SNAFU: Hunters

Matt’s visor automatically dimmed over the continuous muzzle-flash as Platt fired full auto and swept inside, following the bullets through the doorway with a roar that carried over the intercom. Matt and al-Azwar came in behind, al-Azwar keeping their targets pinned down with tight, controlled bursts while Matt killed them with the directional grenades.

Seconds later the room fell quiet, the FoF indicating no living targets.

“Here!” al-Azwar cried, flipping up a metal access hatch with her boot. Without waiting she stepped in and dropped out of sight, carbine pointed down as she fell through the hole.

Platt and Rowley whirled as a pair of men ran in, gaped wide-eyed at the carnage then fled in panic. Matt stepped up and looked inside the hole. A series of rebar handles led into the darkness, which in the UV spectrum resolved into a ladder descending several stories to a concrete floor. IR signatures showed faint signs of passage, but the tunnels glowed too warm for much more.

Platt nodded at the hole. “You first.”

Matt stepped inside, pressing his boots against the walls to slow his descent enough not to break his legs when he hit the ground. Above him, Platt stepped in and grabbed a rung.

Platt hissed as his fingers separated from his hand in a flash of silver. He turned, groping for his carbine left-handed. Another flash and his helmet toppled down the shaft, his head still inside, neck spurting steaming red blood. A block of plastic bricks followed Platt’s dead body down the hole, a red light blinking in the darkness.

Matt fired a burst up the shaft and pulled his feet back, falling the last twenty feet before impacting hard on the concrete floor. He leapt. With a spin he just managed to pull himself behind a metal door before the room erupted.

Heat washed over him in a deafening, blinding white, crushing him between the wall and the door. His armor crackled, the HUD went dark. He held his breath for as long as he could, then gasped in air that seared his throat, scorched his lungs. Gagging, he stumbled to his knees and tore off his helmet. His hair shriveled in the fading heat, and he kept his eyes squeezed tight.

A moment passed, and a breeze tickled his skin as more air rushed back into the room. He gasped in a breath, cleaner now, and opened his eyes.

Flecks of blackened skin fell from his hands, the only part of his body exposed to the explosion. He flexed his fingers as the skin knitted over and through the damaged tissue – he’d have to cut it away later to let blemish-free skin grow. If there was a later.

Dust and smoke obscured his vision, but from his vantage point he could just make out the pile of demolished concrete that had once made up the shaft, and next to it the smoldering remains of one of Platt’s boots, a chunk of bone sticking out of the ruined meat. Matt stood and looked down at the bandoleer of drum magazines for the AA-12. The smoking leather had protected the munitions just enough. Had they detonated, he’d be a dead man.

He rounded the corner, weapon up, and left the room, his useless helmet lying next to Platt’s boot. “Hurya, do you copy?”

Static burst through his ear bud, intermingled with what might have been al-Azwar’s voice.

“I’m on your six. Platt’s dead.”

“–ay again, Rowley.” Karle’s deep voice reverberated through his ears. “Y– king up.”

“Karle, Platt’s dead, hostile unknown. We’re underground.” He rounded a corner and snarled at the uselessness of his IR; the floor and walls glowed a uniform red, an afterimage from the explosion, or perhaps from a subterranean heat source. “al-Azwar, I’m on your six, copy.”

The indecipherable noise that followed left him no idea whether or not they’d understood, or if Hurya had heard him at all.

* * *

Bullets pinged off of the bus-gate as Conor leapt through the holes left by the trio of AGM-176 Griffin missiles, the drone-capable, candy-ass little brothers of Hellfire missiles designed to limit collateral damage. His ears filled with the melodious sounds of rifle shots and screaming panic, and in his mind his katana sang of unending bloodshed as he drew it from its sheath.

He ignored the scattering civilians, and the whispers’ nagging encouragement to cut them down. They didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know, and there were bigger, more challenging prizes to pursue.

Karle and Washington took position behind the gate and fired short, controlled bursts from their M4s, letting the IFF targeting system guide the electronically-controlled flechette rounds to their targets. They couldn’t shoot around corners, but in Conor’s opinion, 300-meter shots without bothering to aim just scoured all the joy out of combat.

Conor leapt, taut muscle launching him twenty feet in the air and straight at the bonk charging their position.