Dan and I lined up with the rest of the established teams currently on base, which was only a few. The only ones present were SEAL Team's one, three, eight, four, and seven, compared to what had just arrived on our doorstep, we were the few facing the many.
Rear Admiral Seller, or Acting Captain Seller, walked through the doors, her brows furrowed as she lined us up. "I'll get straight to the point, we need to go now. Orders came from the NSWC directly, Two teams are to converge on Maine in the morning: Team Three, led by me, and Team Seven. This trip will take approximately eleven hours."
She paused briefly, staring at everyone before her eyes stopped on mine. I could see what was going on in her head, even if she wasn't expressing it. She was beyond pissed, except that was covering up something smaller, she was worried.
"Members of those Teams, load up into the Apaches. We leave in ten minutes."
She didn't stick around much longer, instead choosing to speedwalk outside and toward the helicopter my team would be taking.
"Hey, buy some armor before we go. It was a tip from my Chief, but anything Navy-issued will completely fail on the battlefield," Dan said from behind me, his eyes thousands of miles away as a quiver struck his voice.
"Also, Alan, we got this, alright? If push comes to shove, I'll cover you, alright? You're young, I don't want you dying this early," Dan muttered to me, patting my shoulder as he ran to join his Commanding Officer, the Captain of Team Seven.
I stared briefly out the window, looking at my eyes in the reflection as a stabbing pain cut through my heart once more. This time, I knew the emotion, I was nervous, terrified even, but I started to walk outside and load onto the Apache.
The roar of the choppers cut through the space as I sat next to Captain Seller, who was bouncing her knee and staring out the window.
"Look, I know we just met each other technically, but it'll be fine. We have two teams, they don't have anti-aircraft weaponry, this was a random invasion, it'll be over fast," I tried to smile a bit and convince her, but her green eyes stared into mine, shivering as she shifted around toward the rest of us.
"Hey, Andrews. Listen, I appreciate it, but not now. You don't know what hell is like; you've never seen a battlefield. I try not to curse often, so don't make me break that for you."
After finishing with me, she stood up, taking a position next to the doors.
"Alright! We got one shot at this, men, so fall in line! We'll be parachuting directly into enemy territory. We got a distress call from a unit based down in Maine, near the rear guard. If we fail this, the whole goddamn country is going to shit, so no pressure." Seller yelled half of it over the sounds of the helicopter, the other half when it calmed down enough, she felt she could speak normally.
"Hey, this is a HALO, right?" I asked the man next to me, he stared daggers at me, seemingly calling me a fucking idiot for asking such a stupid question. I wasn't very well briefed, like everyone else. I just got out of training and was already being sent to go die on the battlefield like some pig.
Seller glanced around at us before making the signal for a High-Altitude Low-opening, better known as a HALO drop. She paused, looking toward me, before simply nodding.
I don't think she ever got over recruiting someone straight out of high school, let alone jail, and she made it obvious sometimes. I nodded back, ready to hear what else she had to say to the group.
"I will be absolutely clear, you shouldn't be dropped straight into an active warzone like this, I think there's a better way! Unfortunately, orders are orders, no matter how much value the soldiers have!"
At the last comment, the doors flew open and we put on our parachutes, strapping them tightly and leaving our hands next to the cord. If I pulled too early, I'd fuck the operation, too late, and I'd probably die, no pressure, just like she said.
"MO-" She was cut off by an explosion in the helicopter next to us, sending our chopper barreling toward the ground. Fire lit up the sky as soldiers dropped, one after the other, from the other helicopter, their bags covered in a layer of orange flames.
My heart stopped in my chest as I was thrown against the back, forcing saliva to shoot out of my mouth as my spine tingled in a level of pain I'd soon forget, when we crashed into the ground and died very horrible, very painful deaths.
"GO! GO! NOW!" Seller yelled louder than ever, holding onto the door for dear life as we neared the ground.
I jumped immediately, flying out into the ocean and slamming down harder than I'd ever hit anything, except maybe a punching bag. Bubbles exploded around me as my mouth shot open, but I managed not to swallow any of the seawater.
