Armored Tears

by Mark Kalina

  "You going to keep your new driver?" she asked Feldman. "I can probably find someone to shift around so you have a real driver..."

  "I'll keep the one I've got," Feldman said. "Private Piper mentioned he'd always wanted to be in Armored Corps. I figure he's earned his place."

  "Sure, OK."

  "They'll be back in another hour, won't they?" Feldman asked.

  "Probably," Tara replied. "None of our drones made it past their forward positions, and satellites are still down. At least it's even that way, now. But from what we got from that one pass worth of data the Aerospace boys shared with us, there's at least another enemy armor battalion out there, maybe two. Plus infantry. And we're still between them and where they want to go."

  "I wonder if they tried bypassing us," Feldman mused.

  "Not likely," Tara replied. "Their orbital surveillance would have shown them how bad the ground is, even if their maps don't. We're covering the only passable route through the Isthmus Highlands. There's not much room for maneuver. We're here, they need to get past us. Not much doubt of what happens next."

  "Command will have to send reinforcements, though. It's got to be clear now that we're the ones holding back the main force," Feldman said.

  "Sure," Tara agreed. "But that's going to take hours. Maybe by dusk. And the pissers will be here in an hour. So we hold them one more time, is all."

  "Damn straight," Feldman said, nodding once.

  32.

  Colonel Mbala looked grimly at the data on the display. Most of the 2nd Armored Battalion was gone, wrecked. And there was no telling how many Arcadian tanks still held the crucial highlands. It was clear now that the Arcadians had managed an effective ruse, hiding their strength, pretending that they had only a single under-strength battalion to lure him into launching an insufficiently strong attack.

  It had been a brutal, clever and effective ruse. But one that would backfire badly for the Arcadians. He had two more battalions of armor, and with the survivors of the 2nd battalion, he could send both forward at full strength.

  It would mean that he would be unable to manage the optics of the operation as well as he wanted to, but he could adapt to the situation at hand. The image portrayed by a desperate and costly victory against fanatical opposition wasn't his first choice, but it could be made to work. With a little care, it could be just as effective a career move as his first plan, of a unflustered, clean, invincible advance through hopeless enemy rabble.

  "Send both battalions to attack," he ordered his aide. "Inform the commanders that they are to press the attack to victory at all costs. At all costs. Make that clear to them."

  "Yes, sir," the aide said, and ran off to put Colonel Mbala's orders into effect.

  ***

  "Why the fuck we gotta dig these holes, Sergeant?" asked Private Palalin. The big man was walking wounded, but with his broken leg immobilized in an inflatable pressure cast they'd put on at the aid-station, he could still wear and operate his frame.

  "'Cause the Armored Corps colonel told us to, Private," Bernie replied. "And 'cause since we haven't got any anti-tank missiles, there's shit-all else we can do to help."

  Besides which, Bernie thought but did not bother saying, having the surviving framers digging made good sense. Framers, using the strength of their frames' servos, could dig a lot faster than tankers could, using only their own muscles.

  That didn't keep the surviving members of the 9th from griping about it. And since Bernie —Sergeant Polawski— had found herself the senior surviving leader of the 9th, it was her job to shut down the griping and make sure the job got done.

  The plan behind the digging was pretty clever too, Bernie thought. A lot of enemy tanks were headed their way, a lot. And the battered 8th Armored Battalion —which now more or less included the few survivors of the 9th Frame Infantry Company— had to stop them. So they were digging a mine-field. The clever bit, though, was that they had no mines to do it with.

  Instead they were burying a few smart-fuse grenades and a lot of random pieces of assorted metal junk salvaged from knocked-out tanks. When the enemy tanks reached the "mine field," they would command detonate the smart-fuse grenades. They were harmless to a tank, but on the enemy tankers saw something that even vaguely looked like a mine going off, they would be sure to switch on their mine detectors... at which point they would find hundreds of buried metal objects in their path. Once that happened, they were almost bound to form up into columns and use their counter-mine systems to "clear" paths through the "mine field" they had found. It wouldn't stop them, but just like real mines would have done, it would slow them down and bunch them up.

