Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War

by Thomas Hobbes

  From the OP, I ordered the attack to be postponed indefinitely. Then I spent the rest of the day and most of the next night working my way back east out of the pass. The enemy fire stayed in the valley, except for an occasional wild round, and I was safe enough so long as I moved on the high ground. Lucky I’d spent all that time climbing in the Whites.

  The GHQ for the operation was outside Carson City, in another abandoned mine. Borrowing a dirt bike from an infantry unit, I got back there early in the afternoon on September 1st. My order had been received, and in addition to the rest of the deployed N.C. General Staff, the CO of the Mormon Legion was there, along with the commander of both the Feather River and Tuolumne brigades. It was not a group of happy campers.

  A quick discussion confirmed that all the passes were effectively blocked. “Well, gentlemen,” I said, “an angel has pissed in the touch-hole. That’s how war goes. Seldom does a plan survive its first contact with the enemy. Any ideas as to what we should do now?”

  A battalion commander from the exile militia spoke up. “Sir, my men want to fight. We’re willing to try to get through the pass, rockets or no rockets.”

  “I'm glad to see such strong fighting spirit, colonel,” I replied. “But bodies have no effect on firepower. We could fill every pass up with bodies and the fire wouldn’t slack off. You wouldn’t get through.”

  John Ross spoke up. “We’ve heard nothing from the Confederates up north.”

  “The valley of the Pit River is just that, a pit,” I replied. “LAV’s can take some artillery and rocket fire—frag and shrapnel won’t stop them—but they can’t handle cluster munitions. There’s no way to avoid fire in that valley, and they’ll be in it for 200 miles.”

  “If the Zanies know they’re there.”

  I thought about that for a minute. Satellite imagery would show an LAV force strong and clear. But only if someone was looking in the right place.

  “Okay, John, get us a helo and put two dirt bikes on board. Let’s go up north and take a look. Meanwhile, all forces are to remain in position. You’ve got good resupply where you are and there’s no reason to pull back. We still don’t know when the girls may run out of ammo. If they do and I’m out of comm, go for it.”

  By the time we found a Blackhawk and got out of Carson City, it was evening. That was fine. Night still offers concealment. Just to be sure, we flew back to Utah, up to Idaho and across into Cascadia. The helo put us down near the South Fork of the Sprague River, where a ridge line gave cover from radars looking north from Azania. It was dawn when we got on the dirt bikes.

  By about 07:30 we arrived at the Jeff Davis Brigade’s laager on the north side of Goose Lake. It was empty.

  We swung south around the lake and picked up the Pit River. Even under the press of things gone wrong, I couldn’t miss the beauty of the morning, clear and cool with a mist floating above the river and sharply-angled beams of sunlight refracting the colors in the rock. I also couldn’t miss the LAV tire tracks everywhere and the absence of any destroyed vehicles.

  It was forty-five minutes or so before we got confirmation of our growing hopes. We came around a sharp bend and almost ran into our first casualty: a LAV that had broken down. The Confederates had the trail covered with a light machine gun, but it was easy to identify us as friends: we were men.

  One of the Jeff Davis troopers recognized me from my earlier adventures in Dixie. “We’re honored to see you again, suh,” he said, saluting smartly.

  “Thank you, soldier. Is your whole force up ahead?”

  “Yes, suh, goin’ balls to the wall for the Valley, just like ol’ Stonewall. Only this time, it’s the Sacramento instead of the Shenandoah.”

  “Any sign of enemy action?”

  “No, suh.”

  “I assume you’re still in radio silence.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “Okay, we’ll just have to catch ‘em.”

  “You got some catchin’ to do, suh. These heah LAVs is fast as a coon with a dog on ‘im.”

  That was good news, not bad. Speed was the key. If the Davis Brigade could get through the Pit valley and past Lake Shasta before the Zanies spotted it, we’d be through the back door.

  Fast as the LAVs were, dirt bikes were faster. That’s why LAV units had motorcycle scouts. Steadily, we overhauled the Davis Brigade from the rear. I stuck a small N.C. Pine Tree Flag on the handlebars, and a good many Southern troopers recognized me, so they made way for us. We rode all day and well into the night.

