Enemy Front

by T. E. Butcher

  “Roger, White looks like they’re still a few minutes behind us, so I’ll head off the enemy until they arrive.” Staying in the cuts between rises, Reiter put himself ahead of the VEF formation before ascending to the military crest of the nearest peak. From his view, he could see the tinhats spread among the trees, single mindedly focused on destroying the VEF.

  Gotcha. He focused on one carrying a recoilless rifle. He fired a controlled pair into the tinhats saucer shaped head. The Union machine collapsed in a shower of light and metal. The other tinhats quickly began scanning for him.

  Reiter released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. While Waiting, he slowly trained his rifle on the next available target. A laser stabbed out towards him, igniting trees around him. Damn, they spotted me.

  Firing a smoke grenade to cover his retreat, he bound back around the military crest. If they want a fight so badly, they’ll have to chase me. Reiter held his position, waiting for more tinhats to come into view.

  “Fox 6, Blue 1, my spotters got tinhats coming around behind you!” Webb said. Reiter spun the Lowe around, just as a tinhat rounded the top with a laser. Ablative plating boiled away as the eerie green beam struck him. I’m ok, it’s what those panels are made for. He fired his rifle and added his shoulder cannons to the mix. The rotary guns chewed through armor, plating like a pair of sanders while his rifle punched gaping holes in the tinhats frame.

  As he took a step back, two more tinhats appeared wielding submachine guns. This time, Reiter split his fire between them. One collapsed as the rifle punched through both its hips, the other fell when its magazines exploded. Through the smoke and the haze, Reiter spotted a third Martian drawing a bead on him further away.

  Alarms blared as heavy shells struck the Lowe. The massive machine toppled and rolled down the side of the mountain. Reiter’s head whipped around as crash bags filled with water to absorb the impacts. When the Lowe finally stooped tumbling, the bags receded, and he looked up at his monitors.

  He’d dropped his rifle, and one of the rotary cannons had been crushed. Luckily, none of the shells had managed to penetrate the hull. But his head rang. As more tinhats rounded the mountain, he realized beyond the ringing something was screaming.

  A pair of Vinnish drones, distinctive by their rounded shape compared to Shark-like Tharcian models, swooped past, banking and turning through the pass. Surface to ground missile slammed into the tinhats higher on the ridge.

  The machine gunner tinhat raised his weapon in an attempt to track the drones, but the ground beneath him. As Reiter brought his battered machine to stand, he caught a glimpse of Steele’s Panzerterkannone shelling his attackers. Her machine leaned forward, compensating for the recoil of the cannons as they fired again.

  The rest of White platoon formed a textbook firing line, while the Vinnish group’s remaining panzerters advanced on the reeling Unionists. Once again, the Vinnish have managed to impress me. He rolled the Lowe onto its feet and blasted away with his own shoulder cannons. Surprised by the sudden shift in momentum, the tinhats broke off their attack and began a fighting retreat.

  “Don’t bite too hard,” he said over the radio net. “They could easily draw you lot into a trap, let’s regroup ourselves instead. I think we have a lot of things to discuss.”

  6

  Well, there’s no turning back now. Adamski’s machine pressed forward through trees and brush as he followed one panzerter platoon while Bartonova stayed with the other. The infantry rolled along between them. Their plan was simple enough. Since he was more experienced, he would lead the assaulting platoon while Bartonova’s group would set up supporting fire. Once they seized the hill, the infantry would entrench themselves and hold it, while the panzerters secured the low ground immediately around them.

  Simple enough, not a ton of moving parts, less that can go wrong. Or so Adamski told himself. They were still at war and the enemy had a tendency to not stick to the plan. Truth was, all the people he knew were with Bartonova, and he rolled with a platoon of strangers. Green strangers.

  It probably is best they stick with our rookie commander, she’ll need them to watch her back. The trees to his left parted, and Bartonova’s group opened fire on the Unionists holding the hill. As far as Adamski could tell, the forces holding the hill consisted of mostly infantry with a few missile launchers. According to the brief, these forces belonged to the Congaree Martian Republic’s standing army.

