Enemy Front

by T. E. Butcher

  “Because, a friend of a friend is helping with the traitor problem,” she said. “But first you’re going to have to talk to President Reinhardt.”

  “Slow down,” Starnes said. “A friend of a friend?” Emma sighed and sat in one of the chairs next to Starnes’s bed.

  “A foreign agent is lending us his talents and perspective,” she said. “As a favor to a certain Captain Reiter.”

  Starnes blinked. “What? What did Reiter do?”

  “Not important,” Emma said. “But we need to get you dressed and on the phone with the president. ” She pulled out a neatly folded, clean uniform with his rank and patches already taken care of. As Starnes dressed, he began grilling Emma.

  “What does the president want to talk about?” He asked.

  Emma smiled. “As close as you are to the man, you’d be able to tell the President what he would say on certain issues,” she said. “In this case, its mainly foreign policy questions. Do we have any more likely allies? Things like that.” She palmed herself on the forehead. “Oh and the Earth Sphere is debating getting involved.”

  That gave Starnes paused. “What?”

  “It’s what we gathered from the latest meeting at the U.N.,” she replied. “The Americans of course want to insert themselves into the conflict, as does the North Sea Alliance, but Brazil, India, and the AU are all in favor of non-intervention.”

  “Were it anyone else, I would welcome the additional allies,” Starnes said. “But the Americans come with more baggage than anything else, they’d want a controlling stake in peace talks, would likely demand assets we won’t give up under normal circumstances, like Titan for example, and want to permanently occupy Union territories.” He slapped a pair of fingers into his hands.

  “Secondly, to so egregiously violate the Harrison doctrine would bring in the First Nation against us,” he said. “And the last thing we need is one of the strongest if not the strongest country in the Mars Sphere going to war with us, so no we should deny any attempts to intervene.”

  Emma nodded in agreement. “And I trust the Marshall shares this opinion?”

  “He wouldn’t be so polite,” Starnes replied. “We actually had this conversation on the way to inspect 9th Division headquarters.”

  As they walked out of the hospital, it became Emma’s turn to grill him. “Is the Marshall going down going to impact the war effort?”

  “If it becomes public, it’ll hurt morale,” Starnes replied. “But as far as his strategy, no, the theater and army commands are more than capable of following through with his strategy.”

  “They don’t need his oversight?” she asked. Starnes shook his head.

  “No, he told them what his goal for the theater was and left it up to them,” he said. “That way if something comes up, they’re more than capable of adjusting.” As they stepped outside, he hesitated as a car rolled up.

  “It’s ok,” Emma said. “This one won’t explode.”

  “I was pretty sure the last one wouldn’t either,” Starnes replied.

  Something flashed in Emma’s eyes at his comment. “Well, if it does, we have no one to blame, but our friend of a friend.” A tall, darker man stepped out of the car. When he saw Starnes approaching, he smiled and extended his hand.

  “Hello Major Hugo Starnes, you may call me Jon.”

  “What the hell is this?” Chaney cried. “These aren’t 120-mm shells, they’re 105s!” He looked at a band on the crate and growled. “They aren’t even shotgun rounds, their machine-gun!” He spread his arms to another pallet next to him. “And this?”

  “Those are the armor plates for the hips and skirt,” one of the engineers said. “Replacement panels anyway.”

  “Replacement panels eh?” Chaney said. “How can they function as replacement panels, when the mounting brackets are the wrong damn size?”

  “But we personally had these machined,” another engineer protested. “Gave them the specifics and everything.”

  “How did you deliver the specs?” Chaney said before taking a deep breath. “How?”

  The engineers looked at each other nervously. “We may have sent an email-”

  “Wait,” Chaney said. “We’re currently enduring one of the worst cyberattacks in history, some kind of malware that alters numbers whenever they’re sent by digital message or in cloud storage, and you decided that the extremely specific specs for these armor panels were going to be emailed to the machinist?” His blood was reaching its boiling point, its pressure also dangerously high.

