The Last Centurion

by John Ringo

  Refugees?

  Adjusted with transformational synergy. (I think. Something like that.)

  The last fucking thing I wanted to do was tell a reporter:

  "Well, we're outnumbered something like five to one, and some of our 'one' are Nepalese tribesmen that just learned to turn on a light-switch and you got me out of bed when I was 'aiding and comforting' a refugee. And if we get hit we're going to blow this pizza joint sky high."

  I doubt she understood word one of any of my replies. I don't think I understood most of them and I'm pretty good at buzz-word bingo. I do know that the troops were laughing next door so hard I could faintly hear it through the extremely soundproofed walls of the commo van.

  We were deconflicting and transforming faster than a battle-bot. We were synergizing and action iteming like a couple of water beetles in mating season. We were defenestrating obstructors at one point, I think.

  Went on for about fifteen minutes of me just a shuckin' and jivin' as fast as I could.

  There's a point to the media in a democracy. It's there to make sure that people have the information they need to make rational decisions about their actions. Especially their actions in regards to who is going to be elected King or Queen or Duke or whatever.

  I won't go into media bias. There's reams and reams of papers on it at this point. And it's still biased. It's going to stay biased for another fifteen years or so until the people who have lived through the Time end up as bosses in the media and start choosing different producers and editors. Hopefully, they'll choose wisely.

  But at that point, the media was the military's worst enemy. They were the enemy, no more and no less. They never reported anything straight and always took the side of whoever was shooting at us.

  They weren't fucking murdering terrorists who killed their own people faster than they killed us. They were "freedom fighters" or "irregulars." We weren't the freedom fighters, oh no! How could we be? It was rare that they called us what they really thought of us, but every now and then one would slip. Mercenaries. Murderers. Continue in M and go back and forth for every evil word for people you can dredge up.

  When one of our number, usually a grade A asshole to start with, would fuck up, it was "all soldiers are like that! They're all evil murdering lying scum!" When one of their number fucked up, if you learned about it, they were "confused" or "overwrought" or there was nothing fucking wrong with them at all. Circle the wagons. We'd sit there and prove that some story about atrocities was bogus and the fucking media would sail on as if nothing had happened. Anything bad about soldiers or the very hard job we did was major news. Anything good we did wasn't covered.

  Don't think that the Plague had changed anything. Every fucking screamer with some sob story, no matter how wrong, was instant headline news. The 4th ID got reamed when some woman got a reporter on ABC to put her on telling about how a whole bunch of those poor fucking grasshoppers had been "gang raped" by a bunch of soldiers.

  Was there ever any proof? Not a fucking shred. As far as anyone can tell she made it up.

  Back in the Iraq Campaign there was some fucking Air Force sergeant who got some reporter to repeat her sob story about "thousands of women raped" and how she had been.

  Were female military members raped in Iraq? Yep. And any time we could track down the bastards that did it we'd put them on trial and sentence them to max punishment. But when you have males and females together, you get rape. It's like sunshine and flowers and April showers. Fucking happens. Pardon the pun.

  Were "thousands" raped? No. Despite there being nearly a million females rotating through the AOR over time. The rape rate was way lower than on a college campus despite pussy being rare as hell.

  And the Air Force sergeant in question?

  Not only was she not one of the "thousands," at least she'd never reported it at the time or since, she was never in fucking Iraq! She'd made it all up. And the news media fucking ran with the story anyway!

  Any lie by anyone who hated the military was repeated endlessly. Any truth was ignored.

  I did not and do not like reporters. Is that clear? Even after the whole Centurions thing I maintain my opinion.

  Sherman said it well:

  "If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world but I am sure we would be getting reports from hell before breakfast."

  Oh, and about democracy.

  The purpose of a free press, in which I believe believe it or not, is so that people can make rational decisions in a democracy. They'd already perverted the process so bad that was hard, but the point is valid.

