First Sample

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The small convoy of patrol vehicles bounced up the road, out the Eastern Gate and north onto the access road just outside the base.  Sergeant Raleigh was still processing what Williams had just told him; not protecting migrating civilians, that was normal, but having to confront an armed group of people dressed as knights.  Medi-fucking-eval knights!  Raleigh had seen some strange and truth be told terrible things on his tours in the Middle East and this command was no exception. Men riding on horses and cutting people down with swords, however, presented an entirely new experience.  His reflection was interrupted as the jeeps came screeching to a halt.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Raleigh yelled up to the drive, instantly ready for trouble.
“Sir, the road is… is…” stammered the driver, sounding increasingly nervous. Raleigh looked up through the windshield and saw what the driver was staring at.  The road looked like it had been cut, as with a knife, in a perfectly straight line.  On the other side of the line was a two meter drop down to the ground; ground strewn with boulders and large rocks. Not exactly ideal terrain for a vehicular scout.
“Roit, everybody out, we’re on foot from here,” called out Raleigh as he and his men disembarked from their jeep.  Raleigh nodded to Williams as they exited their respective vehicles.  He respected Williams’ abilities as a soldier but was reserving judgment on his leadership ability.  Williams had been recently promoted and this was technically his first combat mission, as unconventional as it was.  Raleigh ducked his head again to show this was Williams’ mission, that he was in charge.
“Right, everyone listen up.  We are on foot from here. We are to rendezvous with a group of civilians who are running over the perimeter, about half a mile from here,” Williams said, clearly without being too loud.  “Rangers, we will tack straight to them, heading north to where we think they are heading.  Sergeant Raleigh, you and your men will provide covering surveillance and fire if needed as we draw back the hostiles while evacuating the civilians.”  It wasn’t a question. Raleigh liked that.  Better to get right to the point.  It was Williams turn to nod to Raleigh, giving him the stage.
“As the lieutenant said, my men will provide radio feedback and track the enemy movement from-“ he looked around for a suitable location, spying a small hill about twenty meters from the side of the road “-that hill right there.  Colonel Jones has asked us to get prisoners from the hostiles, and I’d like to deliver on that request.  Given the recent events, and the fact that we’ve got no fookin’ clue what’s happened,” that brought a round of chuckles, even from Williams,” I doubt the Colonel will be too pleased if we come home to him empty handed.”
“From what little intel we have, the hostile group is dressed in full armor suits, if you can believe it,” Williams said to the assembled group. “I want your riot suppression munitions loaded in place of grenades, it may be the only way that we can really incapacitate the hostiles without killing them.  Our SAS friends will provide live covering fire in the case that the hostile group engages.  Defend yourselves as necessary, but we need a prisoner. Right, I don’t need to tell you all twice, move out.”
Raleigh nodded to Williams and then led his men off at a trot up the hill.  They had two L129A4 sniper rifles with them, more than enough in his opinion to deal with the hostiles. The rifles had an effective range of close to nine hundred meters and their targets would be well within that range, closer to eight hundred. He’d also linked up his remote video controls to the .50 caliber machine gun turret mounted on the top of the lead Humvee.  If needed, he could remotely control it to provide a destructive volley of fire.  The hill was about twenty meters in elevation, just enough to provide a prime sniper position to rain down death on the enemy. It was covered in sparse, green and yellow, grass and several small shrubs, which would conceal his men as they fired down on the enemy position.

As they reached the top of the hill, his men began setting up their firing positions, while Raleigh did a three hundred sixty degree observation sweep.  Better to check there were no sneaky hostiles behind them.  But all he saw was a rolling landscape, littered with farms.  As he finished his visual reconnaissance, he had to do a double take on a building he spotted in the distance.  He knew it had to be a figment of his imagination, or perhaps something wrong with the viewfinder, but as he studied it, he realized that his initial suspicion of their situation was becoming more and more likely, despite the impossibility of it.  The building was a tall, stone and timber fortification, located at least eighty kilometers away, but the foreignness of it made it seem so much closer.  Well, maybe foreignness wasn’t the right word.  He’d been to castles back in Britain but none of them had been intact or in use. But a castle in Israel?  With smoke rising from within and the faint bustle of people moving near it.  Raleigh turned away, forcing himself to concentrate on the mission.  If what he suspected was true, they were all in for quite a shock.  His men glanced at him, noticing his intent looks behind them, with slightly puzzled glances. “Don’t worry about it boys, I think we’re in for a ride so get settled,” he murmured as he squatted down behind a boulder to the right of his positions, readying his own HK 419 battle rifle, and watching the movement of the Americans through his scope.

