The attack on the Cavalry outpost was more intense than anything they'd seen in months. But it had ended they same way they all did, with windrows of dead creatures littering the desert floor stretching from the concertina wire in front of the first berm all the way back to the cemetery on the outskirts of Barstow. One thing that had made this one different from all the rest, the first positive sighting of one of the "
smart ones" that the new intel chief had briefed the command about just days earlier.
The smart one and a small group of its companions had actually made it through the first line of concertina wire. Most were killed as they crested the berm, but the smart one made it into a fighting position, where it died trying to beat its way into a buttoned up
Bradley fighting vehicle.
SFC East, the acting First Sergaent of B Troop, 1/11 Cavalry had the grisly task of photographing the battlefield for the after action report. Not that there was much to photograph of the smart one. It had been hit by machine gun fire from a neighboring position just as the Bradley crew had fired a
claymore mine at it. All that remained were a pair of feet, in new looking hiking boots, and one mangled arm. The witnesses all agreed that it had looked female, and the remains seemed to confirm that.
As he snapped a closeup of the arm SFC East wondered if there was any significance to the big ring on one of its fingers. It had a distinctive design, looking like two birds wings wrapped around some sort of stone. He figured he’d leave that one to SGT Cross to figure out. Once he finished he directed the clean up crew to take the remains away and burn them with all the others.
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