The morning was still young, with the sun creeping up over the thick undergrowth. The whole platoon was weary and tired after trekking in the jungle for weeks, searching for the next of world most wanted terrorist Masparov. Their boots were torn and tattered, some looking as if they could not be worn at all. Knees deep in mud, they trekked towards their unknown destination.
“Get a move on! Boys!” Captain Maxon screamed to his platoon, trying to get them moving under the torrential rain. Everywhere was muddy, and they had to try as hard as they could, to keep from flowing off with the knee deep mud they were in. Having experienced a huge drop in morale, Captain Moxan could tell that his men were not in good fighting shape’ they were on the verge of breaking apart.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang. A shower of grisly flesh and bones and metal showered from the sky. Maxon turned around in horror, seeing that one quarter of his men were down. Instinctively, his combat skills kicked in, as he ordered his men to go prone.
Adrenaline spiked through his veins as he assessed the situation. He touched the ground, bullets whizzing over their heads. Maxon ordered his men to return fire, completely oblivious to the cries of “ambush!” all around him. He watched helplessly as his men were gunned down one by one. Private James screamed “My gun’s jammed!” just as a bullet appeared out of the bushes and pierced his forehead. He was silenced forever. Maxon knew they could not go on like this. They were outnumbered, and their firearms were inferior to the rattling M240 machine guns all around them.
With years of combat experience, Maxon knew that in such close range combat, they were not obliged to use grenades, considering the detonation radius. However, in their situation, there seemed no other choice. He shouted a warning, then primed a grenade and tossed it into the midst of gunfire. He waited a few seconds, then, with a flash and a satisfying boom, the grenade went off, spraying mud into the air. He experienced a sense of exhilaration as he realized that the machine gun fire had simmered down significantly, with only four or five of the gunners left. It was enough for them to attempt a retreat. He yelled to his second in command, Sgt. Ramirez “On my go, I want you to take our men and run into the jungle!” Saying so, he primed a smoke grenade, estimating its trajectory so that it would land directly on the front line, enabling it to provide a wall of grey smoke to cover them from the gunners. “Go!” he screamed.
Yelling with all their might, they pushed back into the torturous jungle, guns blazing. What remained of their original fifty men platoon was now a handful of inexperience privates and maybe a few sergeants. Reaching a safe distance, Maxon pulled out a map, placed it on a large rock and began pinpointing their location. “We should not be far from the nest, “he concluded. “Having run into such great opposition, they had to be protecting the hiding place.” Just as he ended his sentence, a crack split the silence, as one man dropped, felled by a M107 sniper rifle. “Down!” Maxon ordered, diving into the mud. He scanned the area for the sniper, but it was especially hard as it was raining very heavily, lowering their visibility to a small extent. “Guess we will have to wait till night,” he muttered.
Creeping stealthily through the fallen leaves and mud, they tried to minimize the amount of sound they made. Their guns were on their shoulders, ready to fire, modified with a silencer. They were on a different route. Now, they had to try to go around, to avoid the ambush again. Being outnumbered and outgunned, Maxon weighed the odds, and realized that they had to change tactics. They walked around the area littered with bodies, looking out for enemies.
“Sir!”, Sergeant Ramirez pointed. Looking in his direction, Maxon almost jumped for joy. The only thing that kept him from doing that was the combat situation. Going over to the house, they peered into the window. There was a man, sitting in a midst of about a hundred heavily armed terrorists. They had a positive I.D. on Masparov. They had to take this change. Guns blazing, they breached the house…