Marko Kloos - Terms of Enlistment

“Lock and load,” Sergeant Fallon shouts.

We get up and charge our weapons. The bolt of my rifle slams home, shoving a live flechette round into the chamber. This is not the first time I’ve loaded real ammunition, but it’s the first time I may be shooting those flechettes at people instead of gel-filled polymer silhouettes.

The ramp hits the ground. Outside, I see a manicured lawn, and a collection of low buildings beyond.

“Let’s go, people!”

We exit the drop ship at a run, weapons at the ready. Our tactical displays show us the deployment vectors for the individual squads, so we don’t need anyone to lead the way. Stratton is ahead of me, and I follow him across the lawn toward the front gate of the complex. Behind me, First and Second Squads follow, sixteen little blue diamond carets on the tactical map overlaid into my field of vision by the helmet display.

“Fire Team Alpha, let’s find some cover by those planters on the left side of that gate,” Corporal Baker says over the team channel.

There are two embassy guards in riot gear hunkered down by the guardhouse on the traffic island in front of the gate. The gate itself is a cast iron latticework, intended more for decoration than for use as a real barrier. I chuckle when I see that the guards have lowered the red and white arms of the traffic barriers as well, as if those ceremonial pieces of striped plastic will offer some additional resistance if someone decides to break through the gate.

We take up position behind the heavy concrete planters fifty yards behind the guardhouse, and the guards come rushing over, running with their heads drawn in like a pair of turtles. They wear impact plates, but those are nothing like our battle armor, just chest and back plates joined by quick-release fasteners. They’re armed with short-barreled PDWs, little automatic submachine guns that are better than a pistol, but nowhere near as useful as a rifle.

“Glad to see you guys,” one of the guardsmen says. “We’re ready to get the hell out of here.”

“Any trouble with the locals?” Corporal Baker asks.

“You could say that. We got some grenade fire into the central building this morning, and ever since then, it’s been small-arms fire here and there. The locals must have raided an armory, or something. We keep getting drive-bys. Thank God they can’t shoot. They just sort of drive up and spray a magazine into our general direction.”

“Well, the next round is on us,” Baker says. “You guys stay in the back a bit.”

“No argument,” the other guardsman says, and both of them rush off to find cover somewhere.

“Bravo One-One, first fire team is in position,” Baker says into his helmet mike.

“I know, nimrod. We’re thirty yards to your right. I can see you,” Sergeant Fallon’s reply comes back over the squad channel, and we all chuckle.

“Listen to that shit,” Hansen says. There’s a steady crackling of gunfire coming from the city beyond the gates of the embassy. I can see empty streets, illuminated by yellow streetlights. The area around the embassy looks like a business zone, shuttered shops and deactivated marquees. “Wonder if they have any good bars around here,” I say.

“Wanna go out and look for one? I got my universal credit card right here.” Stratton hefts his rifle.

I open my mouth for a smart-ass reply, but now we hear engine sounds from the end of the street beyond the embassy gate, and everybody gets back to the business of finding cover. This sounds like an old combustion engine, the kind they used to put on heavy equipment. I can feel the pavement vibrate with the low drumming of the far-off engine.

“This can’t be good,” Hansen says.

“The drop ships are loading up the civilians right now,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Anything comes around that corner that looks more dangerous than a street sweeper, you take it the fuck out.”

There’s activity at the far end of the street. The blunt snout of an armored vehicle appears, and we watch as it turns the corner, taking out a trash container and a shop marquee in the process. It’s a battle tank, one of the old models that run on tracks. It stands much higher than a modern tank, and instead of a modular weapons mount, it has a round armored turret that looks like a frying pan turned upside down, and a cannon that’s almost as long as the tank itself. It’s a rolling antique, but if they have ammo for that big gun, it can still dish out a world of hurt.

“Fuck me,” Baker says. “Get out of line of sight, people.”

We don’t need the encouragement. The planters are good protection against small-arms fire, but not against a tank cannon.

“Priest, get the anti-armor missiles up here.”

There’s more engine noise coming from the end of the street. Another tank turns the corner in a cloud of diesel smoke. A third one follows, and it has soldiers in uniforms and body armor following in its wake. The tanks fan out in a line across the width of the street, and then a fourth tank rumbles around the corner and takes its place in the formation.

“Super, a whole freakin’ tank platoon. Sarge, we need some more AT guys up here.”

“On the way,” Sergeant Fallon says.

Priest swaps his rifle for the anti-armor launcher and takes the dust caps off his launcher tube.

“Grayson, cover Priest. Make me some scrap metal.”

Priest dashes off to the front wall, and I follow, rifle at the ready. He follows the protection of the wall until he’s at the gate, and then peers around the corner to gauge the advance of the hostile armor platoon. As his computer parses the information, we see four red icons on our map overlays where Priest spots the enemy tanks.

Priest flicks the launch button cover with his thumb, and winks at me. Then he steps back from the wall, and aims the launcher tube into the air. There’s a muffled “pop” as the expeller charge ejects the missile from the tube, and then the missile’s own motor kicks in with an undramatic hiss that sounds like Priest is firing a really big bottle rocket. The missile shoots up into the night sky.

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi…” Priest says, and then there’s an earth-shattering bang on the other side of the wall. One of the red tank icons on my screen blinks out of existence. Priest peeks around the corner again, and hastily pulls his head back.

“ Uh-oh . That pissed ‘em off, I think.”

The tanks open up with machine guns. There are chips of concrete flying as their bullets hit the corner where Priest fired his missile, and we retreat along the wall, away from the gate.

We’re twenty yards from the gate when the wall of the embassy shakes, and part of it comes bursting into the compound in a cloud of concrete dust. The earphones in my helmet automatically filter the sound of the explosion, but even with the electronic noise filter, the explosion is almost deafening. When I look over my shoulder, there’s a hole in the wall that’s only slightly smaller than a garage door.

“Figures that we get here just before the shit hits the fan,” I shout to Priest, who laughs as he readies his second anti-armor rocket.

“That’s what we do , man. We’re the fire brigade.”

Then he fires his second missile into the sky, and a few heartbeats later, there’s another explosion, this one closer than the first one. Another red tank icon flashes and disappears from the tactical map. A few hundred feet to our right, where Bravo Team and Sergeant Fallon have taken up position, someone fires another missile. I watch as the missile, barely longer than my arm, swiftly rises into the sky on a thin jet of brightly burning propellant.

A third tank explodes with a thunderclap. This explosion is practically on the other side of the wall now. The fourth tank guns its engine, and I can see its headlights illuminating the pavement on our side of the gate.