The n00b Warriors (23 page)

“Were you scared?” Sanchez asked.

“Nah. Coco Puffs are a bunch of wussies that couldn’t fire a weapon straight if they had it on a tripod.”

He laughed quietly and continued marching, cockier with each step. Soon they had stopped looking around and were treating the scouting trip as no different than a hike through the woods, as if they were earning a Boy Scout badge. Occasionally, they could hear laugher from the lines of other companies, which was usually followed by Coco Puff gunfire, but for the most part it was a peaceful walk.

About 40 minutes into their scout, Sanchez asked if Dylan knew where they were going. His whisper was just a little too loud, and before Dylan could answer, a Coco Puff appeared, laughing. He shined his flashlight in Sanchez’s eyes as he said in broken English, “Yes, pretty boy. Tell us where you go.”

There was not a doubt in Dylan’s mind that the Coco Puff would kill all of them and then cut off their hands as souvenirs; the presence of death, however, was not what he expected. He wasn’t surprised. It felt like he was finally at the moment that he had been waiting for.

There were five Coco Puffs, each of whom towered over Dylan and his men, and they had a mischievous look in their eyes. Dylan wondered if they were scouts, too—on a mission to find out why the rebel lines were being so quiet. He watched them carefully as they talked in a foreign tongue. They looked Middle Eastern, but their language sounded more like Spanish. Dylan could never tell where the enemy was from. He thought about taking a cheap shot at them. He knew he couldn’t get all five, but maybe just one.

They laughed loudly and then stopped talking. They stared Sanchez right in the eye. The one who had spoken in English aimed his gun at Sanchez’s head.

Just as he fired, a blast hit nearby, and his hand jerked, sending the bullet whizzing by Sanchez.

Dylan quickly pulled his gun from his belt and fired a shot at the English-speaking man, hitting him in the head. Sanchez followed his lead and shot the man next to him. The three that remained fumbled for their weapons. Dylan and Sanchez shot two before they could pull the trigger. The last had time to fire one shot, but it was a bad aim and missed both of them. Sanchez put one in his head.

Johnny had not fired a single shot. When it was over, Dylan turned him. “Thanks for helping out, Johnny.”

“I…” he started to say, but didn’t finish—he was in shock.

“And you think you can protect Trinity?”

Johnny didn’t answer.

Sanchez and Dylan rummaged through the Cocos’ bags, looking for souvenirs and important documents. One of the men carried a sniper rifle, which Sanchez threw around his shoulder. “I’ve wanted one of these for so long.”

Dylan found a few maps. They were in another language, but he thought they might have the positions of Coco Puff armies. There’d be some men at HQ eager to get their hands on them, he knew. He also found some chocolate bars, and he took all of those.

Sanchez went to the body of the man who who had almost shot him. He turned him over to check his back pockets. As he did so, the Coco’s helmet came off, revealing a picture he had stashed on the inside. Sanchez pulled it out and handed it to Dylan. “Hey, check this out—it’s a golden game controller.”

Dylan grabbed the photo from Sanchez’s hand and looked at it. There was the man they had killed, standing with two others and holding what looked like a golden Wii controller. “Tommy’s going to love this—good job, Sanchez.”

The two of them ate candy bars in the mud. Johnny went a few feet away and studied the area with binoculars.

It started to rain as they finished the candy. Sanchez leaned on his back and opened his mouth, swallowing the falling drops.

Johnny returned, concerned. “I think we should go—I don’t think they’re the only ones out here. Their friends might start looking for them soon. Someone had to have heard the gunfire and put two and two together.”

Dylan nodded. “‘Bout the only smart thing you’ve ever said—we got what we needed. Let’s get back to the trench and send our intel to HQ.”

Sanchez moaned. “Let’s stay here longer. It’s peaceful.”

Dylan listened to the shelling in the distance. He knew there was a possibility it was hitting his men as they sat and waited. “We need to get back,” Dylan finally said.

Sanchez stretched and sat back up. “So who gets to take those maps to HQ?”

Dylan shrugged.

“Can I?”

Dylan shook his head no. “You just got out here,” he explained. He figured if anyone took it back, it should be someone who had been fighting a few days. “I’ll probably let a D man take it.”

“I’m the one who risked my life to get it.”

Dylan shrugged. “Every day, we all risk our lives—you just got lucky today. We’re a team. If one guy’s risking his life, then we’re all risking our lives.”

“That’s bull—Johnny didn’t exactly play it like a team.”

“When you get your own company, then you can lead it how you want.”

“The only reason you got to be team leader was out of luck.”

“I made team leader because of leadership.” Dylan lied doing his best to earn Sanchez’s trust, “When I fought at Disneyland, I was the one who told those kids what to do—it wasn’t luck, it was skill. And it’s a skill I don’t see in you.”

Sanchez stood up and opened his mouth like he was going to speak, but then began to walk off.

“Don’t you turn your back on me.”

Sanchez turned. “You may think you have leadership skills, and maybe you do—but that’s with D men. You haven’t done anything to prove yourself to A men, and you just lost my respect.”

“I don’t need your respect, but if you want to live you better listen to what I say.”