  So why give her the runaround? Why not answer the questions straight?

  There was still Plague running around. Most of the cities were (or should have been) free-fire zones. People were starving to death. And there was an impending climate catastrophe they were completely ignoring.

  What the fuck did a company stuck in Iran have anything to do with making rational decisions about how to survive in the current conditions?

  Nada. Dick. Nothing. The closest you can get is deciding whether Warrick was a fucking idiot and the reality was all around you. It didn't take a rocket scientist. Not that the media was going to admit their annointed was a fucking fruitcake.

  She was going for a "human interest" story, that most idiotic of media exercises.

  Well. Fuck. Her. Try making a robot interesting.

  The company dayroom was right by the commo van. When I stumbled out, unbuckling my helmet and swearing under my breath, the troops had lined up to give me an ovation.

  "God damn, sir, you sounded like a Pentagon spokesman!"

  "They're going to put you up for Chief of Staff!"

  "Defense Secretary!"

  "Fuck you all. I'm clearly not working you hard enough."

  In truth, I wasn't. I wasn't working them hard, I wasn't working me hard, I wasn't working Fillup hard. Why? Because I knew we were all going to be working our asses off soon.

  Bill Slim was an interesting guy. British General in WWII. Probably the best Brit general of his generation and certainly the best one that got anything done. (Way better than Monty.) Wrote a hell of an autobiography. One of the things he said stuck with me. (Well, a lot did, but I'll just get into this one.)

  "A General should take as much rest as he can in peace because when battle rages he will get none."

  Paraphrase but that's the general idea. I knew the shit was about to hit the fan. So I and everyone else was getting as much rest, food and water as possible.

  Good thing I did.

  Chapter Seven

  All Good Things

  Come to an End

  Yeah, that was Friday.

  Friday is a holy day for Islamics. Not quite like Sunday or Shabbat, but it's the day they sort of celebrate the same way. They sure as hell weren't going to kick off an assault on Friday.

  Saturday? Don't mean dick to them.

  The best time to assault somebody is right before dawn. It's called "Before Morning Nautical Twilight." (BMNT) Its that time when the world is still and the light makes things look sort of blue. You can't tell a white thread from a black. It's not dawn; it's not night. Night vision systems get screwed up by the light levels.

  It is, generally, when people are at their lowest ebb. Sentries are sleepy, those who are sleeping are generally sleeping hard and don't wake up well.

  You'd have thought they'd attack at dawn. Think again. Iranians, remember. In'sh'allah.

  I don't know if they meant to attack at dawn. I do know that our sentries, who were very bright eyed and bushy-tailed, let me tell you, said that there were some vehicles moving around down by Abadan and the refinery. It was easy enough to see them with thermal imagery cameras of which we had a fucking slew.

  So I set up in the command post. Things had adjusted. The Nepos had positional security on Fort Lonesome. The U.S. infantry were taking the gate, surrounding bunkers and such. But mostly they fell out and into their Strykers.


  We sent out a team to tell the refugees that things were about to get busy and they were not going to like the neighborhood soon. They were in a truly fucked up situation. The armed guys wanted to help us, or said they did. We weren't having any of it. We just told them to move off to the side with what they could carry and dropped one more set of rations. It was more than they probably could carry, we used a couple of forklifts to carry it out. But that was the point.

  Temperature-wise, it didn't get hot. Not a bit. Abadan in mid-September is normally hot as shit. Not that year. We hadn't had a snow, yet, but you could see it creeping down the mountains. That day it never got above about 70.

  Got pretty fucking hot otherwise.

  So some vehicles came out. And went back. And came out again. The troops opened up their battle rattle and snoozed. We'd been up since before dawn. I called the Nepos and had them get the girls working on a hot meal. There was time.

  The guys ate chow. It was about nine AM before there was much movement. More vehicles came out. Some started to head up the Ahwaz highway and then turned and headed for the end of the base, the end with most of the ammo bunkers on it.

