Sideshow, Bloody Sideshow - Complete
Captain Angelo Devarga sat perched in an improvised sniper's nest overlooking a small valley between two rocky hills, binoculars trained on the lead element of his platoon which was crossing the valley to “scout the area.” Then he began to sweep the opposite hillside.
“Still looks clear,” he said. He turned to Staff Sergeant Tanner, his RTO (Radio-Telephone Operator) and said, “Forward observer report?”
“Sir, FO reports all clear.”
“Squad leaders?”
“No contact reports from Kinney or DeWitt, Cap.” The young sergeant's voice sounded tense.
Angelo turned to speak quietly over his other shoulder to the man crouched behind the tree his sniper's nest was posted in. “How's that trick knee, Doc?”
“Still pingin' like a m----- f-----, Cap!” First Lieutenant Joel Poteet, the platoon's medic was watching the rear with a tight, nervous expression.
“I hear ya, Doc,” Angelo said, his voice even and calm, “keep it cool.” Though frankly he was just as strung out as his men. They had crossed into Columbia two hours ago, all in one giant formation saying “Shoot me!” Either none of the novas ever heard of scouting ahead or the commander's grand strategy included leading with their troops' chins. After that, everything went to...wherever was worse than hell...hold the hand basket. His platoon had gotten out of that trap relatively unscathed by ditching their vehicles early and going to ground. Angelo had felt the tactical situation shift as soon as the trap was sprung, and he knew there was little his Rangers could do to affect the outcome. Later, when the American Team Tomorrow squad had set off on its mission, someone in command got the brilliant idea of sending some regular human soldiers to recon a Columbian fire base in the other direction and perhaps launch a diversionary raid.
“Rangers lead the way.” That was the slogan.
As the most intact platoon of Rangers, his guys had gotten the nod.
A light rain drizzled off his helmet. He wondered if it was real rain or because the novas were monkeying with the skies over the battlefield. He shook the water off the binoculars and scanned the valley again. First squad was about thirty meters up the three hundred meter tall hill with second squad in support. Time to go to work.
He stashed the binoculars and pulled the sniper rifle down off his shoulder. Setting it snugly on the padded barricade in front of him, Angelo positioned himself behind it, then flipped up the two protective lens caps on the scope. The weapon and the man melded into one as a result of long training and through its powerful scope he began to scan the terrain ahead of the platoon.
Five minutes later, first squad had moved about halfway up the hill, and fanned out in four-man fire teams. The RTO looked up at him and said, “Cap, first squad reports finding tire tracks traversing the hill, most likely south to north; advise.”
There's the other shoe, he thought. His men were in danger...at best a hidden facility with defenses, at worst...a trap. His gut was telling him to pull them back. But that's not what Rangers do – Rangers lead the way... He had to repress a shiver, this was worse than going into those sniper-happy mountains in Afghanistan. He could at least minimize their danger.
Angelo reached for the phone receiver, “Put me on with Sergeant Kinney.” He took the receiver and soon had Sgt. Kinney's basso voice on the line. “Sergeant,” he said, keeping his voice even, almost bored sounding in order to keep his people calm out there without him, “I want you to hold your position there, bring fire team three approximately twenty-five meters to your six, then send team two along the tracks to the north and team four along the tracks to the south.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “Keep your heads down, guys, this one smells. Over.”
“Roger that, sir...I've been thinking the same thing. Out”
“Okay Sgt. Tanner, contact Sgt. DeWitt,” he paused as his eyes caressed the contours of the hillside, “have him bring his squad ESE about 75 meters and take up defensive positions.”
As the RTO turned to relay the order, Angelo heard the medic stand up behind him. “You're gonna have us awful bunched up, Boss. You see somethin' I don't?”
“I most sincerely hope not, Doc,” Angelo said.
Second squad had just gotten in place and he was watching as they finished their defensive preparations (there was no time to dig so they had to be content with shifting rocks and vegetation) when Angelo heard the tone of Sgt. Tanner's voice pitch up just a touch, drawing his attention. He broke protocol and switched away from the command channel – which had gone strangely quiet since the massacre in the valley – to first squad's channel.
“Sgt. Kinney, this is the captain, sit-rep,” he said, interrupting the RTO in the middle of the tedious but often vital radio procedures.
“Uh … Sir … This is Sato,” SSgt. Sato, fourth fire team leader, stammered a bit at the interruption, his voice half whispering, “the northbound tracks led to a cave. There's definitely a smell of diesel fumes in the area, probably coming from the cave. Cheesehea...er...Davis and I were about to move up and check it out … with your 'go-ahead,' sir.”