He could see the platoon moving north along what would have been a road.  They’d found their GPS units unresponsive, but knew how to navigate using compasses and line-of-sight.  Swiveling his view and zooming, Raleigh could see the civilians still running, though more slowly, less than two hundred meters from the American position and heading straight for them. As they came into sight of the Americans, they seemed to panic a little, but their backwards glances at the horsemen, who had now changed direction to once again overtake them, kept the group heading for the Americans. Two of the soldiers in the platoon stood then, with megaphones that they brought to their lips.  They first addressed the oncoming civilians in Arabic.

“Turn south, and continue to our walls, you will find safety and shelter. Do not stop, we will help you.”  They repeated this several times.  Raleigh could see a considering look on the face of the woman at the forefront of the refugees and then she was wheeling south, the rest of the refugees following her. Evidently the fluent Arabic their translators spoke had been enough to convince her that heading south was still a better option than the approaching horsemen. As the refugees turned south, the horsemen, knights Raleigh reminded himself absently, seemed to understand that the men with loud voices were the sources of their prey escaping.  They seemed about to charge south until the two nearest knights flew back from their saddles, one with a gaping hole through the right shoulder piece of his mail, the other a bullet in the abdomen.  Both of Raleigh’ shooters had graduated top of their respective marksmen classes, and these shots were designed to be wounding blows, though he doubted the man shot in the stomach would live.

The knights reined up, sure they were out arrow range until two more knights leaped back out of their saddles, as if the very hand of God himself had swatted them aside. Both shots had scored their intended kill boxes, the shooter’s triangle, an area whose three outer points were the forehead and two shoulders.  Virtually any shot inside this area was an instant death sentence, more so with high powered rifles. The rest of the assembled knights, now numbering no more than fourty from their original fifty, sensed their pane must be originating from the men on foot three hundred or so meters ahead.

Into his radio, Raleigh addressed everyone on the open frequency; he wasn’t concerned about anyone else hearing it. “Do not shoot the one with the feather in his helm, it’s a sure bet he’s the leader.  We want him for questioning, he’ll know anything worth finding out.”  If the command was strange to the soldiers, either his or the Americans, none of them said anything.  Through his scope he could see Williams nodding ascent to the order, though he was technically ranked above Raleigh. One more thing to add to the “like” list, the man knows a sensible instruction when he hears one, and doesn't argue about rank, thought Raleigh.

“Try and spare the horses, we may need them later,” Williams said abruptly, and Raleigh wondered if the two of them shared thoughts about just what had happened to them. But he didn’t have time to wonder very long. He saw through his scope Williams issuing commands to two of his men, who reached into a backpack they’d brought along, presumably filled with supplies. They each pulled out what could only be the imposing rectangular box of a claymore mine.  Raleigh thought that odd until he heard Williams voice in his headset, “Lopez and Fielding are deploying two riot claymores, hopefully we can break the charge without too many deaths.”  Raleigh nodded unseen approval of the tactic, but his focus was quickly returned to the now approaching knights.

The knights charge began swiftly, from a stand to a cantor to a gallop in less than thirty seconds.  They had sheathed their swords, drawing an assortment of lances and axes, a few drawing bows.  The bows worried Raleigh the most; if they could get any shots off before being unsaddled, they could do serious damage to soldier armored for mechanized and firearm combat.  “The hostiles have several bowman, at the back of their lines.  With you permission,  Lieutenant, I’d like to removed them from the battle,” Raleigh said into his mic, addressing all of the soldiers on the ground.  Well, he said, I guess I’m actually addressing everyone, on the open frequency. He had no doubt command was listening in back at base, trying to get a handle on what was happening.  

“Copy that, your men are clear to take them out, lethal force, with thanks,” responded Williams, more tense now as his men waited down on the plain.  His troops were on a flat area just below a rise where the charging knights would crest not one hundred meters from their staggered line. While a higher elevation usually provided a superior firing position, their current position would allow them clear shots at the front and rear ranks of knights, hopefully with enough time to stop them before they reached the infantry troops.

