by Rick Shelley
“Bal, I need to know what we’re facing here, and I need to know right now,” Stossen said over the radio.
“Not much we can do but put mudders out on foot to test it,” Kenneck said. “Wasps might find some of the enemy, but we’re more likely to lose planes without learning enough.”
“Dezo, what companies do we send, Bravo and Fox?”
“Those are nearest if we’re just testing east,” Parks replied. “But we can’t forget our right flank. I think the next stage is likely to come from there, as before.”
“We’ll hold the rest of the line companies to meet that,” Stossen said. “We’ve got to punch through as soon as possible.” If it’s possible, he thought as Parks acknowledged the orders.
* * *
Lieutenant Keye briefed Echo’s noncoms while their APCs headed north toward the river.
Mines, Joe Baerclau thought. It sent a shiver up his spine.
Rolling into a minefield was a nightmare thought for any soldier. To do it in a mixer compounded the fear. There was no way to take counteraction, no way that individual caution could make a difference. For a moment, Joe sat with his eyes closed, trying not to hold his breath.
There was no chatter inside the Heyer after Joe passed along the news. “We’re going to try to get around the enemy and hit them from the side or behind, just hard enough to let the rest of the 13th break through,” he told them. “We don’t know how many Heggies, or just where they are.”
There was still blood sloshing around on the floor, Carl’s blood. It had marked the boots of every man in the troop bay. Some of the men avoided looking down; others couldn’t help but stare at the blood.
Two men in the Heyer had been slightly wounded in the last firefight, but nothing so serious that they wouldn’t be able to fight again. Even Joe had a soaker over a pair of cuts on his right arm where long, thin strips of skin had been taken off by enemy wire. “Flesh wounds”–not deep or serious. But they had bled freely until they were treated, and Joe hadn’t even noticed for several minutes. The sleeve of his fatigues had been soaked.
“I can see the river,” Lieutenant Keye reported from the front of the APC. A few seconds later, the Heyer slowed down and turned east. Joe nudged Olly Wytten. Olly pulled his head down out of the splat gun turret.
“I want to take a look,” Joe told him. He moved into the turret while Olly crowded around to get the seat that Joe had just vacated. There wasn’t room for two heads in the turret at once.
Joe had to stretch to get a good view through the turret viewports. He eased the turret back and forth to give him a look at the terrain. They were 80 meters from the river, moving through trees.
That explains why we slowed down, he thought. The wooded stretch wasn’t particularly dense, but the trees were too close together for an APC going full out. A Heyer was no tank or self-propelled howitzer. It didn’t have the weight, or the armor, to bull its way through a tree. The drivers had to pick their way around anything thicker than a sapling.
“Be ready to bail out in a hurry if we have to stop,” Joe warned the platoon. “We run into Heggies, we’re going to have to react in seconds.”
He pulled down out of the turret and gestured Wytten back into place. When he sat down again, Joe took another look at his rifle. Not quite a full spool of wire, more than 80 percent of a full load in the power pack. Then he wiped sweat from the palms of his hands. Nerves. It never changed.
Five minutes. Ten. The Heyer turned southeast.
“Get ready,” Lieutenant Keyes said. “We’re going back to feet.”
As the Heyers came to a stop, they turned toward the southwest, in line.
“Bail out,” Keye ordered.
Joe already had his hand on the latch. He slammed it up and kicked the door open. He went out, to the side and down.
“Unless they’ve moved, there should be Heggies four hundred meters ahead,” Keye said, dropping to the ground next to Joe. “The ones that ambushed Alpha when they rolled into the mines.”
“We’re going to move ‘em out?” Joe asked.
“That’s the plan. Let’s get moving.”
Joe turned his attention to his platoon. At the far end of the formation, the first sergeant was directing 1st platoon forward. The rest of the company moved as well. The Heyers followed, but slowly, letting the infantrymen get farther ahead. The APCs made too much noise. If they stayed close, they would simply announce their presence.
Joe took a series of deep breaths as he moved forward. There was more relief than tension in him now. It felt good to be out of the mixer and back on foot, where an infantryman belonged, where he could respond instantly to whatever came.
Not much cover, for them or us, Joe thought. But it would do. They would see any enemy before they were close enough for wire to do real damage.
Four hundred meters. On a track in camp, any man in the platoon could run that in a minute or less. With a full load of gear and an enemy at the end of it, four hundred meters might take ten minutes. Or an hour.
“Watch the ground,” Joe warned. “They might have mines here too.” Maybe, maybe not, he thought. It was dumb to bar your own retreat with mines.
There was a thick layer of wet leaves and moss on the ground. Joe scuffed at one place. The dirt was a couple of centimeters down. It would have been easy to hide mines in that.
At least walking men made virtually no noise on the damp ground. There was even little danger from the proverbial snapping twig. So much rain had fallen recently that even the dead wood on the ground was saturated.
Three squads of the platoon walked the skirmish line. Fourth squad followed behind. The other line platoons assumed the same formation. The heavy weapons platoon came in back of the center with the headquarters detachment. There was only one “noncombatant” slot in a line company’s TO–the senior medtech. And even Doc Eddies was out walking, back with the APCs.
