Friday Fiction. Ambush!

Today I have another excerpt from Retribution for you. Last time we took a peak at how Mike Hudson struggles with Katrina. How her vampirism (sic) simultaneously sickens, yet excites. Today I present a straight up combat scene. Or is it? Retribution releases this summer.

The Ambush

“I’d feel better if it was midnight,” whispered Leditta Baum without changing position. She lay just inside the tree line, on a slight rise forty meters from the L34, the rural road meandering southwest through the region, a G3 assault rifle slung on her back, a belt of 7.62mm ammunition resting in her hands. Overhead the early afternoon sun shone brightly, a rarity in the last two weeks. Slim and athletic, Leditta had played football at the University of Cologne, but no one played football there now. She witnessed the university's destruction first hand, shattered in the three-day battle for the city. She came home then, home to her family.

“Ja, me too,” her brother, Dieter, answered, pushing his dark hair from his eyes, “But these Americans have their own schedule, and I don’t think that they will change it for us, will they?”

She laughed softly. Dieter could always make her laugh.

Dieter knocked a fallen leaf from the barrel of his MG3 machine gun and adjusted the bipod. The adjustment might have been the third in as many minutes, but she understood. They were all nervous. Dieter, herself, and the others. They would have been more comfortable at night. They were so much stronger at night, but they needed the weapons, and the retreating Americans weren’t coming tonight, they were coming now, in the middle of the afternoon, so Leditta, Dieter, and the others would have to make do with what they were given. It was their way.

She took her mind from the worry by studying the road, reviewing the plan. The two-lane asphalt strip ran from Aurich west, over a two-lane suspension bridge, through pastureland, and into a copse of woods. It was in that copse that Leditta, Dieter, and the rest of them waited. The woods weren't thick, but they were thick enough, the maples, oaks, and pines mixing with leafy bushes on the crest of the slight slope bordering the road. Dieter’s machine gun sighted down a short stretch of road. To their left, in the trees, waited the rest of the pack, armed with a motley assortment of rocket launchers, hunting rifles, and grenades. She hoped those weapons, as well as the Elders’ strength, would be enough.

The trees winked, the sun reflecting off the mirror held by the scout, Jonathon Martini, an Italian gypsy with a prominent Adam’s apple that bobbed when he was nervous. He referred to himself as John, but everyone else called him Dry. The flashing mirror was the signal. The convoy.

Once again Leditta smoothed the belt, and Dieter tilted his head to sight down the barrel.  They would not start the ambush; Ania, one of the few who could consistently hit something with the RPG, would trigger the ambush by destroying the lead vehicle. Then Dieter and Leditta would open up. The mirror was gone now, but Leditta could hear the grumble of the lead vehicle’s engine. She prayed that it was a small convoy. They needed weapons and the needed food, but they couldn't afford to lose any of the pack obtaining them. 

Around the curve, the first American vehicle swung into view. Leditta immediately recognized the boxy shape, straining engine, and .50-caliber heavy machine gun, of a M113 armored personnel carrier. Painted dark green, with black and brown camouflage splotches, the M113 clanked slowly toward her, its machine gun slewed to the side, a bored gunner leaning on the receiver, his face hidden behind his crew helmet and goggles. Behind the M113 came another, and then two trucks, one with a camouflaged cover, the other with an open bed, holding a squad of soldiers.

The lead M113 was no more than 50 meters distant. “Any time now,” Leditta whispered to herself.

And then the American tank rounded the corner.

The hulking giant drew an involuntary gasp from Leditta, and a muttered “Shit!” from Dieter. They could handle the M113s, but a tank? There was no way to take out a tank. Maybe, just maybe, a well-placed RPG could immobilize it, but that was a big maybe. 

The tank’s viper-like turret, slewed to the front, it’s long, menacing cannon pointing directly at Leditta and Dieter. The tank commander rode with his torso exposed, his chest somewhat protected by the commander’s hatch to his front, his arm resting casually on the turret-mounted anti-aircraft machine gun. She wished Ania could call it off. If she didn't fire, no one would, and the convoy would roll on.

