“Broadcast our reasoning to the Rhinos, in their language. That the Salamanders were facing annihilation. That their backs were to the wall. And with the destruction of their weaponization plant, the scales are balanced again. They have a chance to step back from the brink.”
“I doubt they’ll listen.”
“We’re not saying it for them, really. We’re saying it for ourselves and our own consciences. That we gave them every chance.”
“Understood, General.” A pause. “Detonation in five, four, three, two, one. Mark.”
The far-off flash turned the night to day, reflecting off the overcast beyond the horizon. Seconds later, the top of the glowing mushroom cloud climbed into view.
“Engagement successful. Weaponization complex destroyed. Seismic shockwave will arrive in approximately eighty seconds. Atmospheric shockwave will arrive in approximately fifteen minutes.”
“We’ve rung the doorbell on the gates of Hell. Let’s see if the Rhinos open them. Pass the word for Winter to extract. We’re moving to support.”
“Already done, General. Remember, your suits have not been refueled.”
“We’re fine at about seventy percent, Indy.”
“If you drop below fifty percent and are still moving northward, you risk passing bingo fuel and depletion before you can reach the coast. Further resupply drop is not available.”
“Fine. Keep reminding me.”
“And I’ll also remind you, not only can we not afford to lose you or the Guard personnel, but the mechsuits are irreplaceable in the short term.”
“I got it.”
On his HUD, he watched Winter’s four groups heading roughly southward, changing their courses every minute or two, running flat-out, approaching 200 KPH at times. They chose terrain that might give them partial shielding against a nuclear blast in a pinch.
The Guard moved generally toward the center of Winter’s formation. They encountered two separate battalions of light armor—one tracked, one of hovers—which they quickly destroyed, losing two Hok battlesuiters in the process.
Nearly a bloodless victory so far, Straker mused, and then cursed himself for tempting fate with the thought, even as Indy crackled in his ear.
“Colonel Winter reports enemy nuclear attack.”
Chapter 19
Straker, Premdor-2 battlefield
“How bad is it?” Straker asked as Indy reported the Rhinos had started using nukes. He searched the horizon to the north for flashes as he continued to move, traversing his aiming reticle restlessly along his frontage.
“Tactical size, point-five kiloton yield, battlefield use only so far. No megaton blasts, nothing aimed at Salamander cities—or the beachhead."
Straker blew out his breath with relief. “They’ve called our bet, but not raised. Casualties?”
“Four mechsuits, twenty battlesuits so far. With that weapon size and the current dispersion protocols, mechsuits will usually survive anything but a direct hit. They seem to be using nukes sparingly and discriminately so far.”
“Interesting. Maybe their leaders aren’t as juiced-up on the biotech as the common Rhino.”
“Or perhaps they have an improved version for themselves, and find it advantageous to use the debased version on the populace.”
“Makes them easier to lead around by their emotions, easier to send the poor suckers into battle to die for a stupid cause, eh?”
“History repeats itself. General, I’m detecting a strong formation of armored vehicles intruding from the east, between the Guard and First Battalion. Division strength. Rate of travel, approximately 50 KPH.” Straker’s HUD flashed with an arrow about two hundred kilometers north and forty kilometers east of his position. The arrow pointed westward, its direction of travel.
“Division strength, huh? Now I see what we’ve had such an easy time of it. They were assembling a big force.” He checked his chrono. They’d fought nearly all night. 0400 local, with dawn slated for 0512. “I think they’re timing it for daybreak, and they’re placing themselves squarely across First Bat’s route of withdrawal.”
“There’s another full armored division heading in from the west, to arrive about an hour later. I’m also detecting many smaller troop movements from all over, heading toward this area.”
“In other words, now the whole continent’s mobilized against us. They’ll try to swamp us with numbers, knowing we’re deep in their territory.” He examined his HUD, with its sketchy info. “Pass to the rest of the brigade to extend their salient northward from the wetlands. Attack and disrupt anything they can. Try to draw some attention away from us without sacrificing themselves.”
