All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series)

by Smith, Rodney

  The infantry was completely out in the open when Captain Kopinsky came up on the net and said, “Tanks, prepare to fire one round into your sector at any likely hide spots. Infantry, prepare to hug the dirt.”

  Ingrid picked out a suspicious looking clump of weeds and brush and waited.

  Captain Kopinsky ordered 3rd Platoon to drop just as several T’Kab guns opened up from the trees.

  He said, “Fire!” and a dozen tanks opened up on the woods. The enemy guns that had opened fire were quickly destroyed, then Captain Kopinsky sent the infantry to clear out any remainder. In a few short minutes, he called battalion and reported the hill occupied and secured.

  Ingrid turned around in the turret to see the mobile bridge sections entering the water and forming up into two long bridges. Ingrid was fascinated, watching the bridges link to each other until they reached the other side and the special ramp sections. She saw a flash in the sky and looked through her binoculars as a flight of AG-122s passed by, wondering if one could be Brad. Kopinsky ordered the company to pull into the wood line on the hilltop and told them the cooks would deliver lunch.

  The brigades’ wheeled vehicles came across and formed up just below their overwatch position. A wrecker unhooked the one 1st platoon tank that was hit during the crossing and turned it back over to the company. They had patched the dent in the armor and ran diagnostics on the motor; other than the dent, it was good as new. The round hit at just the right angle to bounce off the armor, digging a furrow in the frontal armor. The crew was reunited with the company shortly after the tank had been delivered. The TC’s arm was in a sling and the gunner had a black eye from being slammed into the scope when the round hit.

  Lunch arrived and they ate on an even-odd basis, based on vehicle number. When it was Ingrid’s turn, she lined up behind her crew and they huddled around the tank to eat. Kopinsky walked up and told them to relax, the brigade would be moving to the end of the division’s line of march. Ingrid, ever the good soldier, promptly dropped off to sleep, for she never knew when she would be able to sleep again.

  * * * * *

  Brad led a four-ship flight of the new AG-122Cs. This upgrade replaced the thermal sights with multispectral sights incorporating infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, and thermal. The system was capable of detecting whether vegetation was live or cut, which was why they were out today. The T’Kab defense had reduced the ground forces’ advance to less than 100 kilometers per day. Yes, they would get there at this rate, but not in time to stop the movement of a meat ranch and its Human occupants.

  Brad’s mission was to locate and destroy T’Kab ambush positions. Co-pilot Sheila programmed the system for camouflage detection and ordered the others in the flight to space themselves 500 meters apart and scan for ambush fire positions along the corps’ avenue of approach. They had gone less than five kilometers when Brad got his first alert. A hilltop wood line gave strong indications of dead vegetation clumps evenly spaced apart. Brad flew over the positions, passed the images to the other three ships, and turned wide.

  Brad keyed his communicator and said, “Follow me. Sheila, put a burst in each of the clumps.” He straightened up after the wide turn and lined up on the wood line. Sheila rolled the controller wheel and switched to thermal. As they got closer, the thermal view gave the ambush away. Small field guns were camouflaged with cut branches, which showed up as cold in the viewer. Sheila lined up the missile launcher and pressed fire. Two missiles left their launch tube and flew into the first two emplacements, picking the gun up and flipping it and rolling the broken barrel and equilibrator assembly over on the crew. He rolled away and had the next in line hit the next two targets and roll out as they were destroyed, and the next ship did the same. After number four, the ambush team’s back had been broken. Brad told the unit battle captain back at the airfield and she made sure the information got to 2nd Brigade.

