My latest flash fiction friday story; on time, with fewer calories. Please enjoy.
At sixteen thousand feet they drop.
The plane is a four engined Grunt/Cargo-27M Spartan II aircraft. It carries three crew up front and two in the back. The plane is configured to move one squad of Grunts, twenty one in all, and most of their equipment. There is plenty of space in the back; the Grunts don't take up much room and their equipment is palletized on the back ramp for easy push off on landing.
Mordechai Kim sits along the side of the plane's hold; he's strapped in like the rest of his squad. He's wearing black/grey combat slicks that cover him from the neck all the way to his feet, where they harden into boots; his gloves are retracted. The slicks give a Grunt ballistic protection up to about 7.56 mm, though any impact will probably break a bone. Still, good enough. Half his face is covered by the polarized lenses of his glasses. They are multichannel. Through them, Mordechai can monitor the network; the rest of the world. On one screen, he's watching CNN; the newsies are just starting to cover the fight. On another screen, he's looking at the TACOPs, as information, maps, orders and requests stream across. On a third screen Sgt-Commander Candidate Hero is conducting her final PMCI's, or pre-mission checks and inspections, on the Squad's systems. Mordechai reminds himself to put his glasses away later or he will lose them.
He looks past the information flow and across the hold and he is staring at Hollywood 1506, a fellow Grunt seated directly opposite.
Hollywood 1506 is scared. Mordechai can pick up the tells; Hollywood 1506's rapid hand movements, the way he constantly licks his lips, the steady patting of his foot. They are all scared; this insertion marks their first live action as Grunts. Simulations are over; this is for real. It is war.
Mordechai Kim is sixteen years old, he is an iron Grunt of the Imperium and he is going to war.
At sixteen thousand feet they drop.
The pilot puts the plane into a steep dive; Moredechai and the rest were told to expect the dive, but it catches them by surprise nonetheless: simulated zero gravity. They lift out of their seats as the plane drops; their seat belts catch them before they lift more than an inch or two. Mordechai's stomach races to collide with his brain. The aircrew, well they have some fun: like some comic superhero, they seem to defy gravity and in a second 'spiderman' their way to the planes roof. Completing the ballet, they grab hold of some guide wires, flip and come back down, settling into their seats by their respective weapons consoles.
At ten thousand feet, the pilot pulls the plane out of the dive. Ten seconds have passed.
Look, these maneuver's make sense. The pilot needs to bring his cargo--the Grunts-- in while not getting shot down. The enemy is armed to the teeth; it seems to Mordechai, reading the intel, that every sixteen year old down there has an AK-47 and a Toyota pickup already outfitted with rails for ground to ground rocket launches. Birthday presents. The really cool kids have manpads, man portable air defense rockets; it is the cool kids the G/C-130 pilot works to avoid.
The enemy knows the Grunts are coming and they will do everything they can to stop them; of course, they will fail. Grunts excel at early entry and there is really nothing the enemy can do, except play his part. Used to be wars were about bows and arrows and maybe later, bullets and artillery; these days, that's just the beginning.
The pilot, an older guy in his twenties-- Grunt Auxiliaries usually were-- starts his final descent. The G/C-130 pivots left and right; it slows almost to a stop and races forward. If someone below is tracking the bird, well, the pilot is going to make sure he doesn't become a fat target. Mordechai hears the wheels go down; landing imminent. The Squad bounces as the plane makes contact; the aircrew immediately lowers the ramp. If the plane is hit while taxiing, then that open ramp becomes their escape hatch.
Mordechai, sitting in the back of the plane, has a great view of the world. This is what he sees in his ten foot by ten window: close up, enemy UAVs are burning on the tarmac. Mordechai's Squad, filled with relative newbies, got assigned early entry. A couple of hours before, more experienced Squads crashed down from orbit: initial entry. Mordechai's Squad and the ones that would follow were entering what was called a "semi-permissive" environment: or a 'cake walk' in Grunt speak. The airport they are landing at is more or less secure; the enemy's proud defenses reduced to a collection of smashed tanks, burning biological/robots and smoking foxholes.
Mordechai's Squad is on the first bird in; out the hatch, he sees the other nineteen birds in the flight, from the fat G/C-130 several thousand yards behind them to the last bird, a mere dot in the haze. Looking up, he sees a barrage blimp; one of many, he knows. They are casing the enemy's Camp; every few seconds, as his plane taxis to a stop, Mordechai watches the blimp let loose with a missile. The blimps are fully automated and controlled from some ground station thousands of miles away, but they are effective beasts: reconnaissance and aerial weapons teams all in one.
Grunt logic: if you can see it, be sure you can kill it.
Mordechai notices the flash just as his glasses sound a warning and begin tracking; missile. Track backs confirm the missile was launched damn near sideways from the enemy Camp. There is a pocket out there the initial entry Squads missed. The missile tracks towards the fourth bird in the flight; too late, its pilot attempts to pull the plane up. The missile strikes between the port side engines and explodes, raining fragments into the cargo hold. Mordecahi watches, his passion damped, as the plane slews, stutters and drops. It explodes in a fireball at the beginning of the runway.
There were three crew up front, two in the back and twenty one Grunts on that plane.
The rest of the flight breaks formation as the the Grunt Auxiliary pilots scramble to gain altitude; that pocket is going to have to be neutralized before they attempt another landing.
Moredechai does some quick, back of the envelope calculations. Three birds landed; three squads, sixty-three Grunts. Initial entry was probably five Squads; so he figures 168 Grunts in the AO.
The enemy Camp is small; figuring a few thousand active fighters, Home Defense and it's Civilian package (which you had to avoid killing), Mordechai figures somewhere around a 250,000 hostiles to potential hostiles, or bad guys and not so bad guys.
And that's not counting any Shredders lurking out there.
One hundred and sixty eight Grunts against an entire Camp. Odds any iron Grunt would take.
When life hands you lemons, make hand grenades.
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