Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [58]
“Dennis,” Jackson said,” I want you to be prepared to take the master chief, Dobson, and Robinson back along the trail to follow any of these aliens if they decide to pull back. The rest of the platoon will engage and pursue if necessary, but you and your men hold your fire.”
“What’s your plan?” Sanders asked. There wasn’t any question in his mind that he would follow orders, but it was obvious to him that Jackson had something in mind.
“I want you and your men to be prepared to seize one of those landing craft we saw,” Jackson said quietly. “If we can, we’re going to conduct a suppressed ambush, take out as many as we can without resorting to the mines. It’s going to be hard as hell for us to get through the jungle on our own. We’re never going to make it if we have to drag all these civilians along with us. They are getting beat to hell right now. One or both of those transports we saw could be our ticket out of here, maybe even to a ship that will get us the hell off this planet and back to Earth. Char-Kane feels she could operate one of those craft. But we have to take control of it first.”
It was a desperate gamble to try to take over an enemy craft from an unknown number of hostiles, but Sanders could see how it could be their best shot at surviving. He could see now why Jackson was setting up for an ambush and why he had sent the scouts back to learn about the enemy deployment. If the ambush worked, it could take down a large number of the enemy before they could react.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Sanders said simply.
While the officers talked, the two demolition experts, Chief Harris and Harry Teal, were laying out a serious surprise for any aliens who were unlucky enough to move into the killing zone of the ambush.
Although there were a few giant hardwoods such as the one Teal had climbed for his look-see, most of the tall, thin plants that passed for trees in this jungle were about fifty centimeters thick at their spongy bases. While Chief Harris walked along the side of the trail, being very careful not to leave any marks to show his passage, he uncoiled behind him a thin, dark line. Teal was kneeling at the base of some of the trees Harris had already passed and was working with a C-6 explosive block he had removed from his pack.
Tearing open the package of explosive, Teal separated the block into six long, wide wafers. Pulling open another package, he laid out what looked to be dull cloth strips the same size as the blocks of explosive and nearly as thick. Stripping off a protective film on one side of the cloth strip, he used the exposed adhesive to stick the strip to the wafer of explosive. Another adhesive strip on the back of the assembly allowed him to stick the whole thing against one of the “tree” trunks. He carefully adjusted the location of the strip, making sure it faced exactly where he wanted it to, then connected it to the line Chief Harris had laid out.
With one tree prepped, Teal moved on to the next one after carefully concealing his work behind mulch and junk he scraped off the jungle floor. When the two SEALS were done, there was a string of nearly a dozen of the odd assemblies facing along the trail that had become the killing zone of the ambush.
The rest of the men had laid out their weapons and concealed their positions in less time than it took Chief Harris and Teal to complete their work. At the far end of the ambush, Falco lay concealed with his G15 in his hands. Propped on the ground next to him, facing back along the trail, was his long rifle. Next to him was his partner, LaRue. G-Man had put aside Baby, long since cleaned of any dinosaur residue, in exchange for his G15 and underbarrel grenade launcher. Every one of the SEALS had laid out a spare magazine next to his position for a quick reload. The men with the 30-millimeter grenade launchers also had a spare round for that weapon laid out. And each of the G15 weapons had the long shape of a suppressor slipped in place over the muzzle.
While everyone waited in position, Jackson looked back along the