“Should I pass the other battalions authorization to use tactical nuclear weapons?”
“What did the Salamanders say?”
“Their exact wording is permissive, though I suspect from the nuance and context they didn’t intend for us to use nuclear weapons on anything except the enemy chemical plants.”
“If we start using them on Rhino units, we might get countermanded right away…and if we do that, and suddenly need to use them to save ourselves, we might be in violation of our contract. So, no, let’s not ask the question. We might not like the answer. Save our option and our apology for if we really need it.”
“Understood.”
At that moment, Straker’s HUD fuzzed and his optic nerves ached with sudden maximum input as the area around him whited out. The ground leaped under his feet as if turned to rubber. He found himself thrown three meters in the air, tumbling. He rolled with the shockwave as he hit the ground. The battlesuit squad riding his shoulders blew off and took cover as soon as they regained control.
His HUD flashed an alert. The terrain outside now showed high levels of radiation. He was fine inside his suit, of course, but anyone outside and unprotected had taken a lethal dose.
As his suit rebooted systems and recovered from the EMP of the blast, Straker turned in a circle until he spotted the mushroom cloud rising nearby, its glowing red top still roiling with superheated ionized gas and climbing like a maddened rocket. He mentally matched ground zero with the last known positions of Guard suits, and told his HUD to perform a roll call.
One mechsuit didn’t report in—sergeant Vanbeek—along with five Hok. Vanbeek’s transponder didn’t reply, and the data record showed he’d been near ground zero. The incoming missile had been blinded by suit LADA, but nukes didn’t need precision terminal guidance. They only needed to detonate in the general area.
Straker ordered the Hok leader, “Major 24, take two squads and do a sweep of ground zero—a fast sweep. See if any of our people survived. Stay dispersed. They might hit us with another nuke.”
“Roger wilco, sir!”
The sweep showed nothing, no further blasts came, and Straker kept the Guard moving. Was that nuke a warning? A test to see the effect of atomic weaponry on Breakers? A proportional response for political reasons? Were they short of tactical nukes?
Fortunately, it was a very small nuke. They were probably limiting the damage to their own territory… and they were probably overestimating the effect on a mechsuit formation.
An hour later, the Guard had easily destroyed several weak formations of enemy troops, yet every one-sided battle drained their fuel, the fusion isotopes that powered the mechsuits’s reactors. Every fight also used up their ammo—the gatling wire that formed bullets, and the bimetallic wafers that created the plasma in their force-cannon bolts.
“Any chance of a resupply?” Straker asked Indy.
“We’ve assembled another lander squadron filled with all our remaining resupply modules, but the simulations predict fifty percent will be lost in the drop, and we’ll be left without modules or the means to manufacture anymore.”
“Plan to do it. Better to lose modules than people and suits. Five-meter targets.”
“If we drop, they will simply nuke the drop site, now that the nuclear threshold has been breached. The modules will be dest
royed.”
“Dammit. We should’ve resupplied first.” Straker considered. “Prep it as a contingency option anyway.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Straker checked on the three conventional battalions behind him. They’d extended a long salient over 100 kilometers from the wetlands like a finger on the map pointing northward at the battle area. Then came a gap of about 400 kilometers to the Guard’s location. North of that by 50 kilometers were icons representing powerful Rhino formations, and even farther northward the four First Bat combat teams converged, trying to re-form into a coherent battalion.
The Rhinos obviously hoped the Breakers would try to punch right through from both sides, so Straker resolved to go around. The east side was the obvious route, as it avoided the Rhino reinforcements driving in from the west.
The obvious route…
“Loco?” Straker said.
“Here, boss.”
“Does the enemy left flank—toward our right, the east side—look a little weak to you?”
“Yeah, very weak.”
“Do we think the Rhinos are stupid?”