  "Come on, you guys," Bernie called as she finished burying another chunk of jagged metal, "dig faster. The last fucking place we want to be is here when those pisser tanks show up."

  That ought to motivate the framers, she thought, even if nothing else did.

  ***

  "Hey, Colonel..." said Private Hanneman, her driver, "could I ask you a question?"

  Her crew were all in the tank, just waiting, knowing the enemy would be here soon; the worst part of a battle, Tara thought; the moment where there was no distraction from your fears.

  "Sure, Hanneman," Tara said.

  "I just... I was wondering. I mean, are we going to make it? Have we got a chance?"

  "'Course we got a chance, Darryl," said the gunner, Corporal Jalal Shalik. "We're riding the Colonel's tank, aren't we?"

  Tara could sense Corporal Malan, her sensors operator, looking at her across the compact space of the turret, though he said nothing.

  "What about it, Colonel?" Hanneman asked.

  "I'd like to tell you we're going to make it, guys. I'd love to tell you that," Tara said. "I can't. We... we might make it. I can't promise it, though. You guys, I think you're the best crew I ever rode with. The best. And I want to tell you we're going to get home.

  "But we might not. I can promise you.... I can promise that I won't throw you away... won't throw us away. I won't spend us if I don't have to. I can promise you that. But I can't promise that I won't expend you... expend us. We have to hold here. Have to. There's just no choice. And if that means we have to die here..."

  "Hell, Colonel," said Corporal Malan, "that's what we signed up for, isn't it? I mean, isn't that why we joined the Defense Force? To protect our home? No one promised us we'd make it back, though."

  "Yeah," agreed Corporal Shalik.

  "If I can get us through this alive, I will, guys," Tara said softly. "I can promise you that. If I can, I will. But that's all."

  "Good enough for me," said Corporal Shalik into the silence that followed.

  ***

  The UEN tanks were moving in again in carefully spaced formations, as if on parade ground. Watching their advance via one of her drones, Tara wasn't sure if what she was seeing called for admiration for their discipline or contempt for their by-the-book, parade-ground tactics. The problem was, with two battalions of attacking tanks, the parade ground tactics were all too likely to work, she thought.

  The other problem was the type of tanks she was seeing. Half of them, a battalion worth, were reading as T-66s. But the other half were something else. The best "guess" the targeting computer had was brand-new Korean K19s. If that was true, it was bad news. According to the latest data, the K19 was faster than the T-66, had better targeting systems, was at least as well armored, and mounted a cutting edge 47 megajoule main gun. From what Tara had read of them, the K19s had a decent claim to being the best tanks in existence.

  Seeing them coming at her positions made the waiting just that much harder.

  "Wait for them to slow down for the 'mine field' before unmasking from cover and opening fire," Tara called on the battalion command push. Not that Younger and Feldman didn't know the plan, but repeating it one more time gave her something to say... which beat just silently watching the overwhelming force roll in.

  The enemy tanks knew where her tanks were; both sides
were launching enough drones that some were staying up long enough to be of use, but the Arcadian tanks were immune to direct fire till they showed themselves, or till the UEN tanks got so close that they could get angles of fire around the cover.

  Of course, her tanks weren't immune to missile attack.

  Here it comes again, she thought with a wince, as infantry forces behind the UEN tanks salvoes dozens of anti-tank missiles. It was the same move that had cost her so dearly last time.

  "Battalion! All units stand by counter-missiles and point defense!" she ordered.

  The enemy missiles were streaking in now, just as they had before.

  "Designated units," she called, "launch drones. All units, stand by to receive anti-missile targeting from the drones!"

  Not again, you don't, she thought. Not twice. This time her tanks would have targeting data on the inbound missiles in time for effective anti-missile fire. If only she had thought of it last time, she thought bitterly.

