"Get a move on Cherry!"
"Roger that Sergeant Vance!" Army Private Second Class Xander Greene responded immediately if somewhat breathlessly, picking up his pace to close the distance between himself and his squadmates. The 19 year old mint green puma trudged onward with the rest of 3rd Squad, 2nd Platoon of Chosen Company as they patrolled through yet another section of the massive urban sprawl covering a large portion of Afghanistan's Panjwaii District.
Having only been out of basic training for two months and with his new squad for only just two weeks, Greene was feeling intensely overwhelmed. At six feet tall and 160 pounds, the youthful feline wasn't a waif but the back-breaking weight of all the gear hanging from him was causing his mind to conjure up images of Atlas with the world on his shoulders. Being the newest and most junior ranking member to the squad had bequeathed him the honor of his newest title and less than enviable position: Pack Mule.
The not quite-yet grown puma had ceased attempting to readjust the numerous chafing straps and shifting gear hanging from his shoulders after the first two hours of what felt more like aimless wanderings than a military patrol through the tightly packed mud houses and the claustrophobic alleyways which honeycombed between them. He had his standard body armor, equipment harness, water bladder, and patrol bag which held the squad's C4 plastic explosives and encrypted radio, the whip-like antenna swishing around with each step and a coiled wire running under his armpit to the handmic hooked to the front of his harness. His weapon was an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, heavier than its shared 5.56mm caliber compatriot the M4, but much lighter than its larger caliber brother the M240B. It was the ammo that was really killing him, a full combat load of 1400 rounds carried in one 200 round drum in his weapon ready to fire and six hanging from his combat harness in pairs. All his gear, armor, weapon, and that damned ammo combined to add almost another three digits of weight if he was to step on a scale, which he had done two days before to satiate his morbid feline curiosity. He had come to the conclusion that he was never going to get rid of the discomfort from so much weight and so many nylon straps rubbing his neck and shoulders raw, a discomfort which caused his mind to wander and pulled his focus dangerously away from the patrol.
He contemplated the ridiculous usage of the term "urban" to describe this roughly 80 square kilometers of landscape his unit was responsible for and which surrounded him just then. Having grown up in Northern Virginia in the suburbs of Washington, DC, Greene inwardly balked at the notion these prehistoric huts and walls made from sun-baked mud bricks held together by straw mortar, with shoddy dirt roads and naked, malnourished children drinking from trash filled puddles between them were also described with the same word as his nation's capital.
"Urban my ass." He muttered to himself irritably and tried once again to take stock of his immediate surroundings. Mostly dry irrigation ditches snaked everywhere between the buildings and dirt through-ways on their way to the randomly placed, clustered groups of poppy and grape fields, turning the environment into one multileveled nightmare if it came down to a firefight. He wouldn't admit it but the puma was terrified of those quick corners and endless hidey holes that could be concealing the gun or rocket that would end his life.
Greene and his squad mates emerged into one such group of fields, one spread out so it was maybe half a kilometer wide on each outside edge. There were dozens of waist high mud walls dividing the fields into smaller plots, marking where one farmer's livelihood ended and another's began. The young Soldier let out a long breath of relief to be out of the potentially deadly confines and tight spaces between the dwellings. Sucking water from his drinking tube, he wet his parched throat and looked up at the blazing sun which seemed hell bent on angrily adding this entire area to the Red Desert laying only a few dozen kilometers to the south.
He walked forward with his squad into the open space feeling much better with each step away from the death trap behind him, enough so that he even offered a raised paw and "Salaam Alaikum" in a passing salutation to the local farmers heading past them out of the fields to enjoy their midday meal and rest. He eyed the whip thin bearded dragons with their dull scales of browns and tans draped with layers of homespun clothing of the same color palette and treading on sandals made from hemp and shed scales, his usual suspicious outlook of them replaced with envy for the first time since he had arrived in this hellhole. Oh how he sorely wished HE could take the hottest midday hours off to eat and nap and smoke some dope and maybe get some loving from his girl...
His mind had yet again begun wandering dangerously away from patrolling, filled with thoughts of home flitting around when the handmic clipped to his equipment harness blared to life with a static riddled hail. The voice was distorted by the electronic interference but came through clear enough as he unclipped the handmic and held it to his keen ear.
