Max Velocity: Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises

“Yes. Hon, for God’s sake, be careful!” she called back from the bottom of the basement steps, shotgun held at the low ready. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Jack as he headed towards the back door, where Andrew was waiting, M4 in hand and battle belt on, as they had planned. “Ok, as we discussed Andy, stay in cover and protect the rear. This is gonna get sporting — don’t hesitate. If they come round, take them out. They’re wearing armor, so aim hips and heads. If you get in trouble, call me.”

They jogged out the back door and across the deck, Andrew running to a wood pile at the rear of the property and taking a position to cover the left rear of the house. Jack turned left and ran around to the right front side of the house, heading towards the edge of the wooded yard where it ran along the top of the bank before the open grassy easement as it sloped down to the road.

From among the trees he could cover the junction to his front and also the front of the house, to his left, with enfilade fire. Andrew was covering to the rear left of the house. The main weak spot was the left side of the house, that was blind to both of them, but there were two small windows behind shrubbery at ground level that accessed the basement. If the bad guys got to that wall and tried to breach those windows, Caitlin would have to stop them with the shotgun.

Now that Jack had moved from his fire position in the window, the bad guys must have thought they had him suppressed. They continued to demonstrate fire superiority and they had started to maneuver towards the house. There was a huge volume of fire ripping into the house and he was thankful for the basement and the hard cover that his wife and kids were in down there below ground level.

The enemy firepower was simply tearing into the house and they were firing through all the windows and even through the walls as they shot the place to pieces. They had not spotted him out there on the right flank in the tree line.

Jack saw a group of four break cover and run in single file from left to right across the far side of the junction towards the house opposite his. He engaged the rear guys first, making sure to give them an appropriate lead. He shot three of them in rapid succession, working up the line, the guys in front not realizing what had happened.

The front guy reached cover and turned to look for his guys behind him. He was only about a hundred meters away and his look of incredulity as he saw his team sprawled out on the road and on the verge was cut short as Jack shot him through the head.

They were all wearing body armor and Jack was trained to aim ‘center mass.’ He had reverted to his training. Sometimes his high velocity rounds found their way in past the front and rear ballistic plates, other times they did not. One of the guys was just winded and was rolling onto all fours to try and crawl to cover when Jack hit him with rapid fire, after which he switched fire onto the other two to make sure they stayed down permanently.

Hips and Heads. Get a grip.

The bad guys still had not spotted his position but the killing of the four man team spurred them to further efforts to suppress the house.

One of the pickups drove out into the junction and stopped there with a SAW gunner in the back, resting the machine-gun on the cab while he poured fire into the house, firing long bursts from a box of two hundred rounds. Jack ripped into the vehicle with his rifle, changed magazines, and then he went to rapid fire again, smashing the driver and gunner.

Jacks rage was growing.

My family, my kids, my house and these bastards are trying to wipe out everything that is precious to me.

He had knocked the SAW gunner back into the truck bed and he saw him getting up and trying to roll out the back. Jack riddled him with fire and expended the magazine shooting into the vehicle.

Ok , calm down, steady it down, hold the rage close, but think. If I screw this up, we are all dead .

He dropped the empty mag off the weapon and was pulling a fresh one out of one of the pouches on his vest when he heard the roar of the second pick up as it gunned towards the junction, supported by a massive weight of fire from the dismounted enemy.

The truck came towards the junction as Jack fitted the fresh magazine to his weapon. He could see a couple of guys in the back. Just then, he became aware of Andrew shouting from the back of the house. He got up and ran towards him; he could hear gunfire coming from over where Andrew was, and from the left side of the house.

As he rounded the corner, his view of the rear left corner of the house was blocked by the deck but he could see Andrew firing from a crouched position behind the woodpile to his left. He ran around the deck and Andrew’s head swiveled towards him. His eyes were wide and his mouth was open with a kind of slack dazed expression. Seeing his dad he turned back and continued to fire to the left.

Jack came round the deck and saw one of the bad guys lying on the ground. Another was firing from the corner of the house; they must have sent a flanking team to the left also. Jack just kept on going, weapon up, walking forward rapidly, engaging the enemy gunman until he went down. Just as he looked back to see if Andrew was ok there was a massive crash from the front of the house.

“Stay here!” Jack shouted, running towards the back door, “Cover the rear!” As he ran, he dropped the magazine off his weapon, letting it fall to the ground, as he whipped another out of a pouch and slid it home.

Caitlin was in the basement covering the two babies with her body as she heard the men shouting outside of the windows, which were up high at ground level on the left side of the house. The windows were large enough to let someone crawl through.

She could hear the intense violence of the firefight going on above with the rounds cracking and whipping through the house. Jack had not covered the basement windows with plywood, to let light in during the day, and they were simply covered with curtains. Jasper was barking like crazy at the windows.

Suddenly one of the widows exploded inwards. She was instantly up on her knee pointing the shotgun at the opening and she heard one of the men outside shout “Fire in the hole!” before silhouetting himself in the small window.

Caitlin fired the shotgun and the ‘00’ Buckshot smashed into the shape. There was a scream of agony and then the flash-bang went off outside, followed by a stream of curses from the attackers outside. She kept pumping and firing the shotgun through the smashed window, and also into the walls to each side, before she reloaded with spare shells from the side rail.

With one hand she reached for the kids who were both crying and screaming, “It’s ok, it’s ok, mommies here — it’ll be ok.” she repeated, as she kept the weapon trained on the window.

Around the front of the house, the two guys in the back of the truck jumped clear just short of the front door and the truck accelerated, bumping through the shrubbery and smashing into the reinforced front door. The door went flying back out of its frame and the reinforced bull bars on the front of the grill smashed the piano back and it skewed across the foyer with a ringing crash of discordant notes.

The truck reversed and the two dismounted guys ran in through the smashed doorway. One of them carried a SAW with a box of two hundred rounds on it and as he stepped to the right of the doorway, the other guy going to the left, he unleashed a long burst of fire, swinging the weapon in an arc. The long burst spewed across a large arc in front of him, smashing through the walls and passing through into the back of the house.

Luckily, he had not aimed the weapon down through the basement floor. His next arc was aimed up, chewing through the roof and into the upstairs rooms. The two guys from the truck cab joined the two already in the house and they prepared to stack up and move through the house.