I rolled around, spiraling further into the Ocean for a few moments, before getting my balance and resurfacing. Fire exploded all around me, both helicopters were done for, and only a handful of soldiers remained, swimming toward the shore and the site where the first helicopter had crash-landed.
I felt a feeling building, similar to the same fear I had gone through during Hell Week; I knew it instinctively, there were no survivors. I got to shore, crawling forward before breaking into a sprint toward the wreckage. I didn't know if many people from my team were alive or not, but I needed to ignore the feeling I had, I had to check the wreckage, I needed to see if Dan was alive.
My gloves caught on fire as I desperately tried to pry the metal away from the helicopter's almost completely shattered window. A face stared back at me, I couldn't tell who until he pounded on the glass, it was Dan.
I punched with everything I had, slamming my fist into the window and embedding shards of glass deep into my bare knuckles. Dan did the same, except he was slowing down.
I kept punching, again and again, but the hair on his head started to disappear. As my fist smashed through part of it, sending spider web-like cracks everywhere, Dan shrank, before finally, I could see the mess of black and red that dotted his body.
He was gone, dead, burned to a crisp, and I was the one who failed to get him out. The man who went through hell with me to be a SEAL, the man who gave me tips when I first joined, the one who told me about Seller, the one whose family I had just met, the very man I had shared my first drink with, he was gone.
"DAN! GET UP, FUCK GET UP! DAN!"
Tears struck down my cheeks as I kept pounding on the glass, but a hand on my shoulder pulled me away. Seller was standing above me, a look on her face that screamed she'd seen something like this happen before.
Tears welled up in her green eyes, but they didn't fall like mine. She slung her rifle over her back and pulled me to my feet, shoving me down in the trench the helicopter had made on its way across. One of the only two trenches on the field.
Heavy, stomp-like marching came from the distance as soldiers piled next to each other, Russian, all aiming some of the fiercest-looking guns I had ever seen. Red and black camo dotted their rifles, sending images of Dan's corpse into my mind as Seller signaled to stay down.
I didn't cry long, maybe it was the stress, maybe adrenaline was finally taking hold, I didn't care. I just wanted to destroy them for what they did. Bullets rained around us as I solidified my place, right here, right now.
Seller looked at me, a somber tone in her eyes, before muttering something about the Government sending us on a suicide mission. We weren't told they had anti-aircraft weapons, let alone that they had guns at least an entire grade above what we had, but I couldn't worry about that.
I raised my rifle and took a shot, sending red everywhere next to his comrades as they spread out. Seller followed suit, luckily enough. Bullets rained down in every direction, some hitting the other SEALS that managed to survive our crash, others hitting nothing.
Slowly, the Russians pulled back, trying to regroup. We had survived the first onslaught, with over thirty casualties, but we were alive, somehow.
"We need to get the fuck out, now!" Seller ordered, and I quickly nodded.
We ran back, as far as we could, when a loud shot rang out in the distance and Seller's boot practically exploded in red. Her foot had been shot through by a sniper, and a damn good one at that.
Immediately, I took her down next to a small concrete wall, which was almost completely burnt, but it covered us enough as another shot went directly into it. It would hold, for now.
I signaled to wait for a moment, checking her wound, but neither my kit nor hers had anything to patch it up. One of those moments in war, where no matter how prepared you are, you can just as easily get caught off guard. No amount of preparation can truly let you get through a battlefield smoothly; that was one of the most vital lessons instructor Willie taught me.
"Alan, just go. Leave me, get to safety," She muttered, groaning as blood poured from the wound.
"I can't do that, and we both know it," I replied, using a small layer of gauze and a hyper-absorbent roll to patch her wound the best I could. She bit down hard on my hand while I put some disinfectant on it.
"It's an order, Andrews. Please."
"I decline, then, Captain."
"Andrews, stop being so stubborn!"
"I said, I decline! Now shut up and let's get the fuck out of here!"
"Leave me or I'll have you punished for disobeying orders!"
I picked her up, the same way Dan and Matthew had done during the Blue Cord run, and darted toward the second trench. Ignoring her complaints and shouts along the way, I wasn't leaving her, not yet, not ever. My duty was to protect as many people as possible, and that included my Captain, regardless of punishment.
