Heavy Fire Afghanistan -

Hatch gave the signal. Thumbs up. Then the hand signal for heavy fire . He tapped his fist against his chest plate. Stay low. Stay alive.

The sky rippled. A familiar, terrifying sound.

Delgado’s radio crackled. “Outlaw 2-1, we see your tracers. But we have a company-strength element between us. We cannot reach you. CAS is ten minutes out.”

“Fix bayonets!” Hatch yelled.

Hatch vaulted over the berm and ran straight into the teeth of the enemy. He fired his M4 from the hip, dropping one fighter, then another. He heard his men behind him, screaming primal, wordless roars.

“Load up,” he croaked. “We’re not done yet.”

“Outlaw! Follow me!”

The LZ was a dried-up riverbed outside the village of Ganjgal. Intel said it was a staging point for a major Taliban offensive. Hatch’s team, ‘Outlaw 2-1,’ was the anvil. The hammer was a company of Afghan Commandos moving in from the south. The plan was simple: drive the insurgents into the kill zone.

The world dissolved.

For a second, the men looked at him like he was insane. A bayonet charge in a dry riverbed in the 21st century? But then they understood. They weren’t going to die crawling backward. They were going to die standing up. Heavy Fire Afghanistan

Hatch swung his SAW, but the barrel was overheating. The rounds started to keyhole, flying wild. He slapped in a fresh barrel, burning his hand through his glove. He didn’t feel it.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Miller tried to dive, but the grenade was a direct hit. The explosion was a fist of black smoke and red dust. When it cleared, Miller was gone. There was just a crater and a single, smoldering boot. Hatch gave the signal