Episode 35

An Excellent View

The shadows stretched long and dark across the road as Park and Jock looked over the map. We had it on a tablet and a paper version that unfolded. They stretched the latter over a rock.

“You know,” Jock said, “I think we could just go straight over and down to the creek bed and hike that through, unless it’s full.”

“Shouldn’t be,” Park said. “This is the dry season.”

“Great,” said Jock. “Faster to take the open creek bed than try to blaze a trail through woods all the way, especially in the dark. What do you think, Tommy.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “Unless enemy thinks the same thing. Easy for us is easy for them.”

“I’ll take point,” Park said.

“Agreed,” said Jock, “you’re sneakier than Falkland.”

The temperature was dropping as the sun disappeared. Birds were settling in above with occasional squawks and peeps over whatever branch they were claiming for the evening. Overall, it was a beautiful winter evening.

“Okay,” Jock said as the light faded to grey-blue. “Goggles on, let’s move.”

We switched to night vision and walked quietly back to the road, staying a few meters apart from each other. Line of sight was easy with thermals—none of us were going to get lost. Park held up his hand at the roadside, looked for traffic, then ran across, keeping low, into the woods on the other side. We followed, then turned northeast to find the creek bed. After a short time of moving through perfectly planted rows of pine we hit the clearcut portion. Though we couldn’t see anyone out there, the chances of discovery would be too high so we stuck to the woods until we hit the creek bed another 100 meters or so in.

“Follow this up and we should find a good place to go up the ridge side,” Park said. “Hopefully it’s not too steep.”

“Shouldn’t be,” Jock said, looking at the dim light of his tablet.

“We’ll see,” said Park and pressed forward.

The creek bed was rocky but mostly flat. There was a small trickle of water winding about in the bottom but it barely passed the sole of a boot. The full creek was a few meters across with trees stretching overhead on both sides, most of which were devoid of leaves. We’d left the pine farm behind. Tufts of dead grass grew here and there in the creek bed and dead clumps of frozen plants rustled as we passed.

We hiked along for about a kilometer, then Park waved us down and we hit the ground.

I crawled up to his position, as did Jock.

“What is it?” Jock whispered.

“Two signatures,” Park said. “Farther down the creek bed where it starts to turn. 100 meters. They didn’t spot us, so far as I could tell.”

“They must have night vision or they wouldn’t be out here.” I said.

“Yes,” Jock said. “Not as good as ours, but they have it.”

“Soldiers?” I said.

“Probably,” said Park.

“Alright, let’s get cover. We’ll ambush ’em. Tommy—get in the woods on the left. Park, find a sniping position.”

“Roger,” I said and crept up the bank and took a position behind the almost horizontal trunk of an ancient tree sprawling over the creek bed and got my machine gun ready. The last thing I wanted to do was fire it up and alert all Ulixis to our presence, but if we needed it, we needed it.

I could see them now. Two soldiers, as their walk and rifles attested.

Park had a silencer on his rifle but it was still going to be louder than we’d like. Jock had taken a position behind a boulder on the other side of the creek bed. And we waited.

The men walked closer, almost at a leisurely pace. I had been right about the creek bed being too easy.

The seconds ticked by, then I saw Jock raise his hand. The lead man was only 20 meters from his position, the second guy about 5 meters behind him.

At 15 meters he dropped his hand and there was a bark from my right. The rear man fell with a grunt and the lead soldier hit the ground. Another bark from Park’s rifle and he jerked, then lay still.

I saw Park slink down from the trees. “All clear,” he said quietly and we moved towards the bodies.

First guy through the chest, second through the skull. Both very dead. Park took off the night vision goggles of the trailing man and tried them on.

“Lousy,” he said. “No wonder we got the drop on them.”

“Good thing,” Jock said. “I’m going to bet that’s the only patrol we’ll run into on this route.”

Park put his own goggles back on and tossed the enemy’s to the ground, then snapped pictures of both their faces for later ID by the intel guys.

I retracted the bipod on my gun and we all got back into position and kept moving.

Everything was quiet for another kilometer until suddenly Park held his hand up again. We waited for a minute, then another, and then, suddenly, multiple thermal signatures flashed in front of us, racing across the creek bed. I almost opened up before realizing it was a herd of some kind of animal.

Jock swore and shook his head. “I did not expect that.”

I heard Park chuckle. “Too bad it wasn’t a different time. I can cook a mean venison steak.”

We took the interruption for another look at the map.

“A little farther,” Jock said, “then we can move up.”

“No,” Park said, “we need to cut up now.”

I looked up the side of the ridge. It wasn’t terribly steep, though the creek bed at this point was heading downwards at more of a slope. The banks were getting higher. Another hundred meters and it would be like cutting through a canyon.

Jock looked down. “Fine, Park. Let’s hope the woods aren’t too thick.”

We went up through the woods. As we neared the ridgetop, the growth got thicker and thornier on the thinner soil and going was slow. We finally broke through and onto the scrubby top of the ridge at around 22:30. Park went low when we reached the top, in case the enemy had optics on the site. We followed suit.

The location commanded an excellent view of the surrounding countryside. I made out the course of the road, then off and up the other hill. Even at night through my goggles I could see scattered gravestones mixed with shrubs and trees, then up top an enemy encampment. It looks like they chose some sort of hilltop park area for their operations, unless they’d cleared it themselves. There was a winding paved road up to the location which we could glimpse in patches through the tree cover.

“Tommy,” Park said, “I’ll give you info—relay to base.”

“You got it,” I said, keying in my radio. “Base, this is Fox. Prepare to receive data on enemy position.”

Park looked through his binoculars.

“Three squadrons of armor,” he said.