade with your thumb and then sliding your thumb down the left side until the button locked into place. The spoon resembled those implemented on grenades used by the American military and was still held against the webbing of the throwing hand, between the thumb and forefinger.
With their grenades ready and held securely in their right hands, the two Marines used their left hands to slowly open two of the windows above the enemy weapon nest. The windows squealed as they swung outward, and Reaver winced, pausing to see the enemies’ reaction. As the sound of the weapon's roar grew louder with the opening of the windows, Reaver swore under his breath and muttered. “Should have smashed the damn thing. Would have been easier, and they wouldn’t hear a damn thing.”
Harlequin stuck his head out the window, brazenly, and then brought it back in, grinning at his squad leader. His laugh wasn't audible over the roar of the weapon, though his good luck abandoned him as the weapon jammed, the roar of gunfire ceasing suddenly, and the barrels locked in place, as he gave his signature shout and released his grenade. “Get some!"
Reaver released his grenade at the same moment as Harlequin and swore again as he watched the radio operator glance up, hearing Harlequin's shout. The grenades detonated immediately before impact with the ground and before the enemy combatants could react to the Marine's shout or the danger raining down on them. The proximity of the grenades to their intended targets served to increase the lethality of the fragments sent spiraling through the air, slicing into the flesh of the three soldiers as well as the equipment within the weapon nest. Reaver and Harlequi
n stuck their heads back out their respective windows, and Harlequin’s grin grew even larger at seeing the carnage. The shrapnel had torn their targets to ribbons, while the concussive force had tossed the radio out of the nest and treated the slain soldiers as rag dolls. The body of the weapon operator was the only one left completely inside the nest as he was slumped over the mangled back end of his now smoking machine gun. Quinn could see blood pooling in the bottom of the nest.
"Smoked 'em, eh Boss?"
"Good idea, Quinn. Get over and set up with Bull on the other side of the building. Someone's going to notice real quick that their friends aren't answering the radio." As Harlequin picked up his rifle and exited the room, Reaver took a final look out the window to ensure there was no movement in the nest and thumbed the talk switch on his weapon. “Wolf, gun's silenced. Any movement down there?"
Wolf's voice came back a few seconds later. "Some. That blast was loud and definitely said someone was in the neighborhood."
Alice cut in as Wolf was finishing, no doubt using her scope to monitor the enemy alley Bull had spotted. "Movement, far side of the square. Just beyond Reaver's building, hammer and fist insignia. Confirmed Renks. Heavy weapons and rifles."
"Roger that, Alice. Weapons tight, see where they go."
Before Reaver could continue, a different voice, one that tugged at his memory for recognition, cut through on the external channel. “Dragon Two-Zero, Raider One-Zero. Flight of two, with escort. Inbound on Craxus, heard you could use a hand."
Dragon Two-Zero (Fury's Fire Book 1) Page 12
