Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

Returning to the center of the small patrol base, Nielsen keyed his microphone. “1-7, this is 1-1, over.”

Silence greeted him. He tried to keep his voice down. “1-7, 1-1. We’re within five hundred meters of the objective. How copy, over.”

Silence. Dead, cold, empty silence. Nielsen was sweating despite the cool of the evening. Not for the first time he cursed himself for not speaking out against their platoon leader’s idiotic plan for locating the enemy weapon caches. Splitting the platoon into such small teams was stupid. It flew in the face of common sense; it flew in the face of basic tactics. If not for the platoon sergeant’s total incompetence and unwillingness to confront the new lieutenant, it would never have happened.

There’d been no radio contact for almost twenty minutes now. That was absolutely unheard of. The only thing to do was drive on to the next objective and hope to meet them there. Beyond that, Nielsen didn’t have a clue but he’d be damned if he’d let his team down by showing his fear.

“All right,” he said after a moment. “Let’s pick it up.”

They pushed on another three hundred meters. Every step was the same grueling, knee-locked affair as the last. The air in the mountains was thin. Nielsen resisted the urge to give the order to swap their helmets for patrol caps. Nightfall was coming soon, and they’d need their helmet-mounted night vision for even the shortest movement up the mountain.

They’d made it almost four hundred meters up the spur when Macy abruptly opened fire with his MK48. “Contact,” he said, dropping to a knee behind a small pile of rocks. The machine gun thundered briefly, firing a burst of nine armor-piercing incendiary rounds. “Two hundred fifty meters. High on opposite ridge. One enemy RPG team.”

Nielsen’s response was drowned out by the heavy crump of an exploding RPG-7. The rocket propelled grenade detonated against a nearby pine, sending splinters of wood and sap flying.

“1-7, this is 1-1, troops in contact,” he said into his useless radio, dropping to a knee as Macy went down into the prone. “Talk the guns!” he shouted as Coutts’ lighter M249 opened up further down the spur. The M249 and the MK48 quickly began firing complimentary bursts, each one opening up when the other paused to re-acquire sight pictures or reload.

A High-Explosive Dual-Purpose grenade sailed through the air from Folen’s position. Nielsen fired his own grenade launcher a second later. AK-47 rounds snapped through the air past his head. He reloaded his underslung grenade launcher, taking note of the bright muzzle flash of the enemy RPK light machine gun.

Both his and Folen’s grenades landed solidly in the midst of the enemy position. A plume of smoke and dust rose from the stand of trees where the enemy had been.

“Cease fire,” Nielsen shouted immediately, fearful for the conservation of machine gun ammunition. “Folen, hit it again. Erwin, tag any squirters you can see.”

Mindful of where he’d seen the RPK, Nielsen sent another grenade hurtling through the air. Folen’s came shortly after, both of them hitting right on top of each other.

There was silence for a moment; then, a single round fired from Erwin’s EBR. “Erwin?” Nielsen said.

“Saw some movement. Just wanted to be sure.”

“All right. Buddy ACE report, then let’s get out of here.”

He moved to Macy’s position, quickly checking the other soldier for any injuries he might not have noticed in the brief adrenaline rush of combat. “Ammo count?” Nielsen said, checking the soldier’s night-vision pouch and tapping his rifle-mounted optic systems.

“Five hundred rounds,” Macy answered. “Should have shot more. Shit’s heavy.”

“Yeah, well, until we link up with Team 2 we need to play it safe.” Nielsen tapped his soldier’s helmet, and quickly showed Macy his own sensitive items. The junior infantryman quickly checked his team leader for any injuries before returning the helmet tap. “Good work, Macy.”

None of the others had been injured, and ammo levels were still at acceptable levels. Not like it matters, Nielsen thought. We’ve got one or two firefights like that left before we need a resupply. He pulled a HOOAH! energy bar out of his pocket, gnawing on the slimy peanut butter mess. Gonna need to start rationing chow if we get to the objective and no one else is there.

Just the thought of it formed a knot of anxiety in his stomach. “I’m not fucking ready for this,” he muttered, washing the energy bar down with a swig of water before turning to the rest of his team. “All right, pick up. We need—”

“Hey, Sarn’t?” Erwin spoke, looking down his scope. “You’re gonna want to take a look at this.”