L13TH 02 Side Show

by Rick Shelley

  Even slowing down, Dem had to keep both hands on the wheel. There would be no drive and shoot for him, though he considered it.

  “Watch it,” he whispered into his radio. He was watching for the moment of recognition, when the Heggies realized that it wasn’t help arriving but grief, when they noticed that the helmets and camouflage were wrong.

  At fifty meters, the Heggies still seemed to think that the truck was carrying men from their own army.

  “They must be wondering why we don’t answer their calls by now,” Dem muttered. Without a Heggie helmet handy, he couldn’t know, but he suspected that they would be trying as many different channels as possible to explain their problem and what they needed.

  “Get ready,” Dem said, a little louder. Forty meters. He had the truck’s speed down to 25 kph. His foot was back on the pedal, holding that speed, ready to increase it at need. If any of those Heggies had a rocket launcher handy, it wouldn’t take long for him to get it into position.

  The Heggies started to look at one another, uncertainly perhaps. Then one of them started to bring up his rifle.

  “Take ‘em!” Dem shouted. “Now, now, now!”

  From behind Dem, six zippers fired at the stalled truck and the Heggies around it. Two reccers got ready to lob grenades, into and over the truck, to take care of any Heggies they couldn’t see. On the left side of the cab, Fredo had his rifle out the window firing. There wasn’t time for any of them to fire a full spool before they were past the enemy truck. None of the Schlinal soldiers had much chance to return fire. Twenty meters past the stalled truck, Dem shouted, “Hold on!” and spun the wheel in a hard left turn. “Make sure they can’t radio ahead.”

  He hit the brakes. Before the half-track came to a complete stop, Dem had grabbed his own rifle and was out the door shooting. Fredo was out on the other side. Three of the reccers in the back of the truck were on their feet, shooting over the cab while the rest dismounted.

  “Grenades,” Dem said. “Plaster them.” He pulled a fragmentation grenade from a pocket and popped it straight into the back of the other truck. That half-track shook at the explosion. Dem was certain there would be no one left in it to radio ahead that they were coming. Six reccers advanced carefully toward the downed Heggies, rifles ready but no longer being fired. The other three stayed high, in their truck, covering the rest.

  All of the Heggies–there had been nine of them–had been hit. One very short burst of wire from Dem’s appropriated Schlinal rifle put the truth to his summary: “No survivors.”

  None of the reccers questioned what their sergeant had done.

  “Let’s see what we can salvage,” Nimz said. “And get back on the move.”

  * * *

  “Ain’t there any way to get us better dope, Lieutenant?” Gunnery Sergeant Ponks pleaded over the radio. Lieutenant Ritchey was somewhere in the area, about two kilometers from Basset two. “There’s Novas around, somewhere. I’d sure like to know where they are before I’ve got a one-thirty-five shell coming up my butt.”

  “We’d all like better TA,” Ritchey replied. “But we’re getting everything CIC and the Wasps can get for us now. There’s no more to be had. Just keep your eyes open. Anyone sees anything, they’ll sing out so the rest of us know.”

  “Will you, please, at least ask if they can get us any more?” Ponks was on a private channel with Ritchey, so he wasn’t worried about how his pleading might sound to his own crew or any of the other gun commanders. As long as the conversation was private, he would do anything he could to–maybe–get what he wanted.

  “I’ve asked, I’ve begged,” Ritchey said, exasperation creeping into his voice. “Just make do with what you have.”

  “Yes, sir.” Eustace realized that he could go no further. “We’re still on our own,” he said after switching back to his gun channel. “They can’t get us any more eyes.”

  “The Wasps’ll be back in the air in a minute,” Simon said. “We’ll have them spotting for us again.”

  “Yeah.” There was no joy in the word. “Jimmy, how we doing on ammo?”

  “Still got six AP and three HE,” Ysinde replied. “We’d best start looking for Rosey pretty quick.” Rosey was Rositto Bianco, the crew chief for the support van that serviced them.

