Ghost: The Liberation of Dania

“What the fuck are you doing Tarak!”
Tarak was hiding behind a house from incoming fire from Haz’s men, which were approaching the village.
“Get down ghost, they’re firing at us,” he shouted as I walked across the street towards him.
“Oh, shut the fuck up. Be a fucking man about it and fire back.”
What the fuck was wrong with these people? No wonder they weren’t winning this rebellion. Tarak started firing his rifle around the corner of the building. He was just spraying bullets in the general directions of the enemy, which, luckily, had been doing the exact same thing throughout this campaign.
“Try to take aim, Tarak,” I said, while he skittishly pulled his head back behind the corner when some of bullets flew by a little closer. “Get your rifle around that corner, Tarak. Take aim, fire and take aim again.”
He carefully put his rifle back up and started firing again. I could see he wasn’t aiming, not really, but at least he was looking through the sight of the rifle. Until a few bullets whizzed by and he duck his head back into cover.
“Don’t be such a fucking coward, Tarak.”
I looked around to see the rest of the rebels taking up idiotic positions among the few prefab habitats that made up this village and opening up into the country side. Haz’s men were moving up. If this continued we would be overrun. I couldn’t hold them off on my own. Where the fuck was Joe?
“Tarak, where the fuck is Joe?”
“Joe?” He said distracted.
“Yes Joe!”
“I don’t know, Ghost.” He started pointing towards the enemy “They’re coming this way.”
I looked around the corner and saw Haz’s men charging across the road towards us, weapons blazing. I brought my rifle up and started taking them down one by one. The moment they saw a few their buddies get shot around them, the rest of them dropped to the ground. I made an effort to shoot the ones who were giving the right example by moving on. Tarak had started firing as well.
“Tarak, hold your fucking fire,” I said while continuing myself.
He did so and started pulling himself back behind cover.
“No no no. You keep your weapons out there,” I said threatening as I momentarily paused my fire to push him forward.
He started firing again.
“I said: hold your fucking fire,” I yelled, “Are you deaf, Tarak?”
He stopped firing.
“I asked you a fucking question.”
“No,” he said with fear with in his voice.
“Good, now do you see those guys lying in the field, Tarak?” I said as I continued to put rounds downrange.
“Yes, but they are firing…”
“Are you dying right now Tarak?!”
“No,” he said scared.
“What about now?!” I shouted angry.
“No.”
“Then stop fucking whining! Pick one! Aim your weapon. Take your fucking time.” I gave him a few seconds to do so and used the time to take out an enemy myself.

“Got one?” I asked
“Yes, I think so.”
“Then take him out, Tarak.”
He missed.
“Aim again! Stay cool, remember what we taught you.”
He missed again, but now at least I could see who he was trying to hit. It was a good pick; the goon was lying right in the open next to the road.
“One more time, Tarak. Watch your breathing.”
He kept trying a couple more times. Meanwhile I put some suppressive fire on some other enemies who were getting out of cover.
“I got him,” Tarak said both surprised and enthused, but still fearfull. He had scored a hit, a lucky one, but a hit.
“That’s the way to do it, Tarak! Now pick a new target and keep this up!”
I looked to the side to the other rebels. We had taken our first casualties as well. Two injured, one dead, as far as I could see from here. The rebels started to panic. I could hear gunfire close by on the other flank of the village. Haz’s men were moving in closer there. I needed to check it out.
“Hold here, Tarak.” I said before I ran over to the other side.

From behind another habitat on the other side of the village I spotted Joe. He was lying down behind a big steel pipe together with some of the rebels. The rebels must have told Joe to lie down and he was of course obediently doing so. They were being fired upon from a numerous positions less then two hundred from the pipe.
“Joe!” I yelled.
He looked in my directions.
“Engage tangos!”
Joe immediately rose to a crouch and started firing his concise bursts over the pipe, visibly switching to another target after almost every burst. These guys were awesome. I started firing in concert. Within seconds the enemy fire started to ease. I used the opportunity to run up to the Joe’s position.

