Thanks for reading. The below story includes violence and non-consensual sex in a fantasy/fiction setting. I am working on the next chapter and looking forward to fleshing out more of this frightening alternate future world for you to enjoy.
As in the current world; the villain in this story is not those who follow a particular religion or belief system, but those who use one as justification for evil deeds.
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The position was a very good one, atop a scrubby hill with an excellent field of fire covering one of the most critical river crossings. The pre-dawn preparatory bombardment by the attackers was not heavy, but it included a few dozen rounds aimed at presumed defensive positions on the reverse slope of the hill; incendiary rounds lit brushfires that would help obscure the small amount of smoke from the rifles of the defending Marksman Team.
The crossing was to be held by two companies of fighters scraped together from a couple local militias and a squad of Republic regulars rushed back to the line after just a day or two regrouping from the last holding action on the far side of the river. The Marksman Team was the only hole card that the ragged defense had up it's sleeve; the two women and one man of the team were all top-notch shooters equipped with pre-Burning rifles and plenty of ammunition.
The Marksman Team arrived the night before the attack to find a good shooting post laid out for them with concealing brush carefully shifted to obscure them and a wide dugout with overhead cover. The regulars at the base of the hill were to fight from a mix of sandbagged foxholes and a few spider holes dug into the soft clay bank overlooking the shallowest section of the river.
It was a position that even this light force could have held for a good long time, but the enemy had ten of the new mortars that had started showing up this year and almost three hundred men, all veteran soldiers of the Caliphate. With the campaign season running short, the usual fall rains only a few weeks away, the enemy was sure to press the attack.Three hundred against less than seventy was very bad odds, even with the river and Marksmen to help the defenders. It looked to be a desperate battle.
Sarah carefully shaded the lenses of her precious binoculars as she slowly swept them across the east side of the river. Her dirty-blonde hair was tucked into a brown bandana and her freckled face was smudged with lampblack, but the slightest reflection of sunlight from her binoculars might bring down a volley of mortar rounds so she was very slow and deliberate in her movements.
The eastern horizon was a rosy shade of pink streaked with a few smudges of smoke from the enemy mortar attack that had just ended. The Republic Lieutenant that had slipped up the hill to speak with Sergeant Marsh late in the night had filled them in on the situation; the Caliphate commander was expected to follow the same formula that had been so successful for the muslim troops this year.
He would use his mortars for a preparatory barrage right before dawn, then bring his troops up to the opposite bank of the river and bring down another barrage of mortar fire on any visible defensive positions. The first wave of the attack would follow right on the heels of the second mortar barrage. The muslim commander would hope that the combination of mortar fire and morning light in the eyes of the defenders would give his initial assault a chance to get across and break the defense in one quick attack.
It looked like the enemy commander was sticking to the script; Sarah felt her pulse begin to pound as she spotted dark green Caliphate tunics pushing through the underbrush on the far side of the river, metal glinting dully as rifles were raised to shoulders. Even as Sarah shoved the binoculars in their pouch and snapped it shut, she heard Marsh rapidly crank the handle of the battered hand-powered comm box and growl "showtime" into the microphone. By the time Sarah had dragged her rifle up to her shoulder, Marsh had already put the comm box away and was snuggling his own weapon up against his cheek. The third Marksman, a mousy brunette named Wiley had her rifle, a bolt-action .303 aimed downrange and took the first shot. The sharp crack of Wiley's shot sent a Caliphate soldier tumbling and sparked a veritable storm of fire from both sides of the river.
Thick clouds of smoke quickly shrouded the riverbanks as the muslim soldiers knelt in place and fired, then opened the breeches of their rifles, thumbed in another round, snapped the breech shut, aimed and fired again. The Defenders were doing the same, but firing from holes and far less exposed. Most of them were Idahoan militiamen who had been shooting since they were boys; their heavy single-shot rifles lashed the muslim troops with a hail of accurate fire. From the center of the defensive line, the sharp snap of semi-automatic fire from the assault rifles of the Republic soldiers sounded, taking a heavy toll of Caliphate soldiers across the shallowest section of the river.
Sarah laid the inverted V of her scope over a green-suited figure kneeling behind a pine tree, gently taking up trigger pressure until she was almost startled by the snap of it firing. Her weapon was a meticulously cared-for M16A2 from a Washington State National Guard Armory that the Republic had claimed right after its formation almost a hundred years before. The shot was about 150 yards, but with an excellent shooter like Sarah and the quality optics fitted to the old assault rifle, it was no surprise that her first shot tore right through the target's center mass. Marsh and Wiley slowly worked through distant targets with their heavier, bolt-action rifles, while Sarah focused on Caliphate soldiers right at the riverbank, tapping through her first twenty-round box magazine in less than a minute.
Just as she slapped her second magazine into place and prepared to resume shooting, Sarah heard the crump of mortar rounds beginning to land on the western river bank down below. Marsh turned his head and looked over at her and Sarah felt her fear rise a notch when she saw the crazed look in his eyes.
"The enemy commander is a smart bastard" shouted Marsh over the din of fire. "He sent his first wave up to start a firefight so that his spotters could get a better look at where to bring the mortar fire down. Maximum fire now, it's about to get hairy!"
Sarah swallowed hard and went back to her work, shooting through her second magazine much more quickly. Marsh and Wiley picked up their fire as well, rapidly working the bolts of their hunting rifles, snapping fresh five-round boxes into their guns and firing away. Meanwhile, down below a three-round stonk of mortar rounds walked right across the pair of foxholes that held the squad of Republic soldiers and their Lieutenant. In an instant, almost all of the semi-automatic rifle fire at the center of the defensive line was silenced and the leader of the defense killed. The Idahoans, stubborn to a fault, kept methodically killing the exposed Caliphate soldiers on the far bank of the river, but the volume of defensive fire had dropped sharply.