  He opened up the formation again and patrolled further out along the corps’ route of march. He flew out to where he could just see the objective city and used his onboard computer to record the terrain for later analysis. Their orders said do not fly in sight of the city, so Brad dropped down and turned his flight around. They retraced their path and looked for firing positions from this angle. He flew about 150 kilometers before his screen highlighted four suspicious sites. He passed three of the four to his flight mates and told them to engage at will. He lined up on his target and was waiting for better target resolution when a clamshell of camouflage dropped open and a mixed gun and missile air defense system popped up on a telescoping tower. Brad sent out a warning to break off the attack and Sheila tried to fire first, but her missile malfunctioned on the rail, letting the T’Kab launch first. She cycled and fired another one and it homed in on the site while they dove at the ground and tried to get below the treetops. Brad warned his flight to break off and get down in the bushes, but two had already taken hits and were climbing for altitude to give them the longest glide range back to the column before their engines failed.

  Brad was down below the treetops, but the missile stayed on his tail. It was one of the new brilliant munitions, able to anticipate the target’s actions and probably purchased from one of the Human or K’Rang crews at the spaceport. He tried every trick he knew, including rapid stop and land, to no avail. The missile kept coming on. He decided to make as much distance towards the column while calling out his mayday. When the corps came up on the net, he informed them of the location of the air defense site and requested some suppression.

  Brad’s monitor showed the relative location and range of the missile to him. He could see it getting steadily closer, no matter how he jinked around in the sky. He finally saw no alternative and turned hard to end up facing the missile. He fired all his guns on wide mode and hoped he vaporized the missile before he would have to chicken out and turn away.

  The missile came on and accelerated. One of his guns caught the edge of it and vaporized a good half of the missile, but the shrapnel ran into his starboard winglet and removed the tip, throwing him out of balance and into a spin. The spin pushed him against the cockpit wall, but he got the ship stabilized, and balanced thrust with his ability to crab the ship at an angle to maintain his direction of movement.

  He wrestled the ship as long as he could and was 50 kilometers from the column when he had all his and Sheila’s muscles could take. He called out his location with his final mayday and looked for a soft place to land. Corps told him good luck, get as far from the wreckage as he could, and hunker down until they arrived, probably tomorrow. He aimed his ship at a long clearing in the forest and hoped it wasn’t full of bugs. He braced as he floated over the clearing, gently lowered the nose and floated into a powered landing. As his wheels touched down he braced, but his wheels hit hard ground and his ship coasted to a stop near the wood line. Brad and Sheila primed the self-destruct charges, grabbed their escape and evasion packs, and popped the canopy. He turned the key on the charges as they turned and ran for the wood line. He looked over to Sheila as they ran and said, “Now we’ll get a chance to put all that expensive escape and evasion training to the test.”

  * * * * *

  The 1st Unified Force needed little support from Kelly and Ellie. They landed their own supplies, for almost everything they used, from batteries to ammunition, was different than Human MilSpec items. Kelly checked in with the senior ground force headquarters and enquired if they had enough K’Rang translators to serve as liaison to the K’Rang. He found the response a tad icy, as he was thanked for his enquiry, but they had everything under control. He was informed he was in violation of their general order on visitors and could return to G’Durin on the next available gate slot. He fibbed slightly, saying he had to deliver a message from Elder J’Gon to Admiral Trokin before he could depart for G’Durin.

  Kelly met back up with Ellie and asked if she got as frosty a reception as he had. She replied, “That was just the Brown effect. General Brown is paranoid about visitors f
rom on high. He’s been that way since he was a brigade commander. If you want to feel welcome, don’t come here. He infects his staff with it, too. If the staffer said they have enough liaison officers, he’s lying. I met his liaison pool. They couldn’t understand me speaking basic K’Rang.”

  He grabbed her arm and said, “Come on. I need to get up to the fleet before I get charged with insubordination or violation of a general order.”

  Kelly used his special status as military attaché to bump the line and transport up to the flagship, then went looking for a friendly face. He found that face in Rear Admiral Oliver Digg, commander of the 1st Assault Landing Group. He saw Kelly first and walked up to him and shook Kelly’s hand.

  “Well, look what the cat drug in. I didn’t think attachés were allowed camouflaged utilities.”

  Commander Digg had been Rear Admiral Minacci’s executive officer on the GRS Golden Eagle in the 3rd Assault Landing Group.

