Aiden knew he had to report in to someone, and he couldn’t tell if the lieutenant was OK. Gunny was, though.
“Gunny, this is Kaas,” he sent over his MBITR PRC 148,[52] ignoring call signs and proper radio procedure. His brain was too amped to do that. “We’ve got Doc, Sgt Vasquez, and LCpl Gormish on the other side of the road from you, about even with our hummer. Vasquez and Cam are hurt bad, and Doc’s been hit. What do you want us to do?”
There was a pause, then the gunny came on the radio.
“Stay put for now and keep your head down. We’re calling in air, over,” he told him.
“Roger that, over,” Aiden replied before turning to Doc. “Air’s coming. You just need to keep them alive until we can casevac them out of here.”
He turned back to face the vegetation, unhooked two of his M67 grenades, putting them at the edge of the ditch, and unslung his M4, which had luckily been on his back when they’d been hit. He would be ready if the mujahideen made a move. They usually hit hard, when they hit at all, then faded away before the Americans could mount much of a response.
Usually, was not always, though. Two blasts sounded in back of him, one after the other. He spun around to see a cloud of dust rising from the road between two of the hummers. The insurgents had the road zeroed in and were firing mortars. That he couldn’t see the other impact indicated that it probably hit in the field on the other side of the road.
This was bad, very bad. With the trajectory of the mortar rounds, they could land in the ditch with the Marines, and the damage would be staggering. They were bracketed, and it wouldn’t be long before a round did just that.
Normally, when pinned down and under mortar fire, the SOP[53] was to charge through the kill zone and assault the enemy. With the two PKs sweeping the road, though, too many Marines wouldn’t make it even to the other side. Air was coming, but who knew when it would arrive, and by then, it would probably be too late. Aiden knew what he had to do. He had to take out the PKs so Gunny could lead the platoon out of there.
“Doc, tell Gunny that I’m flanking the PKs. Wait until I take them out before assaulting through.”
Doc knew what was what and didn’t try to argue. “Roger that,” he said. “Kick some ass!”
Aiden kept down as he half low-crawled, half duck-walked down the ditch. He wasn’t sure how far he had to go, but he couldn’t take too much time. It could be the next round that impacted on the platoon. He went only about 20 meters or so, then crept over the edge of the ditch, low-crawling into the vegetation. Once in, he got up, and in a crouch, went in another 30 meters before turning right and began paralleling the road back into the fight.
He was sorely tempted to shift. He knew he would be faster that way, but he also knew that could be his ticket to elimination by the Council. It would be worth it, if he could save the platoon, but other Marines had fought without shifting, fought bravely and effectively. He was faster and stronger than most of them and he was better able to get by unnoticed. With his color vision better as a human, and the ability to discern objects that weren’t moving better, that tipped the scale, and he stayed in human form.
His heightened ability to spot the enemy came to naught when fire opened up in front of him, hitting him in the legs and dropping him. Whoever these guys were, they were better trained than the typical insurgent. They had figured out that the Marines would try to flank them and had put up flank security.
When Aiden went down with the searing agony in both thighs, he bounced and rolled into the thick grasses. He kept rolling as the machine gunner put rounds into the grass, hoping for a hit. Without conscious thought, he took out the two grenades he had put back into his ILBE pocket, pulled the pins, and lofted them in the direction he’d seen the muzzle flashes. When the second one exploded, he jumped up, fueled by adrenaline, and emptied his mag.
As the last round went downrange, his legs gave out. It was only then that he looked down. Rounds had impacted on both thighs, and his right femur could be broken. Another round grazed the edge of his left thigh leaving a painful but not too serious gash. Already, he knew his body was rushing to heal the wounds, but that would take time, time he didn’t have. It never really was a decision. He ripped off his helmet, opened his flak jacket, took off his boots, and shifted.
It had been months since his last shift, but his body snapped into his varg form without hesitation. He’d almost forgotten the feeling of power, of fulfillment as his body was rearranged. With that came the anger, anger that they’d dare shoot him. Anger that his buddies were hit. Deep in the back of his mind, the human part of him wondered why he’d thought of himself first and his fellow Marines second, but that was lost in the emotions roiling through him.
