James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

“Make that two,” Logan muttered. There was garbled screaming over the radio. Logan clicked to transmit. “Hotel One-One to Hotel element, anybody got eyes on? We’ve lost our ISU.” He got no coherent response and tried it again. There was more shouting over the radio but he couldn’t make it out.

“Anyone get that?” he asked his men. Nobody had. “Goddamnit,” he swore. He knew what he had to do, but that didn’t mean he liked it. “I’m going up,” he called out to his crew, and opened his hatch.

Hotel One-Two was fifty feet away with smoke jetting out of a black-edged hole in the top of the turret. Logan immediately recognized it for what it was, a rocket or RPG round had breached the hull. Most likely everybody inside Hotel One-Two was dead but he still had to check, once he was clear. Behind the tank an IMP was slewed at an angle, and as he watched the back hatch was slowly coming down, gray haze pouring out of the interior. There were strange impact marks across the top of the APC’s hull, and smoke trailed from two of them. As he watched two bloodied soldiers crawled out of the vehicle and huddled behind cover. No others followed.

Logan grabbed the paddle grips of the M240 and surveyed his front. He didn’t see any guerrillas or immediate threats but he noticed that a substantial number of windows on the top floor of the apartment building were now blown out. He fired his machine gun, working it across the face of the apartment building from one side to the other, burning through more than half the 200-round belt of ammo. He had no idea if he hit anyone but he was hoping to keep their heads down, and he heard others to his flanks firing as well. Most of the windows in the apartment building’s fifth and sixth floors disintegrated under the hail of bullets. He looked around again. One IMP was still undamaged, as were most of the Growlers, although he saw windows on the non-armored ones spiderwebbing from incoming enemy rifle fire.

“Lewis!” he called to his gunner.

“Sergeant?”

“Traverse left ten degrees and fire!”

“I’m blind down here.”

“I fucking know that!”

The turret rotated left and then the whole tank rocked as the main gun fired. The top right corner of the apartment building erupted in a flash, metal and glass and drywall forming a cloud which began drifting downward.

“Down five degrees, left five degrees and fire again!” Logan called out. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t “aim” the main gun when they was shooting at a huge fucking building right in front of them. He’d walk the rounds in. He heard the impact of incoming rounds as the guerrillas in the building continued to fire. He even caught a glimpse of some muzzle flashes, but none of the bullets seemed to be hitting near him.

“Roger that.” The turret rotated, and the gun dipped a bit. Then the cannon roared again. The face of the apartment building ruptured outward as the high explosive round impacted between the fifth and sixth floors, but in the fraction of a second between the firing of his main gun and the impact, there was some sort of flare in one of the darkened apartments, and Logan had just enough time to recognize the incoming rocket for what it was.

“We’re blowing the bolt hole in one minute,” Barker’s voice came over the radio. “Anybody that’s not here who wants to leave this way needs to get their ass here now.”

Ed knew the man was talking about closing off the mouth of the narrow sewer pipe through which they’d be leaving the area. The Tabs, once they made it into the Albert Khan building and found the crater in the floor, would probably be able to figure out there was a sewer pipe down there through which the dogsoldiers had arrived and departed, but deducing exactly which direction it headed and where it might exit, much less digging it out enough to follow them, would take them a substantial amount of time. Enough time for the dogsoldiers to make it to the much-larger trunk line and begin heading north, where they had plans to disburse in small groups throughout the city.

“Quigley,” Barker said, “good luck. We’ll see you when we see you.”

Ed smiled. “Everybody ready?” He shouted up and down the hallway. “Yell out if you’re not.” He waited for a five count but still heard nothing. “Sergeant Weaver, on you,” he called out to her.

Knocking out the two Toads as well as the two IMPs wasn’t just a worthy goal, it was pretty damn necessary if the squad wanted to get out of there alive. Sarah and Harris from Roadrunner were in the corner apartment with two Spikes each. Ed moved on his knees from the hallway into the adjacent apartment next to George. The two apartments on the southwest corner of the building were the closest to the Tab armor elements on the Lodge service drive.

Ed had two spikes, and George had his MGL loaded up with six of the light armor-piercing grenade rounds. Both Ed and George were crouched down in the middle of the apartment. Ed peered over the window sill at the armored vehicles in the distance. Toads were huge vehicles compared to a Toyota or Ford, but 175 yards out it seemed a tiny target try to hit with a rocket.

Ed had the Spike ready to go: sights up, safety pin out, all he had to do was depress the safety lever with his fingers and press the trigger with his thumb. He was sweating profusely and his heart was hammering in his chest. He exchanged a look with George but neither of them had to say a word. They’d been fighting alongside one another for so long no words were necessary, they each knew what the other was thinking.

There was a whooshing crack of a roar and Ed’s eyes were just able to track the path of the Spike as the rocket sped from the adjacent apartment towards the tank squatting in the middle of the distant intersection.

He stood up, George rising beside him, and lined the sights on the tank to the right even as he saw an explosion batter the tank to the left. George fired the grenade launcher beside him, the THOOMPF loud in the room, the windows before them shattering with a crescendo. As planned George was taking aim at one of the IMPs. Ed depressed the safety on the rocket launcher with his two middle fingers, checked his sights were on the tank’s turret just above the main gun, and smoothly pressed the trigger with his thumb. He was so focused on his task the sound of the rocket roaring out of the tube on his shoulder seemed quiet.

Ed tossed the empty launch tube to the side and grabbed the second Spike sitting ready beside him on the arms of a chair. It had already been prepped with the safety pin pulled and the sights deployed. He pressed it hard against his shoulder, depressed the red safety lever with his two middle fingers, and only as he was aiming at the Toad did he take a fraction of a second to eye the tank. He could see scorch marks on the turret, so he’d scored a hit, but whether he’d destroyed the sighting unit or managed to puncture the armor on the top of the turret, or both, or neither, he had no idea. He aimed at the same place, the top of the turret just above the main gun, and carefully pressed the trigger with his thumb.

This time the rocket seemed louder and he was aware of just how much dust filled the air of the apartment around him as the rocket’s exhaust, as it leapt from the tube, battered the walls. He dropped the spent tube to the floor and kicked it away, then grabbed his rifle hanging across his chest by its sling. Beside him George had fired all six grenades, and was busy reloading with his last two AP rounds. He also had two standard HE rounds. Ed had heard additional rockets being fired from the apartment next door but he’d been too focused on his task to count, so he didn’t know if they’d fired every rocket yet. They’d allocated three Spikes per tank, and George had been tasked with the IMPs, four AP grenades each.