“Joe, where the fuck have you been?”
“I do not understand the question.”
“I fucking hate you,” I said. “Joe follow me.”
I left the rebels, some of which had started firing from the cover of the pipe, and I started moving to the back of the village.
“Joe, Hold your fire. We’re going the move around the enemies’ flank. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good, follow me, Joe.”
I couldn’t advance on the positions from the front, not enough cover, but the back of the village bordered a forest. I moved to the back of the village, where I took a hard sprint across the small field between the outer habitats and the forest edge. This would have been a good attack route for Haz’s men, but it also worked the other way around. I started advancing through the forest on a jogging pace. The vegetation was tick, so it would give plenty concealment to move up to the side of the enemy position.

“Tangos spotted.” Joe said after we just entered the forest.
I halted and moved to cover behind a tree.
“Location?”
“Eleven o’clock one hundred thirty meters.”

“How many?” I started scanning our eleven o’clock.
“Four tangos spotted.”
Through the thick foliage, I spotted some movement. The contacts seemed to be moving this way.
“Take them out.” I said softly.
We both started firing. I could hear some frantic yells coming from their position. I moved up from tree to tree while keeping suppressive fire on the location. Joe moved up with me, but he didn’t feel the need to take cover and just kneeled down beside me. He had stopped firing but still had his weapon at the ready towards the enemy position. Thick bushes in front of us gave way to a more open forest. As I started crawling through, I heard the pin of a grenade being removed behind me. Joe threw it in a high arc behind a fallen tree a good distance away. Moments after the explosion a person started screaming in pain behind the cover. I looked sideways to Joe, who was calmly scanning the rest of the forest.
“Move in.”
“Understood,” Joe said and started sprinting towards the position. He switched shoulder with his rifle and moved around the left side of the fallen tree where he discharged it once. The screaming stopped immediately. Joe gave me thumbs up and I moved up.
In the area around the fallen tree lay six men, all shot, with another two directly behind the tree, taken out by the grenade. By now I figured we had moved almost behind the Haz’s men attacking the village. Assuming they hadn’t overrun it already without the two of us defending it. I could still hear gunfire.
I moved to the edge of the forests.
“Hold your fire, Joe!” I didn’t want to give away our position just yet. If we kept silent, all these goons would keep their attention on the village. They weren’t trained. Not like me.
I started a hard sprint straight to the enemy positions. Many had taken cover behind a small rise in the fields on this side of the village. The area I was running across didn’t give a lot of cover; the grass was low and there were only a few bushes dotted across it. While charging across the field, I could see the enemy was still firing into the village. Chances were good they wouldn’t look back before we would get close. Thirty meters from the nearest enemies I lobbed my first grenade their way and hit the dirt. When it exploded, I immediately stood up, shouldered my weapon and started moving forward in walking pace, firing a burst every step. Joe started firing as well. The chaos in the enemy line was complete.
When the first of these goons was beginning to figure out what was happening, we had already reached the rise. Joe was quickly taking out the enemies along the length of it, so I took position behind Joe and focused on the enemies in front of the rise. In the distance, a small group of goons had already reached the pipe, which was running along this side of the village. They were in a fire fight with the rebels in cover behind a number of houses. I took out a couple before the rest tried to pull back.

We held our position behind the rise. It gave us good cover and a huge field of fire over the enemy advance on this flank. Within minutes, the remaining enemy force on this side of the village was in complete disarray. They started fleeing in all directions but we shot down many before they could get far.
I started receiving incoming fire from the village.
“Jesus Christ,” I said annoyed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, Joe.”
“Understood.”
I moved back from the rise and started moving towards the other flank. When the road came into view I spotted an APC further down along on it, half a klick from the village.
“Take that out,” I ordered Joe.
Joe grabbed a small launcher from his back and took out the vehicle. Across the road I spotted enemy soldiers in the distance who were pulling back further down the line. Joe put the launcher back on his back and started engaging the retreating men. I lay down and fired a couple of shots. On these distances I still could hit a stationary target consistently, but these men were running which made it hard to impossible score a hit.
Unless you were a fucking robot; Joe was having a field day.
I left him to it and picked the radio from my pocket.
“Hey Max, we’re here in the village. Me and R are kicking the butts of these assholes.”
“How’s it going there, Ghost?” Max asked.
“Haz’s men are falling back. Killed fifty, maybe more.”
“Okay, good job. Hold position there.”
“Copy.”
“And watch out, there are drones in the area.”
“Copy.”
“Max out.”
I covered his back while Joe kept on shooting the retreating men.

