by Mark Rounds
“Follow me!” said Macklin as he ran to the southeast. Carlos grabbed Wallace and propelled him forward when he appeared to balk.
“What the fuck are you doing!” said Wallace whose feet were touching the ground only every third step.
“We are going to follow the Infected through the wire,” said Macklin over his shoulder. “Most of them will be shredded by the time we get there but we will be in the wire. Then we can go forward to sow confusion.
“Help me get this gaggle moving! Do it or we will die! Safety is inside the wire, up close!”
Wallace nodded and began using his associates to get the troops moving. Slowly at first, then at a shuffling jog, the unruly mob shifted direction and began to move.
“Ngengi,” said Macklin to his chief henchman. “Get the mortar crews and their weapons safely aboard the bus and head them back to Spokane. They are out of ammo and we will need their weapons and their training, such as it is, for future operations. Impress upon them that they need to be there when we get back by whatever means necessary.”
“It will be as you say,” said Ngengi nodding. “I see now why you were brought along. I would have made them put down their mortars, pick up their personal arms and follow us. If they can be retained, it will be better in the future. I may have to make an example of one or two to keep their attention.”
“Do what you need to,” said Macklin who was focused on the line of bloody wrecks that moments before were human beings. “Just leave the gun captains alone. They are the hardest to replace.”
Suddenly, Macklin's cell phone beeped. He knew that the only person who would call him was Nergüi so he opened the connection.
“Macklin.”
“What do you think you are doing?” screamed Nergüi. “You are supposed to be attacking the front gate!”
“And I would eat a bunch of shrapnel,” said Macklin back with some heat, “Just like you did, only I wouldn't have any Infected to act as meat shields. Then these so-called troops of ours would desert en masse. I would kill a bunch but it would do you no good.”
“So I presume you have a plan?” said a seething Nergüi.
“Yes,” said Macklin. “I am going to roll in on the north corner of your attack where the Infected aren't as thick, but did manage to trigger the mines. That way, I will get a little over three hundred troops behind the enemy wire that they will have to hunt down. That should help you more than to have a hundred of their bodies on the wire and the rest vanishing to God knows where.”
“You should have asked,” said Nergüi in carefully measured terms, “before you took it upon yourself to make changes to my plan.”
“It was my plan!” said Macklin with some heat. “You are supposed to be the genius military adviser to kings? Did you never hear Helmuth von Moltke quoted? That no battle plan survives contact with the enemy? We still have the tactical advantage and the initiative! Don't throw it away.”
“Very well,” said Nergüi. “We will speak of this later.”
Macklin broke the connection, and worried what exactly would happen when he and Nergüi did have that conversation.
Chapter 23
July 10th, Friday, 10:36 am PDT
Base Ops, Fairchild Air Force Base, WA
The C-17 taxied in faster than Jen had ever seen an airplane that wasn't flying move. The ramp hit the ground before the plane was fully stopped, showering the pavement with sparks. The port side door opened and the armorer waved her troops forward.
“Finkbiner!” said Jen loudly enough to be heard over the whine of the turbines. “Get everyone armed and then get at least five more weapons!”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Finkbiner. “It would help if you told me why?”
“Oh? Sure,” said Jen who was still somewhat in shock from the explosion of the claymores, the term one of her airman used to describe the directional explosives used to shred the first wave of Infected, and she had to gather her thoughts for a minute before she could articulate them to Finkbiner.
“Simple,” said Jen. “I want one for each of the assistant gunners that are out along the Flight Line covering us. Secondly, I want one and I am too busy to wait in line. Finally, we are eventually, I hope, going to get another couple of automatic weapons teams and I want to be able to equip their assistant gunners. Also, tell the guys with crowbars and tire irons to keep them. We may need them if the ammo gets short.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Finkbiner who hustled off to get the troops lined up.
The line formed at the door. The armorers handed each airman a shotgun and a bandoleer of ammo. The line moved pretty quickly. Finkbiner grabbed the two guys in front of him, Morton and Fraser, and spoke to them.