  I let 'em come for a while. They were probably going to replicate the suicide bomb truck trick. Okay, got something for that, now.

  When they got to about two klicks, two kilometers, I told the Mk-19s to open up. Mark-19s were originally developed for the Navy but the Army fucking loves them. 40mm grenade launchers, they pack a hell of a punch and just keep on firing.

  Bud-a-bud-a-bud-a-bud-a-bud.

  Three Mk-19s opened up from bunkers. Two klicks is a long range for the Mk-19. Max effective range is 1600 meters. Max range is only 2200.

  The point wasn't to kill them. The point was to throw off their aim.

  Fuckers kept coming. Don't know if it was a suicide run or what.

  So they got down to the range that they could be engaged effectively and started getting hit.

  Three "military grade trucks," Mercedes ten-tons, probably loaded with ammonium nitrate and all the rest that makes AMFO, and four pickup trucks loaded with guys with light weapons. The pickups were keeping wide of the big trucks, which gave me a clue they were bomb trucks.

  The Mk-19 is a pretty effective "anti-material" weapon. It's even better when it hits a big assed bomb.

  The term is "secondary explosion." One of the Mercedes just fucking disintegrated. I mean the fireball was probably a hundred yards across and made a mushroom cloud. Very big explosion. Another one rolled over. The third continued on. For a while. Until a couple of rounds hit the engine. Then it rolled to a stop smoking. The driver got out and ran for it.

  Not far. By then the group was in range of all the bunkers on the berm. And both the Mk-19s and the .50s were lighting them up. They wiped them out.

  Here's military law. Don't ever imagine I wasn't skirting some issues. Use of "local" personnel for "aid and comfort" was against so many regulations I don't want to start. But we're talking about military law.

  In a combat situation a military unit must give the other side a chance to surrender. Under certain conditions.

  1. The enemy clearly signals a desire to surrender or is hors de combat.

  2. Taking the enemy prisoner will not endanger the receiving group.

  That's right. During most of the War on Terror we'd been accepting surrenders that, under the laws of war, we did not have to. A side that uses "irregulars" has three days to give them all some identifying mark saying "this is our side." If they don't, they are known as "illegal combatants" and have exactly no rights under the Geneva Convention or any other law of war. They are legally the equivalent of spies with guns and the Convention is clear that you can shoot spies. They're given a swift and not particularly just trial, guilty unless proven innocent, and after six months you can justly and legally shoot them.

  That'd clear out Guantanamo.

  Okay, so we're the good guys. We cut the bad guys some slack. I get that.

  You think I'm going to take prisoners when I've got one company of troops cut off so far behind enemy lines you can't see the good guys with a fucking satellite?

  Not hardly.

  My orders had been simple. "No quarter. We can't afford it."

  The boys had no qualms with that. They knew what a cleft stick we were in.

  So there was a blown-up truck, another rolled over and a bunch more shot to shit.

  Round One: Bandit.

  At the same time there'd been some movement from town. More vehicles. Including the two tanks. They were followed by a whole bunch of people. More people than I thought were living in Abadan at that time.

  We didn't have a way for me to automatically use any of the sights we'd set up. I had somebody hand zoom on one.

  The vehicles had stopped. The people were herded out. And I do mean herded.

  The front rank was women and kids. Mostly. There were some old farts.

  I don't know how they'd been chosen. Never did bother to find out.

  Bottomline: The fucker was using us being the "good guys" against us. Behind the women and kids were more soldiers than I'd thought could be in Abadan. That was when I knew I wasn't holding the base. It's also when I figured there was no way I was going to lose.

  They were headed for the same part of the base as the trucks; the part with all the goodies. That was fine by me.

  Fillup started getting queries when they got close enough most of the bunkers could see what the group was made up of. They'd put the vehicles, "technicals" and the tanks and one APC that was a surprise, in behind the women and kids. But most of the "soldiers" were interspersed. There was no way we were going to be able to take them out without killing the noncombatants.

