And the funny thing was… the fucker was still rocking! He could feel it. Like driving a car, you can feel when the car is at its maximum, when you’d pushed it too far. He had that same sense with a weapon, especially the 60 which he’d had to fuck with for far too long in the teams. And this fucker, this bad boy, it wasn’t having any trouble with continuous fucking fire! The screaming Islamics were being ripped to fucking dogmeat by this beautiful fucking weapon and it wasn’t even giving a God-damned hiccup!
“YEAH!” he screamed. This motherfucker was ROCKING AND ROLLING! “EAT HOT LEAD THINLY COATED WITH COPPER YOU ISLAMIC MOTHERFUCKERS!”
The Kildar called it “the money shot.”
Sniping is, essentially, just a normal form of infantry combat. The sniper fired at the enemy with a rifle. That was the essence of infantry combat. Oh, he might fire further than normal, he might use more camouflage. But he was, really, just an infantryman with a few more tricks in his bag.
The big difference with the sniper over the regular infantryman was in how he chose his targets. The infantryman tended to concentrate on the men in front of him, similar in interests and actions, the riflemen and machine gunners that were trying to kill him by direct fire.
Snipers, though, had another duty. Their purpose was to find and eliminate priority targets. Snipers were the reason that infantry platoon leaders had one of the shortest life expectancies of any position in combat. The enemy sniper sought out the leaders to disrupt the management of the battlefield.
With the Chechens this was especially important. Their leadership was very personality based and extremely hierarchical. Take out the leaders and the followers tended to not only lose morale but have no fucking clue what they should be doing. The Chechens, also, derived their memetic combat background from societies that specialized in hit and run. If the first rush didn’t work, they tended to retreat. Especially if they didn’t have anyone behind them driving them on.
Finding the leaders, therefore, was the primary job of the Keldara snipers. And getting the big leaders, the senior commanders, ah, that was the money shot.
Pavel had been scanning the battlefield, keeping an eye on how things were going, for the entire battle. And he knew that the Chechens were at the trenchline, that they’d committed their reserve. He’d called both in. But he also knew that somewhere down there was the man driving them on. The main leader. The man the large brigade had gathered around for a thousand personal reasons but all related to his personality, his ability, his command skills. His charisma.
He finally found it. A cluster of people behind the lines. Radio antennas.
One man was in the center of that. Oh, not the precise center but a sort of psychological center of gravity that was felt more than analyzed. The man that people were looking at. A big man, graying hair, very serene expression.
Pavel hadn’t even realized he’d fired until he saw that expression change as the round hit the center of the man’s white mustache which suddenly became crimson as brains splashed onto the ground behind him.
Again, Mike felt it, like a shock rippling through the enemy. It was time.
He keyed his throat mike and strode out of the bunker, ignoring the rounds that cracked around him.
“ARISE KELDARA!” he shouted, firing one handed at a Chechen that had, somehow, made it through the fire and was about to jump into Adams’ position. The Chechen flew back in a spray of blood. “UP YOSIF! UP OLEG! FORWARD VIL! UNTO THE BREACH, TIGERS OF THE MOUNTAINS! FORWARD THE AXE AND THE FLAME! KILL ALL OF THESE MOTHERFUCKERS! LET NOT ONE ESCAPE!”
Shota was very unhappy. He had this beautiful rocket launcher and he hadn’t been allowed to use it. One Chechen had even gotten to his position, which was just forward of the command bunker and to the right. Shota had picked him up by the leg and beaten him on the side of the position until he stopped squealing. They were all over the place and still he hadn’t been allowed to shoot.
But when the Kildar called, he scrambled to his feet, grabbing the launcher and jumping out of the hole in the ground.
There were Chechens everywhere. He couldn’t figure out where to fire.
“Target! Guy in the red shirt!” Yakov shouted, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him. “Fire!”
Oh, that was easy. The guy was barely fifty meters in front of the trenches.
Shota didn’t even bother to use the sights.
Adams ducked as a massive explosion went off to the front of his position then picked up the M-60, cradling the remaining links in his arm.
“Oleg, see you in a bit,” he said, frowning.
“I’ll give you cover, yes?” Oleg said, hopping up one-legged onto a firing stoop so that he could see over the palisades of the position. He began firing, sweeping the M-60 back and forth, still going continuously. The position was filling up with brass and links. They both must have fired over a thousand rounds each and the weapons still weren’t giving a hiccup. “Take some of my ammo.”
“Okay,” Adams said, clambering out of the position he had occupied for so many hours. The Chechens were still trying to move forward but they were looking… weak. They were hardly firing; apparently most of them had expended their ammo and weren’t in any mental condition to reload or scrounge if necessary. The explosion had shaken them and another to the left that almost knocked Adams into the trench again was worse.
Eamon Ferani, loaded down with ammo boxes, clambered up beside him and grinned.
“The Kildar wishes us to advance, Master Chief,” the boy said. He drew an axe and waved it. “I will cover your sides, yes?”
“Oh, fuck yeah,” Adams said, lifting the belt up a bit more and raising the machine-gun to his shoulders. He clamped down on the trigger and started striding forward, sweeping the weapon from side to side. It was like shooting a God-damned fire hose. “OH, FUCK YEAH! I GOT ME ONE OF THESE YOU ISLAMIC BASTARDS!”
Over his screaming, and the continuous clatter of the gun, he thought he heard wings beating. It sounded like a giant bird, bigger than any bird, ever…
“THE DRAGON IS ON YOU, YOU BASTARDS!”
As she swept around to the east, Kacey triggered the speakers. A sound like satanic chanting filled the valley, resounding from mountainside to mountainside. Then she dipped down to come in right at ground level.
There wasn’t any need for special flying and there wasn’t much chance of missing the target. The Chechens were all over the ridge. Kacey targeted one group towards the rear and just let fly with everything.
57mm rockets dropped into the Chechen command group as thousands of 7.62 rounds scowered the ground. The whole group fell, blown to bits by rockets, churned to red mush by the fire of the gatlings.