by Rick Shelley
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Havoc could maintain a higher rate of accurate fire for much longer than the Nova. And as long as the Havoc could maintain its distance, it was out of reach of those tanks.
It wasn't always possible to keep away. But this was one time when the gunners of Basset and Dingo batteries certainly intended to stay more than ten kilometers from the enemy.
Karl Mennem and Jimmy Ysinde were one of the best loader-gunner combinations in the 13th, fast and accurate. Their positions low in the rear of the gun's long turret kept them well separated from the others, at the front of the turret. The howitzer's breech was between Karl and Jimmy. Karl's seat at the targeting controls was a little higher than Jimmy's. They did their work without talking. When the Fat Turtle was speaking, they couldn't have heard each other—not even over helmet radios—anyway.
In the front compartment, Eustace took care of navigation. He gave Simon a course and gave Karl his target priorities. All four men kept busy. Eustace also kept track of the number of shots that went out, a silent roll call, a habit he had never been able—(or really tried)—to break.
This wasn't a perfect mission. There weren't enough Accord spyeyes available to give them pinpoint targeting data for each shot. With adequate data, it would have been one target, one round, with a high degree of certainty that each target would be destroyed in turn. Now all they knew was the location of the enemy column, along with rough corrections from the Wasps that were also hitting it. The data was good, but not precise enough to give the guns their best accuracy.
"We'll make do," Eustace muttered, not really caring whether or not any of the others managed to hear.
Shoot and move. The Havoc commanders were netted in with the two Wasp flight leaders. That gave the howitzers some data, voice and telemetry, but not nearly enough. When one of the flyers reported a hit, there was no way to be certain which of the guns on the ground had scored. Everyone was firing almost as quickly as their guns could be loaded and targeted.
"It's like we've gone back three thousand years," Karl Mennem complained. "More than that. We might as well be firing scrap metal from muzzle-loaders."
"You want we should go nose to nose with Novas?" Eustace asked. "You want that, we could do it... for about eight seconds."
"You want that," Simon said before Karl could answer, "you can find yourself another driver. I'll get out and walk back."
All of them had the amplifiers in their headsets cranked to maximum. Even with that, they shouted into their microphones. Artillerymen always suffered hearing damage. That was a given. Once they were out of the guns, the damage could be repaired, given time. Short of that, treatment was reserved for cases where the damage was severe enough to interfere with job performance.
"Okay, you've both made your points," Eustace said. "Let's concentrate on doing what we can with what we've got." There was no mistaking the annoyance in his voice. With more than a year of working together as a team, the others knew that it was indeed time to shut up.
—|—
Rockets and cannon. Blue Flight expended everything but the rounds in their rear-facing 25mm cannons, then hurried back to the temporary bases their support vans had established. They were only on the ground long enough to get new munitions and fresh batteries, then they hurried back to the fight at full throttle so that part of Red Flight could replenish. Once the rotation was established, the eight Wasps could keep up the attack as long as their pilots could remain alert enough to fly. Or until they were shot out of the air.
Once more, Zel fell into the illusion of being part of his Wasp. Eyes, hands, brain—all became nearly automatic subsystems of the fighter. He took absolutely no thought for the death and destruction he was bringing to the enemy. This was game playing at its most intense, with little more thought given to the possible outcome for himself and his companions. As long as the gameboard was lit up, he would play.
Reflex. Training. Deadly carnage.
The Schlinal tanks continued to maneuver, both in an attempt to evade Accord fire and in a continuing hunt for the Havoc howitzers that were bombarding their regiment with continuing effect. Most of the trucks that had been carrying the infantry had been abandoned in the first seconds. The squads in the backs jumped to get clear of the larger targets. Drivers dove for cover as well. A lone human being presented a much smaller target to any enemy. In the night, he could almost hope to achieve effective invisibility from any long-range attack. And even if he were visible in infrared, he would be just one man among many hundreds. The more distance between him and his companions, the better his odds were.
Although Zel paid no attention to the figures, his targeting system recorded the number of vehicles hit, even though it could not always distinguish between tank and truck. By the time Blue Flight was ready to go back to rearm for the second time, that number stood at twenty-seven total for the eight Wasps. Slightly more than half of those hits were trucks, but the tank battalion had been hit hard throughout the series of engagements. No more than a half dozen, the equivalent of a single tank company, were still operational.
Blue Flight was on the ground when the first enemy Boems reached the battle. Red Flight had no warning until the Heggie squadron was right in the middle of them. The initial numbers were, as close as anyone in Red Flight could tell, sixteen to five.
Two Wasps went down before their pilots could react to the sudden attack. A few seconds later, a Wasp and a Boem took each other out in a head-on collision at speeds too high for their collision-avoidance systems to overcome.
"Hurry it, Chief," Zel told Roo Vernon. "They need us back there right now."
There were just two Wasps there to face fifteen—then thirteen—Boems. Zel bit at his lower lip. They'd never make it back in time to help. The ground crews were just buttoning up the panels over the battery wells when the next call came from Red Flight.
"We're getting out of here, just plain running, out of ammo, low on juice as well."
