Page 50 of Stand Fast

Well, you can’t always get what you want.

Yeah. Wasn’t that the truth?

With a mental headshake, she focused back on the screen as the SF team approached the remote village. Everything was so quiet, the team having maintained the element of surprise. The target convoy in the village consisted of seven heavy trucks. Was The Jackal in one of them? Her pulse beat faster.

“Contact, eleven o’clock,” Sergeant Bowen suddenly called out.

Fear slammed into her.

Jaliya gripped the edge of the table harder and stared at the screen, her heart surging with a mixture of alarm and dread as the sharp crack of gunfire filled the audio feed.

The steel door behind her opened quietly. She spared a brief glance over her shoulder to see Taggart step inside before looking back at the screen. The SF team was taking enemy fire from the village.

“Engage all targets!” Bowen yelled over the noise of battle.

The volume of fire increased sharply, a staccato beat that matched the clatter of her heart against her ribs. Her hands turned clammy and cold and she was vaguely aware that she was holding her breath as she watched the footage from Bowen’s helmet cam.

On screen the world tilted and rolled as Bowen hit the ground with a harsh grunt. Jaliya’s stomach clenched.

He didn’t move.

Everyone around her was deathly quiet, only the crack of gunfire filling the room. She stared at the screen, unblinking, horror washing through her.

Get up. Please get up…

“Bowen’s down,” another voice said over the radio.

The army colonel next to her cursed under his breath and shifted restlessly, his eyes glued to the screen.

Through Bowen’s helmet cam, tracer fire arced through the darkness like swarms of lethal fireflies. Satellite imagery on the flat screen mounted on the wall above them showed thermal images of the battlefield, the enemy swarming out of the trucks and houses in the village.

Too many. Far more than they’d anticipated.

Ice shot through her veins as she realized the intel she’d received had been wrong. That the information they’d based this entire operation on had been wrong.

The SF team continued to return fire in the face of the overwhelming enemy force attacking them. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Had thought the intel was reliable after the bad tip she’d gotten last time.

“Fall back,” one of the men ordered sharply.

Jaliya let go of the table edge and straightened, unable to stem the urge to press a trembling hand over her mouth as she watched the tragedy unfold via satellite imagery, helpless to stop it.

Three more SF soldiers fell. Their remaining teammates laid down suppressive fire and rushed in to save them, risking their own lives to pull them out. One fell next to his wounded teammate during the recovery attempt.

Jaliya bit her lips together, horrified.

“Be advised, we’ve got seven wounded, three critical,” a breathless voice reported.

“Jesus Christ,” someone muttered next to her.

It was a bloodbath. And she’d sent them straight into it.

Everything in her wanted to turn and run out the door, flee from this horror and the weight of responsibility crashing down on her. She refused to obey her instinct, made herself stand her ground and watch the carnage she had created unfold in front of her.

Men shouted orders and reported in to the TOC. The soldier handling comms in the room responded at a rapid clip, relaying critical information. “Two medevacs have been dispatched to exfil point delta, ETA thirteen minutes. Gunship en route. Retreat to that position and await—”

“Negative,” one of the soldiers responded, “we don’t have thirteen minutes. Two of our critical are bleeding out.”

Jaliya swallowed convulsively as her stomach twisted. Those men were bleeding out because of her. Dying right there on the screen in front of her.

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