ANA Reborn by Carl Facciponte - HTML preview
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Chapter 33
wo weeks later, the standard delivery trucks T lined up at the gates to the base as usual, except for the fact that it was night. If IR sensors had been installed around the perimeter, they would have detected thirty-five hot spots in the desert one hundred yards behind the delivery trucks, the hot engines of additional vehicles.
The guards at the gate looked with concern at the trucks. They were the same ones that came twice a week to supply the base, but never at night.
“Identify yourself!” the sergeant at the gate shouted to the lead driver.
“Aseroff Delivery Service,” the driver shouted back. “Do you not recognize us after all these years? Open the gates. We have a delivery for you.”
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“You were supposed to be here this morning,”
the sergeant hollered over the noise of the truck engines. “Why are you delivering at night?”
“Sergeant,” the driver said, “I am sorry, but our supply shipment came in late from Kabul. We have other business tomorrow morning. We did not think you would care if your beer came late.”
“Stay there. Let me check with Command,”
the sergeant said.
He had just begun to talk with Base Command when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded in the left watchtower, followed by another in the right watchtower. The truck driver waved his arm forward to signal the rest of his group to open fire on the guards and smash through the security fence with their vehicles.
Small arms fire destroyed the bulbs in the light poles. Except for moonlight, the compound was thrown into total darkness.
The General Quarters alarm sounded almost immediately, scrambling the base contingent of soldiers to get to their duty stations, fully armed and dressed for combat.
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The short delay as the soldiers grabbed their weapons, vests, and additional ammo clips allowed the insurgents to penetrate into the heart of the camp, firing at anything that moved.
“I want the General alive,” shouted their leader as defensive fire erupted.
The base soldiers who had never experienced night combat were not positive which of the muzzle flashes were defensive and which were from the enemy. The more seasoned soldiers could differentiate the boom and flash of the much larger AK-47s over the sharper crack of the smaller AR-15 cartridges. They trained their weapons on the louder shots, hoping they were not shooting at their own people.
Ana and Rhett jumped out of bed at the sound of the first RPG exploding. They ran to Lance’s room and found him dressing for battle.
“General, stay low and do NOT leave this room under any circumstances. Do not fire back and give out your location. You’re the target of this attack!”
With that, the two of them left the room to join the battle. Several trucks exploded from RPG
impact as base soldiers used them as defensive 257
positions. The night was filled with intense shooting, flashes of light from gun muzzles, and streaks from tracer bullets. Acrid smoke filled the compound as orders were shouted by both sides.
The screams of men, some wounded, some dying, were heard as their blood mixed with the desert dust.
Combatants on both sides fired wildly into the darkness as real wide-eyed battle fear filled and overwhelmed the hearts of every man.
The battle is spreading out, Ana. I’ll defend the left side of the building. You take the right. Shoot anyone that gets near a door.
Rhett sprinted to the left of the building, laying down a killing fire as he used both normal and infrared vision to see the enemy.
The battle shifted towards the right side of the building, toward Ana, to avoid Rhett’s killing shots. She found herself backed into a corner of the brick building. She ran for cover behind a Humvee, but was shot before she reached the relative safety of the vehicle. Pistol fire hurt as the bullets struck her side and arms, causing her to flinch, but did not penetrate her skin. She 258
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returned fire until the bullet from the more powerful Soviet rifle hit her.
Rhett, I need you! I’m hit in the side, and the AK-47 penetrated. It hurts so much, and there are too many enemy heading my way for me to handle. I don’t want to be killed again. Help!!
A volcanic rage erupted within Rhett, the fury of which he could never have previously imagined. All thoughts to protect the General were gone. He was coming to save Ana.
No one could clearly see the speed at which he closed the distance between one end of the long building to the other through the darkness and smoke. Nor could they see his rate of fire and accuracy. To the enemy, it appeared as if the building were defended by multiple soldiers.
A delivery truck smashed through the battle and crashed into the wall of the building housing Lance. It’s driver had been shot dead. It blocked Rhett’s path to Ana. He used his momentum and speed to parkour along the vertical wall and over the truck. Insurgents stood on the other side, firing in Ana’s direction. Rhett emptied his clip into all but one of the shooters as he ran perpendicular to the wall.
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The remaining shooter turned his head to face the snarling Rhett, but it is unlikely his brain registered anything he saw before a full-strength punch hit him solidly in the face as Rhett ran past. The force of the blow tore through skin and skull, leaving the man standing for several milliseconds before his mostly headless body fell to the ground.
Rhett picked up two rifles from among the bodies of the attackers. With one in each hand, he eliminated the remaining threats to Ana in a withering hail of bullets.
Ana was curled up on the ground next to her empty rifle and backup clips, their deadly cargo having been effectively used to hold off the enemy.
“Oh, Honey,” he said as he reached her. A huge sob erupted from him as he held her tightly in his arms. “My love, my life. They’ve hurt you,”
he cried out.
Ana clung to him. “I’ll be okay. They didn’t hit any vital components. I’ve turned off the pain sensors to the area.”
“When I saw you in a fetal position,” Rhett said. “I thought you were dying.”
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“I ran out of ammo after calling for you. They kept shooting at me. I wanted to make myself as small a target as possible until you got here, and...,” her voice trailed off.
“And what else, Love?”
“There was such intense fire. Even though the attackers didn’t seem to be very well trained, there was always the chance a lucky shot could have... taken you out. If I lost your Com, I would have let them kill me. I wouldn’t ever want to live without you. You are my love and my life.”
Rhett held her closer. “Nor I. You are my whole world. Now, let’s get you fixed up. It sounds like the battle is slowing down, but the regular troops can sort all that out. I have you, and that’s all I care about.”
The actual damage was minor and quickly repaired. Except for the bullet hole in her uniform, no one would know she had been hit.
They found General Lance standing a few feet back from his window.
“General,” Ana said, “you should be taking cover instead of standing there like a target, Sir.”
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Lance slowly turned his head toward them.
“Sergeants, I may have done some terrible things in my life, but I have never been a coward. I will not hide while my troops are in the thick of a battle. I want them to know that.”
”So, how did you two do? What’s your body count?” he asked.
Rhett and Ana frowned at the sudden matter-of-fact tone of his question.
Ana spoke first. “Well, Sir, I believe I got 12 to 15 of them.”
“I killed about 23 or 25,” said Rhett. “How does that compare to your expectations?” he asked without emotion.
Lance smiled and gave a small nod of his head. “Very good. At best, an average soldier in a firefight may hit three to four of the enemy. You guys did well above average. You were a good investment.”
The two flinched at being minimized as investments after being forced to take human lives. This war nonsense has to stop, wifi’d Rhett. And for what? There was nothing gained 262
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tonight. There is nothing gained, ever, from what I can see. Just a pile of bodies who were once living men.
After their heavy losses, the enemy troops gave up their quest and drove or ran out of the gates. They disappeared like ghosts into the desert. No army troops followed in pursuit.
Emergency lighting was rolled out and lit the compound. The injured on both sides were tended to in the base medical Quonset hut. The eight Army dead were carefully covered and readied for transport back to the States.
Enemy troops were laid out in neat rows and reviewed. The count was fifty-three shot, plus one mystery death with most of his head missing.
A close examination revealed only five of the enemy were local. The remainder were Taliban soldiers, called in to help overrun the base.
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