Conflict: The Pythan War, Invasion

by DK Williamson

  “We’re hit in the left front track,” Felix said. “I think it’s done for. We have three to spare, so we’re still mobile and we still got a lot of Pythans that want us dead.”

  “You focus on getting us out of here, I’ll focus on keeping the Pythans pinned down.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep the main turret left. Call it out if we need fire that direction. You cover front and right.”

  “Roger, Felix.”

  Felix kept the tank moving toward the ridge at a steady pace, making sure the dead track didn’t snag on anything that might trap them in the valley.

  Brad fired at any Pythan infantry that came out of the woods until it appeared that the enemy had backed off. He fired bursts into the trees in an effort to discourage any more attacks.

  As they neared the ridge Felix slowed a bit.

  “I’m going to have to get a run at the incline up the ridge and hope our dead track doesn’t drag us down.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Brad said.

  “Not me,” Felix said as he powered the tank in reverse.

  They hit the incline of the ridge with a bump. Brad watched the tree line. To the right he saw movement, then more to the left and front.

  “They’re coming again,” he said as he elevated the machine gun. The weapon hit its maximum elevation and all Brad had in his sight picture was the valley floor. “I can’t bring weapons to bear.”

  “They were waiting for this,” Felix said.

  As the tank clawed its way up the ridge, Pythan antitank missiles bored into the ground nearby, then more, just barely missing. A loud and hollow bang sounded from behind Brad’s head. The tank shuddered and the engines shut down.

  The tank slid back down the ridge as more missiles exploded nearby. The tank came to a stop on a slump of dirt. Brad grasped the weapons controls and brought the sights to bear on the Pythan attackers.

  “We’re terminal, Brad. Engines gone, limited battery power only. Bail out and get over the ridge.”

  “Negative. You get us some artillery. I’ll convince them to stop shooting at us.”

  “I can do both while you run.”

  “The main turret uses way more battery power than the crew turret,” Brad said as he opened fire. “Four hundred percent more according to the manual.” He fired bursts of machine gun fire followed by grenades, traversed the turret, then bursts and grenades, again, and again.

  “Arty coming down on the whole valley,” Felix said over the vehicle coms. “Land Forces infantry moving up along with ERod-423. Get out of here.”

  “Fuck you, I ain’t going,” he said as he fired into the trees. The Pythans seemed to have pulled back once again.

  “You have a minute of power left, and I may need it to use the radio to adjust fire. I don’t want to lose another teammate, Brad. Get the fuck out of here!”

  Brad lowered his head as if in thought or prayer.

  “All right,” Brad said sliding out of his seat and onto the floor of the main turret. He removed his rucksack from the stays that secured it and loosened the top flap and drawstring closure to the large main compartment. Grabbing the bottom of the ruck, he flipped it upside down and the entire contents of the compartment scattered throughout the turret.

  He picked up the pack radio, tool pack, his rifle, and then opened the main turret hatch.

  “See you soon, Felix,” he said as he unplugged his headset and climbed out of the turret.

  What an odd thing to say, Felix thought.

  He looked to the rear, hoping to see Brad clear the ridge, but saw nothing.

  Through his optic sensors, Felix caught a flash of movement to the front, and then it was gone.

  -(o)-

  Brad jumped to the ground, ran to the front of the hull and dropped to his knees by the glacis plate on the underside. He unrolled the tool pack and selected the panel wrench—a tool used to open or secure the access panels on the LF17 series of vehicles—and went to work.

  The panel Brad intended to remove had a warning label that read AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY. LEVEL 4 TECHNICIAN REQUIRED - LF REG 716-1.

  I’m not any of those things. What are they gonna do, send me to a combat zone? he thought as he started loosening the bolts that held the panel in place.

  Artillery began to fall in the valley.

  “Oh shit,” he said under his breath. “Move your ass.”

  Every few seconds Brad looked over his shoulder to check for any sign of the Pythans.

  A few minutes of nearly frantic labor had the panel off. Brad went to work rotating the armor plate inside clear of the opening.

  Brad looked over his shoulder and saw movement in the trees two hundred meters away. He took a deep breath and looked inside the hull. There it is, he thought as he reached inside.

  -(o)-

  Felix could see the Pythans in the trees and the artillery explosions.

  They’ll try and run out from under the barrage, he thought.

  The radio traffic indicated that the infantry and armor were en route and air assets were inbound.

  Suddenly everything went black.

  Did I get hit again?

  -(o)-

  Brad pulled the module free as artillery rounds detonated uncomfortably close and Pythans ran in his direction.

  A quick look at the metal plate on the module confirmed to Brad that he had what he sought: CEREBRAL INTERFACE MODULE - FELIX UKRAINE - FUkr-22.

  The module measured 70cm by 25cm by 25cm, and weighed approximately twenty-two kilograms depending on the weight of the brain cradled inside. He placed the brain box in his rucksack, secured it with straps, grabbed the rest of his gear, and ran for the top of the ridge.

  The Pythans noticed his presence and opened fire on him despite the artillery dropping around them.

  Brad was oblivious to the Pythans, the blasts from the artillery and the climb up the ridge occupied his thoughts.

