by J. F. Holmes
“Dash,” said chief, “sign off on this, and I can release her to you. I’ve got three others to deal with, and only twelve hours to do it.”
“All your damn paperwork. The world done ended, mon, an we still gotta do paperwork!” she said with her lilting Jamaican accent.
“We’re going to strangle the Invy with it,” laughed the chief, but he still stood there with the tablet held out. She grimaced, and ran the stylus over the screen. Freaking cavemen probably had to chisel their mark on stone to get their spears, she thought.
The warrant smiled, turned the tablet off, said, “She’s all yours!” and walked over to the next Abrams. Dash watched him go and then turned to her crew.
“OK, let’s load her up! I wants half sabot and the rest HEAT and canister, and enough small ammo so her bellies done scrape de ground!” In her excitement, her accent had gotten worse, even though she was a long way from the Caribbean. It was time for revenge. It was time to kill.
Dash laid her hand on the cool metal, ran it lightly across the mottled green and brown active camouflage, causing it to ripple under her hand, individual nodes of LED’s flaring to life briefly. Not perfect, but it would have to do. Every advantage they could get over the Invy would help, but she put her faith in balls to the wall, straight up charging in. She had seen it at the battle of Cheyenne Mountain; they had fought the bastards to a standstill, and then ripped the heart out of the attackers, before hell had dropped from the sky.
“Yes,” she whispered, “you and me, Bad Bitch, we ‘bout to kick some alien ass, ole girl.” Small charges of static seemed to answer, eagerly.
Chapter 73
Before they rolled out, Dash called the crew together at the front of the tank. They had all been training together for years, in preparation for today’s work. Except for Banks, they were all veterans of the Invasion War; Lehmkuhl and Dash had both fought in the Spratly War, though Dash had been an artillery section chief. Her Spratly war had been spent mostly in a Chinese POW camp, after that first disastrous battle in Taiwan. Still, she knew how important motivation was to accomplishing a mission. She didn’t doubt their individual spark, but they needed to be a team, completely.
“Listen, kids, to your momma Lisa. Dis is gonna be a real tough fight, and we gonna bunks dem Invy real bad, so listen you up,” she began, but Banks raised her hand.
“Sarge,” she said, “can you drop the Jamaican accent? I, like, have no idea what you, like, just said.”
Dash laughed, and said, “Sure, Terry. I can speak American better than you can, if that helps.”
Banks scowled and said, “Ain’t my fault, ain’t like there’s any schoolin in the ruins.”
Theresa Banks was nineteen years old; the rest of the crew were in their thirties or, like Dash, an ancient forty. She had little memory of the war, or even of life before it. When the Main Force recruiters had found her, Banks was scavenging already picked over Walmarts in Tacoma, leading a small gang of kids in vicious territorial battles with other almost savages. Seeing her natural leadership ability, the recruiters had grabbed her at night and hauled her, sedated, to their base.
It took a while for her anger to abate, but over the last year, a world had been opened up to her, one she barely knew had existed. She had taken to the tank simulator immediately, and had been up for early promotion to gunner when the order for Red Dawn came.
“You’re doing fine, Terry. Once we beat these bastards, I’ll help you get a degree and get into officer’s school. It’s going to be a long war for all of us, and long after I’m too old to be climbing up and down this tank, you’ll be kicking ass and taking back everything they done took from all of us.”
Banks smiled back at her, and Dash was struck by how young she looked. Just a kid, should be going to college and dreaming dreams of a family, she thought. Not riding out to meet the devil.
“So listen to me now,” the SFC continued. “We going to be heading into hell, the likes of which some of us haven’t faced before. It’s OK to be scared, because we know a soldiers’ got a right to be scared, but I’m not saying anyone can back out. We’s a team, and we’s going to fight like a team.”
