Author's Note

Quick note, same as on the main page of the story.

I'm rating this Chapter Mature for violence, coarse language and death.

I really hope I don't have to reclassify the entire story for this one. As always, if you've got experiences that can contribute to this chapter, feel free to let me know.

Do I take the shot?

“Hey Captain, who’ve you got waiting for you at home?” a corporal behind me asked once the rest of the humvee had quit laughing.

“No one.” I replied calmly and to the point. Everyone was completely silent with that.

“Oh come on, you’ve gotta have-” the corporal started to say, however he was cut off when a sergeant held up a hand.

“My parents died a month ago, I have no siblings and I never liked my external family. Grandparents are all dead and my girlfriend left me when my parents didn’t will me anything out of spite of me joining the military.” I explained as my eyes roamed the Afghanistan horizon. Why wasn’t anyone else doing the same, save for my driver?

“Shit, I'm sorry Cap; I didn’t know.” the Corporal replied soberly, nervously shifting around in his seat with his rifle between his legs, sitting on it’s butt.

“No, I don’t suppose you would have.” I mumbled under my breath. “How far to insertion?”

“Another kilometer sir. Almost there sir, hold tight.” my driver replied without a care in the world. “Are you sure about this? We can always turn back now.”

“If you ask me to turn around one more time Sergeant, I’m throwing you out of the truck myself.” I barked back scowling. The driver remained silent and put his foot to the floor instead.

“Sir, why are you bringing the greenhorn? I can’t imagine stealth would be all that good with three of us running around the back country.” the sergeant behind me inquired, looking up at me over my shoulder.

“Because I want this greenhorn to take the marksman’s exams in three months. The more he learns now, the better he’ll do later on.” I shouted back, turning my head enough to direct my voice backwards without taking my eyes off the approaching buildings. “I want him to act as my spotter on this one, you provide security.” I ordered, receiving confirmation from both soldiers behind me.

“Sir, we’re here.” the driver announced, hitting the brakes and sliding our vehicle to a halt.

“Good, we’re hoofing it from here on out!” I ordered as I exited from the vehicle while the back ramp popped open. Avoiding the opening rear doors of the exiting soldiers with their own weapons, I lifted the back ramp enough to fish out my own rifle bag before slamming the door shut and shouldering the drag bag.

“Sir, ready to go!” the corporal announced, keeping his rifle aimed at the ground and close to his chest.

Giving the vehicle a couple of love taps, the vehicle spun wheel and turned around, aiming back for base to wait for my call to return.

“Come on, let’s get a move on. Enemy convoy arrives in six hours.” I ordered and took off for my pre-planned sniping nest. The Sergeant took point with his desert M4 with the Corporal following behind me, keeping an eye on our rear.

Drawing my side arm the three of us entered into the shadows of our target building, clearing out each room as we ascended the collapsed spiralling staircase with a bit of difficulty.

I’d chosen this location because it would be difficult for enemies to climb up to our location, but would be easily defendable in the event that they managed to get in behind us regardless. Additionally, the entire top floor was open save for a medium height wall that I could fire through and the Corporal could spot for me, provided he kept his head down.

“Sergeant, take position here and hold. The corporal and I are going on.” I ordered, indicating to an out of the way room near to the top of the stairs that would give him adequate cover and provided ample ambush capabilities. The Sergeant replied silently and set himself up in the aforementioned room while I lead on-wards with my sidearm.

“Captain, can I ask you something?” the corporal requested as be began setting up once we’d reached the roof. I was working on carving out adequately sized holes in the wall to peek through as the Corporal asked me this.

“Is it another stupid question like that last one?” I looked back at the Corporal in all sincerity.

“No sir. Why are we holing up here when the enemy won’t even be coming down this road? Being here, they’re going to roll right past us along the highway ahead.” the Corporal replied as he worked on his own little hole.

“Simple. The highway runs through the flattest of terrain with absolutely no cover whatsoever. You know the rule, do not crest a hill?” I asked as I turned back to my hole with my knife.

“Sure, makes it so you can’t be seen as a target where the terrain doesn’t make sense.”

“Same idea. You try to hide on a flat plain with no cover, you’re going to stand out pretty quickly; even with a ghillie suit. This building is the closest thing we’ve got that we can properly fire from repeatedly if need be. I don’t plan for us to be here long after the target is killed, but safe than sorry.” I explained, setting my knife back into its sheath before crawling back to set my .50 calibre rifle up to the hole I'd just made.

“So then that’s why you’re using the BMG?”

“Correct. I’m going to ensure that I kill something in a vehicle. I’m not risking the chance that their vehicle is more armoured than intel suggests when I can’t support more than two rounds.” I set the rifle against my shoulder and peered down the scope at the perpendicular highway over a kilometer away.