  Not as well funded or trained as the MAGs, thank God. His own group broke out of the trees and gunned their engines for the hill. Their panzerters did the best impression of a sprint that they could. At their current speed, Adamski strained as his main monitor bobbed violently as he rocked back and forth. Occasionally they loosed a burst of machine-gun fire at the entrenched infantry.

  An all too familiar scream filled his ears. “Incoming!” he cried over the net and began to zig and zag with his machine. The platoon ahead of him, either unfamiliar with react to indirect fire or simply confused, stayed the course. Until five shells blasted a Panzerter IV HC to scrap and spare parts. “Evade them dumbasses! Split their fire!”

  The panzerters began dodging and weaving, but they lacked coordination. They hadn’t practiced the maneuver at all. More shells rained down on them. Another panzerter took a direct hit. It limped along, dragging its mangled leg behind it before another volley of artillery fire smashed the unit to pieces. How are there fires so damn accurate?

  Once they reached the base of the hill, Adamski relaxed. Slightly. We’re too close now. They won’t shell their own troops. Bartonova’s group shifted fires to avoid hitting them. Now they focused on further targets between them and the city.

  As Adamski’s group stormed the hill, they fired machine guns into masses of Union infantry and destroyed bunkers and trenches with their rifles. Lacking any means of countering the massive machines, they began to break under pressure and flee. Good, this hill is just about ours.

  While Adamski slowed down as he approached the military crest, his companions bounded forward. “No, you idiots!” he cried. “Don’t silhouette yourselves over the hill!” Too late. Shells and lasers hammered the three remains meters of Brave company’s black platoon.

  Adamski rounded the corner of the hill, firing into the flank of an advancing formation of tinhats. Black platoon seemed to get the message, falling back slowly, albeit heavily damaged. We’re not going to last long in the face of this.

  Adamski switched nets and joined a chorus of voices calling for air or artillery support. Bartonova’s group had moved to provide covering fire, but the Tinhats were still too far for their weapons to do anything. Adamski hammered the approaching tinhats with his rifle, but the Union artillery from before reared its ugly head. More shells screamed down from above.

  The platoon leader screamed as his panzerter crumpled under the weight of enemy fire. A sudden force slammed Adamski’s head against his main monitor, cracking the screen as alarms blared. A secondary readout told him all he needed to know. A shell had severed his panzerter’s legs at the knee as he laid prone.

  Great, how ironic. Despite the blood and sweat getting in his eyes and the cracked screen, he took aim at the nearest tinhat and fired. If at least one of them can get away, I’ll have done my duty. A shell split a tint’s saucer shaped head. Return fire began to chew away at the hill in front of him.

  Good luck tagging me when I’m hull down, bitches. He domed another tinhat and smiled. Then he heard the familiar roar of Tharcian drones overhead. They heard me, thank God they heard me. As he looked up, he saw the bombs. Bombs falling on him. Adamski sighed and closed his eyes. Gos, Viola, I’m coming.

  “I swear, one of these days, you won’t wake up,” Irving said as she replaced the bandages on Kennedy’s head. He smiled through the throbbing pain in his head.

  “Hey, I’m made of sterner stuff than most people,” he replied. “I’ll remind you that I have maxed out my blood and steel medal, there’s no device
to represent how many times I earned it, so they just stopped awarding it to me.”

  Irving snorted. “Of course you have, because you have a tendency to get shot, stabbed, or shot down whenever I’m not around,” she retorted. “By the way, about the spare parts that came in, they’re all for Terrans.” Kennedy raised an eyebrow.

  “What? Are there any still in service?” he asked. “Why the hell do we still have any?”

  “Last I heard is they were undergoing a modernization package to bring them closer to the standard Martian Trooper,” Irving replied. “And they were going to issue them to colonial forces.” Kennedy grunted and stood up as soon as her delicate hands had finished changing his bandages.

  “Well, the important thing was we destroyed that mountain unit,” he said. “They were the biggest threat to Dr Weathers’ operation and our ability to hold the highway, and now we hold the road uncontested.”