As we were running for the second trench, next to the forest, we spotted civilians hiding amongst the wreckage of a house, complete with an inferno of flame and fallen brick; they had completely firebombed the place far before we ever arrived, to an extent beyond what was on the news. Fuck! You've got to be kidding me, more fucking civilians?!
I looked toward where we had come from, in the far distance, the soldiers were regrouping, about to attack again. I couldn't leave them to die.
"Fuck, come on!" Dozens of civilians, some injured, some not, came out, running with us toward the forest, when one dropped dead, a hole in their head. They were coming.
I grabbed Seller and dived into the trench, propping her up as I looked over the field.
"Alan, please, just go."
I ignored her and grabbed her radio, since she had a direct line to command and I didn't. I stepped a bit away in case I got worse news, that nobody was coming. That was the last thing we needed.
"This is Alan Andrews of SEAL Team Three, command, do you copy? We need immediate evac and a team down here; we're surrounded, and both Apaches are down. I repeat, we need immediate evac, and both Apaches are down. Command, do you read me?"
"Roger that, status on acting Captain Lucy Holt?"
"Why the hell does that matter? We need backup, now! She's fine, shot through the foot, but she'll pull through. I think it's a .338 Lapua Magnum, it's about nickel, maybe quarter-sized."
"Copy that, evac eta in one hundred twenty minutes. Hold tight."
"What? Two hours, are you serious?"
No reply came as I slammed down the radio, looking back at Seller and the civilians. Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!
"How many rounds do you have left?"
I looked over at Seller while the cold breeze shot through the trench. Approximately five minutes were left until the enemy caught up with us, and she had already been shot in the foot; the other civilians couldn't keep up either.
"About two hundred, why?" She replied, looking at me as I glanced over the trench once more.
"Give me one-hundred and get the fuck out of here. Use the rest to clear your way, keep going for about an hour with two five-minute breaks in between, backup will be here in about two hours."
She opened her mouth in protest, but I glared toward her foot. Reluctantly, she handed me the rounds and gathered up the civilians, pouring out from behind me to the treeline.
Enemy helmets appeared over the horizon, glaring, searching for any sign of life, of us. I crouched, slowly moving to a better point in the trench, and took the first shot.
My bullet went through his helmet and skull, instantly exploding him in a sea of red. Bullets rained down on me fast, hitting every corner of the trench except the underside I was using for cover.
As the metal rain stopped briefly, I stood up, taking every single shot I could before more soldiers could reload. Luckily, every single one hit, but now I had to reload, and their troops had just finished.
I never realized…
A bullet grazed my shoulder, sending a wave of heat through my body as I lay down again, taking cover. Seller had already left for the trees, the civilians were being evacuated, and all I had to do was hold the line as long as possible. Slowly, a smirk formed on my lips.
War could be so fucking fun!
I rained down a hellfire of bullets on them, ignoring the iron rain coming toward my trench as they fell like flies. The tight-knit group was falling faster than before; staying next to each other was never the right move in a firefight, and the Russian soldiers had just learned firsthand.
"Come in, Alan, are you alive?" Seller's voice echoed through the radio while I was reloading, the enemies getting closer and closer, slowly using the rubble that surrounded the field as cover.
"Copy, Seller. I'm taking fire, but making progress, approximately seventy hostiles remaining."
Her voice didn't shoot back, at least not that I heard. My breath was shaky, covered in the scent of iron and gunpowder. I had around four mags left, each with thirty rounds, more than enough to take them out, if they hadn't started taking cover.
"Oh God, Alan, I'm sorry."
"Shut up, I can't hear that right now."
Bullets sprayed over my head, sticking into the wooden boards across from me. It wasn't exactly the way I wanted to die, but hey, it could've been worse. It couldn't.
Heat flew up from my arm again, another bullet, this time it took a chunk of my flesh with it. Hell Week was something else, but it wasn't to this level. Compared to the intense cold, I was facing a melting level of heat.
I fired again, taking a few more soldiers out as bullets flew past me. Fuck! Jesus this shit hurts! Another bullet narrowly missed as my helmet tumbled off and crumbled to the ground. So much for anything Navy-issued. Dan was right, I should have bought my body armor.