  The muscles in his legs burned with pain, but he ignored it. He had a long way to climb and his legs were the only thing that would get him, and Felix, to the top.

  One step up. Plant the foot. Another step up. Plant the foot. Over and over. Occasionally artillery shells hit near enough that he could hear the zip of shell fragments in the air.

  As he neared the top, he felt a sharp sting in his right thigh. He looked down and saw a small amount of blood seeping out of a hole in his pants.

  Something gouged a hole into the ground near his right foot, a bullet!

  Brad looked down the ridge and saw several Pythans coming up the incline after him. His first instinct was to fire back, but he thought of Felix in the rucksack on his back. With a grimace and renewed effort, he powered up the ridge, bullets singing in the air as they passed near him.

  Suddenly he was on the nearly flat ground on top of the ridge. He turned and dropped to a knee, angry now, pulling the butt of his rifle to his shoulder. He fired down at the Pythans on the slope below.

  A few realized their peril and slid for the bottom, better to face a random shell fragment than certain death by rifle.

  Most of the Pythans tried to scale the ridge, or fired from the steep incline, but they all fell to Brad’s attack.

  Brad moved back from the edge of the ridge behind a large tree and watched the ground below. Most of the artillery was falling between the ridge and the stream, and the Pythans seemed to be under cover for now.

  Brad set the rucksack on the ground beside him and removed the brain box. A quick scan showed him the box was intact. He smiled.

  He unrolled the tool pack once again, and pulled pliers, wire strippers, and tape from their holding straps and set them aside.

  He dug into a side pouch on his rucksack and came out with his personally owned data board. He unplugged the data cord that dangled from it, then tossed the data board back in the rucksack.

  Using the pliers, he twisted off one end of the data cord, then using the wire strippers he removed part of the insulation from his headset wire and strippe
d the end of the data cord.

  He twisted the bare end of the data cord around the exposed headset wiring, then covered the wiring with tape.

  Looking at the valley floor, he saw a large number of Pythan soldiers running toward him.

  He snapped the data plug into the front of Felix’s brain box.

  Let’s hope this works.

  “You hear me, Felix?” he asked.

  “What the hell is going on? What are you doing back here?” Felix said with anger.

  It dawned on Brad that Felix thought he was still in the tank.

  “We’re on top of the ridge,” he said. The Pythans were at the bottom of the ridge, with more coming out of the trees. “We gotta go, I’ll explain on the run.”

  Felix grumbled in Brad’s ear.

  Brad threw the tools into the tool pack and sloppily rolled it up. Felix’s brain box went back in the rucksack. As Brad stood with his rifle in his arms, hell came from the sky.

  Artillery raked the ridgeline. Brad took a quick look downward and saw two shells hit the empty tank in rapid succession. The Pythans were catching hell.

  Brad turned west and ran through the trees as fast as he could go. His leg wound throbbed.

  Somebody is directing that fire, he thought. They either don’t know, or don’t care that Felix and I are up here.

  The ammunition in the tank began to explode, adding to the intense noise in the valley.

  “I pulled your brain box out of the tank,” he said in a ragged and breathless voice as he ran.

  “You what?”

  “I pulled you out of the tank. The arty blew it to hell by the way.”

  “Where the hell did you learn to pull a brain box?”

  “The technical and service manual for the LF17A3.”

  “How are we communicating? And if you say telepathy or some shit I’ll run your ass over when I get a new hull.”

  Brad briefly explained his brain box extraction, climb up the ridge, and wiring exercise. He slowed his pace once he felt he was safely clear of the artillery.

  “What made you think of connecting commo to my brain box?”

  “Bobby told me about your spatial episode. I didn’t want you to think it was happening again.”

  “Bobby talks too fucking much.”

  “He’s your friend, Felix.”

  “Yeah, I know. What about you?”

  “I wouldn’t be lugging you through the woods if I wasn’t. I sacrificed a rucksack full of perfectly good shit so I could do this.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “It was easy, I just dumped it in the turret, let gravity do most of the work.” He paused and smiled. “Oh, you mean the commo hookup. I spliced a wire with a data port plug onto my headset wiring and plugged that into your brain box. The pack radio translates in the same way as the vehicle communication unit. Sure, the quality isn’t great, but it’ll do.”

  “You’re doing pretty good for a supposed fuckup,” Felix said.

  “I wasn’t a fuckup, I was told I had an attitude problem.”

  Brad stopped and sat down next to a tree, panting.

  “How so?” asked Felix.

  “My commander tried to burn me over nothing, something I didn’t do. He offered me non-judicial punishment. I told him to go fuck himself and take it to court-martial. I called his bluff and he backed down, but it landed me at the top of his shit list.”

  “We’d have gotten along much better if I had known you don’t take shit lying down. Why didn’t you say something when I brought it up before?”

  “When did I get the chance? Besides, would you have even listened?”

  “Sure… well maybe. I have reasonable moments every so often. Besides, I always listen to friends.”

  Brad stood and started walking to the west. He could hear a tracked vehicle not far away.

  “I think I hear ERod-Four-Two-Three.”