  At around 02:00 on September 3rd, we finally caught up with the Confederate command group, which was near the head of the column. To my surprise, it was small, just a CO, XO, S-2, 3, and 4, in two LAV command vehicles. The CO was up in the lead vehicle's hatch, and when he caught sight of me in his NVGs he pulled over to the side of the road.

  John and I pulled up alongside him and dismounted. God I was stiff. The CO jumped down from his LAV. He knew me, but I didn’t know him.

  “Colonel John Mosby of the 1st Virginia at your service, sir,” he said, removing his plumed helmet and bowing cavalier style. “We are honored by your visit, sir, though I will confess surprise at seeing you here at our minor front.”

  “Your front’s the only front, Colonel,” I replied. “At least the only one that’s going somewhere. The other passes are sealed by Azanian fire. You are now the Schwerpunkt for the whole operation.

  “I didn’t catch that word, sir.”

  “Schwerpunkt. Focal point. It means everything depends on us, Colonel. We make it or break it.” The voice was that of a Confederate major who’d dropped down from the other Command LAV and was striding up fast to coach his CO. I recognized it, and when he took his helmet off l recognized him in the chemlight: it was none other than Charlie Ravenal, my old escort officer during my Confederate escapade.

  “So you're speaking German now, Charlie?”

  “Been doing a little reading, sir. Some of us officers have been trying to get a bit more serious about our profession.”

  “Glad to hear it. Gladder still to see you where you are. I take it you didn’t receive my order to stop?”

  It was an order I shouldn’t have given these guys, since I didn’t know the situation up here.

  “Well, suh, I’m afraid I have a confession to make,” said Colonel Mosby. “We did receive the halt order. But seein’ nuthin’ and nobody in front of us, we figured we’d just go until we did. Then, we’d think about haltin’.”

  “Colonel, you have the most important quality in a military leader,” I replied. “You know when to disobey orders.”

  “That’s what Major Ravenal said you’d say.”

  “And as a consequence you’ve saved the day,” I replied. “Speaking of which, can you be through the Pit valley and to Lake Shasta by daylight?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ravenal answered. “At least most of the column can be.” It had continued to stream past us as we talked by the side of the road. “May I ask what your orders will be at that point?”

  “We have two options. You can advance straight down the Sacramento Valley until you come to the Feather River, then turn east and begin clearing the enemy’s fire support systems out of the passes so our main force can come through. Or you can go straight for the strategic targets yourself: the airfields, the missile dumps and depots and, above all, the Azanian “fusion center” that ties all the parts together. What’s your preference?”

  Major Ravenal turned to Colonel Mosby. “Sir, the purpose of an Operational Maneuver Group is to strike as directly as possible at the strategic level. I think that’s what we’d like to do.”

  “Remember that you are only 3,000 men,” I cautioned.

  “Yes, sir. It’s a high-risk approach. But we’re fighting women.”

  I thought about it for a bit. The bolder approach was always tempting. But here, if it failed, it would not fail gracefully. The remainder of our forces would still be stuck in the passes, hoping the Zanies ran out of ammo before snow c
losed the roads. The risk was great and the pay-off relatively small.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen, in this case I have to decide otherwise,” I ordered. “If your bid for a strategic decision were to fail, we’d be out of tricks. I need the options our main force provides. I want you to open the passes for them from the rear.”

  “What if the Azanians turn their rocket launchers and artillery around and try to keep us out?” Colonel Mosby asked.

  “You’ll have cut their logistics line, so their ammo supply would dry up fairly fast,” I replied. “The ammo they have appears to be anti-personnel rounds, which won’t do much to your vehicles. Most important, they’d be trapped, and it takes real guts to be surrounded and still keep fighting. I think they’ll run.”

  “What about their air?” Charlie Ravenal asked.