  Again, there's a military law that covers this. I could have lit them up. My boys would have done it if ordered. I'd have been covered, technically. My name would have been mud, I wouldn't have liked myself much and I don't want to think what it would have done to my All American boys. The Nepos would have just been professionally chagrined.

  Thing was, I figured I didn't have to. Oh, to hold the base and all the gear I would. But I'd kissed that goodbye the moment I saw how many soldiers we were up against.

  "Make sure we get fucking video" was all I said.

  The whole group shuffled forward. They weren't moving fast. A few fell out, heat stroke, exhaustion, whatever. Some more were shot "pour encourage l'autre." We just let them shuffle.

  Six miles from their main point of departure to the fences. Gave me time to get a good look at what I was up against. Couple of 20mm anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks. More with machine guns. Couple without any weapons. The two tanks. One APC with a 30mm gun. About six thousand infantry. That had required some logistics, that.

  The plan was, apparently, to just shuffle up to the fences. I was good with that. Was interested to see what they'd do about the mines.

  Six miles. Took three hours. It had taken them about an hour to get set up. Was two PM before they got close to the base. They stopped about a half a klick out.

  The three trucks that weren't carrying weapons pulled through the group. They weren't moving fast; getting the civilians out of the way wasn't easy.

  "Get some Jav teams up on the berm. Let them get a look at what they're facing. Don't show the Javs."

  The trucks eventually got through, spread out and headed for the fence.

  We'd repaired the previous damage. They derepaired it. All three took out sections of fence and the concertina.

  "Tell the gate guards to get ready to open up and then hunker."

  "Roger."

  "Samad?"

  "Yes, sahib?"

  "May be some leakers. Do not let them take my whiskey."

  "They will not pass us, sahib."

  God, I love the Nepos.

  They hadn't opened fire at us. We weren't opening fire at them.

  I started to wonder just how much this colonel knew about our internal defenses. I'd made sure that once the g
irls came into the compound, they didn't leave or pass messages out. I wasn't going to have the sort of intel we were getting from the refugees get out to my enemies. But he clearly knew we were on this end, primarily. He was staying well away from our living area. Like he was saying "We're just here to take the silverware. Don't mind us."

  The problem being, he was going to have a hell of a time getting everything out over the berm.

  Which meant he probably intended to assault through the holding encampment. More cover there so it made sense. Use the people to get up to the berm, blow the defenses, charge over the berm then fight forward through the gear in the base.

  The big question was when he was going to drop the civilians. He'd do it at some point. Keeping them would make a battle impossible. At least coming through the gear park.

  The answer was, as I'd guessed, at the berm. Some of the infantry, along with some civilians for cover, cleared out the last of the concertina. Then they formed up a wall of civilians on the berm as cover and started marching over into the gear park.

  Worked for me.

  Remember, it was rigged like a motherfucker.

  We could hear them hooping and hollering all the way to the base. Most of the civilians, with the "infantry" over the berm, were beating feet back to Abadan much faster than they'd come. They left a trail of stragglers behind including some kids. See what we'd do about them later.

  The colonel apparently had good enough people they stopped the sack before it got started. The thing was, to get it all out, short of major engineering, he had to take Fort Lonesome. We were blocking the gate.

  We had internal cameras. I could see them moving through the stacks of gear, the tanks, the Bradleys, Strykers and Humvees. I was wondering when they'd notice all the wires and shit.

  "Get ready to roll," I said as soon as most of the guys were over the berm.

  I saw at least one of the guys who caught a clue. Young guy, looked about twelve which probably meant seventeen or so. He saw one of the wires and followed it back to the hood of the Humvee. Looked under the Humvee. Got up and started shouting.

  There was more shouting by that time. But the guys were spread through the park and didn't have much in the way of commo. Some of them were heading back. There were arguments.