As one riddled engine after another flamed out, the lead flight dumped their payloads far short of the target, shedding speed and altitude while they struggled to stay airborne and limp back home. Following standard procedure, the follow-up flight forged ahead. Picking up altitude, they flashed over their wounded, smoking Comrades to finish the job.
Also following standard procedure, the Landkruezer’s second round hit higher and closer at the same time.
“Bugger me! Come on, let’s board this wanker while it’s distracted!” The Captain circled a finger over his head.
Dore bared his teeth and howled as all three B-24s entered the sausage grinder. Nothing but flame and tiny debris came out the other end… nor a single parachute from any of the 33 crewmen that just vanished.
The airman kept clacking his mic off and on, in time with his flapping open jaw.
“Good God. I…we… need more bombers.” He flipped through his notebook and hollered at someone on the radio for a minute before finally collecting himself.
“It’s okay… It’s going to be ok. We’ve got plenty more bombers landing at Port Lyautey soon. General Patton just gave me top fire support priority. Call it two or three hours to get the birds prepped, loaded and organized. Then we’ll carpet bomb this sumbitch from maximum altitude. Not even those super guns could shoot that high. We’ll finish this by lunch.”
Trufflefoot harrumphed and measured something on his map. After a moment, he tore off his glasses and stabbed a thumb back west. “You mean that base of yours less than an hour away? Captain, I sure hope you have a ton of artillery.”
“This wall isn’t close to high enough. Are those the heaviest guns you have?” Dore kept swinging his entrenching tool in the top of the berm, carving out a fighting hole while piling the dirt a few inches higher.
Over the clumps of sand, he never took his eyes off the Ratte rambling their way, less than 10 kilometers out. Another salvo of 122mm artillery rounds rained down, as the colossal beast maxed its twin U-boat engines and hauled out of the kill zone. Only a single short round dinged the giant turret…at the exact moment, both 11” guns boomed again.
“We’re working that issue, that sucker can move like a—Incoming!” The same British Captain from the dock dropped his radio and slid down the berm’s reverse slope. Both giant shells sailed over the pitiful dirt wall and the battalion of Royal Engineer bulldozers ramming mounds of sand in place.
Three hundred meters behind the defense line, an American artillery battalion disintegrated as both 600 kilos worth of High Explosives and shrapnel shredded the exposed crews loading shells in the open air. Only two of the eighteen howitzers were knocked out. All the guns went silent while the survivors dragged the wounded away and reorganized their shattered gun crews.
Kat chucked her e-tool away and tossed both arms over the berm’s crude parapet. “Might as well save your energy. The minefield will stop this thing. Then comes the hard part.”
She helped herself to a crate of grenades from the mixed bag of English and American reinforcements storming up the ramparts and leveling a thousand rifles downrange. Trufflefoot frowned up and down the line of fresh-faced young men and their spotlessly clean uniforms.
“We need more troops. That thing’s recruiting an army faster than its destroying one.”
Trufflefoot squatted in his fighting hole on reflex as the Ratte forded the last river canal before the city walls, the two-meter-deep water barely covering up the tracks. Scores of Vichy French trucks, tanks, and armored vehicles trailed behind the deadly mama duck… and hundreds more kicked up dust clouds on the horizon as they raced in from every direction.
“Ah, the French will flip sides again once Pernass is out of the picture…That’s it. Just a little closer.” Kat pumped her fist and hollered at the anti-tank team spread out to her left.
“Once the treads are blown off, focus all your fire on the secondary guns so we can board without getting torn apart. Don’t waste ammo on the hull or turret!”
An American Officer leaned over the gun shield of his 57mm cannon and rolled his eyes. “Darling, don’t tell us how to suck eggs. You Brits worry too much about every little… Motherfucker!”
With six immense treads, each as wide as a jeep, the Ratte triggered far more of the densely packed mines at the same time as any typical tank. Kat ground her teeth at the normally beautiful sight of eight shaped-charge mines blasting off at once, all detonating at least five meters ahead of the 1,000-ton rumbling dinosaur.
