by Kali Altsoba
“Yes, Uncle.”
“They’re smart, the shells. Smarter than you. So when the enemy mortars start up, and they will, you find the freshest hole there is, jump in it, and stay low and still. Shells don’t like to make the same hole twice.” It’s an old trench tale even the rooks have heard many times. Several don’t believe it, about the prissy shells.
But it’s true. Mother Duck isn’t lying and he’s not wrong. The old hand, black wisdom he delivers isn’t a mere superstition to make them feel better. Shells are fussy about how and why they commit suicide. AI smart shells really don’t like to explode the same ground twice, where one of their bonded brothers has already died. They want to fulfil their true design destiny, to make themselves count in the only moment of abbreviated existence that matters to them, their last moment. If each AI shell can’t find a target, a salvo of incoming would rather use proximity detectors to space out during a barrage, to maximize saturation area blast effect. If flying solo follow up, they’ll use motion detectors to make last second course adjustments to take out anything that moves, or fall into clean ground if no targets show, hoping one might be camoed and hidden where they land. Smart shells take real pride in their brief but highly purposeful existence.
‘Except for the duds. There’s some of those in every crate,’ Yuki thinks. ‘And the rogues. There’s always a few rogue shells, too. That’s why a mortar barrage is so random. There are always oddballs inside it.’ Well, he oughta know.
Mother Duck continues: “Same thing is true of a spandau, or ‘rap-ee-dough’ as the squids call their cheap, knock off copy of our famous and glor-ee-ous heavy maser.” He overstresses each syllable of rapido. He smiles mockingly, reminding them how their drill instructors back on whatever Imperium homeworld they hail from told them that everything the squids make is total shit, and every Grün made weapon they have is so much better it’s “glor-ee-ous.” A few newbies smile back.
“Don’t run backward for cover when the ‘rap-ee-dough’ starts shooting, or a dog cooker will get you for sure. Run forward as fast as hell, but drop down when the firing starts. Jump up and run again for 50 paces, when the shooting stops.”
“Why then? And why just 50?” calls out a nervous voice from the back.
“Because there are only two reasons for the enemy to stop shooting: the main gunner on the ‘rap-ee-dough’ lost sight of you or his crew is reloading with heavy crystal. If it’s the first thing and you move, you’re fucked. But it’s usually the second. So you run glide 50 meters each time he stops shooting to reload, always right at him. When you get up close, drop and wait for his next crystal reload. If you do it right you can get close up and finish off the fucker with a final dash.”
“How, Uncle?”
“Use grenades.” He looks around, slowly and steadily making eye contact with each newbie. “They’re more reliable than a maser in a gunpit or black wall fight.”
A thin sparrow of a boy chirps a question. “Why run up close, under fire from a rapido all the way, just to toss a grenade at it? Why not sit half a klic away and hit ‘em with my maser? I’m a real good shot.”
“First off, you’ve never been in DT, have you?”
“No, Uncle.”
“So you have no idea how many obstacles are out there. Well understand this: there are no clear firing lanes as long as half a klic. Not even close. Got it?”
“Yes Uncle!” All the frogs ribbit in chorus.
“With a frag, you can take out a whole gun crew. Rely on your maser and you might get in a lucky shot and pick off the main gunner. But you could only hit a loader. Even if you get the first squid gunner, the second will get you before you get him. He’s got the bigger gun. That’s why you gotta get close, ‘cause if you just sit back and maser away they got better range and you’ll cook.”
“What about Goldies?” another asks. “I hear they can stitch you up real bad.”
A veteran interjects. “Dere’s nuddin’ yoh ken do ‘bout ‘em by yoreself. Just fin’ a hole an’ git small. Den grab yore cock and hol’ on tight. Or yoh can pray to yore gods. ‘Bout as useful as duh cock ‘ting. But less fun!”
The other old hands laugh. The fresh faced kid who asked the question looks upset by the jocular answer. Mother Duck glares over at the veterans, then moves to reassure frightened and confused newbies.
“He’s right about finding a hole, son. Make it the first one you see, and jump in. Then wait until the big Blue birds get chased away by our fighters or you hear me give the All Clear over your HUD com link. Then move again, fast.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“And watch your HUDs close at all times, for intel updates and targets.”
“Bot guns, Uncle?” a replacement shyly asks. “Will we meet any of those?” Tonight is his first raid, his first taste of combat. He’s only been planetside two days and he’s seriously trying not to wet himself in front of the others.
“They home on movement,” Mother Duck assures him. “We probably won’t see any tonight. The squids hold ‘em in reserve for defense of high priority areas. That’s not us, not in this sector.”
“Thank you, Uncle.”
“But if we stumble onto a bot nest and it activates and opens up, stop moving and signal its grid points and a firing solution back to your linked mortars. Mortar men: your targeting priority is bot guns, then rapido pits, then FOPs. Your job is fire support. Got that? No squirrel hunting.”
“Yes, Uncle!” is the ribbit chorus from three all-frog crews assigned to the company’s three light mortars. There’s been a bad run on mortarmen recently.
