“Okay Colonel. Do your best—you’re there, I’m not. Good luck, I hope to hear from you soon.” General John Reed hung up the secured line. He sat for a few moments. First the word on Abigail and Fuzz. Now this. Apparently the action that Colonel Popov had just told him about, a bunch of crazy women going medieval on the enemy, completely unauthorized, no notifications, and may have had a direct connection with Abigail and Fuzz. A dead War Dog Hero and a near-dead Female Hero Symbol, both of them together seemed to have had a galvanizing effect. Colonel Popov had seized the bull by the horns, and was preparing to attack a now disorganized, panicked Kraken Force. He would attack an armored force head on, with limited anti-tank capability. Damn. The Russian had balls.
Now if he could just get that wussy Wood to grow a pair.
The General looked at his watch. Time to check the ETA of the Medevac chopper carrying Abigail and Fuzz. Then think of a way to deal with some hundred female soldiers who disobeyed orders, took on the Krakens alone and somehow survived. Why couldn’t he have a nice, easy, simple day for once?
CHAPTER 17
SALINA, KANSAS
Kraken Commander Talbot had yelled at the Abrams and Bradleys to keep moving when the artillery shells began falling. He did not want the U.S.A. personnel to be able to get a good fix on his limited armor, and start hitting the thinner tops of the AFVs. The major problem he had was that almost all of his infantry was rapidly advancing to the rear. In other words, it was turning into a rout. How in the hell some screaming women did all of this he couldn’t guess.
He and a few of his most solid supervisors managed to round up several hundred fleeing armed personnel and get them moving toward the Abrams and Bradleys. He then got his one big gun crew on the line. “Get that five inch in action, now.” A minute later, he was satisfied when he heard the old museum piece speak. See how those assholes in Salina like five inch shells landing among them. As he thought this, a battery of Chinese rockets hit, the black powder adding to the din.
As the Kraken armored forces began to move closer to the pit containing the stuck Abrams, the regular and militia forces advanced. In the lead were all twenty Technicals, with a half a dozen pickups with militia and Spetsnaz troops following behind. In the back of some twelve of the Technicals, in addition to the Technical Crew, was a Russian with a RPG trying to hang on. In the following pickups were additional RPG teams as well as two Militia Bender Teams. The theory was, if you threw enough anti-tank rockets at it, even an Abrams can be stopped. The problem would be the trade off in casualties.
Lupe Peña’s ride was not carrying an RPG. Rather, her passenger was a certain crazy Russian Colonel who was yelling at the top of his lungs in Russian. To hell with “leading from the rear”, Colonel Popov was up front, getting a first-hand view of the enemy vehicles, and loving every second of it. Colonel Mills was in one of the pickups jammed with militia. Damned if he would let a Russian out Patton him. Dagan McDowell had somehow found herself with Senior Sergeant Marina Roskova jammed in the back of her vehicle with the Gunner. Marina was doing her best not to get in the way with her RPG, but the 14.5mm heavy machine gun took up a chunk of space.
The Technicals were in a loose “V” formation, lights out, and picking up speed. The drivers all had night vision goggles on to cut through the dark and the smoke. Just then the single five inch shell fired by the Krakens landed, the explosion knocking one of the Technicals in the rear over onto its roll-bar. It did not carry a RPG, so the force’s anti tank capability remained at full strength. Now they could see the enemy, coming to a halt near the pit of the stuck Abrams.
“Swing there Sergeant. There!” Marina yelled and pointed to a Bradley off to her left.
“Roger that. Corporal, target twenty degrees left,” she yelled at the driver, Corporal Hammond, a former NASCAR Racer. The Technical was soon roaring out from the “V”, aimed at passing with in twenty yards of the Bradley. The enemy vehicle finally noticed the approaching vehicles, tried to track them with its chain gun. Dagan’s Gunner began to fire at the vision devices on the Bradley, trying to spoil its aim.