"Holy fuck!" I yelled out with a laugh, chuckling at the blood, my blood, that surrounded me. After everything, after every fight, after every beatdown, this was how I was going to die. Alone on the battlefield, facing an army of soldiers armed to the teeth. How poetic for someone who stayed alone.
I wish I could have apologized to my sister.
More thoughts came to mind, but I managed to bury them as the sound of barrels exploding filled the air. Gunpowder tickled my nose, blood dripped from my shoulder onto my rifle, my radio crackled, but no sound came through. What an end.
Over the sound of the gunfire, they suddenly stopped. One shot, two, three, five, seven, the battlefield was getting quiet except those shots being taken, except they weren't at me. I managed to lift myself to see what was going on, when I saw the enemy soldiers dropping one by one, each to an invisible enemy.
"This is the Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, you are clear for evac, soldier."
A voice, deep yet familiar, cut over my radio before more bullets sprayed out from the sideline, dropping the soldiers faster than ever.
"Copy that, thank you."
I ran to the treeline, shooting behind me as the enemy started to run for the trench. One pulled out a pistol, but he was dropped from somewhere deep off the battlefield, a sniper, one better than I was at least.
"Seller, come in, are you clear? I'm approximately one click from your location, I repeat, I am one click away from you. Do you read me?"
"Holy shit, Alan? You took them all out?"
"Negative, Captain, the marines took over. Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment."
"Copy that, meet us by the large yellow tree, I'll wait for you."
"Roger."
I sprinted through the trees, avoiding roots as the larger tree came up in the distance, its leaves dropping as Seller stood above the roots, looking for me. I ran up to her, grabbed her, and pulled her to the other side, away from the line of sight.
Her eyes glared at me, harder than what was needed, but gunshots quickly surrounded the trees. The enemy had breached the line, it was back to us to take care of the rest.
I glanced between her and the civilians hiding away, they couldn't handle another battle. Seller, maybe, she was a SEAL, but they would die in the crossfire.
"Someone needs to get them out of here, I don't think the unit is going into the forest like we did," I turned to Seller while speaking, she immediately understood what I meant, I wanted her to take them and run again, this time for who knows how long.
"No, it was reckless to leave you to fight alone last time, you're dripping blood, Alan. They can run themselves, as your Captain, I will not leave you alone injured like this."
"Fucking hell, Seller. Alright, we'll hold the line together."
The civilians got the gist of things faster than I expected; they ran like all hell in the opposite direction. So much for helping the little guys, we risk our lives, and they run without a second thought. Human nature at its finest.
You're welcome, not like I just risked us both dying to help get you to safety.
Seller and I propped our rifles on the slit in the tree, aiming for the line as marching echoed through the small clearing.
"Well, shit."
For probably the first time in a while, at least since the interrogation room, Seller cursed right in front of me.
"You cussed!"
"If you don't shut up, I'm having you put in Iraq."
"What did you say again?"
"Good."
I didn't bother with a smartass response, although I wanted to. Joking was fine enough for the time being, but I didn't need to mention that she'd be going with me, if she wanted me in Iraq, and that would require us surviving.
Our sights aimed for the smallest of movements coming through the leaves, before I took the first shot. He dropped immediately, his rifle spinning on the ground as Seller took the next. Blood spewed into the trees, coating them in a fresh paint of red.
More soldiers charged, forcing me to put away my rifle and pull out the M4A1 Carbine I had put next to me before. No matter what, they weren't coming through. I would rather die than let them.
I chuckled slightly, not out of nervousness, no, I was excited. Seller seemed to catch on to the look in my eye, but ignored it.
I could feel the familiar glow of orange cast around my irises, my spark, and the adrenaline catching up; I wouldn't fail here.
Immediately, soldiers dropped as I started to fire, covering the clearing in a field of bodies while Seller reloaded. One took a shot at me before falling over dead, scratching my cheek but barely drawing blood.
This… IS AMAZING!
Adrenaline flowed through my veins as I charged forward, taking soldier after soldier down. I threw myself aside as I reloaded, throwing my empty mag to the side and nailing a soldier in the forehead.
I opened fire again, letting the burning sensation through my body take hold as more and more dropped, each faster than the last. My aim was improving, and they were running out of ways to get to us as the bodies piled up.
