“Wake up.”

Jason started at the voice inside his shipping container room. Hadn’t he locked the door the night before?

“Geeze, you irregulars really are lazy,” the voice continued.

Jason rubbed his eyes hard to clear the blurriness of sleep and see his tormentor clearly.

“Oh, Brad, what do you want?” Jason asked with chagrin.

Brad Feldmann was the Element Commander of First Element in Task Unit One-Seven. Brad was regular Army, and a veteran of numerous anti-insurgent battles.

“Making sure you lazy irregulars are up and ready,” Brad sneered.

Jason looked at the digital clock next to his twin bed. “It’s zero-five. Our planning meeting with Task Unit Commander Gray isn’t until zero eight.”

Brad stepped closer to Jason so he was eye to eye with him, their noses mere inches apart. “In the Army we wake-up early.”

“And what are you going to do for the three hours between now and our planning meeting with Gray? Hang out with your boyfriend in Second Element?”

“Brewer isn’t my boyfriend,” Brad said with a growl.

“Oh so you two are just fellow window-licking retards, then.”

Suddenly, Brad’s fist flew up to meet Jason’s face. Jason took a step back and slapped the fist away.

“Now, now, do I need to kick your ass again like I did in the ring last week?” Jason asked.

The week prior Jason fought Brad in a unit-sanctioned mixed martial arts match and beat him soundly. Brad was more muscular than Jason, but Jason had more skill.

“I’ll get you next time,” Brad said, his fists still up, ready for a fight.

“Sure,” Jason retorted. “By the way, how did you get into my room?”

“It was unlocked,” Brad said, lowering his fists a fraction of an inch.

“Damn.”

“You irregulars really are lazy.”

“I must have been more tired than I thought,” Jason said. “I stayed up working on my pod.”

“That thing that will never run?”

“Shut up.”

Brad turned to leave. “Just make sure you’re not late, irregular.”

Brad slammed the door to Jason’s room as he left.

“Regular Army thinking they’re better than us,” Jason said with a huff.

Since he was up anyway, Jason decided to workout at the FOB gym. He noticed Brad was there, too, and made sure to add extra weight to his deadlifts. With lifting and a grueling kettlebell workout out of the way, Jason showered, threw on a clean muscle shirt, olive drab shorts, socks and his beat up boots (he’d have to replace those when he went to town on leave) and made his way to the mess hall for breakfast.

Jason strode into the Task Unit One-Seven headquarters to be greeted by the staff and seven other Element Commanders within Task Unit One-Seven standing around a square table. There were two people Jason didn’t recognize standing off by themselves. Who are they? From squadron maybe? One of the newcomers was a tall, fit redhead with green eyes and curvaceous body. 

“Irregulars late as usual,” Brad said as Jason approached the table.

Jason checked his watch. “It’s zero-seven-four-five hours.”

“We’re not late,” said Victor Koenig, another irregular and Element Commander of Seventh Element.

John Krecek, the Sixth Element commander and an irregular himself, folded his beefy arms over his broad, t-shirt-clad chest. “You regular army boys need to cool your jets. We’re supposed to be working together. Why do you gotta corn cob up your ass? Why do you gotta antagonize us like that?”

“Shut up, K,” Brad said with a snarl, using Krecek’s nickname.

“Or what?” K asked.

Brad was about to respond when Gray walked into the HQ. “Alright, stow that talk.”

“Just getting the irregulars in line,” Brad said.

Gray stopped just short of the group of staff and element commanders and glared down at Brad. “I told you to shut up once. Don’t make me do it again.”

“Yes, sir,” Brad said sheepishly.

“Now,” Gray continued, “we have a mission sent down from Squadron to seek out and destroy a major terr encampment. We’ll break down the Squadron operations order shortly, but the gist of the mission is we seek out and destroy the camp while the other combat Task Units in the squadron draw the terr’s attention elsewhere with their own attacks. It’s going to be an intel heavy operation, so we’ll be working with two intel elements from Military Intelligence Task Unit One-one.” Gray motioned toward the vivacious redhead and her compatriot. “This is Element Commander Kveta Grof and Element Commander Jared Smicer. They will plug in with us directly. I expect you to work closely with them.”

I’d love to work closely with her, Jason thought as he eyed Kveta.

“Any questions at this time?” Gray asked.

There were none.

“Alright, let’s start this planning session.” Gray motioned to Bill Edelman, Task Unit One-Seven’s intelligence officer. “Edelman, let’s start with the overall situation in the area.”

