Alone and Unafraid (American Praetorians Book 3) by Peter Nealen Page A
Authors: Peter Nealen
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but fuck you. Holes where there aren’t supposed to be holes fucking hurt.
The terrain was pretty flat. Really flat. There was scrub, but it was pretty widely spaced. Aside from the possibility of running into traffic on the roads, there really weren’t many obstacles between us and the rendezvous.
That didn’t mean it was going to be an easy movement. We had to stop after a half hour, largely because a few of us had wounds start bleeding again just from walking less than a kilometer. Some of the wounded al Khazraji were already dragging ass badly after about seven hundred meters. We had almost ten times that distance to cover by 0200. Granted, we had more darkness to work with as winter started to set in; the sun had set at about 1800. Still, by all appearances, we weren’t going to be getting any faster as the night wore on, and we hadn’t stepped off until some time after dark, either.
I worked my way up and down the cigar-shaped perimeter we’d set up in the desert. I didn’t want to try to circle up with this many guys, especially when we were trying to keep moving. A few needed new pressure dressings on bullet wounds, some just needed the rest. Most of my team, even Little Bob, who was hit worse than any of us, just wanted to get moving. We were exposed and still too damn close to the burning vehicles, which were lighting up the horizon behind us. The sooner we got away and to the rendezvous, the better.
Finally, though it took some cajoling with some of the al Khazraji, we got moving again. Hussein Ali had contributed considerably to getting his people moving; that crusty old bastard had no qualms about kicking the shit out of anybody who didn’t want to pull their weight, or in this case, get off their ass and get moving when staying in place meant dying.
By midnight we still had three klicks to go. Our pace had slowed steadily as we got farther from the laager site. Several of the wounded were doing their damnedest to keep moving, but they had to stop every few hundred meters to rest. Blood loss alone was taking its toll and it takes time to recover from that, time that we didn’t have.
It didn’t help that the small oil facility we had to pass by to get to the rendezvous was inexplicably active that night. We were still the better part of a kilometer away from it, but headlights kept sweeping over our position as three vehicles constantly roved around the compound. Every time the cones of light started moving toward us, we went flat on our bellies in the dust. We were probably too far away to be seen, but I didn’t want to take any chances. If somebody over there thought they saw something and came to investigate, we weren’t going to be able to run away.
Right at the moment, I was lying on my belly, sweat mingling with the dust to turn my forearms to slimy sandpaper inside my sleeves, waiting for the lights to turn away. I was seriously thinking of swinging farther out, away from the complex. So far, the vehicles seemed to be staying by the big oil tanks, instead of roving out in the desert, so if we got another five hundred meters away, we might not have to worry about it. The only trouble was, at the pace we were making, that was going to add at least a half hour. Marcus’ limp was getting more pronounced with every step, and he was obviously in a lot of pain.
I checked my watch, carefully shielding the green glow from anywhere but my eyes and the ground. 0010. It had taken us almost four hours to go just over four klicks, over open ground. That’s what bad shape we were in.
Fuck it. We weren’t going to save time if we got compromised and got the PPF running out here because Habib thought he saw somebody crawling around in the desert in his headlights. I’d told Mike to be there no earlier than 0200, so we had some wiggle room.
I was going to move forward and tell Cyrus to veer north, but before I could I heard the rustle
The terrain was pretty flat. Really flat. There was scrub, but it was pretty widely spaced. Aside from the possibility of running into traffic on the roads, there really weren’t many obstacles between us and the rendezvous.
That didn’t mean it was going to be an easy movement. We had to stop after a half hour, largely because a few of us had wounds start bleeding again just from walking less than a kilometer. Some of the wounded al Khazraji were already dragging ass badly after about seven hundred meters. We had almost ten times that distance to cover by 0200. Granted, we had more darkness to work with as winter started to set in; the sun had set at about 1800. Still, by all appearances, we weren’t going to be getting any faster as the night wore on, and we hadn’t stepped off until some time after dark, either.
I worked my way up and down the cigar-shaped perimeter we’d set up in the desert. I didn’t want to try to circle up with this many guys, especially when we were trying to keep moving. A few needed new pressure dressings on bullet wounds, some just needed the rest. Most of my team, even Little Bob, who was hit worse than any of us, just wanted to get moving. We were exposed and still too damn close to the burning vehicles, which were lighting up the horizon behind us. The sooner we got away and to the rendezvous, the better.
Finally, though it took some cajoling with some of the al Khazraji, we got moving again. Hussein Ali had contributed considerably to getting his people moving; that crusty old bastard had no qualms about kicking the shit out of anybody who didn’t want to pull their weight, or in this case, get off their ass and get moving when staying in place meant dying.
By midnight we still had three klicks to go. Our pace had slowed steadily as we got farther from the laager site. Several of the wounded were doing their damnedest to keep moving, but they had to stop every few hundred meters to rest. Blood loss alone was taking its toll and it takes time to recover from that, time that we didn’t have.
It didn’t help that the small oil facility we had to pass by to get to the rendezvous was inexplicably active that night. We were still the better part of a kilometer away from it, but headlights kept sweeping over our position as three vehicles constantly roved around the compound. Every time the cones of light started moving toward us, we went flat on our bellies in the dust. We were probably too far away to be seen, but I didn’t want to take any chances. If somebody over there thought they saw something and came to investigate, we weren’t going to be able to run away.
Right at the moment, I was lying on my belly, sweat mingling with the dust to turn my forearms to slimy sandpaper inside my sleeves, waiting for the lights to turn away. I was seriously thinking of swinging farther out, away from the complex. So far, the vehicles seemed to be staying by the big oil tanks, instead of roving out in the desert, so if we got another five hundred meters away, we might not have to worry about it. The only trouble was, at the pace we were making, that was going to add at least a half hour. Marcus’ limp was getting more pronounced with every step, and he was obviously in a lot of pain.
I checked my watch, carefully shielding the green glow from anywhere but my eyes and the ground. 0010. It had taken us almost four hours to go just over four klicks, over open ground. That’s what bad shape we were in.
Fuck it. We weren’t going to save time if we got compromised and got the PPF running out here because Habib thought he saw somebody crawling around in the desert in his headlights. I’d told Mike to be there no earlier than 0200, so we had some wiggle room.
I was going to move forward and tell Cyrus to veer north, but before I could I heard the rustle
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