Advanced work
The Mercenaries Rabbit worked with were contracted to launch a counter-assault on a small railway town, this town was at the base of some rolling foothills, at the edge of a large lake, so large it’s almost an inland sea, but it was all freshwater, no salt. This village was to be their first target and was going to serve as a staging post for the rest of their campaign, against a small but very organized rebel organization, that was pushing the planet side government to the brink of civil war.
Rabbit, was part of a seven-man squad, that had been covertly inserted several miles inland behind enemy lines by a small helicopter. Based upon his previous experience as part of the marauding duo, he was serving as the squad’s designated marksmen. He was loaded with a twenty-inch barrel semi-auto rifle with a variable power optic. He was also loaded with a set of advanced binoculars, that had a range finder, and a laser designation on top of their infrared magnification. He also carried a set of three explosive charges, along with his other standard-issue gear, a sidearm, knife, knee pads, helmet gloves and such.
After their hike, they had ditched their heavy survival packs in a stand of trees and carried only their weapons and ammunition for combat. With only their weapons they crept through the scrub, covering another half kilometre closer to the village. Lying prone on the far side of a ridge. So only the tops of their helmets and eyes protruded over the hilltop. Rabbit dug his binoculars out and looked out over the village. The village was built around a warehouse and a railway stop. The railway ran the circumference of the lake, but the warehouses were part of a small dock, where local shipping could redistribute cargo around via the water, not just the railway. The warehouse was the largest structure in the village. But there were many other buildings, houses, sheds, a small school and several two-story buildings that served as a market for the locals. The village was surprisingly archaic. Surrounded by rolling grasslands and farm fields still tilled by hand. They had running water and electricity but little more than that, their buildings were simple, and only some of the roads were paved. The people were gone, they had fled when the rebels rolled in, Using the railway, and a modified train car with machine guns to help spread their subjugation across the valley.
The Mercenaries plan was to use their tilt-rotor transports to land a significant portion of their infantry forces in a single wave. Then in a second wave their support equipment, artillery and heavier weapons. The squad Rabbit was with was scouting out the village where they were landing to clear the way for the first wave, to reduce casualties. The first thing that Rabbit spotted with his special binoculars was a pair of large tanks one on either side of the warehouses. There was a small ridge, just on the other side of the road, there were several infantrymen positioned there with shoulder-mounted weapons and light machine guns. The next closer object was a small shed at the base of a massive a frame power pole, that supported the massive aerial electric lines that ran the length of the valley. There was another ridge as the terrain continually climbed uphill towards Rabbit's position. There was a large truck with a battery of unguided rocket artillery. Judging by the length of the rockets, they could drop those rockets just about anywhere they wanted to. Three buildings were surrounding the rocket truck that was parked in a courtyard with large eight-foot-high concrete walls. Making a c shape, with a gate at each end. There was more infantry there too, tough armed with lighter weapons, just rifles or sub-machine guns.
The road leading uphill stopped at a four-way intersection. The dirt road full of little mounds of sand Rabbit could see with is binoculars even at this distance, he assumed they were some sort of land mines. Further uphill, right in front of Rabbit and his squad, only three hundred yards away, was the densest concentration of buildings. Many of them, most were multiple stories. Here, there was a T-intersection in the paved part of the road. And another rocky ridge that had a staircase carved into it, leading to the three biggest and most lavish houses in the village. Here there were only two men, with folding chairs on the roof of one of the taller houses. From this distance, Rabbit could clearly see their rifles, one a high caliber bolt action the other fancy laser unit, with massive scopes and bi-pods. There was also a set of heavier anti-tank mines at the junction for the t intersection, they haven’t even bothered to try and conceal them. Rabbit was gently muttering under his breath. His words were barely enough to stir the fine powdery dust they were lying in. The squad leader next to him was the only one who could hear. He carried a powerful radio, that could contact the rest of the Mercenary command forces still in orbit. Though he carried a standard rifle and magazines. Rabbit was part of the squad’s fire team. The other two members of the fire team bore the squad’s light machine gun and the support gunner with a standard rifle, but he carried extra ammo belts for the light machine gun. The other three members of the squad served as the assault team. One had another generic assault rifle. The second a tactical shotgun and breaching equipment. The last a sub-machine gun and a small collapsible rocket launcher. He also carrier some general-purpose explosives.