He tested his legs. They still hurt, but they would support him. The first order of business was to check on who had just shot him. He rushed the position, ready to wreck havoc, but he needn’t have bothered. One of the grenades had luckily landed between the two men. One had a huge chunk of his side blown off. The other was quietly moaning, barely conscious. He would probably die from loss of blood, if nothing else, but Aiden took a moment to snap his neck. The human part of him reveled that he had taken out two of the enemy man-to-man, not man-to-werewolf.
Up ahead, still hidden by the vegetation, the two other PKs were singing to each other, dueling-banjo style, keeping the platoon from assaulting. Aiden wanted to rush in and bite out the gunners’ throats.
He knew he had to feed on his anger, feed on the violence inherent in vargs, but still, he needed to control that anger, not let it control him. He needed to use what he had, both his superhuman abilities and his Marine training.
He looked down at his M4. The magazine was still empty, a very stupid, boot mistake. He fumbled with a new magazine, but his varg paws/hands were not as adept as his human hands. He tried for a few moments until realizing what he could do. With a quick mental order, he shifted his paw to human, snapped in the magazine, then shifted back. He carefully put one claw on the trigger, and started forward at max speed, thinking that a fast, violent attack would be his best bet.
He hurdled a low bush and landed almost on top of two insurgents lying at the base of a palm tree. They were one of the two machine gun teams, firing their PK out onto the road. They were so intent on firing that they never saw Aiden, and with a several quick pulls of the trigger, Aiden took both men out.
He never stopped but dashed towards one of the broken down, one-room abandoned buildings another 10 meters over and back a bit. Just as he reached it, an insurgent darted out, kneeling to fire an RPG. Aiden didn’t stop, crashing into the man with a butt stroke to the chin as the man’s eyes widened with shock at the sudden apparition. The M4 was a carbine, with a shorter barrel and stock, making it less effective than a full M16 in this kind of move, but with Aiden’s varg muscles in back of it, the man’s face was crushed, brain matter splattering in a plume in back of him.
Looking up, Aiden saw five mujahideen huddled there, one on a cell phone, another getting ready to fire another RPG on the other side of the building. The second RPG gunner had not noticed yet what was going on, but the other four acted startled, looking up in shock. Three of the men started to bring up their weapons, ready to fire no matter what cursed creature this was, but Aiden never gave them the chance. He emptied his magazine as he moved forward, dropping two of them before physically crashing into the other two. Stunned, the two men tried to get up, but Aiden grabbed one by the neck and using him as a weapon, swung the man, hitting the other on the head. The man in his hands went limp without a sound, but the side of the head of the one he hit exploded spectacularly.
The RPG gunner heard all of this, of course, and was struggling to get his RPG around. The RPG rocket could take out a tank if it hit the right spot, but it was not a close combat weapon. The man didn’t even have a regular firearm. Aiden dove forward as the rocket went high, over him. He grabbed the man by the legs, pulled him back, and stood up. The man started screa
ming as Aiden twisted first to one side, then swung back, the man’s body going horizontal until it smashed into the corner of the building. Aiden had hoped to get a head smash, but he had miscalculated, and the man’s neck hit the corner, not his head. He was dead, but not as spectacularly so.
Aiden knew he had to get that last machine gun team. He started around the building, only to jump back when rounds impacted around him. They were being fired from the road, from his Marines. He reached for his 148 to let gunny know where he was, but the small radio was gone. He didn’t have a clue as to where or when he’d lost it. Aiden looked forward, peering through the trees. He doubted the Marines could actually see him. The incoming rounds were probably just shots fired to try and keep the insurgents’ heads down.
Those that still had heads, that is, he thought as he looked back at the carnage beside them.
A little more cautiously, he peered around the side of the building. He knew about where the other PK team had to be. They were probably getting antsy, ready to bolt, and wondering why the other team wasn’t doing its part. He didn’t think he would be able to sneak up on them. Gunny would also have noticed that one gun was out. With the mortar rounds still landing, he might decide that it was time to assault.
