by Leigh Kimmel
"No, thanks, AID." Tom looked out over the sea of grass, to where he could just make out the floating vehicle that was moving slightly towards them, and slightly to the North. There were now signs of movement along the range of hills. No doubt, the accompanying oolt'os. "No, AID, I think that this one is on me. Foxtrot eight-eight, this is Tango four-eight, adjust fire over."
"Roger, Tango four-eight, this is Foxtrot eight-eight, authenticate Alpha Tango over."
"AID?"
"Romeo, Master Sergeant."
"Foxtrot eight eight, this is Tango four-eight. I authenticate Romeo. From objective Deimos. TRP 3, left 200 up 200, horses in the open, over."
"Roger Tango four-eight, welcome to the net. From Deimos, TRP 3, left 200 up 200, horses in the open. Six rounds One-Fife-Fife Super Quick fused HE, wait over."
Tom watched as the tenar moved towards the offset that he gave. "C'mon, c'mon," he mumbled.
"Shot, over," came the voice of Foxtrot eight-eight out of the AID.
"Shot, out," replied Tom. Far to his rear, he could hear the sound of a single cannon battery firing.
After several seconds, the voice from the AID said "Splash, over."
"Splash, out," replied Tom. Off in the distance a perfect hexagon of 155 HE rounds detonated, just beyond the range of hills. Tom could clearly see the broken body of one of the horses being thrown clear by the blast. "Fire for effect. Drop 500 right 200 repeat."
"This is eight-eight, roger. Fire for effect, drop 200 right 50 repeat." Tom watched the impacts through his binoculars, continuing to call in corrections as the mass of Posleen normals swarmed out of the way of the incoming artillery.
As this was happening, the tank commander had called up his platoon leader and had made a sitrep. The third platoon leader had repeated it up to the Bravo company commander. The Bravo commander had duly notified the Battalion S3 shop, who didn't bother notifying the battalion commander, because the battalion commander had one of his auxiliary radios on that same frequency.
"Tango-Tango-Tango, this is Tango six-six. Battalion fire! Beehive! Tanks, troops in the open! Range eight-five-zero-zero meters! At my command!"
And fifty eight tank loaders loaded fifty eight 120mm anti-personnel flechette rounds and announced "Up!" almost as one voice ...
And fifty eight tank drivers started fifty eight turbine engines ...
And fifty eight tank commanders designated enemy concentrations or enemy tenars as their pre-configured orders determined ...
And fifty eight gunners laid in their guns on the targets so designated ...
"Master Sergeant!" yelled the tank commander of Bravo Three Two over the sound of the turbine engine and the turret's hydraulics replenisher which chose that exact moment to squeal.
"Yeah?" replied Tom, as he continued to look down range through his binoculars.
"You might want to get down, Sir. All hell is about to break loose!"
Tom replayed what he had listened to but not heard in his mind. "Holy shit. Roger that, Sergeant. You keep your head down, too!" Tom jumped down off the tank and sprinted over to the hum-vee. He climbed in and started rummaging through his pockets for hearing protectors. Beatty handed him a pair, then started the vehicle's engine.
"Thanks," Tom said, taking the little spongy buds. "You ever see a battalion fire, Beatty?" he asked as he poked them into his ears.
"Yes, Sir. Fort Irwin, couple years back. A thing of beauty. It's a thing to warm even a tanker's heart."
In the back seat of the vehicle was an array of radio receivers. Tom turned up the sound on the one tuned to the battalion frequency.
"What's he waiting for, Sir?" asked Beatty.
"Probably a high enough concentration of the horses. Probably wishing we had some sort of air support to at least get a picture of what's happening out there."
"Fire! And keep on firing you sorry sons a' bitches!"
And fifty eight gunners pulled fifty eight pairs of triggers, and fifty eight 120mm smoothbore guns fired, almost simultaneously.
It was, as Private Beatty said, a thing of beauty.
A thing of beauty that lasted for almost a second, before all hell broke loose.
"Holy shit! Get us out of here!" barked Tom, as the mass of Posleen returning fire rent the air above their heads.
Beatty threw the vehicle into reverse and skidded around in a half circle. As soon as he was clear, he rocketed off back down the hill towards the S3s current location.
"Sir!"
"Yeah, Beatty?"
"You realize I've heard you say 'Holy shit' at least three times in the past ten minutes? You don't normally swear, Sir."
"Beatty?"
"Yes, Sir?"
"Why do you keep calling me Sir? I work for a living."
"Yes, Sir. One hears things, Sir."
"You call me 'Sir' one more time, Beatty, and I'll cap your ass myself."
"You wouldn't do that, Sir."
"You think?"
"Yes, Sir. You might need me to save your butt again sometime."
* * *
The 'beehive' flechette round had a secondary timer on it that determined how far it had flown, based on nominal speed of flight from the time of firing. The top of the round had a dial on it that the loader set to the distance required, generally about fifty to a hundred meters in front of where the enemy infantry concentration was found.
