Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

Two shots struck Petey Preston before he knew what hit him. His body armor caught most of the bullets’ energy, but he still went down hard. Hurt. Bleeding from shallow wounds and broken ribs, he gasped for air. Not fatal but painful.

Chico Powell ran thirty yards behind Corporal Preston and saw him bite the dirt. Instead of going lateral and opening fire with his support rifle, he ran to his buddy, who lay wailing, kicking his feet something awful.

Four shots hit Chico before he could reach Petey. One nailed his night optics on the front of his MACH helmet, parted his hair, and knocked him out cold. The other three buried in his armored vest’s Kevlar, not putting holes in his body but also breaking ribs. He looked dead.

Petey quit yelling when he saw his bro go down, blood pouring over his face from the head wound. He thought the Hajis had killed his pard.

Instead of pissing and moaning, blinding pain aside, Preston rolled onto his light machine gun and opened fire into the nest of Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah jihadis. He swept the entire frontage with grazing fire and put all of the ambushing gunmen behind the rocks and earth mounds at the turn in the wadi where they had laid the ambush.

Petey thought, so close but so far away. Just behind the bastards, east another mile, lay rally point Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and hopeful ex-traction. How did these bastards know to put their ambush here?

As he suppressed the enemy with his machine gun, Petey moved backwards, past the motionless body of Chico Powell, and found good cover at another turn in the wadi that he reckoned sat just outside the Hajis’ kill zone. He tried to call the gang on his intercom but he couldn’t catch his breath. He tasted blood in his mouth and knew he probably had a piece of bone stuck in his lungs.

“Petey! Chico!” Jack Valentine yelled on his helmet headset. No answer, but Corporal Preston did manage to find his radio button and sent an S-O-S with clicks.

Then Petey coughed, and that carried on his hands-free microphone.

With the one corporal apparently dead and the other behind cover, the enemy stopped firing and waited.

“Who shot?” Jamal al-Hakim shouted in Arabic, standing without thinking. “What fool shot! You didn’t hear my orders? Hold fire until we have them all! Now look!”

All of his men sank behind their weapons, and Ismail emotionally melted into the ground.

“Me, sir,” Ismail answered his commander, raising his hand. “I was overwhelmed.” And the boy began to weep.

The cameraman glanced at the boy and shook his head.

Petey Preston held his fire, saving his ammo. He looked sadly at his pard, Randy. Dead. Facedown and bleeding in the sand. Then he saw Chico move his foot, coming to.

“Stay still, bro,” Petey said on his intercom, his broken ribs stabbing his lungs as he breathed the words. Then he saw the subtle thumb on Corporal Powell’s left hand point up and go back down.

Cotton Martin came alongside Petey. Sammy LaSage, too.

“What’s the damage?” Martin asked.

“I’m fucked unless I can get out of here pretty quick,” Preston answered. “Kevlar took away the penetration. I got two bullets just inside somewhere. But I got broken ribs on both sides, and a slow leak in my right lung.”

He spit blood to show the staff sergeant.

“And Randy?” Cotton asked, seeing the other Marine lying facedown, blood on the sand, his helmet still strapped tight under his chin but the night optics and front of the K-pot messed up from the bullet.

“Alive,” Petey said. “Can’t say how bad, but alive. He gave me a thumbs-up, and I told him to lie still. They won’t waste ammo on a dead body.”

“Back about fifty feet, there’s that little turn that will let us set up a SAW on the other side of the wadi, and we can get an angle on their right flank,” Cotton said, assessing their available cover and possible firing points.

Bronco and Jaws showed up with Jack and Cochise hot on their tails. In two minutes, all seven Marines snuggled close to the embankment, behind the cover of the elbow.

“From this turn, we can cover everything from center to left flank,” Jack said, unhitching his pack.

“That elbow, back about fifty feet”—Cotton pointed—“gives us coverage of the center to right flank.”

“You and Sage set up the other machine gun there,” Jack said, and began looking high on the wash sides above the streambed. “We got a couple of good spots at higher angles. We’ll put those Vigilance guns up there.”

He looked at his Marines. “No scattered shots. All the ammo we got is what we got. Make it count. If we can’t bust out of here, those Hajis the artillery missed will be running up our ass soon enough, and she’ll be all over. So don’t go to loving this place too much. We gotta grab Chico and get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Love to go right now, boss,” Bronco said.

“Tell me about it,” Jack said, and gave Cortez a smile.

“You got a plan?” Cotton asked.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “But you won’t like it.”

“Does that matter?” Martin smiled.

“No.” Jack grinned back.

“Why ain’t they shooting?” Sage asked, using his spotting scope to sneak a peek over the top of the embankment and try to pick out the enemy gun placements. “We got fifteen or twenty rifle barrels and Haji heads between what looks like three machine guns on bipod mounts. What do you suppose they’re waiting on?”

“Us, I’d imagine,” Jaws said.

“I think they’re wanting to hold us here and take us alive,” Jack said. “They figure we’ll surrender when all those Hajis behind us arrive.”

“Some people might do that,” Cotton said. “But we know better, don’t we.”

“Fuckin’ A, dude,” Jaws said. “Nobody sawing my head off on YouTube.”

“What about your plan I won’t like?” Martin asked Jack.

“About a hundred yards back, I saw a little feeder gully coming in this draw from the south. Leads right out of this shit stream,” Valentine said.

“Yeah, I saw it, too.” Cotton nodded.

“We set up a base of fire here. Suppress the shit out of them,” Jack began. “Grab Chico. Get back here. Bury me with a SAW and a sniper gun. I keep them in place while you seven run for it to that gully and head south. Sweep a big circle around to the rally point.”

“Why don’t we just set up a base of fire,” Cotton said. “And use fire and movement tactics to get all eight of us out of here? Isn’t that a better idea?”

“No,” Jack said. “I thought about fire and movement first. They’ll just chase us down when we move out. If they’re on us, the minute we cross open terrain, we’re all dead.”

“We could fucking attack them!” Cochise Quinlan said, fire in his throat. “Bust out on both their flanks and kill the shit out of them. Worst that happens, we all go down in blazes of glory. But they sure the fuck don’t capture us and cut off our heads on YouTube.”

“Yeah, well,” Bronco said. “Trouble with your plan, Cochise? We all fucking die. What about the tribe coming up our asses right now? You think about that?”

Quinlan shook his head and gave Bronco the finger.

“They’ll vent all guns soon as we go for Chico,” Jack said. “We tie them up in an exchange. Everybody falls back to the gully and exits except one man running a SAW back there, and me running mine up here.

“Cotton, I want you to lead the herd, so that leaves Sage to run the other machine gun. Once you guys disappear up the gully, he’ll pull his gun and fly, too. I’ll keep ’em busy. They won’t know you’ve gone until you’re well away.

“While we’re resting, dig me a good deep hide in the bank, right behind this gun. I’ll roll in it and you cover me with rocks and crap. Hide me good. If I live or die depends on how well you cover me.”