"Chosen Sapper 23, Chosen Sapper 26 over." The military radio etiquette had been grasped quite easily by the intelligent puma when he had received his 45 minutes of training on the eight pound device he had been carrying for almost two weeks now. The first call sign belonged to the person being hailed, which in this case was Chosen Sapper 23, who happened to be his squad leader, SSG Vance. The second call sign was identifying who the sender was, which belonged to Second Lieutenant Webb, their platoon leader, a quiet and reserved otter. Greene's impression of him had been that the timid otter was in way over his head, having only a few months of service under his belt, much like himself, before having to lead a group of 45 Soldiers into one of the most volatile and deadly areas of the world.
"26, this is 23 Romeo, over." Greene responded, his own call sign being a minor variation of SSG Vance's, Romeo being the military phonetic word for the letter R which let anyone listening know that the squad leader's radio operator was on the line.
"23 Romeo put 23 Actual on ASAP, over."
"Wait one 26, over." Greene responded to the bored sounding LT before picking up his pace to a trot that appeared more like a shuffle under the burden of his gear, closing the short gap between him and his squad leader.
"LT's on the horn for you Sarge," he announced holding the handmic out to the towering bull who had turned at the sound of his approach.
Staff Sergeant Vance was from El Paso, Texas, and he must have been the inspiration of the former half of that old saying, "Only steers and queers come out of Texas." As a massive prue-bred Texan bull he towered over the rest of the squad at 7 foot something even without his combat helmet cocked at an angle on his head with the chin strap left dangling. His heavily muscled build was more akin to a refrigerator or large gun safe than anything flesh and blood which had taken Greene the better part of two days to not openly gawk at. His rifle was callously tossed up on one massive shoulder, one gigantic paw holding it loosely by the barrel like a worker walking down the road would carry a long shovel. He grabbed the handmic in his free paw, reducing the important device to looking like a mere toddler's play phone in his grasp.
"What?" He asked impatiently, disregarding the mandatory military radio etiquette completely.
"This is 26, is this 23 actual?"
"Who the hell else would it be if you sent my Cherry to go get me? What do you want sir?" He spat the words in his deep Texan accent with almost as much respect he paid to the pungent chewing tobacco juices he voided with a turn of his thick neck. He whistled to his team leaders, giving them the hand signals to have their Soldiers assume a short halt posture.
As the others fanned out and began sitting or taking a knee while facing outwards, Greene lowered himself heavily to one knee next to his towering sergeant unable to take a place in the temporary perimeter due to the continuing radio conversation literally mooring him in place.
"23, S2 has received some HUMINT that enemy forces believed to be over 100 in strength with small arms and RPGs are located somewhere in your vicinity and planning an ambush on US forces, over."
S2 was the unit's intelligence branch, the people who were responsible for receiving and analyzing different forms of intelligence reports from the area and figuring out how that might potentially affect the patrols and convoys in their area of responsibility. HUMINT stood for Human Intelligence which was a fancy way of saying a little bird had told them. Problem with that is HUMINT is the most unreliable source of intelligence and the most likely to be incorrect, because it all came from informants who may or may not be lying.
"They've been saying that every day for two weeks sir. If those dickheads are out there laying ambushes we need to find them." Vance replied to the alarming news with the same annoyed tone as before. While Greene didn't exactly want to go looking for a fight in this place, he shared the same feeling his squad leader did; that the daily and repeatedly useless, inaccurate warnings from the intelligence division were hardly something to get your panties in a knot over. Instead of voicing this almost certainly unwanted and inappropriate opinion, he sucked more water and fished in his pocket for the plastic pouch containing a pound cake he had jammed in there after being lucky enough to find one in his morning MRE.
"23, you and your squad are to return to base immediately."
Vance almost exploded. "What the hell sir!? We RTB (Return To Base) every time there 'might' or 'might not' be enemy 'somewhere in our vicinity'? You just want us to turn tail and run away like a pack-less coyote when he smells a bull in the herd?" He spat again, breath snorting out of his nostrils, reminding Greene yet again about bull stereotypes, this time about a bull's temper.
The usually unassertive and timid LT's voice was hard and icy even through the radio static as he responded to Vance's outburst. "23, this is not a suggestion it is an ORDER. And this is NOT a conversation we are going to have over the net. Bring your men back immediately or I WILL have you brought up on chargers for Insubordination, Disrespecting a Commissioned Officer, and Disobeying a Direct and Lawful Order. OVER."
SSG Vance's face had grown steadily redder and redder as the LT finished his transmission. The bull held the handmic above his head, squeezing it with that innate strength of his so hard that Greene was left wondering how the device hadn't been crushed in such a brutal grasp. Suddenly SSG Vance turned, kicked hard at a rock, and sent up a vehement "FUCK!!" to the sky and that angry sun before putting the mic back to his muzzle, his voice having taken on its own deadly chill.