Marina leaned out of the back of the Technical, and Dagan grabbed her equipment belt to keep her from falling. The Russian screamed the Russian equivalent of “eat shit and die” as the RPG round swooshed toward its target. The HEAT round hit right at the base of the chain gun barrel, exploding just as the Bradley’s cannon fired. The 25mm cannon round exploded in the barrel along with the HEAT round. Part of the blast was directed back through the opening breach of the weapon, filling the turret with flame and bits of shell. Then Dagan and her crew passed by, headed out into the darkness before anyone else could shoot at them. As they bounced around, the driver Hammond swinging the Technical in for another pass, Marina struggled to reload the RPG, laughing like a madwoman.
“You Russians are fucking crazy!” Dagan yelled over the noise.
“Yes!” Marina yelled back. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Twelve RPG rockets were fired and eight scored solid hits, detonating. Three hit the lead Abrams, shrugged off by the super thick frontal armor of the heavy tank. But it did get the crew’s attention, causing it to swing out wide, away from the tiger pit in which the disabled tank sat. The sudden change of direction caused a Bradley to swing in the opposite direction, losing its orientation. Before the driver could notice, it was in direct line with the pit. The cattle trucks that had been parked around the pit during the day had been moved at dark as it had been decided that sniping at night on the workers would be rare. The Bradley driver realized his mistake, tried to correct away from the large hole. But he was too late. The right track went over the edge of the pit, the Bradley slewing sideways. For a second, it looked like the Bradley would be able to remain upright. Then, part of the pit shoulder gave way, and the AFV slide in sideways, landing on top of the Abrams.
As another Technical slowed down, one Spetsnaz troop with an RPG bailed out over the side of the four wheel drive pick-up. Kneeling in the dark some fifty yards from the side of another Abrams, the Russian took aim at the rear drive sprocket. Another whoosh and the HEAT warhead hit dead on with a loud bang and a flash. Moments later, with the broken sprocket seized and the right tread snapped off, the Abrams ground to a halt. Talbot saw the flashes and explosions from a distance, and yelled to ask why his big gun had stopped after one round. A frantic call came in that the shell had jammed in the chamber and that the crew was trying to ram it out.
“Hurry up, goddamnit! I need some artillery down range.” His mortar crews were nowhere to be seen, caught up in the general rout. As the six artillery men scrambled to ram a long pipe down the muzzle of the five inch gun, no one noticed a far off flash from the left flank. Then, just as the stuck shell was rammed free, one man straddling the muzzle was torn into hunks of meat.
The report of the Barrett 50 was drowned out by all the other shooting going on.
Benjamin Black quickly picked another target with his fourth generation night vision sight. His next shot hit the Kraken who seemed to order the others around, turning him into a two pieced corpse. The remaining four scattered into the night. The sniper of Key West then took careful aim at what appeared to be a large artillery shell. Once again, one round, one hit to the explosive nose. The shell exploded, which set off a couple of nearby shells and propellant charges.
“Just like Fourth of July fireworks,” Sergeant Black mumbled to himself. Time to move, he thought, before someone found him with bullets.
Commander Talbot could see the large explosion from his command RV and he began to scream in rage. He screamed over the radio for his tanks to begin firing their main guns at the U.S.A. positions in Salina. But they had their own problems. The immobilized Abrams cleared its main gun tube by firing the round toward the fortified positions thousands of yards away. Then the turret began to rotate, its coaxial machine gun firing at anything and everything, including some of the fellow Kraken soldiers.
Colonel Popov yelled at Lupe and pointe
d his pistol at the tank. “There. That one. Go there.”
Lupe passed the direction to her driver, although she knew this was absolutely bug-nuts. Both she and Dagan were still in bloodstained fatigues from their foray with the Sisters of Steel, and now her Technical was after a heavy tank with nothing but a large machine gun. But she had to admit that this craziness had a certain flare to it. She saw that the Russian Colonel had a large satchel with him which, in the heat of getting moving earlier, she had not noticed.