But fire she did. With little more than a loud cough and a puff of gray, the shoulder-fired rocket leapt from the bushes in which Ania hid, trailing a line of smoke. The rocket slammed into the side of the lead personnel carrier, boring through the thin armor and exploding inside. Jets of flame shot from the interior, burning the screaming gunner alive. The explosion blew the diver’s hatch from its hinges, the disc sailing in a lazy arc to land beside the stricken carrier. The M113 turned abruptly to the side of the road, striking a young oak and coming to a rest, smoke spilling from the hatches. No one emerged.

A second RPG streamed from the woods. That would be Gunter, Leditta knew. The rocket flew high, narrowly missing one of the trucks. The scream of wrenching metal drew her attention back to the smoking carrier. The one trailing it had failed to stop, smashing into the smoking wreck and twisting it sideways amid the screeching of tortured armor. The second carrier stopped, and its gunner fired his heavy machine gun into the bushes in which Ania hid, the chugging weapon splintering bark, and geysering the earth. Leditta knew Ania would have moved. She hoped she would have moved far enough to avoid the .50 cal’s tearing slugs.

Yank infantry spilled from the back of the second personnel carrier, their green, gray, and tan camouflage uniforms dull against the black asphalt, the tips of their black-stocked assault rifles flashing lethally, the popping almost lost against the growing din of the battle. Dieter replied, firing short bursts, readjusting, and firing again. It wasn't an equal contest. The Americans lay exposed on the road, or running for the ditch. Dieter’s burst caught two attempting to bring a bipod machine gun into play, stitching their uniforms, the bullets erupting from their bodies in grisly spurts of blood and gore. It mattered not to Leditta, she knew blood, she had seen gore at the university. Without expression she fed the ammunition belt and called out new targets.

Behind the American soldiers, more troops jumped from the trucks. Another RPG buried itself into the side of the trailing truck, but no explosion, a dud. The side of the hill was alive with gun smoke, jumping leaves, and noise, as the rest of the pack unloaded with whatever weapons they had. The air stank sharply of gunpowder, the smoke stung her eyes. Above it all the sun shown beautifully in a pale blue summer sky.

And then the tank fired.

Leditta had forgotten, although she wasn't sure how. The tank was the Americans ace the hole, the one piece of the battle's puzzle that the Germans couldn't fit into their plan. Nevertheless, in the terror of the fight, Leditta had forgotten. The cannon thundered, cracking like a splintering oak, and a thirty-meter swath of vegetation ceased to exist, replaced by smoldering earth. Perhaps Ania had relocated, but not far enough to avoid that hell. The tank commander's machine gun opened up on the slight rise that bordered the length of the road, spraying slugs of death into the Germans there. An RPG shot from the German positions struck the American tank squarely on the side, detonating brightly, but having no effect.  

The M113 to Leditta and Dieter's front added its heavy machine gun to the firepower raking the German positions. Leditta waited for another RPG, a rocket of hope, to take it out, but none came, instead came something better.

Instead came the Elders.

A howl rose above the din, dog-like, but no more belonging to a dog than a tornado belongs to the wind. Others joined, the noise piercing, haunting, and to Leditta, joyous. The first appeared to her right, a flash in the woods, then a form on the crest of the slope, and then a blur in the air. Not needing the power of the moon as did the youth, the Elders reveled in the sun, the light gleaming on their fur. The first Elder landed among the soldiers to their front, muscles rippling, the brown fur thick, luxuriant, claws and teeth flashing. Leditta recognized Lapula-Hunter, her white streak of fur vibrant across her back. Lapula grabbed a prone rifleman before he could comprehend his danger and tossed him against a stout tree, snapping his neck. Another rose to run, screaming. A swipe of Lapula's eight-centimeter claws almost severed his neck. Held by little more than a pair of finger-width tendons, the man's head fell to the side as his corpse dropped like a sack of potatoes. Yet another jumped up, screaming, firing his assault rifle on full auto, the bullets first ripping into a squad mate before two struck Lapula in the leg.

