“There is at least a platoon of infantry in front of us!” McNamara reported.
“How’s the leg, Harvard?” Carter inquired.
“The bleeding has stopped, but the bone is shattered,” Williams answered.
“I’ll carry him, Boss.” McNamara said.
“Alright,” Carter said. “We do a peel. How are we on grenades?”
“I’ve got one left,” McNamara said.
“I have one,” Nagura said.
“Get them ready,” Carter said. “When you throw, we peel right and rally at that burning vehicle,” Carter ordered, pointing at a flaming armored personnel carrier behind them and to the right. “I’ll lead off. Grumble, you follow me with Harvard. Harvard, give me your PM-58 and your ammo.” Cater ordered, knowing that, even firing the machine pistol one-handed, he could make better use of the weapon than the immobilized Williams. Williams complied and then drew his sidearm.
“Go!” Carter ordered and ran behind his teammates as they, lobbed their grenades and laid down another curtain of coordinated covering fire.
Carter ran diagonally to the right for several yards until he was to the right of his team mates, and slightly behind them. He threw himself prone and again began firing at the enemy line.
Carrying Williams, McNamara moved around Carter to his right and dropped into a firing position just behind the colonel Williams rolled away from McNamara and into a firing position of his own. Both men began firing along with Carter to cover Nagura as she ran behind the three men and positioned herself several meters behind them and to their right. She too laid herself prone and began firing at the enemy.
Carter then ran behind his team mates and positioned himself to begin firing again a few meters to behind them and to their right. The team repeated this leapfrog tactic five times; executing a fighting retreat that allowed them to break contact and get their rally point without giving their more numerous enemy their backs. When the enemy troops tried to pursue, they were discouraged by sniper fire from Sains and Roth, who killed the first two troopers that move toward the retreating operators.
“Head toward Renner,” Carter commanded, crouching behind the still smoldering remnant of a destroyed armored vehicle. “Grumble you go first with Harvard; we’ll cover you.”
With Williams over his shoulder, McNamara ran toward Renner and his increasingly beleaguered force of underground fighters. Bullets came from all directions as he crossed the few meters of open ground; churning up columns of dirt and splintering the concrete of sidewalks. At the end of his run, McNamara leapt head first over the concrete wall that the underground fighters were defending; causing Williams to land painfully on his injured leg.
“The Boss and Dancer are right behind me!” McNamara roared. “Give them cover!”
Again the wall’s defenders launched a volley of massed gunfire, driving the enemy to cover as Carter and Nagura sprinted to the relative safety of the wall. Nagura leapt over the wall, landed gracefully, and almost immediately began firing at the enemy again. Carter was less graceful, striking his wounded arm on the wall as he landed. Recovering from the renewed pain, he took stock of the situation.
“Where’s Chuckles?” he asked, noting the absence of Team Echo’s leader. “Gone,” Mason Price answered. “A forty-millimeter grenade landed almost in his lap.”
“Damn it!” Carter cursed.
“Thumper, and Player are dead too!” Price added, using the calls signs of other FIRE team operators.
Carter looked at the ground briefly and cursed again. “All teams all call signs; report ammo!” he ordered into his radio, knowing that the assault teams had to be critically low on ammunition.
The reports that came back confirmed this.
“We’ve got to break out of the compound now,” Carter said to Price and Beauchamp. “Form up the teams!” he ordered.
“Captain Renner,” Carter said, slapping the captain on the shoulder. “We’re breaking out! As soon as the teams are clear of this compound you and your people can disperse and get the hell out of here.”
“Right,” Renner said after firing another burst for his rifle.
Carter’s radio came alive. “Brains for Prowler,” Sains’ voice said.
“Go for Prowler,” Carter replied.
“Be advised,” Sains said. “All extraction zones are now surrounded and cut off. There are tanks moving toward the command compound from the west. You have twenty Two-threes moving through the command complex compound toward you. They’ll be on you in three minutes!”
“Understood,” Carter said.
