K9LTW – a fiction by MKHurder part-2
Chapter 25— After the fire
Day Break
Dawn crept over Bearcat like a reluctant confession, revealing the scars the night had carved into the earth. Smoke drifted in long, lazy ribbons across the kill zone, carrying the bitter smell of burned foliage and the faint chemical tang of spent propellant. The western wall, battered and blackened, stood in a jagged silhouette against the pale sky.
McCready led his squad out through the breach, their boots sinking into the churned mud where the human wave had broken and rolled back. The men moved slowly, their movements stiff with exhaustion, their eyes raw from smoke and adrenaline. The world felt hollowed out. Even the birds had not yet dared to return.
The kill zone was a graveyard of shattered vegetation and twisted wire. Craters pocked the ground like open mouths. The jungle beyond the wire smoldered in deep, glowing seams where napalm had burned through the undergrowth. The air was thick with humidity and the lingering heat of the firestorm.
Reyes raised a fist, and the squad halted. He crouched beside a crater where Rook sat. The earth had been peeled back in a violent curl. Something glinted faintly in the dirt. He brushed away the ash and lifted a bugle. The brass was dented and scorched, but the mouthpiece was still warm. He turned it over in his hands, imagining the breath that had filled it only hours before.
Getting to his scout too late he berated the handler with fatherly concern. “Don’t you ever pick something up from the trail. Are you nuts? You’ll kill yourself and all of us with you. Think, Reyes. Think!” Rook got anxious and forced himself between the two men. “Easy boy.” Reyes soothed his protector. “Sarge is right. Sorry, Sarge. I wasn’t thinking, I saw dollar signs.”
Tran Van Quang
A few hundred meters deeper in the jungle, the man who had blown that bugle sat with his back against a tree, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. His name was Captain Tran Van Quang, a career officer in his mid-thirties with a reputation for patience and precision. He had fought the French as a teenager, survived the early American air campaigns, and earned the quiet respect of his men not through speeches but through the way he moved through the jungle: calm, deliberate, unshaken.
Quang held a canteen in trembling hands, the metal still warm from the night’s heat. Around him, his soldiers whispered in low voices, their faces streaked with soot. They were reorganizing, redistributing ammunition, checking each other’s wounds. Their political officer, Lieutenant Bao, crouched beside him.
Quang lifted his field glasses and studied the American perimeter. He had expected the Americans to break. They had not. He had expected their artillery to falter. It had not. He had expected their resolve to waver. It had not. But he had also seen something else: a pattern in their fire discipline, a rhythm in their reinforcement timing, a mind behind their defense that was not merely reacting but anticipating.
“They have a strong commander,” Quang murmured.
Bao shifted beside him. “We will break them with the next assault.”
Quang shook his head. “Not if he is still alive.”
Sign
Back in the kill zone, Corporal Hines knelt beside a patch of damp soil. “Sarge,” he called quietly. McCready joined him and saw a line of footprints pressed sharply into the mud. They were fresh, crisp, and deliberate. Whoever had made them had not been running. They had been withdrawing with discipline.
McCready felt a cold knot form in his stomach. He keyed his radio. “Jasper, this is McCready. They pulled back in good order. They are regrouping in the tree line.”
Static crackled, followed by Jasper’s voice, low and strained. “Copy. Hold position.”
Inside the Tactical Operations Center, Jasper stood over the map table with both hands braced against the plywood. The room trembled with each distant impact, sending thin trails of dust drifting from the seams in the ceiling. Radios hissed and popped around him, their channels crowded with overlapping voices. Artillery batteries called for adjustments. Pilots reported fuel states. Platoon sergeants shouted over gunfire and static. The air was thick with sweat, cigarette smoke, and the metallic scent of overheated electronics.
Jasper’s eyes burned from fatigue, but he forced himself to focus. The map beneath his hands was a patchwork of grease-pencil lines, circled grid squares, and hastily scribbled notes. The night had redrawn the battlefield in ways he was still trying to understand.
A young lieutenant approached, his face pale beneath the grime. “Sir, if McCready is right, they are setting up for another push.”