Rabbit finally finished whispering all the targets he saw. The squad leader scooted back down behind the hill and rested his chin in his hands. Rabbit grunted, a small, almost animal sound. But it was enough to get the squad leader’s attention again. He scooted back up to the ridge, but Rabbit didn’t need to speak anymore. There was an attack helicopter slowly crawling through the air towards their target village the noise of its rotors beating the air into submission drifted to them, sounding almost gentle at this distance, but it was their just the same. The helicopter slowly dipped lower, until it was only twenty meters or so off the ground and drifting forward at hardly a snail’s pace, and then flared gently before setting down in the dirt lot, blasting dust everywhere. They all slid back down behind the hill and cursed their luck. They had two tanks and an attack helicopter, all with rockets and missiles and machine guns.
The squad leader dug out his laminated paper map and a red wax pencil. Then marked the known enemy positions. And sat looking at it. No one was sure what to do. But the squad leader, not wanting the men to doubt him, or his orders, quickly whipped up a scheme. Making sure the rest of the team watched him draw arrows, circle and Xs with the wax pencil.
“Since that helicopter is on the ground, we have a chance to take it out. That’s the single biggest threat at the moment. So first we need to get closer. Our assault team will take point and lead us downhill, for now, we need to stay slow and stealthy. If we’re seen now, we probably won't escape, much less help our inbound comrades.”
With that they silently set out, trooping slowly, through the grass and scrub, trying to hug the terrain. Fortunately, most of their enemy’s assets were turned towards the water. They were worried about a naval threat for some reason. When they came to the first buildings, highest up the slope they stacked up at the corner of the wall, the squad leader covering around one corner, the LMG at the other. Rabbit using his magnification to scan where they had just come from. The Assault team entered the building, the loudest thing was the soft rustle and rattle of their gear.
The assault team pronounced the building clear and the rest moved in. the support gunner watched the stairs while the man toting the Belt fed weapon, Rabbit and the squad leader all lay on the balcony, eyes downhill to their foes. The three-man assault team continued to room by room sweeping the surrounding buildings. They returned after the three buildings on the highest tier of the village were verified empty. Many of the belongings left untouched. The citizens had left in a hurry and the rebels had been nice enough to leave most of the belongings un pillaged. It was eerie, seeing so many empty and fully furnished houses, the power on and everything. But no people, not even stray dogs were about in the streets. Now the squad leader had had some time to think, and his plan was developing further.
The LMG and the support gunner were to stay where they were and keep an eye out with their high vantage point. Rabbit and the squad leader would go with the assault team to the next lower tier of the village, where the markets were. Their goal was to firstly, eliminate the snipers without causing alarm, then disarm the mines in the road.
With the snipers eliminated, there would be no one else on the high ground scanning the grasslands around the village. The other infantry appeared to be very relaxed. Milling about. Not always taking their weapons with them, napping in chairs with their feet up. So they could go further downhill to the small cluster of buildings that surrounded the courtyard, there they would put the explosives under the rocket truck and disarm the of the mines in the road. Finally, Rabbit got the hairiest job of all. He had to sneak all the way down to the water’s edge and plant his explosives on the helicopter before it took off again. After these objectives were done, they would rendezvous back at the top of the hill where the rest of the fire team would be waiting, and then ex-fill further uphill to where their packs were hidden and hideout for another twelve hours until the rest of the troops were due to land, near midnight.
