Escalation

by Peter Nealen

  “We would,” Bradshaw replied, “but a mech infantry unit just pushed up Hollèho Street and has us pinned down! If we try to push out, we’re going to get slaughtered.”

  Dammit. “We’ll see if we can take some of the pressure off,” I replied. I turned to the oldster. “Our guys are pinned down by another unit that pushed up Hollèho Street,” I told him. “We need to flank that unit and get those guys out.”

  “Another artillery strike?” he asked.

  “No, I think they’re too far inside danger close,” I replied, momentarily pulling the map out of my chest rig. “We’d be just as likely to kill our guys as the enemy.” I spread it out where he could see it, and pointed out my plan quickly. “We’ll cross here, get to the south side of these row houses. My team will set up there and hit them down this street, while you push past us and hit them another block to the south.” I was cursing the openness of Nitra at that point. It had made that artillery strike go well, but it made it hard as hell to bottle anyone up. And reduced the amount of available cover.

  But the old guy nodded. “There are improvised bombs here, here, and here,” he said, pointing. “They should have been detonated when the enemy penetrated that far, but either the trigger-men were killed, or they abandoned their posts and ran. I know where the backup triggers should be.”

  “Good,” I replied. I’d been in enough shitty guerrilla wars to know that I should hate even the idea of IEDs, but when you’re outmatched, any advantage becomes a useful one. “Are your guys going to do it, or are we?”

  “My men know the city better,” he said. “You shoot, we will blow them up.”

  I nodded. “We don’t have much time.” I turned and quickly briefed my team on what we were about to do, in as few words and as little time as possible. It also gave the oldster time to pick his team and get ready to move.

  “Bring the AT launchers, too,” I said. “Bradshaw said mech infantry, so they’ve probably got BVPs, BOVs, or both.” Or Pumas, if the Germans had come in with the Slovak Army, but this column seemed to be entirely Loyalists.

  Then there was no more time to dawdle. I got up and led the way out onto the devastated street.

  It should have been a lot more of a hair-raising crossing than it was. Smoke was drifting thickly down the street, and footing was less than ideal, given the debris and smashed asphalt under our boots. But the artillery barrage had done its job well, and anyone still north of the row houses was probably too shell-shocked to try taking a shot at us.

  That didn’t mean I took my time. I put my head down and sprinted as hard as I could for the south side of the street, probably setting a personal record for speed with gear and weapon.

  I had aimed for the narrow street between row houses, and came out of the smoke to pause and take a knee behind a tree. The wall next to me seemed to have been unscathed by the fighting, so far, and was covered in blue graffiti that I couldn’t read.

  My pause lasted just long enough to make sure that I wasn’t about to run into a long burst of machinegun fire. There were still a few vehicles parked along that street, but how many of them had been rigged as bombs, I didn’t know. I did know that I didn’t want to loiter too close to any of them for too long.

  I started down the side of the street, my weapon up and ready, moving fast without running. Phil was on the other side, covering the angles that I couldn’t see, while I did the same for him. We headed quickly down the street, the rest of the team falling into a staggered column behind us.

  I kept glancing back as we went, checking as the rest of my team and the Nationalists entered the street. Several of the Slovaks quickly disappeared into the building on the right, behind Phil and Greg. I hoped they were the triggermen.

  We got to the end of the street without meeting any opposition, though the rattle of small arms fire, punctuated by the chunk, chunk, chunk of heavier stuff, was intensifying as we went. Bradshaw and his boys were in a bad way, and we needed to hurry.

  The street ended in a T-intersection, with trees on one side and a blocky, gray-and-orange building on the other. Phil paused at the intersection, and I held my corner until David came up and popped it, allowing me to move across the street and join Phil, Greg, and Jordan. Greg and Jordan still had RPG-75s, and from what I saw as I crossed, we were going to need them. There were squat, angular, dark green shapes squatting at the end of the street ahead, about a hundred forty yards away.