“I want each of you to get two additional weapons and all the ammo you can carry,” said Finkbiner. “Then I want you to run out to the automatic weapons positions and give the A-gunners each a shotgun and a bandoleer of ammo. Keep the rest with you. I figure we are going to need it. Let me cut in front of you so I can explain what we’re doing so the armorers don't give you any shit.”
“Yes Sergeant!” said Morton and Fraser together.
When Finkbiner's turn came, he spoke to the armorer.
“Hey, Sergeant,” said Finkbiner. “I am the Flight Sergeant here. I need you to arm up my detail here and then issue me five additional weapons with a good ammo load. We have troops out on the line with crowbars that need weapons.”
“Sergeant, I could get my ass in a sling,” said the Senior Airman handing out weapons, “if we lose any of these. This is pretty loosey-goosey as it is.”
“Cut me some slack, Sergeant,” said Finkbiner. “I have a new CO and she will be all over my ass if I don't come through.”
“Will you sign for them?” said the Senior Airman dubiously.
“Absolutely!” said Finkbiner, “Got a pen?”
The Senior Airman handed him a clipboard with a tally sheet on it. Finkbiner wrote in florid handwriting, 'I accept responsibility for five additional M870's and standard ammo load for each'. Then he signed it, ‘Staff Sergeant Bruce Wayne.’
The senior airmen looked at the signature and then at Finkbiner a minute, then shrugged and handed him the weapons. Finkbiner pointed out to where the two automatic weapons crews were and sent Fraser and Morton on their way.
“Here is your M870, ma'am,” said Finkbiner, handing Jen the shotgun. Then he handed her a bandoleer of ammo.
“Geez sergeant,” said Jen as she shouldered the ammo belt. “This stuff weighs a ton!”
“They ran out of plastic shotgun shells pretty fast,” said Finkbiner, “so they started punching hulls out of rain gutters and using that. They are heavier but don't deform very easily. You have a hundred rounds with double aught buck there.”
Jen loaded the weapon. This version of the M870 was heavier than she remembered from training. Someone had been practical when they had made these copies in the machine shop in Tacoma because the weapon had an extended tube, so Jen was able to load seven rounds. She made sure the chamber was empty and that the safety was on. Then she adjusted the sling and put the weapon over her back. She decided to try the radio one more time before she sent a runner forward to get the Chief. To her amazement the static was gone.
“Chief, this is Captain Stutesman,” said Jen into the radio.
“Roger ma'am,” said the Chief's gravelly voice. “I have you loud and clear.”
“My flight is armed and we are preparing to move out,” said a surprised Capt Stutesman. “Current position is on the apron next to Base Ops. Where does Major Beadle want us?”
“I'll be there is two minutes and I can brief you, Captain,” said the Chief.
To her amazement, Jen saw a blocky figure riding a BMW Montauk road bike. If that was the Chief, he could really ride and soon he was standing in front of Jen and there was no doubt who was riding the bike.
“Captain,” said the Chief after he removed his helmet, “the Major wants you to take your flight and take up the pre
pared positions that were set up in the old Alert Pad. We will retreat through you and re-arm because we are burning a ton of ammo. Then our gun vehicles will come forward to cover your retreat so you can ammo up and we will bound like that until we kill them all.”
“Sounds good, Chief,” said Jen looking worriedly over at Finkbiner checking to make sure everybody was here and armed up.
“They look fine, Captain,” said the Chief reassuringly. “Let Finkbiner run the troops, you put them where they can lay down the most hurt. Bring as many back as you can.”
And with that, the Chief rode off and Jen was left with her mouth open.
July 10th, Friday, 10:45 am PDT
Old Alert Pad, Fairchild Air Force Base, WA
Airman Morton collapsed into the prepared fighting position that had been scraped out with a backhoe on the edge of the old alert pad. 'Fighting Position' and 'Alert Pad' were both somewhat misleading. He shared a scrape in the ground with Airman First Class Fraser. The position was barely a foot deep with the dirt piled up in front to provide a bit more cover. He had scraped the dirt out some in front so he could fire prone though a vee and not be too exposed. This sort of position had some use when dealing with an adversary armed with firearms, but was actually a handicap if they had to get involved with close in fighting with poorly-armed Infected.
