The ground in front of him blew up in his face and he was thrown back. His ears started ringing, and his head hurt. A. Lot. The kind of head pain that made you want to chug Tylenol and Motrin until you died.

   He opened his eyes and looked down the trench line. Doc, the team’s corpsman, was moving down the line towards Dean and Tang, his medical bag in one hand, M4 in the other. He got about fifteen feet away before an RPG blew him off his feet. He went down hard and didn’t come back up.

   Dean’s hearing returned, and he adjusted his ear protection. He couldn’t hear comms, but his hearing had started to return. If he hadn’t had the hearing protection, he would probably be deaf right now. He cast around for his M110 for a second time, found it, and checked the magazine. He estimated about five rounds left. Checking the chamber, he had a round loaded. That meant six shots, so he took the depleted magazine and put a full one back in the rifle.

   Someone was yelling. “Doc! Doc! Get up!” After looking, Dean could see Tang was over, shaking the Doc’s shoulder. After a couple moments, he opened Doc’s med bag. Rogue, a machine-gunner, was covering both of them with his SAW spitting ammunition.

   “We’ve got hostiles pushing up!” Someone yelled, and Dean checked that the red dot sight, mounted at a forty-five-degree angle on the right side of the rifle, was still intact, then set the rifle down and drew his .45, racking a round into the chamber. He glanced at his left forearm, where a sheath holding a modernized double-edged dagger was secured to the outside of his forearm. The handle of the dagger was pointing down toward his wrist. He checked that the sheath was still strapped securely. His father had given him the knife when he enlisted.

   Rogue’s SAW ran dry and he set it down, picking up Doc’s rifle and checking the chamber. Tang touched two of his fingers to Doc’s neck, feeling for a pulse. Then, he looked over at Dean and slowly shook his head. “He’s gone.”

   Dean swore. There was a flurry of gunfire that sounded a lot closer than it had a few moments ago. Dean glanced up over the small defilade and then ducked his head down. There were a bunch of hostiles walking up to them, and a couple of shots cracked over his head after he ducked down.

   Tang slid over next to him. He had stuffed a couple of Doc’s M4 magazines into his vest and had his M4. Dean had his .45 clutched in both of his hands. “They’re getting way too close,” Dean said to Tang.

   “How much ammo you got?” Tang asked, drawing and cycling the slide on his .45 before reholstering it.

   “Two full mags for the rifle, one in the gun, five spare rounds. Three mags for the pistol plus one in the gun.”

   “I’ve got three, including the loaded one. Three plus one for the pistol.”

   “Well, they’ll keep coming anyway.” Dean sighed. “Might as well make them count.”

   “Damn straight,” Tang muttered.

   Dean checked his radio. Busted. The small antenna had been bent badly. He ripped his earpiece out from underneath his ear protection.

   More gunfire sounded, slightly closer. There were pops of suppressed rifles as well as the rhythmic clack-clack-clack-clack of the AKs. There were no more rockets, though.

   “Your radio working?” Dean asked.

   Tang checked it. “Nah. Quit working a bit ago, never figured out what was wrong.” He ducked down slightly as a grenade went off. Followed by more AK fire. Then there was a strange silence.

   “Weren’t we in the middle of a full-blown firefight a few seconds ago?” Tang murmured.

   “Yeah,” Dean whispered, grabbing his rifle and checking the chamber. “I’m gonna pop up on three, and anyone who’s not us gets it. Sound good?”

   “Got it,” Tang said. “In three, two, go!”

   Dean hauled himself up and shoved his rifle up to his shoulder. There were two men in black turbans struggling with their rifles. Dean set the canted red dot sight on one and pumped the trigger repeatedly. Tang flicked the selector on the M4 to full and emptied the magazine. Neither of them paused to assess the damage they had done, ducking back down and reloading. There were yells, then some more AK fire in their direction. Tang tugged a hand grenade out of a pouch and held it up. Dean shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt,” he said, swapping rifle magazines.

   Tang tugged the pin out and held the safety catch. He peeked up carefully, ducked back down as an AK round cracked past him. The grenades’ safety catch clicked free, and Tang pitched it into the air towards his chosen target. There was a couple of yells and a blast. Dean had no clue where the grenade had landed or what damage it had caused, but he wasn’t about to risk having his head taken off again.

   Then he heard a foot scuff the dirt behind him, and his world went black.

Dean woke up with his hands tied behind his back, laying on his side, cheek pressed in the dirt. There was a dirty set of old, battered, ripped sneakers right in front of his face. Dean barely breathed.