  “Gerbirgsjagers,” Irving said. “That’s what the Tharcians call them.”

  “Bless you,” Kennedy replied. “Anyway, now that we’ve secured the road, I’d like to expand our security relative to this road from Pulaski back to Olympia. The side benefit is it forms an excellent defensive line for Weather’s lab.”

  Irving smiled. “Clever. Is it normal for tubers to do their best thinking when they’re concussed?”

  Twisting his hand to say, “more or less,” Kennedy stood up from the chair and paced over to the map. “It’s going to take some organization, and coordinating with the other battalions, but I think we have the tools to lock down this section of Tharsis.,” he said. “If we hold here, we have a shot at counterattacking in the summer, possibly even reaching the mid-Germanian plains.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Irving said. “We need to focus on the task infant of us, and that is keeping the line to occupied Olympia open, a report from the Olympian people’s council has already told us we can expect more workers willing to build trenches, create fortifications, and help on the farms and fisheries on the home-front.”

  “It sounds like a recipe for sabotage,” Kennedy replied. “Would you really trust them?”

  “For all their high-minded ideals, the Olympian upper classes were hardly virtuous people,” Irving said. “They essentially tailor made their populace to peacefully transition to a Martian Republic after being defeated, though I think the TUC might break them up.”

  Before Kennedy had time to respond, a runner burst into the room, breathless. “Comrade Colonel,” he gasped. “Harpy Company came int o contact with Tharcians while pursuing a Vinnish force.”

  “Was it the mountaineers?” Kennedy asked. “Because I would hate to have to fight another company of those.” The runner shook his head.

  “Four Martians destroyed, one severely damaged,” he said as he regained his breath. “It’s the Black Knight comrade, he’s here with his band of misfits.” The way the runner described Reiter’s company seemed comical to Kennedy, were it not for knowing how dangerous they were.

  Kennedy took a deep breath. “Were our supply situation better, I would be more confident in our ability to fight off Reiter, but as it stands, we have a real possibility of losing,” he said before turning back to the runner. “I want every deadlined panzerter stripped for parts, make very repair that we can, use parts from Tharcian machines or even the machines themselves, I don’t care, but I need every pilot with their ass in a seat by tomorrow at noon.”

  The runner saluted and took off. Irving looked at Kennedy. “What do you plan to do?” She asked. Kennedy walked over to her and took her hand.

  “You are by far our most talented and capable officer,” Kennedy said. “But your talents are best applied far from a battlefield. I’d like you to take a small force of guards and head to Dr Weathers’ lab. That way if we fall here, you can make sure his lab is destroyed.”

  Irving folded her arms and furrowed her brow. “I’m not abandoning my post,” she said. “My place is by your side, watching out for you.” Kennedy shook his head.

  “This is an important task, and I need to make sure that Dr Weathers and his research are kept out of Tharcian hands by any means necessary, understand?”

  With a deep sigh, Irving looked up at him with puppy dog eyes. “I understand.”

  Reiter watched as the head of a Vinnish Strv/34 was fitted into the vacant slot where the head of Smith’s panzerter had been. “Will my readouts be in Vinnish?” the young man asked. The acting Vinnish Commander, a burly man named Svenson, chuckled.

  “No, son, they’ll be in your language,” he said. “All the important computer bits are around the cockpit.” Smith nodded before going on to find the rest of his platoon. Reiter turned to look at the new arrivals.

  “So, what exactly do we have between us?” he asked. Svenson grew serious as he turned to Reiter.

  “We have two intact panzerters, about three IFVs, a dozen infantry, and some rockets,” he said. “Some of us have Tharcian weapons, some of us have Union ones, we’ve tried to use everything we could find out here.”

  “Understandable,” Reiter said. “We’ll have your people travel with our headquarters platoon, they’ll significantly increase our available firepower.” He whistled and waved over the officers and NCOs from both groups. “So here’s the plan as I see it. According to our new Vinnish friends here, The Union is defending this village because it overlooks this section of Autobahn 86.” He began drawing lines in the dirt for everyone to follow.

