I apologize for the delay, I was working on the pit crew for an Ultra4 race team at the King of Hammers race in Johnson valley California. I was to far from electricity or running water to make a post. I have finished editing the second half of "snipers" and am leaving it here for your viewing pleasure.
...Continued ----Snipers Part 2----
They marched through the night, and by the time the sky started to brighten the trio was exhausted, Rabbit’s eyes were heavy and his legs very sore, Vix was nearly sleepwalking as she trudged through the brush, only Spaceman seemed unaffected. His eyes were heavy, you could tell he was tired, his shoulders sagged a little too. But he still moved with grace, with the power of a coiled snake.
The trio had left the foothills and were now in the mountains proper. They had scaled the first peak and were descending its leeward slope. They worked their way through the saddle between two mountains as the sun rose. Not only did they still have more than thirty miles to cover, but it was going to all be through the mountain. Vix seemed very affected by the high altitude. Her breath coming and going very fast. She panted in rapid short, shallow breaths. Out of concern for her, and his aching ankles Rabbit called a stop. Vix flopped down on a knee-high rock and promptly put her head in her hands and went to sleep. Spaceman and Rabbit huddled next to her to confer.
Rabbit started with, “She’s not doing too well, listen to her breathing, I don’t know if she can do this.”
Spaceman replied, “She doesn’t have a whole lot of choice, it’s not like she can get out of these mountains, the only thing back there is more wilderness and eventual starvation. The only way out is forward. We must continue the mission. We have to get to that base, snipe the shit out of the bad guys and call for an emergency extraction.”
Rabbit countered “How are we going to do that, there are lots of mountains between us and our target. You know all hell will break loose when we start shooting people down there. We might not even have enough food and water to get there, much less to get back out of this. You forget we're still working on a time table. We had to hike all night, in about five hours, our ride out of these mountains will think we’re dead and move on. If they even bother showing up at all, after the plan got shot down before the drop point, if they aren’t already assuming we are all dead. We can’t even hope to get this done.”
Spaceman parried “No I don’t know how we will get there, or how we will get out. But we will. If we don’t, those mechs will be let loose on the rest of the valley. Who knows how many lives we will save by eliminating that threat, even if it cost us our own. We are doing this. Now, I have been on point all night, My adrenaline is running out and I’m tired. I’m going to sit here with sleeping beauty and grab a combat nap. You should scout ahead, keep an eye out for traps and see if you can find an easier path up the next mountain.”
Rabbit first inkling was to argue back, he had hiked all night too, he was tired too, he needed rest too. But he decided not to rub Spaceman any further the wrong way he had been on point, he had dealt with the stress of leading them in unknown territory for all hours of the night. He had earned the break more than Rabbit had, and besides they couldn’t all sleep at once. Rabbit was just a bit concerned about being or getting separated from the two of them. He nodded silently and turned to leave.
He trudged away as Spaceman sat down and leaned against the sleeping Vix, back to back. Rabbit now alone, worked his way into the bush. He moved slowly, his feet heavy with weariness, and his shoulders heavy with his pack. There was no path, no trail. He muddled through the brush and ferns among the towering trees all by himself. He moved with less purpose, meandering from side to side, looking for little details, covering as much area in a given part of terrain as possible, in the twenty minutes he marched he covered surprisingly little distance. He came to a small clearing that was just down slope from them at the very bottom of the saddle between the mountains.
The clearing itself was of no consequence, but through the gap in the canopy, he was able to see into the valley below, down deep between the mountains. Way down there was a house. All by itself out in the lonesome of the wilderness. Probably a rancher or someone that grazed cattle or even mountain sheep on these steep slopes. He could see not just the main house, but a couple of small sheds and other such outbuildings too. Rabbit felt they could secure supplies form there, possibly transportation or even communication. At the very least refill their water stocks. He quickly returned to where Spaceman and Vix were resting and woke them. Spaceman checked his watch, rubbed his eyes, checked his watch again and then grumbled for only getting half an hour’s rest.