   Someone was tossed to the ground in front of him, trussed just as Dean was. Tang met his eyes and mouthed, “Do. Not. Move.”

   There was yelling in Pashto. A lot of it. Another person was thrown down behind Tang. The person cursed loudly, and he was kicked roughly in the stomach. His vest caught most of it, but he fell silent.

   One of the Afghani’s yelled out in English. “Where are the other Americans?”

   Dean gritted his teeth. He had gone through the MARSOC basic Prisoner-Of-War course, which had included resisting interrogation, but he was panicking right now.

   The same man called out loud again. “Where are your American friends?”

   “They ain’t here!” Frank yelled. Frank was the team’s radio tech. “Just us three.”

   There was silence. Then the soft padding of feet reached Dean’s ears, and he could see the man standing over Frank, holding an AK wearing an olive drab turban and vest, with blue jeans and an old set of shoes that looked like moccasins. He peered down at Frank through a thick black and gray beard. His beady black eyes lifeless.

   “Liar.”

   Then he raised the AK and fired three times.

   Dean found himself shouting, along with Tang. “Frank! Frank!”

   The Afghani man shouted orders in Pashto, waving his finger in a circle above his head, seeming to signal for his men to regroup to leave.

   Then, Dean had a black bag pulled over his head, and he was struck again across the head and sent into unconsciousness.

Dean felt like a sharp, white-hot spike had been driven through his head.

   His eyes were still shut, and he could feel his pulse pounding in his head. His mouth was dry and he was stiff.

The floor was incredibly cold, and his cheek was slightly numb. His hearing was full of echoes and murmurs. It sounded like someone was saying his name.

   Then his hearing evened out.

   “Dean,” Tang said.

   Dean groaned out loud and rolled over, opening his eyes. Tang was sitting up against the wall, built of tan stone. The room was barely lit with a fluorescent electric lamp hanging from the ceiling. Some wooden crates were stacked along one of the walls, and a staircase was set into the wall to Dean’s left. Tang was against the wall to his right, facing the staircase.

   “Welcome back,” Tang said softly. His elbows were resting on his knees, hands hanging limply out in front of him. He had a cut on his forehead, and blood had dried in a trail down his forehead, across the bridge of his nose and to the left side.

   Dean coughed. “I feel like crap.” He rasped.

   Tang chuckled. “You look the part.”

   Dean hauled himself up slowly so his back was resting on the wall. He could feel a lump on the back of his head, and the gash on the side of his head was excruciating. Looking at his hands, he still had his gloves, albeit they were caked with dirt and had a couple of small tears.

   “Need water?” Tang asked him. Dean nodded, and he was tossed a dirty plastic water bottle. He tried to catch it but missed. He scavenged it off the floor and twisted the cap off, holding the bottle to his lips. There wasn’t much left, and he tilted it upwards and sipped some. It tasted metallic and off, but water was water.

   “Where we at?” Dean said, voice still rough.

   “Basement of some kind.” Tang coughed, and spit into a corner. “No windows, they took my vest and forty-five, and knife.

   Dean noted now he wasn’t wearing his vest. His knife on his arm was gone. He still had the thigh holster for his pistol on his leg, minus the pistol. He still had his boots, thank goodness.

   “Anything we can use down here?” He asked quietly.

   “Not that I’ve found,” Tang replied solemnly. “Haven’t tried to crack open any of these boxes yet. They just dragged us down here, tossed the water bottle at me, and left.”

   Dean sighed. “Door barred?”

   Tang nodded. “Outside, sounds like an armed guard. Several others as well.”

   Dean swore. “Do you think anyone else made it out?”

   Tang shook his head.

   Dean just died inside. No weapons, no communications, no team, no nothing. He was locked in his tomb with a teammate for company.

   Dean rolled over and closed his eyes. He felt like crap now. He was alive while his teammates weren’t, being held hostage in an unknown place, by an unknown group, with unknown possibilities. His body hurt, his head most of all.

   The door on the staircase creaked open, the door slamming against the wall. Yelling in Pashto ensued, and one of the men guarding Tang and Dean came down the stairs, an AKS carbine sweeping the room. He gestured and pointed toward the wall with the barrel of the carbine. Tang and Dean complied. The guard kept the AKS pointed at them while they had their backs up against the wall.