The term 'Alert Pad' was also problematic. Back in the nineties, the Air Force had transferred all the B-52 bombers from Fairchild and brought in more tankers to make it a tanker-only base. Then the Cold War cooled and the need for planes on standby alert decreased. The fences and the tower were removed and used elsewhere on base. The building that used to house the alert crews was still there, but other than the hard-stands, all the rest of the equipment was gone.
Morton was exhausted because he and Fraser had each hauled an extra M870 and an additional two hundred rounds in addition to their own weapon and ammo.
“We need to get something straight, Morton,” said Fraser after they had settled in. “I know about you. You were on the way out with a General Discharge for smoking pot and fetching up a DUI.”
“What about it?” said Morton, starting to get mad.
“If you were just being a goof-off in another unit, nothing,” said Fraser. “But Finkbiner assigned you as my battle-buddy so if you fuck up, I might die. So here is the way things are going to be. You pull your weight, do what you are told, and stand fast, and we will get along. You try and bug out, I'll shoot you in the back of the legs and leave you for the Infected. Clear?”
“Shit, why is everybody picking on me?” wailed Morton. “I didn't ask to be a grunt. All I was supposed to do was drive a bus!”
“So you actually believed the recruiter?” said Fraser with a laugh. “You are dumber than I thought. Look, when you signed up, you agreed to serve in any role assigned until your enlistment is up or the cessation of hostilities, should there be a war. This counts as a war. They briefed me on that loud and clear and made me repeat it before I signed.”
“I remember all that crap,” said Morton still feeling sorry for himself, “I never thought it was real. Not this real!”
“Well, you're here, dickweed,” said Fraser a little more kindly. “If you were shanghaied or not, it's too bad, it's not my problem. But you are here with me in this foxhole. We need to work together or we die separately. You gonna help out or do I accidentally on purpose shoot you? I am better off by myself than with someone who will bug out.”
“I promised the Flight Sergeant that I would do my job,” said Morton seriously. “I'll hold my end up.”
“We'll see,” said Fraser.
Both of the airmen looked out toward the east. They could see the infantry streaming back toward them with the gun trucks staying put, firing almost non-stop. When the first of the infantry got there, they handed Fraser a couple of grenades.
“The Chief said to leave anything you could use as we passed,” said the retreating airmen. “He said that we would be resupplied when we got back behind the lines. You need anything else?”
“I could use a drink out of your canteen,” said Fraser suddenly thirsty. “They hustled us out here without water or anything like that.”
“The airmen unsnapped his canteen and his partner did the same and handed them to the two airmen on the ground.
“We will be back at it soon,” said the older of the two. “Just hang on, five minutes is enough. Just so we can get ammo. We will be coming back. I promise.”
“Is that what you meant?” said Morton after they left, “holding up my end? I wouldn't have given away grenades or canteens and I damned sure wouldn't have promised to come back. I wouldn't bug out, but this doesn't look good.”
“That's the easy part,” said Fraser. “You are about to find out about the rest right directly. You go to war for lots of reasons, patriotism, because you're broke, or maybe you need a way out of a bad place. But once you're here, you fight for your friends and battle-buddies. Big words don't mean so much here.”
July 10th, Friday, 11:01 am PDT
Base Ops Weather Shop, Fairchild Air Force Base, WA
“Sir, don’t take this wrong, I am glad to have you here,” said Col Phillips sitting in a meeting room that normally held air crew getting weather briefings, “But we have your plane unloaded, you could take off at any time.”
“I understand, Colonel,” said Gen Antonopoulos. “But part of why I came was to get an appreciation of your situation. I am trying to move us from the pure survival mode to actually doing some planning. Our communications suck and NSA, which we believe has a leak, is listening to all of it.
