Chapter 46
First Sergeant Dirk Cabral was growing frustrated. The sun was rising, and the elf prisoner still hadn’t made her move. If the prisoner didn’t act soon, she likely wouldn’t until that night. That would mean a long day of moving very quickly and carefully to stay close enough to the tail end of the infantry formation but also out of detection range for any vehicles and rear guard troops.
That wasn’t an outcome he wanted. He and the 4 others were getting tired, and keeping up the kind of pace they would need to while staying careful enough to remain hidden just wasn’t an optimal situation to be in.
On the other hand, he couldn’t in good faith leave the element to its own devices. He’d made the decision to disobey orders and follow the captain, and he would just have to see it through. As the camp began to wake up, First Sergeant Cabral began considering his options.
First, he could commit his men to following the element. It would be a long day, and it could be dangerous, but it was the simplest option to take. Secondly, they could pull off and try to link up with SSG Davis and the rest of the detachment. The main problem there would be if they were attacked, as there wouldn’t be any reinforcements. And where Dirk would have trusted any 5 men to handle things before the system, but now, that just wasn’t viable. At least not with the men he had access to.
Lastly, he could take his team, and proceed ahead of the main element, beating them to their likely campsite for the night. He would need to make up some story about needing to meet up with the main camp before SSG Davis and the rest made it back. If they were attacked, at least they’d have the main force behind them as reinforcements, and while they would have to be fast, they wouldn’t need to be as careful, since the lead units for today’s march likely wouldn’t be paying much attention to random boot prints or other signs of human passage.
The more Dirk thought about it, the more he liked the third option. If the elf hadn’t tried to escape yet, she was probably planning to do it the next night, or with some outside help. Cabral and his team could rush ahead, and scout out the campsite for tonight. If some elf group came at the company head-on or was waiting to ambush them, or if some creature attacked, they could deal with it or warn the main element before it was too late.
Mind made up, Dirk gave the appropriate hand signals to his men. As the rest of the element ate breakfast and took down their camp, he and his men quickly navigated around the camp and far enough ahead that they were unlikely to be noticed throughout the day.
As the morning progressed, Dirk and his team kept well ahead of the main unit. Twice they saw the tracks of animals that had obviously grown or mutated, but they hadn’t had any cause for concern as the tracks were two or three days old.
By the time afternoon was turning to evening, the town of Blythe, Georgia was within visual range, and Dirk pushed himself to make it to the town before they were spotted. He’d decided they would wait there, and he would try to persuade the captain to stop for the night.
Dirk and his men began working their way through the small town, avoiding smaller buildings while looking for a structure big enough for the element to set up camp around. He began to wonder about what SSG Davis might have encountered. Since the elf hadn’t tried to escape last night, it was possible that the other 25 men in the detachment had actually found an elf patrol. Dirk believed it was more likely they would have probably been ambushed, as he just couldn’t stomach the thought of the elf telling the truth.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
At the very least, it was likely that any intel the elf had given up came with strings attached. Strings that he (and by extension, Matt) wouldn’t be able to see clearly. And Dirk wouldn’t feel right being manipulated by the enemy.
On the other hand, if there had been an ambush, it was possible Dirk had sent those soldiers to die. That thought would weigh on him heavily. SSG Davis had even pointed out the possibility before they’d split from the main force.
One of Dirk’s soldiers pointed down the road they’d been following, towards a few small shops and what looked like a church in an open field. Nodding along, Dirk signaled for his men to head towards the buildings, figuring it made as good a place to set up and wait as any other they’d come across.
As they approached the church building, Dirk’s sixth sense started giving him a bad feeling. A flash of sunlight glinting off something metallic either inside the building or on its far side alerted Dirk, and he raised a closed fist, signaling his men to get down.
Dirk studied the building through his weapon optic. He knew he’d seen something, but after 10 minutes of careful observation, he still hadn’t seen any other signs of movement. He crawled slowly over to one of the other soldiers, and ordered them to take one other man and carefully craw back towards one of the stores, then set up a sniper’s hide. He would have preferred a large caliber machine gun, which had at least some ability to affect leveled-up targets, but he’d make do with what he had.
He crawled carefully towards his right side, where the other two soldiers waited silently in the tall grass. He quietly explained the plan to them. They would wait another 10 minutes for the other two soldiers to get in place, and hopefully, by then, elements of the main unit would be within sight range. At that point, Dirk and the two soldiers staying with him would jump up and sprint towards the church. The sniper team had orders to engage anything that moved with as much accurate fire as they could place until Dirk and his fire team made it to the parking lot.
At that point the sniper team would shift fire to the upper windows and roof of the church, hopefully convincing whatever might be inside to keep their heads down. The fire team would breach the door and assault in, clearing anything they could. If the enemy inside was too strong, they’d leave via a window and hopefully get the attention of the main element, bringing a significant amount of firepower into the fight.
If there wasn’t actually anything in the building, Cabral would tell Captain Williams and the other commanders that he’d decided to conduct a bit of training while they waited. The two soldiers repeated the plan back to him, checking to make sure they understood all the details before the three started to slowly crawl forward.
Just as the timer Dirk had set went off, causing his watch to vibrate slightly, the front door of the church opened, and two elves peeked out. Neither of them seemed to be expecting multiple small caliber rounds to the face.
Dirk’s plan had followed the old adage about good plans, falling apart the instant the enemy made their presence known, but the soldiers he’d hand-picked for this were all somewhat experienced and very well disciplined. Dirk and his team charged forward, emptying mags as fast as they could squeeze the trigger. The two elves recoiled in shock and more than a little pain, falling back inside the doors.
Before Dirk could come up with a further plan to optimize and push on with the advantage of surprise, a deep roar echoed from inside the church, shattering glass windows and stopping all three soldiers in their tracks.