  Anti-tank missiles streaked in, skimming low over ground littered with wrecked tanks. From behind covered positions, counter-missile salvos flashed up, their targeting data fed to them by the circling drones. Dozens, and then hundreds of puffs of dirty smoke marked the detonations of missiles and counter-missiles.

  A few tanks fired second salvos of counter-missiles. Two tanks opened up with Metal Storm turrets on inbound missiles that the drones had warned them were on the way. Not a single anti-tank missile hit an Arcadian tank.

  There was cheering from a few tanks, coming through on the battalion comm push.

  "Knock it off," Tara ordered. "Cheer when we kill them, not when they miss!"

  Wait for it, she thought silently. Wait for it...

  A half-dozen small explosions went off in front of the advancing enemy tanks; smart-fused grenades detonating. There was no possible way they could seriously damage a modern tank. But the effect was everything that Tara had hoped for.

  She was pretty sure every single pisser tank was switching on their counter-mine systems. And those systems would be finding hundreds of buried masses of metal, with no way to tell that they were only inert junk.

  As far as the enemy was concerned, they were about to hit a mine-field and the entire UEN formation slowed and began to pull into a half-dozen columns of tanks, ready to push through the "mines" ahead of them.

  "Stand by," Tara called. Just a few more seconds...

  "Designated units, unmask and engage as planned!" Tara shouted into the comm.

  A half-dozen War-Hammers, Tara's included, rolled forward to bring their guns to bear, acquired an enemy tank, and fired a single burst, before rolling back under cover.

  All six bursts hit, but only three of the leading "mine-clearing" T-66 tanks were hit hard enough to stop; one with a shed track and two with penetrations that sent survival pods and tongues of fire shooting out from their hulls and turrets.

  UEN tanks returned fire, raking the covered positions with main gun fire, sending up clouds of pulverized rock, but their targets were already out of reach.

  "Second detachment, unmask and engage!" Tara called.

  Another six War-Hammers unmasked from different locations and fired, before reversing back into cover. Two more UEN tanks started to burn. Return fire thundered back, but the UEN tanks had been focused on the positions of the first six War-Hammers, and the second six all managed to get behind cover before any hostile rounds reached them.

  So far, so good, Tara thought. If they could keep this up long enough, they could stop the enemy cold. The problem was, she knew they couldn't.

  Ahead of her, the enemy were reacting. UEN tanks popped smoke and began to fall back. She was tempted to order her tanks to unmask and fire, but the number of enemy guns made it too dangerous; in the time it would take her tanks to acquire a target through the concealing smoke, the UEN tanks would be able to fire back in overwhelming numbers.

  "Hold positions and do not unmask," Tara ordered, just in case some tank's crew got too eager. With the odds she was facing, she could not afford any early losses.

  Nor did the UEN tanks retreat far. Instead they stopped about a half-kilometers before the "mine-field" and then began to rake the ground ahead of them with long bursts from their main guns.

  A hurricane of blasted dirt and rock exploded into the air as hundreds of main gun shots pounded into the ground. Tara blinked. As a means to clear a mine-field, it was crude, but innovative and effective. She'd have to remember the trick, she thought... assuming she survived.

  Amid the cascade of erupting dirt and stone, the UEN tank crews probably had no way to tell that there were no actual mines to detonate. Nor did the wall of dust and debris give Tara's tanks any good chance of making some quick sniping shots; the Arcadian tanks kept to their cover.

  The storm of fire and debris lasted for less than a minute as the UEN tanks swept lanes through the non-existent mine-field, and then the guns fell silent and the UEN advance resumed.

  Tara watched them come, waiting till it was time to spring the next the next trick.

  At two kilometers, a dozen Arcadian tanks suddenly began to target the front rank of the UEN advance. They seemed to appear from nowhere; the laser ranging pulses were coming from cold tanks hidden behind camouflage netting, and the UEN crews had written them off as knocked-out if they had noticed them at all. But now those tanks suddenly showed thermal signatures and were reaching out with targeting-laser pulses.