  “Our hands keep cramping from writing things all day,” one engineer complained. “And I doubt anyone could read my handwriting anyway, and I was too tired to hand deliver it. I just wanted things to be convent gain.”

  Chaney cradled his head in his hands in an attempt to suppress his rage. I swear the biggest flaw in unionism is you can’t fire anybody. He growled and walked away, shaking his head in frustration. As soon as he got to his office, he shut the door. At first, he went for the liquor cabinet, but decided against it and grabbed his blood pressure medication. Probably shouldn’t mix these, anyway.

  Staving off his alcoholism for a moment, he looked at the binder currently sitting on his desk. The four inch thick mega file held all the notes and files pertaining to the Phobian. He sat down and began thumbing through it until he found the relevant notes. As he unclipped the page to make a copy, he was startled by a shadow standing near the copy machine.

  “Smart move, not mixing whiskey and meds,” Thorn said. “Could make your slipping health worse.”

  “I know you’re not here for my health,” Chaney said. “I hope you have more information for me.” The Intelligence agent flashed a predatory smile. His one good eye flashed wickedly as he paced the room.

  “I do. Based on what you gathered about Operation Ascent, I was able to piece to gather a few things, get a few answers,” he said. “In addition, I have all the data you could ever want on the Tharcians new heavy panzerter.” He pulled a pair of manilla folders out of his coat and set them on the table. Chaney looked at the files before glancing up at Thorn.

  “Let’s discuss Operation Ascent,” he said. “Only because I hate being lied too, and I hate being kept in the dark.” Thorn shook his head.

  “Oh, you’re going to hate this then,” he said. “It’s the bigwigs, the Trade Union congress, the party bigwigs, the National Committee, all of them giving themselves an out.”

  “What do you mean?” Chaney asked.

  “If the war goes south, like we’re about to be annihilated as a country,” Thorn replied. “Then the central government plans to evacuate themselves, all of their families, and five of the biggest unions to Los Estrellas and sue for peace, while they’re seeing for peace, they’re content to watch the whole of our country be destroyed.”

  Chaney massaged his head in his hands. “Well, that explains the secrecy,” he said. “It’d be incredibly damning if for all of their bluster they’d leave everyone behind the second things got hard.”

  “Its so much bigger than just that, though,” Thorn said. “They’re not just making sure they have an intact home, they’re making sure they get pampered. The amount of resources they’re committing to this is inexcusable.” He shook his head. “If they just focused on winning the war they started, they’d be a lot more likely to win.”

  With a growl, Chaney slammed his fist into his desk. “They should have learned all of this already!” he cried. “It’s twenty years ago all over again! How many good people died because they wanted to fight a war and had no idea how! How fucking stupid do have to be to run for office? Huh?” He slammed his fist again. “It’s all so spineless!” A hand on his shoulder shocked him.

  “I know,” Thorn replied, and for a moment, he looked like a man.

  “We’ll stop here,” Reiter said, bringing the Lowe to a halt. “Daylight’s coming and I want us to move under darkness, everyone post up 50% security.” As the entire group acknowledged him, the oute
r wings of their formation came together and formed a wide circle in the rolling foothills of the Crown of Thorn mountains. Reiter sighed as he removed his helmet and ran a hand through his greasy hair.

  “Can Fox 6 come to the mortar section?” someone asked over the radio. He exhaled and acknowledged the request. Popping open his cockpit hatch, he clambered down to the ground and made his way to the mortar carriers.

  Master Sergeant Joel Stromburg didn’t look like he’d fit into a mortar carrier. With a lanky form and a mop of hair seated on his shaved head, he must have been twenty pounds wet. All business as usual, he unfolded a map he stuck to the side of his mortar track with magnets.

  “So I’ve been thinking about our mission, and I wanted to go over our fires plan,” he said. He pointed towards a small village located on the map. “This little hamlet is… Roadside, huh creative, we’ve declared it a no fire zone because we don’t know the civilian situation.”