With every bullet I fired, with every body that dropped, I wanted to smile more. It was as if my worries faded with every death I contributed to, with every ounce of scum I wiped from the planet. I was loving it, the feeling, the rush, the pain as I bled from my shoulder.
"ALAN!" Seller shouted from behind me, I understood what she meant, someone had a shot at me. But from where?
I darted forward, getting behind a tree as a bullet went past me, a small splatter of red shot from the pile of bodies, yet a small glare came from the top. The glare of a lens; that was the person taking a shot at me.
My eyes scanned ahead as the discharge of a rifle echoed through. I spotted the soldier atop the mountain of his dead troops and took mine too, the difference is, I didn't miss like he did.
His bullet zoomed past my chest, missing me by centimeters at most, while my bullet went straight through his skull. He aimed for my chest, I aimed for the small sticker on his helmet, two griffins, one holding a sword, and the other holding a wreath.
"Thanks!" I yelled back, giving her a thumbs up as I swung my gun onto my back, and she followed suit.
We were alone in the field now, other than the countless bodies piled up, each soldier more red than the last.
Helicopters echoed out in the distance, our backup, which had arrived exactly on time. But what happened to the unit that assisted us before? Did they die, or did they pull back?
"Seller!" I yelled over the heavy push of the chopper blades, luckily she heard me, and seemed to have the same thought I did.
She stayed behind with the helicopter as it was landing, meanwhile, I was pushing further ahead through the forest. The civilians would be fine, our main priority was never to rescue them. I just felt like we had to.
Soon enough, I arrived back at the trench, back where I was shot, my shoulder bled at the thought of the bullet ripping through my flesh again, but I pushed onward. The pain that was drowned out by adrenaline before was finally taking hold of me, yet as I looked around, there were no marines anywhere.
What in the hell? I continued forward, pushing the bodies of Russian soldiers aside as I stepped over where the first shot had come from. A nice, sizeable hole, around the size of a quarter, was through his skull, a clean shot, yet there were no other soldiers, not from our side anyway, anywhere nearby.
I went over to the hill further, where my radio had buzzed, where the mystery sniper who was far better than I had made a clean shot, protecting me from what could have been a fatal wound, yet it was empty. The only perch lay untouched, except for the gunpowder lining the wood of the red maple tree.
Somebody had protected me, had covered my escape, yet there were no marines anywhere, and they weren't the type to shy from a fight. That left two options: either they pulled back because of orders, or there was never an infantry unit to begin with; it was one man.
If it was one man, who the hell managed to get one of the radios? Let alone our frequency. The thought made me shiver, not because of how good the shots were, but because they disappeared as fast as they came.
I'll ask Seller about it later, maybe she knows? I hauled ass back to the helicopter, getting in as we pulled out over the warzone. The rear guard was safe, for now, our next location was in the middle of fuck-knows-where, but I wasn't concerned about that.
My mind was still on the mystery sniper and Dan. As we pulled out, flying high above the treetops, I spotted a person, relatively tall in stature, their face covered yet oddly stoic, and they sent a small salute before disappearing entirely into the forest.
"Seller-" I almost finished, but she was passed out in the seats, I was the only one who could have seen anything. Maybe it was an illusion or something. The thought didn't comfort me, if I was, I'd have to report that to Seller, and she seemed to be rather preoccupied counting sheep.
We arrived at our checkpoint rather fast for a helicopter ride, which is never good, because that means you're needed right away. Most likely, the war was getting worse, and Seller would have to return to her position as the Rear Admiral instead of the acting Captain of SEAL Team Three, so that meant I'd likely be put in charge as one of the few survivors. Other than the six or so who got split off with SEAL Team Two for their co-op deployment.
Times are never good when they split up teams, and Seller even made a comment about them being desperate for soldiers; maybe that was more true than I thought. I tried to ignore the thoughts puddling up as I continued forward, my mind tracing back to the image of Dan burning inside the Apache, while I couldn't do anything to help.
I held ice to my bandaged arm, limping slightly as I made it to one of the tents lined up in dozens of rows. We were taking a temporary rest before rejoining the other efforts to keep the Russians out, but I didn't feel much; I couldn't. My expression was blank despite the chunk of flesh missing from my shoulder.