“Following the initial assault wave, the seafighters will recover their assault squads, regroup, and proceed to the final objective, L3 at Reviere Forecariah, taking it out at first light. For final operational details, check your onboard mission data modules and your briefing hard copy. Any questions?”
“Yes, ma’am,” a Georgia-accented baritone sounded. Amanda wasn’t surprised when Stone Quillain straightened from his leaning posture against the rear wall. The Marine officers had stayed on their feet during the briefing, a dark jungle-camouflaged cluster in the rear of the room.
“I’d like to point out to the Commander that L3 is the easternmost of the hides, only ’bout thirty miles west from the border between Guinea and the West African Union. If one of the other hides gets a warning off, the L3 garrison stands a pretty good chance of bugging out and escaping. If we take out L3 in the first wave and leave one of the other hides for the follow-up, any Union bolters would not only have farther to go, but we’d have forces between them and the border, positioned to intercept. I believe I mentioned that during the mission planning.”
Amanda met the Marine’s gaze levelly. “You did, Captain. That was a very valid point.”
She let the silence hold for a moment, almost to a point of its becoming uncomfortable, then widened her attention to include the other officers in the briefing space. “Thanks to the remote ground sensors planted by our Marines, we know that there will be Union personnel present at at least four of these boat hides. This is good.”
Amanda allowed her voice to rise slightly. “Every time we engage the enemy, we need to make him pay heavily for the privilege in manpower and materiel. We need to make the Union understand that every time they take us on, it will cost them more than they can afford to lose. We need to hit the enemy hard in every way that we can, at every opportunity he provides. We need to make them fear us! Now, let’s get it done!”
There is a trick to walking quietly through water. First, one must stay at least waist deep, so there is no sloshing as the legs swing. Then one must move very deliberately. The steps are kept small and the body’s weight centered, never trusting the placement of the advancing foot until one is sure about the surface it rests upon.
Such things are second nature to an SOC Marine.
Captain Stone Quillain paused for a moment. Lifting the night-bright visor from his eyes, he took a look around at the real world.
Black. As black as you can only get under a jungle canopy at midnight. Black so palpable that it almost had texture. There was supposed to be a campfire burning somewhere not too far away, but Quillain couldn’t testify to it yet. He lowered the visor and settled it over his eyes once more.
Now he could see again, albeit only in shades of glowing green. The cascade circuits of his AI2 (Advanced lmage Intensifier) night-vision system magnified the traces of starlight filtering down through the overhead cover to a useful intensity. The image was fuzzy and yet more than adequate to make out the sluggish tidewater channel and the looming, gnarled trunks of the salt mangroves overgrowing it.
Quillain glanced back at the ten men of the assault squad who trailed behind him. Strung out at five-yard intervals and wading slowly ahead, each Marine held his weapon ready at high port.
A brightly glowing ball of greenish-white light rode on the right shoulder of each man, as if he had acquired a Tinkerbell-class fairy to escort him through the swamp. These were IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) sticks, a filtered chemical light worn clipped to the load-bearing harness to prevent “blue on blue” friendly-fire accidents in a night battle. Invisible to the naked eye, their infrared emissions were readily discernible to an AI2 visor.
Each Marine also hunched under a burden of body armor and ammunition and equipment. Quillain’s own loadout was typicaclass="underline" the Mossberg 590 with a four-round shell carrier strapped to its stock, ten pounds of Interceptor flak vest and camouflaged K-pot helmet. MOLLE load-bearing harness with a full drinking water reservoir, three sixteen-round shotgun shell pouches, equally divided between slug loads and flechettes, an M9 Beretta pistol with four spare fifteen-round clips, an M7 bayonet, Ka-Bar knife, first-aid pouch, spare batteries, four hand grenades, and an assortment of pyrotechnic and smoke flares.
No rations or field shelter. They were traveling light tonight.
Then there were the electronics. In addition to his nightvision visor, Quillain carried a cigarette-pack-size tactical radio clipped to his helmet. The little AN/PRC 6725F unit linked him in to a squad communications band via an earphone and boom-mounted whisper mike.
A second radio, a SINCGARS (Single Channel Ground Air Radio System) PRC 6745 Leprechaun, was attached to his harness and jacked into the same headset. This larger three pound set linked him in with the seafighter command channels.
Radio discipline was strict. The only sounds on the squad circuit were the softly hissing exhalations of a dozen taut and wary men.
Quillain faced forward again and resumed his advance. Random fragments of thought bounced and jittered in the back of his mind, an ignored backdrop to his focus on the mission.
Damn, but these new AI2 visors are a hell of an improvement over the old NVG series. Not so heavy, more range, and a lot wider field of vision. Still, it’d be nice to have a look around with real light and just plain old eyes.
Right foot… pause… left foot… pause… Watch out for the damn mangrove roots! Don’t trust ’em. Stick to the bottom mud, even if you have to move out deeper into the channel. Look ahead after the squad sergeant and his point man. Watch them for hand signals. Listen for the whispered warning of a pothole .
Right foot…pause…left foot…pause… This is salt water, so we shouldn’t have to worry about that bilharzia bug they warned us about in the environmental briefing. What about leeches? Can the leeches hereabouts live in salt water? Hell! I should have taped up my boot tops and fly. Too late to worry about it now.
Right foot… Easy! Slick patch! Pause… Left foot. Shoulders aching. This damn old shotgun’s getting heavy. Maybe I should stop being such a goddamn individualist and start packing an M-4 like everybody else. To hell with that now too. Focus on your patrol overwatch sector. Look alive, Stone. We’re getting’ close.
The patrol sergeant lifted a hand, signaling a halt. He looked back at Quillain, the broad glassy visor beneath his helmet rim giving him the appearance of an insectoid robot in a man’s clothes. Quillain moved to his side. With helmets nearly touching, they exchanged whispers.
“How far?”
The patrol sergeant and his squad had been here before. They had been the team that had reconned this boat hide and its environs.
“Another hundred meters up this channel, Skipper. Then about half a klick overland to the east.”
“Right. So far, so good.”
At that moment, twenty feet away on the far side of the muddy channel, a beached log looked up and started to crawl toward them.
“Shit!”
It’s entirely possible to scream in a whisper.
Twice the length of a tall man, the crocodile pushed off from the bank, mucky water rippling over the jaggedly ranked scales on its back. Its eyes glowed with white ghostfire in the visual spectrum of the Marine’s night-vision goggles.
The patrol sergeant whipped his weapon, a silenced Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun to his shoulder. Quillain started to do the same with the 590, then realized that the unsuppressed roar of the shotgun would resound through the swamp like a thunderclap. Juggling the Mossberg in his left hand, he tore his Ka-Bar out of its sheath with his right.