“Here they come!” a fighter shouts at the roadblock. “Ragheads in the open, one o’clock!”
“Asking distance?” Ramirez demands.
“Two-zero-zero, approaching fast!”
“Mortar team! Fire emission, direction — twelve, distance — one-niner-zero, marker — jeep track,” the Lieutenant yells. “Fire for effect, over!”
“Fire for effect. Out.”
A second after the mortar section’s acknowledgement the first 81mm round impacts on the track. Ramirez mentally praises Gunny Anderson’s training skills—the two light mortars fire consecutively in a two-second cycle, sending a devastating HIE round every second into the approaching enemy. The two heavy .50 caliber machine guns also get into action. All in all, Ramirez sees with relief that they are still far from being overrun.
“Rifle teams, save ammo!” he commands. “Campbell, pass the word!”
The suppressive fire from the hillside doesn’t cease for a second but the Tribe’s well-protected machine guns and mortars deal carnage to the approaching enemies.
“Should we report this to the Alamo?” Campbell asks through the gunfire.
Ramirez grins under his face mask. “We’re an outpost, we’re supposed to be attacked. Wait till things get real dicey!”
“It’s your call, sir,” Campbell replies and continues firing. He has only fired two bursts when the assault appears to be over. No more ragheads appear from the south.
“Mortar team, hold your fire,” the Lieutenant commands. ”Hold fire!”
The suppressive fire ceases on the hillside and Ramirez hears the attackers above shout out. It is not a battle that echoes in the valley but a triumphant cheer.
“What the hell?” he asks, wishing there had been enough time to set up the surveillance craft.
Cautiously, Ramirez peeks over the sandbags. Immediately, his instinct tells him to get back to cover but what meets his eye forces him to keep looking, trying hard to believe his own eyes. His fighters must be perplexed too because none of them open fire — even though that would be the natural reaction of armed men when seeing hulky, humanoid mutants lumbering towards them.
The mutants’ muscles tell of superhuman strength. On the brawny arms, chests and limbs, thick blue veins run under a pale skin. They bend forward as they get closer, as if their limbs cannot cope with the weight of their immense torsos, the disfigured heads slightly hung and having a mouth from where oversized teeth and fangs protrude. Once they might have been humans because they wear rags of protective suits and still know, or have learned again, how to use weapons. Big ones.
“Smiters!” Campbell screams, “Smiters! Oh fuck, they got machine guns!”
Apparently ignoring the hail of bullets fired at them, the dozen or so mutants sweep the outpost’s defenses with their machine guns. From the cover of their hulks, hostile humans fire and throw grenades.
Ramirez understands at once that their own two heavy machine guns are the only hope. “Heavy One, Two, kill those bastards!”
Tracers mark the arc of fire as the .50 calibers begin to rake the assaulting mutants. The smiters ignore the radiation in the water and cross the creek, forcing the to machine guns to disperse their fire over a wider range. At the same time, a mass of Taliban is storming toward the roadblock. Ramirez’s mortars can’t fire there, unless they want to hit their own fighters who are frantically firing their M16s.
“Campbell! To that fifty, go, go, go! Heavy Two, direct your fire at the smiters in the creek!”
The smiter’s walk is slow but their steps are as long as human leaps. They cross the creek in a matter of seconds and the first of them, ignoring the blood flowing from his wounds all over his rags with blue and brown camouflage, has already reached the machine gun post at the bridge. Ramirez hears the .50 caliber cease firing and his men scream in terror.
His own position at the roadblock is also about to be overrun. The incendiary rounds fired from the heavy machine gun rip into the closest smiter’s body and make it howl with pain. The smell of blood and burnt flesh rises as the rags over his chest catch fire. The smiter trembles and at last goes into his knees. But another already steps up from behind, raising the hand-held machine gun and mows the .50 caliber’s crew down.
Screaming with rage, Ramirez empties one magazine after the other but his M16 doesn’t have much effect on these huge mutants.
“Last mag!” he hears a fighter scream. It is the man from the watch who had fond memories of the New Zone’s beauties, and he won’t have the chance to see them again — a Talib jumps at him and holds his neck in a chokehold while another finishes him off with a long burst from his Kalashnikov. Ramirez fires his M16 and downs him, then reaches for another magazine on his assault vest only to realize that he has just finished his own ammunition.
He flips the M16 in his hand and moves to the disabled machine gun, shattering skulls and punching bodies with the rifle butt and screaming as loud as he can.
“Pull yourself together, men! Fight! Give’m hell!”
He grabs an M27 from the ground and fires it at a mutant who is about to climb across the roadblock. The smiter’s massive fist smashes into the piled-up sandbags as he begins to tear down the defenses. Ramirez aims at the drooling mouth and sends all rounds still left in the STANAG magazine into the smiter’s head. It staggers for a second, giving a painful and angry roar, then collapses.
But by now their forward defenses are overrun. Ramirez finds himself almost alone this side of the bridge, and the situation on the other bank looks dire—the Taliban and their mutant allies are already fighting among the stone huts. A fighter is already manning the tower machine gun of a Humvee. For a moment it seems that he can hold back the assault by peppering the fast approaching Taliban, but then two smiters step up and, to Ramirez’ss horror, get a hold on the vehicle, turn it over and let it tumble down the creek. Defeat seems certain to Lieutenant Ramirez, though amid all the carnage he can’t see a single of his men retreating.
But all he can do now is to issue just that command.
“Fall back! Fall back, to the Humvees!”
Then he himself makes a dash across the bridge. Several enemies try to block his way. Ramirez charges into their midst, ignoring the 7,62mm rounds hitting his heavy body and sweeps them away, smashing two hostiles with his rifle and kicking down a third. He is just a few steps away from the Humvees, and sees his remaining fighters retreat there too. Ramirez lets go off the empty automatic rifle and takes a fallen Talib’s AKS.
A thundering explosion blasts the house where the mortar team is located. He instantly knows that a grenade or RPG shot must have hit the mortar shells, killing friends inside and enemies outside. The radioman, carrying the heavy radio on his back, is slain by a smiter. With bullets whooshing over his cover, a corpsman attempts to give first aid to a wounded warrior, only to disappear in the fiery blast of an RPG shot.
“To the Humvees! Go, go, go!”
Ramirez turns back to fire and give as much cover as he can to his few remaining men. He presses the trigger. The battered rifle fires two shots — and jams.
A grenade hits the closest Humvee where a few retreating fighters were already climbing inside. The blast sends Ramirez to his knees but he staggers to his feet once more. Then a massive fist hits him from behind and he falls forward, face into the dust.