The Grace of the Beast

“Never seen anything like it, boss,” SP4 “Gus” Gustavsen said over the ICS from the driver’s seat of the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. “This is my second year in the sandbox, and I ain’t never seen a sandstorm like this.”

“Roger that, brother,” Staff Sergeant Henry “Bone” Bowen answered from the commander’s cupola. “Stay frosty. I got nothing on thermal or passive sensors. The Hajjis like to use stuff like this to get in close. Radio’s dead, too. I can’t raise anybody on the Company or Battalion nets. Sand must be frying our comms. What’s our supply status, Mouse?”

PFC Mickey Littlecreek was six foot five and Native American but everybody called him “Mouse.” He’d caught the nickname in Basic and had never been able to shake it.

Mouse glanced around the cramped fighting compartment before answering.

“We uploaded plenty of Class 3 last time the S4 rolled through. Looks like a full basic load of 25 mike-mike, half HE and half Depleted Uranium Armor Piercing. Maybe twenty boxes of seven six two, that’d be five thousand rounds, plus our standard loadout for our personal weapons. Plax and I topped off the tanks half an hour ago from the fuel truck. We are good to go, boss.”

Plax was Demetrius Plaxico, a skinny black kid from Chicago who was the sharpest 25mm Bushmaster gunner in the Battalion. Throughout the exchange, he silently scanned the swirling sandy darkness through his night sight, determined to catch a glimpse if anybody tried to slip up on them.

“Right,” Bone said wearily. “Nobody to talk to means nobody telling us to do anything. The sand is too thick to pop any of the hatches. We stay put and stay sharp until the storm dissipates. Then we get outside with shovels and free the Beast.”

“The Beast” was their armored home. These four soldiers were members of the 7th Cavalry, George Armstrong Custer’s old outfit, and they had all been in Iraq together more than ten months. All but Plax were on their second combat tour. Nearly a year into this deployment they ran the Beast like a sewing machine, keeping the steel behemoth maintained, fueled, armed, and ready. Inwardly they all just hoped for quiet tonight. The sand ground against the armored hide of the Beast carried by the howling wind. After a while that began to seem otherworldly and mesmerizing. Gradually each member of the crew grew sleepy. They had been in constant action for five straight days without more than a few hours’ sleep among them. They were stretched thin, and they knew it.

Gustavsen was the last to drift off despite his best efforts. Leaning his helmeted head forward against the hatch coaming, he was just going to rest his eyes for a few minutes. The strain of peering through the grainy green night vision imager threatening to blind him. His last thoughts before blissful slumber were of water slides with his kids back home in Florida.

The four members of the crew snapped instantly awake as all twenty five tons of the Beast shook violently. The shock threw Mouse to the floor of the fighting compartment and bounced Bone’s head against the inside of the turret. Only his helmet kept him from losing skin or worse. Plax grabbed the firing controls reflexively and slewed the turret searching madly for targets through his thermal sight. His sight showed a homogenous white so bright that it hurt his eyes.

“My thermal’s shot,” Plax shouted into the ICS. “I got nothing but white. Maybe we got painted with a laser or something. And what was that shock? Did we get nuked?” There was an unfamiliar ringing in his ears that cleared slowly.

“Same here,” shouted Bone. “My thermal’s dead, too. Anybody else got…”

He was cut off as the Beast lurched again. This time it felt like the entire vehicle was sliding on ice. All four men shouted and cursed as the Bradley slid from side to side like a child’s toy, knocking gear loose and leaving them disoriented. There was a sudden boom sufficient to be heard through the vehicle’s thick armored hide, and the entire track dropped bodily for at least two feet before everything was still. The sound of the sand against the hull was gone. In its place was an earsplitting silence.

Plax pressed his face against his imager and slewed the turret through 45 degrees. His night vision sight washed out so he thumbed the imager to its day optics setting and was surprised to see sunshine. His thermals were back in service, but what he saw didn’t make any sense. He wondered how long they had been asleep. He was shocked by what he saw next.

Bone was the first to speak.

“You guy’s seeing this? Tell me it’s not just me. This is freaking nuts, guys.”

He slewed the commander’s sight back and forth, taking in the rolling hills covered with grass interspersed with stands of massive hardwood trees. He had been all over Iraq and he had never seen anything like this. He spun his sight through a full 360 degrees and satisfied himself that there were no dismounts nearby. He keyed his radio on both the Company and Battalion nets and got nothing but static for his trouble.

“Mouse, you ain’t gonna believe this, brother, but there is something really weird going on here. I need you to take your M4 and do a quick visual sweep outside. I’ve looked all around on both day optics and thermal and there’s nobody else around. I just need you to put your Mark One eyeballs on this and tell me what you see.”

“What you talking about, Bone? The Buzzard’s in a laager fifty meters to the West and the Chariot is maybe the same distance East. I saw ‘em both during refuel. What do you mean ain’t nobody around? We been hit that hard? Surely you got something on thermal.”

Mouse felt his heart race as he dropped his K-pot onto his head and shrugged into his heavy plate carrier. He took a quick inventory of his ammunition magazines, slipped a pair of frag grenades onto his carrier, and checked that he had a round chambered in his M4. He hit transmit on his individual squad radio and said, “I’m geared up, Bone. Cover me now, you hear?”

“We’ve got you covered with the 25 Mike-Mike, Mouse. Nothing’s gonna surprise you. Plax will light it up before anything gets close enough to hurt you. I just need you to lay your eyeballs outside and tell me what you see.”