"Chosen Sapper 26, this is 23. Second Squad is moving to RTB, time now." The large bull broke off his transmission to look off at the not-so-distant hovels and mud dwellings across the fields where the supposedly swarming enemies hid in wait. He keyed the mic and spoke one last time.
"But if your cowardice gets any of my boys killed 26, I'll take care of you myself. 23 Out."
With that he handed the mic back to the young puma and signaled his team leaders to get everyone up and ready to head back. Greene stowed the mic back on his vest and was beginning the arduous task of standing up when he and all his gear were lifted like it weighed nothing and was placed on his feet.
"Thanks Sarge." Greene said, grateful even though he was still trying to decide if he had really just heard the bull threaten their LT's life.
"No problem Cherry." He put a reassuring paw the size of a baseball glove on the young Soldier's shoulder and sighed wearily. "Look at the bright side Cherry. We might get back before those fobbits close the kitchen and showers for once."
"That'd be nice Sar-"
The puma's reply was cut short as the first volley of mortars fell, throwing that mountain of a bull into him like a bowling ball hits the number one pin for an easy spare.
The initial blast was deafening and left his mind and body numb and in a fog of shock and disbelief. His senses had been dulled in his stupor, barely registering the ringing in his ears or that he was laying out flat on his back. He tried to sit up but found he couldn't, a heavy weight pressing down on his abdomen and legs. His disoriented brain thought again of Atlas and his burden.
Looking down he saw it wasn't the world holding him in place, instead it was SSG Vance, the bull unconscious and bleeding from his ears and nose. The horrific sight woke Greene from his lethargic state, his senses being switched on to full like someone resetting a tripped circuit breaker in the basement. He could again feel the heat from the sun accompanied by his superior's blood hot on his thighs. He could smell the expended rounds of his squadmates and the acrid scent of expended high explosives from the mortars, could hear the sounds of his squadmates' voices yelling out locations of enemies while more bullets came flying in from three sides.
His adrenaline surged, giving him the strength to just barely roll Vance off of him, freeing himself. His training kicked in as he grabbed his hand mic and yelled into it frantically.
"Any station on this net, any station on this net! This is Chosen Sapper 23 Romeo and we have Troops In Contact! I say again TROOPS IN CONTACT! We are receiving enemy small arms and RPG fire from our North, East, and West! We are pinned down by enemy indirect fire! Our grid is as follows..." He faltered in his transmission realizing that he had no idea where they were exactly. He remembered from their previous patrols that Vance had a GPS on his harness somewhere that he used to call in their location for their periodic progress reports. He rolled to his knees and frantically ran his paws over his unconscious leader's gear, letting out a triumphant and very un-feline like yelp when he found the device. He keyed the handmic again continuing his previous transmission.
"Any station on this net, this is Chosen Sapper 23 Romeo, we have Troops In Contact with a superior sized force! Our grid is as follows... Papa Tango 5876 32..." His recitation of the digits was cut off by the horrible sight caught out of the corner of his eye, his focus helplessly distracted from finishing the GPS readout.
His squad leader's right leg was gone from just below the knee down, boot and all, leaving just a bloody stump and a steadily growing pool of blood that instantly turned black as the sun baked dirt greedily swallowed it up.
Greene opened his muzzle to yell for a medic, his paws leaping forward to try and stem the flow of life blood from the bull's wound, when the second volley of mortars rained down.
Xander woke with a start, his paws flying out as he growled, the sound feral and as if his soul itself was in pain. His paws crashed into his car door and the center arm rest instead of against bloody earth and his wounded squad leader's unconscious form. His feet had pounded out against the floorboard and his knee barked itself on the steering column. He sat up, blinking his fatigue riddled eyes against the nightmarish memories that had flooded his unconscious mind. The garbage truck set the dumpster down and pulled out of his shop's parking lot, belching a thick stream of smoke as it went. There was the source of the booming sounds that had conjured up the terrible memories in his sleeping mind.
The puma rubbed his eyes, ridding them of the unbidden tears that welled there before they could fall and glanced at the dashboard clock. 630 AM. He had fallen asleep after another long double, opting to nap in his car before driving home versus risking falling asleep at the wheel. He quickly climbed out of his car, slamming the door behinf him and leaning heavily against it, gulping in the cool morning air in an attempt to slow his panicked heartbeat. With a shaky paw he lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply and looking up at the bright moon fading into the west sky as the sounds of close gun fire and screams of pain both physical and emotional echoed through his head.
