The lead group hit the first trap line. The explosion threw one of them sideways. Screaming started. I sighted on a second, squeezed. He dropped.
“One down from blast,” she reported. “One from you. Two from the west trying to flank.”
“I see them.”
I shifted position. Three meters left, behind the outcropping. Found the flankers through the scope. One shot.
“One down on the west flank.”
“The other?”
A crack from the barn loft. Pause.
“Now two.”
Four down. Too many remaining.
They weren’t retreating. Either they were confident in their numbers, or someone was paying them enough that dying seemed preferable to failure.
Neither option made this easier.
The second wave pushed through the trap field faster than the first. They’d watched where the explosions came from, marked the safe paths. Learning. Adapting.
I dropped one more before they reached the inner perimeter. Her rifle cracked from the loft. Another body fell.
Six down.
Movement near the barn.
“Anhara. Two at your east wall.”
“Handling it.”
I heard the shots. One. Two.
Eight down.
Turnip came out of nowhere.
He burst from the barn’s lower door, two hundred kilos of muscle and fury. He hit the closest attacker at full charge, tusks first. The man screamed once. Then he didn’t. Turnip kept going, caught a second one trying to run, drove him into the dirt.
“Good pig,” she said over the comm.
I almost smiled.
The main group had reached the farmhouse perimeter. Ten of them, spreading to surround the building. I couldn’t get clear shots on all of them from this angle. Too many trees, too much cover.
“I’m moving down,” I said.
“Don’t.”
“They’ll breach the farmhouse in three minutes if I don’t thin them out.”
Silence on the comm. Then: “Be careful.”
I didn’t answer. Careful wasn’t the point. Effective was the point.
I left the ridge position and moved through the rocks, working my way down toward the farmhouse. Rifle slung across my back now. In close quarters, I needed my hands free.