  Kelly introduced Lieutenant Colonel Johns. “Ellie is one of my Deputy Attachés. She handles ground force issues for me. The K’Rang commander invited us to instruct his staff and commanders on our tactics and coordination measures. I just tried to make a courtesy call at 6th Army Headquarters and was told, not in so many words, that my presence was neither required nor desired.”

  Rear Admiral Digg said, “We’ve heard. They don‘t even like me going planetside to confer with my Marine counterpart. I just ignore his staff wienies. Admiral Trokin has already warned Brown that the Marines are only under his operational control and that can be changed with a thumbprint.

  “So, are you two sightseeing or just hanging around long enough to qualify for the campaign ribbon?”

  Kelly laughed, “No, thank you. My dress uniform is already ripping at the seams from all the decorations I have to wear. I look like a Schirra gambling house doorman as it is.”

  Admiral Digg laughed and asked, “When will you be rotating out of this assignment?”

  Kelly replied, “Probably in a year and a half, sir. I don’t worry about that much. Fleet will find me a new home.”

  Rear Admiral Digg excused himself when a staff officer came for him, but before he left, he asked, “Do you need to see Admiral Trokin? I can get you a few minutes.”

  “No, sir, thank you, but we just came up here to use a gate to get us back to G’Durin. If they got us manifested for the gate below we’d be trapped.”

  Rear Admiral Digg nodded said, “Okay, if that’s how you want it,” and left with the staff officer.

  Kelly and Ellie left for the GRS Montpelier’s ring and back to the embassy.

  * * * * *

  Brad found a high, rocky spot in the forest and they rested. Sheila was about done in. It looked like a boreal forest found in the higher latitudes on Earth, at least that was what it reminded him of. It smelled crisp and fresh. The trees looked a bit like pine or fir trees, but taller. The bark was flaked and peeled off easily. There were no undergrowth trees or bushes unlike many forests on many worlds. It almost looked picked or mowed.

  He took his Yestepkin carbine from his shoulder and set it on the rocks. Checking his survival pack, he found ten carbine energy packs.

  He said, “We could have one hell of a firefight with that many charges.”

  Sheila caught her breath and countered with, “Let’s hope we don’t have to.”

  Brad consulted his tablet and plotted his position relative to the corps’ leading edge. It came out to be 37 kilometers from his position. That was no distance at all. He knew they were slowing their advance at night, so about mid-morning they could poke their faces out.

  He looked at his tablet again and determined their position in relation to the valley he saw to the north that looked like a natural avenue of approach. He looked for any high ground overlooking the valley, then thought better of it. The T’Kab would be looking for just those kinds of places, too. Let them have them.

  Brad pulled out his thermal and night vision binoculars and swept the area. There was nothing to be seen, but large birds could be heard in the treetops. He thought about catching some sleep, but Sheila needed it more than he did. He consulted his tablet and saw they had three hours before dawn. He turned on his rescue communicator and activated the IFF function. That should stop 5th Corps from shooting them in the chest. All they had to worry about was the T’Kab shooting them in the back.

  He heard a branch snap somewhere south of him. They laid down quietly in the rocks and saw ten T’Kab walking through the forest on almost their exact path. He reached in his pack and got out two more energy packs for the carbine and put them in his belt pouches. He started shaking as they got closer and he willed it to stop. He would need a steady aim and a quick trigger if he were to drop or run off the others.

  Then it dawned on him as he heard another branch snap. They were just marching through the forest on their way from one place to another. He decided to follow them to see where they were headed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ingrid awoke to the first sergeant kicking her feet. It was still dark. The home system’s star had yet to make its presence known.

  “Get up and get ready for company,” he hissed.

  She woke her crew and had them get in position. Climbing into the tank commander’s seat, she fired up the thermal sights and scanned around her, seeing nothing as far out as the thermals scanned. She listened to the command net and heard nothing, wondering just what the first sergeant meant. She had been in such a hurry to get her crew ready for combat; perhaps she misunderstood.

