Chapter 17: Burn the Glider

Stumbling and scrambling, the group we had come to rescue ran across the open grass field with absolutely no cover at all, some of them carrying others who were struggling to keep up.

"Everyone now! Return fire!" Lieutenant Bulgers roared at the sight of it, ordering my comrades to lay down heavier suppressing fire.

Realizing their mistake, the Dretonians began returning fire shot for shot directly toward us, and now every one of our members holding a weapon was cleared to fire back at the enemy.

If not for this ancient raised ground, none of us would have had a chance against their blind suppressing fire. Most of what they could manage was kicking up sprays of dirt that showered us all. Even so, the whistle of machine gun rounds passing over my head made the hair on the back of my neck stand up instantly.

"Reload the rocket! Fast!" the rocket gunner shouted, his voice carrying that distinct mix of adrenaline.

"--Ugh!"

Right as the reloader was about to feed in the second round, an enemy bullet caught him and sent him dropping straight down like a collapsing landslide.

"Rick! Shit, Reloader got shot!"

"Medic!"

Without questioning myself any further, bag slung over my shoulder, I leapt up and moved in a low crouch to avoid making myself a target, running along the backs of my squadmates who were lined up and busy with their weapons.

"Aghhh! This hurts like hell!" The man who had gone down groaned in pain, pressing his right shoulder.

"Unflex your goddamn hand! I can't see your wound!" I snapped, pulling his left hand away where it was getting in the way of my work.

"I'm gonna die! The blood, it's pouring out!"

"Motherfucker! Move your hand! Hey! Hey! Stay with me!"

I barked at him to keep him from sinking further into panic, and thankfully he finally understood and began loosening both hands. The blood was indeed pouring out and soaking my hands as I examined him. After I tore away the cloth wrapped around his shoulder and up under his armpit, it became clearer that fortunately there were no signs of his axillary artery being severed.

With careful hands I administered morphine directly into the wounded area at a strict dosage, enough to keep him from continuing to whimper through the pain.

Since he's already calmed down, I started forced his body into a sideways position, where I could see the exit wound left by the bullet that had passed through him. Good. This meant I did not have to perform the tedious extraction magic in the middle of a raging firefight.

"Try moving the fingers on your right hand!"

"Huh!? Why!? Am I paralyzed!?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to find out!"

"Oh no I'm paralyzed!" He whimpered in fear but at the same time his right hand was moving all over the place.

"Calm down! You're fine!" I told him to settle him down, punctuating it with a slap of my palm against his helmet. "What's your name trooper!?"

"R-r-Rick! My name is Rick, lil' doc!" The man named Rick began finding his calm again. "Is it not as bad as I think, doc?"

"Nah, you lucky guy! Did your girl give you a lucky charm!?" I asked, immediately pulling the pin from the bracelet on my wrist with my teeth.

Not a single word of that was a lie. He was genuinely lucky because the bullet that had found him was nowhere near as bad as he had feared. It had passed clean through his shoulder without damaging his axillary vein or any of the critical nerve systems.

"....Haha, she's not only my girl, you know," he explained, lifting his left hand into my line of sight. I had not paid attention to it before with all the blood in the way, but on his ring finger sat a ring. "I proposed to her three days before we jumped, doc!"

"I see! Maybe that's why! Good for you my guy!" I responded while doing my best to keep him tilted to his left side. "Hold that position for me!"

After I gave him a compliment, I began channeling all of my magic into his wounds. With Rick being remarkably cooperative in holding his position, my work became considerably easier, allowing me to treat both the entry and exit wounds simultaneously rather than having to alternate between them one at a time, which would have eaten up far too much time.

"Hey! Why in the name of Holy Arc, the second rocket not been shot yet!?" Amid the exchange of gunfire, the Staff Sergeant's roar cut through toward me.

That shout jolted me back and caught me off guard when I realized the young gunner had been sitting right beside me this whole time while I was still busy treating Rick, who was now beginning to drift out of consciousness from the morphine I had injected earlier.

On top of everything else, the fire from beyond the hedgerows was growing faster and more concentrated, turning an already chaotic situation into something worse.

"I-i-is he going to be alright?" The gunner asked, his gaze fixed on me with guilt written all over it. "Damn it! It must be because I missed before!"

