Hastings picked up the satchel and carried it fifty meters closer to Stone and then Stone gestured him to come about ten meters closer and to the right. Hastings used his crowbar to pry up a square of sidewalk and then dug down with his hands, set the satchel in the hole, glanced back at Stone. Then he chipped a corner off the sidewalk square and set it back on top of the satchel, looked up. Stone was sighting through his 20mm sniper rifle scope, gave a thumb-up.
Hastings then flipped the square away, opened the satchel and removed the safety bale. Then he carefully lowered the sidewalk square back on top of the satchel, then removed the excess dirt and debris and tossed it down a storm drain grate. Then he pulled a branch off a nearby evergreen tree and used that as a makeshift broom to get rid of the rest of the dirt, and then dropped the branch down the drain too. Stone signaled for Hastings to join him on the roof. The sun had set and it was starting to get dark.
Hastings climbed the stairs and then sat on the roof with Hitchcock and Stone. A wall a meter and a half high went all around the edge of the roof. Bits of rebar poked out of its concrete surface in places, showing that it would offer protection from enemy small arms fires. Stone said, “You hear that?”
Hastings cocked his head as far as his helmet would allow. “Maybe.”
Hitchcock said, “Gunfire, about two klicks away.” He reached for his handheld sensor.
Stone said, “Don’t turn that on! No gadgets until we make contact. You know that.”
Hitchcock shrugged. “I figure they could detect out armor anyway.”
Hastings said, “It’s triple-shielded and the armor blocks most of the signal anyway.”
Stone said, “Orders. We obey orders. You are Marines, right?”
“Hoorah.” Hitchcock put the sensor back in its nook on the left thigh of his powered body armor.
More gunfire, closer, and then some explosions to the far left and far right front. Stone placed his hands palm down on the edge of the wall and slowly rose to look down at the street. Nothing yet. Some Mandarin soldiers ran from right to left, right through the kill zone, disappeared behind the next building. Tracer fire and laser bolts blinked in the distance, much of it from Mosh weapons. Then a block ahead, Mandarin and Mosh units exchanged fire. A tall building a kilometer to the front collapsed and flames rose from another. Some more explosions. The building shook under the three Marines.
Stone said, “Get ready.”
They peeked over the wall. Hitchcock readied his rocket launcher and knelt back down. Hastings laid out three fragmentation grenades and then checked the load on his assault rifle. Stone opened the bolt of his 20mm sniper rifle and pushed four armor piercing rounds into the magazine, then put an incendiary round on top of that and closed the bolt, released the safety.
He peeked at the street again and saw a Mosh team move forward to cover the intersection, saw them setting up a crew-served machine gun. More Mosh came and emplaced knee mortars.
Stone laid his rifle on the wall and turned on the night scope. He sighted in on the plastic jug Hastings had emplaced earlier, fired. The incendiary round hit the metal plate and ignited the contents of the jug. It burst and burned to provide back-lighting for the kill zone. The Mosh stood out as dark silhouettes.
Stone then sighted in on the satchel and shot it. It erupted in an explosion that flattened all the Mosh in the intersection. Four still moved. Stoned carefully sighted in and shot each of them in turn. Then he dropped down and reloaded his rifle with Armor Piercing. Hitchcock had his sensor out and turned on. It showed the approach of more Mosh, a platoon, supported by a light vehicle.
Hastings took a quick look over the wall. “A light self-propelled gun.”
Hitchcock smiled, watched his sensor. Then he stood and fired his rocket and hit the vehicle center of mass, dropped back down. The vehicle’s explosion rocked the area. The sensor showed a squad still active, the remnants of a Mosh platoon. Tracers zipped over the roof. Some rounds hit the wall. Then a pause.
Stone nodded at Hastings. Hastings stood and fired his assault rifle on full auto. A Mosh bullet bounced off his body armor. Stone laid his rifle on the wall and shot four more Mosh. They were quick to take cover. Stone and Hasting dropped back down. Hastings picked up his grenades and clipped them back on his armor.
Stone said, “Bug out!”
They high-crawled to the back of the roof. Stone hooked his rifle over the rope and crossed his ankles over the rope and slid down to the street and then lay in the prone to provide security. Hitchcock followed, collapsed his rocket launcher and shouldered his assault rifle. Hastings came down last and cut the rope. The three moved back a block and rallied with the rest of their squad to set a larger ambush that covered a parking lot.
After an hour of waiting with no action, the squad leader received orders to extract. They moved back to the park and got back on their assault boat and left the area. The platoon leader said, “Congratulations, the Mosh advance has stopped for the night and the Mandarins are reorganizing their defense.”
Stone plugged his armor into the boat’s power and saw that his charge was all the way down to fifteen percent. All things considered, it was a good day’s work.
Chapter Sixteen
Two hours before sunrise, the helos skimmed along the left side of a road that led north from Chong-gok, five klicks to its east. The road was a hardball two lane, an old road not used much; a super highway was built heading north out of the heart of the city two decades before. The lead helo moved fifty meters to the left and hovered and a squad of light infantry speed-roped to the ground and took cover. The helo turned and headed back to its base. The helos moved along and emplaced a squad every hundred meters, set down a whole company, picked up another company and returned, made three trips to emplace the entire light infantry battalion.
The battalion moved forward to the west and stopped when the squads spotted Mosh units in the distance, called up reports. The Hercules and Stallion and Hellcat tank battalions moved up the road and faced west and pulled in behind the light infantry squads, stayed far enough back so that the Mosh wouldn’t spot them. The Interceptors came and hit targets designated by the infantry, destroyed or neutralized most of them. The squads moved forward, spotted more Mosh. The tanks came forward as well.
The Light tank battalion and Cavalry squadron sped north on the road, past the other units, and then turned west to stab into the rear areas of the Mosh units. The Interceptors came and made another run, hit more targets. The heavy and medium tanks moved ahead of the light infantry and paused. Mosh units reacted and came east to attack and were cut down by the tanks. The tanks moved forward with the infantry watching their backs. The left flank of the heavy and medium tanks moved forward so that the line was diagonal from southwest to northeast.
The Cav and Light Tanks pushed along a westerly axis and smashed into scattered resistance, took down several brigade headquarters and sent a detachment to overrun each of the Mosh division command centers. They stopped when their lead element reached the bank of the Gang-nam River and then they faced south. The heavy and medium tanks pushed on and picked their way to the river bank as well, taking out any Mosh they ran across. They faced across the river and fired on targets of opportunity on the other side at extreme range.