  I dropped prone in the street, getting behind my rifle and preparing to cover the RPG gunners. We were still completely undetected, from what I could see; the Loyalists’ entire focus seemed to be on Bradshaw and his Nationalist companions.

  “Go,” I hissed. Greg had slung and cinched down his rifle, and had his RPG-75 in his hands, as he dashed forward to the next corner, where the row houses opened up on a sort of courtyard between them, Jordan on his heels. Phil had headed farther out into the street, moving to my left and getting down beside me behind his rifle.

  That was when we got spotted, and everything went to hell.

  One of the Loyalist soldiers happened to look over his shoulder. We were close enough that I could see his expression through my scope, and saw his eyes widen as he swung his Bren 805 around toward us. He was just a little too slow; he had been facing the wrong way and Phil and I were already on sights. Our shots blended together into a single, harsh crack, and he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, his helmet half blown off by Phil’s round.

  Then a full half-dozen Loyalists, who had been crouched behind the BVP squatting at the intersection, turned and started shooting.

  From where we were lying, we had good shots, and didn’t have to move much. I shot one, hitting him high in the chest, and he staggered, but apparently was either a tough bastard, or was wearing body armor, because he didn’t go down. I shot him again, and was a little too high. The round tore out his throat in a spray of blood and he fell.

  I’d barely let the trigger reset before I was settling on the next one. Double tap. I saw him fall and shifted to the next, as bullets flew so close overhead that I could actually feel the shockwaves, and others spat up chunks of asphalt to right and left.

  Then Greg apparently decided that enough was enough, and took the chance. He leaned out, leveled his RPG-75, and fired.

  It was a decently long shot for an RPG, but while Greg might come across as a little goofy at times, he knew his business. The round flew straight and true, and smashed into the BVP’s flank just as the turret got almost all the way around.

  The vehicle shuddered as the round hit it with a resounding bang. For a moment, smoke poured out of the hole, and it didn’t seem like it had done much, though it certainly had given the soldiers on foot pause; the incoming fire had slackened considerably as they’d dived for cover. Then the BVP started to burn, flame pouring out of the turret, which had halted as soon as the round had hit.

  Then half the street ahead seemed to just disappear.

  The concussion was enough to shake the ground where we lay, and shattered glass was cascading down onto the street to the right and left. The shockwave, pushing smoke, dust, and debris, washed down the street toward us, and I barely got my head down fast enough to protect my eyes. It rolled over us, sandblasting any exposed skin and plucking at our clothes.

  I picked my head up as fast as I could, searching the swirling murk ahead for the enemy. It was doubtful that any of them were in much shape to fight after that, but I wasn’t willing to bet my life or the lives of my team on it.

  “Damn!” I heard Greg yell. “I didn’t think the warhead was that big!”

  “It was the IEDs, moron,” Jordan said.

  “I know that, you killjoy,” Greg replied, as he got down on a knee at the corner with his rifle.

  I ignored them. “Flat, Deacon,” I called. I sure hoped that they hadn’t been too close to that blast. That had been way bigger than I’d expected. Bits of brick and debris were still raining down out of the sky.

  “De
acon, Flat,” he replied, his voice sounding strained. “This is getting a little old.”

  “Sorry, we were a bit out of time,” I told him. The shooting had died down to almost nothing. “And we’re not collocated with the triggermen. You should be clear enough to move by now.”

  There was a renewed rattle of machinegun fire, and the bang of another RPG or Matador from somewhere out there, on the other side of the miasma of smoke and dust. “Roger,” he said. “We’re moving.”

  I could already hear more armored vehicles maneuvering, the rumble of diesels and rattle and squeal of tracks. We had accomplished what we’d set out to do, but we were still extended well past the line of resistance, and needed to move before we got cut off, just like Bradshaw had been.

  I got up and spotted the oldster crouched behind the corner behind me. He was waving frantically. I ran to him, taking a knee next to him and Tony, who was covering back the way we’d come. Smart man. He’d missed out on the fight, but he knew that if we got taken by surprise by a flanking movement, we were done.