  “The 25mm guns on your LAVs are good anti-aircraft weapons,” I replied. “And once your column is out of the Valley and the Zanies know you’re here, I’ll break radio silence and designate you the air Schwerpunkt. That’ll give you fighter cap, and the Zanies have learned not to tangle with our fighters. If this time they do, so much the better.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” said Colonel Mosby. “If you don’t object, suh, I’d like to mount up and keep movin’. I feel a need to be up front. You’re welcome to a seat in my command LAV if you want one.”

  “Thanks,” I said, thinking of my aching butt. “But as an old infantryman I feel better with a vehicle I can get off of in hurry. Let’s say we rendezvous at Project City, on the south side of Lake Shasta. I’ll get on the horn there and call for air.”

  “That’ll be just fine, sir. Don’t hold it against us none if we get there first.” With that the good colonel mounted his LAV, waved “Forward!” with the plumed helmet and joined the race for the lake.

  As Major Ravenal had predicted, sunrise saw the long column of grey LAVs mostly out of the valley and reaching around to the southern side of Lake Shasta. Colonel Mosby left a command vehicle with its extensive commo suite waiting there for me, but he and his men didn’t stop. He was entering a populated area, which meant the Zanies would soon know of his presence. He needed to get out into the wider Sacramento Valley where he could disperse to avoid air and missile attack.

  By 07:00, I had established radio comm with my staff back in Carson City. Within 45 minutes, we had F-16s providing cover over the lead LAVs. Better still, an A-10 squadron from Idaho had flown in to volunteer their services, and by mid-morning I had two loitering over the Davis Brigade. They were the only aircraft in the old U.S. Air Force that could make a difference in a ground fight, and while I didn’t expect much fighting, the first Principle of War is: “You never know.”

  At the same time that I switched the air Schwerpunkt to the Confederates, I asked that a helo be sent to pick me up. The Jeff Davis Brigade had a commander who could make decisions and, in the metamorphized Major Ravenal, someone who could serve as his brain. I already knew what gunpowder smelled like and had no need to be at the front. With our three other thrusts about to go, my place was back at the operational level, which for the moment meant Carson City. I left John Ross to serve as my liaison with the LAVs.

  It was around 11:00 that a Montana Air Guard Blackhawk—all the Rocky Mountain states now wanted into the fight— dropped me off outside our mine. Before I was even clear of the rotor blades some fresh-scrubbed Mormon kid in utilities was in my face, screaming, “Sir, we’re through! We're through! The fire lifted along the Feather River and we’re through!”

  As we moved away from the helo I caught sight of a butterbar on his collar. “OK, lieutenant, simmer down. When did you get the first report of the fire lifting along the Feather?”

  “About 10:00 hours, sir.”

  Even if the Mex mercenaries had high-tailed it when they heard the LAVs were coming, that still meant the Jeff Davis Brigade was making good time. “Any word from further south?” I asked.

  “Sir, as your bird was coming in I heard a radio saying the fire was slacking off in Donner Pass.”

  Good. The Zanies were about to learn why armies had stopped hiring their artillery a few centuries back. The gunners first loyalty is to their guns, not their temporary employer. Of course, there were more bearded ladies in circuses than women who read military history.

  I soon got settled back at my old table in the mine, with a heaping plate of Mormon goodies in front of me. If all American women had cooked like Mormon women, the old USA wouldn’t have had a divorce rate.

  Then, John Ross was on the horn with more good news. A company of LAVs had caught the Mex arty as it was trying to get out of the Feather River canyon and captured the whole lot. The A-10s had gone ahead of the ground units into Donner Pass and shot up a bunch of rocket batteries. The survivors were packing up and getting ready to run for it. The Zanies had sent in F-35s but they were grapes for the F-16s. “The main air threat now is F-35s falling on our heads,” John said.

  Even the A-10s were shooting down Azanian fighters. It looked as certain as anything in war can be that by the end of the day, we’d be through all the passes unless the little ladies had a lot more long range cruise missiles than I thought they did. So long as the LAVs were focused on taking the passes, there wasn’t much we could do about the long-range stuff controlled by the enemy fusion center.