  She was just about to climb out of the tank when she saw it through the gloom. It was a black moving mass coming from the south and aimed at the corps support base directly below them. She stuck her head back down in the turret as the radios came alive. Artillery fire support requests started coming across the net from those without the automated capability. The First Sergeant came up and told the company to fire up the engines.

  Ingrid gave her crew a quick synopsis of what was going on outside. She told her charger, Private First Class Ramirez, to fill up all but one row of the rack with antipersonnel charges, and to put antitank charges in the top rack. After sticking his head out his hatch and seeing the advancing mass, he went at his task with religious fervor.

  Captain Kopinsky came up on the company frequency and said, “All Alpha elements, this is Alpha 6. Prepare for direct fire mission, personnel in the open. Range 5000 meters. Fire at the front of the line initially.”

  Ramirez loaded the first charge and was prepared to load them as fast as possible after that. He remembered a class in armor training about the AP charge, how it was propelled down the tube by magnetic attraction and was held together by a decaying positive charge, until that charge bled away. It then released the Yestepkin energy into a 20-meter circle. The range of the burst could be set based on the strength of the electron charge. Five thousand meters was beyond max range, but things worked differently in combat sometimes than they did in the manuals.

  Ingrid aimed her laser rangefinder at the leading edge of the T’Kab swarm and set the charge for that range. She heard the artillery forward observer repeating the request for fire as he input them into the fire control system, and then heard the whumps behind her and to the east. The ground covered by the advancing swarm erupted, and Ingrid could see whole and pieces of T’Kab flying through the air.

  Captain Kopinsky radioed, “All Alpha elements, fire at will. Concentrate on the leading edge.”

  Ingrid aimed her laser rangefinder at the leading edge again, reset the range on the charge and pulled the trigger. A hole formed where twenty or more T’Kab soldiers had been. She settled into a rhythm of laser, adjust range, and fire. She kept that up until the tank had fired twenty charges, then hit the barrel cooler switch to bring the barrel temperature down. If it got too hot, there was always a danger of overheating and throwing the aim off. The cooler did its job in under a minute.

  She fired another row of charges and looked at the
advancing swarm through her binoculars. The column wasn’t as thick as it had been. The tank and artillery fire, plus automatic weapons fire from the support troops, was taking its toll. A crimson glow from the sky turned into a fireball of plasma, landing in the middle of the swarm. The fireball incinerated hundreds of T’Kab soldiers, and left a smoldering, blackened crater in the battlefield. Two more came down in quick succession, but still the T’Kab came on.

  Flights of AG-122s came next. Ingrid wondered if one of them was Brad, then put the thought out of her head as she kept firing, shredding the front line. She saw the support command’s defensive line open fire on the swarm, so she switched her firing to further back in the mass of the T’Kab swarm. Two plasma bombs went off in the middle of the formation, and still they came on. She heard the infantry platoon open up on something behind them, and turned to look behind in time to yell for Ramirez to button up as a squad of T’Kab advanced on her position.

  She slewed her mini-turret with the Yestepkin heavy machine gun, set it for anti-personnel charges and opened fire. She slewed left and right, shooting at anything that was shiny and moved. She told Ramirez to open his hatch and guard the rear anytime he was not prepping charges. Ramirez brought up the medium machine gun and mounted it to face the rear. He no more powered it up than he blasted three T’Kab trying to sneak up. Ingrid went back to firing on the swarm.

  * * * * *

  Brad left Sheila on the rock pile and silently trailed the T’Kab patrol until they came to the edge of the forest and the valley. They quickly dispersed and fell onto pre-dug positions with heavy missile launchers. Brad pulled out his tablet, marked the spot and backtracked. Paying attention to not stepping on branches, he almost walked into a T’Kab soldier that must have missed the formation and had to catch up. Brad laced him from second thorax to head with his carbine then ran back into the woods.