Jimmy's Dreams: Some Dreams Are Nightmares

by Saxon Andrew

  “What about the terrain on each side of them?” Mosul asked.

  “They’re stopped between two hills. They think that aircraft would have a problem coming over those hills to attack. They’re too vertical.”

  Mosul said over his link, “First squad will land to the north of the road, second squad will land to the south. We’ll take out the Leopards first, the artillery can’t turn their cannons to fire on us, the tanks can do it faster than you can imagine. Move down quickly and get under cover.”

  • • •

  Jimmy saw a message appear in the corner of his computer screen, “I’ll notify you when we’re ready,” as he listened to the German Regimental Commander.

  “I now know that you are unprepared to stop me from taking your valley. If you could, you wouldn’t be negotiating.”

  “I have a question.’ Jimmy stated.’

  “What is that?”

  “How is it that you have a complete armored regiment after all that’s been happening? I believe keeping one intact would be impossible with all the anarchy taking place in Germany prior to the impacts.”

  “I refused to divide my forces.”

  “You mean you refused to follow orders.”

  The Link was silent and then he heard, “I am going to enjoy discussing this with you when you’re captured and dragged into my presence. There won’t be much talking taking place.”

  Jimmy saw on his computer, “Units to the West in place, still waiting on the East.”

  “So you have no intention of negotiating?” Jimmy asked.

  “Why would I negotiate with anyone when I have a gun at their head. I’ll tell you what I will offer. If you will march all of your people out of that valley, I will allow them to go peacefully.”

  “Will they be allowed to carry enough food to survive until they can arrive at one of the close by cities?”

  “No!”

  “So I march my people out to their deaths or you will come in and kill them?”

  “I assure you, Doctor, that death by freezing is preferable to being shot.”

  Jimmy looked at his screen, “Both units in place.”

  Jimmy smiled and said, “Since you are unwilling to negotiate, I am going to make an offer to you.”

  “What?”

  “I see that you are pretty much a cold-blooded murderer and I really should just give you what you deserve but there must some of your forces that aren’t like you. If you will turn your forces around and leave, I will allow them to live.”

  There was a moment of silence and then he heard, “Are you insane?”

  “You mentioned earlier that you thought the ear-link in your ear is a piece of remarkable technology. Has it occurred to you that some of the greatest minds on the planet are here and that we have things far more advanced that that simple ear-link. I am only going to offer this once and then I am going to destroy your forces and leave no survivors. It’s up to you.”

  “Now you’re bluffing.”

  Jimmy said where the Commander could hear, “Hit them, Juan.”

  • • •

  The Tank Commander was standing next to his tank talking to the Commander of the tank parked next to his. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed and he squinted into the sky to the left of the road. “What’s wrong with you?”

  The Commander shook his head, “I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye moving down toward that hill.”

  “What was it?”

  “I lost it when I tried to focus on it. It..it…I don’t know. It was dropping faster than the ashes.”

  “There are some large clumps of ash that fall.”

  “I know, but this looked different.”

  The other tank commander looked out over the hill and completely missed the ten warriors setting up on the ground. “Well, I don’t see anything.”

  “I guess it was a clump of ash or something like it.”

  • • •

  The squad on each side of the road to the West of the valley received the attack order and lifted their shoulder-guns.

  Andrew Collins pushed the slide moving his weapon from the laser to the rail-gun barrel, sighted in on a Leopard Tank, and pulled the trigger when Lt. Mosul said over the link in a calm voice, “Open fire.”. The recoil hammered his shoulder as a hardened metal sliver shot out of the gun at a velocity that caused a loud crack as it broke the sound barrier six feet in front of the barrel. The sliver blew through the Leopards armored turret and super-heated as it passed through the armor. It shattered inside the tank and a piece of it hit the high-velocity armor piercing rounds in the tanks magazine. It blew up in a massive explosion as Andrew’s second shot blew into the tank parked next to it. The two tank commanders standing outside their tanks were crushed as one flipped in the air and landed on them.