“Roger that, boss,” Mouse said as he threw the latch on the aft crew hatch and swung the heavy door open on its hinges. The hatch opened a bit more slowly than usual given the sand in the mechanism but brilliant sunlight spilled into the fighting compartment along with fresh, clean air. The four young soldiers had not smelled air that good since they took off from Georgia ten months before. The omnipresent rot of Iraq was inexplicably gone. Mouse sucked in a deep draught of the stuff and tumbled outside, taking care to leave the hatch cracked open in case he needed to get back in quickly.

Bone slewed his sight back and forth but still didn’t see anything moving. Plax had his foot poised over the firing pedal on the gun. Gustavsen cranked the Bradley’s diesel engine and slipped the transmission into gear.

“Guys, you need to get out here and see this,” Mouse said, his voice obviously shaken. “You just won’t believe it.”

Plax, Bone, and Gus popped their hatches and stuck their grimy heads out into the bright sunshine. Bone rubbed his eyes as he took in his surroundings and tried to make sense of what he saw.

The omnipresent sand, wind, and stench that defined every single day in Iraq were simply gone. In their place were beautiful rolling hills, massive oak trees, and a burbling creek running some twenty meters behind the Beast. In moments Bone and Gus were out of the Bradley and on the ground, their weapons at the ready. Per their SOP Plax stayed inside the Bradley and on the gun in case they ran into trouble.

Bone knelt down and ran his grimy hand through the lush soft grass before making his way over to the stream. The clear water ran over rocks worn smooth with age. He caught a glimpse of a trout. On a subconscious level his confused brain reminded him that Iraq had no trout.

Plax’s voice cut in over their squad radios.

“We’ve got movement, gentlemen,” he said calmly. “Ten o’clock off the bow at 250 meters.” At the same time the turret on the Beast whined to the ten o’clock position and the Bushmaster 25 mm chain gun dropped a whisker to align with the new threat. The three dismounted crewmembers instinctively retreated to the shadow of the vehicle and peered into the distance, straining to see Plax’s new target.

“What is it, Plax?” Bone said flatly. “Talk to me, brother.”

There was a momentary pause before Plax continued, “Don’t make no sense, man. It’s some white dude on a horse. This ain’t no mangy Iraq horse, either. This is one seriously nice animal. He’s headed this way, but I don’t see any weapons.”

Plax paused while he increased the magnification of his optical sight. “Dude’s got a sword, man, but nothing else. No AK, surely no RPG. Looks like he’s just got a big honking sword.”

Bone thought quickly. “Alright, Plax. You keep eyes on and stay ready to vaporize this guy if he gets frisky. Mouse and Gus, 360 security. I’m going to go try to talk to this guy. I don’t want some Hajji with an IED to creep up behind us.”

Each of the other crew members clicked their radios twice in acknowledgment of their orders. Mouse and Gus dropped into the prone facing backwards at angles from the Beast while Plax kept the main gun locked onto their new friend. Gus and Mouse on a primal level enjoyed the feeling of grass.

Bone held his carbine at low ready and stepped out in front of the Beast facing along the line of the cannon. The man on the horse approached at a trot, closing the distance quickly. All the while Plax made minor adjustments to the gun to follow him in.

“That’s far enough, stud,” Bone shouted when the man was within fifty meters of the vehicle. “Get off your horse and face me with your hands up and we can talk.”

The man wore rough homespun garments and had his long black hair pulled back into a ponytail. His expression registered as much shock as Bone felt himself. He rolled off the horse and dropped to the ground with the grace of someone who had spent a lot of time on horseback. Once he was clear of the horse, he raised both hands over his head.

Bone kept his rifle low but oriented toward the man.

“Good boy,” Bone continued. “Now turn around slowly so I can see all around you. Take your time and move slow. Nobody’s in a rush here.”

The man turned around slowly so that Bone could get a good look at him. He wore a short cape and was indeed carrying a long sword in a leather scabbard. His boots and trousers looked handmade but were of obviously good quality. When he had turned all the way around the man stopped, facing Bone and the Beast. Before Bone could think of anything else to say the man spoke.

“I prithee, wish thou any ill to myself or the house of my master? These are vexing times and my master wishes to divine thy intentions. I heard the growl of thy monster upon my approach. Art thou here as a fine omen or be thee foul? Forsooth, what be thy mission hereabouts?”

“What in the name of all that is holy does he mean by that, boss?” Gus muttered over the radio. “I ain’t never heard anybody talk like that.”

Bone thought for a moment before responding.

“We mean you no harm, buddy. If we intended to hurt you then you would be hurt by now. Just tell me where in Hades we are and what exactly is going on here.”

With that the man broke into a broad grin that clearly came straight from his soul.

“God be praised!” the man shouted.

“Last time I bumped into a guy shouting stuff like that in Iraq things didn’t end well,” Mouse muttered over the radio. “Keep a sharp eye on him, Boss.”

The man continued, “Pardon thee my lack of couth and have patience with thy faithful servant. My name is Merlin and my master had hoped I might conjure just such a creature as thee. Perforce I have devoted myself to little else for more than a fortnight. For our once peaceful lands are vexed most profoundly by a dark serpent, an ancient winged dragon from the Northern wastes.

“This diabolical creature lays our fields alight and fires our villages. There has not been such a pestilential monster in this land since before the written word. Our mightiest knights and most powerful weapons serve nothing more than inconvenience to such a beast, drawing ever more wrath from its black heart and flame from its gaping maw. In these desperate days we gathered both practitioners of the magik arts such as thy humble servant alongside our mightiest men of the cloth and prayed with both passion and fervor for deliverance. Before your arrival we were most certainly undone. It has been our prayer that the Almighty might see it adventitious to provide for us his servants with some manner of strange deliverance from this emissary of the Dark One.

“No mortal man can stand against such a creature though many have tried to their utter peril. To prevail against such a monster we required a monster of our own. We prayed for a beast and God, in his wisdom, providence, and grace, has a beast Himself provided.”