“I thought those things were pressure-activated!” Kat punched the sand as another row of mines fountained harmlessly ahead of the Ratte. The beast never slowed as it ripped through the city’s perimeter defenses unscathed.
“Must be triggering the anti-tamper secondary fuses. Look how the bombs are rattling around. My pa always said, never outsmart your common sense.” Dore leveled a borrowed 30 caliber machine gun as the attackers closed the last gap before the wall.
In less than a minute, the land cruiser cleared a 15-meter wide swath through the 500-meter-deep belt of mines, all without a scratch. It smashed into the outskirts of the city, crushing the nearest mosque and the platoon of infantry fortified inside without firing a shot.
“Incoming!”
An American Officer ignored the steel rain from the Vichy artillery fire hosing the defense line. He raised his rifle and fired at the regiment of French infantry and armor racing under the Ratte’s skirt. “Get your heads up and fire back! Hold the line!”
“Maybe the sappers will have better luck.” Kat dashed a couple of foxholes over, shoulders hunched as she flittered past the US Commander. He stood tall and shouted a pep talk, still gesticulating even as a jagged shard of shrapnel tore out his larynx. Kat rubbed the red smear from her face while diving headfirst into the nearest mortar pit.
The speechless American mortar team deliberately pried open crates of smoke rounds, feeding them downrange at a steady but boring clip. “This isn’t a training exercise; those brave fools need some serious smoke cover!”
The teenaged loader blinked at her. Kat snatched the wooden crate out of his hands and smashed it to splinters at her feet. Scooping up a handful of rounds, she shoved the gunner aside and jammed them down the mortar tube without bothering to adjust the aim.
The gunner recovered somewhat, his voice a faraway squeak. “Not so fast. The manual says the sustained rate of fire is…”
They both ducked as a French mortar round barely overshot their pit and showered them with clods of dirt. Kat slapped the boy across his cheek. “Are you an American or an American’t?”
Dore roared from a few foxholes over. “You Americunts are getting your arses handed to you by the bloody French!”
Kat curled up her nose and echoed Dore. “The French!” She spit out the last word and turned away.
The mortar-man snarled, then grinned at her backside. “Get some, boys!”
Kat crawled up to the parapet while the mortar section tripled their pace despite the hellfire raining down, all the tubes soon glowing red.
Less than a kilometer away, the Ratte vanished under a barrage of white smoke. A squad of Royal engineers with more balls than brains bounded over the rubble and slipped into the smoke, charging for the towering tank treads from every direction. Each of the insane men dangled a pair of 20kg satchel charges under their arms instead of a rifle.
Unfortunately, the regiment of Vichy troops also rushing into the fog had plenty of weapons. Two booms echoed above the hundreds of gunshots. Kat stifled her cheer as the Ratte clanked out of the smoke cloud. A little slower, a bit more cautious…but all guns still blazing. Including one aimed at the mortar team now switching to high explosive rounds.
Kat combat rolled into the next hole as one of the 128mm mini-turrets on the Landkreuzer gouged a chunk out of the berm. Over the endless hammering from thousands of cannons and machine-guns raking across no-man’s-land, a high-pitched whine above cut through her tinnitus.
Dore never even glanced up at the full squadron of US Navy dive bombers swooping in. “Here we go again. At least those flak guns are busy this time.”
“Yeah, a little too busy.” Kat curled up beside him as one of the Ratte’s 20mm quad guns stitched a long arch across the berm. Wincing at the hot brass from his flaming machine-gun pelting her cheek, she flipped her auto-rifle up. She picked off a handful of the endless stream of French crunchies bounding alongside the super tank. Kat never let up on the trigger until something blue careened into her field of fire.
The white star on the tail fin sticking out of the flaming crater blocked her view too well.