The Elder howled in pain and rage. The soldier's rifle stopped firing, the gun either jammed or out of ammunition. In a stride, Lapula was on him, snatching the rifle from his grasp and hurling the soldier a full ten meters into the side of one of the trucks, the impact denting the metal as easily as it broke the soldier's back. The American wounded by his frantically firing squad mate fell back against the side of the boxlike M113, gasping, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a silent scream, terror etched on his face. Although Leditta knew the Elder as Lapula-Hunter, she imagined the soldier knew the beast by another name, a name learned around the campfire, in scary stories, and even more frightening film. The soldier knew the beast as werewolf.

Lapula backhanded the soldier and his head snapped against the M113’s unyielding armor. Lapula leapt away as he crumpled to a heap on the dark asphalt.

Chaos ruled the road. All six of the pack’s Elders ravaged the Yanks. Leditta, Dieter, and the others ceased firing for fear of hitting their pack, yet still gunfire filled the air. Lapula dashed among the soldiers covering near the trucks, slashing with her claws, unslowed by the wounds in her leg. Two others joined her. Leditta saw the gray fur of Tentani, and the midnight black pelage of Dirket, both hunters, both ripping through the human’s flesh. At the column’s far end, Fifika, a powerful female, sprinted toward a Humvee, her speed blurring the movement. The Humvee’s machine gunner fired wildly, the bullets sparking off the road a full three meters behind Fifika. The Elder jumped on the gunner, and Leditta heard his screams as Fifika pulled him from the turret ring before hurling his body to the asphalt. 

Once again, the tank cannon spoke. Leditta was not a soldier. She fought because the war had taken her home and slaughtered their friends. She didn't know what type of shell the cannon fired, but she saw the effect. As if a monstrous shotgun had blasted the road, the cannon’s shot simply obliterated a fifty-meter swath, exploding one truck, shredding the canvas cover in the next, and eviscerating any being in its path, human and Elder alike. Where but a second before Lapula, Tentani, and Dirket had fought, nothing moved. The Elders had amazing recuperative powers. They all did. Wounds that would kill a human were little more than annoyances to the pack, but nothing could survive that blast. One truck burned furiously, the other sat in its rims, the tires blown out, its canvas top shredded, hundreds of small holes punched in its side. On the asphalt, clumps of flesh and fur lay among pools of blood.

Leditta gagged, the bile hot in her throat, beside her Dieter pulled the trigger, loosing a burst of fire at the tank commander. The bullets sparked impotently off the tank’s armor, but no sooner had the sparking finished than two of the remaining Elders, Eladon and Gallius, bounded onto the turret. The two made short work of the tank commander. Seconds later, the driver popped his hatch on the glacis plate, eager to escape. Eladon grabbed the driver’s skull and twisted hard. The human slid limply back into the tank. Gunter, a youth like Leditta and Dieter, climbed onto the turret and emptied is submachine gun, an ancient Thompson, into the tank’s interior, and the ambush ended.

The quiet rang loudly in Leditta’s ears. After ten minutes of such noise, the silence was as difficult to believe as the deaths of the three elders. The pack was tight, the slain Elders like aunts and uncles. Leditta blinked back the tears. They were dead, and there would be time to morn later, but now they needed to scavenge what weapons and supplies they could. Scavenge so that the Elders’ death wouldn't be in vain. Scavenge so that they could fight again.

Mark H. Walker served 23 years in the United States Navy, most of them as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal diver. He is the owner of Flying Pig Games, the designer of the aliens-invade-Earth game Night of Man, the author of Desert Moon, an exciting mecha, military science fiction novel with a twist, with plenty of damn science fiction in it despite what any reviewer says, as well as World at War: Revelation, a creepy, military action, with a love story, alternate history, World War Three novel thing, Everyone Dies in the End, and numerous short stories. All the books and stories are available from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing right here. Give them a try. I mean, what the hell? The games? Well that's Flying Pig Games. Retribution will release in the summer of 2015.

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