Sic Semper Tyrannis (6 page)

“
Keep watching,
” ordered Ted.  He was about a block away from Erik, holding down the middle of their very thin line.  All around them, the local citizens were gathering to assault the approaching Russian convoy.

Erik heard footsteps behind him and turned to see a teenager approach, carrying a bolt action rifle complete with a large scope.  “You one of the army guys?” he asked, voice cracking.

Erik grinned.  “For now.  Who you with?”

“35th Volunteers.  Jacksonville.  This is my first chance at the Commies…”  Beads of sweat trickled down the younger man’s forehead as he gripped his rifle with white knuckles.  He leaned around the house.  “Seen any yet?”

“Nope,” said Erik.  He leaned back against the wall.  “But listen closely…”  He held up a finger to his lips and closed his eyes.  “You can hear their APCs…low rumbling sound.”

The young man closed his eyes and grew still.  After a moment he opened his eyes wide.  “By God, you can!”  He took a nervous glance again around the corner of the building.  “I can’t see ‘em, where they at?”

“We got a location on the convoy?” asked Erik.

“
Best guess about one mile out.  You got any reinforcements yet?
”

“Yes, sir,” said Erik, sizing up the nervous teenager next to him.  “They’re a little skittish.”

Pinner’s laugh sounded tinny but heartfelt.  “
You should have seen the way
you
looked a month ago…sir.
”

A rifle shot echoed in the distance.  The boy next to Erik flinched and nearly dropped his rifle.

“
Cut the chatter—let’s keep the net open.  I think Ivan just got here.  You all know your orders…good hunting!
”

“Roger that,” said Erik.  He looked up at the clear blue sky and prayed silently for strength, good aim, and solid cover.  Then asked God to get him out of this mess as quickly as possible.

“
Oka hey,
” replied Pinner’s voice.

A loud
boom
rolled through the air towards them from the south, sending birds darting into the sky from nearby trees.

“Is that t-them?” asked the boy.

“Yes,” said Erik.  He put a hand on the teenager’s arm and pull the rifle down to a usable position.  “Take it easy, man.  You got a nice sniper rifle there.  Let’s set up on the roof of this building, here.  Get you behind an air conditioner unit or something where they’ll never see you.”

The youth blinked through the sweat dripping down his face and grinned.  Courage seemed to flow back into him.  “Yeah…” he cleared his throat.  “Yeah, sounds good, man.  Let’s do it.”

Erik led the way around the back of the building and up the fire escape ladder to the roof, his newfound partner close on his heels.  In the distance, the sound of a stiffening firefight crackled and echoed all around them.  There were short bursts from what to Erik’s ear sounded like M-4s or ARs, followed by some sharper
rat-tat-tat-tats
that had to AKs.  Every now and then a single loud crash—he figured that had to be the heavy weapons on the vehicles—would silence everything for a moment.

When they were safely ensconced behind an air conditioner, hidden in shadows with a clear line of fire down the wide four lane road that would lead the Russians right to them, Erik clapped his partner on the back and said, “Okay, we’re all set.  I’m going to lay down here and take a nap.  Wake me when the Russians show up.”

The teenager’s eyes looked ready to pop out of his head.  “W-what?”

Erik flashed a grin through his beard, red as the hair on his head.  “Just kidding, man.  I’ll be right here on the other side of this air conditioner.  I’ll call out the shots and you start poppin’, okay?  You got a longer range with that thing than I do with this.”  He held up his government issue M-4.

“Yeah, sure,” said the kid.

Erik settled himself and pulled out his binoculars.  He scanned to the south, looking for movement that would give away the location of the firefight.  There was smoke starting to roll up into the sky to the southwest.  Another plume suddenly emerged, a little closer.  A tremendous noise, louder than a clap of thunder suddenly hit them.

“The hell was that?” asked the teenager.  He adjusted the grip on his rifle and peeked through the scope again.

Erik checked the focus on his binoculars.  “Explosion…looks almost due south of us.  Either we took out one of their vehicles or they just blew up something
big
.”

“
Stay frosty, boys,
” advised Ted’s voice.  “
Just got word from a runner that the Russians have breached the line.  They’re still rolling north.  Should be in sight any minute.  Weapons-free.
”

“Hooah
,” replied Pinner’s voice.

“Roger that,” said Erik.  He relayed the message to his partner.  The teenager wiped sweat from his brow and swallowed audibly.

“Hey,” he said, “you ever kill someone?”

Erik didn’t lower his binoculars.  “Yeah, a few.”  He watched a palm tree to the south, its top sticking up over a flat topped building, swaying back and forth.  The tree toppled over.  “Have you?”

“Ah…”

Erik pulled back from the binoculars.  “How old are you?” he asked.

“I’m almost 16.  My birthday’s another month away.”

Jesus.  Is that all we have left?  Kids?
Erik turned his attention back to the south.  He saw movement and raised the binoculars. 
Bingo.

“I got visual!” Erik reported into his radio.  “I see three BTRs, a couple transports…”

“Oh shit, there they are,” said the teenager. 
“Look
at ‘em all!”

“
Roger that, we’re moving to secondary positions,
” replied Pinner’s voice.

“
Stay on, ‘em!
” said Ted.  “
I’m shifting the militia to hit them on their left flank
. 
Lot more than I expected…
”

“What do I do?” squeaked Erik’s sniper.

“Look through your scope there, line up the cross hairs on a target, squeeze the trigger.  Easy.”  Erik rolled his eyes at the young man’s nervousness.  “Okay—this helped with me.  Pretend it’s a video game.”

“A
video game?
  Those are
real
Russians down there!”

