Dan and the Bottle Ch. 23

The man next to him, who was manning one of the .50s, smiled and replied "This is a good thing... these rounds will go through three men and keep right on going. They're conserving our ammo for us, staying all bunched up like that."

The turret on the Bradley started to turn in their direction, and one of the men stood up, an open LAW on his shoulder. Two seconds later the rocket whooshed out of the launcher, connecting with the antique APC right where the turret joined the hull. The Bradley exploded in a shower of twisted metal, and, as if that were a signal, the two .50s opened up.

The four men with the grenade launchers started popping off rounds, targeting the trucks and Humvees with a mix of high explosive and fragmentation rounds, adding to the confusion, while seven people with M16s picked off any soldiers that had been missed by the big Brownings.

It wasn't so much a battle; more of a massacre. All of the Cubans, including Colonel Rivera, lay dead or dying, while three of the Americans had been hit, two of the villagers and one of the veterans. George Henderson had been hit in the shoulder, breaking his collarbone in the process, while his fellow villager had taken an AK round through the forehead. Mike Dragovich, the veteran from Beta platoon, had been hit in the upper arm, shattering the bones and severing an artery, but one of the field medics was there within moments, wrapping the wound in a pressure bandage and administering a quick shot of demerol.

The entire battle had lasted less than ten minutes.

Far to the north, in Wyoming, Phil Huett Jr. had taken up the duties of Mayor and Commander. He was in his office now, going over the most recent reports from the various bases around the western half of the country. The two California bases were doing well; John Medford was proving a capable leader and a fair tactician, besides. His troops had, in fact, wiped out yet another Chinese camp, a mere week ago, taking a number of truckloads of fresh supplies in the process. There were also more allies lining up, in both New Mexico and Colorado. Both, he saw, had been supplied and reinforced and were in the process of being trained.