  Surprised or not, though, the UEN tank crews reacted fast. Salvos of concealment grenades launched; tanks evaded and returned fire. The newly revealed Arcadian tanks were mostly positioned out of cover, and 44 megajoule shots began to slam into them.

  One by one the laser targeting systems went dead. Not a single Arcadian tank got off a round.

  Maybe a few of the UEN crews wondered about it, in the seconds before all twenty of Tara's remaining War-Hammers unmasked and fired at the UEN tanks, which were busy pumping shots into the dead hulks of tanks knocked out in the previous battle. The decoys had been fitted with improvised heat sources to give them a thermal signature and spare laser range finders salvaged from the framers of the 9th to make them seem like a threat.

  The muzzle blasts from the Arcadian's salvo sent clouds of dust rolling out from their positions. A storm of 41 megajoule rounds flashed across the distance between the two forces, hitting nineteen more UEN tanks, taking out nine in a matter of seconds and leaving four more damaged and immobile. Despite the eruption of debris and dust from the Arcadian salvo, about a half-dozen UEN tanks managed to acquire and fire back before the Arcadians got back behind cover. Two War-Hammers took glancing hits; one suffered a penetration that killed all three turret crew but left the driver and the tank's mobility unimpaired.

  Return fire from some War-Hammers that hadn't been quite as quick to get back behind cover took out two of the UEN tanks that had been immobilized in the prior salvo and scored hits on one more undamaged tank, a K19, though the K19's armor shed the 41 megajoule shots in a shower of sparks.

  Another War-Hammer was hit in return. The shot penetrated and eradicated the tanks sensors operator, but the fire it started was within the capacity of the tank's fire suppression system to put out, and the damaged tank could still fight.

  "All units reverse and return to cover!" Tara ordered.

  No matter how tempting the targets, she knew her people could not afford a slugging match with the UEN tanks.

  But now, Tara thought, came the part she dreaded. She'd managed to take out sixteen of the enemy and lost only one or two of hers, a superb, almost amazing result. But now she was out of clever ruses. There were more than fifty enemy tanks left, and if their losses had been heavy, still they showed no signs of retreating. And she had only eighteen or nineteen tanks to stop them.

  "All units," she ordered, dreading her own next words, "unmask and engage!"

  ***

  Aran could track the ebb and flow of the battle by means of the jerks and surging swe
rves of the tank he was riding. The interior space of the tank's huge turret was painted white and consisted of three stations, each one a veritable cocoon of display screens and controls. The sensors operator's station where he sat was, thankfully, not too cramped; about the same space as the driver's seat of a compact sports car. He'd been shown the drone controls and, also thankfully, found them to be similar enough to the control setup of the Series 70 news drones —close relations of the Series 70 military drones that the Arcadian tanks carried— to be comprehensible. For the rest, he could watch the displays, some set to visual, some to thermal, easily enough. He had no idea how to control the many variable settings of the sensors, or how to use the counter-mine systems, or the radar. And he didn't know the terse, almost coded jargon that the tank crew used to speak to each other. If he was —as the female colonel in charge of the tank battalion had told him— better than nothing, he suspected it wasn't by much.

  His tank was firing and moving. The thudding reports of the huge main gun's bursts were surprisingly muted inside the tank, but the shouts of his fellow crew —if he could think of them as such— were loud and full of nerves and tension.

  "Tank! 12 o'clock! Gunner, engage!"

  "Engaging!"

  "Driver, evasive! Evasive left! Left!"

  "Got him!"

  "Another one at 2 o'clock!"

  "Acquire him! Get the gun on that pisser bastard!"

  "#1 just nailed him!"

  "OK. Find me another one."

  "Shit! #4 is hit! He's burning!"

  "Shit! Driver, reverse. Get us back to the second firing position!"

  "Tank! 1 o'clock! Gunner, engage!"

  "Engaging! Fuck, he's close! Got him! Look at him burn!"

  "Scan for targets!"

  "Shit! Tank, 3 'o clock!"