The enemy responded quickly, but not quickly enough. In the vital seconds before they were able to identify where the shots had come from by the muzzle flashes, Trev managed to drop three blockheads in one of the closer teams. Even as the others fled behind cover he managed to tag one who had his arm sticking out in plain view.
“Down!” he barked, suiting his own words by dropping behind cover. For the first volley when they caught the enemy by surprise they could afford to stay up longer, taking full advantage of the brief time they had before the soldiers below recovered and returned fire. But now that they were alerted they’d have to snap off shots and duck and move immediately or risk getting shot themselves.
“Move!” he continued, shifting over a few feet. He popped back up just enough to see through his scope, looking for another target. One blockhead from his original team of targets had part of his arm and shoulder poking out from behind cover, but for the most part the easy opportunities were gone. Trev took a few potshots at that shoulder, but he dropped back down unsure he’d even scored a hit that time.
Then Matt’s fighters on the other slope opened fire, probably finding plenty of targets who’d been hiding behind cover from the wrong direction. That gave Trev an opportunity, he hoped, when the enemy soldiers scrambled for new cover and exposed themselves.
He moved a bit and popped up, and as he’d hoped a soldier darting for a tangle of deadfall moved practically right into his crosshairs. Almost by reflex he moved his rifle to follow the motion and squeezed off a shot, and the man dropped. Trev dropped too, but only to move again.
As the firefight progressed it started to feel more and more like a game of whack-a-mole, only Trev and his squad were the moles. That wasn’t a good thing for the blockheads.
One of his fighters would pop up with their night vision gear and take out an enemy or two, ideally one of the few who had night vision. Then they’d duck down behind cover as dozens of blockheads zeroed in on the muzzle flash and lit up that spot. Then another squad mate would pop up in a different location and open fire, and rinse repeat.
The tactic was simple but brutal, especially compounded by Matt’s squad providing another direction of attack that the enemy was vulnerable to, which they had to provide some response for. With their night vision they were gradually decimating the soldiers below, and so far hadn’t taken so much as a stray shot.
Even so Trev wasn’t about to take chances. As time went on he started having his people move after every shot instead of every few shots, just in case some of the blockheads down there weren’t just firing wildly at any enemy that shot at them and were actually covering a spot where they’d seen a previous muzzle flash.
With the preparations Davis’s people had made with the emplacements there were plenty of spots to fire from, and a little extra work on their part could mean life and death. Nobody complained about hoofing it to another spot between shots.
Unfortunately nothing was perfect, and while his squad had night vision the volunteers weren’t so fortunate. They relied on muzzle flashes from below, or pure luck, and it took them longer to line up shots. Trev felt it like hammer blows as first one volunteer, then another, cried out in pain and dropped. One called for a medic, the other didn’t get up at all.
“Volunteers to the fallback position, and take the wounded with you!” he called. “Alice, show them the way!”
There was a rustling as almost two-thirds of his people backed away from the sandbags and scuttled to the path. They were led by Alice in her night vision gear calling the way. Feeling a lot more lonely with less than a dozen fighters left, Trev called for his people to move even farther between each shot. He also advised them to take a few seconds before taking the shot to see what the enemy below was doing.
After being stopped dead for almost ten minutes the blockheads were finally starting to advance. They may have been getting cut down like wheat under a scythe, but there were a lot of them and in the dark and confusion they were able to find enough cover to keep moving forward.
Even worse, Davis delivered some bad news over the radio. “Smith, we’ve got our hands full with blockheads flanking you to the north! Can you send some people up here to help us out?”
Trev bit back a curse as he toggled his mic. “On our way.” He toggled the mic off again and raised his voice over the racket of gunfire. “Rick, you’ve got command here! Tom, Mason, with me!”
Before leaving the emplacement he shoved a dozen spare magazines into his combat vest, overflowing every pocket then stuffing even more down the front. He also took a moment to swap out his M16’s half-full magazine for a full one. Mason had the same idea, while Tom was fumbling with a backpack that clinked with what sounded suspiciously like Molotov cocktails.
He supposed firebombs weren’t the worst idea, if the enemy was overwhelming 1st Squad and whatever other fighters Davis had with him. Advancing under fire was one thing, but it took a whole other breed of crazy to advance into fire.
Once his two friends were ready they began scrambling directly up the slope, keeping to whatever cover they could. The northern slope emplacement was about halfway up to the ridge, which he assumed was where Davis had set up his people to defend, but the steep rocky ground was brutal terrain to cover even with night vision.
It felt like it took forever to reach the top. When they finally did, and before they even had time to catch their breath, Davis called to them from a short distance away. Trev straightened with effort and trotted along the spine of the ridge to where the sergeant and his team waited.
“Three guys, huh?” Davis said with a wry twist of his mouth.
Trev shrugged defensively. “I had my volunteers fall back, so there weren’t many people to spare. Without night vision they were getting picked off without accomplishing much.”
The sergeant sighed. “Guess it’s a good thing command is sending us reinforcements. They should be here within a half hour.”
“We’ve got firebombs and grenades,” Trev offered. He had a couple frags in his combat vest, and he thought Mason did as well.
“Well nice of you to bring firepower if you didn’t feel like bringing manpower.” The sergeant motioned curtly to the northwest. “2nd Squad is trying to get over to that other ridge before the enemy does. I want you to join them.”
Trev looked over and grimaced. The spine of the ridge they were on ran roughly northwest-to-southeast, with the peak overlooking the mouth of Highway 31’s canyon. A short way to the north was another ridge running more or less west-to-east that bisected the one they were on, on the other side of which lay Cedar Creek Canyon. That was the ridge Davis wanted him to get to, meaning he’d have to jog along this spine to reach that ridge and climb down onto it, then follow it to a spot where he could help Williams and his squad defend that entire slope.
Between the two ridges lay a roughly V-shaped valley they needed to defend, choked with scrub oak and with steep rocky slopes. The blockheads wouldn’t have an easy time covering that ground, but at the same time it was a lot of ground to defend. Which was what Davis and his people were having a problem with, especially since they also had to cover their backs, ie the slope leading down into the canyon Trev’s squad was guarding.
If he’d known from the beginning where Davis wanted him he’d have taken the path from the emplacement back to main camp and followed the trail to Cedar Creek Canyon. There were a few spots along it he could’ve climbed up onto the ridge from, and the entire trip would’ve taken half the time. But he was where he was, and Davis wanted him somewhere else.