"He's gonna be alright! Hey, if you feel guilty then make it right by picking that weapon back up, soldier!" I pushed him, trying to knock loose whatever was paralyzing him right now.

It was as though something reignited inside him, burning away everything that had been holding him back. His grip on the Varexil rocket launcher tightened again.

"A-ah, I'm sorry!" he burst out, already pushing himself back to his feet. "B-but I need a reloader..... I need reloader! Somebody! I need replacement!"

"I'll do it!" Ashton appeared from the center of the line, shouting as loud as he could to cut through the explosions around them.

My eyes followed him as he ran with weapon on hand while his other hand holding his helmet that rocked with every step he took.

Just as he was almost within reach of the gunner, he stopped suddenly when at the same moment I caught what he was seeing too, an object sailing in from beyond the cover, passing right over me where I was kneeling before hitting the ground.

"Ginger! Get dooown!"

Ashton did not give me any time to react. He threw himself with everything he had, his body flying through the air and slamming into me, sending me face down into the earth with him pinning me beneath the cover of his body.

BOOM!

The grenade blast sent a shockwave through the ground as though something had seized the earth itself and shaken it. A heavy spray of dirt rained down across our backs, and for several seconds the world went completely silent, replaced by a ringing that drowned out everything else.

"Fuckin' piece of shit! Can't even catch a break!" huddled close together, I could feel the frustration radiating off Ashton.

My head felt heavy from the impact, but I forced it up anyway, helped along by Ashton pulling me back to my feet. Fueled by panic, I ran my hands over myself checking for any wounds, until I was satisfied that I was still in one piece. Even Rick, who had not been well covered at all, was still visibly breathing with no new wounds on him.

"You okay!?" Even with the ringing still going, Ashton's voice still cut through.

"Yeah! I'm okay! You!?"

"We're same then!" Before I could even thank him, Ashton was already back on his feet and back to his task.

Same as him, I returned to my own work that had been interrupted. Luckily the two wounds appeared to already be closing, just a final touch left to prevent the kind of inflammation that would become a real problem if left alone.

"Fuck! He's down! The gunner's down!"

My gaze shifted to my right. Ashton was crouching beside the gunner who had gone completely limp in the grass, his helmet torn from his head and split wide open. What had happened to his face, which was still smoking, was difficult to put into words. It made one thing very clear that nobody would survived with a wound like that.

Brrrrrrrrttttttt

"Those fuckers keep approaching!"

"Raylan! Keep your shot to their machine gunners!"

"It's no use, Lieutenant! They keep replaced by someone!"

My confidence in the hedgerows dropped sharply alongside the enemy fire that was beginning to force our own squad out of any chance to return fire at all.

Stupid, very stupid. All of this was happening over nothing but a stack of papers that could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands, but however you looked at it, no paper was worth a human life.

"Frag out!"

"Machine gun out! Need covering fire!"

We were literaly nothing but sacrificial lambs right now because of infuriating military bureaucracy. None of this would be happening if we had just taken out one of those damn halftracks from the start.

Amid the chaos of the firefight, I watched the last of Rick's two wounds finally close completely, and thanks to what had worked with Philipe, my confidence was in a better place than before.

Now I could shift Rick, who was out cold, a little further to the side and settle him into a small crater left behind by the enemy grenade from earlier. There was a certain irony in turning something meant to kill us into a place of shelter. Of course, saving one soldier did not mean my work was done. Inside that crater I stayed alert, ready to react quickly if anyone else came in with a wound.

"Somebody! I don't know how to use this!"

"Ahhhh, fuck it!" Scarface voluntarily rose from his prone position. "I'll take the shot myself! You load it, Ashton!"

"Yes, sir!"

Without any visible sentiment, Scarface moved the lifeless body aside, the rocket launcher having been pinned beneath it. It was a grim thing, that a fallen comrade now had to be treated as nothing more than an obstacle to work around.

After pulling the rocket launcher free, Scarface hoisted it onto his shoulder. "Ashton! The rocket!"

Ashton crawled over to grab the rocket lying in the grass, which I had not even noticed was sitting right beside my feet. The moment he had it in hand he fed the warhead into the tube. Before all that, Scarface had already shifted his position, moving a fair distance away from me, likely to make sure the backblast from the weapon would not catch me on fire.