A burst of fire caught his attention. While his varg eyes were not as good as his human eyes in some aspects, his hearing was much, much better. He swiveled his ears, using them like sonar to triangulate the PK team’s position. There, by a low wall and surrounded by grass! He could just see the tops of one of their heads.
He looked at his M4, the magazine now empty again. A grenade would be better, but the low overhanging palm branches between him and the insurgents would make the throw very iffy. Looking around, he spotted four RPGs up against the wall of the building, ready for use. He’d been trained how to fire one, not that he had thought it would ever happen. The trigger of the RPG was bulkier than anything on a US rifle, which made it very suitable for his varg claws.
He picked one up, armed it, and settled it on his shoulder. It felt fine there, better than his M4. Moving back to the edge of the building, he peeked out once to get his bearings, then took off at a run. He closed the gap within seconds, but not before one of them saw him. He saw a face turn back to him while the man pushed on the shoulder of his companion. Aiden didn’t wait. He skidded to a stop, sighted, and fired. At this range, even his lack of experience with the RPG didn’t matter. The rocket ran true with just enough room for the warhead to arm, exploding in a huge burst of fire and smoke.
A round hit Aiden from the side. There were more of the mujahideen out there, and one had just shot him in the flak jacket. With the PKs out, Gunny would assault through anyone else, and hopefully, if the insurgent who had just shot him survived, he either wouldn’t believe his own eyes or whoever was interrogating him wouldn’t believe what he was being told.
Aiden spun around and rushed back deeper into the date palms. Somewhere back there were the mortars, the plunk of the outgoing rounds a beacon to him. It couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred yards that the date palms ended and another field opened up. At the forward end of the field, perhaps 10 meters from the edge, a beat-up Toyota pickup was parked. In the bed of the truck two men were busy feeding a mortar tube. Another man anxiously scanned the skies, his AK at the ready.
Aiden had kept his M4, but he hadn’t loaded a new magazine. He didn’t have time to do it now with the men sure to spot him. He drove his legs forward, trying to get every last split second of speed. The sky watch saw him first, and with a shout, warned the mortarmen. He was on the other side of the truck and he rushed around to the closer side to better take Aiden under fire. That was a big mistake. He probably didn’t realize just how fast Aiden was, and by the time he rounded the rear of the truck and began to raise his weapon, Aiden was on him, slamming him into the back of the truck where he collapsed in a heap.
One of the mortarmen had a handgun of some type that Aiden didn’t recognize, and he fired as Aiden scrambled up into the bed, hitting him on the left side of the chest, about where the heart would be. The round impacted on the edge of his open flak jacket. It hurt, but didn’t give him pause. Even in human form, the flak jacket would be more than proof enough for almost any handgun.
Being shot pissed him off, though, and he lost his focus on keeping his anger in check. With a howl, he dove at the man, jaws open. The man stumbled back, hands forward as if to ward him off. Aiden had been going for the throat, but his jaws closed on the man’s hands instead. Blood flowed into his mouth as the man screamed. Aiden bit harder and twisted his head. Both hands came off in his mouth.
The second man also stumbled back, falling over the side of the truck bed. He tried to crawl away on his butt, as if he couldn’t dare to take his eyes off the creature looming above him.
Aiden hopped down, casually walked over to the man, and grabbed him by his shirt. Very deliberately, he closed his jaws around the man’s head and bit. The man screamed and thrashed, and Aiden tried to bite harder. Hands reached up to try and pull his jaws apart as the man struggled. One more time, Aiden tried to crush the skull, but it didn’t collapse. Giving up, he put his feet on the man’s thighs and twisted his head sharply while pulling up. The man’s body jerked up, but the head came off his neck. Blood fountained up over Aiden as the body slumped forward. Aiden stepped back and the torso fell to lie in the dust beside the head.
