Standalon

Next day may be the last.

Driving down a rocky path, the heavily armored van rose clouds of sand dust behind it's wheels, hurrying to add another dozen of men to the death row of "Quadrat."

And sitting in the dimly lit saloon of that van, our temporary hero could see the gloomy stares of his temporary comrades on the dirty floor of the car. Rate, their grim expressions behind their shemaghs and balaclavas and judge them by how firmly and close some held their Kalashnikovs to their chests, preparing for the harshest minutes of their life, as they might be the last.

But they wouldn't be sitting there in fear for long, as their vehicle would suddenly brake and open it's doors, dropping off it's passengers on a sandy crossroad and leaving them to scatter some corpses around the ground as they'd be left in the open area, without a chance to fire back as the roar of enemies' guns would be so loud and intense they could barely find a cover in this numbing mess...

Each, ran chaotically for any cover they'd see, spreading all at once. Like moving targets each fell one by one, collapsing on the ground or falling to the knees with weapon in their arms, firing their last shots as moment later they would fall dead as well.

This hell of a theatre, which was accompanied by deafening roar of guns and screams, not of pain but more of terror... Would go on, until another van pulled over, crashing into a near building that'd collapse on the van, leaving all survivors a moment of rest and somewhat a cover.

"AMBUSH!" He yelled at the top of his lungs with his dry voice

The moment dust would cover the area our soldiers would soon gain their confidence back and return to combat. Through tears, beads of sweat and torment they got up from the sand and rushed to the debris, sitting behind them and firing around the corners and above the edges, in enemy's direction.

But strategy like this, would stop working the very first moment someone would toss them a grenade, so later to avoid an outcome like this they soon would split up, each running off to their own cover while the dust would still be high enough to hide them from the sight. And the soldier, that picked the van as his cover, would slide it's doors open, seeing a large cash of explosives and ammunition. Without wasting a single second, he quickly got in, hopping out of the van with a mortar shell in his hands. And with over 13kgs of pure explosives in arms, he ran out of the corner, facing the enemy then tossing them the shell that would go off the moment it struck the ground with it's tip and raise the cloud of dust in the air, with a ”sharp” thud.

Of course, he was careful enough to drop to the ground before the shell would.