“No more visuals. Six tangos moved out of sight.” Joe said a few moments after he stopped firing.
“Copy, pursue tangos.”
Joe started running into the direction Haz’s men were retreating. He would deal with them. I realized Max would be pissed if she knew I was sending him off on his own like this. On more than one occasion she had reiterated how fucking valuable and expensive this asset was. I had figured out my buddy long ago; the guy was brainless, but not stupid. Somehow he always kept himself perfectly save. I called him back anyway.
“Joe, get back here! Follow me.”

I could still hear gunfire from on the other side of the village. I decided to move up to the road. Tarak would be the best bet not to shoot me on sight. I ran down to the village alongside the road, upright and in full view, with my rifle raised above my head, to prevent any nasty incidents. I walked up to the position of the first rebel who spotted me.
“We’ve got them on the run on this side,” the woman said proud.
“Then go help the others!” I said angry. “Wait here.”
I started screaming to all the rebels in this area, “Gather up!”
They came running in my direction and gathered behind the building. “The two of you stay here and cover this end. The two of you move to the back and cover the approach from the forest. The rest you move around this building, alongside the road until you reach that APC. Understood?” I asked while looking around the group.

There were yeses and nods.
“From there, move left, attack the enemies over there from the side,” I ordered. “Tarak, you take the lead, understood?”
“Okay,” Tarak said.
“Move, move, move! And keep your fucking heads down.”
Most of the rebels were still looking nervous from the fight.
After they all got going, I moved to the other side where the fighting was still going one.

“What’s the situation here?!”
“Most of them fled.” A rebel explained over the gunfire. There a couple more hiding out behind those rocks.”
“I’ve sent some of your men around that side, so check your fire, understood?!” I yelled while pointing out their line of attack. “Pass it on to the rest.”
Our job here was done for all I cared. We held position and gave some covering fire. They should handle it on their own.

After a couple of short fire fights the battle was over. A near complete defeat, this wasn’t their day at all. The last of Haz’s men stood up from cover with his rifle above his head. It was an easy shot. Some of the rebels around me looked at me in shock. These guys were unbelievable.
I gestured over one of the rebels.
“Go find Jinn and tell him to set up defensive positions.”


The rebels started gathering up their wounded in the centre of the village while others stripped Hazechiel’s fallen men of everything useful. At some point the rebels started carrying back an injured enemy.
“R, go around the battlefield check all the bodies if they’re dead.”
“I do not understand the order.”
How did Max phrase this? “Never mind, we’ll just wait till the rebels gather them up.”
“I do not understand,” R said.
“Shut up.”
Besides their attitude, most of the rebels were also poorly trained and disorganized. It had taken a lot of effort to get them to some level. The only reason for their success in recent years was the fact many of Haz’s forces weren’t much better. He had some good troops but he kept them close. All of Haz’s forces were still much better equipped then ours however.

A small vehicle arrived at the village a little later. I approached Jinn, who was supervising the loading of the injured onto the vehicle.
“Leave Haz’s men here, Jinn,” I said, “only evac our own.”
“We can’t leave them here.”
“Yes we can.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m telling you to do so, Jinn.”
“We appreciate your help, Ghost, but this is my decision. Besides they might provide vital intelligence.”
“Fine, I’ll ask them right now.” I turned into the direction Joe was standing and gave him the signal to come over here.
“Ghost, don’t do this,” Jinn said calm, “You know you shouldn’t do this.”
“Shut up, Jinn.”
Joe came running in.
“Joe some of the enemies we shot are still alive. Take care of them.” I pointed towards the place the injured were gathered. Joe immediately ran over to address the situation.

“R, stop.” Jinn yelled, but R didn’t respond.
“Tell that thing to stop or I will shoot it myself,” Jinn threatened.
“I’m sure Kevin and Max wouldn’t appreciate that, Jinn.”
Joe proceeded to slit their throats. In his little machine brain it would be a waste of bullets to shoot them, since most were incapacitated and they were all disarmed. I had to admit it was messy. Jinn looked away.
“Next time just leave them were they are, Jinn. They made their choice. If they didn’t want to die they should have surrendered.”
“One tried and you shot him,” Jinn said appalled.
“He was too late.”