Two more men came down the stairs. All three of them had their heads, necks, and faces wrapped in scarves. One of the men carried two wooden plates, each with a cup and chunk of bread, the other an AK. The one carrying the plates set them on the floor, turned around, and walked up the stairs. His counterpart with the full-sized AK followed him, and the guard covering Dean and Tang with the carbine backed up, rifle still pointed at them, and retreated up to the top of the stairs, out of sight. The door slammed shut loudly, and the sound of the door being barred from the outside sent Dean’s remote hopes of escape down the drain.

Tang lifted up one of the plates. He sniffed the stone cup. “Goat milk.”

Dean wrinkled his nose. He hated anything goat, be it milk or cheese for that matter. He picked up the bread and sniffed it. Smelled very basic. He took a bite. Bland. He chewed and swallowed anyway, the dry bread scratching his throat on the way down. He tried a sip of the goat milk, and promptly spit it out.

Tang raised an eyebrow at him. “Bread a little bit dry, you might want that.”

Dean coughed, spitting hard on the floor again. “I’ll pass.”

Tang grabbed the cup. “More for me then.” he shrugged, taking another sip.

Dean lay back down on his side, nibbling on a corner of the chunk of bread. He didn’t really expect to eat soon again, but his stomach felt like it was tearing itself apart in hunger.

Tang muttered a curse, and stood up, beginning to pace. Dean just watched him. Tang had his hands shoved in his trouser pockets, back and forth along the length of the room.

Tang shouted and kicked out at one of the wooden crates stacked along the wall. The side of it splintered in and broke.

Tang crouched next to it and ran a finger along the edges of the break in the wall of the crate he’d just created.

Dean sat up and watched. The hole was roughly fist-sized, the plywood of the crate splintering into fragments. Tang reached inside the crate, sticking his hand inside the crate up to the wrist, and pulled out a pistol.

Tang grinned as he checked the magazine on the Makarov PMM. Then he racked a round into the chamber and clicked the safety on. “Day’s looking brighter, isn’t it?”

The door flew open again and someone yelled. Footsteps on the staircase and Dean saw an AK barrel pointed at Tang in the adjacent corner of the room. Then the barrel swept around the room to Dean’s corner, the man was standing over Dean, almost shoving the AK into his mouth, yelling in Pashto.

   Then there was a gunshot, and he slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. Dean was up and grabbing his AK almost immediately. He checked the magazine and cycled the bolt.

   Shouting on the stairs, and more footsteps. Dean flipped the selector to full auto and stepped around so he was facing up the staircase, drew the AK up to his shoulder, and held the trigger.

   There were three guys all coming down the stairs, two with two more full-sized AKs and the guard with the shortened AKS carbine. They all caught bullets and tumbled down the stairs. Dean sidestepped and they crashed at the bottom.

   Tang was up, grabbing one of the AKs and checking the chamber. The Makarov was tucked into his waistband. Dean grabbed the shortened carbine and was following Tang up the stairs and out of their prison.  

   Tang went left and fired the AK on single three times. Dean followed up behind him. One of their captors stepped around behind a makeshift half-wall and Dean shot him four times.  He dropped a Dragonuv SVD rifle with a sling.

   Dean loved his M110 rifle, which was probably somewhere in this building, but there was no time to find it. He stripped the terrorist of his vest that held spare AK and SVD magazines, strapped it on, then slung the SVD to his back.

   More gunshots, multiple this time. A yell and a more gunfire. Dean raised the AKS to his shoulder and swept around the staircase into another room…

   ...and almost shot Tang who was standing over three dead terrorists, all wrapped in the same scarves and tactical vests. One of them had a pump action shotgun with an eight shell tube, and Tang picked it up, claiming his vest. He traded his AK for one with a sling, which got slung on his back, and he racked the pump on the shotgun.

   There was a window that lead outside. Tang smashed it with the butt of the shotgun, and stepped out onto a stone deck, turning and taking a knee facing right. Dean stepped over the windowsill and swept left. Tang walked backward, facing the other way. The two were back to back.

   More yelling in Pashtun down on a street. The two Marines were on the second floor outside deck made of stone. A stone barricade faced outwards into a deserted street, houses crumbling, with burned out vehicles filled with bullet holes littering the street. Dean leaned the AK carbine against the stone wall, and unslung the SVD, cycling the bolt, ejecting the round that was in the chamber to ensure that he was ready to fire. To his left, Tang was preparing his AK.

   Dean carefully slid over the top of the half-wall, resting the SVD on the rounded stone surface on the top. He set his sights on a group of fighters armed with rifles all gathered around a truck collecting ammunition. He exhaled and squeezed the trigger, dropping one.

   The fighters scattered. Dean exhaled again and squeezed. Another one went down. Tang began taking potshots with the AK, keeping their heads down.