  About mid-afternoon, I again spotted Sergeant Danielov working his way toward me through the headquarters’ creative chaos. “Sir, I think it’s about time for our special op to go,” he said.

  “What special op?” I inquired.

  “Well, while you were tooling around on your bike chasing the Confederates, I got to thinking I’d like to stomp the head off another snake. So I sat down with a few guys and some of the airedales and we came up with a plan to go after the fusion center. We figured that if we could take that out, the whole Zany hi-tech war would collapse with it.”

  “Good reasoning,” I said. “How are you going to get there?”

  “By air.”

  “As long as the fusion center is still functioning they’ll know you’re coming. They’ve still got radars, plus SAMS aplenty around San Francisco airport, which is where the fusion center is located. Even women pilots in F-35s can shoot down transports. You’ll need every fighter we’ve got as an escort, and that will leave our other forces uncovered.”

  “l’ll only need four F-16s for escort, and they’re only if we get real unlucky. The Zanies won’t know we’re coming. We’ve got stealth transports.”

  “Stealth transports?”

  “AN-2s.”

  The AN-2, I knew, was an ancient Russian aircraft, a small, biplane transport designed in the 1940s. It could operate out of rough fields, and for decades had been Aeroflot’s luxury liner for out-of-the-way places. Like biplanes of World War I, it was mostly made of fabric. The only thing for a radar to pick up was the engine.

  “Where in the hell did you find AN-2s?” I asked.

  “A Colorado airline bought a dozen a few years back to provide local service. Colorado asked how they could help in the war so we asked for the AN-2s. Eight came in this morning. I can get ten guys with gear into each. Eighty men is enough.”

  “How sure are you that the Zanies hi-tech radar won’t pick you up?”

  “The higher tech it is, the less likely it will pick up an AN-2. Not only does a flying engine without an airplane not make any sense, the AN-2 only flies about 60 miles per hour. The Intel shop is pretty sure the highly automated Azanian systems will wash it out as a false contact before any human even gets it on a scope.”

  It was the old high-tech story: an automated system can’t deal with any situation not anticipated by its designers. High-tech designers didn’t build their systems to detect World War I airplanes.

  “Well, pretty sure is as good as it gets in war. I don’t see any downside, other than you and 79 other guys coming home in body bags. If you’re ready to risk that, so am I.”

  Dano knew me well enough t
o guess what my answer would be. He had his men already packed into their string-bag AN-2s and ready to roll. The mission took off at 15:40 hours Mountain time, September 3rd.

  Operationally, Dano’s spec op was not critical. If it worked, it would shorten the war, which was always good. Speed kept casualties down. If it didn’t work, we still would get through the passes, even if some cruise missiles kept coming. The broad-front advance was a sure thing in this case, because all it would meet would be hordes of panicked women.

  At the same time, it’s hard watching an old friend and fine soldier head off on a high-risk mission. I knew my stomach would be in knots until we had some word from Dano about success – or failure.

  As we waited, I occupied my mind by calling Major Walthers over to my erstaz desk. “What do we know about this Azanian fusion center?” I asked him. “Assuming our guys get there alive, can they get in?”

  “They can get in,” Walthers replied. “The question is how far down they can get. I gave Ron everything we know before he left, of course. But it isn’t much. On the surface, the fusion center is just a big, two-story building with no windows. Assuming Northern Confederation Special Forces can get past the Dykes on Bikes, entering the building is not a problem. It has doors and we can blow them.”

  “I somehow doubt the dykes will delay us much. Assuming we get in, what then?”

  “Then’s when it gets interesting. The building itself is a decoy. Like all militaries, the Azanians thought symmetrically. Since they use long-range precision weapons to destroy buildings, they figured someone attacking them would do the same. So the building is designed to be destroyed. They planned to let the enemy think he had destroyed the fusion center along with the building. But the workings of the center are actually underground, far enough under that blowing up the building doesn’t have any effect.”

  “So the building is military make-up, in effect?”

  “Exactly. A false face. A natural female ploy.”

  “How far down does the actual fusion center go?”