Joe glanced over his shoulder when the Heyers turned off their engines. They were close enough, for now. If their splat guns were needed, the drivers could fire up their engines again and close the gap quickly. In the meantime, they wouldn’t give away Echo’s advance.
“Narrow the line,” Lieutenant Keye ordered. “Two squads up and two back.”
Joe quickly pulled his third squad back with the fourth. The forward advance slowed as the flanking platoons eased in toward the center.
“Keep a close watch now,” Joe said on his platoon channel.
“We should be closing to within two hundred meters soon. When we get closer, don’t forget that there are friendlies on the other side of the Heggies. Keep your head and your aim low.”
“A little more space between the first and second ranks,” Keye said over the radio. “Interval!”
Once more, Joe rearranged his platoon, and looked to make sure that his men were lined up with those on either side.
“First man to spot Heggies, give me a whistle,” he told the platoon. “Don’t shoot until you get the order, unless we’re being shot at. And if we’re being shot at, be damn sure you know it’s Heggie wire before you cut loose.” In this type of action, it would be all too easy to get into a firefight with a friendly unit.
“Slow it down.” This order came from the first sergeant. Echo was within 150 meters of where the Heggie ambush had been located. The sound of rifle fire was louder now, and the sound of Heggie guns predominated.
“Sarge, Mort.” An anxious whisper over the platoon noncoms’ channel.
“Yeah, Prof.”
“Ten degrees right from me, out about 120 meters, low next to that tree trunk with the cockeyed branch on its right.”
Joe spotted the tree by the branch rather than by the bearing. The branch angled sharply down while the rest of the branches on the tree went sharply up. The branch was bent again about two meters out from the trunk, and it ended al
most on the ground.
Joe stared for thirty seconds before he saw the trace of movement. The figure was wearing camouflage, but the pattern wasn’t Accord, and the lines on the helmet were wrong. Joe switched channels.
“Lieutenant, we’ve spotted our first Heggie.” He explained where. “He’s facing away from us, and cutting wire.”
“Right. Have one of your men lay a grenade close to the position,” Keye said. Then, switching to his all-hands channel, he ordered, “Cover!” The men of Echo went down almost as if they had all been tripped by the same wire.
Joe passed the word to Mort to lay a rocket-propelled grenade as close to the Heggie as possible. As soon as it exploded, Lieutenant Keye gave the order to fire.
At first, most of Echo’s wire went into that one narrow area. It wasn’t until some of the other Schlinal troops turned around to return fire that Echo really had a good sense of just how dispersed the enemy was . . . and more targets to shoot at.
At least company strength, Joe thought. He had gone to his knees and ducked behind a tree with the order to go to cover. Once wire started coming back, he got flat on the ground, still behind the tree. The near end of the Heggie line was considerably closer than 120 meters, perhaps even close enough for their wire to penetrate net armor.
Joe started sliding forward. Flat on the ground, he didn’t have a clear avenue of fire at the Heggies. First squad was directly in the way. He had only gone about two body lengths before he heard the engines of the Heyers fire up behind him. The APCs started forward, but they didn’t open up with their splat guns until they were close enough that they could be certain of firing well over the heads of Echo. By that time, the Heggies were starting to withdraw, moving away to the left, east, at an angle, away from Echo and from the company they had initially ambushed.
“Into the mixers as they come by,” Lieutenant Keye ordered. “It’s express time again.”
SOUTH and east of the 13th, the main Accord perimeter was shrinking again. During the night, and on past dawn, a Schlinal attack pushed the northern end south by nearly twenty kilometers. The pressure was constant, with full coordination among infantry, armor, and air. General Dacik had no choice but to withdraw the troops in the northern end of the semicircle before they could be cut off. Even then, a few units were isolated and either neutralized or captured.
“If they break through,” Dacik reminded his staff, “there’s nothing to stop them simply rolling up our entire line.”
It was mid-afternoon, and they were gathered in the general’s basement headquarters, now no more than forty kilometers from where the heaviest fighting was going on.
“There’s a Heggie column–forty Novas backed up by at least two regiments of infantry–trying to advance along the ocean now,” Colonel Lafferty said. “They’re not having much luck. We’re holding them at the Galilee River.”
“For how long?” Dacik demanded.
“For as long as they insist on keeping tanks on the point, General,” Lafferty said, “We blew the approaches to the only place they can possibly get tanks across. They’ll have to bring in engineers and waste a lot of time repairing the damage, and we’re able to keep their heads down. There’s no alternative crossing for fifty klicks inland.”
“I’m afraid that’s not good enough.” Dacik looked around the table, moving his glance slowly from one officer to the next. “It’s time to throw all the dice at once.”
That brought heads up. Through the last day and a half, Operations and Intelligence had been trying to find holes in the Schlinal defenses and a plan to exploit them. Every alternative they had managed to come up with had more holes than a colander.
“Which option, General?” Colonel Ruman, Dacik’s operations officer, asked.
