“Is that what it looks like?”
“Yep. 100 kilowatt FIRESTRIKE Laser. Made by Northrup –Grumman. We just start at the back of the horde and work our way forward, frying the crap out of them.”
“I want one!” said Brit, who had been listening in.
“Fat chance, Lady. We have an extra diesel electric locomotive hooked to the train to provide power for that sucker. Still, it smells like a good old pork BBQ when we get done.”
In a few minutes, I heard the zombie howl come drifting over the wind. Brit looked over and gave me a thumbs-up. Ahmed settled more comfortably behind his scope. On my left, Red looked a little nervous. I couldn’t blame him, after what he went through at West Point. Espo tapped a magazine against the rail, then seated his patrol cap a little further back on his head.
Ahmed shot first, a flat crack coming out of his rifle, unsuppressed for once. Damn, that was loud. I reached into my sleeve pocket, pulled out a set of foam plugs and squeezed them into my ears. I’d rather have my hearing than compensation from whatever agency managed to succeed the Veterans Administration.
I felt the engine powering up for the laser, and toward the back of the horde, individual Zs started to burst into flame. Some only smoked as they moved out of the laser’s aimpoint. I guess it took a second or two for the full heat effects to be felt. Thank God the wind was blowing away from us, or I think I would have puked from the smell of burned flesh.
The horde resolved itself out of the heat waves, running toward the train, drawn by the sound of the gunfire. At five hundred meters, the designated marksmen opened up, dropping them with every other shot. At three hundred, some of the guys joined in. At a hundred and fifty meters, everyone else opened up, and at a hundred we started firing with our .22 magnums. At this point, there was a continuous roar coming through my ear plugs and the whole train deck was vibrating. I could barely see anything through my sites, just fired whenever I recognized the pattern of a face.
“CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE! STOP FIRING YOU STUPID JACKASSES! AMMO AIN”T CHEAP!” The train crewman kicked the back of our feet and we stopped pulling our triggers. The roar of shots dropped away. Spent brass cartridges lay all around us on the roof and I could smell the cordite. I loved that smell, but killing was hot work. I took a very long drink from my camelback.
In front of us there was a pile of steaming, burning corpses. Some still crawled toward the train and a couple of snipers took individual shots. Every now and then one would pull itself upright and then it would drop in a spray of blood from its head. The nearest zombie corpse lay ten feet from the train tracks.
“OK, before you go back down, police up all the brass!”
“You have got to be shitting me,” said one of the soldiers.
“You think brass grows on trees? There are ammo crates by the ladder, make sure you sort by caliber!” Damn. I pulled off my patrol cap and started putting .22 shells in.
As we filed back down, I asked the trainman what would happen to any stray ZZss.
“A squad will be coming in by air in the next thirty mikes. They’ll take care of any leakers.”
Doc sat up as we took off our gear and stowed it overhead. “What did I miss?”
“We just whooped a whole buncha zombie ass!” said Brit. “I could get used to this big Army stuff.”
“Don’t get used to it.” I said. “You know when we get to Denver it’s going to just be us all out on our lonesome. The Lost Boys are who they call when they need to know, but are too scared to find out.”
“Hell, yeah!” Brit and Red exchanged high fives, and she started to do a sexy dance in the aisle to the catcalls and hoots of the troopers around us. Then the train started up again with a lurch, and she fell on her ass.
Chapter 27
Dust and mud. That’s what being a soldier is about. Cold, too, usually, but thankfully it was midsummer. Another thing that always bothered me about zombie TV shows. Being in a survival situation is, well, dirty. You never see the hero scratching his crotch because he hasn’t showered in two months and he has heat rash. You never see the hero reporting in to his commander and the commander’s nose wrinkling up because the hero smells like a few weeks of rotten ass due to being on the run all the time. Or the zombie brains and blood and guts that are splattered all over his uniform, which smelled rank long before they got splashed.
Thankfully, this time, it was just dirt and mud. Dust first, then mud, after a thunderstorm had dropped an inch of rain on FOB Griffin, about 20 miles north of the front lines around Denver. The rain had turned the road in between the tents, already stripped of any vegetation by passing trucks, into a clay that gripped my boots. Every few meters I had to stop and scrape the mud off my boots onto whatever was handy. By the time I got back to the trucks, I was covered in mud splatters up to my knees. Screw it, it’s just something you get used to after a while in the field.
Our two gun trucks were sitting on the remains of a parking lot, thankfully. Brit, Red, and Ahmed were welding a Z-catcher, an angled iron “V”, on the frame of 06. Ziv and Espo worked on mounting a M-249 SAW in the turret of 07. Once we had signed for the trucks, Red had gone to work with a can of paint and a stencil, blocking out the old bumper numbers that said “4 ID HHC-04” and “4 ID HHC-13” and stenciling them with “JSOC-IST 1–06” on my truck and “JSOC-IST 1–05” on Doc’s.
I took a minute to review the operations order in my hand. It was short and to the point. Lengthy op-orders had gone out the window with the zombies.
1. SITUATION
a. Enemy forces.
1. Expect upwards of five hundred thousand infected in the greater Denver Metro Area. Over flights of airport show scattered activity.
2. Significant hostile surviving population has been reported in outlying areas.
b. Friendly forces. JSOC-IST 1 will be operating in support of Task Force Bronco.
c. Attachments and detachments. None.
2. MISSION: On order, JSOC-IST 1 will conduct a tactical reconnaissance of the Denver International Airport to determine runway and facilities conditions.
3. EXECUTION
Intent:
a. Concept of operations.
(1) Maneuver: Conduct intelligence gathering at Denver Airport.
(2) Fires: TF Bronco will dedicate one battery of 155mm Paladin Howitzers in direct support.
(3) Reconnaissance and Surveillance: See attached aerial photographs.
(4) Intelligence: See attached aerial photographs
(5) Engineer: None
(6) Air Defense: N/A
(7) Information Operations: N/A
b. Tasks to maneuver units: Coordinate passage of lines with JSOC-IST 1
c. Tasks to combat support units.
(1) Intelligence: None
(2) Engineer: None
(3) Fire Support: Coordinate suppressive fires for ingress and egress.
(4) Air Defense: N/A
(5) Signaclass="underline" See attached SOI
(6) NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical): Possible radiation hot spots due to failed nuclear strike southwest of Denver Metro area.
(7) Provost Marshaclass="underline" N/A
(8) PSYOP: N/A
(9) Civil military: TF Bronco elements will make all efforts to rescue Survivor Civilian Populations (SCP).
(10) As required
d. Coordinating instructions.
(1) Time or condition when a plan or order becomes effective: 0001 Local