“Swing around to the rear. The engine area,” the Russian commanded. Within moments, the well trained crew had the Technical within twenty yards of the huge metal beast. Popov sent the satchel sailing, only then did Lupe noticed he had pulled an arming cord projecting from the satchel. “Eat shit and die!” The Russian yelled as he expertly threw the satchel onto the rear engine decking. No sooner had it landed there was a bright flash and deafening explosion. Smoke quickly began pouring from the engine compartment as the tank crew tried to activate the engine mounted fire extinguisher system. But the explosion seemed to have disabled most of that system. Flames were soon noticeable in the darkness, and the tank crew bailed. Colonel Popov sang some Russian military song, while taking potshots with his pistol as they passed fleeing Krakens.
“Quick, around again. I still have bullets left.”
Lupe looked at him. “Begging your pardon, Sir, but you are not like any Colonel I know,” She yelled over the din.
Popov laughed, then suddenly kissed her. “But I make all this interesting,” he yelled back.
The militia managed to fire off its Benders, hitting a Bradley in the turret with both rockets. The turret flew into pieces as the chain gun ammunition exploded, with the remains of the vehicle commander and the gunner being splattered all over the landscape. Flame and smoke traveled down into the troop transport compartment. The back hatch was thrown open and Krakens jumped out before the driver could come to a stop. Stored ammunition cooked off and the driver was killed while trying to exit the AFV.
The two surviving Abrams turned tail and fled to the rear, crushing several people under their treads. Besides the two Bradleys already hit and the one in the pit, concentrated heavy machine gun fire and RPG rockets destroyed the tracks of two more. The two remaining vehicles turned and followed the Abrams. The Technical and militia troops slaughtered the remaining Krakens who tried to flee on foot. Only a handful were able to surrender before they were shot.
In the beginning of the attack by the Sisters of Steel, one Kraken male had fled from his foxhole, directly into the hands of a Spetsnaz-manned listening post. They had trussed him up, got him to the rear as they knew his babbling meant something. No one had to put the screws to him to get him to talk. He was more than willing to tell his story, tell everyone about what caused the rout.
“Banshees. A bunch of fucking screaming banshees. They were slicing, killing everyone. Bullets were no good. They were fucking banshees!”
Thus began another legend.
CHAPTER 18
Great men rejoice in adversity. Just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
-Seneca, Roman Empire
MALMSTROM ARMED FORCES BASE
GREAT FALLS, MONTANA
General Reed couldn’t believe it was some three days from the now famous Rout at Salina. Krakens began running and rarely slowed down. Finally, General Wood got off his ass and hit the retreating forces from the north. It had been a slaughter. About ten thousand Krakens had managed to make it to Kansas City, Kansas on foot and in a hodge-podge of vehicles. Colonel Popov had helped them along from his end with the launch of the She-Bear Missile he had among his forces, the thousand pound warhead and unspent fuel exploding and sending up a small mushroom cloud as if it had been a nuclear strike. Hitting on a crowded section of road, some one thousand personnel were either killed or wounded, the mushroom cloud causing even more panic, as if that were possible. Many of the enemy just scattered, forcing the local militia to start the arduous task of tracking them down, or at least insuring they had left the state of Kansas. Commander Talbot had managed to flee successfully south aboard a surviving Abrams. With him were a dozen of his personal supporters. Everyone cursed that the former biker gang leader had managed to escape, among those being Torbin Bender. He had really wanted to watch his wife interrogate him.
But now General Reed listened on the phone with a rather grim look on his face.
“So, Doctor Rice, there has been no real change with Abigail?”
“No Sir. She still seems to be…somewhere else.”
“She is eating, right?”
There was a pause. “Yes, General. But just applesauce. And she will drink milk. Try to get her to eat something else, and you might wind up wearing it. We lost two televisions when we tried to turn them on. Plus, I have an orderly with a broken arm when we tried to restrain her. If we allow her to sit, let her take herself to the bathroom, everything is fine. It’s like she has gone to some dream realm, where she dwells solely in memories in the past. She eats the applesauce, drinks the milk, relieves herself, and then returns to sitting, staring into space. She is in a world of her own.”
General Reed’s stomach tied itself in knots. He did not think he could feel this way, not since his wife and sons had disappeared in Moscow. Now, the feeling of helpless loss was there again.