Price and Beauchamp looked at Carter. “With all of the EZs cut off, do we break up and try to make it out with underground?” Beauchamp asked.
“Negative,” Carter said. “We’ll break out of the compound and wait for out extraction force to get here. The gunships should be able to clear one of our EZs. Breaking up is our last option.”
“Right,” the other team leaders said almost in unison.
“Captain Renner,” Carter shouted. “Are you ready?”
Renner flashed Carter thumbs up and shouted “ready!”
“Go!” carter ordered.
The surviving FIRE team members, Renner’s A-team, and the dozens of underground fighters unleashed another wave of massed fully automatic fire and more than twenty hand grenades detonated at once. The momentary, but intense storm of fire drove the WCA troops to seek cover as the FIRE teams and underground fighters fought their way clear of the gate they had been so ferociously defending. Once clear of the gate, Renner and his underground fighters broke into small groups and faded into the city.
“Move toward EZ bravo!” Carter ordered. “Conserve ammo if you can.”
“Prowler from Brains!” Sains voice crackled from the radio. “Massed enemy infantry is heading your way from the south!”
“Understood,” Carter answered. He turned to the other FIRE team operators. “We’ll still head for EZ bravo! Team Alpha has the point.”
The teams moved through the streets in a loose formation; advancing while taking fire from all sides. They returned fire and moved in stages using what cover they could find. The city had come vengefully to life around them. Individual enemy soldiers, unsure on about how to react to the attack, began fighting from wherever the happened to be at the time. Underground cells had risen up to take vengeance on their occupiers; striking at them with any weapon that came to hand, fires were burning uncontrollably.
Caught in the chaos of this cross fire noncombatants tried to find any kind of shelter or tried desperately to flee through the maelstrom. Screams of pain, anger and desperation melded to form a single demonic chorus, accompanied by the distinctive crack of gunshots.
“Incoming!” Nagura scream and as the first of volley of artillery shells exploded just yards away from the teams as they moved. Reflexively the FIRE team operators dove for anything that might offer protection or simply flattened themselves on the ground.
For several seconds the ear-shattering sound of exploding artillery drowned out the other sounds of battle. The ground trembled. Bits of stone and other debris became deadly shrapnel that tore through anything that lived. The concussion waves flipped over abandon cars and flatted buildings.
“All teams, all call signs,” Carter shouted into his radio. “Sound off!” Each operator reported in turn. Four failed to answer.
“Let’s go!” Carter shouted, knowing another artillery barrage would begin soon. In the distance, he could hear more artillery falling on the other side of the compound.
“I can’t believe they dropped artillery on the city,” McNamara said, still carrying the injured Williams. “They’re taking out their own people.”
“They don’t give a shit about that,” Carter responded, “as long as they get us.”
New sounds suddenly joined the battle-din. Streaks of white and red light began slicing through the sky. Search lights beams were criss-crossing one another and the crack of outgoing artiller
y echoed over the background small arms fire.
“That’s triple-A!” McNamara observed, realizing that the firing of anti-aircraft artillery meant that friendly aircraft were in the area.
“Our extraction force is here!” Carter declared. “With the Central Command out of action, the enemy gunners don’t have any guidance. They’re just firing at sounds and shadows and hoping to get lucky!”
Confirming Carter’s statement, two Cheyenne helicopter gunships passed over head, strafing a group of enemy infantry with thirty millimeter cannons. Flares intended to confuse the guidance systems of heat seeking missiles dotted the sky. The shrieks of aerial rockets and missiles began to echo off of the building walls. Flecks of metallic foil sparkled in searchlight beams as the invading aircraft dispensed ‘chaff’ to confound enemy radar and laser targeting systems.
The teams could hear the roar of jet engines as the fighter cover from offshore American aircraft carriers patrolling overhead; shielding them from any enemy aircraft that may try to interfere with the extraction despite the lack of command and control. In the distance fighter-bombers began to silence the anti-aircraft guns and rocket batteries.