"Blue Flight, this is Major Parks. You're to go back just far enough to cover Red Flight's withdrawal and landing. Repeat, just far enough to cover Red Flight."
Zel hesitated, for just a second, before he acknowledged the order. If the Boems give chase, maybe we can turn the tables yet, he thought.
—|—
The Havoc 200mm self-propelled howitzer was a well-designed machine. The planners had accounted for every cubic centimeter of space. The allowances for the four crewmen had been carefully evaluated to give a man exactly the amount of room he needed, and not a bit extra. As a result, the spaces actually fit very few men, most not conforming strictly to the average data that had been used to compute the allocation. The composite bucket seats were a particular source of complaints. Any type of padding eased the situation, but only men who were rather below average size could find space to install such a comfort. Small containers near each station held other essential personal equipment, such as meal packs and water. The one "extravagance" that the planners had designed into the Havoc was provision for cool water. Cool, not cold. The argument was that gun crews needed the water because of the temperatures that could occur inside the gun turrets—routinely in excess of 40 degrees Celsius in even moderately warm weather if the gun were being fired with any regularity. Two coolers, each large enough to hold four 1-liter canteens, would keep the contents at a modest 12 degrees Celsius.
The Havocs of Basset and Dingo batteries had gone silent. The crews had all parked their guns and draped their thermal tarps more effectively. Many of the crews, like that of Basset two, had chosen their havens earlier, marked locations, and then carefully avoided using them as firing positions. Not one Havoc of the two batteries had been hit by the enemy counterfire. The Novas hadn't come close enough to be effective, and the Boems had concentrated on the Wasps.
It was the arrival of enemy fighters that had brought the Havocs' part in the ambush to an end, just as the Boems had chased the Wasps from overhead.
The crew of Basset two
was hiding in bushes twenty meters from the Fat Turtle. With tree branches overhead and thick underbrush around them, they felt as safe as they could possibly feel under the circumstances. They weren't crowded together, but they were closer than infantrymen would have been in similar circumstances. And the gunners hadn't bothered to excavate foxholes or slit trenches. It was something they weren't apt to consider unless they came under direct fire... or had reason to believe that they were likely to in the immediate future—say, within the next five minutes.
Each man did have a canteen of water with him. He also had night-vision goggles. Those weren't built into gunners' helmets the way they were in the infantry version, but numerous complaints from gunners who had been forced out into the night, away from the optics of their Havocs, had led the quartermaster corps to issue the extra equipment. Finding room for the gear in a Havoc had been rather more difficult.
Eustace was enjoying the new goggles more than the cool water at the moment. He could actually see. In the Porter campaign, the lack of portable night-vision gear had been very nearly disastrous for him and his crew. If the army hadn't provided the goggles, he had been ready to purchase his own before going into combat again. "I don't want to end up blind in the wrong circumstances again," he had told the 13th's chief gunner after Porter. "A man could get killed that way, an' there's more'n enough ways for a gunner to get dead now."
With night goggles over his eyes and his pistol in hand, Eustace felt ready to take on anything that the Heggies might throw at them. He spent more than twenty minutes just scanning the limited horizon he could see after he and his crew went to ground.
"We might as well try to get a little sleep," he said then. "Two and two. Simon, Jimmy, you take the first hour." Eustace couldn't have slept yet in any case. After the action of the last hour, he would need time to come down from his battle high, to let the adrenaline—and two stimtabs—work their way out of his system. Although he was as short of sleep as any of the Accord soldiers on Jordan, just now he couldn't have felt more wide awake if he had just slept for a week straight.
Eustace smiled, enjoying a private memory. Sleep for a week. He had tried that once, taken a furlough to do nothing but sleep after a long field exercise. He had checked into the Galaxy, the best hotel on Albion, the world where the 13th was based. He had spent the first afternoon and evening eating and drinking, but only in the hotel. For a change, he hadn't made the rounds of the bars that hosted most military traffic, and he didn't associate with any other soldiers. After that first eight hours, he had returned to his room ready to spend the next seven days there, eating, sleeping, and—in between—relaxing.
Two days of that had been all he was able to stand. He couldn't sleep and got far too nervous to relax. After several hours of pacing around his room—Eustace Ponks was a very stubborn man—he had given up. He had taken a taxi across town and started making the rounds of bars and theaters on what was known as the Strip, looking for people he knew from the 13th. He had broken a lot of personal rules during the binge that followed, mostly by buying drinks for people he didn't owe favors to. There had been two brawls, that he could remember afterward, and several brief encounters with the other sort of professional who frequented the Strip.
I could use a little action of that sort now, Eustace thought, grinning widely. He had been married once. That had proven less satisfactory than simply renting companionship when he felt the need. And when he was somewhere where the urge could be satisfied.
There was a little chatter on the radio now. The battery commanders kept in touch with all of their guns. In the field like this, each crew operated semi-autonomously. The men's primary sense of identification was with their own guns, not with the battery as a whole. Guns moved independently, if usually within well-defined areas. Each gun commander was responsible for movement and concealment. But there was always the battery channel on the radio, and always some contact. At the moment, Lieutenant Ritchey, the Basset Battery C.O., was trying to provide a running account of the air action. Ritchey had taken over Basset five after losing his own gun. The trouble was, his information always seemed to be several minutes out of date. Ponks paid little attention to it. His private thoughts were more... entertaining.