“Not particularly. They’re competent enough fighters. Not at our level, and their tech is lower, but I haven’t seen them make any bad tactical mistakes.”
“So why is the east side so weak, and the west side so strong?”
Loco seemed to ponder. “You think they want us to go there?”
“Let’s say they do. Why?”
“The best escape route is a nice river valley, north to south. First Battalion slides to their left, we slide to our right, we enter the valley from top and bottom, we cover each other and link up, then extract southward easy-peasy, with a nice ridge as cover. So if I were them…”
“Go on…”
“I’d nuke the shit out of that valley. Set up a kill zone, maybe have some entrenched and hidden forces just over the ridges for after the nukes gut us. A whole Rhino division just passed through that area, so they could’ve emplaced ambushers, buried some nuke mines… Yeah, boss, that’s bad juju.”
“So what’s our next-best option?” Straker asked.
“Hmm… straight up the middle means we only fight the one division, if we do it fast and hard, and they’re not gonna nuke too close to their own guys, so as soon as we get in among them that’s one less thing to worry about. Or, we head far west and try to make an end-run around their second division, but we’re short on fuel.”
“What about even farther east?”
“There’s a whole series of valleys there. How far over do we have to go before we’re sure they haven’t emplaced nuke mines? We’d be using up fuel all the time.”
“Right.”
“But boss… if they’re gonna keep nuking us, we can nuke them, right?”
“Yes, at least in the short term. As soon as we do, though, the Salamanders might order us to cease and desist with the nukes—so we only have one volley for sure.”
Loco cleared his throat, the sound coming through clearly on the comlink. “Seems like we got two choices: the tempting ‘easy’ way where we’ll have to resupply for sure, and we might get nuked—or the hard, sure way where we nuke them first, then hammer through. What’s it gonna be?”
“Stand by.” Straker’s one eye on the HUD told him he had about five minutes to make a decision. He wasn’t afraid of taking responsibility for the choice, but he liked to have all the facts. “Indy?”
“General?”
“Run sims between the two scenarios Loco and I just discussed.”
“I’ve run sims on all possible scenarios.”
“So by the numbers, what’s my top two COAs?”
“The best two courses of action, assuming no additional surprises, are as follows: either employ a volley of tactical nuclear weapons against the nearest Rhino division and then punch through, or race eastward to link up in the fourth-nearest river valley to the east, which may or may not be clear of ambushers. The first option yields the best and smoothest cost-benefit bell curve. The second option displays an inverted bell curve.”
“Meaning in plain Earthan…” Straker said.
“Feast or famine. Great success or great disaster. The first option will likely result in 81% survival, plus or minus 7% percent. The second option will likely result in either 98% survival or 17% survival in roughly equal probabilities, depending on whether the fourth valley is mined.”
“So a hard, sure thing—or a coin flip.”
“Yes.”
“The hard way it is. And, I think we’ll improve on your percentages, because the Rhinos won’t be expecting it. Pass to Colonel Winter what we’re doing. At exactly 0509 hours local, he’s to launch all his remaining tac nukes from the north, targets at his discretion. Add in a spread of standard missiles and volley direct fire to cover the nukes, everything nap-of-the-ground. The Guard will do the same from the south. Punch through in the atomic chaos, meet in the middle, and extract southward. Don’t conserve ammo, because as soon as First Bat’s through, we’re all hauling ass southward as fast as our legs will carry us. Got it?”
“Of course, General. I’ve passed him your orders, and I’ll ensure all company commanders also receive them. Will there be anything else?”
“Yeah, Indy. Thank you. I can’t imagine fighting without you in my ear anymore. You’re the perfect battle coordinator.”
“You’re welcome, General… though to be fair, that’s what Vic was supposed to be.”
“You still miss him.”
“Always. But I won’t let that degrade my efficiency. Good luck and good hunting, General. The time is 0508 hours and thirty seconds… Mark. Indy out.”