“Do what you can for her, Doctor. I know Colonel Bardun is working with you, based on what we are now understanding are some very unique modifications made to Abigail’s body structure and DNA strands. Keep up the good work.”
Major Rica Rice sighed into the phone. “General. To put it bluntly, we are not set up for this type of long term care. All those people with long term care issues, and just about all the facilities that provided that care, were gone after the Long Winter. I’m already getting grumbles about her care, especially after the orderly had his arm broken…”
“Major, stop right there,” General Reed interrupted. “Captain Young is a hero and a national human treasure. I don’t give a flying fuck if this pisses somebody off. If I have to keep her there until hell freezes over, that is what is going to happen. If the Hospital Commander has a problem with this, tell him to feel free to report to my office. Clear?” Now he felt a seething rage, not sadness or loss.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Look, Doctor. Sorry I just jumped on you. I know you have a special bond with her. Hell, just about everyone who comes in contact with her wants the best for her. She is the shining example of a good soul. I just want her well, okay?”
“Yes, General. So do we all.” Rica paused. “I have one or two ideas I can still try to bring her out of this…funk she seems to be in. I’m not about to give up yet. I just wanted to be honest with you.”
“And I thank you profusely for that. You are an excellent Officer and Doctor. Malmstrom is lucky to have you. If you need anything, just call me directly. Okay?”
“Yes Sir. Thank you, General.”
General Reed hung up the telephone. He sat quietly for a while. If he could have gone back in time, reverse his decision to send Abigail and Torbin to the field he would have. No, that was unfair. If he had not, then a whole bunch of civilians would be dead or tortured. Maybe even eaten. Now he had another problem involving some one hundred women who disobeyed orders, probably related to Abigail and Fuzz. The results had been wildly successful, but he could not have a bunch of soldiers forming a secret group, doing what they wanted.
Shit. The universe was a bitch. He pinged up his driver, Sergeant Pasqual.
“Yes, General.”
“Bring the car around. We need to take a short drive, to see a young lady about some steel.”
“Yes Sir. Coming right up.”
John Reed grunted. No rest for the weary.
Torbin was sitting in his backyard, ignoring the cold. He had a drink, a rusty nail, in his hand. He kept glancing toward Abigail’s side of the duplex that she shared with Aleks and him. He was almost expecting to see her co
me out into her backyard with Fuzz, to see her smile, to see Fuzz get up, put his front paws on the fence, stare at him with his “Well, what are you doing?” look he had favored Torbin with.
The War Dog had saved his wife, and his unborn sons. Now, he was gone, and Abigail was gone, albeit in a different way.
He took a slug of his drink. Damn, getting low. He’d have to refill it. Maybe he could quit his job, become a bartender. At least he wouldn’t be helping getting his friends hurt or killed.
His wife would tell him that was unfair to say. But it was what he felt, deep in his hurting soul. He drained his drink, and rose to get another. He heard his wife Aleks drive up to the duplex. Looks like she managed to get away for lunch. Torbin finished pouring his drink, threw an ice cube in it and went to meet her at the door. She had taken their sons to Sue Brown’s house. They had easily bonded with her, even at their young age, almost sensing that she had been there when Fuzz had saved them in the womb. Aleks knew her husband was having rough time, and needed some time alone. General Reed had ordered him home to rest, “write an After Action Report.” Yeah, right.
Torbin set his drink down, hugging Aleks as she entered. “Hey, babe.”
“Hey, husband.”
They stayed hugging in silence. Torbin finally broke it. “Abigail?”
“The same.”
“I guess I should go to the hospital, see her…”
“My little sister does not know me. I was there earlier.” Suddenly, Aleks began to sob.
Torbin held her tight, tears in his eyes. Why did this have to hurt so much?
“I should have stayed with her. Fuck the civilians.”
Aleks suddenly grabbed his face in her hands. “No. It is not your fault. And you did the right thing saving those women and children. Fuzz would have done the same if he were there, or died trying. He died for his mistress, his choice.”
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