Just like the gunner before him, he planted his foot and began climbing the sloped earth, working to find the right angle. But even before his shoulder had made contact with the foliage,

Brrrrrrrrttttttt!

A burst of enemy fire savagely tore through the leaves right around where Scarface was standing, sending him sliding back down, branches cut clean off and caught in the mesh of his helmet netting.

He tried again to do the same thing, but got exactly the same response from the enemy, making him always ended on the same position. They were really giving him absolutely no opening whatsoever.

"Son of a bitch! I got locked!" Scarface spat into the ground, a look of pure frustration carved into his face. "Lieutenant! I need concentrated suppressive fire!"

"You guys heard that!" The Lieutenant's voice carried from the center of the formation. "Everyone focus on the heavy machine guns on that halftracks!"

To answer Scarface's request, the firing line began laying down what felt like a reasonably coordinated burst to suppress the enemy's movement. From where I was I could not fully see how the enemy was reacting, but it seemed to be working well enough judging by the others being able to return to full resistance.

What I could make out from here was just how busy everyone was. Even Nira was helping, holding the ammunition belt feeding into the machine gun Philipe was operating.

On the other side, Scarface refused to give up. He planted his foot and tried again, this time radiating a stronger sense of conviction than before, likely bolstered by the covering fire from the others. Once again he raised himself up with the weapon on his shoulder, and just at that moment,

TAK! TAK! TAK!

Enemy rounds hit the ground around his feet in rapid succession, kicking dirt up into his face again and again until he slipped back down once more, making him to cursing louder than before. I had actually been fairly convinced he was about to end this whole thing, but even after shifting his position the enemy still had not taken their eyes off him, no matter how hard he tried to trick them, in the end they would still guess where he would appear.

"Still not enough, Lieutenant!"

"Fuckin' hell!" Even Lieutenant Bulgers, who was usually composed, was starting to show his frustration. "Alright! Everyone pull out your grenades! On my count of three I want all of them concentrated on both halftracks!"

"Aye-aye, Lieutenant!"

"Sergeant! Make those three seconds useful!"

Scarface gave no verbal confirmation. He simply responded with a thumbs up toward Lieutenant Bulgers.

Peering out from the crater, I could see my squadmates pulling their grenades from their belts one after another, some having already used theirs earlier so for them this would be the last one they had left. Now a good portion of the defensive line had grenades in hand, all eyes on Lieutenant Bulgers waiting for his next order.

"ONE!"

The first count was the signal to pull the pins, and when everyone did it in unison it created a series of metallic pings like an instrument passing through a note.

"TWO!"

The line took on a strikingly identical posture, each of them positioning their bodies to hurl the live grenades, nothing but their own fingers holding them back.

On the right flank, Scarface was already set to launch himself up that stubborn slope, and just from the movement of his back I could tell he was steadying his breathing through those critical seconds.

"THREE! NOW!"

Without any hesitation they all released, hurling their grenades like Olympic javelin throwers I had once watched on a screen, the grenades arcing beautifully over the top of our hedgerows.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

The hedgerows blocked my view and kept me from seeing the direct effect of the blasts, but even so I could feel the successive shockwaves rolling through the ground beneath my feet.

It worked. I could feel the enemy's guns that had been tearing us apart moments before fall suddenly silent because of it.

Scarface of course had no intention of letting the opening his soldiers had fought for go to waste. For what felt like the hundredth time his boots gripped that slope that had become all too familiar to him. Unlike before, Scarface did not bother to peek first. He simply threw his entire body up over the rise.

With nothing harassing him he took a brief aim before pulling the trigger.

WHOOOOOOSSSHHH!

The backblast once again sent a massive shockwave radiating through the surrounding area. Even though the Sergeant had already put distance between himself and me, the effect was still very much felt, worse than before, knocking me backward and tumbling me into the shallow crater with my helmet coming loose.

"Hell yeah!"

As a tremendous explosion thundered out, I grabbed my helmet and put it back on, repositioning myself as I had been before. There I saw Ashton in a state of pure elation, and from his reaction I could tell that the damn glider had finally been hit by the Sergeant's shot.