Episode 18

Walk It Down

“Faster!” I yelled. “Get to the gun nest!” As I said it they opened fire from below, but we were almost there… almost there!

And then we were over the wall of sand bags, Ward almost throwing Jones over in his haste—and another crack of fire came from beyond the royal guard. There was our backup—but they were in the field, without cover. The Royal Guard were behind their jeeps and sniping at our boys. I looked around to see four dead men inside the ring of sandbags, half buried in sand and torn up by the blast, except for one almost broken in half over the seat of the cannon. Jock, Park, Four-eyes and Leighton were trying to snipe the guards from over the bags but they were firing back, so the boys had to keep their heads down. Then I looked at the barrel of the machine gun, which seemed intact, shoved the body off the seat, swung the barrel around, said a prayer to Ares, and fired!

I came up too high at first but walked the barrel down, destroying the jeeps and cutting the enemy troops to pieces.

The look on Jock’s face was priceless. All of them had jumped and ducked when I pulled the trigger, focused completely on the enemy below.

“Thanks, boys!” came a voice over the radio. “We lost one down here, second wounded. Those guys would have had us all in another moment.”

“Thank Corporal Falkland,” Jock radioed back, then turned to me. “Okay, Tommy. Nice one. But that gun could have blown to pieces… not exactly the smartest approach.”

“Yes sir. You are correct,” I replied seriously. “I am stupid, sir.”

His face cracked into a grin. “Naw, it was awesome.” He slapped me on the back. In a moment, we were joined by the men from the second squad, one of whom had to be helped up as his arm hung limp and bloody at his side.

I looked down from the nest. It had a great view, sweeping over the neighborhood and covering the road. If it hadn’t been for drones, we would have had a hard time hitting it. I looked over the edge of the sandbags on the right side and spotted two more bodies, thrown partially down the ridge.

The position was excellent, and since the gun was working… “Jock,” I said. “Tell me—why shouldn’t we hold this gun for now?”

“Objective was to destroy them,” he said, “but it is tempting. We could take potshots at enemy troops for a solid 180 degrees.” He looked up. Above us the rock rose into almost a sheer cliff face. “Yeah, tempting,” he said. “Though they could probably take it back if they came by with some bigger truck-mounted artillery. We might be the sitting ducks, then. Probably better to blow it and go hit the next one.”

“I could stay,” said the Wardog with the busted arm. One of his teammates had tied it up already.

“Can you man this gun with one arm, Private Walters?” the other squad leader asked him. The injured man grinned.

“Are Achernarni chicks blue?” he said.

No one knew, but it was obvious the guy had guts. He sat up behind the gun, swung it back and forth experimentally and nodded. “No problem, Lieutenant Fick. I’ll stay.”

“I’m with him,” Jones said. “I’ve got a helluva a headache but I think I can still spot."

“Anyone else volunteer to stay?” Fick asked the rest of us. No one said yes. Tired as we were, staying behind and waiting wasn’t in our blood.

Fick shrugged. “That’s what I figured. Corporal Goodman, you stay with Walters and Jones. You be his backup eyes. And here,” he said, taking an explosive charge from his pack. “Blow it up when we get called in. If all goes well, someone will pick you up again when the main body rolls into the city this evening.”

Goodman nodded, then we grabbed our packs and headed out in search of another nest to tag. After some triangulation with home base, we found another one two miles on, tucked up on a hill beneath a water tower.

Park got the targeting laser perfect on that one. If you never heard the sound of a drone strike causing a massive water tower to explode and fall on a machine gun nest, well, you just haven’t lived. It was beautiful.

But not as beautiful as the news we got that evening as we watched sun sink into the faraway ocean. We’d pulled it off and the Ulimbese armor and the rest of our boys were moving in. The city was ours, with the exception of the royal palace itself.

Booyah.