John Ringo: Kildar

“Vanner, commo?” Mike asked.

“If you can pack some microboxes along, that would be good,” Vanner said. “That way you can keep your transmission power down.” The small “black boxes” worked on a distributed network and only weighed two pounds.

“We had a ruck march scheduled for day after tomorrow,” Adams said. “We’re going to move that around for rifle training, but we can only run three teams through the range at a time. What say we take the other three, with their instructors in charge, and go place boxes behind your route? Do that for two days, take them back and run them through the range?”

“That’s going to be a big movement,” Mike said. “Take one team and make it look like a training exercise. Send one team up behind us, one south and one up into the hills to the east. That way we’ll have full coverage anyway. Rotate the other teams in behind them. Do some patrol training. Set it up and pre-train tomorrow, move out the day after. Get the other teams as dialed in on engagement as possible in three days. Then rotate the first teams out.”

“Do we send the first teams out armed or unarmed?” Nielson asked, thoughtfully.

“Armed,” Mike said. “I know they’re only familiarized, but always bring a gun to a gunfight. No magazine in the well, but full load on their gear. No frags, no heavy weapons. One of the instructors can bring a machine gun if they choose and load up as they please. The Keldara can carry spare ammo.”

“Works,” Adams said. “We’ll get it set up while you’re gone.”

“Taking one of your girls with you?” Vanner asked, grinning. “Gonna get cold up in the hills.”

“Not even Katya,” Mike replied.

As the Expedition rolled to a stop, Mike stepped out trotting and ran to the rear.

“Gear up,” he said, quietly. They were less than seven kilometers from the Turdun Valley. Of course, it was on the other side of a high ridge, but the Chechens could have gotten to this point already.

It didn’t feel like an ambush, though. It felt… right. Like he was back in his element. There was an owl calling off to the west and the trees were moving in a high wind across the pass. It sounded good, like home. He wasn’t juggling training schedules or budgets anymore, just going out to find and localize some bad guys. And, with any luck, neutralize them.

He still wasn’t sure how to do that, though. The correlation of forces was… severe. The Chechen force was filled with experienced guerilla fighters and his militia was severely outnumbered. The trainers, if he centralized them, would be a formidable force, but they hadn’t trained together. If he had a Specter or an F-15 loaded with JDAMs he wouldn’t think about how to take out the Chechens. He’d sincerely considered calling Washington to scream for help but he figured this was a personal fight. Let the Chechens learn not to fuck with the Keldara.

He shrugged on his ruck and hefted his rifle, stepping aside to let the others load up as he drifted to the woodline. The opening of the trail was clear in the faint light and he didn’t even turn on his Night Observation Device. After a moment, though, he keyed on the thermal sight on the 7mm sniper rifle and scanned the woods. Nothing, not even a deer.

“We’re geared up,” Praz said from the edge of the woodline.

“Lasko, Killjoy, Vanim, Praz, Me, Otar and Russell,” Mike said. His voice was pitched low but not a whisper, which would carry farther.

He waited for his position in the team and then rolled in, following Praz into the darkness. The team was camoed up in ghillie suits and floppy “boonie” hats, the latter with strips of glowing tape on the rear. As they entered the woods the light level dropped and Mike flipped down his monocular NOD, using it to find his way through the dark. Through the NOD the team was clear, especially the faintly glowing strips. The Chechens very rarely used NODs so they were probably fine.

The night was clear but high cirrus clouds presaged rain for later. If so, it would just be in the nature of the mission. Rain would actually be good from his point of view; it would make it less likely the Chechens could move fast and less likely the team would be detected. The other two specops types were going to eat rain up and the Keldara needed to learn.

They moved slowly up the mountain, getting their gear in position and stopping to check on rattle. The Keldara were good stalkers and trackers, but they were unfamiliar with the gear and needed some adjustment. But by an hour into the mission they were all good, moving up the mountainside like camouflaged ghosts.

When they reached the saddle at the top of the ridge, Mike halted the team and sent Killjoy and Lasko to the top. Killjoy had a set of thermal imaging binoculars for reconning. After fifteen minutes the two came back down and Killjoy got close enough to make a negative hand gesture. If the Chechens were coming they weren’t in the Turdun Valley yet. At least, not in view.

There were two trails entering the valley that the Chechens could be using. The left-hand one was more direct, but they could have come in on the right-hand one that was more to the south. However, the two valleys paralleled a ridge running between them. Mike had mentally designated an observation rally point on the top of the ridge. They’d have to find a good hide and be discreet, since they’d be in view of both trails. But that was their target.

He waved the team forward and they moved out, cautiously but quickly. They’d spent about three hours getting to the top of the ridge and they had less than that until dawn. They had to get down into the valley, cross it undetected, and get up on the next wood-covered ridge before dawn. At that point he’d probably call a halt, detail some lookouts and catch a nap during the day.

As it turned out, the trail they were on was more complicated than it looked on the map. After a couple of switchbacks it had entered a narrow defile that was parallel to the slope. The up side of the defile on the north side led into the tree-covered slope but the down side on the south was a high dike of granite. A small stream ran at the base of the granite, obviously unable to penetrate, while the trail, which was fairly wide at that point, followed the stream. The dike of rock led them well off to the east from the direction they were headed and Mike more than once considered trying to climb out of it. However, the walls were granite and smooth with moss from the stream climbing up their sides; getting out would be problematic. Finally, the ridge of rock that formed the defile fell away and the trail cut back to the west, the stream falling through a series of cascades towards the valley floor. At that point, he called a halt since the sun was damned near up. There was a group of large boulders not far from the trail and he figured they could lay up there.

He motioned them to the bivouac and picked a spot for himself. Russell handled the Keldara, making sure the positions they’d chosen were out of sight from the surroundings.

Mike pulled out his poncho liner, all the snivel gear he’d brought, and makings for dinner.

“Have you worked with this, yet?” he asked Lasko, quietly, as he pulled out a folding stove that fit in with his canteen.

“No,” Lasko said, looking at the device curiously. “Sergeant Russell gave me one but I don’t know how it works.”

“With these,” Mike said, pulling out a packet of chemical tablets. He set one of the blue tablets on the ground in the middle of the stove, then pulled out his canteen cup. Filling the latter with water he set it in the stove and cautiously lit the chemical tab, shielding the light with his hand. “You don’t want light or smoke, but these can’t be seen for more than a few yards. You can smell them from that far.”