The assault team and squad leader set off down the stairs cut into the rock outcropping that separated the highest and middle tier of the village. Rabbit, went way out to their left. Through the buildings and paralleled a footpath. He crawled on his belly through the grass and the dust and the bugs until he came to a rock outcropping. He crawled over the gray stones and wedged himself into the crack between two of the car-sized boulders and dug out his binoculars again. Using the range finder to where the two snipers still sat, in their folding chairs, scanning the grasslands. Two hundred and sixteen. He put his binoculars back into their case and flipped the bi-pod out on his rifle. Steadying it on the rocks and dialed his scope into his two hundred meter preset. The snipers had their backs to him and were lit clearly by the late morning sun. he flipped the safety off and double-checked to make sure he had a round chambered. Then gripping his rifle tightly sighted in on the farther of the two targets. Lining his cross-hairs with the top of his head and controlling his breathing, slowing his heart rate. Now he waited until the assault team was in position. Since they were typically working at shorter ranges, or indoors they had silenced weapons excluding their breaching shotgun. Even with silencers, they were not inaudible. And on this quiet and lazy morning, even at this range, Rabbit was willing to bet he would hear the shots. That’s why they weren’t going to do any shooting. All four of the figures that made up the assault team slowly crept up from the stairs of the second floor, onto the roof behind the lazing snipers. Casting almost no shadows as the sun neared its zenith. Rabbit could see the serrations on the edges of their combat knives as the approached their quarry. The men stood blades raised, poised for a moment. Rabbit was muttering to himself, again hardly stirring the dust beneath his chin.
“do it, do it, do it.”
Partially because he didn’t want the snipers to feel the threat behind them, and partially so rabbit could get off the hot rocks and back into the grass, where he would be slightly shaded and on the move. This early spring sun was starting to warm his camouflaged shoulders more then he liked.
With that, the six shapes on the roof suddenly merged into two. There was little noise. One of the chairs got tipped over. But there was no shouting. The snipers were surprised as they were beset by two men each, who with their weight, their hands and their knives, ended the encounter before it got loud. Their cold sharp blades plunging and twisting into necks and bellies and hands were clasped over mouths and still spasming bodies drug back from the roof's edge. The same bloodied knives were then used to pry the carefully dialed in scopes from their mounts off the rifles, so no one else could use those powerful rifles. Then the four men disappeared back down the stairs into the shadows. Rabbit leapt up from his rock and dashed across the dirt road, not ten meters beyond and went another three or four slides, before slowing and stopping. Dropping back into the grass, not stirring any more of the fine silty dust from the ancient basin and into the air then he had to.
He crawled through the grass another twenty meters before he came to a field, it had been let go to nature. There were no crops, the wild grasses had taken back over, the perfect rows were still there though, the tiny hills and trenches carved into the ground, Rabbit hunkered down into one of these and crawled, without using his hands or feet, but rather like an inchworm. Stretching and contracting through the dirt. He crossed the field and came to a knee-high rock wall. He slowly and cautiously lifted his head up, his rifle cradled in the crooks of his elbows, he supported himself with. Just barely peeking over the rocks. He produced his binoculars again and ranged the helicopter, which now sat empty, lifeless but still gleaming and predatory in the steady sun. eight hundred twenty-eight meters.
Rabbit stowed his specs and sighed, a round trip of more than a kilometre and a half, crawling on his belly in the dirt. His pockets were already filling with the fine silty sand. He popped his head up once more, glancing about and then, in one motion rolled over the low wall and with a surprisingly hard thud, landing on the bank beyond the wall. He squirmed another five meters down, into another field, also fallow. Again, using the tilled land to keep him low, he scooted on his belly, covering forty meters before coming to a wooden fence. The lower horizontal beam was too low to fit under, and the gap between the boards were too narrow for him and his gear to fit through. He would have to mantle over it. Exposing himself again. There was another dirt road on the other side, and twenty meters into the grassland beyond it a large bolder with a deformed tree sprouting from under it. The tree had grown large and strong though, and cast its leafy shadow over the whole rock.