He turned and returned to the truck, bounding back up to the pick-up bed where the handless man was trying to get up. Their eyes met, and intense hate poured from the man’s look. The man shouted something at Aiden, defiant and undefeated.
Something in Aiden, the human part of him, had to admire the man. He was faced with something from his worst nightmare, yet he would not admit defeat. But he was the enemy, someone who was killing his fellow Marines. Brave or not, the man had to die. Aiden swung his arm around in the roundhouse blow common to a werewolf, the powerful impact on his temple killing the man instantly.
A moan below him caught his attention. He looked over the tailgate where the first man, the air watch, was twitching, trying to bring his hands under him. Aiden’s blood lust was fading, but he still had to finish it. He started to climb down when his ears picked up a faint sound.
It took a moment, but he recognized the whup-whup as the incoming air support. Forgetting the man below him, he jumped clear of the truck and into the trees. He paused in back of one a couple of rows deep and looked back at the Toyota. He got a quick glimpse of the Apache as it wheeled to make its gun run.
Aiden had been supported by Marine Cobras on his last tour, and they were extremely lethal helos, ready to rain death on their enemies. In Ramadi most of the air assets belonged to the brigade, so it was a flight of Army Apaches that had come to their support. If Aiden had thought the Cobras were deadly, then the Apache was hell on earth, or hell in the skies, that was. The lone living insurgent had just gotten to his feet and had started to run when the chatter of the Apache’s 20 mm reached Aiden as the field erupted in smoke and dust. Sparks flashed through the dust where the Toyota had been. The deadly-looking helo made its run, went almost straight up, then wheeled about to make another run from the other direction. Once again, the guns opened up.
When the dust cleared, what had been a Toyota, two bodies, and one live insurgent had been turned into a mottled piece of metal and bits and parts of organic material. No one would be able to put the bloody bits together well enough to know just what had killed them, varg or Apache. Werewolf or not, if Aiden had been on the pickup when the Apache hit, there wouldn’t have been enough of him left to know just what he was, much less survive the attack. He might be superhuman in a way, but some things were even more powerful than that. No wonder the Council wanted to keep their existence secret.
Firing in back of him snapped him back to reality. Most of the firing had the familiar snap of the American 5.56 round. Gunny was assaulting through, and it sounded like the platoon had the u
pper hand. Aiden had to get back. He shifted, closed up his flak jacket and ILBE, then started back. He hoped he could reach his boots and helmet before he met up with the platoon.
Chapter 37
Evening chow was long over, and midrats would start soon. Despite what had just happened, or more accurately, because of it, Aiden was starving, and he needed food. The shifting and healing had taken a lot out of him, and he needed to replenish his energy. But the Marine Corps did things a certain way, and the platoon had to be debriefed. Due to Aiden’s prominent part in the fight, he was getting more attention than most of the others.
The fight had been both a success and a disaster. It was a success because the attack was defeated, with two insurgents captured and at least 18 killed. It was a disaster because of the cost. Five Marines had been killed: Lieutenant Miller, Cpl Tyson, Cpl Therwait—all in the lead Humvee, and LCpl Lane and Sgt Ferris. Ten had been wounded, three seriously. Only six had made it out unscratched. Actually only five, but Aiden was not about to show the fading marks from where he had been shot.
Sgt Vasquez, SSgt Pieter, and Cpl Jankuski had all been operated on by the Navy surgical team attached to the Army Charlie Med at Camp Ramadi. If they were stabilized there, they would be taken first to Balad, then up to Landstuhl in Germany before going back to the States. The others, including Cam, were probably going to be OK with treatment by the Army docs at Charlie Med. Doc Redmond had refused to get casevac’d despite his shoulder, instead riding back in with the CH-46 sent to extract them. He should have gone back in the Army Black Hawks that picked up the wounded, but he blew that off, saying he wouldn’t leave his Marines. Gunny didn’t insist.
Some of the walking wounded were debriefed first either while they waited for treatment or right after. That left Aiden and Gunny for last, and now that Gunny was done, it was just Aiden.
The Werewolf of Marines Trilogy Page 20