  “Okay,” Ponks said. “I’ll give him a call, see if he’s clear enough of the fighting to fill us up.”

  Since the support units had moved away from the fighting, as had the Havocs, it was just a matter of arranging a rendezvous and heading for it. Once the Schlinal armor had been driven off, the balance of risk and value had tilted against the Havocs. Infantrymen were poor targets, while the Havocs were easy pickings for any mudder with a rocket. Only once in a ten-minute drive was there a fire mission for the Fat Turtle. They altered course just long enough to shoot an armor-piercing round at a Nova that had been spotted by a Wasp.

  A dozen men of the Havoc security detachment were posted in a loose perimeter around the support van before Basset two reached it. Jimmy and Karl popped their hatches and got out to help move ammunition from the truck into their ammo rack.

  Eustace opened his hatch and stood but didn’t get out. “Better top off our fuel tanks too, Rosey,” Eustace called toward the crew chief. Bianco grimaced. Ponks had done his shouting into his microphone.

  “You having any problems?” Rosey asked.

  “Purring along. Growling whenever they find us something to growl at.”

  “Keep it that way,” Rosey said as he waved two of his men toward the fuel lines. There were two tanks, one with hydrogen and the other with water. The H2 would provide immediate fuel. The H2O would keep the Havoc’s converter supplied, separating hydrogen from oxygen. “I’d hate to have to do anything more than patch a tread. Hard to fix these beasts on the move.”

  “I heard that,” Ponks agreed.

  By that time, the work was done. Jimmy and Karl buttoned up the rear hatches. Rosey’s men were recoiling their fuel lines.

  “Good hunting!” Rosey shouted as Eustace lowered himself back into his seat.

  Safe hunting, Eustace thought as he spun the lock on his hatch.

  * * *

  Zel hadn’t wanted to watch his Wasp take off without him, but when the time came, he couldn’t look away. The pilot who had been forced to eject from his own Wasp was flying Zel’s now.

  “We’ve got five pilots and four planes,” Major Parks had explained. “In a way, that’s a break. We can spell all of you flyguys, get you a little rest and still keep all our birds in the air.”

  Zel hadn’t said anything. He knew why he was the first man being spelled. Everybody thought he was coming unglued.

  Maybe I am, he conceded after his Wasp disappeared from sight. I certainly came close enough. After it was over, his emotional outburst had troubled him. It was out of character. He wasn’t surprised that he had worried Roo enough to send the crew chief looking for help.

  If we’d had a spare pilot then, I’d probably have been grounded for the rest of the mission, Zel thought. Now . . .

  “Better get in the truck, Lieutenant,” Roo said. “We’ve got to get moving again.”

  Zel nodded and climbed into the support van. Being an officer did earn him the spare seat in the cab. And Roo had decided to take over the driving to keep from being relegated to the back of the truck. He was a sergeant and the regular driver a corporal. Rank still had its privileges.

  “Where to, Chief?” Zel asked once the truck was moving.

  “East, that’s all they tell me, Lieutenant,” Roo replied. “We’re supposed to keep out of the way of any Heggie mudders.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.” Zel was holding a carbine between his legs now. He knew how to use it. Pilots had never been required to master the Armanoc, but after the 13th’s last campaign, Zel, and most of the other flyers, had made a point of doing so, spend
ing time on the firing range whenever they could. A number of them had been turned into temporary mudders on Porter when they ran short of planes and, eventually, out of ammunition. It could happen again.

  “Always a good idea,” Roo said. “An’ we’ve got to stay handy for the birds.”

  DISENGAGEMENT was not simple for the 13th, and it was costly. Breaking away from the fight cost more men than all that had gone before in the series of skirmishes.

  “Where did they come from?” Van Stossen asked his staff once the 13th was on the move.