Erica “Dizzy” Lehmkuhl wasn’t scared. She should have been dead long ago, in her mind. In the P.I. and later at the battle of Cheyenne Mountain. She and Dash had fought the Invy together then, as gunner and tank commander, escaped the chaos of defeat to return here, and she trusted her now. Battle would come, and that icy, cool feeling would descend over her like a blanket. She looked Dash right in the eye, and neither woman said anything, until her chief winked, and Dizzy smiled back, a grim smile. They both knew the price they might pay.
“Can we, you know, just get this over with?” interjected Ibson. “I want to get back to issuing warnings to rude people, once my great country has been restored to peace and tranquility.”
“I bet you have your Mountie uniform just hanging in the closet, all shiny and shit!” said Lehmkuhl.
“And, why not? If we win, Vancouver is going to need some good law and order again. Just you wait.” From there, the two devolved into good natured insults, with Banks egging them on.
Dash left the crew to picking on each other, and went to meet with the other tank commanders for a final briefing. It was short, there were only five tanks. The mechanized infantry were having their own last minute conference.
Her Captain was a good officer, but a crappy tanker, with no experience. He had wanted Dash to be his gunner, but somehow, it just didn’t work out that way. She had her crew, and she didn’t give good odds to him making it through the fight. He hadn’t seemed to learn the balance between command of a unit and command of a tank. Always, in the simulators, ignoring unit matters to give commands to his driver one minute, then jumping back on the net the next. He needed to either do one, as a sergeant, or the other, as an officer.
“Sergeant Dash, any input?” he asked, but before she could say anything, he turned to ask something of Orca’s TC. Then he ignored him and moved to another, like he was just running through a drill. She felt sorry for the crew of Ragnar, his tank. They were interrupted when the Regimental Commander pulled her boss aside for his own pep talk.
Dash reached out and hugged each of her fellow tank commanders in turn. She had known them for years, and odds are, this was the last day any of them would see. Then she knelt, and, regardless of their faith, said a prayer for each. Their respect for her was enough that they all bowed their heads. In her deep voice, she recited,
I have fought when others feared to serve.
I have gone where others failed to go.
I’ve lost friends in war and strife,
Who valued Duty more than love of life.
I have shared the comradeship of pain.
I have searched the lands for men that we have lost.
I have friends who served this land of liberty,
Who would fight to see that other stricken lands are free.
I have seen the weak forsake humanity.
I have heard the traitors praise our enemy.
I’ve seen challenged men become even bolder,
I’ve seen the Duty, Honor, Sacrifice of the Soldier.
Now I understand the meaning of our lives,
The loss of comrades not so very long ago.
So to you who have answered duty’s siren call,
May God bless us all, may God bless us all.
“And,’ she continued, “if I don’t make it back, I’ll see you on Fiddler’s Green soon enough.”
“You better have a cold beer waiting, Lisa!” answered Selchie’s commander.
“Gonna have some Red Stripe, um hum!” she smiled back at the woman.
Suzie Q’s boss said, “Ugh, not that piss!” and they all laughed.
From speakers overhead, the Regimental Commanders’ voice boomed, “RIFLES! MOUNT UP!”
They all bumped fists, shouted “BAD BITCH!” and rode to death and ruin.
Chapter 74
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br /> In the distance, she could see the outline of the broken Space Needle, lit by the setting moon. Though Seattle had taken a number of orbital strikes, the Invy had concentrated on hitting the numerous military bases instead of civilian populace. Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, Kitsap, Everett, they had all taken a pounding, even the Boeing manufacturing facilities. Except for a small area of JBLM that the Invy used to house a mechanized platoon, all their local forces were concentrated at the old SeaTac airport. The runway there was long enough that their cargo lifters, massive multi engine ships assisted by antigravity, could get a boost lifting off, carrying the loot of Earth.
