LOH Comics: The Hunter Chronicles

The Chronicles of "The Hunter"

A series created by: Mr_Fish_

Prologue: Gunpowder and Dead: Pt. 1

(Jalalabad, Afghanistan, November 2011)

Gun smoke filled the air, giving an eerie fog to the battlefield. It was a small village in Afghanistan, and a basic patrol went south very quickly. The ground forces got ambushed by radicals hiding inside the houses, and were pinned down. Air support was supposed to be inbound, but he knew it wouldn't do any good here. Civilians, soldiers, and radicals were too close together, any air attacks could lead to unintentional fatalities, and that wasn't going to fly with him so long as he had a say.

His radio crackled to life, breaking him away from his thoughts. "What the hell are you doing Six-Three? We're pinned down here, get your ass on that rifle and give us some suppressive fire!" He shook his head and laid down, stabilizing the rifle. His spotter, Six-Five, was doing calculations. The kid was a walking calculator, and he was very pleased to hear the pairing for this rescue op. Six-Three, commonly known as Corporal Huntington, attached his scope to the rifle, waiting to hear the readings from Six-Five.

Six-Five quickly wrote down numbers, when a loud BANG echoed in the air, and he dropped like a rock. Clean bullet hole, square in between the eyes. Huntington laid flat on the ground, looking at Six-Five in shock. He had just made PFC the day before, and he knew him from before then. He and his family were neighbors back in the states. Huntington grabbed the notes and scanned through what Six-Five had written down, and got a rough estimate on distance, wind, and elevation. He aimed down his sights, looking where the sniper shot from by his guess, and saw multiple men lining the roof with RPG's aiming down at the ground unit, Bravo Squadron. He steadied his breath, and took a shot on the first man. Luck must have had his back, he had hit one of the radicals in the shoulder, causing him to spin mid-shot and blew the roof to hell.

"Hell yeah! That's what I'm talking about. Come on, three story house, due East. Reported Sniper, get to it Six-Three." Huntington adjusted, and saw the sniper, looking directly at him. For a moment, they both laid there, eyeing each other through their lenses. Then, an explosion occurred in between them. When the smoke cleared, the sniper was gone, vanished into thin air.

Huntington grabbed the radio, "Any visual on that sniper? I have no visual from my location." He adjusted in the meantime to aim to another roof, firing rounds like it was clockwork. The perks of having a big gun, it doesn't have to be a headshot to be lethal. All that mattered was that more radicals were dropping, and no Bravo squad members were.

The radio received a new transmission. "Six-Three this is WarHammer, we have no visual of the Sniper in the village. We have visual on three vehicles fleeing the village, two having mounted machine guns. We have requested an aerial attack from Taskforce Wolfpack to eliminate them. WarHammer Out." Huntington chuckled a little. If they called in the Wolfpack, there was no way in hell that those vehicles would make it three miles out of this village.

The night carried on, Bravo Squadron had two wounded, one severe, the other grazed by a bullet. The only fatality was PFC Anderson, Six-Five, easily the best spotter that Huntington had the pleasure of working with. Taskforce Wolfpack came through with their strike, sending two AH-64 Apaches to eliminate the target vehicles. If that sniper was there, no chance he's going to see the sunrise.

Back at the FOB, Bravo Squadron had gathered outside of Huntington's shack, and thanked him for the cover fire. "I knew it wasn't easy, but you did a hell of a thing tonight Six-Three," their squad leader said, giving him a clap on the shoulder. The less severely wounded soldier, a fresh private with an arm in a sling, came running up with a grin. "They're already talking about you Huntington, calling you 'The Hunter' on the radios." The other soldiers grinned and gave more congratulations, and Huntington tried to accept it with good will, but the death of Anderson was really weighing him down.

At this point, he was just ready to get home.

The end.