  Svenson picked up where Reiter had left off. “From there, we can extrapolate that the Union will build a defensive line that encompasses this entire length of the autobahn, which conveniently for them, fortifies their defense of this mountain lab your people are gunning for.”

  “This actually works to our advantage,” Reiter said. “If the enemy kept their forces more flexible, they’d be able to snap on us and overwhelm us, but as it is, they’ve created a curtain that’s easier to break through in one spot.” Svenson marked the spots they would concentrate on in the dirt while Reiter kept talking.

  “White and the mortars platoon will provide a base of fire, while Black& Gold with Blue and Headquarters/Vinns platoons will advance by bounding, once we’ve broken through, we’ll hold the gap open for White and the Mortars to get through.” Reiter stood and folded his arms. “Any questions?”

  “Are we going to recon the road first?” Wesser asked.

  “I have some of mine who are going to do that,” Svenson said. “Our plan is flexible enough if we need to shift we can.” When no one else had questions, they dismissed their leaders to start rehearsals. I hope we can pull this off. If that Jon character is right, the Union has a little girl hostage in that lab. He shook his head. Every time I think the Union isn’t the cartoon villains tv portrays them as, they go and kidnap a little girl, or build people just to crush them, or burn down a hospital. No, that’s wrong. The Union rank and file aren’t the cartoon villains here. They’re just people doing their jobs. It’s their leadership, their elites that are the villainous ones.

  “I’m glad our people can cooperate like this,” Svenson said, breaking Reiter’s train of thought. “A few months ago, we as a people were determined to stay out of things until the Union and Avalon began attacking our space colonies. Now we’re fighting to free the people they conquered.” Reiter nodded, still stuck in his thoughts from before.

  “So what do you think of the Union so far?” he said. “Are they as treacherous as our propaganda says they are?”

  The bigger man chuckled. “I think your movies and tv don’t go far enough,” he said. “Personally, I find them barely above animals.”

  “Uh huh,” Reiter said. “So you think it’s all of them that are like that? Or just specific bits of them?”

  “It doesn’t really make a difference to me,” he said. “They can say they were just following orders til the sun goes dark. If you know what you’re doing is wrong on some level, a man or woman with a fancy hat and title t
elling you to do it doesn’t make it suddenly right.” He shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, every damn one of them is complicit in the war crimes their government commits because they’re constantly making excuses for them.”

  “This has been rather insightful,” Reiter replied. “Have you ever spoken to one?”

  “A Unionist?” Svenson asked before shaking his head. “Never, though when we’re trying to kill each other isn’t really a convenient time to strike up a conversation.”

  Reiter nodded slowly. “I’ve spoken to one, one of the artificial ones.”

  “What?” Svenson exclaimed. “Those exist?” Reiter gave the man a coy smile as engines started around them.

  “Another time,” he said before turning and walking towards the Lowe.

  7

  Starnes sat up quickly. In the span of a few seconds, he realized three things. First, he wasn’t wearing pants. Second, he was in a hospital, and third, the sheets wedged between his ass felt forcibly uncomfortable. What the hell happened? Then things slowly came back to him. The traitor, the midnight itinerary, late chow. The car bomb. Car bomb?

  He tossed his sheets aside and made to stand, but his body groaned in protest. “Who there,” said a nurse with a flat voice. “You shouldn’t be standing up yet, you just woke up.” She’d entered his hospital room almost the exact moment he woke up.

  “The Marshall?” Starnes exclaimed. “Where is he?” The nurse looked over her shoulder before closing the door behind her.

  “He’s at a secure location,” the nurse said. “Unfortunately, at his age the head trauma he took is pretty severe. We had to put him in a comma for the regeneration treatments to begin, though with brain injuries they’re slow going.”

  “Who are you?” Starnes asked. The nurse pulled out a small ID that Starnes was all too familiar with. “Emma Janicka, huh? Of course you’re HSB.” The Homeland Security Bureau served not only to maintain criminal databases between provinces and enforce federal laws, but also served as the foreign intelligence agency for the Republic of Tharsis. “How do I know I can trust you?”