Their attack was scheduled to coincide with the submarines’ firing on the orbital stations. Dash knew that if it worked, then they had a chance. If it didn’t, well, no matter what their efforts amounted to, it was all over. A devout Catholic, she said a quick Hail Mary as they reached the last hill before their final run into the base and came to a stop in defilade. Behind the four tanks spread out three Bradley Fighting Vehicles and a half dozen wheeled Strykers, carrying the Main Force infantry soldiers of the 1/161st Infantry, the Highlanders. The runway at SeaTac was about ten miles away, through the ruins of the suburbs of Seattle. The men and women in the infantry were going to be advancing over ruins that had been, once, their homes.
The movements had been timed so that they came to rest minutes before each orbital passed overhead, the armor coming to a squeaking halt, cooling sprays venting their excess engine heat. That problem had taken a long time to solve, and the chemicals used in the dispersal were some really bad shit. The VA would probably deny their claims when they all died of cancer in a few years, Dash mused to herself as she idly sat watching the countdown.
Behind them, about three miles to the rear, crewmembers were slowly placing their hands on elevation wheels, getting ready to start engines to provide hydraulic power, and silently screwing Variable Timed fuses on 155 caliber artillery rounds. Artillery had done little good against the first invasion, mobile as it was, but here it was to keep the defenders’ heads down while the tanks advanced. The six surviving Paladins of the 2nd Battalion, 146th Field Artillery Regiment had firing solutions for every square meter of the base. The howitzers had been emplaced a week before, step by step, hiding from orbitals, going places the Invy patrols ignored.
Scout Team Eleven, four miles closer to the base, watched through night vision as an Invy foot patrol made its way out of the perimeter. On any other night, the scouts would have quietly slipped away, gathering information on times and routes, but not tonight. Each member of the seven man team held one of the Invy in their sights, and would fire the first suppressed shots of the early morning.
The battle, like any combined arms battle, would be a dance carefully coordinated by the Regimental Commander. Timing was everything, and Dash had the plan memorized in her head, but the veteran knew that it would all go out the window as soon as the dance started.
At H minus thirty seconds, all across the Puget Sound area, radio sets with pre-programmed, semi intelligent software started broadcasting back and forth, simulating a massive wave of communications traffic. An orbital had just crested the horizon; the hope was that the Invy would be unable to identify the real chatter from fake, and be overwhelmed by targets. Some were stationary, while others moved cross country on small wheeled drones.
At H minus fifteen seconds, Dash turned on her radio in time to hear the Regimental Commander call, “Execute, and Godspeed, Rifle Six, out.” At the same moment, she felt the rumble of the artillery firing through the soles of her boots, slightly shaking the seventy ton tank. The rounds passing overhead made their characteristic ripping sound, and she hit the lever dropping her back into the tank, pulling the hatch shut after her and activating her helmet mounted display. External sensors, modeled off the F-35 program, seemed to make the tank around her invisible, showing her a 360 view of the outside, turning night into day.
“KICK IT, BITCH!” she yelled, half to the driver, and half to the tank, and PFC Banks twisted the grip, engaging the drive. Lehmkuhl already had her helmet mounted display going, and the turret tracked side to side as she looked for targets, following the movement of her head. Ibson sat ready, his job the least high tech of all, ready to open the door with his knee switch, select whatever round his commander asked for, and muscle it into the breech. A HEAT round was already loaded, giving them the best option against any targets they might face.
They were all thrown backwards by the acceleration, and could hear Banks give a whoop! of joy as they tore down the highway. One thing that the designers had never really overcome was the rough ride of any tracked vehicle, and the highway was full debris. There was a discernable lane through the wrecks, though; they Main Force soldiers had spent the last nine years surreptitiously moving them around to provide a semi clear lane.
Behind Bad Bitch in the lead came her sisters, Orca, Suzie Q, Selchie, and Balrog. Each tank had their guns aimed to one side or another, covering their sectors, and Dash took a second to look behind her, her chest swelling with pride. Finally, finally, finally.
The sixth vehicle in their column was their air defense, a bigger version of the EMP generator the ODA teams had. It crested the hill, lit up its radar and immediately started knocking drones out of the sky. After ten seconds, the firing stopped and the Stryker vehicle moved out again.
