He had a screen of patrols to the south. Janna was on her way with a battalion of mixed militia units. Her last message to him had concerned the Estonians. She was worried. They had been through some political upheaval since the treaty signing.
She was coming with more than the agreed upon company of reinforcements because of it. Boris could tell it had her worried. If she was concerned about potential problems from the leadership, so was he.
His response was to put platoon-sized patrols out on the southern flank. They were to approach cautiously, and retreat at speed if there was any suspicious behavior from the Estonian force.
That had been three days ago. He needed at least a week to fully prep any force for the assault. The three shuttles were continually rotating platoons through for training in assault landings from them. Everyone not training was on alert. In four days, they would have to switch to briefings on assaulting down a skyscraper.
In six days, the engineers would have finished the two-story wooden skyscraper mock-up. They would have to start cycling a company at a time through then. Boris noted the need to complete the training rotation.
Then he smelled a Were in wolf form in the camp.
There were only so many reasons one would take that shape inside the camp. Checking his watch, he confirmed that training against Weres was not the reason. That was still hours away.
That meant that either the siegeworks were being assaulted, or the Estonians had fired on one of his patrols. Boris devoutly hoped it was the former, but somehow knew it was the latter.
With the differences in equipment, there was no chance the latter had been a mistake. Viktor's forces still used ceramic plate insert armor, and even at a distance that was distinctive from that used by Boris's forces.
He waited while the Were shifted to human form. Once the Were was human again, Boris stated, “Report.”
“Estonian forces have been encountered, sir. They did not wait for sight confirmation range. The first shot was fired at over eight hundred meters. One casualty as we exited range. Fifty caliber sniper round.”
Boris looked up and cursed. Even his forces armor was not proof against fifty caliber, armor-piercing rounds. “Casualty status?”
“Being evacuated on a stretcher. He will live, sir,” a bitter tone came into the professional tone the soldier had been using so far, “but without a leg for the time being.”
“Better one man than a company or battalion being hit from behind by people they think are allies, private,” Boris answered sternly.
“Yessir. I’m simply angry at the betrayal. Not at the methods used to discover the treachery,” the soldier answered firmly. Boris simply nodded. Anger at a buddy being injured or killed was normal.
Boris scribbled movement orders to his two designated ready regiments. It would weaken his siege lines to a reserve of a battalion a sector, but the risk of an attack from hostile forces outside those lines was something that had to be dealt with.
Forces facing away from an incoming attack would always be at a severe disadvantage.
“Get these to Colonels Vilosty and Terrance. We move out within the hour. I will organize the artillery we need.”
The soldier took the paperwork, nodded, and left the tent.
Boris rose from behind his camp desk. Exiting the tent, he barked an order to several of the runners. While he had combat comms available, he restricted their use to active assault operations.
<<<>>>
“We simply cannot get them out of their dugouts that fast, sir,” one of the Artillery officers was telling Boris about the expected movement time on three batteries of horse guns. “We have them dug in. You said fixed positions, so they are in tightly fixed positions. We didn’t put ramp space at the back of their positions. We traded that for better overhead cover.”
Boris responded, “So, you threw out the book here in horse artillery, is that what you are telling me? I have the mortars pulling as we speak. The two howitzers are being pulled from their positions now. But horse guns cannot move in time to be dug in when we confront the enemy? An enemy that is using anti-material rifles for sniping?” The officer blanched at the chill in Boris’s tone.
The fifty-caliber round was unlikely to destroy, or even damage, a well dug in horse gun. In large part, that was due to camouflage. The rifled horse cannon with anti-personnel rounds were intimidating.
Boris said, “If that’s the case, fine. If they get on the road within the next forty minutes, you’ll keep your rank. If not, then you are demoted, Major. We build ramps into our fixed gun positions for a reason—in case everything goes to hell.”
Boris turned and left the position. He was so angry he didn't notice a senior lieutenant following him for the first half-minute or so. In fact, he didn't see it until one of his guards cleared his throat. Whirling, he turned his glare on the man.
The lieutenant said, “Sir, there is one battery that can be pulled. Mine. All three guns have jury-rigged, wooden drop ramps. My sergeant said that the guns have to be movable from a position.”
“And why didn’t you bring this up during the meeting?” Boris asked.
“Because the Major ordered me to destroy them, and I did not, sir,” the lieutenant said nervously. “If your sergeant tells you something, then it is necessary.”
Boris grunted, and nodded. Many junior officers felt that way. Often, but not always, they were right. In this case, Boris needed to know more. “Still, you couldn’t tell me this earlier?”
The junior officer swallowed hard, then shook his head no. Swallowing, he said, “The Major is vindictive, sir. My men would be last to be dug in in the future. And… I was afraid. But I also don’t want the infantry to suffer from a lack of guns.”
