The Arctic Event Read Online Free PDF

regain situational awareness. The firefight seemed to be raging in the forest directly below him. He could go laterally along the ridge and disengage...No, damn it! That was his team down there!
    Breaking cover with his rifle lifted, Smith ran downslope toward the tree line, trying to dodge and weave. A squad automatic weapon rattled out a long burst, and the light on Smith’s MILES harness blazed on; the audial warning proclaimed him a dead man.
    Smith drew up, thoroughly disgusted with himself.
    The blank fire ended, and a man emerged from the trees: the same noncom who had worked with Smith on the long rappel. He’d been one of the instructor/observers monitoring this phase of the day’s exercises. “You’re all dead, Colonel,” he yelled. “Let’s break for lunch.”
    It would be a ranger’s lunch: a Hooyah energy bar and a long swig of tepid water from a hydration pack, the slayers and the slain collapsing to rest side by side beneath the trees.
    Nor was it “rest” in a pure form. Such a concept was alien to the program. Weapons and equipment had to be cleaned, ammunition pouches reloaded with more blank cartridges, maps studied, and critiques received on the morning’s drills. But it was a chance to unhelmet and unharness and sit in the shade, an opportunity to ease burning lungs and aching muscles for a few precious minutes. A luxury, but one Smith refused to enjoy.
    Grimly he spread a poncho out on the forest floor, not for himself but for the SR-25. Breaking out his gun-cleaning kit, he began to knock down the rifle, removing the powder residue from its components. He’d fired only the two shots, but it gave him something to do while he raged at himself.
    The ranger instructor crossed to where Smith sat cross-legged on the poncho, and took his own seat on a nearby log.
    “Would the colonel care to tell me how he fucked up, sir?”
    Smith stabbed a loaded cleaning rod down the SR’s barrel. “I failed to watch my back, Top. While I was fixated on the target on the far side of that ridge, I let the Red Force elements come in behind me. It was stupidity, just plain stupidity.”
    The noncom scowled and shook his head. “No, sir. You’re missing it. It was something more stupid than that. You didn’t let your troops cover your back, or cover their own.”
    Smith looked up. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean you didn’t use your team, sir. You didn’t deploy them into overwatch positions; you just told them to stay put. You might have been able to get away with that with an experienced noncom as your assistant team leader. He’d have set up a defense perimeter automatically, without having to be ordered. But you had a green kid with you who assumed his superior officer was supposed to be doing all the thinking. You didn’t take your troop quality into consideration. That was your second mistake.”
    Smith nodded his agreement. “What else?”
    “You could have used another set of eyes up with you on the ridge. You might have acquired your targets faster and been out of there faster.”
    Smith didn’t consider arguing the points. You didn’t argue when you knew you were in the wrong. “Points all taken, Top. I blew it.”
    “Yes, sir. You did. But it was the
way
you blew it...” The sergeant hesitated. “Begging the colonel’s pardon, but may I speak off the record?”
    There was a formality in the ranger’s voice, the kind often used by a noncom when bringing a potentially sensitive subject up with a superior.
    “I’m here to learn, Top.”
    The instructor studied Smith out of thoughtful, narrowed eyes. “You are an operator, aren’t you, Colonel? The real shit, not just a pill roller getting his ticket punched.”
    Smith stalled, lightly oiling the dismounted bolt of his rifle, considering his answer.
    Covert One did not exist. Smith was a member of no such organization. Those were absolutes. Yet this grizzled Special Ops trooper would no doubt be a master at seeing through bullshit.