“Trust me—this is just like
Modern Combat
, you ever play that?”

“Hell yeah, I was head of my clan before the power went out.  I sure miss that game.”

“Well, there you go—pretend it’s just another mission in the game.  Now hurry up before they get too close!”

“Viking
,” called out Ted’s voice.  “
See that third APC?
”

Erik adjusted his binoculars.  “Roger that, Bulldog.”

A plume of white smoke shot out of the trees that lined the street.  Erik caught a glimpse of a flash of light and then a brilliant explosion consume the front half of the third Russian APC.  The lead vehicles peeled out to the left and right trying to go into evasive action.  Another missile shot out between two buildings on the other side of the road, narrowly missing the weaving armored vehicles.  A building absorbed the missile with a cloud of smoke and fire.

“
Got one!
” yelled Ted.

“
Nice shooting!
” said Pinner.

“Uh,” Erik said, “They’re not stopping…”

“
I see it, I see it!
” replied Ted’s voice.  The gunfire continued unabated but was now accompanied by the thunderous blasts from the Russian heavy vehicles.

“There’s so many of them!” Erik’s partner wailed.  A bullet ricocheted off the air conditioner next to the young man and he cringed, nearly dropping his rifle.

“Hey, calm down, it was just a lucky—” Erik ducked when another round impacted the rooftop nearby.  “Okay, maybe they spotted us.”  Three more rounds kicked up pebbles and bits of masonry.  “Yeah, they
definitely
spotted us!  Come on,” he said, grabbing the kid’s shoulder.  “We gotta go—
now!
”

The boy-sniper jumped up and scrambled for the emergency ladder.

“Hey, don’t forget your rifle!” 

Erik sighed.  It was no use—the kid had already scaled the side and was on the ground by the time Erik snatched up the long gun.  “Viking is on the move—we’re compromised.  Got a Russian patrol closing on our location!”

“
Get out of there!  They’re running over all of us.  Looks like the militia is falling back, too
.”

“Roger that!” Erik said as he got himself over the edge of the roof in a shower of incoming rounds.  When he had his feet safely on the ground he immediately took off running north, for the safety of the treeline behind his building.  Without warning, he saw everything go white and was thrown through the air.

When he was able to kick-start his lungs again and suck down enough air to cough, he rolled over onto his back and felt pebbles and debris slide off his body in the process.  He raised a shaky hand and shielded his eyes as he looked at the remains of the building he had fled.

“Jesus,” he coughed, “that was
close
.”

“
Viking!  Viking, come in!  You still there?
” shrieked Ted’s voice over the radio, now some ten feet away in the dirt.

Erik struggled to his hands and knees, still shaky from the effects of…whatever the hell had destroyed his sniper position.  He eventually made his way through the abandoned lot to his radio.  He slumped down on his back again, gasping for breath.

“Yeah,” he said.  After another cough to clear his lungs of dust, he wiped the grime from his forehead and brought the radio to his lips again.  “Viking’s here.  The hell was
that?
”

“
Hell if I know…looked like a missile came out of the blue.  I didn’t see it launch.
”

“
I think Ivan’s got himself a drone, sir,
” said Pinner’s voice.  It sounded like he was running.

“
Christ.  All right—fall back to the bridge.  We gotta get north of them and cut off their access to the rest of the island.  Let’s haul the mail, boys!
”

“Hooah
,” replied Pinner’s deep voice.  “
I’m almost there.
”

Erik coughed again and got to his feet.  “I’m on the move.”  As he turned to begin his run north, he saw a glint in the sky to the south.

“They
do
have a drone…”  As he watched, a missile was deployed, the white exhaust trail snaking down to the ground on the other side of the ambush area.  The ground trembled beneath his feet and a plume of smoke and dust erupted over the treetops to the south.  A thunderclap drowned out the sounds of the skirmish.  He sprinted north and warned his squad-mates of the drone as he entered the treeline.

The North Courtenay Parkway Bridge, just north of A-1A, was the only reasonable access point for the Russians to reach KSC.  It was only a few blocks north of the ambush site, but Ted had guessed that the local militia would slow down the invaders just enough for the three soldiers to set a booby-trap.

Erik hoped they had enough time.  He sprinted across a McDonald’s parking lot and straight up the middle of Courtenay, relishing the shade as he crossed under A-1A’s overpass.  Ted waved at him from the north side of the Courtenay Bridge.

“
Hurry up, sir,
” warned Pinner’s voice in Erik’s ear.  “
I see some Russian foot-mobiles at the McDonald’s behind you.  I think they’re trying to secure the bridge for the rest of the column
.”

Erik didn’t bother to reply but put all his energy into getting his ass across the drawbridge.  He did his best to ignore the burning in his chest and focus on the hollow sounds his boots made as he galloped across the steel middle section of the two-lane northbound drawbridge.  A rifle shot behind him told him that the Russians had a visual.

Go, go, don’t look back, just run! 
A round exploded one of the windows of the bridge control tower in the middle of the river.  Erik ducked the falling glass and ran for his life across the second half of the bridge.

“
Just keep moving, man—we’ve got you covered.  Light ‘em up, Pinner!”

Erik flinched again as twin rifle shots rang out—this time from in front.  Another ricochet sounded behind him, way too close for comfort.  He continued his mad dash across the bridge and didn’t stop running until he passed the end of the guardrails on the north shore and collapsed into a dense copse of trees.

Pinner leaned out around the largest tree and pulled Erik behind better cover.  Then he carefully raised his M4 and fired off another shot.  He looked down at Erik and grinned.  “I got Viking, Bulldog.  Bridge is clear.”