"Sarge, how long you figure they'll leave us sitting here?" Karl asked, breaking into Eustace's reverie.
"Either too long or not long enough," he replied, blinking several times to get his mind back to the business at hand. It's not like fairy tales; they never get it "just right," he thought.
"The Wasps are really taking a licking again, ain't they?"
Eustace didn't answer. He had heard about the three planes of Red Flight going down, and that Blue Flight was back getting more rockets. That was the latest information he had.
—|—
The two remaining Wasps of Red Flight were low, hugging the terrain as they tried to escape from the pursuing Boems. Blue Flight waited, higher, across the course that the other planes were taking, but a thousand meters above the Boems. Waiting, idling, running silent. Blue Flight's Wasps didn't even have their TA systems running. They used a radio relay of data from Red Flight. That added a couple of seconds to the process of acquiring a target, but it did maintain the element of surprise for Blue Flight—until their missiles were armed and pointed at the targets.
Six missiles went out. Four of them found targets. There was a moment of confusion for the Boem flight, time enough for Zel and his wingmen to put out six more rockets. Only one of those found a target.
"Into them," Zel said, nosing his Wasp directly toward the heaviest concentration of Boems. "Give Red time to get away."
In the dark, it was a duel of ghosts. The fighters on both sides used their TA systems sparingly, switching them off as soon as targets were acquired and locked into missiles, trying for that essential invisibility. No pilot on either side ever actually saw the enemy, only electronic signatures on cockpit monitors or on the heads-up display.
It was a brief battle, no more than three minutes for Blue Flight. "We're clear," the new Red one told Zel.
"Break contact," Zel told his own pilots.
That was much easier at night than during the day. The pilots simply switched off everything that might put out a visible signature. They swung out on diverging courses and went low, reversing course once they were below fifty meters, and cutting back their speed. Zel went so far as to hover for nearly a full minute, his Wasp almost completely silent. The only audible noise in the cockpit was his own breathing.
That hover might have saved him. At least some of the Boem pilots were also crafty. One of them flashed by Zel's Havoc, not more than twenty meters away. Even then, Zel didn't actually see the other plane, but it did register on the Wasp's instruments. It came close enough that even a passive scan detected the magnetic field generated by the Boem's antigrav drives.
The Boem didn't have a chance to turn to get its missiles aimed at Zel. Zel armed two rockets and got them off while the Boem was still within a hundred meters of him. There wasn't enough time for the Schlinal pilot to do anything but die.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
For a moment, Dem Nimz had mistaken the flashes on the horizon for lightning, even though the sky was clear. There had certainly been enough rain in the time that the Accord had been on Jordan for that to come to mind. But Dem was exhausted. Had his mind been functioning normally, he would have known instantly that what he was seeing was the flash of artillery strikes.
"The fight's still going on," Fredo whispered at Dem's side.
Dem nodded slowly. "At least it gives us a marker," he said, taking a fix on the direction. "They've shifted course a little, I think."
The few men remaining from the 1st and 3rd recon platoons were no longer even thinking about engaging the Heggies. Following the enemy was simply a convenience now, a way to make sure that they were on the best route back to their own people. Unless the Heggies turned around and followed their own path back.
Dem and his
rump command had made use of the enemy's leavings. Coming on one of the places where the Schlinal regiment had been hit, each of the men had appropriated a Schlinal rifle, all of the wire for it he could carry, and a few grenades, either hand or rocket propelled. Schlinal wire spools would not fit in Accord weapons, so rifles and ammunition both had to be taken. And the reccers had also taken what food they could find. They had eaten well a couple of hours back, each man forcing down two or three of the Schlinal field ration packs.
"Almost makes you appreciate our stuff," Fredo had commented at the time.
Most of them ate again now, while they rested and watched the distant duel. It was too far off for them to hear anything of it, and they weren't even seeing all of the flashes over the horizon. But it was enough to know that someone was still carrying on the fight, now that the reccers were out of it.
"When you gonna call the colonel, Dem?" Fredo asked. "By now, they must figure none of us made it."
Dem didn't answer right away. He was always reluctant to use the radio when he was exposed, but this time he had to admit that there was more to it than that. He didn't want to confirm the bad news.
"Soon," he said. "Soon."
"We don't let 'em know there's still a few of us kickin', they might take off just about anywhere and really leave us stranded," Fredo pressed. Earlier, while Dem had been sleeping, Fredo had been sorely tempted to make the call himself. Only his strong sense of discipline had stopped him. He still wasn't certain that he had made the right choice.
There is that, Dem admitted to himself. He sucked in a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. "Okay, I'll call the CP now."
The exec, Dezo Parks, took the call. "We'd just about written all of you off."
"Close enough, sir," Dem replied. "Only ten of us left, and we're too far away from the Heggies to do any more good."