It took almost another two hours of hiking, but the trio made it down to the building, which they approached cautiously, with weapons ready. They slowly closed in around the main house, spread out to cover three of the four sides at once. They came to the grimy rear entrance, with a tattered screen door. Rabbit stepped aside and opened the screen door, holding it aside to let Spaceman go past. Spaceman tucked his rifle into his armpit, so he could maintain control of it better in case someone else grabbed it, then with his now free hand, he reached forward and grasped the knob on the inner door. He turned and it rotated smoothly and evenly, but then as he pushed the door it only opened an inch or two. He shoved harder, still nothing. He lowered his stance and put his shoulder into it. Finally, it swung open in one rapid motion, banging into something inside the room. Deep gouges were worn into the linoleum floor from where the door would bind on the tiles. Spaceman burst in, Vix and Rabbit behind him. But the room was devoid of inhabitants. Whoever lived there was not present at the moment but had been recently. There was fresh produce on the table, the light in the hall was still on.
The two men left their packs on the table and told Vix to refill the water bottles and pack as much of the produce in as she could. She looked at them incredulously. “You want me to do what for you?”
Spaceman replied with” Rabbit and I are a team, we work together, we have worked together on a lot of two way shooting ranges. We need to clear the rest of the house.”
She scowled at them both fiercely, but after a pause turned to retrieve the water bottles from their packs and fill them. With that Spaceman followed Rabbit down the hall, both with weapons ready. Aside from a dusty old couch in the living room, a bedroom with many worn-out jeans on the floor and a small bathroom, there was nothing else in the house. They returned to Vix and her dirty looks. They retrieved their packs, and even with the extra heft, felt better for having filled their water supplies again. They left and split apart, agreeing to each check one of the three sheds, and then meet up and check the fourth one together, since it was largest.
Most of the sheds were filled with miscellaneous farm equipment, some shovels and other hand tools, a generator and a nice welder. A couple of deep freezers and some large sacks of grain. Nothing of interest until the trio regrouped at the fourth shed. Which turned out to be a garage. Rolled way into the back of the building was a small two-seat helicopter, it had a small bubble canopy and a two-blade main rotor. The lightweight steel tube boom extended back to the tail rotor, it was yellow and had a fifty-gallon tank of fertilizer or pesticides or some other odd liquid suspended between its two-wheel equipped skids. That would have been a great find, except there was only room for two of them in it and no one present knew how to fly it. In front of that was an empty space with an oil stain and some tire tracks denoting some type of wheeled vehicle, which was not present and again was of no use to the trio of soldiers. To the side, however, were six bicycles. They were all in various states of disrepair, but they were transportation and better than that, they were transportation they could use.
Spaceman dug out his tool kit and with some help from Rabbit, they used the parts from the six bikes to make three that worked well. Thought one was in such bad shape they discarded it altogether. Not caring, they left the pieces and broken parts lying about the floor and benches in the garage, and after filling their tires with air, they mounted their steel and aluminum steeds and set off, deeper into the mountains.
Soon however the steep terrain and the weariness from their forced night march took their tool. They were able to cover the ground fast but they soon grew tired and decided to stop for rest. They roller the bikes under a particularly large tree and sat. Spaceman took watch this time as Rabbit and Vix dozed off for a couple of hours, then Spaceman woke Rabbit and they switched jobs so that Spaceman slept for hours more. Rabbit woke the other two and they drank and ate. Now with slightly more energy and slightly lighter packs, they set off again, walking the bikes half as much as riding them due to the vegetation and rocky terrain.
They traveled the rest of the day, stopping twice more to take brakes and naps. When the sun came down they ate and drank. That night they slept in turns. Due to their sheer exhaustion, they slept better than any of them had in quite some time despite the uncomfortable chill in the air and lack of beds.
They woke in the morning and set out again. Slowly this time, they were low on water. By the time they stopped mid-day to eat and drink their stores where exhausted, despite only being roughly halfway done with their trek. They would have to find something by nightfall, or they would be facing dehydration issues. The group sat in the shade for a couple of hours, planning their course of action. Now they stood the very real possibility of both failing their mission, and dying.