Rabbit stood and with one hand on the fence hopped over. And as his boots hit the dirt road on the other side he saw two of the rebel soldiers. Both with rifles casually thrown over their shoulders, walking and talking with thickly accented voices. Here Rabbit was, standing against a fence, on a road, with nothing separating him and these two soldiers but forty meters of gnat filled air. With little else to do, he ran. Bending at the waist, pumping his legs towards the rock and its shade tree. As he approached the rock he slid his feet out in front of himself, sliding through the soft sand like a baseball player. He rotated his hips as he slid, so by the time he came to a stop, he was on his belly. The bi-pod for his rifle came back out and the safety back off. He sighted in on where the men had been and found them only a few paces from where he had left them. They hadn’t seen him or heard him, they kept walking, and when they reached a small wooden shed, they entered and shut the door behind them. To do who knows what.
Rabbit hadn’t seen them from his low vantage point down in the grass. He took this heart-pounding moment to scan the area a little more thoroughly with his magnifying scope. Nothing more, his heart rate slowly descended to a lower rate, as close as you could get to normal in a combat zone. However, the shed that those two soldiers had entered was at the intersection with the second set of land mines that the assault team was going to disarm. Rabbit had to warn them somehow. He didn’t want to break radio silence. He sat and puzzled the situation for a full moment or two, until he came to the conclusion there was no other safe, or time-efficient way to warn them, without using the radio.
So, he keyed his radio twice, letting the static break over the radio. So that the squad leader could hear it, almost as a question, asking for permission to speak. A gentle whisper came back a long heartbeat later, and gentle whisper, “This is bird dog…”
Rabbit, then spoke, “Bird dog, this is Rabbit, I’ve got two hot ones hidden in the little wood not far from your next touch zone, so deal with them at your discretion.”
Rabbit sat there for a moment, waiting for a reply. He was soon answered with two more taps to the static. The squad leader giving his ascent. Rabbit, accepted that they would deal with it appropriately and moved on. There was a gentle slope to the terrain behind his rock and tree. Rabbit used this to shelter himself from the enemy’s eyes, and instead of crawling he jogged, and covered ground very fast. Soon he was out of sheltering terrain. He was back on his belly, crawling in the dust. He hated the dust it was the super fine silty stuff. It got under his nails and irritated him to no end. Soon he even had it in his boots, causing chaffing where ever his sweaty man-flesh rubbed against itself.
He Crawled another one hundred and fifty meters in this fashion, filling every nook and crevice on himself and his gear with the fine powered sand from the overworked and fallow farm fields. He came to another rock outcropping on the slope, and hiding in its shadow took the opportunity to stand and dust himself off. But no matter how much he patted himself, the dust kept coming out of his gear. He feared it would never stop no matter how much he washed it. He checked with his laser range finders, less than two hundred meters to the helicopter, the problem was, he had to cross an open road and into a nearly empty parking lot where the helicopter was landed without getting seen.
Rabbit law in the overgrown grass of a public park gone wild, he was surprised it was doing so well in the heat. He scanned slowly, carefully. Looking for anyone and anything that moved. Measuring the open ground, the slope of the hillside, scanning the windows, the doors, looking for anyone, anything that could hide or contain a person. He could see nothing, no one. He grew tired of lying still in the hot air, the breeze had died down and he felt like he was sitting in a toaster. He rose from the grass and rested on a knee. Giving one last scan with his swiveling head.
He sucked in air quickly, a couple of fast shallow breaths, trying to squeeze as much oxygen as he could into his blood. He launched from his crouch and ran as fast as he could across the open ground. Manually drawing deep hard breaths even though he had only covered a handful of strides, in an attempt to try and keep his internal oxygen levels up. He looked to one side, and then the other, even back over his shoulder through the grass field, scanning as he ran. Soon his feet left the grass and he winced internally as the rubber soles of his boots thumped and slapped across the concrete slab that the chopper sat on. It was the first significant noise he had made in hours. He feared it would draw attention and he wanted to shorten his window of detection. He pressed on and ran harder. Twenty-three seconds later He slowed slightly and thumped into the side of the VTOL still at a half run. He sunk to a knee again, slipping as deep into the VTOL’s shadows as the sunlight would let him. He stayed there to suck a couple more deep heavy breaths, scanning, swinging his head looking for someone who may have spotted him. Willing the sound of blood pounding in his ears to lessen so he could hear shouts or calls of alarm.