“So how do we know when the target’s passing by?” Corporal inquired, setting up his own rifle to watch the same highway I was, just with less magnification.

“This highway has been closed down for this guy for the last three days. The target will be the only traffic at all. Won’t be hard to tell.” I clarified as I settled in for the short wait. “Now shut up and get comfortable.” I ordered.

~~~

Six hours later, the sun had already set and the Corporal and I had attached our night vision onto our rifles in response. The Sergeant downstairs was now more or less free to move around in the darkness; I'd chosen him for this mission because of his ability to blend in and remain hidden.

“Sir, I think I can see headlights approaching!” the Corporal whispered as she shook me awake from my nap.

“Then get ready.” I replied, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I rolled onto my stomach and readied my rifle.

Peering down the scope I watched the procession of vehicles appear on the horizon down the highway and began my ritual of slowing down my breathing.

“Give me some information, Corporal.” I ordered.

“Sir, intel says that the target will be in the middle vehicle, but he’ll be boxed in from all sides. You’ll have to make your shot pass through the car on the right in order to hit the target.” the Corporal announced from memory. He then began listing off details of the atmosphere and weather conditions while I worked at making the adjustments to my gun.

Then the convoy turned off the highway.

“Corporal, why’re they turning off the highway?” I demanded, now able to place my crosshairs on the target vehicle itself.

“I don’t know sir, they’re not supposed to.” Corporal replied, watching through his own scope. “Should we continue?”

“Absolutely. We came out to shoot us a warlord, we’re going to kill us a warlord.” I retorted and began readjusting my scope for the approaching target. “When was the Sergeant’s last update?”

“Half an hour ago. He’s already late.”

“By five minutes. He’ll wake up and report in.” I replied nonchalantly.

“How do you know he’s asleep?” The Corporal pulled away from his scope to look curiously at me.

“Because if he isn’t then he’s dead and we’re fucked.” I explained in all casualness. Looking back down my scope again I lined up the shot and slowed my breathing.

“Sir!” the Sergeant’s voice came in over static. “Enemies… incom.... where you… G.T.F.O!”

“Fuck.” I let loose in a breath. “We’ve been compromised. Get yourself hidden and wait to ambush. I’m taking the shot.” I ordered. The soldier beside me complied and immediately shot up, taking his rifle with him as I remained prone.

“Ready sir!” the Corporal whispered from behind a set of boxes, his sidearm out and ready to defend.

Slowing down my breathing yet again, I watched the target approach and ignored the muffled gunfire coming from below, mixed in with the shorter bursts of unsilenced gunfire, the Sergeant returning fire.

I pulled the trigger just as the gunfire below ceased and the target car exploded in a fiery display of armour piercing explosive splendor. Rolling onto my back and taking the rifle with me, I rested the bipod on my legs just as I watched three Taliban gunmen appear at the stairs.

Pulling the trigger again, the first enemy soldier had his back explode from within and added the effect of staggering his friends; though not for long. His buddies opened up silenced fire at me, making me roll away for cover as the Corporal rounded the corner with his gun drawn and managed to put a round in the first enemies head.

However, the guy behind him reached out and took the Corporal’s arm and pulled, bringing the boy out and down to his knees as the soldier pressed a silenced pistol to his head, looked at me with a grin and pulled the trigger.

As the soldier fell with a new hole in his head, I took the chance to line up a shot of my own and squeezed; just as the soldier raised his weapon to make me the third casualty. He fell as his head snapped backwards, bringing the soldier boy with him.

“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” I cussed under my breath as I rolled away from the door to rise into a crouch. Taking cover by the door, I waited and listened for signs of any more approaching enemies for a couple minutes.

No one came.

“Tombstone actual, this is tombstone one, come in!” I hissed as I crept towards my gear to extract my night/thermal monocular and fastened it to my helmet.

“Tombstone one, this is Tombstone actual, go ahead.” the female voice replied in all normalcy.

“Tombstone one has been ambushed by enemy combatants, one confirmed KIA, one MIA. Need immediate extraction, over!” I hissed back as I surveyed the stairwell in the darkness. I fucking hoped they didn’t have night vision as well.

“Copy that. Extraction en route, ETA five mikes. What about the target?” came the response.

“Cannot confirm. Shot a car, it exploded but I haven’t been able to identify yet.” I replied, packing my weapon into its case before slinging it over my shoulder to pick up one of the dropped weapons.

“Copy that. Hang tight Tombstone, we’re coming.” Tombstone Actual announced in an attempt to calm me. The sound of a hiss dropped that calm into my pants.

“RPG!” was the last thing I shouted before the building blew up beneath me, the floor having given out and dropped me four stories.