The Abrams reached a bone jarring speed, crashing over piles of rubble and through ditches, the stabilized main gun tilting up and down in time with Lehmkuhl’ aiming point. Dash, though, was to draw first blood. She was scanning her head in a counter point motion to her gunner, and caught a glimpse of a shape starting to lift into the sky. Slapping the joystick into her hand, she overrode Lehmkuhl’s sight, yelled, “FROM MY POSITION, AIRCRAFT, ON THE WAY!”, flipped a switch that set the fuse to proximity and triggered the gun.
The cannon lurched backwards, causing an enormous flash to light the night, accompanied by an incredibly loud CRACK!, and the HEAT round ripped through the air. Sergeant First Class Lisa Dash thought for a brief moment of her childhood in poverty, leaving Jamaica to come to America, how she had earned her college degree through serving in the Washington Army National Guard, and built her own business and family. It had all been torn from her, her husband, her two daughters, and she threw back her head and laughed as the round intersected the flight path of the Invy ship. A second tank also fired, and the wingman peeled off east, leaving a glowing trail of sparks that, after a few seconds, erupted into a blinding flash of antimatter annihilation.
Lisa Dash laughed on and on, consumed by the joy of revenge as they pulled into their first pre-sighted firing position.
Chapter 75
“RELOAD, SABOT!” Dash yelled, the laughter still continuing in her head. Ibson already had the door open, and his fingers punched the selector, making the bottom of the round pop outwards. He hauled mightily on it with his right hand on the base and his left on the top, then flipped it around, smoothly ramming it into the open mouth of the gun. His final act was to pull his hand away as the heavy steel breech swung closed.
“UP!” he yelled, and Dizzy yelled “ON THE WAY!” The gun rocked backwards, the tank with it, pushing it down onto its springs. Dash could have demanded that the gunner run through the standard fire commands, but she trusted Dizzy Lehmkuhl to do a good job. Hers was to keep them alive. Ibson didn’t wait for a command either; from here on out it was Sabot until either the gunner or the commander ordered differently. Fine by him.
“Driver, back up!” she ordered, as return fire started to come their way. Their opposition was a company of Invy tanks, if the crews managed to get to them before the artillery cut them down. She had to assume they would face the full dozen the Invy organized their companies in, though. The Abrams dropped backwards, and she started to give the driver commands to maneuver them to the next spot, when the left side of her vision temporarily whited out, accompanied by an explosion that
rocked Bad Bitch sideways on her tracks.
A hundred meters away the turret of Suzie Q leapt upward into the air, flipped over twice, and then fell back on top of the hull, almost snuffing out the fire that raged inside. The track commander, less experienced than Dash, had let his driver expose the shot trap, the space between the hull and the turret, while scanning for targets. The 100mm plasma bolt had blown through the drivers’ head, under the main gun, across the loader, and hit the anti-matter reactor that drove the tank. The resulting explosion had come back into the crew compartment and vented its fury in that contained space, incinerating the crew and lifting the forty ton turret high into the air.
She had no time to mourn her friends, just fight the tank. They were to engage at long distance, draw the enemies’ fire while the infantry swung wide around the base. Could be that, tonight, nobody was going to get out of here alive, but she’d take some of the bastards with her. Bad Bitch rolled fifty meters west, shielded by the hill, and then moved though the ruin of a house, the muzzle of her gun being given a narrow view to scan.
Lehmkuhl caught a glimpse of the angular side of an Invy tank also shifting position, rotating on its air cushion, and fired, the sabot round punching through the skirts. The Invy vehicle bounced backwards and settled on the ground, but the plasma cannon started to rotate in their direction.
Dash yelled at the driver to back up, but the gunner yelled, “HOLD!” even as Ibson raced to load the gun. The commander was tempted to kick Lehmkuhl in the head for countermanding her order, but settled on triggering the fifty caliber from her position, hoping the tracer fire and impacts would distract the Invy gunner.