Texas Nights - Book 13 of the Damned of the 2/19th

Extraction

Logbase-Tango
(Decomissioned Urban Warfare Center)
Jackingtonville, Abanstan
(North Fort Hood, Texas)
Eastern Europe
(CONUS)
27 February, 1992
0300 Hours - Tuesday
Day Ten of Operation Copperhead (Field Training Exercise)

Everyone was exhausted. However, word had gone out.

We were leaving.

With Stillwater down, the III Corps graders had let Colonel Krait know that I had reported that the insurgency leader was wounded and I'd given him medical treatment.

Colonel Krait had decided we'd bug out in the middle of the night. 2/67 Armor would give us cover, and we'd haul ass for the rally point. The Graders had agreed that it was a logical point to relocate, and a logical end to the field exercise.

We all knew that Stillwater's goons weren't going to let us leave easily, whether or not he was there.

Stillwater had been medivac'd to Darnell Army Medical Center as soon as I got him stabilized. He'd refused to let me knock him out in the medical treatment tent at the Logbase. Yelling in Russian, trying to fight with my nurses, and once almost escaping when he suddenly cold-cocked one of the helicopter medivac crew, grabbed their weapon, and rolled ten feet to the ground before getting up and staggering off.

That had startled everyone. He'd made it two blocks away, one arm holding his guts in, a stolen rifle in his hands, trying to fight his way free.

He'd reopened his wound fighting with the guys who knocked him out and ziptied him to drag him back. We'd sedated him till I figured the painkiller would run out his ears, loaded him back on the chopper, and waited by the radio till Darnell said they had him.

He was their problem now.

We'd broken down the site as fast as safely possible and now were loaded into the truck in whatever order we could get on.

I was standing on the running board of the passenger side of Five-Ton 23, my M-3 in my hand, staring off into the night.

"They're going to try to stop us," Peel said from the ringmount.

"Let them try. We're going home. Lugus devour this place," I snapped.

She just laughed.

The five-ton jerked into motion and I held on, keeping watch on the flanks.

Stillwater had trained his guys up in insurgent tactics. Going full on guerilla warfare just like we'd been trained in under the theory that we'd all be trapped behind Soviet lines by hour thirty-six. Apparently the guys on OP4 would be glad to get home too as they'd been run ragged.

All we had to do was cross the line that marked the edge of the Urban Warfare Center.

At least we'd been allowed to take off our MILES gear.

The first attack came right as we crossed the second intersection. Crew served weaponry, artillery simulators to simulate roadside bombs, the whole nine yards.

It all turned into a blur.

Hosing my M-3 till the barrel glowed red and then waving it in the air to cool it.

Almost getting scraped off the running board as the driver took a corner too wide.

Elbowing an OP4 in the face who tried to pull me off the truck and leaving him reeling back with a broken nose.

Brass from Peel's SAW raining around me as she burned through the boxes of ammo.

Kicking a guy full in the chest and knocking him back off the truck.