Boris looked at the man. Solid, but not bright. He paused and recalled his record. Barely scraped into officer training and had a knack with horses. The main reason he was in Artillery was he knew how to take care of horses. He left maintaining the guns to their crews, but kept a close eye on logistics. He also made sure his unit had spare wheels for the carriages and paid himself to have the horses re-shod more often than the quartermasters agreed to cover. Fastest travel rate for any gun unit.
He might not be the brightest officer, but he was perfect for his rank in the Artillery. He may even make a good captain. Above all else, he was competent for his position. Even better, his guns would get where they were needed faster than anyone else.
“Corporal Korhonen, go with this lieutenant and make sure no one troubles him as he pulls his guns. Sergeant Syomin, strip the major’s rank, send him to the trenches. Tell the captains if one of them gets a battery of guns out as fast at that young man, he will be given a field promotion to major. And make it clear I want those ramps dug before I get back.”
Boris's mind raced as he thought about his planned ambush site. The guns could be dug into cut sites at the top of the overlooking hills. The valley was the only real choke point left on the Estonian's approach. There was no way to move the logistics of a regiment through any other position within a day's travel to the South.
Boris sighed. Having only one guaranteed battery would complicate things. No matter how careful a leader was, there was always someone who rose above their level of competence. Boris hoped he did not have any more in positions that became critical.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Boris and his lead battalions arrived at the choke point not more than three hours before the Estonians could be expected to arrive. After putting out four company-sized patrols into the woods on either side of the planned ambush site, Boris had the rest start digging foxholes, both for themselves and their patrolling comrades.
One of the shuttles landed carefully behind a hill, out of sight from any approaching enemies. Boris didn't want to kill the Estonians. They were treacherous bastards, but he needed to know why.
As other elements arrived, he positioned them. Two howitzers behind the right-side hill, the other on the left. Three mortars behind ea
ch. Troops in foxholes on the crest and base of both. Cannon positions were being dug into each ridgeline by the infantry.
He still didn’t know if he was going to have three or six field guns
The foxholes at the base of the hill were re-covered with turf. He wanted whatever scouts the enemy had deployed to be captured or annihilated behind the hills, where the road curved to head straight north.
He was disappointed in the preparations he had made against their scouts. There were no scouts unless the Estonians had a more substantial body of troops then any of his reports suggested was possible. A full regiment was rarely used as scouts. When there was only a reinforced regiment at most that the Estonians could have spared, this had to be the primary force. The Latvians would probably risk a raid if the Estonians stripped their southern border.
Boris headed back to the shuttle. It was on standby, waiting for the signal from the firing howitzers that they were boxed in. His scouting companies were to take positions to cut off any retreat. While he waited, he was informed the second battery of cannons had arrived.
He was waiting more than an hour from first spotting the first column before the howitzers fired. That would mean the central column was in the pocket.
The shuttle jumped into the air at the signal. Boris had the radio set to external speaker.
“You are surrounded and outgunned. I will offer you a chance to lay down your arms and surrender.” Before he could even finish, shots were fired at the shuttle from the force below. His cannon on the hilltops responded with a volley.
Wherever a shell struck, a platoon of the enemy was taken from the calculation of forces. The shrapnel scythed through troops, killing and maiming. Perhaps an average of fifteen men became instant casualties in the ragged, too-tight, marching formation.
Blackened ground centered where each shell had exploded. Surrounding that was the mangled dead. No unit could absorb a casualty rate of fifty percent in seconds and still be combat effective. As he watched, the formation shifted.
Men spread out and hit the ground. The roadway was suddenly empty as they searched for whatever cover or concealment they could find in the vacant space around it. Even a tuft of grass was more than they had, standing on the roadway. Boris could feel nothing but contempt for their training.
They should have moved to the roadside and spread out as soon as the howitzer shells exploded behind them.
Boris could see officers running among their troops below and the firing slowly ceased. He waited until no shots could be heard, then continued, “We have you surrounded. Our forces have cut your line of retreat. We control the air. You have two options. Surrender or be slaughtered where you stand. Considering you attacked my forces despite a treaty yesterday, I suggest you not test my patience.”
The units that had been near where the cannon shells landed were laying down their arms and walking clear of the rest of the force with their arms raised. They knew they were defeated. Slowly, more and more of the Estonian troops did the same.
Once the entire unit was more than a hundred meters away from the weapons, a company was sent in to secure the few holdouts. As men stood from their foxholes on the ridges, Boris could imagine the expressions on the faces of those holdouts.
Securing the willing surrenders took longer. First, a battalion swept the area where the weapons had been dropped. Once they were secure, two companies went through and patted down each soldier, retrieving their ammunition and knives. Finally, they were sent in company groups to near the logistics base he had built up.
The best solution would be to simply send them home. In good conscience, Boris could not risk it. It would be a two-week turnaround for them to re-arm and be sent back. The timing of their return would be just after he assaulted the towers, at most six days later.
Even re-armed and returned, after a recent surrender they would be slaughtered by his forces. Their morale was crushed. It took months or even years for a unit to recover from being forced into a position in which they had to surrender.
But whoever was in charge in Estonia right now was an idiot.