“If I knew when I prepped this mission what I know now, we would have brought a completely different load-out. The ammo, the spare parts, the medical supplies, and the shotguns are all good and needed, but after watching this battle, I can see that you need a heavy weapons company. This battle would go very differently if you had some mortars and some heavy machine guns.
“We don’t have time right now to have a planning meeting. You have a battle to manage and I don’t want to joggle your elbow. Ten minutes of observation made that clear to me. I can’t do much about that now except this.”
General Antonopoulos looked around and waved Lt Parks over.
“Lieutenant, come here for a minute,” said Gen Antonopoulos. “Effective immediately, you and your troops are reassigned to the 92nd Security Squadron. After our aircraft leave, you will put yourself and your troops at Major Beadle’s disposal.
“Now understand, I am not abandoning you here. I will be authorizing air support as soon as we are airborne. There will be weekly C-17 flights to Fairchild and the Army force structure will grow here. As the Rangers are overtasked, I suspect they will bring you back in a couple of weeks, but that is an Army chain-of-command call. Is that clear, Lieutenant?
“Airborne, Sir!” said Lt Parks. “We’ll kick ass!”
“Go get’em, Lieutenant!” said Gen Antonopoulos smiling as he watched Parks go off to brief his troops, who were currently securing the Base Ops pad.
Then Gen Antonopoulos turned back to Col Phillips.
“I get it sir,” said Col Phillips. “But I still think you should take off while we still have control of the runway. As it is, we know our adversaries have manpad SAMs and they might attempt to take you out.”
“Intellectually, I agree with you Colonel,” said Gen Antonopoulos. “But, I will not take off while my aircraft and crews are in jeopardy. I am under enough of a cloud as far as my support back at Fort Lewis as it is. If they think I am shy about combat, it won’t help. But don’t worry, Major Kong has the airplane all warmed up. We will be one minute behind the last aircraft, that being the minimum allowable interval.”
“Then I better see to accelerating the unloading then,” said a resigned Col Phillips.
July 10th, Friday, 11:12 am PDT
Northeast corner of Fairchild Air Force Base, WA
Macklin got his command in position. They
were basically in squad clusters. The platoon leaders had some control, but the company commanders were not effective. Luckily, his followers were. Macklin was marking which squad and platoon leaders were effective and which were not. There was going to be a reorganization.
“Wallace! Move them out,” shouted Macklin.
Wallace nodded and got in front of the two infantry companies and waved them forward. After his initial reticence he had realized that his continued survival rested on his usefulness in the field. He was actually trying to accomplish the mission. Macklin’s followers were acting as file closers, ‘motivating’ those who might hold back.
They had just started forward when someone near the front fired at an imagined target, despite the fact that hundreds of Infected had already covered the ground in front of them. The round, however, hit one of the slower Infected ahead of them. As was their nature, those in earshot turned and came at the shooter who froze for a few seconds.
The Infected covered the ground in just a few seconds and took him to the ground. His screams broke the spell and several people began firing indiscriminately on those who were attacking the poor unfortunate who had fired. He and all the Infected involved in the melee were dead in seconds, but the firing brought other Infected from the tail end of the wave back towards them.
“Wallace! Hold up the battalion,” said Macklin urgently looking around. “And for God’s sake get them to stop shooting!”
Wallace began moving around, getting his troops to hold their fire.
Macklin caught Ngengi’s eye. Ngengi, who had just returned from ‘motivating’ the mortar crews, noticed and nodded.
Ngengi moved forward at the run and fixed his bayonet as he went. He caught the first Infected with his bayonet and bodily lifted him up in the air and tossed him over his head. He turned his rifle and butt stroked the next one, breaking his neck and nearly decapitating him. Others saw his example and began attacking the Infected with melee weapons, which was quieter and as such, did not attract as many to turn. The downside was that the mercenary attack had halted while this distraction was being dealt with. The gap between the wave of Infected and the mercenaries began to grow. Macklin could only hope that the troops currently dealing with the wave of Infected would not be able to refocus before his mercenaries could hit them hard.