Jasper nodded slowly. “Yeah! They are. They always do.”
The lieutenant swallowed. “Do we commit the reserves?”
Jasper looked at him, then back at the map. He thought of the men on the line, their bodies bruised and their nerves frayed. He thought of the convoy that had rolled in through the southern gate, engines growling in the darkness, bringing reinforcements who had barely stepped off their tracks before being thrown into the fight. He thought of the responsibility that came with command, the decisions that could not be undone.
“Not yet,” Jasper said. “Tell McCready to push to Phase Line Copper. I need eyes forward before I move anyone.”
The lieutenant nodded and hurried off.
Fatal Decisions
Jasper remained still for a moment, staring at the map. The enemy movements were too coordinated, too disciplined. Someone out there was thinking. Someone out there was matching him move for move.
He tapped the map with the end of a grease pencil. “This isn’t a mob. This is a commander who knows what he’s doing.”
He stepped out of the TOC and scanned the firebase until he spotted the man he needed. Sergeant Daniel Ellery, known across the battalion as Hawk, sat on an ammo crate cleaning the long, dark barrel of his Winchester Model 70 sniper rifle. He was a quiet man from Montana, lean and steady, with a calm that unnerved even seasoned soldiers.
Jasper approached him. “Sergeant Ellery.”
Hawk looked up, his expression unreadable. “Sir.”
“I need a long shot,” Jasper said. “A thousand meters. Maybe more.”
Hawk nodded once. “Where?”
“Top of the Commo Shack. You’ll have the height. The enemy commander is out there. He’s smart and he’s disciplined. He’s the one driving this fight.”
Hawk slid the bolt into place with a soft metallic click. “You want him gone.”
“I want him gone,” Jasper said quietly.
Hawk stood, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and adjusted the strap. “I’ll find him.”
Bodie’s Nose
Doc knelt beside a wounded MP whose arm was wrapped in a field dressing. Bodie paced near the open doorway, his nails clicking softly against the concrete floor. The kennel smelled of antiseptic, sweat, and the faint musk of the dogs. A lantern hung from a nail in the wall, casting a warm glow across the cramped space.
Doc finished securing the bandage and sat back on his heels. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and glanced at Bodie. The dog had stopped pacing and now stood rigid, staring toward the jungle. His tail was low, and a soft growl rumbled in his chest. Situated on the far southern side of the firebase, and with a straight shot to the wire, the Kennel provided a strategically well-placed early warning system, provided there’s a dog there, and nature stuck to the prevalent Wind Direction of southwest to northeast, straight at the kennels from Highway One.
Doc rose slowly. “What is it, boy?”
Bodie did not look at him. His gaze remained fixed on the smoke drifting beyond the perimeter. Doc stepped to the doorway and peered out. The smoke shifted in the early light, revealing nothing but the torn landscape. Yet something in the air felt different. The jungle was too quiet, too still. He felt a chill run down his spine. Why would they come from the south? They’d have a hell of a time getting in behind us. Someone surely would have spotted them. Conner thought. “Shit. I better call it in, boy.””
He reached for the radio on the wall. “TOC, this is Specialist Conner at the kennel. You might want to know Bodie is picking up something. I do not know what yet, but he seems to.”
Static crackled before Jasper’s voice answered. “Understood. Keep him close.”
Doc lowered the handset and looked back at Bodie. The dog’s growl deepened, and his stance tightened. He seemed to be getting more agitated.
Laying out Quang’s Plan
In the jungle, Captain Quang moved with his platoon leaders, marking new approach routes with a stick in the dirt. He spoke softly, his voice calm despite the exhaustion etched into his features. HE explained how his plan to send 2nd Battalion around the base through the swamps to the east ultimately to strike the soft underbelly of Bearcat – from the south.
“We will strike here,” he said, pointing to a narrow gap in the American wire. “Their machine guns cannot cover this angle. Once the main element strikes here” pointing to a section of wire on the northwest corner of the camp, “we wait ten minutes, then spring the southern attack.”
Bao frowned. “It is risky.”
