Steven Konkoly - Event Horizon

“Affirmative. Two in the trees,” said Ryan.

“Alex, I have a small cluster of guys, maybe two, directly back from the house,” said Charlie.

“This is Linda. I’m all clear.”

“I have movement!” yelled Kate from the mudroom.

“Let’s get all shooters in position for the first volley,” he said into the headset, running past Samantha, who immediately stood up and moved around the sandbags.

Kate stood in front of the toilet in the bathroom, a few feet back from the open window. The sandbag position in front of her had been built taller to accommodate the bathroom’s shoulder-level privacy window, a consideration he hadn’t built into his theoretical calculations. To compensate for the additional rise, they stripped sandbags from the side of the barrier and jammed them against an additional piece of sheet metal higher up against the wall.

“When the shooting starts, stick the barrel out of the window and lean into the bags. What do you have?”

“I see the two Charlie is talking about dead ahead, and I have a few more moving to the right and left, a little further back in the trees,” she said, staring through the EOTech STS magnifier.

“Sounds like this is it,” he muttered, aiming his rifle into the bushes directly across from the window.

“How bad is this going to get?” Kate asked.

Alex had no intention of telling her the truth. Twenty-five rifles pounding away at the north face of the house would be cataclysmic, likely wounding or killing a third of them within the first minute. If they didn’t significantly reduce the number of militia rifles, they stood little chance of surviving. He needed her focused on killing, not dying.

“The marines are eight minutes out. We’ll get through this. I love you, honey.”

“I love you more,” she said, leaning her shoulder into him.

Her gentle bump shifted his scope’s field of vision, exposing a thick gun barrel supported by a bipod near the ground. He centered the scope’s red reticle on the barrel and sharply inhaled. The tapered, perforated barrel was unmistakable. Alex reached for his handheld radio, raising the reticle a few inches above the Browning thirty-caliber machine-gun barrel.

“Fire on all targets! Fire on all targets!” he said and pressed the trigger.

Larry Bertelson pushed at the thicket with gloved hands, trying to give his gunner a better field of view. He didn’t think Cole could see the second floor through the tangled mess. Not that it mattered. There was little chance of elevating the barrel high enough to reach it. The bipod wasn’t tall enough.

“Fucking thorns!” he hissed. “Can you see the whole house?”

“Good enough for government work,” said Randy Cole, spitting out tobacco on his shoulder and pushing the machine gun further into the opening.

“Not too far or I won’t be able to reload,” said Bertelson.

His radio squelched.

“Say again. I did not copy your last. This thing is a piece of shit,” he said, adjusting the earpiece.

“Liberty Two, this is Liberty Actual. Commence firing on the house.”

“Roger. This is Liberty Two. Firing on the house at my command,” he said, patting Cole on the upper arm. “Just got the order to fire, bitch. Holy shit, this is going to rock.”

“You want me to start firing?” said Cole.

“Fuck yeah!” he said.

“Does this thing have a safety?”

“I didn’t see one,” said Bertelson, examining the metal along the right side of the machine gun. “Didn’t you train on this gun?”

Bertelson knew how to load the ammunition belt through the tray, remembering the trick with the extractor. You had to manually lock the extractor forward before closing the feed tray cover. Beyond that, he’d never fired it, which was why he swapped out with Randy. Rank had its privileges.

“I fired it once at a demo, but it was already loaded.”

“Pull the bolt back and light these fuckers up already.”

Randy Cole yanked the charging handle back and slammed it forward, sighting in for a few seconds. He pulled the trigger and nothing happened. “Are you sure this thing doesn’t have a safety?”

“What’s the hold up, Liberty Two?” he heard through his earpiece.

Cole examined the left side of the gun and the area under the trigger.

“Pull the charging handle back again,” Bertelson said. “Maybe it didn’t chamber right.”

“Liberty Two, this is Actual. What the fuck is the hold up?”

Bertelson leaned on his side to access the radio attached to the front of his chest rig. A wet crack stopped him from pressing the transmit button.

What the hell?

The raspberry bush above the gun barrel snapped and fell on the metal cylinder, immediately followed by a sickening wet splash. He twisted on his back to face Cole.

“Pull the Goddamn—”

The gunner’s head rested against the machine gun’s stock, still facing down the weapon’s sights. Eyes wide open, he looked fine except for the two small holes punched through his forehead. A bright crimson mist settled over Cole’s gore-covered legs. Bertelson felt a deep, driving pain in his upper back, paralyzing him in place as gunfire erupted. He never felt the rounds that ended his life.

EVENT +75:23

Limerick, Maine

Eli Russell leaned against the barn and waited for Liberty Two to respond. By now, he’d expected to hear the comforting chatter of a thirty-caliber machine gun pouring seven hundred .30-06 rounds per minute into the house. Right now, he’d settle for a few rounds from the dozen AR-15s spread among the trees.

Anything but dead silence!

“Liberty Two, this is Actual. What the fuck is the hold up?” he said, squeezing the handheld radio to the point he felt the plastic start to give.

Two sharp sounds, spaced less than a second apart, reached his ears. Hillebrand backed away from the corner, nearly knocking him over. Before Eli could regain his footing, the morning stillness erupted in a vicious barrage of gunfire. The corner of the barn exploded, spraying Hillebrand and Eli with splinters. Bullets ripped past the barn, forming a virtual wall of steel that caused all of the men to drop to the ground. Screams from the trees rose above the sustained roar of what had to be dozens of guns raking Bertelson’s men.

Short bursts of unexpected automatic fire added to the chaos, driving the men, including Eli, to hug the ground even tighter. Bullets penetrated the siding several feet back from the edge of the barn at waist height, showering them with sharp pieces of broken cedar. The gravity of their situation weighed heavy as Eli fought through the paralyzing fear that glued him to the ground. They couldn’t advance against that much firepower. Not with the thirty-caliber out of action—and he had to assume it was out of action. The first two shots came from a suppressed weapon, likely a sniper targeting the machine-gun crew. He didn’t see much of a choice at this point. They’d have to retreat unless one of Bertelson’s men put the machine gun into action. Judging by the cries of agony rising above the gunfire, he wasn’t hopeful. He reached for his handheld to order a retreat when he noticed that the gunfire had slackened to a few scattered shots emanating from the forest.

“They’re reloading! Fire! Fire!” he screamed, flipping his rifle’s selector switch to automatic and lunging past Hillebrand.

Eli slammed into the ground at the corner, firing into the house without aiming.

Alex sprinted into the kitchen, stopping in front of the safe box. He waited for Samantha to clear his line of sight and fired the rest of his magazine well over Ed’s head at the barn, hoping to penetrate the walls and drop a few of the militia on the other side.