  “We just received a transmission from Generàlporučik Rybàr,” he said. “The east flank is collapsing, and the second attack from the west is coming through.” That was the flank that we’d already had to fall back from. “He is ordering all who can to disengage and fall back to the castle.”

  Chapter 29

  The shock of that massive chain of IED blasts had bought us a bit of a breather, but as my hearing cleared, I could pick up the indications that we were still awfully close to being cut off. The rumble of armored vehicles and the crackle and thunder of weapons fire was getting louder to our left and our right. We had to move, or this little breakout was going to be stillborn.

  As we ran back up the narrow lane, peeling to the inside to maintain cover back down toward the south, just in case the enemy tried to come back at us from behind, I tried not to think about how much explosive might have been packed into the cars along the side of the street, or buried under the trees and sod on the inside of the curbs. “Go big or go home” seemed to be a Nationalist motto when it came to IEDs.

  We reached the edge of Štùrova Street, but had to hold our position. While the mech infantry column had been stopped in its tracks, a force of technicals and militia, backed up by a platoon of Pumas, had advanced up the street from the traffic circle after breaking through the western flank. Bullets were skipping off the pavement and the stucco sides of the row houses, and a burst of 30mm fire pulverized the corner, sending smashed brick, plaster, and glass cascading down onto the sidewalk.

  Chris had his Matador on his shoulder, but the oldster pointed at him and shook his head, yelling something in Slovak. He had his radio handset held at his shoulder, and I got the message. So did Scott, who was closer, and grabbed Chris by the back of his chest rig and pulled him back from the street corner. A moment later, we heard the ripping scream of the first artillery round, followed by the heavy crump of its impact.

  “Chris!” I yelled. “Spot the impact!”

  He ducked his head out into the street, then quickly drew it back. The incoming small arms fire had slackened considerably; even the jihadis who made up most of the foreign militias in Slovakia knew what incoming artillery meant, and didn’t want to be out in the open when it came down on their heads.

  “Left ten, fire for effect!” he yelled back.

  I turned to the oldster, but he was already shouting the adjustment into the handset.

  I’d been expecting another cluster munition barrage, but that wasn’t what we got. Either the howitzers were running low, or they were otherwise occupied, or they were relocating to avoid EDC and Loyalist counterbattery fire.

  Or they’d already been destroyed.

  Anyway, the hissing roar coming down out of the sky had a noticeably different tone from the ripping noise of the howitzer shells. And even though I wasn’t the target, it made me want to curl up into a ball and stuff myself into the deepest hole I could find.

  Multiple launch rockets were often launched with targeting along the lines of “pulverize everything in that grid square.”

  Even sheltered by the buildings that lined the lane, we got rocked, as the rockets rained down on Štùrova Street. Shockwaves and the sheer, mind-numbing assault of noise slammed at us around the corner, and we could feel the front of the row house next to us smashing down into the street.

  “Danger close” was simply par for the course in this fight.

  As the echoes faded, and we huddled against the wall to try to avoid the rain of smoking debris that had been thrown up into the sky, Tony suddenly opened fire down the lane to the south, even the staccato thunder of his Mk 48 sounding muted after that catastrophic hammering. “We’ve got to move!” he yelled.

  I looked back. Figures were darting from tree to car to tree down at the other end of the lane. I pivoted, snapping my OBR to my shoulder and caught one with a snap shot as he dashed toward a parked van. He fell on his face on the pavement and didn’t move.

  “Get cover out on the street and start pushing across!” I yelled. “RPGs and machineguns first, east and west!”

  Chris was already moving, ducking out around the corner with his Matador, a Slovak Nationalist with a PKP joining him. Several more Nationalists took the other corner and immediately opened fire. I looked over just in time to see one of them shoulder his RPG-75, and I blanched.

  “Chris!” I screamed. “Get down!”

  The oldster saw the same thing at the same instant, and his bark in Slovak arrested the man with the RPG-75. He looked back, to see that Chris and the Nationalist with the PKP were right in his backblast area. He dashed farther out in the street, dropped to a knee, and leveled his RPG-75 at his target, which I couldn’t see.

