Final edit of my project for class.
”I love it when a plan comes together.” And this is going to grow to 7500 words for publishing.
“Waiting for a Friend.”
Knox slid down the big rope, dropping into the dark Belarusian forest 50 feet below the helicopter. His mercenary team’s mission was to recover a downed pilot and get him home to fly and fight again. The door gunner facing to the east towards the enemy scanned for targets. The Ukraine war that morphed into WW3 caused unique business opportunities that the team of mercenaries was happy to take advantage of.
The “B” team included Knox, assistant gunner; Crunch, the machine gunner; and Dizzy, the team leader. The Alpha team, four other mercenaries and Bubba, the team leader, went after the pilot’s marker beacon. Knox and B team went 25 meters to the east and set up the pig, a modified M60 machine gun of Rambo fame, between the pilot and the Russian infantry rushing to recover the pilot as a prisoner.
Before the mission started, Knox thought of his family back home and how he took this job to take care of his nephew. His sister had insurance that wouldn’t cover the expensive stem cell treatments that would restore his vision from degenerative disease damage. In a pocket on his fighting harness, Knox kept a tiny Lego soldier that his nephew gave to him to say thanks to his uncle.
The gun team set up like a well-oiled machine, and Knox pulled out a 600-round bag of belted 7.62 NATO ammo to feed the pig. B team didn’t have long to wait. Dizzy stage whispered, “Movement to our front, 200 meters.” Crunch opened fire with the M60. Strobes of muzzle flashes from the gun lit up the forest floor crawling with activity. Using advanced night vision goggles, the three mercs saw at least 50 or more enemy soldiers running to close the distance and grab the pilot.
“Fire on my laser!” Dizzy used his infrared laser to spot targets for Crunch as Knox kept the belts straight and rolling into the Pig. The balls of light in the night marked the targets for Crunch to lay down suppressive fire. Dizzy kept pointing out targets. The asset, one Lithuanian fighter pilot, call sign “Toro” was behind them. In the dark forest of Belarus, nothing was ever easy.
Dizzy was an enigma to the rest of the mercenaries. He appeared independently wealthy and always paid for everything when they had passes for R&R. They didn’t know his finances were set up by a large cash payment from the father of the bride that did not want the marriage to happen. He already regretted his decision to take the money and constantly thought of his bride to be and the wedding that would never happen.
Bubba, the team leader, assessed the situation and decided the mercs needed some air-to-ground love to survive the night. “Easy, this is Blue 6. Troops in contact. Enemy forces east of my position, over.” Easy flew an OV10 Bronco for Pole Dance Aviation and had command of the Search and Rescue element. Easy was a highly decorated Marine Harrier pilot that loved his job, and the pay was great too
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“Blue 6, Easy. I’m reading you five by five, and my JAFO (just another friendly observer, IYKYK) has you on the infrared sniper pod. I have 4 super SLUFs on standby. Where do you want it?”
The Super SLUF was a highly modified A7 Corsair II that had come from the bone yards and drug into the 21st century with new technology. The modifications included a glass cockpit, new wiring and computers, and an engine that burned less fuel and gave 40% more thrust. PDA had found planes where it could and spent a fortune changing the cold warrior to fight on in Ukraine.
“Roger Easy. I need Big Iron 400 meters east of my current position. That’s going to be danger close. I’ll call the BDA after the last bomb hits.”
“Blue 6, Easy does it!” That was his catchphrase, and Bubba cringed a little when he heard it. Pilots were such prima donnas.
Easy punched button two on his radio and started talking to the A7 pilots orbiting two miles to the west awaiting instructions.
“JD, this is Easy. You ready for business? State ordinance loadout.”
“Roger that, Easy. Lay it on me. Flight of four SLUFs with 500 pounders, cluster munitions, and 400 rounds of 20 mike mike.
”
“Roscoe in the back is sending grid to friendlies on the ground. Come in on a Seattle to LA axis and give me two 500-pounders each, 400 meters east of friendlies, 200-meter spread. Orbit at angels five two miles to the west, over.”