  All thirty tanks went up in explosions in seconds and the artillery pieces were bowled over by tanks being blasted off the road into them. The soldiers that were dug in around the tanks tried to see who was attacking them but failed. They began firing wildly into the terrain around them with automatic weapons and Lt. Mosul said over his link, “Use the lasers to take them out. We don’t need rock fragments flying around.”

  Hollywood has made laser beams into something they aren’t. To make them appear on film, they are often fired through smoke filled environments to make them stand out. It produces a great effect but that’s not how real lasers operate. The beams are pretty much invisible and seeing where they’re coming from is not impossible, but not likely. The twenty Warriors in First and Second Squads didn’t need a spotting laser to designate their targets; spotting lasers could be seen. Spotting lasers are only needed when a bullet is being fired or the distance to a target is needed. The warriors only needed to see their target in the Shoulder Launcher’s scope and pull the trigger.

  After ten minutes, ten warriors moved forward out of the terrain while the others covered them. Five minutes later, there were no survivors of the tank company. The last one killed was a radio-operator screaming for assistance. The warriors went to the blown over artillery pieces and tossed a magnesium-ball into the barrels. They ignited and burned through the metal rendering the barrels unusable.

  • • •

  The German Commander heard the radio communications from his artillery units and his eyes widened, “ALL THIRTY TANKS ARE BURNING AND THE CANNONS ARE WRECKED!!”

  “What happened?”

  “I DON’T KNOW!! ONE MOMENT NOTHING AND THE NEXT EVERYTHING BLEW UP. WE’RE UNDER ATTACK NOW AND SCHULTS HAS JUST COLLAPED NEXT TO ME!! HIS HEAD IS SMOKING!!! GET US OUT OF HERE!!! GET US OUT OF…”

  The German Commanding Officer felt rage at the loss of his men.

  • • •

  Juan lowered his eyes and said over the link, “Alphie, get your platoon back now! They won’t be safe out in the open when our defenses open up.”

  “Sir, I’m having them come in over the mountain and land in the valley. The two squads to the East are further out and will take too long to move down the elevators.”

  “Sir, this is Lt. Mosul. We don’t have any of the enemy to endanger us. We’re moving now below the cloud cover and should be back inside in less than ten minutes.”

  “Alphie?” Juan asked.

  “Sir, we’re going to have to fly over the main enemy convoy and it’s going to take some time to get above the clouds.”

  Both heard, “No you don’t. Just fly out to the North of the convoy at low level and enter the valley from the west. Our drones show they do not have anti-aircraft guns in their column. It won’t matter if they detect you on their radar if they can’t fire anything to hit you. You’ll cut ten minutes off your time if you do it that way.”

  Alphie smiled, “Thanks, Suzette. We’ve lifting now and headed north.”

  • • •

  First and Second Squads lifted and flew away from the sight of the attack on the Eastern Artillery Battery. They were moving fast when Suzette heard Rachel yell, “I Have tw
o attack helicopters moving in at high speed toward our boys!!”

  “Where did they come from??”

  “They lifted when the attack started on the artillery!”

  Suzette looked at her monitor and saw the two helicopter come screaming in bind the fleeing Special Forces Squads. Patrick, I’ve got the lead.” Suzette moved the cursor over the lead attack-chopper and pressed a button locking the cursor on it. She pressed a red button on her panel and large bunker rose out of the top of the mountain to the north and spun around. A long transparent barrel extended and started glowing.

  • • •

  The Attack Helicopter’s pilot looked ahead of him and saw the infrared signatures of twenty objects moving quickly toward the north at half-mile above the terrain. “Do you see them?”

  “Jawohl, I’m targeting them with my guns now.” The pilot moved the helicopter to the left slightly to line up on the targets and suddenly had the main rotor and tail rotor sliced off in an instant. The helicopter was flying close to a hundred and eighty-miles per hour and it fell like a rock and exploded on the rocky terrane below. The second attack chopper exploded into fragments before it crashed.

  • • •

  The German Commander heard the two explosions to the north of his column and looked at his Aide, “Two attack helicopters have been shot down!”

  The Commander’s eyes widened and he realized that the hundred assault helicopters would be arriving at the north and south ends of the valley in minutes.