*

“Of course you volunteered us for point,” Gabe said in complaint as he drove the beat-up maroon pickup truck through the grassy hills ahead of the rest of TU17.

Planning had taken all of the previous day. As more of the plan was developed, Jason and the other element commanders would duck out to relay updates to their eight-man elements so preparations could be made while planning continued. That night at twenty hundred hours Gray issued the order to the whole of Task Unit One-Seven, and seven hours later TU17 drove out of FOB Chicken Hawk’s main gate to find the terr base.

“Hey, this is our chance to get a major terr base,” Jason replied from his vantage point behind the Ma Deuce on the back of the pickup. “I wanna get there first.”

“I think you just want to impress that redhead from T-U-one-one,” Carlos said.

“Can you blame him?” Danny asked before Jason could respond. “I couldn’t stop staring at her. The way she walks. . .”

“I’m more of a boob guy, myself,” Andy said.

“I’m a whatever-she-is kinda guy,” Danny said.

“What kind of name is Kveta Grof?” Matt asked.

“It’s Czech,” Carlos replied.

“I wouldn’t mind czech-ing her out,” Berny said.

Jason’s element emitted a collective groan at Berny’s bad joke.

“Get it?” Berny continued. “Because she-”

“Yeah, we get it,” Jason said.

“Y’all are acting like you’ve never seen a woman before,” Gabe said.

“Well, stuck on the FOB and missions for the last few weeks makes a guy lonely,” Carlos said.

“There are plenty of females on our FOB,” said Gabe.

“They have too many miles on them,” Carlos said in disgust. “You can’t throw a rock without hitting a group of guys on the FOB they’ve been with.”

“And given STDs to,” Berny said.

“First hand experience?” Matt asked.

Berny hesitated a second, his slightly chubby face turning red. “No.”

“Let’s be honest, the females on FOB Chicken Hawk are only attractive here, because there is no one else,” Carlos said. “Not one of them would get the time of day back in the towns or the city. This Grof chick is at least a nine no matter where she goes.”

“Hawk eight-one, this is Hawk Actual, SITREP,” Gray called Jason over the Task Unit secure communications channel for a situation report.

“Hawk Actual this is Hawk eight-one,” Jason replied into his headset. “No enemy contact, current grid location to follow.”

Jason tracked their position on the paper map he had affixed to the top of the truck’s cab top in front of him, and relayed the coordinates to Gray.

“Hawk eight-on, Hawk Actual, good copy. Continue mission.”

“Isn’t the base supposed to be in this area?” Gabe asked.

Jason looked at the map in front of him again and frowned. “It is. In fact, we’re just about right on top of it.”

Jason lifted his head and looked around. The only thing he could see were rolling hills bisected by dirt and gravel roads every square mile. Some of the land had been planted to corn or wheat, but many more plots lay fallow due to the recent terr activity.

“All this land unfarmed due to the damned terrs,” Carlos said from his position in the front passenger seat. “Those idiots don’t even know how to farm. How do they even survive?”

“Someone is supplying them,” Jason said as he scanned the surrounding area for the enemy. “West Coasters or Denver.”

“Bunch of idiots,” Carlos said, shaking his head.

“Aren’t you from Denver?” Berny asked.

“Before The War,” Carlos replied. “There’s a reason I left.”

“Ope!” Gabe exclaimed suddenly. “Saw something, twelve o’ clock, about four hundred meters.”

“Dismount and spread out,” Jason said. “Wedge with the truck as point, fifteen to twenty foot spacing.”

A string of acknowledgements answered Jason’s order and six of his men spilled out of the vehicle and into the mix of long dead crops and growing prairie grasses. Gabe drove the pickup forward, ensuring to go slow enough so the other six men in the element could keep up.

At first Jason couldn’t see anything. Maybe Gabe saw a coyote or rabbit. As they crested a hill, though, Jason spotted what remained of a tent.

“There,” Jason said, pointing to the tent. “Someone’s been here.”

Another hundred meters or so beyond the tent was a large copse of trees perpendicular to Jason’s position.

“And they can see us again,” Gabe sighed.

Jason wasn’t so sure. “I’m going to call it up.”

A moment later Gray responded to Jason over the Task Unit net. “Hawk eight-one this is Hawk Actual. What do you have for me?”

“Hawk Actual, Hawk eight-one. We found an abandoned tent at the following grid location.” Jason rattled off the grid coordinates of the tent. “Approximately a hundred meters further is a group of trees which could provide cover and concealment.”

