
Journal Shadow Wrought's Journal: [Serial Writing] Everywhere, Is the War (Part II) 6
Walker and Carlson were about ten yards apart as they slowly began walking the four hundred yards to the village. Once they had turned the corner by the cave, the canyon opened into a fairly wide basin. The left wall of which was eroded and craggy while the right and far wall were near vertical for several dozen yards. While this made natural cover for Smitty and his automatic 249, it was also the most likely place for an attack on the village; and thus the most likely to be defended. Walker worried about Smitty quite a bit. He was the youngest of the group and had made it into Spec/ops during a time when they had had to recruit and train people who otherwise would not have been eligible. All though the window had been short, for the obvious reasons, and had since reverted, there were still some who remained less trusted than the rest.
Walker pushed that thought aside, too. He had to trust Smitty the same as he trusted Jones and Carlson. He would do his job. With darkness fully descended the night air was cool, with just the slightest of breezes. They could hear the voices much better now, though still not well enough to comprehend their chatter. They crept through the night towards the village. Before each step they stopped to look for wires head level, waist level, and foot level. After every step the process repeated. Walker knew that not even this expedient couldn't be fulproof, but he had to trust his training as much as he trusted the men around him. He willed himself forward with each step.
He had Carlson had just each just finished a step halfway to the village when the muffled thump of a grenade to their left forced them to the ground. In an instant Walker knew that Smitty, and more importantly for the time being, his covering fire, were gone. Before he could even finish the thought a single bright flare erupted from the rocks where Smitty would have been. By the time the flare reached its zenith Walker and Carlson had each lobbed a grenade from their 203's the remaining two hundred yards into the village, and were re-loadinging. The echoing boom of Jones
As the third and fourth grenades from the pair arched their way into the village, a line of barrel flashes erupted towards them. The villagers might have been shooting blindly, but a blind bullet could kill you just as dead as a carefully aimed one. Half the flashes seemed aimed towards Jones' position and the rocks behind them. The rest were sweeping the sandy floor of the valley looking for them. Blind shots could work both ways, however, and one or both of the grenades landed in a fuel dump. Huge, bright secondary explosions erupted into the night. Walker took the opportunity to turn and sprint for Jones' position. Carlson was a couple seconds behind him, trying to line up another grenade shot. By the time he truned and ran he was a couple dozen yards behind Walker, and off to his left. It wasn't until he had turned the corner of the canyon's crevass that Walker realized that Carlson wasn't running with him anymore. He clambered towards Jones only to find him dead. Enough fire from the Ak's had provided the couple of blind hits needed. Walker grabbed the sniper rifle and moved to a higher position.
Through its powerful scope he could see the villagers as some fought the blaze while the rest dug in. In the light he could see that they were almost all male, but it didn't look like more than a handful would have been old enough to even shave, let alone drive. He knew they had killed his buddies, and had done everything they could to kill him. He didn't want his sons groing up to have to be where he was, and the cross-hairs danced so lightly on their foreheads- but he could not pull the trigger. They were simply too young. Too brainwashed. He had entered the Army with the ideal of protecting the innocent- not shooting them from a hidden position 400 yards away.
The chatter of their guns soon ended as they all joined in the fight against the fire. Dozens and dozens of times Walker thumbed the safety off, lined up a target and placed his finger on the trigger- only to flip the safety back on and back away fromt he scope. He finally broke away fromt eh scope completely and laid with his back to the rocks between him and the village. He was still fighting within himself when he heard just the faintest of drones far overhead. C-130 his mind identified even before he fully accepted the faint sound as real. He was looking up in the pitch black night, vainly searching for the camoflouged aircraft even though he knew he wouldn't be able to see it. In an instant its presence was revealed by silent undulating flashes high overhead. Turning, he saw a rain of tracers slowly walk across the village blanketing it in a cloud of choked dust, smoke, and shrapnel. For two full minutes, though it seemed both ages longer and mercifully shorter, the AC-130 pushed tens of thousands of rounds into the village and surrounding desert. When it it finished it lumbered off on a different bearing, leaving nothing alive in its wake.
Walker took the sniper rifle with him and hunkered down in the cave, knowing that he was the only living man for a score of miles. Even though he respected the desert, and the myriad ways it could claim a life, he had never known just how lonely it could make you.
Continue to Part III
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nits (Score:2)
That said, I think it rather more likely that one guy was carrying an M-240 [fas.org], and NOT an M-230 [fas.org], or they believe even more strongly in overkill than I do.
Other than that, still holding my interest.
Re:nits (Score:2)
Re:nits (Score:2)
Well the important thing was that he had a scope to see that they were kids, so I can change that to just being a sniper rifle easily enough. I got the .50 froma SEAL documentary I watched on Discovery channel once. It was a lightened version, so that's what I was thinking of.
That said, I think it rather more likely that one guy was carrying an M-2
Re:nits (Score:2)
The Barrett would work. It's just (IMO) heavy, and not what I would use in such a situation.
Re:nits (Score:2)
Re:nits (Score:2)