“JD copies, 400 meters east of friendlies, 200-meter spread, orbit west at angels five. 30-second racetrack and standby for follow on tasking”. Easy switched back to ground force tactical net
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“Blue 6, you will have warheads on foreheads 400 meters east of your position in 60 seconds. Better hug some dirt down there.”
Bubba keyed his second radio that was on the squad tactical net, “Ok losers, we have ordinance in 60 seconds. You know what that means. Get behind something and think very small.”
Dizzy started providing short bursts of rifle fire to cover Crunch and Knox’s move to get behind trees. All three of them put their heads down and waited for the boom.
Crunch was easy to figure out. He was a steroid loaded fight junkie who lived for the rush. What others didn’t know was the guilt he carried around since his time in Syria seven years ago. He was the only member of an elite reconnaissance team to survive the firefight that killed the rest of his team. Survivors guilt weighed on him constantly and he would put himself in mortal danger for his team of mercenaries. Crunch didn’t mind dying, that was easy. His purpose is to save the rest of the team.
The Russian soldiers were moving more men and weapons to the front to end the mercenaries and capture the pilot. When a platoon of 40 men moved forward to rush the machine gun team, the SLUFs made their appearance.
JD turned into the target area and rolled into his dive from 10000 feet towards the ground. His airspeed pegged to 450 knots, and the fire control computer gave him a target point that was adjusting as he dove closer to the earth. At 4500 feet, JD pickled his two bombs, rolled wings to the left, and pulled the joystick deep into his lap hitting 5 Gs as he called out, “Lead off target with two away.” Tracers started floating past his SLUF as men on the ground tried to engage him coming off the target. The beautiful light shows with the glowing balls rising skyward was deadly as they come. JD started popping flares and chaff to throw off any surface-to-air missiles the Russians may have launched at him.
Then the bombs struck the earth, and the earth heaved. By the time the tail end Charlie dropped his bombs and rolled out, nothing was coming up from the ground.
Blue Squad hugged the dirt as the concussion from the eight explosions washed over them. Knox said aloud, “I’m just happy we are not the target.
”
Dizzy slapped him in the arm. “Knox, get back to work and feed that gun.”
Bubba was consulting his squad leader’s tablet to find the beacon from the downed pilot. As A team got closer to the pilot’s location, they spotted a parachute in the trees without a pilot in the harness. Bubba called out in a stage whisper, “Toro, we are here to take you home.”
There was some rustling in the underbrush, and a very discombobulated pilot appeared.
“Holster your sidearm; you won’t need that with us around.”
The other four members of the squad formed a protective perimeter around Bubba and the pilot.
“Toro, take a knee and take off your helmet. I need to see your face for a biometric scan to confirm your identity.”
The pilot pulled off his helmet and looked at Bubba expectantly. Toro’s eyes were wide as cookies because of the adrenaline dump of ejecting out of a burning F16 and landing behind enemy lines.
With aristocratic flair, he said, “Let’s hurry this up and get me out of here.”
Bubba held up the camera of his SLD as the program matched the pilot’s face with records received before launching the rescue mission. There was a green light, and Toro got his identity confirmed. Bubba said, “Ok, Toro. You ready to walk out of here and fly home?”
Toro looked back at him and said, “If we are getting on a helicopter, I can run!”
“Easy, Blue 6. We have jackpot and we are ready to exfil. Give me a direction and distance to the LZ and we can start moving, over.”
Easy was checking the dense terrain looking for a place he could sneak in the helicopter and directed his GIB (guy in back) to mark it with the sniper pod. After the pod gave a location to the proposed LZ for pickup, he sent the location digitally to Bubba so he could see it on his squad leader’s device.
“Easy, Blue 6. We are starting the movement to the LZ with the package. Can you get the air-to-ground boys to drop ordinance 250 meters east of the friendlies to break contact with the last enemy forces?”