  “Smart,” Reiter said. “And you’ve marked off the immediate area around the roads because we need those intact.” Stromburg nodded.

  “Though I have an exception to that,” he said. “If we fire smoke, especially if we’re dropping a smoke screen, the roads and village are game. That being said, I want some targets for them to shoot high explosives at, or white phosphorus, something.” Something about his tone stood out to Reiter. All I’ve had them do is shoot lum or drop smoke, but I’ve under-used them the entire time.

  “Let’s take a look here,” Reiter said. His eyes stung, and his head felt heavy. I’ve been going hard for nearly twenty-four hours. I should sleep when I get back to the Lowe. He sleepily scanned the map, searching for something he could unload mortars on without too much concern. “Here,” he finally said. He pointed to a dip beyond the village and onto the highway. “If I had a QRF staged for this defensive line, I’d stash them here.”

  “I’ll make a target reference point immediately,” Stromburg replied. Reiter held up a hand.

  “We’re also going to remind all platoon leadership that they can call mortars when they have to,” he said. “I want to make sure thy can call for fire confidently. You guys have been criminally under-used, and that’s on me.” Strombur thanked him and walked back into his track, probably to plot fire missions.

  As he walked away, he looked over the mortar tracks and nodded. While the Lowe and other panzerters were certainly impressive, the Iglasio, along with the mortar carriers, Ambulances, Air Defense, Missile Carrier, and dozens of other vehicles based on the one chassis, definitely carried the army. No sooner than he made it back to the Lowe than he spotted Lazlo and Wesser.

  Well, that puts off sleep, but I do need to talk to them. “What can I do for you two?” he asked. Even as he spoke, he felt his eyelids getting heavy.

  “Well, sir, I wanted to know why we are waiting to move out tomorrow night,” Lazlo said. “Doesn’t that surrender the initiative to the enemy?” Reiter nodded slightly.

  “It does,” he said. “But we’ve gone almost twenty hours without rest. The initiative does us no good if we’re exhausted.” He looked around at the drop troopers sleeping peacefully in the woods around the Lowe. “Besides, the drop troopers have been walking this whole time. The partial frames help them some, but they still need actual rest times.”

  Lazlo folded his arms. “Shouldn’t sleep be the lowest priority right now? We have a mission, sir.” Wesser shook his head.

  “He doesn’t get it, sir,” she said. “He’s willing to crush his people if it means getting the job done.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, it’s my duty to correct that,” Reiter replied. “Tired people get sloppy. Tired people make mistakes. When I wake up in six hours, White platoon better be well rested, do you understand me?” Lazlo swallowed and nodded. “Good, also I need you both to go over call for fire with your platoon sergeants, practice in your cockpit as much as you can because tomorrow night we’re feeding the mortars, understood.”

  “Yes, sir,” they both answered. After dismissing them, Reiter climbed back up into his cockpit. Gingerly, he closed his eyes, and the stinging subsided as he drifted off to sleep.

  8

  “I can’t believe it,” lieutenant Irene Bartonova rocked in her bunk in the female barracks. Not only had she utterly failed to take the heights, but her entire regiment had taken a severe beating in the process. Among the losses, most of her second platoon and her first sergeant had been killed on the heights approaching the city. I did everything right, straight from the textbook. How could I fail? They weren’t even the MAGs, they were Acadian Regulars.

  She heard a knock at her barracks door. “Ma’am, it’s Magyar and Fletcher. May we come in?” Magyar called. Bartonova scowled for a moment before sighing and composing herself.

  “Enter,” she said, trying to add some authority to her voice. The two women opened the door to her sparse barracks room. The two women could not have looked more different. Magyar appeared far more earthy. Her dirty blonde hair, more dirty than blonde, hung in a loose bun. She filled her uniform more than her friend did, but maintained the “rock climbing” physique common to panzerter pilots. A jagged scar crossed over her right eye.