Finally, Boris landed the shuttle to take on board the senior officers. He recognized none of them–they just did not match any descriptions of Estonia's senior officers that Janna had on file.
Boris started his interrogation with, “Why did the coup happen?”
The officers looked at each other uncomfortably, then the colonel sighed and answered in heavily accented Russian, “I am Colonel Rasmus Laar. The coup happened after a significant portion of the military families in the North had their families captured in a series of raids from Viktor. The government had assumed it would take him time to solidify his control after his father died. They sent us to capture a mine from Latvia. The whole operation was a disaster. We did not capture the mine due to the government diverting some of the supplies they had promised us. Many soldiers lost their families because of the government's assumptions.”
“You signed the treaty after the coup. Why not stand by it?”
“What treaty? We were told the talks failed. Even had they succeeded, Viktor still has most of the families. We have letters in their handwriting. He threatened their lives if we did not do as he said,” Colonel Laar said stoically. “They were our people. We could not simply leave them to be abused by Viktor. He is an animal with his people. Would you simply have ignored his demands?”
Boris snorted contemptuously and answered, “But every action you made risked those people more. If I had known about Viktor's actions sooner, I could have prepared sooner. I could have helped you. But instead, you decided to follow his demands.”
He then paused as the ‘What treaty?' comment sank in.
After a moment, he answered with obvious confusion, “Your ambassador signed the treaty. One Marakov, I believe.”
The shuttle was so silent as he stopped, the footsteps of an ant would have sounded like those of an elephant. Slowly, as that sunk in, the faces of the officers switched from horrified to furious.
Laar exploded. “That abordijaanus. That sittur. He set us up! He is responsible for this!”
Boris thought that calling him the leftovers from an abortion was, perhaps, taking it a bit far. Saying he stank of farts was a fair comment.
Then the other officers were also furious at this revelation. There was a simmering anger in the air. Boris gave them some time to calm down. He was not immune to fury at such a deception.
“I still have to take you in as prisoners. My men simply will not trust you after the incident with a patrol,” Boris stated as calmly as he could. He raised a hand to forestall any objections, continuing, “Nor would your men be fit for any such. Not for weeks, if not months. They were forced into an untenable position. Forced to surrender. Such things erode the will to fight and morale of a unit.”
He paused, waiting for an objection. When there was none, he continued. “But we will keep you under guard. That presents the least risk to your families. If we treat you as enemy combatants, then Viktor will have to assume the same. I will not guarantee that we will recover them all. We will do everything we can to avoid their deaths. As we will for all civilians trapped in the city.”
They looked at each other, then looked back at Boris. Colonel Laar took a grim tone when he answered, “That is all we can ask. Thank you for those efforts. I know it will cost your men.”
“There is one more thing I can ask of you, however. Do you have any intelligence on Viktor? The more I know, the better. I knew his grandfather well. He was a hard man, but a competent officer and administrator. I can't see how he has a grandson, who seems bent on destroying that legacy. I only knew Viktor's father a little. He was determined to keep the region his father had left him intact. The only reason he pushed control south was to stamp out the rampant banditry.”
The officers looked at one of the captains. His nametag said Turnig. Boris raised an interrogative eyebrow, and the man sighed.
“Yes, I know him personally,
” Turnig’s voice took a quiver as he started to explain “In fact, I was raised alongside him. Same classes, many of the same training exercises in our youth. Until he was about ten, he was a nice enough kid, too. I wouldn't say he had a generous soul, but he understood the value of teamwork. Then his mother died. Things change dramatically in his household after that.
“His father was a hard man, but he had a blind spot for Viktor. Anyone who was gaining higher classroom ranks than him started to be transferred. Then some of us started getting beaten. I know, as I was one of those beaten.
“I think it twisted his view of what the world was. His father removed obstacles to him being ranked first as long as he worked hard. After the fourth time I was beaten, my family fled. I may not have survived a fifth. I was better at maths than him. God, I even tutored him for hours after the first beating. It still wasn’t enough. He was better than me in some areas, but my trigonometry and geometry scores were always higher than his.
“I think he started to view talent as a myth. He is a competent leader himself, but he doesn’t have the spark to make a great leader. That something extra that doesn't rely on knowledge alone. He is also convinced that no consequences ever apply to him. After all, if he achieved first in class, no one was beaten. But if someone else beat him, they were physically beaten, not him. There is an arrogance about him to those outside of his immediate group of sycophants. Them, he treats well. He even treats his soldiers fairly well. But the civilians of his lands have been suffering his ever-increasing tax system for years.”
Boris thought about it for a while. His opponent had been almost trained to accept success as inevitable. Beyond that, he was arrogant. There were ways he could exploit that. The roof landings on occupied skyscrapers were a start. He was the only person in the region who could carry such landings out. Viktor would almost certainly not have thought of them.
He would have to wait and see how Viktor reacted. How this arrogance manifested.
Redemption (The Boris Chronicles Book 4) Page 12