State of Pursuit

Chris would find a way. Come on, Cassie. Think like Chris.

I yank a white smoke grenade out of my kit.

“We need to cover our escape!” I shout. “I’ll throw the first grenade, Derek will follow it with another, and then Uriah, Ma

The rest of the militiamen are returning fire, shooting back at muzzle flashes in the moonlight. I don’t hesitate. I pop the ring on the grenade and chuck it as far as I can into the open field. I jam my boot into the right stirrup of Katana’s saddle and hang on for dear life to the restraints, keeping my body on one side of the horse. Uriah slaps Katana’s rear flank and she charges forward. I’ve got one leg halfway over the saddle, using her body as a shield. I maintain a desperate grip as Katana leaps away. The grenades explode, billows of thick smoke curling into the air, creating a thick curtain across the field. More grenades detonate. More gunfire. Louder, faster, quicker.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

Murderous rounds from a large caliber weapon hammers into action.

My arms burn, clutching the saddle as Katana sprints forward. Tears slide down my cheeks, an effect of wind and resistance and the torturous effort of maintaining a grip on Katana’s saddle.

More grenades detonate. Men mount horses and follow me.

Bullets zip past, snapping the air with supersonic cracks, ricocheting off rocks and earth. I’m almost to the edge of the field — almost to the woods. My hands are sweaty, making it difficult to keep my grip on the saddle horn.

I grit my teeth and tough it out.

We reach the edge of the field. Katana stumbles just enough to throw my balance off. My grip slips and I hit the ground with a thud, rolling over and over in a tangle of arms and legs. The wind goes out of my lungs as two more grenades blast the field. I tumble into the bushes.

“Cover, cover, cover!! Come on!” Uriah yells.

Somehow, he has ended up next to me.

Figures.

I jump to my feet, unslinging my rifle, sighting muzzle flashes. Going through the motions of battle. After all, I am a sniper. This is what I do best. In a way, it is almost like being outside of myself — mechanically but expertly reacting to an attack with fluid, instinctive actions.

Mach and Katana are stamping the ground, stomping and snorting, rolling the whites of their eyes. Poor guys. I know the feeling. Firefights are no fun. Yet they don’t run away. They stick with us. Amazing! They’ve been trained well.

The militiamen that have made it to cover stay concealed beneath bushes and behind trees, hitting the field with shots. I lie on my stomach, sweat and blood dripping down my forehead. I look through the optics of my rifle, searching the fields for shapes. There is nothing. Only muzzle flashes. I see one and snap a quick shot. A short yelp of pain follows.

“What are we dealing with here?” Uriah says. He has to shout to be heard above the sound of the gunshots and grenades. “Omega?”

“I don’t think so!” I sweep the field once more with my scope. “This isn’t their style.”

More likely than not, we’ve run across rogue militia.

This could be worse than Omega. Rogue militiamen and vandals aren’t organized into military units. They’re made up of brutal gang remnants — without rules and regulations. Without a code of honor.

Not that Omega has a code of honor, but still.

You get my point.

A militiawoman — Sarah - is shot in the chest a few yards away from me. Her heart stops beating the second the bullet punctures her ribcage. She locks eyes with me for a split second, tossing a magazine in my direction. I crouch and roll, grabbing it. She is dead. I hold her final contribution to the fight in my hand, jamming it into my gun, reloading.

I shoot toward the enemy in the waving grass, returning fire methodically. Shoot three times, change my position, shoot one time, change my position…keep moving. Constant movement keeps me from becoming a target myself.

You’re looking for the invisible enemy, Chris would say. You’re a sniper. You’re one of the few people in this world that can find them. Look for irregularity. One element that’s off.

I settle and study the grass field through my scope again. There’s a small patch of tall grass that has been smashed. By animals? By people? I don’t know.

The grass is a clue, Chris whispers in my head. It’s telling you something.

I sweep downward, at the bottom of the field. Just a few feet away from the smashed grass, there is a tiny — miniscule — black line in the dirt. I zero in on it. It’s an irregularity. The one element that I’m searching for.

I carefully aim and squeeze the trigger. My shot is clean. It hits the line, and just as I thought, my optics picks up a spray of blood in the air. I move to the left and settle again.

“Aim low,” I tell Uriah. “They’re hiding in some kind of trench.”

“Good eye, Cassidy!”

He spreads the word. I find only one more hostile target and I don’t hesitate to take it out. Ten excruciatingly long minutes drag by. The horses are beside themselves with the noise from the gunfire. Then, suddenly, at minute eleven…it stops. There is no return fire from the trench, and I order my men to hold their fire. We don’t want to waste ammunition.

The silence rings in a stark contrast to the noise we just experienced.

We stay hidden in the bushes. I struggle to maintain an even breathing pattern. I wipe the sweat out of my eyes.

“Alrighty, Commander,” Ma

I say, “Okay, I need three hunter-killers teams.”

This is a tactic that Chris taught me. A Hunter-Killer team is usually composed of two men. Three teams equals six total assaulters. We will round the enemy from the left while someone stays here and holds down the main force. In other words, we’re sneaking up on the enemy’s flank while the rest of the militiamen attack them from the front. We’ll box them in from two points.

“Derek, you take command while I take my teams,” I say. “Keep their heads down so we can move. You’ll hear us when we’re in position. Got it?”

“Got it, boss. Go for it.”

My three teams assemble around me — all of them veteran militiamen with common sense and great aim. We stay low in the bushes and trees, following the slight curve of the edge of the woods. It extends behind the grassy field. We move quickly and silently, too angry to be afraid.

I slip a little further along the wooded territory line, dropping down. I scan the field, searching for any enemy that might be lurking in the grass. It’s clear. We’re safe, and we’re close to their position. Very close.

I see the ditch where they are hiding. They’re idiots. Stupid tactics. There’s nobody guarding their flanks. They’re wide open to an attack. An enfilade, Chris would call it. I check the area one more time. All clear. My men see the opening, too.

“Okay, boys,” I say, “Finish this.”

In the next minute, we blow through ammunition in a vicious, overwhelming barrage of fire. There is screaming as the men in the ditch twist and fall, dead. Our bullets tear through their line of defense. I pop a red flare to signal Derek. He gives three blasts on his field whistle and his men stop firing.

“Skirmish line!” I yell.

I walk, reload, fire, reload and fire again. My teams spread out beside me, and together we finish off the rest of the enemy combatants in the ditch. They don’t have a chance.

They are dead. All of them.

I choke on a shaky breath, gasping for air. Sweat sticks my uniform to my skin. I stop and look at the bloody carnage around me. I am horrified. How did I get to this place? How did this happen to me? How did I become such a killer?

My men are silent, checking their weapons, looking around them. I know what they’re thinking. The same thing I’m thinking.