  • • •

  Suzette heard a wall alarm go off in the fire control center and looked at the main radar screen. There were multiple bogeys moving toward the valley from the north and south. “WE’VE GOT INTRUDERS MOVING IN. GIVE THE ORDER, JIMMY!”

  “Stand by, Suzette.”

  “JIMMY!!”

  “Just a moment!” Jimmy said over the link, “I just learned you have helicopters approaching the valley from the north and south. Call them off!”

  “It’s too late to do that, Doctor.”

  “If you don’t turn them around immediately, then all of your Regiment is open game.” Jimmy only heard silence and he said, “Open up, Suzette.”

  Two large bunkers rose out of the mountains at each end of the valley and spun around. Six more bunkers rose out of the top of the mountain the road from the East approached and the hangar door dropped as the rail cannon was rolled forward. Rachel stared at the wall monitor and saw the distant specks of tanks, troop haulers, supply trucks, and assault vehicles moving on the road. Rachel pressed a button and said over the hangar’s loudspeakers, “Put on your helmets, this is going to get noisy!” The six men designated to load the magazine in the rail gun pushed their earplugs deeper into their ears and pulled on their helmets. They only heard silence and the electronic communications coming out of the fire-control center. That changed a few moments later.

  Suzette began designating the fifty huge helicopters moving in from the north on her computer’s monitor. Alphie’s Platoon was safely back inside and she had a free field of fire.

  The huge rail-cannons swiveled and were automatically fed fragment balls. Each shell contained ten-thousand large ball bearings that broke apart out of the protective sheath as air friction burned it off a hundred yards out from the barrel. The cloud of ball bearings dispersed as it flew in at the designated target at four times the speed of sound. Each rail cannon would reload and fire again every two-seconds. The approaching helicopters were four miles out when the first one disintegrated as it blew up in fragments and plunged to the ground. The crew along with the fifty soldiers the helicopter was carrying died from being hit by ball bearings blowing through them. None of them were alive when the helicopter crashed.

  The approaching helicopters were spread out and the rail-cannons swiveled back and forth taking out the closest ones to the valley first. The fight felt like it took forever but in reality, it was less than fifteen minutes. Suzette heard Mellie say, “The four helicopters in the rear are turning around. You’ll have to change the shells in the rail-cannons to hit them.”

  Suzette’s eyes were almost slits as she pressed two buttons on her panel. Two large bunkers rose out of the top of the mountain and swiveled around. Suzette designated all four helicopters and snarled, “Make us walk to our deaths, will they!!”

  The lasers hit the four helicopters and burned through them instantly. Some of the passengers in them were still alive as they crashed into the rocky terrain.

  Suzette looked at Mellie, “What about the main column!?”

  “I think Rachel has it under control.” Suzette looked up at the monitor and sat back in her chair. It appeared she does.”

  • • •

  Rachel looked through the rail-cannon’s scope as she traversed the barrel around and sighted in on the road. She could do this wirelessly but liked firing at things and hitting them. The tanks were firing rounds at them but they were still out of range and the 120 mm rounds were falling into the rugged terrain just in front of the mountain. Jimmy had made her promise to not be in the hangar if there were any danger and she agreed. But she couldn’t pass up the chance to fire the cannon manually. The Cannons in bunkers had belts feeding them but this one was fed by the six loaders. They would pull a cart up beside the Cannon and insert another belt of ammunition if one of the feeds ran out. The cannon would automatically switch to the opposite side feeds if needed and Rachel had practiced with the loading crew until they could do it with no conscious thought.

  Rachel sat in the chair next to the large barrel and placed the goggles over her eyes. She looked out at the distant convoy and grabbed the handles in front of her. She traversed the barrel around and lowered it toward the road in front of the convoy and looked at the foot-wide grey screen directly in front of her. She immediately saw a high-definition view of the land in front of her through the goggles she had on. She focused on the road in the distance and the screen read her eyes and the view moved out instantly showing the section of the road she was focused on. She stared at it and saw a toad was hopping across it. She raised her view to the front of the convoy and saw a large puff of smoke shoot out of the first Leopard Tank’s main gun. It hit the base of the mountain and she saw four other Leopards firing together. Soon they would be close enough to fire on the hangar.

