The chopper blades thrashed against the muggy air, their rhythm a broken metronome against the screams. Sergeant “Doc” Holliday coughed, a sickly rattle in his parched throat. He pressed bloody gauze against a weeping shrapnel wound on a kid’s leg – Johnson? Jackson? He couldn’t remember names anymore, just terrified eyes.
“Incoming!” someone yelled, barely audible over the din. Holliday didn’t flinch. Incoming was just another word for hellfire these days.
The explosion ripped through the humid air. Smoke choked off the screams. Stumbling from the fiery wreckage, Doc surveyed the carnage. Another ambush, another pile of broken bodies. His bodies. He had to get them home, if there was a home left to take them to. He forced back the bitterness. There was always a way.
“General, with all due respect, another platoon on this op is a death sentence. Those boys are barely back from the last –”
Captain Anya “Ace” Petrova bit off the rest of the protest. Arguing with General Bradford was like trying to stop a buffalo stampede with a toothpick.
The General sighed the sigh of men who carried the weight of the world. “Captain, I appreciate your concern, but time isn’t a luxury we possess. Satellite intercepts indicate the VC are mobilizing for something big in that valley. We need recon in there, fast. Your team’s the best I’ve got.”
“We’re also running on fumes, sir,” Anya said, her voice steely. “We’ve lost half the platoon. The boys that are left…they’re not machines.”
Bradford’s jaw set. “Neither is the enemy, Captain. Now gear up.”
“You think heaven’s got hot dogs, Red?”
Private First Class Billy “Red” O’Hare grinned, smearing mud across his freckled face. “If there ain’t hot dogs, it ain’t heaven. And maybe ice cream. And a baseball field…”
“And girls,” added Pete “Lucky” Mancini, his Bronx accent thicker than the jungle brush, “Real girls, who ain’t made of magazine paper.”
The other rookies chuckled wearily at the familiar joke. Their laughter was more nervous than genuine, a thin blanket pulled over the bone-deep exhaustion gnawing at them.
“Hey, Red,” Mancini nudged, “Remember what Doc keeps sayin’? ‘We make our own luck, boys.'”
Red snorted. “Doc needs to find luck in patching my damn boot, the thing’s leaking like a sieve.” He kicked his worn boot, dislodging a leech from his heel and letting out a colorful curse.
The valley stank of death and decay. Anya moved silently through the thick underbrush, her senses straining against the oppressive stillness. The hair on the back of her neck prickled; the boys were walking into a trap.
Ahead, Doc was dragging a limping soldier, the kid’s face ghostly in the dim green light. Billy Red bounced alongside, a manic energy masking his fear. Each of these was her responsibility, her team. Bradford’s orders be damned. There was always another way.