“All war is risky,” Quang replied. “But this commander… he is cautious. He will not commit his reserves until he is certain. We must force his hand. I must see what else he has in store for us. I must know before the Yankees bring in more men.”
He stood and wiped the dirt from his palms. The jungle around them was quiet, too quiet. Even the insects seemed to hold their breath.
Quang lifted his field glasses again.
Hawk’s shot
From atop the Commo Shack, Hawk lay prone on a sandbagged platform. The morning air shimmered with heat rising from the scorched earth. Smoke drifted in slow, unpredictable currents, forcing him to wait for clear windows.
He breathed slowly, evenly, letting his heartbeat settle.
Through the scope, the jungle was a shifting mosaic of shadow and light. Then, for a moment, the smoke parted.
A figure came into view.
An officer. Calm. Focused. Studying the American lines with field glasses.
Hawk adjusted the elevation knob with the tips of his fingers. The distance was long, but not impossible. He exhaled and let the breath go halfway then held.
The crosshairs settled on the man’s chest.
Hawk squeezed the trigger.
The rifle cracked like a whip.
Captain Quang felt the impact before he heard the shot. A sudden, crushing force struck him just below the collarbone, spinning him backward. His field glasses flew from his hands and landed in the dirt beside him.
Bao shouted his name and dropped to his knees, catching him before he hit the ground.
Quang’s eyes widened in surprise, not fear. He tried to speak, but only a thin whisper escaped.
“He… saw me.”
His gaze drifted upward, toward the pale morning sky visible through the canopy. His breath shuddered once, then stopped.
Bao looked toward the American lines, rage and grief twisting his features.
In the TOC, Jasper stood over the map when the radio crackled.
“Target down,” Hawk said simply.
Jasper closed his eyes for a moment. He felt the battlefield shift, subtle but unmistakable, like a taut wire suddenly slackening. “Good work, Sergeant,” he replied.
He set the handset down and looked at the map again. The enemy would still come. They would still fight. But without their commander, their cohesion would falter. Their timing would slip. Their discipline would waver.
For the first time since the night assault began, Jasper allowed himself a single, quiet breath of relief. Then he straightened. “Get ready,” he said to the room. “They’re going to hit us again, so we’re going to hold again.”
Outside, the sun climbed higher, burning through the smoke. The jungle waited in silence.
Bearcat held its breath.
(to be continued) Chapter 26 – The Second Silence Teaser – The jungle did not erupt after Quang fell. It went quiet. Too quiet. in the uneasy calm that follows the sniper’s shot. Bearcat’s defenders brace for the next assault, but the expected wave does not come. Instead, the NVA reorganize under new, uncertain leadership, probing the perimeter with a different rhythm. McCready’s squad pushes deeper into the tree line, discovering signs of a shifting strategy. Reyes and the dogs sense movement long before the radios catch it. Jasper realizes the enemy is not retreating.
(Attn: all images AI generated from my prompts unless otherwise noted.)
It’s just my blurb from here to the end.
Click the link to start from the beginning of – K9LTW/BOOK1-Chapter 1 – fiction
Click the link to start from the beginning of – K9LTW/BOOK2-Chapter 16 – fiction
Click the link to start from the beginning of – Doh-Rey-Me/BOOK1-Chapter1 – fiction
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Bonus Fiction Feature:
If you read any of the fiction I create here to the end, you will be able to download a free copy when It’s complete. If I get a referral from you, I’ll throw in the fiction – Burtt the Blade.
From Popi’s Tales & The Book of Wonders
More from Popi’s Collection of Facts & Fiction
- Burtt the Blade – fiction
- Doh-Rey-Me Book 1 – fiction – book – written here
- Doh-Rey-Me Book 2 – fiction – book – written here
- K9LTW Book 1 – fiction – book – written here
- K9LTW Book 2 – fiction – book – written here – in progress
- Mystery of Willow Woods – fiction – short Story – written here
- The Last Signal – part one – fiction – book – written here
- Rift Guardians – chapter#1 – fiction – book – written here
- Shorty’s Path – non-fiction auto biography book
Table of Contents
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