“Hawk eight-one, Hawk Actual, have you been spotted?”

“Hawk Actual, Hawk eight-one, unknown, but no one is shooting at us. I’m going to advance into the trees.”

 “Hawk eight-one, Hawk Actual, affirmative. Move out and report. I’m moving to your position to support. Hawk Actual out.”

“Task Unit Commander is bringing the big guns,” Jason announced.

“Oh boy!” Carlos exclaimed. “Terrs won’t know what hit them!”

“So what now?” Gabe asked.

“We’ll advance into the trees,” Jason replied.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Gray?” Carlos asked.

“Gray said to move out and report,” Jason replied. “He’ll be here soon. We can handle anything we run into until then. Now let’s go.”

Gabe rolled the vehicle forward while Jason scanned the trees and surrounding grassy plains. Even from his vantage point he couldn’t see anything too far into the darkness of the thick tree cover.

“Normally they’d shoot at us by now,” Gabe said from the driver’s seat.

Jason shrugged. “Maybe they’re not here. Intel can be wrong, you know.”

Gabe just grunted in response.

Jason expected to make contact with the enemy the moment they crossed from the field into the trees – they hadn’t been shot at up until that point, and an ambush was the terr’s most likely course of action at that point. But as the pickup rolled under the shade of the trees and Jason pushed branches out of his way they were met with silence.

Then Jason spotted it: a group of tents huddled together with branches broken off trees and laid over their tops for impromptu camouflage. Poor impromptu camouflage, Jason thought as he trained his Ma Deuce on the collection of tents.

“Tents, twelve o’ clock,” Jason called out.

By that point if the terrs hadn’t seen or heard Jason and his element they were either deaf or already dead. The pickup truck’s rumbling engine was the opposite of quiet, and the six other men in Jason’s element crunching through brush and over fallen tree limbs didn’t attempt to muffle their movements.

Jason was just about to report the collection of terr tents when a man stumbled from one of the tent openings wearing only his underwear. Gabe hit the brakes and the eight-man element came to a halt close enough to hit the terr with a well-aimed rock. The man wobbled on unsure legs as he made his way from the tent he occupied to the edge of the atrociously camouflaged encampment. If the terr noticed Jason and his men he didn’t show it. After three precarious steps past the farthest tent the terr dropped trow and began to urinate.

“What the. . .” Carlos whispered, as if concerned he’d alert the terr directly in front of them.

The man’s eyes were closed, and as he peed he lowered his head and held a hand to it with a groan.

“They’re drunk,” Jason said. “Or hungover.”

Jason’s voice seemed to snap the terr out of his pain for a moment and the man’s head whipped up to stare wide-eyed at Jason and his men.

Just as the terr opened his mouth to alert the rest of the camp, Berny put two rounds in the man’s head. The terr’s head snapped back, and blood sprayed from his destroyed cranium before his corpse collapsed to the ground.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose in the camp. Terrorist men and women, and perhaps their hangers-on, spilled out of the collection of tents in different states of undress and coherency, a myriad of weapons proffered in their hands.

Jason didn’t wait for the terrs to gather their wits and rained .50 caliber bullets into them. Jason’s men followed suit with their AKs. Men and women fell like corn to a combine under Jason’s element’s onslaught.

“Hawk Actual, Hawk eight-one, contact, terrs, twenty-five meters,” Jason reported over the Task Unit net.

“Hawk eight-one, Hawk Actual, how many?” Gray replied in Jason’s ear.

“Hawk Actual, Hawk eight-one, a lot.”

“Hawk eight-one, Hawk Actual, I’m on your right flank, moving to support.”

The air was suddenly filled the the heavy, mechanical thumps of twin thirty-millimeter autocannons. The giant rounds ripped into the terrs and their tents as Task Unit Commander Gray walked his Armored Pod into the copse of trees. Gray’s AP was a basic model; the pod itself, resembling a giant armored baseball, sat mounted on two reverse-join legs, the twin thirty mike-mikes jutting out from modular points on either side of the pod, and the pod’s power pack situated on the back of the pod looked like a giant backpack.

Those terrs still left saw the AP and ran, some naked, many without shoes.