The heavy mortar crew is veteran. They shout “Yes, master sergeant.” Though one man with a crooked rictus can’t help himself. He yells “Yes, Mother Duck!”
Uncle ignores the taunt. He’s used to it, and he doesn’t really mind the moniker the vets use. ‘I’ll indulge anything that keeps the company’s morale up, especially the new kids going into the black for the first time.’
An hour later, the captain finally arrives to give the official mission brief. The sour, provoked veteran thinks it at the same time as all old hands think it, almost as if it’s coming across the company command link. ‘Bloody hell! His godsdamn utilities are starched and creased! Is he that brandspankin’ motherfuckin’ new?’ Sphincters tighten among the vets. They know it’s going to be a total cluster fuck, a real P&S operation. They can see it in the captain’s garb and hear it in his overly pronounced and too practiced words. By the time he’s done talking at them, they know it’s all going to go to hell and that not everyone is coming back.
The captain wears a crisp, green uniform that looks like it came out of a box this morning. On top of a bald pate he perches a stiffly peaked officer’s cap, of a kind not seen even in deep rear areas in over two years. And never in the frontline before a raid. Snipers on both sides home right in on insignia and any peaked hat, knowing an officer is standing underneath it. They pick off medics the same way, looking for telltale armbands or cap wraps. Only a fool wears a peaked hat on the edge of the black. Experienced officers strip off rank insignia and wear ordinary uniforms and plain soldier caps while in First Trench, maybe with a captain’s bars or a major’s oak leaves sewn on the back so that troops following right behind into DT know where their leader is going. Yuki kinda likes the idea that snipers blowing apart swelled heads under the very best hats keeps down the pomposity quotient in the frontline. Tonight it doesn’t seem quite so funny. He silently agrees with the worried looks and “Piss & Shit” signs of veterans going on the raid.
Then it gets worse. The too crisp captain confirms that tonight it’s going to be a full company raid rather than the usual stealthy infiltration by a couple of squads, making a fast snatch-and-grab and hightailing it back. It’ll be a bigger show using “fresh tactics from HQ.” They hate all new tactics and all officers who love them. Innovative tactics always get men killed. ‘Godsdamn frog officer crap,’ grimaces one vet, his sphincter tightening to a pucker
factor of at least seven. ‘Just tell us to go find you some prisoners and leave the fucking how to us.’
The worst part of the captain’s too clever plan is an assault by One Platoon of Two Company on a known Iron Three strongpoint at Grid R7, with fire support from three frog mortars from Weapons Platoon. The target is an isolated pillbox.
Then comes the rub: “One Platoon’s attack is just a diversion.”
‘Shit! Not us again.’
“So make it loud, wake them up over there so that they’re only looking at you, while the real snatch-and-grab goes in farther down the line.” He beams at them.
‘Like no one in the history of all the thousands of wars before, ever thought of using a diversion to conceal a mission’s purpose and axis of attack.’
“Two Platoon, supported by the fourth mortar team, will jump the Beard line exactly two grid squares over at R9. They’re to hit the defenders hard and fast and come back with at least five ‘tongues’ for interrogation, before any Beard officer can organize a strong response.”
‘Yeah right. No strong response, my left butt cheek. Every godsdamn Beard across the black is gonna be looking at your diversion, right captain?’
“I want five prisoners alive, boys.’ The veterans resent the too easy familiarity. “No playing games with knives tonight.” The captain looks like he means it. Kill a prisoner and it will mean the brig or loss of rations or shit duties for a week.
“Yes sir!”
‘Fuck you, sir. And your stupid schoolboy tactics. If I have to stick a Beard prisoner to get back out of his trench before help arrives, stick him I will.’
Two Platoon’s assaulters are issued sonic grenades to go along with their usual raiding weapons. They’d rather have frags, but sonics are standard issue when the mission is prisoner collection. Unofficial weapons all the vets carry are primitive, but more effective than the ones that come from HQ in carbyne crates. Like the brass knuckles one veteran wears over his combat gloves, or the steel spikes that every veteran carries in his utility belt, in case he drops his kabar in a knife fight. Others have knobbled short clubs and other improvised tools of the trench trades.
“Some diversion! More like open targets for the godsdamn rapidos,” grumbles one of the bolder veterans in One Platoon. The captain snaps his green peaked cap around, looking for the too reckless speaker-out-of-turn. Before he can order some draconian punishment for insubordination, Mother Duck steps in and saves the moment and the indiscreet old hand.
“Orders! You’ll carry them out, you filthy drecksau.”
He barks it at the veteran, who pales as he realizes he’s gone much farther than he meant to or should have, out loud at least. It’s dangerous to speak such a bare and honest thought. Rikugun has no tolerance for disrespecting officers.
“Matter ‘o fact, you lead the assault.”
“Yes, master sergeant,” comes the humbled reply.
And that’s that. The too crisp, too green captain is appeased in his authority and vanity. He resumes briefing. “Battalion will provide fire support, coming and going. Artillery will lay down a precise barrage to cover the advance across the fringe of DT. Then it will wash shells back-and-forth over the black wall at Grids R6 through R10, while Two Platoon heads back with its five prisoners.”