Angelo hesitated. He had visions of a mouse creeping up on the cheese in a loaded trap. When this trap was set off, some of his men were going to get hurt, maybe killed. Men he had trained with … lived with...fought with. Maybe he was being too pessimistic. Rangers were the best infantry in the world, they were well armed, and there was air support...of a sort...within radio call. Yet, somewhere in his gut, he knew that the tactical advantage had shifted to the Columbians.
“Sir?”
“Carry on,” Angelo said, finally, “proceed with extreme caution. Command out.”
“Understood, sir. Out”
Angelo turned his attention back to the scope. He could see the area where team four was, but he couldn't see Sato or Davis, the grenadier, any more because they were behind heavier leaf cover.
Suddenly all the vegetation in a ten meter high, twenty meter wide swath near where Sato and Davis entered the brush was backlit by the garish blue-gray of fluorescent lighting. This was followed by the sight Angelo had both dreaded because he knew the danger, and desired because it would relieve the crush of anticipation: bright staccato flashes. These were followed by a sound that rippled across the valley...the “popopopopop” of a burst from an M4A1 Carbine. If the platoon had been sitting in chairs, they would probably have lost their collective seat cushions at that sound.
It happened every time. It didn't matter if you knew it was coming, it didn't matter how many fights you'd been in before, it didn't matter how much you psyched yourself up – when those first rounds are fired, there's a tightening in your gut as the iron fist of fear takes hold of the adrenaline pump. It was training, experience, and mental preparation that determined how short that moment was.
For the Rangers of First Platoon, Bravo Company, the moment was hardly more than a heartbeat. Angelo drew on meditation and concentration skills honed through a lifetime of martial arts training to harness the rush of adrenaline and oxygen into his bloodstream, sharpening his eyesight and speeding his thoughts.
He just had time to bark out, “Fire team two, fall back to squad leader's position!” when Sato and Davis backed out of the brush, moving fast. Smoke from a smoke grenade was beginning to billow out of the cave as Davis pumped a round from his grenade launcher at an unseen target in the lighted recess. By this time they had reached the other members of fire team four and started falling back in good order.
They had fallen back about thirty meters (of the four hundred or so they needed) when figures began emerging from the cave...dozens of them, clinging to the shadows, low to the ground and moving quickly. Training kicked in and Angelo started rattling off orders to coordinate his platoon at the same time as he lined up targets for his rifle and tried to prioritize them. But he couldn't see anything to differentiate them in the shadows. So he took aim on one of the figures on the leading edge (hoping to at least distract or even demoralize the enemy coming behind) and squeezed the trigger, watching as the target slumped to the ground. Strangely, the man's companions hardly seemed to notice his fall, merely stepping around his body. He couldn't say why, but watching that act gave him a chill. With grim determination, he emptied the clip of his sniper rifle, working the bolt with mechanical precision, killing ten of the shadowy enemy across their front row. This time they paused.
As Angelo smoothly slipped a fresh magazine into his rifle, like a rippling wave there was a change in the posture of the figures, then they broke into a run...not away, but forward! Seconds later he heard the sound of their collective bestial battle cry echoing across the valley. It sounded like some huge, inhuman beast, charging down on his men, and their Captain, who they relied on to lead them, was trapped over here, over a quarter of a mile away. After all the other horrors Angelo had witnessed that day, that sound froze his blood and his finger hesitated on the trigger. He felt a sharp pain behind his forehead. The shock was broken when he began seeing muzzle flashes from handguns his targets were carrying. That brought everything back to a human scale, weapons he had been trained to deal with, and he opened fire just as the first of them emerged from the undergrowth.
He fired his rifle as quickly as he could, efficiently eliminating one threat with each shot, but his bolt action M24 wasn't making a dent in their numbers fast enough to keep them off Fire Team Four. Suddenly one of the enemy dashed across an open spot and Angelo could finally see one plainly. He was wearing a dark t-shirt and cheap pants, in one hand he had a small pistol and in the other, a machete. Now that he was looking for it, it looked like they were all carrying machetes. This is a freakin' banzai charge!
A lifetime of martial arts training had prepared him for this fight. Years spent perfecting a hundred different ways to defeat armed and unarmed opponents, and he was trapped here a quarter of a mile away from where he could be using his art, not only for self-defense, but in saving the lives of his men.
Dios, what's wrong with my head? He wondered as the pain grew so intense it felt like someone was driving a wedge in between his eyes. No, no, no, I do not have time for this! He sat back on his heels, closed his eyes, and began to focus on his breathing. Soon the sensation of pain was pushed into the background, if not the sense of urgency that may have triggered it. When he took up his rifle again, he began taking riskier shots. The way the enemy were grouped together on the hillside, he was able to line up shots that passed through the head of one and into the chest, abdomen, or leg of another. By this time they had come in line of sight of the Squad Automatic Weapons but these weapons were hampered because they had to keep their fire wide of Fire Team Four.