Trufflefoot howled from the far side of Dore. “I thought we had the French air forces grounded? All that work for nothing!”
“God, these Vichies picked a strange time to grow a pair.” Kat reloaded, keeping a dark eye on the four French Dewoitine D.520 fighters diving out of the sun. The nimble little aircraft bagged two more American bombers, sending them cartwheeling into the city in seconds. Still, they were no match for the far more numerous US fighter-bombers… once the Americans jettisoned their bomb loads willy nilly among the French ground troops rather than the Ratte.
“Bugger me. It’s too late. He’s got a clear shot at the harbor!” Dore roared and swapped out his red-hot barrel for a fresh one. Kat pried her eyes off the towering Ratte as it plowed through the city gates. She spun around and pumped her fist at the port behind them. A dozen docked transports offloaded weapons and supplies, while stretcher crews filled up the empty slots as fast. Only a single ship seemed calm and collected as it idled in the middle of the bay…exposing its starboard side to the Ratte.
“Yeah… but that cuts both ways. Get some!”
Two giant turrets on the sea cruiser swiveled and fine-tuned their six tubes before blazing all at once. The shockwave from the full broadside raced over the water, lashing the nearest wharf with a mini-tsunami. All six massive 8” guns on the heavy cruiser slammed point-blank destruction at the land cruiser less than two kilometers away — practically knife-fighting range for the steel Goliaths.
Kat matched Dore’s howl as a secondary 128mm gun turret on the rear of the Kreuzer shattered like a porcelain vase full of cocky Germans. Two more rounds carved halfway through the turret’s 20 inches of sloping armor, and a third sheared most of the way through the high sidewalls. While no hit was fatal alone, the real coup de grâce came from a lone blast hammering the towering outer track. Kat slashed her hand at the unraveling track, and the twisted four-foot-wide treads spraying out.
“Got him! Now he’s an oversized pillbox. Follow me!”
Kat jumped to her feet. No one else followed. The Ratte’s giant marine diesel engines belched an endless black plume as the 1,000-ton behemoth pivoted and backed up, retracing its path, and hauled up the shattered track chain.
“Verdammt!” Kat pounded her fist on the sandbags as an internal hatch above the treads flashed open. A couple of little cranes dropped and snapped several fresh tread links into place. In seconds, the mauled outer track snapped tug like a zipper and the unkillable beast zoomed forward at full speed, a split second ahead of the next British salvo.
“Open fire! Try to distract them.” Kat blazed away with her machine gun at the spinning turret, only little specks of paint flicking off. Only Capson joined in the spitball fest. Both 11” battleship guns on the Ratte erupted at once. The battlecruiser in the bay disappeared in a flash of flame and black smoke, the only return fire coming from the bodies and random chunks of steel shooting off into the sky. A handful of sailors dived overboard as the warship rocked back and forth, listing 20 degrees to starboard, then to port as the internal magazines cooked off.
While the Ratte’s obscene guns pounded the harbor, the demon crawled up the far-left flank of the berm, five hundred meters away. The sickening crunch from one flattened foxhole after another echoed even over the war cries of the Vichy troops mopping up the survivors.
An Officer blew a panicked whistle, forcing the surviving American and British troops to melt away under the advancing Vichy and Godzilla onslaught.
Kat snagged Dore, pushing him towards Capson and Atkins climbing out of their holes to follow the retreating army. Trufflefoot boomed a rare Command voice over the mayhem.
“Stand your ground. Those guys don’t have a chance.”
As he spoke, the Ratte shifted aim. Two shells freight trained over the thousands of fleeing Allied troops and broke the back of a transport docked on the far side of the port. One packed with sailors shoving crates of ammo over the side as fast as possible. Even a kilometer away, the blast wave knocked Kat flat on her butt.
“We… need a newww plannn!” Dore crawled over, teeth chattering as the Landkreuzer’s immense right tread blocked the sun. The earthquake shifted the flimsy, battle scarred berm, flattening out the next hundred meters of the line like a sandcastle at high tide.
