PanamaJack had been having one of THOSE days. Aside from being stuck with a pair of FNGs, the folks who ran the shipping and receiving department at the Chateau had misplaced his most recent order of tobacco products. He'd been out of cigars for two days, and was alternating between wanting to murder someone and wanting to murder everyone. When his turret gunner, a new guy named Rimfire Lincoln, sent a long .50-cal burst into a cluster of trees a half-click off, he snapped.
"What the fuck! Are you fucking retarded? Why did you shoot that tree?"
"I saw somethin'!" The kid shouted. "There's something in there, I saw the reflection!"
"OK, we'll check it out, but if you just wasted some hippies, I swear to fuck you're going to be walking home."
As the truck drew near, the nearest tree started to shake, fell over, and a small SUV dragging camo netting took off across the desert, quickly followed by two more.
Well, would you look at that? PanamaJack thought. "Looks like we get paid today! Get after him!"
"Yee-haw!" one of the new guys shouted over the radio.
Evoking all the best parts of an old western, a Humvee full of hollering mercs started chasing across the desert after a trio of SUVs full of contrabandistos, guns a-blazin'. The cartel men, trying to hang out the window and shoot at the mercs, were unable to slow the vehicle down, and Rimfire, trying to see through the dust and being new to the ways of war, couldn't see well enough to aim his weapon properly, but was shooting anyways.
"Soren, PJ. We flushed a group of hidden jeeps near Hermosillo. We're trying to get them before they make it into the city!"
I hope that flying asshole makes it in time. PanamaJack thought. Or we're going right into the city after them. We're not going to lose these guys, and we'll follow them right to their goddamned front door if we have to.
"Ammo! I need more ammo!" Rimfire yelled.
"What the fuck, man. Did you even hit the guy?" Seraph yelled at him. "Wait until you can at least see the fucker, new guy!"
"What? I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome this machine gun is!" Rimfire replied.
"If he survives this, I'm going to kill him" Seraph muttered.
"Soren, it's getting close, how far away are you?" PanamaJack asked over the radio.
"Not far. A minute out, " came the reply. "We'll kill the first vehicle, then work our way back."
"How original!"
"Yeah, fuck you too."
As the first rounds shredded the lead vehicle, PanamaJack noted that the cartel men had stopped shooting back, and idly wondered if they were out of ammo. Then, out in the distance, he saw the white streak of a missile being launched, and slammed on the brakes.
SAM? Where's it going?
"Troopers! IT'S A JAVELIN!"
Then the missile hit the apex of it's arc, and he started yelling at the troopers to get out. Four PBE troopers bailed out of a perfectly good truck, and started running for cover. Rimfire Lincoln, happy to finally have a decent shot at the retreating vehicles, never saw the missile coming.
It hit the humvee just in the grill, just below the hood. As the missile detonated, the initial charge ripped the hood off and sent a spray of hot metal into the windscreen of the truck, the gunner's shield, and the gunner. Then the second portion of the warhead, designed to penetrate Soviet-model tanks, detonated, and a blast-focused jet of hot copper obliterated the engine.
Rimfire collapsed into the now-smoldering vehicle, and Seraph sprinted towards the truck to get him out.
"Soren! Kill that launcher!"
"On it! Casualties?"
"One, the new guy Rimfire. It's bad."
"Fuck. We'll be back for him as soon as it's safe."
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