  She pressed a button on the handle and the barrel rose slightly. Good, the range was now locked in. She moved the ‘X’ in the center of the screen slightly in front of the lead tank and pulled the trigger on the right control handle.

  • • •

  The Regimental Commander was sitting in his mobile command center and heard a message come in from his Air-Commander, “We’ve lost all of our helicopters. That valley is being defended by some kind of cannon that is beyond my understanding. It also appears that they have computer guided high-power lasers. All of our air-assault choppers have been knocked out of the sky and all of our assault forces are dead.”

  The Commander stepped out of his command center and said, “Would you consider a negotiation?”

  Jimmy snarled, “You refused to negotiate when you thought you had the upper hand. I told you I would only ask you once to back off but I asked you a second time to recall your helicopters. You refused both times. There are consequences to having an evil heart. You are about to see yours.” The Commander heard a click and knew the ear-link was no longer operative. He took it out of his ear and tossed it over the cliff beside the road.

  He looked to his right and saw the Lieutenant who had told him about this valley. He took his Sig Saur out of its holster and shot the Lieutenant in the head. He walked forward and looked ahead at the long line of military vehicles filling the two-lane road ahead of him. On the long trip out his column had encountered several cars moving in the opposite direction. There was no room for them to move around his tanks and he ordered them run over and ignored their pleas for mercy. No other cars were encountered after his convoy turned on this road leading to the valley. The road wa
s only two lanes and his battle tanks filled both lanes.

  He heard the explosions before he saw them. He realized he had learned nothing from his military history classes. From Leonidas, Hannibal, Napoleon, and countless other military leaders, they all knew that you never move your army where it can’t escape. He looked to the right and saw the steep drop off into a valley. On the left was the sheer wall of a cliff where the road had been originally cut through. He never thought there would be any danger to his Regiment; he was terribly wrong.

  It might be possible for his tanks to turn around in the middle of the two lane road. But they would have to separate and make room between them to make it happen. The explosions he heard told him that was not going to happen. He listened as the explosions grew louder and then he saw the tanks blowing high off the ground six-hundred meters ahead of him. He closed his eyes as the explosions moved closer. He didn’t see them pass him or the rear of his convoy start turning around to flee.

  • • •

  Rachel flinched slightly as the cannon fired the first load. She had practiced firing the cannon but only in mock electronic exercises. This was the first time she heard one fire. The sharp crack could be heard through her helmet and she lost her focus. She shook herself as the loaders looked at her. She narrowed her eyes and regained her focus as stared through the scope and saw the lead tank in the convoy was burning upside down on the cliff wall next to it. She moved the sites to the tank behind it and carefully pulled the trigger and kept it pulled back. She moved the control handles and walked the ‘X’ along the center of the distant road. The cannon fired a shell a second and the explosions of the tanks and the trucks carrying the ordinance for the tanks could be seen from the hanger. After ten minutes, a spotter in a bunker on top of the mountain announced, “The troops are leaving their vehicles and running at the rear”.

  Rachel instantly stopped firing and moved the scope to the rear of the long convoy. It wasn’t going to advance any further with the destroyed tanks blocking the road but it could turn around. She moved the sites about five hundred yards behind the rear of the convoy and pressed eight buttons on the keyboard located between the control handles. The laser on the roof of the hangar suddenly swiveled and the barrel swept around. Rachel typed in commands and went back to the scope. She pulled the trigger back and began moving the sites back up the road. The laser was locked in to the scope on the Rail-cannon and it fired a super-hot beam back and forth across the highway where the rail-gun was firing. There was no place to run. The explosions walked the length of the convoy and the laser incinerated everything behind the explosions. They could have just used the laser but the Leopard Tank’s armor was too thick. Finally, Rachel stopped firing and touched her goggles. She looked out at the road and moved the view out. She was now using infrared and the flames from the burning vehicles blinded her but she saw nothing was moving around them. She put the cannon on standby and stared at the road for the next hour. Then she saw something moving out of the ravine next to the road. She brought the view in and saw two soldiers climb out and start walking away. Rachel activated the laser and burned both of them. The crew yelled at her insensitivity.