Dacik got up from the table and walked to the large mapboard hanging on the wall. “A variant of Zero-Three,” he said. “Variant mostly because of the changed circumstances on our right.” He shrugged. He was looking at the map now, not at his staff. The others waited for him to continue. They waited for several minutes before he did.
“On the right, we’ll stage an orderly withdrawal, but as fast as we can manage without letting it turn into a rout. Get as many of the support units moved ahead of time, beginning as soon as this meeting is over. Get them back, and get engineers preparing new positions. Just before sunset, we make it look as if we’re being routed, but again, we have to make sure the appearance doesn’t become the reality.” He turned away from the map just long enough to make sure that he had everyone’s attention.
“As soon as the Heggies respond, and even they shouldn’t need more than thirty minutes to pour in after us, we start the breakout. Here, and here.” The first point Dacik indicated on the map was nearly to the southern end of the Accord foothold. The other was almost precisely in the middle of the flattened semicircle that represented the perimeter.
“Ninth SAT will handle the punch on the left. We’ll use both of the other SATs in the middle, and follow them through with everything we can spare. Left and right. We try to roll up the Heggie lines before they rip us apart.” He turned and looked at the others again. After a pause, he said, “Questions? Comments?”
“It looks like about even odds who rolls up whom,” Lafferty said. “If we slip up on this, even a little, there won’t be any second chances.”
“I’d suggest that you move your headquarters prior to the attack,” Colonel Ruman said before Dacik could respond to Lafferty’s comment. “Besides the obvious fact that this site will probably fall within an hour after we start this, command and control is going to get . . . dicey, at best. We need to be located somewhere where we can avoid getting bagged by the Heggies and yet stay close enough to the main action to respond to whatever happens.”
“A mobile CP has already been set up, ready to move, Colonel,” Captain Lorenz said.
Dacik nodded. “We’ll move here.” He turned and pointed to a spot on the map again. “Right behind the central breakout. It might not be any safer there than here, but it will sure keep us on top of the situation.”
“When do we move?” Ruman asked next.
“Local sundown, which will be 1907 hours tonight, according to CIC. That’s the time for the staged retreat on the right. The exact timing for the breakout may change, depending on how the withdrawal goes, but–temporarily at least–it should start exactly one hour later, 2007 hours.”
“Preparatory bombardment or air strikes?” Ruman asked.
“Nothing to give them any warning. We’ll have Wasps up and Havocs in position covering the withdrawal from the north, but no site preparation at either of the breakout locations.”
“Diversions?” Lafferty asked.
Dacik glanced from Lafferty to Ruman. “Ru, I think we’ll pull in the left end, just a little, beginning fifteen minutes after the start of the movement on the right. They have secondary positions prepared?”
“They should have, General,” Ruman replied. “I’ll check.”
“Just that little bit then, and maybe”–he turned and stared at the mapboard again–“a patrol in strength . . . here.” He stabbed at the position. “That’s about halfway between the two places where we’re actually going to attack, and it’s where the Heggies pulled out one of their units.”
“How much strength for the patrol?” Ruman asked.
“A battalion. With cover from a single battery of Havocs if they run into trouble.”
Dacik walked back over to the head of the table but didn’t sit.
“It’s not going to be pretty, gentlemen, and . . . well, Lafferty might have been optimistic with the odds. But we have to do something, and there won’t be any cavalry to the rescue to bail us out. Anything gets done, we’ve got to do it ourselves.”
“What about the 13th?” Ruman asked.
Dacik frowned. He had almost forgotten them. “They’re in deep troub
le. There’s precious little we can do to help them but win this fight here tonight. Or make such an effort that the Heggies think we might win.” He stared down at the table and his frown deepened. “It looks as if the Heggies have turned at least four regiments against the 13th–ten, maybe as many as fifteen thousand men. That’s really the only thing that gives us a chance. Even if we mop up everything here, we might still lose the 13th.”
He turned away. In his mind, that “might” was already “will.”
* * *
The 13th ran into one ambush after another. Although they no longer let themselves be bogged down by firefights, each ambush did cost time, even if no more than a few minutes. One company, sometimes two, would be detailed to stop long enough to allow the rest of the 13th to bull through. Until the next one. Each minute that the 13th lost to these delaying actions allowed the other Schlinal units trying to reach them to get a minute closer to interception.
Just before sunset, the enemy massed all of the Novas it still had in the area for a determined bombardment of the 13th. A half dozen APCs and several support trucks were lost before the 13th’s Havocs and Wasps drove the Novas off again. Not more than 10 percent of the men in the hit vehicles survived to be picked up by other vehicles.
The two Heyers carrying Dr. Corey’s research team and their SI “minders” were kept near the exact center of the 13th. Gene Abru was with Philippa Corey. They spoke little but stared at each other most of the time.
* * *
Dem Nimz was driving slowly as sunset approached. Somewhere, probably very close, was the Schlinal convoy they had been following. Dem had turned the captured Schlinal truck away to circle around them without being spotted. The Heggies had stopped for what Dem suspected would be a very short break. The few rest stops that the column had made had all been very short, never more than ten minutes.