“Prowler, this is Streetgang leader!” a voice said through Carter’s radio.
“Go ahead Streetgang!” Carter replied to Alan Donner, the extraction force’s lead pilot.
“Prowler, advise your status. Tell us what you need.” Donner said.
“We’re cut from all our planned extraction zones,” Carter shouted over the roar of a renewed enemy artillery barrage. “I need you to blast us a path to EZ bravo. We are half a click south of the Central Command’s south wall. We will mark our position with an infrared strobe.” Carter added. “We also have armor moving in on us form the west.”
“Roger that,” Donner said.
Nagura had already activated an infra-red beacon. Invisible to anyone without the proper optical device, the beacon would ensure that the attack from the extraction force’s aircraft would not accidentally fall on the FIRE teams.
“We have your beacon,” Donner said. “Get small,” he added, “the Dragon is about to breath fire!”
“Let it rain!” Carter said. “Cover!” he warned. “A Dragon is about to cut loose!”
Orbiting above, an AC-190 Dragon dipped its left wing and unleashed a withering aerial barrage. A direct descendant of the legendary Specter gunships of the twentieth century, the Dragon was essentially a flying artillery battery. Enemy forces beneath it survived only by the plane commander’s leave. Appearing somewhat like a gigantic sperm whale with wings; it was neither sleek nor elegant in appearance, but it was large, well armored, and carried huge amounts of ammunition.
Tens of thousands of sewing needle-sized projectiles spewed from the Dragon’s four electromagnetic coil guns. Forged of tungsten-carbide, tipped with industrial diamonds, and propelled by immensely powerful electromagnets, the flechettes rained down at hundred times the speed of sound at twenty thousand rounds per minute; riddling anything in their path with thousands of tiny holes. Enemy soldiers suddenly found themselves drenched in their own blood as the flechettes bored through their flesh and bones. Ignoring their body armor and helmets, the deadly needles reduced enemy soldiers to clumps of unrecognizable, perforation saturated meat.
The Dragon’s fire was next turned on the armored vehicles that surrounded FIRE teams chosen extraction zone. Twin forty millimeter automatic cannon sent hundreds of hyper-dense, beer-bottle sized slugs into the hostile vehicles; liquefying their armor through sheer mass a velocity. Infantrymen near the helpless vehicles were also mowed down or caught in fiery secondary explosions.
The Dragon turned again. Streaks of red shot down from the sky. Rounds from the Dragon’s super-firing ninety-millimeter cannon turned the oncoming WCA tanks into burning deathtraps. Incendiary, depleted uranium rounds lanced through the armor and set fuel and ammunition afire; leaving any crewman to flee or be burnt alive.
In another attack run, the Dragon used all of its firepower to lay waste to everything between the FIRE teams and their extraction zone; creating a path of desolation half a mile long and hundreds of feet wide.
“Nice shooting, Dragon!” Carter said into is microphone. “But we still have a lot of opposition near the EZ!”
“Not for long,” the flight leader replied. “Daisy Blaster coming down!”
“Faces in the dirt!” Carter ordered; “Daisy Blaster incoming!”
The Daisy Blaster obstacle clearance bomb was one of the largest, non-nuclear air- delivered weapons in the United States’ arsenal. At the rear of the Dragon gunship, a cargo ramp opened and a hydraulic conveyer belt moved the single, ten thousand pound bomb toward the opening. It slid out of the plane; a drag chute slowing its descent. When it reached an altitude of one-hundred feet a radar sensor triggered the detonation.
A wall of furnace-like heat and pressure surged out from the center of the explosion incinerating or pulverizing everything in its wake. The ground shook, collapsing buildings, crumbling sidewalks, and shattering windows for miles in all directions. A cloud of smoke and dust that could easily have been mistaken for a nuclear mushroom cloud rose skyward. Every unprotected eardrum in a half a mile radius was shattered. When, at length, the dust had settled, a crater over nine hundred feet long and twenty feet deep was created. The WCA forces that had been beneath the Daisy Blaster when it exploded had been obliterated without a trace.
