One breath; the point man stacks up on the door. Second breath; I move across from him and grab the door handle. Third Breath; I nod, gripping a flashbang in one hand and the handle in the other.
Fourth Breath; crack door and throw the grenade. Five; watch Point shove the door open.
Six; follow the leader. He goes left, so I rotate to the right, my weapon's recoil gently rocking my shoulder as I squeezed the trigger. One shot, two, the enemy goes down on the third and I move forward.
Time speeds up and slows down, I hear the call for a medic in the background as enemy fire strikes where my head once was. Sounds were muted and then came through clearly as my Comtacs filtered out the noise of the explosives.
"McDaniels, you're on point!" Sergeant Foley pointed to me. "Ramirez is down, he took a bolt to the face."
I looked at the man I'd followed into the building and winced as I took in what remained. My battle buddy was dead.
Ramirez hadn't been present in the platoon long, I'd only known the man for a month or two. But here in the desert sands, casualties were a way of life. Ramirez was my third battle buddy, and another name I'd have to remember for when I got back home. If I got back home.
Ramirez's head was a twisted mass of melted flesh and shattered bone fragments, the ballistic mask had done little to slow down the enemy projectiles and seemed to have only amplified the damage to his face.
I shook my head. Another casualty in this Godforsaken desert. I wish I were numb to it all by now. But every friend, every battle buddy and squad mate that died left another gaping hole inside of me. A feeling that I hadn't done enough. That I wasn't good enough.
I shoved that feeling down and gripped my rifle a bit tighter to my chest.
"Aye, Sergeant," I replied, checking the magazine on my rifle before slamming it back into the receiver. "Locklear, Taggert, on me!"
Time slowed down again as I moved to the next doorway.
This door was different, there were no hinges, just a hairline crack down the middle, and no obvious way to open it.
"Locklear, get a shaped charge on the door," I ordered, settling into the comfortable routine of combat.
"Yes, Lance Corporal!" The PFC replied, opening the rear panel on Taggert's kit and retrieving a brick of explosives.
"No clue if this works, Corporal," Locklear affixed the shaped charge onto the door. "But there's enough here to blow out the panel on an Abrams."
He pushed the blasting rods into the plastique and moved to the side of the door, detonator in hand.
"Fire in the hole!" Locklear held his Comtacs tighter around his head and squeezed the triggers.
A concussive blast shoved any sand from the desert back towards the open door and the rest of the platoon.
The molten copper of the shaped charge on the other hand, blew through the door, the superheated metal cooling but still maintaining momentum as it impacted the far door and splintered into shrapnel that scattered through the next room.
I shoved the barrel of my rifle into the breach and squeezed the trigger, hoping that I'd at least wound anyone on the other side before we moved in.
"Reloading!" I yelled, pulling back and tossing my empty magazine into my dump pouch, shoving another one into the breach and slapping the side of my rifle to chamber the next round.
"Locklear, grab the other side," I let my rifle dangle from its sling and grabbed part of the door.
"On it!" The demo expert's biceps bulged as we pulled on the door while Taggert slid a crowbar into the opening to hold them open.
A handful of flaming projectiles burst through the opening and hit the wall behind Taggert.
"Screw that," he shook his head and grabbed a frag off of his webbing, a lit cigarette held in between his lips. "Frag out!"
The grenade bounced into the opening and detonated a few seconds later, a misty smog filling the air.
"I've got point," I shoved my rifle into the pocket of my shoulder and pied the corner, clearing what little I could see before pushing into the corner on the right.
A lone figure crawled for a weapon on the ground and I squeezed the trigger. Once, twice, three rounds and the alien stopped moving. Pulling my head up, I swiveled and dove to the ground, my rifle bucking gently as rounds impacted another two figures, one crying out and falling behind while another one continued to fire at me.
Then Taggert stepped into the room. His machine gun carving away at their cover as he hip fired the heavy weapon.
Behind him, Locklear pushed through the entrance and cleared the left side, a handful of rounds finishing off the dead there before he turned and we filled the air with a wicked crossfire, shredding what was left of the enemy in this room.
"Rotate!" Foley ordered, the ELtee hot on his heels. "First squad, hydrate and cover the rear, second, you're on me!"
I nodded at my XO and sipped water from my camelback, the lukewarm water soothing my parched throat.
"You heard Sarge!" I called out, my voice hoarse. "Get some water into you, and police those corpses. "Taggert, I'll reload your gun, then you cover the door."
"Aye, Corporal!" What was left of First squad responded and began moving, their eyes showing the exhaustion of the day.
Four compounds we'd cleared out today, and most of us were wounded or dead. Leaving only us three to wonder why we were the ones still alive.
"Aliens man," Locklear shook his head as he kicked over one of the bodies. "Who'd have thought we'd go from terrorists to aliens. Not me."
"I just want to know why they chose here," Taggert frowned and scratched at the beginnings of a beard across his dark face. "Why choose the mountains of Afghanistan? There's nothing important here."
"I don't think it matters much," I replied, my southern accent bleeding through a bit. "Terrorists, aliens, s'all the same to me. That they suck at choosing where to live don't mean much to me. I ain't a spook after all."
"Doesn't your older brother work for the Agency?" Locklear shoved a body into the corner.
"Yeah, as an analyst," I shook my head. "I doubt he's even read into what we're doing, much less whatever these assholes are up to."
"Might be worth a phone call though," Taggert shrugged. "Just sayin'. Some of the lines back at the FOB connect back to the states, might be worth checking out."
"Even if I managed to sweet talk SOCOM into letting me borrow one, we don't know what things are like back in the States. How many landed there, or what they're after."
"Way I figure it," Locklear finished up and sat down beside Taggert. "They're just feeling us out, like the first round of a boxing match. Then, in the second round, they'll stop pulling their punches."
"Guess we'll find out then," I reached into the top pouch of my plate carrier and withdrew a battered lighter and pack of cigarettes. "Wanna light?"
"Yeah, gimme one of those," Locklear accepted a cigarette and lit it, puffing before exhaling smoke. "Damn but I should have bought more of those before deployment."
"I told you to stock up on tobacco," Taggert smirked. "McDaniels took my advice, and both of us are sitting high and dry. Whereas you've got to bum them off of us."
"I figure I'll just grab whatever's left of Ramirez's stash," Locklear sighed. "Not like he'll be needing it anymore."
With that, we settled into an uncomfortable silence, the nicotine calming our nerves, and the water soothing our throats. The combination granting us peace. What little we could find in this desert, anyway.
It wasn't like the movies or the books. There wasn't a warning sign, or meteorites crashing down to the earth to let us know that they were coming.
No, they weren't here, and then they were. The larger ships remained in orbit and smaller ships descended across the globe in strange locations. Mountains, they had chosen the mountains to start their invasion.
The aliens probably thought they had an advantage here. They controlled the orbitals, they'd cut satellite communications early on, and they had the technological advantage. Earth though, she doesn't take kindly to invaders, and Humanity. Well, we don't know how to quit. So, every US military base, FOB, and COB went on high alert.
The GWOT had swiftly changed, the FOBs and COBs in Iraq and Afghanistan were the closest thing to where the Aliens had first landed. The Taliban changed gears within the first week, of the advanced landing parties. And shortly afterward began assisting us with intel and technicals. Other terror groups folded into our intelligence apparatus as even Iran and Russia began to coordinate with our defenses.
Why they'd chosen the Graveyard of Empires to be among their first landing zones was anyone's guess. But to me, all that mattered was that I was still stuck in this damned desert, and still kicking in doors. My job hadn't changed. Just the targets, and aliens bled the same as terrorists. Or so we thought.