“Hawk three-one, Hawk Actual,” Jason heard Gray say over the Task Unit communications channel sas he continued to fire. “Terrs in the open headed your way. Swing around and catch them. Hawk one-one and Hawk two-one, set a blocking position a hundred meters behind Hawk three-one and catch any squirters. Hawk four-one-”

Gray’s words were cut off by an explosion against the AP’s armor. The AP rocked on on its feet, but Gray managed to keep the pod upright. Within the camp, hidden between some fallen logs, a terr stood with a rocket propelled grenade launcher. Jason peppered the terr’s position, but missed as the man ducked behind cover. Another terr popped out of some brush to launch another RPG at Gray’s AP. Gray cut the man down, but not before the terr fired the rocket. The RPG slammed into the bottom of Gray’s ball-like pod.

“This is Hawk Actual to all Hawk elements, I am still mission capable.” Jason breathed a sigh of relief as he heard Gray’s voice and watched the AP stride through the smoke which hung in the air. “Hawk four-one, move to my position, coordinates to follow.” Gray rattled off the grid coordinate before continuing. “Hawk five-one, six-one and seven-one set up a perimeter to catch any squirters which don’t move toward Hawk three-one.”

Jason hammered the top of the pickup cab with the palm of his hand as Gray rattled off more coordinates for the other elements in Task Unit one-seven to maneuver to. “Gabe, drive forward. Everyone, stay on line with the vehicle. Time to clean-up!”

Before Gabe could hit the gas Gray’s voice filled Jason’s ear once more. “Hawk eight-one, remain in place. Our friends from Military Intel Task Unit one-one will move forward of your position and conduct site exploitation. Provide overwatch for them. How copy?”

“Hawk Actual, Hawk eight-one, good copy.”

Just as Gray signed off four pristine-looking armored vehicles pulled past Jason and his men and up to the terr camp site.

“Man, city units get all the good stuff,” Carlos said as he pointed to the two armored trucks.

The moment the armored vehicles stopped the two elements from Military Intelligence Task Unit one-one spilled out of the doors, compact automatic rifles up and scanning the area.

Gabe pointed from the driver’s seat of Jason’s maroon pickup. “Even their gear is better.”

Each man and woman in the M.I. elements had matching plate carriers, magazine carriers, and helmets. Their uniforms, though worn, were in better shape than anything most of the men in Task Unit one-seven could scrounge up. They even had matching tactical sunglasses.

“Must be nice,” Berny said.

As his men spoke Jason noticed Kveta Grof, her fiery red hair pulled into a tight bun under the brim of her combat helmet. As she ran her uniform hugged her well formed buttocks, and her ample bosom pushed her plate carrier forward.

“She’s nice,” Jason said.

“And how,” Carlos said as he noticed where Jason looked.

As Kveta Grof and Jared Smicer directed their personnel around the ruined terrorist camp site Gray walked his AP forward to stand near Jason and his men.

“Hawk eight-one, Hawk Actual, good work today. You make the irregular soldiers in our Task Unit, and in the armed force, proud.”

Jason heard “K” and Victor Koenig whoop over the net.

“Don’t tell him that,” Brad Feldman said over the Task Unit communications channel. “He’ll think he’s useful.”

Just then Kveta strode up to Gray’s AP. “Task Unit Commander Gray, you’re going to want to see this.”

“Unfortunately I’m stuck in my pod,” Gray said through the AP’s external speaker. “Those RPGs did some serious damage to my machine. What do you have?”

“Maps of our FOBs and attack plans,” Kveta replied.

*

There was no rest for Task Unit one-seven and FOB Chicken Hawk. Upon their return Gray set the entire base to work preparing for what seemed to be an impending attack. Kveta Grof and Jared Smicer communicated their find from the Task Unit headquarters while Gray was extricated from his AP by Vince and his mechanics. 

Hours later Gray pulled himself out of the bipedal pod and stretched legs stiff and painful from being stuck in one position for so long. Despite his discomfort, Gray ran from the Task Unit motor pool to the headquarters to obtain updates from Squadron and ensure FOB Chicken Hawk was ready.

With preparations complete and his men in place in their designated sector on the FOB walls, Jason stole away to check in on his pod. He told Carlos he had to piss.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re not scared,” Carlos said.

“Funny,” Jason retorted.

Jason ducked into the maintenance shop and slipped past mechanics and technicians busily repairing and reinforcing several of the Task Unit’s vehicles, along with Gray’s AP.

Vince brought Jason up short as he reached his half-repaired pod.

“What’s wrong?” Jason asked.

Vince hesitated a moment before answering. “Gray just sent word. Squadron can’t get Armored Pod replacement parts to us. The operations area is too hot for logistics convoys to move through.”

A sinking feeling filled Jason’s stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Vince said. “Your pod is the only way we could fix the Task Unit Commander’s machine.”