“Roger Blue 6, working that now.”
Easy switched frequencies to speak with JD and said, “JD, Easy. I need your flight of four to make another run, 250 meters east of the friendlies, cluster munitions, over.”
“Roger Easy. 250 meters east of the friendlies, cluster munitions, I will call you with splash.”
Bubba was doing a bit of battle management on the ground, getting his team saddled up and ready to move out. His issue was Crunch, Knox, and Dizzy about 100 meters away still having a few targets to service.
On the squad coms, “Dizzy, can you break contact and link up with me 100 meters to your west?”
Dizzy started assessing the situation and replied, “Bubba, we’ve got more Russian infantry popping in, suggest putting some more ordinance 150 meters in front of our position. When the bodies hit the floor, we can move over.”
Bubba cracked a stupid grin, “Your wish is my command.”
Knox looked at Dizzy. “What da faq?”
“Knox, just feed the gun. I’ve got this.”
Crunch just giggled a bit as the smell of gunpowder and high explosives overwhelmed the senses, but he was crazy like that.
JD’s SLUF screamed down towards the target at 450 knots with his speed brake out to slow down in a shallower dive angle. JD got his switchology straight, and his fire control was giving him an adjusted aim point as he got closer to the ground. At 2000 feet AGL, Tito pickled two anti-personnel cluster bombs and rolled his wings right and pulled 5 Gs in a turn to the west.
“JD target with two away.”
Dizzy heard the SLUF coming down the pipe. “Bubba, you son of a bitch.”
At 250 feet AGL, the two cluster munitions deployed over 1200 fragmentation grenades.
“Crunch, Knox, get ready to move.”
Dizzy rolled to his side and pulled two smoke grenades for his grenade launcher and loaded the first one. Just then, the 1200 bomblets exploded in the forest to the front like rolling thunder. The flashes of the explosions whited out his NODs for an instant, and then he fired the first smoke grenade to the left front. Cracking the launcher open, he loaded and fired the second smoke grenade to the right front. Crunch and Knox put up any ammo that was ready to feed the gun, and Knox broke off a 50-round starter belt, putting the rest in his assault ruck.
The second SLUF dropped its cluster bombs, and when they hit, Dizzy tapped the two mercenaries and got them moving as he looked one last time to make sure there were not any enemies close enough to cause trouble. He was the last one to move out to the team.
Then it happened.
Knox and Crunch heard a wet slap and a yelp from Dizzy as he face-planted on the ground. Knox turned and ran to him to see how bad it was.
Crunch fired the starter belt from the hip and dropped four Russians that closed to only 50 meters from them.
Knox performed a blood sweep of the semi-conscious team leader, finding a through and through gunshot wound on his right shoulder in a spot not covered by body armor.
Crunch took a knee and got another belt of ammo out of his assault ruck and fed it into his machine gun.
Crunch got on the squad net and reported, “Dizzy is down with one GSW. Knox is packing gauze in the wound now. Boss, we are going to need some help to move.”
Bubba looked at his team and tapped two to stay with the pilot.
“Follow me.” The three mercenaries ran east to save their comrades.
Crunch got down in the prone with the gun and started shooting measured bursts from the 60 to chew up the Russian infantry rushing their position. Knox hit Dizzy with a combat cocktail to numb the pain and keep him awake. Knox started servicing targets with his carbine as the Russians got closer.
Suddenly, Bubba, Karl, and Victor started laying down suppressive fire to the right of the three mercs on the ground. The last SLUF dropped its cluster munitions, and more rolling thunder shook the forest.
Knox and Crunch took this as a sign to break contact. Knox put Dizzy in a fireman’s carry and started jogging to the west.
The HH60 rescue chopper picked this moment to hover overhead, and the door gunner ripped the forest with his minigun as Bubba started his team moving back to the pilot.
Behind the mercenaries running west, the only things moving is the smoke from the cluster bombs and wounded Russians. Blue team linked up and ran to the LZ.