The trio decided they would have to spread out, and look for streams, or any source of water they could find, then they would meet up at the lowest point of the valley below them. They scattered, though only by a little, only fifty yards or so separated each from the others as they made their way downhill. Near the bottom of the slope Vix found and traced an empty stream bed, and at its base a stagnant pool of water. She followed the valley floor to the meeting point, then led the two men back to where she found the water, and they collectively wrinkled their noses. Vix had a plastic water bottle with a built-in filtration system. Slowly, bottle by bottle she filtered the tea-colored scummy water and loaded all of their canteens, they drank their fill and topped off their canteens again. The water was so murky and the snipers so thirsty that the filter was used up in the process, they wouldn’t be able to do that again, but for now at least they had potable water again.
The mountain going up the next slope became too steep and rocky, they had to abandon the bicycles, Rabbit had a flat front tire anyway and was not sad to leave their commandeered transportation. To break the silence and fight the boredom as they pressed on, Spaceman cracked a joke to Vix about being a hippie for having a filtered water bottle. Rabbit apologized for Spaceman, and thanked her for having a filtered water bottle, and then agreed with Spaceman that she was a very dangerous hippie.
They trudged slowly uphill. Their feet tired and their shoulders aching. The dense trees and knee-high grass sometimes hindered their progress even more than the steep slope, forcing them to back track and find a new route multiple times. There were squawking birds and buzzing insects, the crawling lizards, the millipedes. The forest was very alive, even if the three of them felt like the walking dead, their limbs and backs ached, they paid no attention to the trees or the critters or even the pretty view. They were just putting one foot in front of the other and cared little of anything else, except for once when Rabbit walked through a large spider web, it took him ten minutes of cursing and flailing as they hiked to finally get it all off. Once they crested the Mountain's peak they found to their relief the other side had a much shallower slope, with a broad shallow river at the base.
They reached the river’s edge just after lunchtime. The water was moving fast, was rather cold and very clear. They sat at its edge, refilled their bottles, drank and filled their bottles again. Vix pulled off her boots and dipped her aching feet in the water despite it being so cold it made her shiver and sapped the feeling from her toes. Spaceman and Rabbit both removed their gloves and sank their arms in up to the elbows, cooling themselves off. The afternoon sun was unforgiving and their trecking was laborious. Rabbit voiced his opinion that they should call it a day and rest there at the water’s edge, regain their strength as best they could, soother their aches and catch up on sleep. Vix agreed.
Spaceman would have none of that laziness. He said they could rest a while, but not more than an hour or two. The longer they waited, the more likely their target was to get beyond their reach, and the weaker and hungrier they would get. With that, he turned and stalked off back to the tree line and relieved himself on a small bush. When he returned he spoke with Vix a then the pair left, Spaceman going one way, upstream along the bank. Vix went downstream leaving Rabbit alone at the water’s edge.
They were searching for a better place to cross. Rabbit, after putting his gloves back on and soaking his ball cap in the water, returned to the concealing shadows of the tree line and waited for the others. Rabbit figured the water was only knee-deep, they might as well just wade across where they were, save time and effort, but Spaceman figured it was too easy to slip on the rocks and sprain an ankle, which would be a death sentence up in the isolation of these mountains. So Rabbit contented himself with relaxing as they looked for a better way to make it across and he waited for the hottest part of the afternoon to pass.