‘Shit! A two-fer! New gunnery tactics on top of a really bad diversion idea.’
“I’m supremely confident that the new ‘roll-and-wash’ barrage technique will make your job much easier. I studied it in Officers Training School. It’s a brilliant innovation by our General Staff and the operations planners at HQ in Xiamen.”
‘Shit, I’ll be sure to thank them next time I’m in town.’
“All you have to do,” he tells them with a confident jutting of his lower jaw, “is make the attack on schedule.”
‘That’s it, just keep track of a UST clock inside my HUD? You got it, captain!’
“Find me five prisoners, then get the hell back here fast so that MI can work them over. It’s vital that this mission succeeds.”
‘Vital to your next promotion, you mean. Not vital to us, except the ones who are going to die tonight because of you, you prissy little officer shit!’
It all sounds good in theory, but the veterans know that theory, like new tactics, usually gets men killed. This isn’t their first party. They’ve “worn the black” to many a soirée before this. The trick tonight is going to be keeping up with a rolling barrage when shells move over broken ground and through the debris field that is Dark Territory. Stay put, and the shell curtain will leave the assaulters behind and exposed to counterfire. Move too quickly and you’ll get fried by your own cannon marching curtains of plasma across DT like a descended aurora.
Then there’s the part of the plan that says everyone must be out of the enemy trench and on their way back to First before the prisoners’ many friends recover. And before the captain’s second, too precisely timed barrage pounds the Iron line to suppress enemy fire and cover the withdrawal. If raiders are still in the enemy line fighting to take prisoners, or to defend themselves, or just to get away, they’ll be sizzled by plunging incoming plasma from their own support guns.
When the mission brief ends Mother Duck salutes the captain, to get him to leave faster. Then he starts talking again. His last advice goes to Two Platoon, the designated wall assaulters. “When you see the enemy, shoot ‘em up if you have to. Just don’t kill ‘em all. If you fuck up and all the tongues over there die, we’ll have to do this thing all over again tomorra’ night. Don’t fuck up!”
“No fucking up, Uncle!” Ribbit, ribbit.
“If we try to walk over DT two nights in a row, nobody’s going to be sleeping or jerking off the second time we go over. They’ll be waitin’ with everything they have. So do it right the first time. We want live prisoners!”
“Take prisoners, Uncle!” Ribbit, ribbit.
The dour veteran mutters. “The pillbox assault’s gonna wake ‘em all up.” It’s the man Mother Duck chastised, to save him from himself and the wrath of a too creased, too green, too cocky, wet-behind-his-testicles, royal fuck up of a captain.
“We’ll get ripped apart.”
Two old soldiers standing nearby hear the undertone assessment and nod in grim agreement. Mother Duck agrees, too, but he decides there’s been enough threats made and the rookies are too scared as it is. He lets it pass. He wants and needs the rooks to believe in him and the other old hands tonight.
***
The raid proceeds clumsily, as the veterans feared. It’s as if it’s carried out by toy soldiers, not trained combat troops working to a nuanced mission plan. Sure, both platoons work silently over dark space, reaching the edge of the enemy line undetected. But before One Platoon launches a diversionary attack on the pillbox at Grid R7, some newbie who has no fucking clue trips a motion detector and the whole damned area lights up with a hundred superluminescent flares.
Strobing of so many parachute lights all at once causes one boy to fall into a spastic trance. They have no choice but to leave him where he lies, twitching and flopping like a trout on the unnaturally lighted ground. Until the rapidos find him and end him in a brilliant blue eruption. Through a trench periscope set up 5,000 meters back, the inexperienced captain wearing too starched, overly stiff greens watches his stick men, his toy soldiers, hesitate under the brilliant strobes. He also hesitates, feeling an uncharacteristic twinge of doubt twist his colon, but then he asserts his authority. He sends the order to all HUDs: ‘The attack must go in.’
It does, dutifully in the name of the Imperium. But really for hatred’s sake, and maybe just a little for each other. On the other side, rapidos open dutiful fire in the name of Alliance, but also mainly for local hate of the hipitty-hopper frogs coming at them out of the dark. Men on both sides of DT start to kill and die in service to named duty and nameless comrades. The only thing that truly matters in the moment is the color of the uniforms they all wear, green or auburn, under a kaleido
scope of scorching, lethal beams and exploding light. Color is life or death.
After fifty paces the first time attackers go-to-ground, just like Mother Duck told them. The captain doesn’t know about the sergeant’s earlier tactical brief and is enraged to see his toy soldiers dropping and taking cover.
“Officers and NCOs up front!”
“What, sir?”
“Get the boys up!”
“They need to stay down, sir.”
“What? I said advance!”
“They’re been fired on, sir, by a heavy rapido nest.”
“I said lead your men forward, like real Rikugun!”
Three Platoon’s shōi is standing nearby, his men waiting behind the RIK outer black wall that rises three meters behind him. He’s ready to lead his platoon over-the-top, going into action as the attack reserve. But now he comes to the defense of his fellow lieutenants and the NCOs.