After Joe was done he walked back to me and waited. I noticed many of the rebels had stopped working and were looking at us.
“Let’s go R,” I said as I walked towards one of the habitats.
I tried to open the door of the habitat but it was locked so I had R kick it in. It was a stupid to name your robot R. Inside the house was nothing special.
I threw R a towel, “Clean your face a little.”
After filling my canteen at the tap I walked back outside. I spotted Tarak sitting on his own behind some cover on the edge of the town. He had put his rifle beside him and was eating a meal. I walked over.
“Tarak, how’s it going here?”
“Ehm, good.”
“How did that little manoeuvre work out, Tarak?”
The guy was very skinny, I could easily beat him up, but he was smart and would be a good soldier if he was a little more assertive.
“Well, we moved along the road like you told us. We moved to about those trees,” he pointed in the distance, “there we opened fire.”

“What did you do exactly?”
Tarak suddenly looked a bit nervous.
“Well, ehm, when I saw some Hazechiel’s men, I just told everybody to get find some cover and open fire.”
“Great job, keep it up, Tarak.”
“What are we going to do now?” Tarak asked just when I started walking away.
“We’re going to defend the village against a possible counter attack. Wait here for reinforcements. Then we link up with Max to take the bridge. Anything else, Tarak?”
“No.”

I left Tarak to his meal and took a walk around the village to check if the rebels had taken in good positions.
Then the drones came in. It was a soft humming sound, but very recognizable. The rebels started running for cover. I got out of sight behind a house. R, who had been following me around all this time, was sitting beside me.

“R, grab the anti material rifle.”
While R switched weapons, I grabbed my radio.
“Max come in. We’ve got drones incoming.”
“Ghost?” “How many?”
“Don’t know yet, Max.”
I looked around the corner in the direction of the sound, but couldn’t see anything yet.
“R, take a look. See if you can spot those drones.”
He walked to the other side of the house and started scanning the sky.

“We’re going to reach the village in about…forty five minutes. I’m going to try and contact Kevin.” “Keep me posted.” Max said.
“Copy.”

“Five hostile drones inbound, heading zero-seven-two,” R said.
“Range, altitude? Speed?”
“Range two-four hundred, altitude approximately two hundred, speed three-three-point-seven.”
“ETA?”
“One minute.”
I opened the radio again.
“Max, we’ve got five incoming. They’ll be here in a minute”
“I can’t get through to Kevin at this point. I’ll keep trying.”
“Copy.”
We didn’t have many weapons against drones. The rebels had one guided missile launcher with one missile and a couple of heavy machine guns.
“R, take out the drones once they’re in range.”
“Understood, taking them out.”
Hearing this reply, I thought about the lectures Kevin and Max had given me on the particulars of R’s behaviour and how soon things would get messy.
“Cancel that order. Engage the drones at will.”
“Understood.”
A few moments later he ran to another habitat, kicked in the door and entered it. God knows why. Seconds later I could hear the first deep loud bang of the suppressor of his anti material rifle. The suppressor certainly wasn’t optional. It was followed up in quick succession by four other bangs and then a short interrupt for the magazine exchange.

The moment I saw the drones myself, I started firing. Every rebel in the base opened up as well. I didn’t expect to hit any but it would make it less likely for the drones to pick up R’s position.
The drones, now only four of them, fired their cannons when they were half a klick from the base. The energy blasts started impacting around the village. Another drone fell from the sky just before they passed over the village. I looked back while I ran around the house to get into cover on the other side. After passing the village, the drones slowed down and split up. Two made turns left and right, but the last one slowed down to a crawl to make a complete one-eighty towards the village. While the other two drones started circling the village, I could see several lines of tracers alongside my own bullets bearing down on this third drone. A little later our streams of bullets were accompanied by the smoke trail of a missile and the drone was destroyed.
Behind me an energy blast impacted the building R had entered, but he had jumped out of one of the windows just before the blast hit. R finished his dive with a role. He ended up on his knees and emptied a full magazine at one of the drones, before running for the nearest cover while reloading. I lost track of him when he ran around another habitat. With energy blasts exploding around the village only a small number of the rebels were still firing. Most were laying low. To my left, one of the drones came into view. I started tracing it and fired on the highest firing rate. After I saw I’d scored a number of hits, I started running. Explosions started going off all around me. I definitely had his attention, which was what I wanted. I spotted an open door of one of the bigger houses and went for it.