  “All we have are guesses,” Bal replied. “Nobody saw them. Nobody reported another regiment missing from the lines facing the rest of our people. That means either we simply didn’t spot them being pulled ort hey were never in the lines. I think that’s the more likely answer.”

  “If intelligence missed one regiment, they may have missed more,” Dezo pointed out.

  “Hold on a second,” Stossen said. “How confident are the two of you about calling this force a regiment?”

  There was a long delay before Bal finally said, “Not at all confident, Colonel. We had no chance to get good numbers, except on the tanks. It seems certain that there were at least two battalions of tanks. In Schlinal TOs, that usually means a regiment of infantry.” TO: table of organization, the bean counter’s view of any military unit.

  “We certainly didn’t face more than a regiment,” Teu said. “It might have been less. All small-unit engagements. A single infantry battalion could have handled that. Or two.”

  “Which means that even conceding that we faced a Schlinal regiment, we didn’t face all of it,” Kenneck said. “In their TO, a regiment usually has three battalions of heavy infantry, one of light–not quite comparable to our recon units, two or three battalions of armor, and whatever ancillary units they might have along, like engineers or special purpose troops.”

  “Often one more battalion of infantry,” Dezo said. “A Heggie regiment can come close to double the manpower of an SAT.”

  “Without an air wing,” Kenneck said. “Their Boems are organized separately.”

  “What you’re telling me is that we might be heading into another ambush,” Stossen said. “That there could be from one to three more battalions of infantry and another battalion of armor we haven’t even seen yet.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Kenneck admitted. “We’re doing what we can to get more information. The fly-guys are doing what recon they can, but Schlinal thermal protection is very good for their Novas. If the tanks are lying doggo under tarps, there’s little chance for us to find them unless we know exactly where to look.”

  “We lost more than an hour back there, closer to ninety minutes,” Ingels said. “That puts all of the Heggie units we knew about that much closer. We have another holdup like this one and we’re caught, maybe not instantly, but if we lose more time, that will give at least two of the other units a clear shot at intercepting us.”

  “With no place to run,” Bal added.

  “I know.” Stossen hesitated. “I suppose the important question is can we get far enough to put us in range of Wasps operating from behind the main Accord lines?”

  “Touch and go,” Parks said after a moment’s calculation. “It depends on where they hit us next and how much time we lose.”

  “The Heggies will know just how close we have to be to get extra air cover,” Kenneck said. “They can calculate that almost to the meter.”

  “So can we,” Ingels said. “There, I’ve just put the line on the mapboards.”

  Stossen looked at his. That line, a thin yellow arc, seemed an impossible distance away.

  * * *

  Corgi Battery rolled almost into the center of a battalion of Novas ten minutes later. Those tanks had been hidden under camouflaged thermal tarps, which gave the Havocs a few precious seconds’ advantage. Gun commanders used their 200mm howitzers in ways they had never been designed for, firing point-blank at tanks that were less than five hundred meters away. Five Havocs got off one round and had their second ready to go before any of the Novas had a chance to respond.

  At five hundred meters, the velocity of a Havoc 200mm round was still so great that it was almost possible for it to penetrate both sides of a Nova before it exploded. But the destruction it caused with a hit was complete.

  Those guns that were able to get a second round aimed fired those and turned to race away from the Novas at full speed. They were still outnumbered by nearly three to one, and a Nova was much more capable at close-in fighting.

  The Novas were slow responding. Eight had been destroyed before they had a chance to get a round off, but that still left a dozen of them . . . and five Havocs running away at full speed, their cannons no longer able to bear.

  Corgi two was hit by the first Schlinal shell.

  A few kilometers away, to the north . . .

  “Got those coordinates?” Eustace Ponks demanded.

  “We’re on line . . . now!” Simon replied.

  “Ready!” Karl shouted.

  “Fire!” Eustace ordered.

  The Havocs of Corgi Battery might be running for their lives, but their TA systems were operating, feeding up-to-the-second data on the Novas to the rest of the 13th’s artillery. Basset and Dingo batteries, and the one remaining gun from Afghan, all had fire missions on the way.