Kat clucked her tongue as the earth fell out from under her. She stood straight up as the Ratte’s underbelly flashed level overhead. With a good foot of clearance over her head, she stared up at the track treads rattling even higher.
Especially the still open access hatch the size of a large man with a pair of crane hooks dangling inside. She caught a brief flash of a black-clad SS man snapping the door shut a second before the darkness ended and smoky sunlight flashed across her back.
The tremors faded a moment later as the colossus abandoned the shattered fortification and growled towards the mushroom cloud still spreading in the port. Hundreds of surviving Allied troops raced their hands and skittered back. At least most of them got out of the way in time.
“Everyone still in one piece?” Dore sat up and shook the sand out of his machine gun. Before anyone could respond, something jingled over what was left of the wall.
“Levez les mains! Hands up!”
Kat batted her eyelashes at the cocky Frenchman hovering over her. She stuck one palm in the air and used the other to brace herself as she stood.
Which was an awkward way to stand, balancing on the blade hilt she drove into his boot. She flicked her other hand up to snag his rifle. It shot away as Dore tore the man’s rifle straight from his hands. Kat dusted herself off and peered around the cloud of red-streaked gray matter as Dore caved in the soldier’s skull with his rifle stock.
Four Vichy turncoats hopped out of an idling Willy jeep a few yards behind what was left of the wall. Kat shot Capson and Atkins a whistle as they rolled a pair of grenades under the feet of the overconfident victors.
“Don’t hurt the jeep. We need that ride, fellas. I found the Ratte’s Achilles Heel. Did you guys get a look up that thing’s skirt? They’re blind as a bat up close; tons of little hidey holes to cover us as we climb.” Dore stuck his machine gun against his hip and emptied the belt into two more French troops rushing over. He shook his head before their bodies even hit the ground.
“Yeah, but the devil’s in the details. We can’t pull this off alone. Kat, there’s just too much to juggle.”
Kat shot him a wink. “Have some faith… we’ll be fine… if we have the balls to juggle it right.” She helped Trufflefoot to his wobbly feet with a giggle.
“Oh, God. Lazy puns now? Have we sunk so low?” Trufflefoot cringed as he hobbled over the bodies Capson and Atkins left in their wake.
“Well, I guess it takes a Kat to kill a rat.”
CHAPTER 12
Fedala Beachhead
“Quit ya
nking us around, you dumbshit Yank. Been here like five minutes and think you know what’s going on? Does it look like we’re fuckin’ tourists? Get out of the way before I…” Trufflefoot snaked an arm around Dore’s bulging shoulder and pulled him back by his handcuffs.
None of the four GI’s guarding the occupied city hall wavered, though the barrels of their M1s all twitched up. Trufflefoot leaned against his jeep’s hood, both hands strapped tight behind his back and nodded at the ad hoc Command Post across the street. “At least pass along a message to your Command Staff, if you please. I was here yesterday and spoke at length with Colonel Williams. He was most accommodating.”
“Who do you think issued the blanket order to arrest any civilians claiming to be special agents? Something about how you people always pop up when the shit hits the fan and then fade away until the next crisis.” The guard prodded Trufflefoot back with his Browning Automatic Rifle.
“Here’s the skinny, buddy. There’s been too much double-crossing crap going on, and Command is fed up. So you’re not going anywhere until the MPs run you through the wringer. You can come back when they’re through with you.” He jerked his thumb at the team’s weapons collection piled up against some sandbags on the street curb.
“Though I reckon that might take a bit. None of you have a uniform. You’re carrying French guns and driving around an American jeep soaked in blood. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a damn assassin team. I’ll give you kudos for driving up here and trying to bullshit your way inside. Ballsy. So who’s the naïve dumbshit now?”
Atkins perked up. “Yeah… yes. That’s right! Spot on. You caught us.”
“Shut your cock holster, Corporal!”
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