Straker brought his attention back into the battle, issuing orders on the short-range comlink to Loco and the two mechsuit company commanders. Each of those four people had one tactical nuke, and Straker marked the center mass of four enemy battalions in front of him.
When the chrono ticked down to the mark, every mechsuit in the Guard launched two of its three missiles, so instead of only four—the nukes—there were more than seventy targets for the enemy to track and try to shoot down.
As soon as they launched, the mechsuits fired their force-cannons at extreme range, aiming at Rhino targets but not expecting actual effect—beyond throwing a lot of plasma, electromagnetic pulse, smoke and dirt into the air. A few hundred gatling bullets, plus blaster shots from the battlesuits, joined the mess, all designed to make it difficult for the enemy LADA to intercept the missiles.
“Guard, take cover,” Straker ordered five seconds before the Breaker nukes were due to detonate among the enemy. He and everyone around him threw themselves flat and hugged the ground.
The EMP and thermal shock arrived first, his shielded electronics beeping to report its impact and that all was well. The ground shock came immediately after and bounced him like a trampoline while doing no damage, but that was expected. The airborne shockwave then washed over him, carrying a storm of flash-ignited debris, ash, rocks like bullets and dust—turning the dim dawn sky temporarily black again.
“Up and at ’em!” Straker roared as he leaped to his feet, allowing his strides to lengthen and his bounces to go a little higher. The enemy would be shocked for a few moments, their targeting badly degraded, and he needed to get among the Rhinos now and do what mechsuits did best.
Close assault, at knife-fight range.
He waited until he’d passed the enemy formation’s surprised front line before firing, putting one force-cannon bolt into the vulnerable side of a heavy tank. With two force-cannons in his Jackhammer, one on each arm, he tried to keep one in reserve while the other recharged.
This allowed him to fire defensively, or at targets of opportunity, a rolling barrage that ensured he was seldom without a shot, like a two-fisted gunman. The Jackhammer was so much handier than the older Foehammer, a true mechsuiter’s weapon.
But it used up fuel and ammo faster…
Straker’s HUD told him the rest of the G
uard was following in two diamonds, one behind him, one behind Loco on the right flank. Like the tips of two spears, the formations cut and penetrated deep into the enemy brigade that faced them—thirty-three mechsuits and over one hundred battlesuits fought more than 200 enemy armored vehicles, about half of them heavy tanks.
If the Rhinos had been Hok, deployed by the old Mutuality, it might’ve been an even fight. But, stunned by the opening nuke strike and equipped with inferior equipment, without the perfected training and discipline of the Hok, what initially looked like a contest turned into a slaughter.
The Rhino heavies that could’ve been so deadly turned out to be almost useless against mechsuits, as their non-turreted, forward-facing guns couldn’t track the mechsuits rampaging among them.
Their turreted autocannon proved much more dangerous to the battlesuits bouncing here and there like biting fleas, so Straker prioritized hitting those heavies with crews that seemed to be fighting well. Tanks that were fleeing or seemed confused he left alone, slamming bolts of white-hot plasma into the sides and rear of those that were still in the fight.
He might have thought the Breaker battlesuits a hindrance rather than a help if it wasn’t for the enemy infantry. Unlike the Rhino militia, these were obviously professionals. They’d used their few minutes available before the attack to dig in. Their fighting vehicles even had earthmoving blades, a clever addition.
As individuals, the infantry didn’t have much effect, but as a mass of thousands, dropped in squads from their vehicles, they were like swarms of biting ants. They fired their lasers, blasters, crew-served autocannon and light antitank rockets from foxholes, from behind low walls and from inside scattered farmhouses, from concrete-lined irrigation ditches and from their vehicles themselves.
Added all together, this Rhino firepower could’ve chewed up and taken down even mechsuits… without the battlesuits. Now, the powered armor came into its own as Hok and Cadre roamed the battlefield in hunter-killer teams, blasting the enemy infantry at close range or launching grenades unerringly into foxholes.
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