I made it into the house. A number of rebels were hiding out in the first room I ran through. There wasn’t time to explain anything and the room exploded behind me moments after I ran into the next. I made my way through the building while the drone kept hammering the other side of the house. I could hear it making a turn and coming back in, roughly in my direction. I shot the glass out of one of the tall windows in the room I was in and took cover on the outside of the building. The drone passed over to my right, flying low. I fired again and took another sprint when it passed out of view, but I could hear it make another turn back at me a moment later. What the fuck was R doing?
I changed direction to the nearest cover, a number of barrels on one side of the building I just came from, hopefully not containing any fuel. An explosion in the house blew the barrels and me away.
I looked up from the ground and could see the drone flying in between the houses and coming my way. Moments before it reached me, I caught a glimpse of a small projectile flying overhead towards the drone. There was an explosion and the drone veered off and crashed into one of the houses. While I was picking myself up from the ground, Tarak came running towards me holding a grenade launcher. He helped me up. I was almost upright when I heard distinct bangs of R’s rifle on the other side of the village. We both looked into the direction of the sound and saw the last drone fall from the sky.
“Are you alright?” Tarak asked.
“I’m fine, Tarak! Reload that thing and then get some men to move this rubble. There might be some of your people still alive under there.” I pointed to the front of the now completely demolished house.
“Yes,” he said a bit startled. He looked at me for a moment, while I started jogging to R’s position, before he ran off himself.

I found R leaning over a rebel who was lying on the ground. He injected something into the rebel’s neck while applying cardiac massage with his other hand. I kneeled down by the head of the person and started giving mouth to mouth, something which R couldn’t do himself. R tore open the shirt of the rebel and took a small device from the medical kit lying next to him. He applied two patches, connected with the device, to the person’s chest.
“Stand clear,” R said.
We let go and R pressed a button and zapped the patient. He placed one hand in the neck of the patient and immediately zapped the patient once more. After this he started giving heart massage again.
“Stand clear,” R said , just when I had resumed giving mouth to mouth.
He zapped the patient another two times, after which he made another injection and continued the heart massage.
At that point I stood up and took a step back while R continued his routine for another minute.
“Man down,” he finally said.
“No shit R.”
R then packed the injector and the device back into the medical kit, put the kit back in his combat pack, closed it and swung it on his back, doing everything as fast as possible. After picking up his rifle, he made an after action check, for no clear reason, and slowly stood up. He looked at me for a moment, but I decided to do and say nothing, just to see what would happen. He looked away and proceeded to scan the horizon a couple of times. He then stepped over the body and ran away, into the village. He would probably start helping other injured if he came across them.

As I walked back to the centre of the village I could see a number of rebels still moving the rubble of the demolished house. Most of the houses in the village were the original habitats the first colonists had brought with them, made of a thin but tough plastic. One rebel, who was still alive, but heavily burned on one side of his body, was being carried off. Next to the house lay two dead ones. In the village centre more rebels with injuries had been gathered up, but most could still walk. I grabbed my radio.
“Max, come in.”
“Go ahead, Ghost.”
“We dealt with some drones, Max. Casualties are low.”
“Copy. Jinn already reported it. We’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Copy.”
I put away the radio and walked up to another habitat which was still largely intact.
The windows in the small living room had all been blown out, which allowed me to step in. There were some oranges on the dinner table in the kitchen. I used a few to make some juice and put the rest in my backpack. I went through the cabinets but only found some cookies to eat. I took it all to the living room and put it down on the coffee table. After activating the music system in the room, I donned my gear and sat down. I took a sip of juice before unwrapping the cookies. They looked good and were plenty for a meal but a little dry.