His hat was nearly dry when the other two returned. He stood and stretched his legs, and yawned, having nearly dozed off. Vix had not found a better crossing, but Spaceman found a bend in the river upstream, the current was slower there, and a log was half-buried in the mud, they could hold onto it and better maintain their balance, he had decoded the would cross there. Spaceman and Vix sat to rest, and Rabbit stood, with rifle ready, slowly shuffling his way through the brush keeping an eye and ear out for any unnatural disturbances on the way. Paying attention to the way the wind blew, the smells it carried, the sounds of the forest, if the birds got quiet or took flight. He looked for tracks and disturbances in the soil, at one point he even sat on his haunches for nearly ten minutes with his hand on the ground, just to see if anything “felt” out of the ordinary. Convinced they were not being followed and weren’t in any immediate danger he returned to the other two. He had to nudge the dozing Spaceman with his boot, rather firmly but good-naturedly. Vix, on the other hand was not asleep and instead was stripped down to just her skivvies and in the river, he camouflage and various other gear was strewn about in the soft mossy grass along the cold waters banks.
Out of respect for her privacy Spaceman turned his back as he struggled to shake the sleep from his limbs. Rabbit cleared his throat to get her attention, then asked her to 'get booted and suited' so they could keep moving. She turned and rose from the water to retrieve her gear, Rabbit struggled but managed to avert his eyes and turn his back too. As she dressed, he grumbled something out of the corner of his mouth to Spaceman. Spaceman snorted and held back his chuckling as Vix approached, still securing the straps of her backpack and ballistic vest. She looked at them foully and asked what they were snickering about. When Rabbit replied “Nothing” she gently but firmly elbowed him in the ribs and stalked past the pair. Leaving them with a nasty glare and the lingering word “Perverts” hanging in the air after she walked past.
The gentle slope down the back of the mountain to the river had let them cover some good linear distance, they were less than ten miles from their target now. The going was going to get easier for them, they were coming out the other side of the mountain chain. Soon they would be in the gently rolling foothills again.
By the next nightfall, they were no longer in the mountains proper, back had come out the backside of them and were among the foothills again, the forest had thinned out too. Leaving only sparse patches of thick vegetation in the gullies and rolling grasses everywhere else. They didn’t stop to rest that night when they crested one of the foothills they suddenly had their target thrust upon them. Not more then a mile off out in the darkness was a giant pool of light as towers with massive floodlights covered every square inch of the recently erected compound. The trio used the cover of darkness to move closer. Getting in a good position undetected while they could. They were close enough now to the facility that when the sun rose they would have nothing to conceal them except their own camouflage. The night made their job easier as they slithered into position, the lights of the hired gun's base made it visible from far and wide while making it hard for anyone inside to look too far out beyond their own walls. The high caliber rifles that Spaceman and Vix carried, would work just fine. They both had powerful optics and the large cartridges their guns ate had plenty of range to make solid hits at these distances on a target that conveniently illuminated itself so well.
The limiting factor would be the flight time of the bullet. The long delay between firing and impact would make it very difficult to hit any moving targets. If they were to shoot the pilots of the battle mechs, it would most likely be done as they ran to their battle mechs. Vix volunteered to sit out at a longer range. She found a nice hilltop just under one mile away. Rabbit lead the way closer to the target, getting Spaceman and his rifle at a range of just less than three-quarters of a mile. Then Rabbit sat and established himself a nice concealed position to cover Spaceman. Vix had the distance to help protect her. They tested the wind, built some rests for their rifles, dug in some fox holes, set up some improved camouflage and Rabbit even established some trip lines on their flanks, that would alert them in case foot soldiers tried to sneak around them. Then they sat and waited, napping until the sun started to rise.
Rabbit was stiff and achy from the chill of the night and wiggled deeper down into his fox hole and looked into his spotting scope, he adjusted the focus and clicked on his radio, so he could talk to Spaceman who was forty yards uphill behind him, and Vix almost a quarter-mile away. Spaceman removed the lens caps form his scope and hunkered down, snugging his rifle in tightly to his shoulder, then adjusted the zoom and focus on his scope, made some corrections to make up for wind, and the mist that was forming down in the valley, he had to correct for the humidity. He hoped the Fog wouldn’t obscure his vision too much, but he also didn’t complain because he knew it would hide the three of them even better. Vix sat all by her lonesome. Rifle at the ready, optics adjusted and a couple of magazines of ammunition laid out next to her so she could swap them out faster.