  “Loaded!” Jimmy Ysinde called, no more than twenty seconds after the first round went out. The gun was aimed, the fire order given. The second and third rounds were on the way before the first shells from the initial salvo hit. Corgi one relayed information: two direct hits, two glancing hits that had stopped or damaged Novas without destroying them, and half a dozen near misses.

  “Not bad,” Eustace muttered. Basset Battery was racing closer to the enemy tanks, cutting across in front of the 13th’s infantry. And still firing.

  No one in Basset two saw what happened, but three minutes after the battery had started firing, there was a call from one of the other Havocs. “Basset three’s been hit!”

  Eustace swiveled his rear periscope until he saw the smoke rising from the hulk of Basset three, nearly a kilometer away. “What was it?” he asked over the battery channel.

  “Must have been a rocket. Mudders.”

  “Another ambush.” Eustace swore under his breath. “Keep your eyes open, Simon,” he said over the crew channel. “It looks like we’ve got company close.”

  There was another explosion, ahead and to the left. The new Basset one swerved ninety degrees to the right and stopped.

  Eustace had seen this explosion. “Mine!” he shouted. “We’ve rolled into a Heggie minefield.”

  “Stop?” Simon asked.

  “No! If they’ve laid mines, they’ve got this area registered for their guns. Keep going. Bend the throttles!”

  “I bend ‘em any farther, they’ll come off in my hands.”

  “New target,” Eustace called, alerting the men in the rear compartment. “On the TA monitor now. Get it off, Karl.” He switched channels.

  “Lieutenant Ritchey, you all right?”

  “We’re okay, Ponks. You’ve got the battery for now. We’re out of action.” For the second time since leaving the main lines.

  “There may be enemy mudders around, sir. I think a rocket got Four.”

  “We’ll try to hold out until our people get here. Just get the others out of this minefield.”

  “We’re all moving, sir,” Eustace replied, checking the blips on his map console. The three of us left, anyway.

  * * *

  It took the four Wasps nearly two minutes to respond to Corgi Battery’s calls for help. Once they arrived, the Havocs were able to proceed without further trouble. The Novas were unable to defend themselves against the air attack, and the way they had been stumbled upon in hiding had left them too far from their infantr
y cover.

  Corgi ran south, and into long-range fire from one of the Nova units that had fled from the earlier battle.

  The bulk of the 13th changed course, just enough to take them around the mined area that Basset Battery had found the hard way. They moved northeast for several minutes, toward the river that they could no longer cross, then turned east again.

  Pinched closer together on the detour, the 13th ran into more trouble.

  Alpha Company ran into the second minefield. Two APCs were destroyed. The rest ground to a stop and started disgorging their passengers as Schlinal infantry took them under fire. Rockets came in first, hitting one more Heyer.

  Briefly, Colonel Stossen brought the entire 13th to a halt, except for the artillery and air, while the staff went through a hurried consultation.

  “We’ve got to get around them,” Stossen said. “Put Echo around on the left flank, George on the right. First opening we find, push the recon platoons through, on foot if necessary.”

  We’re blind, Stossen thought while he waited for his orders to be implemented . . . and for the next stage of the Schlinal attack. There would be more. He was certain of that. A quick hit-and-run just wouldn’t do it, and even liberal minefields could only slow them momentarily. Once the minefields had been spotted, they could be cleared quickly by specialists, as long as the fields weren’t under direct covering fire.

  Stossen sat in the APC that served as his rolling command post and stared at a mapboard, The positions of his own forces were marked, and those enemy units that had been spotted. The 13th couldn’t reverse course. That would send them straight into the arms of the unit that had been chasing them almost from the beginning. They couldn’t head south. There were two Schlinal regiments coming in from that direction, poised to intercept them. And the river meant that they couldn’t go north. That was the most impenetrable barrier of all, at least for the vehicles.