   One of the fighters collected an AK-47. Dean exhaled and squeezed a third time. Another dead fighter.

   A rifle round hit the half-wall. Dean fired again. A terrorist dropped his rifle and fell flat on his chest. Tang flicked the selector of his AK over to full auto and sprayed the last of his magazine, taking cover to reload.

   One of the terrorists below had collected an RPG and was hiding behind a burned out truck. Dean could still see the rocket on the front of the launcher, so he set his sights, exhaled, and fired again.

   The resulting explosion flipped the truck wreckage. Dean felt frag miss his head by a few hairs, and he ducked down behind cover. There was a sand cloud from the explosion, but no more sounds of hostiles were coming from the street.

   Then he saw Tang.

   He was lying on his side, unmoving.

   Dean laid the SVD down on the stone and grabbed the AK carbine. There was still plenty of ammunition in the magazine and low crouch-walked behind cover to where Tang was.

   Dean shook his shoulder briefly. He was unresponsive. Dean felt for a pulse on his neck. There was none.

   His heart sank immediately.

   He was now truly alone.

   There was the sound of a truck down on the road. More terrorists.

   He grabbed the SVD and set it across the stone again, supporting the stock with his left hand, eye to the scope.

   He felt nothing.

   The truck rolled around a corner, followed by a second, then a third. The first truck was plain, occupied by four people, the bed filled with rusted yellow drums. The first round went through the windshield, taking out the driver. The truck swerved left and immediately flipped, rolling over. The barrels were secured to the bed, so they didn’t leave the truck.

   The second and third trucks had mounted machine guns in the bed, manned by fighters. The first truck had a large 12.7mm DsHK machine gun, which immediately opened up with little to no accuracy. Dean reoriented and dropped the gunner. The third truck had a smaller PKP machine gun, firing 7.62, which the gunner began to shoot. Bullets were finding the air all around Dean.

   Still, he exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

   The gunner dropped. Next was the driver of the third truck. The third truck then immediately accelerated into the back of the second truck, knocking it off course and rolling it. The truck rolled directly into the first truck, the third right behind it.

   Then all three trucks exploded.

   And there was silence.

 The walk out of the town was burning hot.

   Dean had sweat pouring down his brow, dripping into his eyes and mouth. He had gone back through the building, searching it top to bottom. He had found all of his and Tang’s gear. Dean had taken his M110, his .45, Camelbak still filled with water, his vest, knife, and other odds and ends. He had a Russian anti-tank hand grenade as well.

   He had walked out of the city. The inhabitants had begun to come out of hiding. They approached the truck wreckage carefully. An AK had gone off, the round in the barrel cooking off, and a few scattered, but several persisted. One scavenged a slightly damaged AK rifle from one of the bodies and promptly ran away. Another ripped the PKP machine gun out of the wreckage and began to drag it away, but he was pushed over and the PKP picked up by two young boys, who ran away with it like a stretcher.

   Dean exited the floor of the building, which appeared to be some sort of shop. Explained the locked basement room. He still had the scope on his rifle, and the red dot sight on the top still had battery when Dean turned it on, surprisingly. He had expected some stupid Afghani to have left it on and run it down.

   Tang’s M4 had been there, but Dean had left it where it was. But first, he disassembled it, stripped out the firing pin. He had it in a pocket on his vest.

   And so he had walked. Just out of the town. The residents took one look at him and ignored him. An American walking around with a rifle in the Middle East. Nothing new.

   Eventually, the hardpack dirt and dust of the town had faded into the quicksand-like complete desert.

   He now realized that he wasn’t anywhere near Kandahar, because that was all mountains and forest. His best guess was the Registan Desert, between Kandahar and Helmand.

   He kept his eyes on the horizon. The desert was flat, with some hills. He was approaching a dune now, and he began to trod up it, slowly.

   His boots were lakes of sweat. The dune was a good thirty feet. He kept climbing up, forging on.

   Then he reached the crest.

   Down below him were two of the white trucks with the mounted DsHK machine guns. There was a group of maybe twelve fighters all spread out around the truck, eating and drinking.

   Dean laid down carefully and began digging into the sand underneath him, pushing the sand around him. Eventually, he had dug a hole around half a foot deep. He pulled the M110 rifle up next to him, and set the bipod, taking aim down the scope.

   One of the fighters was sitting on the side of the bed of the truck, his feet hanging off the side. Dean sighted on him first and sent a round. He fell backward into the bed of the truck. All his buddies froze.