Carter rose to his knees; displacing an inch-thick layer of dust and ash that the Daisy Blaster’s blast had left behind. “All teams, all call signs, report status!” He said into his radio. All of his operators answered that they were unharmed.
“Drive on EZ Bravo!” he ordered. “Streetgang leader,” Carter said. “We’ll be at EZ Bravo in five minutes!”
“Roger that,” Donner confirmed.
The teams made their way to the extraction zone while meeting only sporadic resistance; the massive aerial mauling having left them scattered and disorganized. Ten Pueblo type assault helicopters were circling the crater created by the Daisy Blaster. Above them orbited four Cheyenne gunships. The sounds of the turning rotor blades grew nearer and more distinctive. Despite his best efforts, Carter began to feel a sense of relief as they approached the crater.
More enemy artillery began falling into, and around the crater. The waiting Pueblos were forced to break away to avoid being caught in the barrage. The Cheyenne gunships roared away to seek out the offending artillery positions. The area being beaten by falling shells expanded. The FIRE team operators instinctively went to cover. In seconds the teams were again engulfed clouds of fire and shrapnel. For several minutes the teams could do nothing but endure the onslaught. Then the barrage lifted.
“Prowler from Streetgang leader,” Donner’s voice came over the radio. “Artillery has been silenced! We’re coming to pick you up!”
“Roger that!” Carter said.
“The EZ is clear!” he advised the operators. “Get the seriously wounded on board first!” he ordered. “Grumble, can you still carry Harvard?” Carter asked; noticing that the Canadian sergeant had received what appeared to be shrapnel wounds to his left shoulder. His goggles were gone, his helmet cracked and his left eye was swollen shut.
“I’ve got him Boss!” McNamara said, assuredly.
“Then move out,” Carter ordered as he activated his radio. “Streetgang leader from Prowler,” he said “Our wounded are moving into the EZ now. You can start pick up the sniper teams.”
“Roger that!” Donner voice responded.
[][][]
Roth fired a last shot that destroyed the head of an enemy machine gunner as the Kiowa-II helicopter came into a low hover over the roof of the officer’s quarters building. She could hear the rotors even through the floors and ceilings separating her from the roof. Distantly she could see the Pueblos lowering into the crater EZ and lifting off with her team mates as the Cheyenne’s flew in low, protective orbits.
“Time t
o go!” Sains said, tapping her on the shoulder.
She rose from her prone firing position, slung her sniper rifle over one shoulder, and drew her PM-58 machine pistol from a thigh holster. Any further enemy contact, she knew, would be a close range.
Using a staircase, the two operators ran to the waiting helicopter, which was hovering fifteen above the roof as its dual, side mounted thirty-caliber Gatling guns fired on unseen targets in the distance.
Smaller, faster and more maneuverable that the Pueblos the Kiowas presented harder targets for enemy gunners, but lacked the armor protection of their larger rotary-winged cousins.
Both operators jumped the fifteen feet into the helicopter. Just as Sains had brought his left foot into the passenger compartment, jagged holes appeared in the floor accompanied sound of metal being ripped apart. His right foot erupted into a spray of blood and bone shards. Flame and smoke filled the compartment and the aircraft listed to the left and began to fall rapidly. Roth screamed in pain.
Stationary, and therefore vulnerable while hovering, the Kiowa had been hit by some type of heavy weapon. It slammed into the roof of a neighboring office building, fell onto its side, and skidded to a halt, after its still turning rotors had been broken against the concrete roof.
In an act of primal instinct, Sains threw himself out of the doomed aircraft as it struck the office buildings roof. Pain burst from his wounded foot to explode throughout his body as rolled uncontrollably to a stop. Through hazy vision he could see the Kiowa were it lay precariously close to the roof’s edge. It was partially engulfed in flames.
The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One Page 28