Nothing, no movement, and continued silence. Rabbit wasn’t pleased. This was going to well. Things weren’t supposed to work out so nicely. I feared Mr.Murphy was waiting to rear his ugly head until the worse possible moment. He rummaged and produced the fist-sized explosive charged from his many pockets. Rifle slung over his back, with a bomb in each hand he swiveled to look at the VTOL. Where could he plant the charges that would be least likely to be noticed by a cursory visual inspection? He squeezed the two charges he held, the plastic explosives were malleable, almost like clay, each the size of an orange and wrapped in a condom to protect them from outside elements. He flopped down on his stomach, the concrete cool against his sweaty body as he lay in the shadow of the flying machine. He inched forward under it and slithered under its belly. He looked up into the open-wheel wells and then to the extended landing gear, then back into the shadowy depths they would retract into. After a moment of comparison, he decided which corner of the gear bay to stuff his explosives so that they wouldn't be squished, possibly destroying the detonator’s receiver, if the landing gear were retracted before the charges were detonated. Pushing hard forming the semi tacky plastic explosives to fill every nook and cranny he could so they wouldn’t fall out.
He lay there, looking at his mental picture of the vehicle, debating on where to put the third and final device. He smiled evilly as his creativity gave him an idea. He lay in the shadow of the machine, his head slowly swiveling as he looked for threats while he produced the third latex wrapped bomb. He unrolled it from its sheath and plucked the radio receiver from the little sphere. Then he rolled the ball between his hands until it made a rope as thick as his thumb and nearly as long as his forearm. Suspending it between both hands he slithered out of the shadows and moved to the back end of the aircraft. He stretched and dropped the rope onto the top of the horizontal stabilizer sticking out from the tail boom, opposite the small tail rotor. Then carefully but with a mischievous smirk, pushed the radio receiver and the prongs for its electric detonator back into the rolled, malleable explosives. On top of the horizontal tail surfaces, it was above the height a man could see, out of sight out of mind he though. He jogged casually as he un-slung his rifle, moving back towards the grass. He didn’t stop went he returned to the field but crossed it halfway before slowing and oozing back down into the grass like a predatory seal slipping from the ice back into the water.
He looked back uphill to the building where his squad mates had taken down the enemy snipers. The Squad was set to rendezvous there, after completing their various goals. He lay in the grass a moment to again let his breathing and heart rate return to normal before he started his slow meticulously controlled crawl, his movements filled with strength and tension like the slither of an angry snake. No energy wasted on any superfluous motion as he crawled, simultaneously the predator and the persecuted.
Rabbit had trekked two-thirds of the way back to the ‘safe house’ when the pop and rattle of distant automatic gunfire reached his ears. Followed but a burst of “fwit fwit fwit” as someone fired a flechette gun. He knew none of his squad carried such a weapon. They had been spotted and engaged the game was up. He rose from his fallow farm field, emerging from the tall weeds like the long skinny neck of a sea serpent rearing to glare with a large dead eye at the poor souls in a dingy about to be its next victim. He leaned on the top rail of the wooden fence and braced his rifle against it. He tapped the transmit button on his radio twice, the two chirps of static his request for information. The radio didn’t talk, but another burst of distant weapons fire told him the situation was still developing. Rabbit looked about quickly, not another soul in sight. He huffed deeply and vaulted over the fence and sprinted across the field on the other side. Another burst of weapons fire was punctuated by the thump of a small distant explosion, probably a hand grenade.
...Continued...