Sato, Rifleman Davis, Warwick, and Automatic Rifleman Gutierrez, could now see the enemy and opened fire as they withdrew in good order. A voice in Angelo's head shrieked at them to “Run!” but he had to keep his tone even and direct as he called into his mic: “Sato, Fire Teams One and Three will provide cover fire! Fall back, fall back, fall back!” They had managed to get about 75 meters of separation from the enemy before the charge began. Now it was a race. Some of the charging men began firing their pistols but, thankfully, no one was hit. Still, one of them might get lucky, so Angelo wanted to discourage that behavior, if he could, by targeting anyone who raised his arm to fire. Finding clear targets was getting more difficult, however, because they were moving under a thicker canopy and the chaotic interplay of light and shadow combined with their dark clothing.
The SAWs (Squad Automatic Weapons) were beginning to take their toll of the enemy, but it seemed that the more the Rangers killed, the more the jungle spat out to replace them, and some of those who fell with less than lethal wounds were getting up and starting forward again at their best speed; seeming to ignore bleeding and pain. The walking wounded chilled Angelo's blood, but they weren't his most pressing concern. He lost track of the position of Sato's team as he focused on setting his crosshairs on the enemy. However, he could hear their radio calls. They seemed to be holding it together well, despite the threat almost on their heels. He grew more confident that they would reach cover and the support of the rest of the platoon.
“Man down! Man down!” The sudden sharp cry cut across Angelo's nerves like a knife.
The deep bark of Sgt Kinney's voice boomed into the radio. “Sato, report!”
“Cheesehead took a round in the back,” Sato shouted above the sound of weapons fire going on nearby. “Vest caught it. Looks like he's gonna be okay.”
“He's not gonna stay that way unless you move your ass, Ranger!“
Angelo's gut was tight and his head was splitting with pain again. He was still too occupied with reducing the number of enemy to scan for the fire team's position, but that delay had cost them several seconds, and a man who had been hit by a round in the back, even if the vest caught it and it was only a pistol round, wasn't going to be able to run full speed.
“Warwick, take Cheesehead and go,” Sato's voice barked sharply into the radio, “Gutierrez, you're with me, let's get that SAW cuttin' and give them some cover!”
Angelo's instincts told him if they stopped, they were dead, if they slowed too much, they were dead, but he couldn't counter Sato's order. He couldn't see what Sato could because he wasn't there. He turned to his RTO, and unable to hide his anger shouted, “Tanner! Where the hell is that nova?”
“Right here, Captain,” a man's voice shouted from above and behind Angelo's position, “where do you need me?”
Without leaving his firing position, Angelo shouted over his shoulder. “I've got four men about to be surrounded over there, get them out then we'll talk.”
“Right,” the voice said, and a silver-gray figure shot out across the valley. He hadn't gotten halfway, however, before a streak of brilliant purple arced up from around the hill to the south like a surface-to-air missile, slamming into the gray nova from the side.
Angelo had to blink a couple of times before he realized that another nova had ambushed “their” nova and was now streaking around in tight loops, slamming into the silver-gray nova from every angle, forcing him on the defensive. Which meant he wasn't going to the aid of his men. Fire Team four was dying!
Focusing his energy through the scope of his rifle, Angelo had finally found a single target he could take out and actually help his men. He immediately realized that the purple nova was moving and turning too fast to follow with the scope. However, he soon noticed that the silver-grey nova, could follow his adversary, and was essentally rotating in place, turning to put up his arms to block the impact just before it happened. Angelo lined up his crosshairs just to the left and waited. The next time the allied nova turned that direction, he waited for that moment when there was a tensing to brace for impact, then squeezed the trigger. The enemy nova veered away after the impact holding his ribs. From the look on his face as he looked around for where the shot came from, it had hurt, but hadn't penetrated.
Angelo quickly dove into his pack for one of the two clips of teflon coated rounds he carried for vehicles and “hardened targets” and slapped it into place. He chambered a round and as he took aim, an icy calm settled over him. Nothing was going to interfere with this shot, not the pain in his head, or the screams of his men over the radio, calling for help. His breathing settled and his heartbeat slowed. Meanwhile, the enemy nova had spotted his position, and with an angry gesture, launched a gout of bright purple flame which struck him on the side of the head, throwing him off target, but not out of his focus. There was part of him that knew his head was on fire, but his target still breathed so this fact simply got set aside. The enemy was facing directly away, pouring a contant sream of fire at the silver-gray nova so Angelo settled his crosshairs at the base of his skull and squeezed the trigger. The purple nova immediately pitched forward and began to plummet to the ground. As the young officer sagged down, at the end of his strength, he realized to his horror, that the allied nova, silver-gray no longer, was also falling, his charred body covered in flame.
