movement. He checked pulses. There were none, and blood was dripping onto his hand, covering his palm instantly. He absently wiped it on his pants. There was no time now to grieve the loss of good men. That would come later.
“Morph exiting and securing exterior. All three crew members are KIA,” he said, then slid down the body of the destroyed halo.
“Morph exiting, crew down, copy,” a voice replied.
Morph immediately dropped to the ground, scanning the area. No one was close — at least not yet. He knew they’d be coming soon. They wouldn’t shoot down a US military chopper without plans to capture. Before they arrived, his team needed to be long gone.
Sleep made it to the door with Stogie. “Morph, I need an assist,” Sleep called. Morph moved over and assisted Sleep with getting Stogie safely to the ground. Sleep slipped back inside to help Eyes with the other members.
Stogie struggled with basic tasks only having one useable hand, but finally got his night vision on, then awkwardly racked a round in his M4 and flipped the scope cover into the open position. He set the long gun back across his chest, then performed the same task of getting battle ready with his sidearm.
“Let’s do a sweep,” Morph said. Stogie nodded. They did a sweep around the chopper, hearing noises in the distance.
“We’re pretty far up shit creek,” Stogie said. His left arm was a mess, but there was too much adrenaline for him to feel pain.
“That’s for sure, and damned if we don’t have a paddle to navigate in the middle of this hell hole,” Morph replied.
It didn’t take long before they spotted the enemy. They were close. Both of them dropped out of sight before messaging their team. “You guys need to get moving. We have contact, twelve to fifteen of them, approximately eight hundred yards out, making their way up from the valley,” Morph said.
“Clapper and Rain didn’t make it. We’ll have to come back for them,” Eyes said over the coms. Pain ripped through all of them at those words.
Sleep and Eyes dropped down from the chopper, immediately getting their gear in place. Before they took more than two steps, the first shots rang through the air, coming from the forest. Sleep racked a round in his long gun, then became still. He focused on a green glow moving swiftly forward in the trees.
Eyes coordinated fast, giving his team the location to meet. They didn’t hesitate. There were only four of them now, and they were determined to not lose another life.
“Okay, we’re moving up this hill, then we’ll look at injuries and reassess. We’re going to head southeast toward JBad. It’s approximately one hundred miles away as the crow flies, and we’ll need to cover as much ground as possible while we have the shield of darkness.”
“Copy,” the other three men replied in unison.
Within minutes they’d made their way up the hill to a secure place they could take cover and still see the enemy. Eyes took the lead on triage for his team. Thankfully, Stogie was the only one who needed bandaging. The compound fracture just above his elbow needed more medical supplies than they had on hand, but as they often did, they made do.
“We have to tourniquet and compress this and get it tight to your body. You might have an artery cut, hard to tell, but you’re bleeding at a good clip. Do you want your arm straight down, or chicken winged?” Then, he smiled. “No matter which you choose it’s gonna hurt like hell, but don’t worry, I’m not gonna feel a thing,” Eyes said.
“That makes me feel soooo much better,” Stogie said with a pained laugh and roll of his eyes. “Let’s go with chicken wing. I need to be able to brace my long gun.”
“Speed this up. Four insurgents broke off from the group and are heading our way,” Sleep hissed. “I don’t want to fire and draw all of them this way . . . though shooting a few might make me feel better about this whole clusterfuck.” They all wanted revenge for their fallen soldiers, but they were disciplined enough to do the job without compromising their mission.
“Two minutes,” Eyes said. He moved quickly, and Stogie, breaking into a sweat as his arm was bandaged, didn’t utter a sound as Eyes worked. He finished in record time, thanks to Stogie’s pain threshold and training.
“Let’s go,” Sleep said, and Stogie stood, moving slow and a