“Copy that, commencing fire on rear bow wielding targets,” Raleigh responded, literally as his men opened up on the rear ranks of knights, now no more than four hundred yards from their position and closing in on the top of the crest. The first two targets dropped from the wings of the charging mass; if they could bunch up the hostiles, they would hopefully trip up enough after the first rank fell to the claymores to get some wounded or perhaps unconscious knights to deliver back to base. Two more knights quickly followed their brethren, one as his horse went down under him; Raleigh heard one of his shooters utter a curse under his breath.  These men were professionals and prided themselves on their accuracy, even against armored charging knights on unfamiliar, rising ground.  Within less than a minute all of the knights drawing bows had been killed our incapacitated, twelve of them in all.  That still left twenty eight fully armored knights charging a line of twenty Rangers.

“Bunch them up a bit more boyos, we need those claymores to break the charge for the yanks,” Raleigh said to his men, but it was almost unnecessary.  His men kept firing at the wings, picking off men and forcing the rest to bunch up for fear of being then next target. Then they were cresting the ridge, down to merely eighteen from the original fifty. “Hold your fire, wait until the claymores stun them, kill anyone that tries to break for the line”

The blast from the mines was felt as much as heard, a concussion, followed by screams from men and horses as the charge stopped mid-stride.  One minute the knights had been at a flat run, straight for the American line, the next the entire two front ranks of four knights and their horses were down in a heap.  The third row managed to rein in their mounts, but all of the horses had stopped the charge.  Raleigh could see at least three of the knights were dead, crushed by their horses of those of the men next to him. Two looked to have broken limbs, struggling to rise, and failing. Good, at least we’ll have a couple of the bastards to question, and we can keep them alive, even with a broken leg, he thought with satisfaction. The final two knights in the column, seeing their charge broken, spurred their mounts and headed straight back the way they’d come, presumably for their base camp. One of his men shot, taking the closest knight square in the back, slamming him into his mounts neck.  The animal bucked, throwing the man and leaped forward after the final rider.

“Only need one messenger,” muttered McHenry, the spotter for the man who’d taken the shot.

“Too right,” was all Raleigh said.  He could see the Americans had everything under control.  They’d unhorsed the the four remaining knights with quick, expert lethality.  Those on the ground still alive seemed to have resigned themselves to defeat.  Raleigh finally felt the tension seeping out of his shoulders; they’d won, zero injuries or casualties. He watched Williams intently, as the Lieutenant gave orders to his men, four of whom dashed back to the jeeps, retrieving stretchers.

“We’re going to apply morphine to the injured ones, it should knock them out long enough to get them secured and back to base,” Williams said over the radio. His men busied themselves hauling the dead and injured knights out from under their mounts, applying morphine with quick, expert hands.  Raleigh and his men had just finished packing up their gear when they heard the first shout of alarm.

“Jesus! Get a medic over here,” he heard someone yell, as he reached the bottom of the hill. He was now no more than twenty meters away and could see the source of the man’s distress.  A ranger lay on the ground, clutching a wound to his thigh.  The blooded sword of a knight lay next to him, where it had cleaved the soldiers leg.  His face was white with shock; even years of training to deal with gunshot wounds or grenade burns couldn’t prepare someone for having their leg flayed open by a meter long sword.

“I need gauze, two belts and a stretcher team, now,” said their medic calmly, a brown haired youth of no more than twenty two years. He looked at the cut, grabbed the belt from a soldier offering his, and made two tourniquets around the wounded man’s leg, one around his upper thigh and one midway down.  He began wrapping the leg with the gauze; by this time the wounded soldier was unconscious. “We need to get him straight to Dr. Fahreed,” he said. “I’ll ride along with your permission sir,” he addressed Williams.  Williams only nodded, now intently staring at the man on the ground. Barely more than a boy, 19, no more, thought Raleigh with a familiar sadness.  You saw these kids die in war; in truth, though, war was a young man’s job, but Raleigh knew it would be his only career in life. Perhaps his only career as well, he thought as the stretcher team carried their wounded comrade back to the jeeps.  They’d be at the medical facility inside of five minutes, but with an injury like that, Raleigh didn’t dare to hope.