  Then a burst of machinegun fire cut him almost in half before he could fire. He slumped to the debris-littered pavement in a welter of blood and shredded viscera, his finger tightening spasmodically on the RPG’s trigger, sending the rocket haring off to impact against the front of the row house off to the west as the backblast blew more dust and debris down the street.

  “Shit!” Chris pivoted, grabbing the Nationalist machinegunner and physically throwing him out of the way, and leveled his Matador. He paused for a split second to level the weapon and fired, the rocket streaking away almost too fast for the eye to follow.

  The wham from around the corner announced that he’d hit what he was shooting at, just as the Nationalists opened fire with rifles and machineguns.

  The oldster was grabbing my sleeve. “We have to move!” he shouted. “Now!”

  “Go!” I yelled back. “We’ll bring up the rear!”

  “Make sure you come with us!” the old man replied, giving my arm a hard squeeze.

  We didn’t know each other from Adam. For all I knew, he was another Russian sympathizer, like Skalickỳ or Pokornỳ. For all he knew, I believed in the EDC’s peacekeeping mission, and was only helping the Nationalists for the sake of my own skin. But when you fight next to a man, even if you don’t know him, a bond gets built. It might only last until the end of the fight. But it’s no less real for all that.

  “We’ll be there!” I replied, pushing him toward the street. “Get moving! And try not to drop any more arty on our heads!”

  He grinned, then started marshalling his men for the dash across the street. It was going to be a long one, even if the actual distance was only about forty yards. But when you’ve got a crossfire ripping down the street, and armored vehicles coming behind it, forty yards gets to be a long damned way.

  The Nationalists crossed fast, even as Dwight and two of the Slovak machinegunners laid a withering storm of fire down the street to cover their movement. Scott, Tony, David, and Reuben were laying the hate down the lane behind us, while Greg and Jordan covered the ravaged west side, where some of the jihadis were starting to poke their heads out of the devastation left by the rocket barrage.

  We were in a crack, and no mistake.

  I’ll
admit, despite that bond, I still worried that the Nationalists were going to get to the other side of the street and keep going. But the old man got them to covered positions and started laying down covering fire for us.

  “That’s it!” I yelled, pulling one of my last high-concentration smokes out of my chest rig, pulling the pin, and tossing it down the lane behind us. “Time to move!”

  As the grenade popped and started spewing thick white smoke, rapidly filling the lane and obscuring us from the enemy, I got up and started moving. The rest were doing likewise, firing final bursts at the bad guys down the street before getting up and surging forward.

  I felt every brutal mile and every sleepless night as I dashed across that forty yards of hell. The smoky air burned in my lungs and my legs felt like lead, even as I tensed, waiting for the bullet or shell that was about to take my life. We ran spread out but as one unit, trying to get across that kill zone as quickly as possible, before the enemy could zero in and kill us, even as the oldster’s PKMs and vz. 59s raved and roared to keep the enemy’s heads down.

  We made it, gasping for breath at the far side, plunging past the Nationalists’ position. The oldster immediately started pulling his men back from the street and chivvying them up the narrow, tree-lined lanes to the north.

  Together, we fell into a staggered column, keeping our rear security as tight as we could, and retreated toward the castle.

  ***

  It wasn’t a rapid break-contact drill of rushes and bursts of covering fire the whole way. We linked up with more Nationalists and Bradshaw’s battered infantry section another block to the north.

  “Damn, am I glad to see you guys,” I said to Bradshaw, as we set in briefly at a barricade formed of sandbags, barbed wire, and a tipped-over truck.

  “So am I,” he said wearily. “I’ve about had it with danger-close artillery, though.”

  I winced. “How close were you to that last barrage?”

  “Not so close that any of us took any real frag,” he said. “Frankly, it saved our asses; we just about ran headlong into that group, and were under some heavy fire when they just fuckin’ disappeared. We’d broken contact from that last bunch of mech infantry to the south, but moved too quick heading north. Lost a couple of the Nationalists right off.”