  Fletcher, on the other hand, looked Ethereal. Her silvery hair was blonde to the point of being white, and her skin was nearly equally pale. Bartonova would have assumed her albino if not for her gray eyes. While she seemed smaller than Magyar, she knew from the report the young woman was stronger than some of the men in her company. The other thing singling her out as not the average soldier was the black band around the base of her neck.

  Bartonova kept the detonator on her bookshelf. She caught Fletcher’s eyes wandering to it before focusing on her. Good, be afforded you traitor bitch. If you turned on your own people so easily, why wouldn’t you turn on us? “Do you need something?” she asked.

  The two women looked at each other before looking back at her. “We just want to talk about what happened,” Magyar said. “We never-”

  “We don’t need to talk about what happened,” Bartonova replied. “I’m well aware of what happened.” Fletcher cleared her throat, a move that drew a glare from her commander.

  “What Magyar meant to articulate was that we never had an AAR,” she said. “To my understanding, we need to talk about what went right, what went wrong and so on to learn from the last battle.” As much as she hated to admit it, she saw the wisdom in what the tuber said and cursed her immaturity by not facing it.

  She unfolded her legs and stretched. “Fine sit,” she said. “We’ll go over what happened.” Her barracks room consisted of two beds, a footlocker, and a desk with a chair. Fletcher took the chair while Magyar sat on the spare bed.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Magyar said.

  “The initial plan was good,” Fletcher said. “I don’t know if you need to hear this, but what happened wasn’t directly your fault.” Magyar bobbed her head in agreement.

  “The artillery is where things went wrong,” Bartonova said. “It flattened an entire platoon and our first sergeant.”

  “Their inexperience showed,” Fletcher said. “They reacted slowly to artillery and clearly never rehearsed the maneuver together, then the air strikes.”

  Bartonova shook her head. “I read the report. They spotted the formation by recon drone and never had an observer on ground confirm it.”

  “It showed,” Fletcher said. “It was an accident. That doesn’t make you as a leader look any kind of way, so now we have to look at how we can improve.” Bartonova sighed and cracked her neck.

  “We need to double down on the fundamentals,” she said. “Our infantry and remaining panzerters need to drill, drill, drill, react to aircraft, react to indirect fire, react to contact, and even the basic bounding attack.” She looked at Fletcher and felt a pit in her stomach. “Sergeant Fletcher, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re our most experienced pilot, and you’re more familiar with the enemy than anyone else. Would you and leading the
company in drills?”

  With a nod, Fletcher smiled. “I would be honored c-ma’am,” she said.

  “Don’t think you’re off the hook,” Bartonova replied. “I still won’t hesitate to blow your head off if I think you’re suspicious.”

  “Noted,” Fletcher replied. Magyar stretched her back and laid down.

  “So, are we about to walk around with brooms?” she asked. “Like Mo used to make us do?” This time, Bartonova smiled. Just like Viola said.

  As he looked over the road through a pair of binoculars, Kennedy smiled. “I see them, a Tharcian Heavy Recon Company,” he said. “They won’t know what hit them.” The company in question barreled down the road, rushing unknowingly towards destruction. Two platoons of three panzerters, an infantry platoon, and a recon platoon spaced out along the road. “Initiate the ambush on my mark.”

  As dusk set in, they allowed the Tharcains most of the way down the road. As they approached the village, the Tharcians slowed down and began to disperse off the road. Cautious, but not cautious enough.

  Machine guns chattered while rockets screamed through the air. A Tharcian IFV brewed up, followed by another. Before the panzerters could react, one ignited in a column of flames after a laser ignited its magazines. A recoilless rifle smashed another one to pieces.

  To their credit, the Tharcians reacted quickly. The IFVs dropped their hatches while laying down, suppressing fire. The Panzerters spread out and focused their fire on the nearest Martian they could see.

  Unfortunately for them, Kennedy had banked on that. While Guard-Captain Fournier exposed himself to enemy fire, the rest of his company and Harpy focused fire on the Tharcians from their concealed positions.