   The next shot was for the gunner on the other truck, standing behind his DsHK. He slumped into the bed of his truck, like a puppet cut from its strings.

   And Dean fired again. And again. And again.

   The fighters returned fire desperately. Three of them made attempts to climb up into the bed of the truck to use the DshKs, but they died where they stood. The others took cover as best as they could. But they didn’t last long.

   Dean surveyed the damage firsthand. All fourteen fighters (Dean had counted them all) were down guns in the dirt. All a mix of AK-47 variants.

   He slung his M110 on his back and climbed up into one of the trucks. The tailgate was down, and he hauled three corpses out the back, throwing them into the sand. Then he turned to the massive DsHK machine gun. It was secured to a post welded to the bottom of the truck, but there was a pin connecting the gun to the post. Dean yanked the pin out and lifted the gun with his shoulder. He hauled it out of the truck and did the same with the second gun on the other truck. Then he threw the rifles into the pile too.

   One of the fighters had been bright enough to leave the keys to the truck in the driver’s cup holder. The truck had a full tank of gas.

   Dean backed the truck over the pile of guns. The second truck had the keys in the same cup holder. He pulled that truck forward, a good distance away.

   He pulled the pin on the Russian anti-tank grenade, and underhand tossed it into the pile of guns. The fuse had been modified for two minutes. He walked back to the other truck and climbed into the driver seat. It also had a full tank. He turned the key in the ignition and put the truck in drive.

   The resulting fireball from the guns wasn’t incredibly spectacular, but it worked.

Undisclosed Army Forward Operating Base.

Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.

   “Sir! I think I’ve got something.”

   The lieutenant on sentry duty looked up from the map he was reading. He had his full combat rig on, and grabbed his M4A1 carbine on the way out of the post building, jogging over to his platoon’s sniper.

   The sniper had a massive M82A1 Barret .50 caliber rifle on a bipod resting on top of a sandbag fortification. The sniper had his eye to the scope, looking out into where the Registan Desert ended.

   “What do you see?”

   “White Technical to our south-southwest, moving towards the base. Looks occupied by one person, no identifying marks. No machine-gun in the back, either.”

   “Got a scope?” The lieutenant asked.

   “Have a look for yourself.” The sniper slid out from behind the rifle.

   The lieutenant shouldered the rifle and rested his cheek on the stock, putting his eye to the scope. He could see the truck, about a kilometer out. Well within the massive rifle’s range. The truck was definitely moving towards the base.

   The lieutenant cycled the bolt, chambering one of the large rounds. He then settled himself in and disengaged the safety.

   “Get a Hummer on standby.” He muttered.

   “Yes sir.” the sniper said, climbing down from the fortifications.

   The truck continued.

   The lieutenant kept watching the truck through the Barret’s scope. The truck approached at a steady pace.

   The physical standoff continued for about fifteen minutes. After about ten the sniper had returned with a pair of binoculars, notifying him that the Hummer plus a squad were on standby at the gate.

   Then the truck stopped about six hundred meters out. Then the driver’s door opened.

   The lieutenant’s finger tightened on the trigger.

   A military-aged male wearing desert Marine pattern stepped out, holding an M110 rifle high above his head in both hands.

   The lieutenant exhaled and flicked the safety into place on the Barret. “It’s a Marine. Send the Hummer out to pick him up.”

   The sniper’s eyebrows shot up. “A survivor of the MARSOC team? I heard all of them were dead after fighting around two hundred insurgents.”

   The lieutenant looked at him for a long moment. “MARSOC operators have been known to do the impossible from time to time. Go fetch him, I want to hear his story.”

   Dean almost cried when he saw the gate open and the Hummer roll out. Almost.

   He had a feeling he was being watched through a rifle scope, and at that distance, it had to be a Barret. One shot from that would have put a hole in the truck’s engine block or ripped him in half depending on the skill of the sniper.

   He lowered the M110 down and slung it across his chest, standing in place, watching the Hummer approach.

   Eventually, it pulled up in front of him, the barrel of the M2 .50 cal pointed at him. All four doors opened and five Army soldiers got out.

   “Who are you?” One of them asked. He had his hand on his M4 but not aggressively.

   “Name’s Dean. Marine Special Operations Team eight three four one. Any of my teammates make it?”

   The soldier paused. He was a first sergeant, three ranks above Dean, but he obviously held a lot of respect for special operations guys. “Sorry son, you’re the only one. Five bodies were recovered from the scene of your guys’ engagement. Two, you and someone named Tang, were missing.”

   Dean’s heart caught in his throat.

   And then.

   He cried.