As his hopes died, the last thing he remembered was wishing he could fly, then the pain from the burns caught up to him and he blacked out.
From the testimony of Platoon Medical Corpsman, 1Lt. Poteet, Joel R.:
When I saw the captain get hit by those flames, I thought he was a goner. I jumped up and climbed up behind him to see what I could do for him. I got up there just in time to see him take that shot. Damn it was a beaut! Right through the top of the spine. That'll show them novas not to mess...No sir...Sorry sir. Anyways, after he fired, he sorta slumped down and I was reaching down to grab him when something slammed me back against the tree trunk. Broke my nose and knocked all the wind right out of me. Next thing I knew, there was this bright blue streak shooting across the valley and Cap[tain Devarga] was gone!
From the testimony of Msgt. Kinney, James O.:
I'd read about the Banzai charges from World War Two, and the mass attacks of the Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean War, but I never thought I be on the receiving end of one...These [enemies] were coming at us from three sides pretty soon. At first I thought that since we were all carrying automatic weapons, and we had our SAWs on bipods spread around our perimeter, we would be able to hold them off as long as our ammo held out. But those slimy [enemies] were weaving around through the trees and so most of our rounds wound up throwing wood chips instead of clearing enemies. I ordered the platoon to hold rifle fire until they got closer. About the only thing that seemed to do any good, at first, were the grenade launchers. But even then the [enemy] didn't stay down. The ones that didn't take fatal wounds got right back and kept coming toward us, like they couldn't feel their wounds or something.
Anyway, they kept getting closer. Pretty soon we could see the machetes they were carrying and then the glint in the eyes of their front rank. It was then I ordered my boys to cut loose... Sir I really have to commend their discipline, they held their fire in the face of...Yes, sir. Well at this range the trees weren't helping them much, the SAWs were already starting to drop a bunch of them [enemy soldiers] down, so when we opened up, it was like a giant broom swept across their front few ranks. But [Expletive deleted] sir! For every one we killed two more showed up, and those that weren't killed outright got back up and kept coming!
Then we got the call that Sgt. Davis was hit. [Expletives deleted]...I knew for sure we were [going to] lose him. SSgt. Beck of Fire Team 1 kept calling for permission to go out and help them. I had to cuss his [Expletive deleted] hard core to keep him from running out there. That would have been a [Expletive deleted] disaster.
…I could hear the screams as Fire Team 4 got overrun and hacked to death. I'm glad the rest of the platoon couldn't hear that. Though come to think of it, Captain Devarga probably did hear it. I wonder if that had anything to do with what happened...eh, no sir. Getting on with it, sir...Anyway, By this time, the [enemy] was on top of us and it turned into a knife and bayonet fight.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, can understand what a hand-to-hand battle is like until they've been in one; until they've stuck a blade into another man and felt the life go out of him through your weapon and through your hands.
We were giving better than we got out there, my Rangers were well trained. The enemy's soldiers were strong though; a lot stronger than those little, skinny [Expletive deleted] should have been; and there were a lot more of them than there were of us. We were being driven back. I was beginning to think we were going to wind up like Fire Team 4, but I was for damn sure we would make them pay for it in blood.
They were closed in around us, I had put my back against a tree, I was ready to pull a Custer, when BOOM! About fifty yards out, there was a blue flash, and an explosion like a mortar shell had gone off (even though it didn't sound like a mortar shell). [Enemy] bodies went flying everywhere, and standing right in the middle was Captain Devarga...only he was glowing...kinda like a movie special effect.
He then proceeded to kick some [Enemy] [Expletive deleted]! I mean, we'd all seen the captain clean house in hand-to-hand combat training, taking on half a dozen guys and making them look stupid as they tried to hit him, but we'd never seen him use his training to hurt anyone before. You could almost hear the bones breaking when he punched or kicked one and they'd go flying back with their necks snapped or ribs caved in. He started wading through those [Expletive deleted] as fast as a man could run. It didn't take him long to clear the enemy away from us enough to let us regroup and start withdrawing. Any time another group would show up, he'd fly off and wipe them out.
Anyway, that's about it, we pulled back and were taking care of our wounded when the [Expletive deleted] nuke went off. We were lucky...we were on the back side of that hill when it happened. Yeah...we were lucky.
