Mel Odom - Apocalypse unleashed

“Yes, sir.” Rebreanu frowned a little.

“I’m aware that this isn’t the kind of action your team is used to seeing,” Remington went on. “They’ll adjust. The same way we’ve adjusted.”

“That’s what the secretarygeneral said too, Colonel.”

Remington smiled. “He’s a smart man.”

“He has absolute faith in you, sir.”

“That just means he’s more intelligent than I realized.” Remington saluted. “Now let’s get out there and put a boot to some Syrian butts.”

Local Time 1743 Hours

“Incoming!”

Remington dropped down behind a barricade of sandbags and tucked his face into the crook of his elbow. A tank round struck a building behind him. A storm of cracked stone and mortar peppered his helmet and body armor. A few chunks ricocheted from exposed and unprotected flesh. He’d have bruises on his forearms, thighs, and calves later.

The explosion left Remington partially deafened. The hoarse yelling and screams of the wounded sounded like they were a million miles away from him. He straightened and peered over the sandbag wall.

“They’re massing,” Sergeant Whitaker said. Young but experienced, the sergeant held the line beside Remington.

“I see them.” Remington stared through his protective eye gear. On the other side of the bare ground, the Syrian army prepared to launch an offensive. “We should have mined that area.”

Remington had ordered his men to use the local earthmoving equipment to clear all trees and rock in a two-hundred-yard band on all sides of the city. That task still wasn’t finished, but all the areas along the thoroughfares had been plucked clean.

“Yeah,” Whitaker agreed. He grinned a little. “When we give ’em the fall line, they’re going to be in for a nasty surprise.”

Under Remington’s direction, a line of claymore antipersonnel mines lay beyond the first defensive barrier outside the city. Holding that position long enough to convince the Syrians they were determined to keep it was risky and would undoubtedly prove costly.

The Rangers and the United Nations troops held solid, but Remington recognized fear in those mud-streaked faces. The rain continued unabated and washed out gullies across the barren land the earthmovers had left.

“Sparrow Leader,” Remington called over the com.

“Sparrow Leader reads you.”

“Ready?”

“We were born ready.”

“On my go,” Remington stated quietly.

“Sparrow Unit is standing by.”

Remington watched the line taking shape. Despite the torrential downpour and the quagmire of mud pits that had formed in front of them, the cavalry of the Syrian army advanced. Tires and tank treads churned through the loose soil. Men marched beside them. The grinding roar of machinery came closer.

Someone opened fire. Remington didn’t know if it came from the defenders or the Syrians, but the shot escalated the approach into a fullfledged firefight. He remained behind cover and took aim with his M-4A1. He snapped off tri-bursts at the human targets. They fell, tumbled, and twisted away.

Bullets ripped across the heap of sandbags and through the air only inches from his ear. One slammed into his helmet and startled him. Controlling the fear that writhed within him, he shook the rain from his eyes and took aim again.

Syrian soldiers trailed the tanks, APCs, and mobile artillery pieces. They were exposed and knew it. Handfuls of them fell at a time; lifeless bodies and wounded were left behind. The advance was inexorable. Without the reinforcements, Remington knew his soldiers wouldn’t have been able to hold the city from the invaders.

Timing, he reminded himself. It’s all about the timing. He fired again and again. One of the soldiers he aimed at went down.

The trick, Remington knew, was to reshape the front line. Then he had to attack before the second wave followed. Once the Syrians had their full momentum up, the city could still be overrun.

“Sparrow Leader,” Remington called.

“Ready.”

“Hit ’em. Hit ’em hard.”

Immediately a dozen attack helos lifted up from the streets back in the middle of the city. They thundered by overhead and divided into two groups of six, then launched rockets and 20mm cannon rounds at the ends of the advancing line.

Devastated by the withering fire, giving in to their instincts for self-preservation, the units on the ends of the Syrian line pushed in toward each other, and the front lost a third of its width. The helos came under fierce attack. One of them exploded in midair, struck by a surface-to-air missile that rained down debris. Another lost its main rotor and went down, smashing against an APC before exploding and taking out the tank and several infantrymen.

Remington cursed. Even with Carpathia’s promise of still more machines and troops, losing hardware like the attack helos chafed him.

The second wave of Syrians formed but held their positions.

“Sparrow,” Remington called, “get out of there.”

The remaining helicopters swooped around and streaked back toward the city.

“Keep firing till I call for the retreat,” Remington ordered his men.

The first wave of Syrians kept coming. They smelled victory even though they took steady losses. All they had to do was secure an anchoring position. Then they’d be inside the city.

The second wave started forward.

“Fall back,” Remington ordered. “Fall back now.”

As one, the city’s defenders retreated from the forward line and ran into the city. Syrian bullets followed them. Some of the soldiers didn’t make it. Remington stumbled twice as rounds hammered his body armor. He went down after a third round struck, his face digging into the mud, then got back to his feet and ran harder.

Less than a minute later, the advancing line of Syrians reached the sandbags. The antipersonnel claymores opened up as the invaders reached them. Solid steel shot chopped into human flesh and tore it to pieces. Tankbuster bomblets blew apart the treads on some of the Syrian vehicles. The ones still capable of moving rolled into the sights of artillery teams.

Destruction opened up along the forward line. At the second line of defense, taking cover behind a section of a building wall that remained standing, Remington watched as his enemies died. Savage glee filled him. This was why he’d been born: to be a warrior, a winner, a survivor against all odds.

His talent for bringing death and mayhem to his enemies stood him in good stead. He loved his calling, and he embraced it wholly as he watched his counterattack take shape.

“Hound Leader,” Remington called.

“Hound Leader standing by.”

“You’re up.”

“Roger that. We’ll clean and set the table, sir. Count on us.”

“Artillery,” Remington went on, “light ’em up.” He ducked around the wall and shot a Syrian who burst into view. The enemy soldier took two more steps, then went down and didn’t get back up.

Across the front of the second line of defenders, laser target designators painted the enemy vehicles that milled around in confusion at the line of sandbags. TOW and Hawk missiles launched, taking out the targets in quick succession.

The Syrian survivors tried to pull back. The second wave had frozen in its tracks.

Then the Hound units swept by from the outskirts of the city, flying toward each other at speed. The six cargo helicopters crossed over the empty land behind the first-line Syrians and the empty space that separated them from the other troops hidden within the treeline. The Hound helos spewed bomblets, spreading hundreds of them over the space in less than a minute.

The bomblets were tankbusters and antipersonnel pressure mines. Remington had found a storehouse of Turkish military equipment and had put it to good use.