Blind Eyes, Black Hearts - A GWOT Story (On Hold)

Chapter I, Part IV - Into the Fire (Rodent)

Rodent

1934 Hours

“Move it! Move it!” Rodent shouted. They were now running through the alleyway to help the two outnumbered fireteams, which were just ahead of them. They could see the yellow bullet tracers from the alleyway’s exit, and some hit the building that formed the alleyway.

“Stack up there. Velcro, on point.” he pointed to the wall.

“Wilco [1]” The army engineer replied, and he dashed to the end of the wall. He peeked to see what was beyond that wall, and soon, in half-panic he turned back. “Shit.” Velcro said. The three had stacked up on the wall, with Rodent in the middle.

“How many?”

“More than a dozen. Some more behind them, they’re going to try flank them.”

And we are in the way, Rodent thought. “Chuc, get some birds here.”

“Yes, sir.” The medic replied.

“Pigeon! Pigeon! This is Alpha Six. We’re taking heavy fire from two dozen hostiles and we need air support! Do you copy?”

“Roger that Alpha Six.” Pigeon’s – The little bird helicopter- voice was a steady one.

“We’ll mark targets with RP [2]” Rodent said slowly, and Chuc repeated to the radio. “We will mark targets with Romeo-Papa! How copy, over?”

“Roger Alpha Six. We are on standby. Lay down smoke for signaling and we’ll be there instantly. Over.”

“Roger.” Chuc replied. “Out.”

Rodent pat Velcro. “Velcro, RP.” He solidly said. Velcro took one Red Smoke Grenade from a socket in his interceptor body armor and gave the cylindrical, red-edged, smoke grenade to his leader. “We need to tell those rangers we’re here.” He looked to his men.

“I’ll go.” Chuc said. “Cover me.”

Rodent nodded. He looked at Chuc. “You ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned away and shouted. “Covering fire!” Rodent crouched next to Velcro, who opened fire with his M4 on the enemy. They were all green from his nightvision, when he peeked, but at least he could see them clearly. Each shot was taken with more precision, due to the targeting laser that was projected from the gun, and the coolest thing of it that it was only visible when somebody wore night vision. The rangers must have seen the green lasers because they also wore NVGs. “Go!” Rodent shouted at Chuc. And as Velcro fired, Chuc ran towards the car the four rangers were taking cover behind.

After a moment of suppressing fire, Chuc talked via comms. “They know we’re here. They’re gonna cover you when you get that RP on the enemy.” He said to Rodent.

“Roger that.”

Rodent put his M4A1 on the ground and held the RP with both hands. The left was used to pull the pin and the right was used to throw the grenade. He took a deep breath. Some Insurgents had sharp eyes, though most were half-wits with guns and tribal rules who fought for a pretty much unreal cause, in Rodent’s opinion. But Rodent feared the bastards, whose will to fight was comparable to legit professional soldiers. And these guys were guards to an HVT- these guys would be better than the usual sandhead lot. Rodent ignored the thought and shouted. “Covering fire!” and fire from both Velcro’s M4 and the combination of carbines and a M249 SAW machinegun from the fireteams ignited and the enemy was pinned down.

Rodent rushed to Velcro’s outer side that had no cover. He took a deep breath, pulled the pin, drew back the smoke grenade, and hurled it towards the enemy. Heave! He thought as he threw the grenade, which was as heavy as a small stone.

“Pigeon, Pigeon! This is Alpha Six” Rodent heard from the radio after he returned to cover. Chuc’s voice, it was. “RP has been released. I repeat, RP released! Do you see it? It’s north of the large intersection!”

“Roger, Six, we see it. Sending in a gunship towards your position. Standby. Danger close. Out.”

Then a very awesome voice, backed by static and the sound of a helicopter’s rotors, could be heard over the radio. “This is Hotel Six-Four. Going in low, going in low. Out.”

And the large rotors of the Black Hawk muffled the sound of fire. Hotel Six-Four, a Black Hawk from the US 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or SOAR, hovered several tens of feet above the ground and unleashed a volley of fire from its Delta/SEAL snipers and its minigun. The minigun’s sound was very fast and the high rate of accurate fire decimated the two dozen Taliban. In addition the two buildings that formed their flanks were crippled and destroyed by the High Explosive rounds released from the miniguns and they soon crumbled as the Black Hawk ceased firing. Hotel Six-Four hovered away back to vulturing the hotel complex, and the two fireteams cheered as the Black Hawk flew away.

“Much obliged, Hotel Six-Four. Much obliged.” Chuc said over the radio. The pilot replied with a roger that.

The three operatives continued to their main objective: blowing up the eastern walls to carve an entrance and extract the HVTs while the Taliban were dealt with the rangers, and after that air strike, Robert thought, half the Taliban present would have probably been killed.

So they shifted left and right in the empty alleyways, going further away from the loud gunfire from their left. Despite that strafing run the rangers still faced a considerable number of insurgents, who were holed up in the housing villas and alleyways, trying to take down as many infidel American soldiers as they could before finally succumbing to the quality bullets of the infidels. Or maybe they could hold a grenade and explode themselves near a group of panicking American soldiers, and the entire fireteam would be decimated. And that would bring them straight to heaven, for they have completed their jihad.

It was now a quarter to eight. And Alpha Six rushed towards the building.

***

[1] Wilco: Will comply

[2] RP: Red Phosphorus smoke grenade. Unlike White Phosphorus it doesn’t burn, instead it is used for signaling targets.