“You think you know something? You don’t know nothing. You’re with a different company now, and we’ve been trained. You’ve fought wars, but we’ve been taught the art of it. We’re a whole different breed, and you don’t know nothing about us, and you never will because you’re not one of us. The only reason you’ve been assigned to us is out of default. Someone better will come along in a day or two, and you’ll see real leadership then.” Sanchez saluted and then stalked away.

Dylan watched him go, and realized that he probably had a point. They were a different company, and he had done nothing to understand them.

The shelling got more intense as they got closer the trench. Sanchez and Dylan walked together, but they didn’t talk. Johnny followed behind them, too embarrassed to do anything else. Sanchez’s face was taut, his step cautious. Dylan saw him covertly scanning the area, as if he were expecting something but didn’t know what it was.

“War,” Dylan said, breaking the silence.

Sanchez stared at him quizzically. “War?”

“That’s what you’re looking for,” Dylan stated. “Your eyes show it. You’ve never been in war, and you don’t know what it looks like.”

“I’ve fought.”

“Not yet.”

“Piss off.” Sanchez strode away.

Dylan watched him walk off, and then he watched the horizon. He saw a bright light heading their way and knew immediately what it was—he’d seen the same light yesterday. He sprinted forward and pulled Sanchez to the ground, yelling, “Down!” Sanchez was heavy, and Dylan was weak, but the moment and what he knew would follow made him stronger.

Sanchez scrambled away from him. “You want to fight, is that it?” He started to sit up, but the mortar exploded 15 feet away, and the blast forced him back down. Still on the ground, he stared fearfully at the hole it had made in the surface.

Dylan stood and walked away, leaving Sanchez behind. This time, Sanchez caught up to him, panting and scared. He walked by Dylan’s side for several seconds, and finally said, “Thanks for that.”

Dylan nodded. “It gets worse.”

They were silent after that.

As they neared the trench, Dylan saw smoke billowing from several directions. He started to run again, staying low to the ground, nearly losing his balance as explosions rocked the ground.

Dylan could feel the heat of heavy fire above him. He used to hear talk of how you looked out for your fellow troops
—
he didn’t know if Sanchez was alive behind him, but he realized then that there was no point in looking. On these lines, you only looked out for the ones you were sure were alive, and you didn’t go back for anyone.

Twenty feet from the trench, Dylan started to crawl. He knew how bad it was when he found an entire ear lying bloody on the ground. He could hear screams, horrid screaming, even above the rapid gunfire and booming RPGs.

Dylan jumped into the trench and landed on a dead body. It was too disfigured to recognize.

He scanned the trench, trying to make sense of it. The rebels had finally sent intensive cover, so the heaviest shelling had stopped, but those still entrenched were burning and reeking of death.

Trinity appeared, struggling over fallen bodies. Hunter was close behind her. “Thank God you’re not dead,” she rasped as she hugged Dylan fiercely to her.

Dylan didn’t speak.

“It’s horrible,” she said, letting go of him. “We couldn’t do anything. I felt so helpless. I would’ve fought back, but I couldn’t. There were just fire bombs—nothing even to shoot out. They were coming from everywhere.” She paused and asked, concerned, “Where’s Johnny?”

Before Dylan could answer, Johnny jumped into the trench. “You okay?” he asked Trinity.

She nodded and gave him a brief, awkward hug. “So the two of you didn’t kill each other?” Both boys looked down, not sure what to say, and Trinity asked, “What? What happened?”

Dylan glanced at Johnny, who continued to stare at the ground, ashamed. Finally, Dylan said, “Nothing—we’re just still in shock from everything. Glad to be back.”

“What should we do?” Dylan heard Aimee ask from behind him.

He turned around. He hadn’t been prepared for anything that had come so far. And he didn’t know what tactics he was suppose to use now. “Just—just take cover or something.”

“We’ve been taking cover.”

Helplessly, he said, “We just have to hold the lines as best we can until we have orders to do otherwise.”

Dylan surveyed the damage, the dead, the injured. He saw a kid shivering, holding his severed arm. Finally, he started to think. “Hunter—no one’s manning half the RPGs and mortar cannons.”

He nodded.

“Get on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked at Trinity. “Where’s the medic?”

She pointed at a limp body with dried blood on the ground around its head.

Dylan stared at the body for several seconds.

“He’s dead.”

Dylan nodded. “Get all the injured and start putting them in one place.”

She nodded.

“And by injured, I mean only those who absolutely cannot fight—if they can hold a gun and fire, they stay.”

Trinity nodded again and went off.

Dylan made his way to the radio. The operator was dead. He dialed in to HQ and got an out-of-breath woman. “We need medics and men,” he told her.

“Half the lines need the same, sir,” she explained. “We don’t have anyone to send out there right now.”

“What am I supposed to do?”
      

“Hang tight.”

Dylan hung up and began pacing up and down the trench. His men screamed what they needed as he passed: “Need more ammo, sir,” “Can’t stop the fire, sir,” “Got a man down, sir.” And as they said it, he would reply, “Do the best you can with what you got,” sometimes without even paying attention to what had been said.

He got to Milton, who was resting on his back. “Why aren’t you fighting?”

“No more ammo, sir.”

Dylan looked around at all the bodies, and then back at Milton. “Gather up the guns and ammo from every dead or injured man you see, and distribute them to anyone who needs more.”