  “Get him on the horn so he knows enough not to shoot us. He’s green and he’s got one of those useless crash-course assholes for crew.”

  Felix was sure Brad was glaring.

  Brad and Felix began laughing at the same moment.

  -(o)-

  An hour later they were at a field hospital, where Brad had his leg patched up. Master Sergeant Benton and Bobby showed up to take them back to the squadron’s laager.

  Bobby was impressed with Brad’s field wiring project, but couldn’t pass on the opportunity to needle Brad a bit. “An A plus for ingenuity and a C for execution. It’s a little sloppy. Stick to being a tanker.”

  On the truck ride back to the unit, Bobby spoke with Felix over the headset and mentioned they had a new tank hull ready for Felix whenever he wanted to go through the process.

  “No time like the present,” he replied.

  “You sure?”

  “Let’s get it over with.”

  “I’ll call ahead and get the head shed guys moving.”

  -(o)-

  Bobby had rolled one of the new tanks into the bay in C Troop’s motor pool.

  While they waited for the Cerebral Module Care and Management Team—the head shed—to arrive, Bobby fashioned another headset connection, a much more professional looking and efficient result than Brad’s, which Bobby pointed out.

  “Hey, I was wounded, under artillery and small arms fire, and had only basic tools to work with,” he replied.

  Bobby sighed. “It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools and working environment for substandard results. A little more planning next time, Brad,” he said with a smile.

  Brad shook his head. “I’ll get you to walk me through it next time.”

  A group of people clad in dull green coveralls walked into the bay carrying cases of various shapes and sizes.

  “Anyone run diagnostics on the tank?” asked a tall, sandy-haired man, apparently in charge of the group. A small nametag on a breast pocket read ROGERS.

  “Done it twice,” Bobby replied. “Just waiting on you head shed folks.”

  Rogers didn’t care for the term, head shed, but he’d grown used to the fact that military personnel were short on decorum and long on monikers.

  Rogers looked at a data board he held in his hands.

  “Fuh… Fewker Two-Two is the subject?”

  The soldiers in the bay smiled.

  “The subject is a soldier, doctor,” Benton said with a stern look.

  “Of course, I never said he was not,” the head shed doctor replied. “Who removed the cerebral interface module?”

  Brad started to speak, but Benton cut him off.

  “It was a field expedient procedure, doc. The tank was about to be destroyed. You know how it goes sometimes,” Benton said with a smile.

  “I understand exigent circumstances may arise, but we have some concerns about the sub—Felix’s history. We would have preferred being able to converse with him before placing him in a new vehicle.”

  Bobby took off the headset he was wearing and held it out to Rogers.

  “Here you go, doc.”

  The doctor followed the headset wire to where it connected to Felix’s module and pack radio. He was aghast.

  “What is this?”

  “Field expedient communications modification, headset to brain box, doc,” Bobby replied.

  “And you can communicate with Felix?”

  Bobby held the headset at eye level. “Try it.”

  “Remarkable.”

  Rogers spoke with Felix for several minutes, then took the headset off.

  “We are ready.” He looked at Bobby. “Could you remove the plugs?”

  “Why can’t you leave one of them in?” Brad asked. “You could stay in contact with him through the process. Once he’s settled in, unplug from the front, close up the armor, bolt on the panel, and you’re done. You could maintain communication through the whole process, couldn’t you?”

  The doctor glared at Brad, then pursed his lips and glanced away in thought. “Give us a minute,” Rogers said as he gath
ered his group for a discussion.

  Brad put the headset back on.

  “Did you catch any of that?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Felix rumbled. “You are a troublemaker, aren’t you? The head shed will probably draft you if you keep this up.”

  “Fine, I’ll keep my ideas to myself from now on.”

  Felix laughed, or growled, Brad wasn’t certain which.

  -(o)-

  Less than an hour later, Felix was in his new hull, and all was well. The head shed crew was packing up their gear when Felix asked, “Why did no one in your line of work come up with a communications system for brain boxes before now?”

  “The same reason no resident of a cerebral interface module conceived of such an idea,” Rogers replied.

  Felix grumbled. “It takes an unqualified dumbass like Brad here to come along and think of it?”

  The doctor looked at Brad and smiled. “I suppose it does.”

  Brad laughed, then sighed. “I’ve had enough abuse for one day. I’m going to bed.”

  “I’ll walk with you, Roberts,” Sergeant Benton said.

  -(o)-

  “You did super out there, Roberts. Felix and you damned near broke up that attack by yourselves. You delayed it long enough that they never got out of the valley. Arty and air attacks wiped them. The Pythan threat here is dwindling. Like I told you yesterday, we’ll try and accommodate you if you want to make a move. You can have your pick of open assignments.”

  “FUkr-Two-Two, Sergeant.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Fucker-Two-Two.”

  The second sergeant laughed. “It’s yours.”

  -(o)-

  End

  Conflict: The Pythan War will continue with Conflict: The Pythan War, Striking Back.

  Return to Beginning

  -(o)-

  Visit DK Williamson’s author site: http://darrenkwilliamson.wordpress.com for more information on this and other works.