Once the round reached its range, it detonated, spraying thousands upon thousands of finned, four centimeter long aluminum darts out in a cone in the direction of travel. It had a spread not unlike a shotgun round.
While one or even five of the darts hitting one of the Posleen was not a sure fire way to kill the horse, hitting one of them with a thirty or forty certainly was. And since the Kessentai rode on top of open-topped vehicles, it meant that they were just as vulnerable to the weapon as their normals.
Beehive rounds weren't as classy as a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle, but they did the job ... and since there were still several thousand aluminum darts that would miss the prime target, they were almost guaranteed to still hit something. Consequently, the first wave of Posleen that met the 'C Forty Niners' on phase line Cobalt suffered almost 70% casualties in the opening salvo.
Unfortunately, it also meant that the score of waves coming up behind them now knew where the enemy was. Almost immediately, Posleen survivors from the first wave, as well as the follow on waves snapped around and returned fire.
Most of the normals in this group were carrying the Posleen equivalent to a flechette shotgun, and were miles out of range. There were, however, those in the crowd with 1mm and the odd 3mm railgun, as well as the much more dangerous automatic HVM guns and plasma cannons.
When ever one of the centaurs fired a plasma cannon, however, it was like lighting a beacon inside the tanks' thermal sights. Those horses so designated received a lot of counter fire and were quickly taken out of the equation. Even then, the plasma guns had to be fired first before the tanks could counter them.
Whenever a kessentai got sloppy and popped up too high on his tenar, they would acquire special attention, also. But the HVM launchers amongst the enemy were difficult to spot amongst the masses down range, and it was those that were starting to take their toll. Brava Three Two was one of the first of the First of the 149th to end up on the wrong end of an automatic HVM, which stitched its turret and peeled the top six inches back like a can of sardines.
One of the benefits of the rounds being hypervelocity, however, was that they didn't tend towards spalling the inside face of the armor. The staff sergeant tank commander, unfortunately, happened to be popped up and using his binocs for a direct look when it happened. The hypervelocity rounds cut him in half. Surprisingly, the vehicle was still running, and without prompting the driver kicked it into reverse and backed back down the back side of the hill their hull down position had been cut into.
With the top of the turret gone, so to were the gun sights. With no way to aim the main gun, the
tank swung around and rabbitted back up the track to the road. It swung by the company command post to let them know they were out of combat and then continued up highway four. It wouldn't stop until it was beyond phase line Zinc and the Farmington Dam.
Behind them, the tanks of Bravo company, as well as those of Bravo's sister companies, continued to pour fire down upon their enemies. And all the while the artillery continued to pound the enemy concentrations.
Over the next twenty minutes, thirty five thousand Posleen normals and over seventy Kessentai would die as the massed fire of the battalion artillery and direct fire from the tanks rained HE from 155mm and 8in guns and 120mm mortars, 120mm beehive and sabot rounds, and 25mm HEAP from over four hundred bushmaster auto cannons.
During that twenty minutes, a large collection of broken up units of infantry and support groups passed through the lines, coming from the fall of Stockton. The support units continued on up into the foothills, while those portions of the infantry still able to fight took up positions along cobalt.
As the centauroids pulled up close and the tanks had run out of their primary ammo, the fight degenerated down to .50 caliber and 7.62 from the co-ax and loader's and commander's machine guns, as well as the bushmasters from the infantry's Bradley AFVs and AIWs. The horses were having a hard time digging out the bunkered up weapons platforms and hunkered down infantrymen.
And all the while, the artillery continued to grind the horses into dog meat.
And then the other Globe-half landed, just South of Turlock.
"Tango Tango Tango, this is six-six acting. Bugout! I say again, bugout!". As the surviving tanks pulled off phase line cobalt and turned to retreat back to copper, the mechanized infantry jumped back into their vehicles and followed. Of the 58 tanks on the line at the beginning of the engagement, only one in three made the trip and of those only two-thirds were still able to fight effectively. Over the preceding twenty minutes, the battalion's combat strength had been reduced to that of a single armor company.
Behind them, the pre-emplaced manjacks opened fire to cover their retreat as the first of the horses reached the minefield.
* * *
Tom found LTC Kuzio in the classroom being used as the field hospital, being treated for significant second and third degree burns related to plasma cannon fire. "Doesn't look too bad, Sir," he said, peering intently at the man's face.
"Fuck you, Tom. How do we look?" the man said, voice hazy under the influence of GalTech pain killers.
"The landings weren't at full strength, which is why we are still alive. Had that been a full Globe, we would have been staring at over two million of the beasties. As it is, the total amount is probably only on the order of a quarter million made it into the San Joaquin Valley.
"Surviving units are moving back to copper, where the battalion ammo details are waiting with quick-load pallets." Tom rubbed his eyes and sat on the edge of a nearby desk. "The second landing came down South of the Tuolumne, so they've got to get across that, then the Stanislaus. We've asked the Southern units to not kick the anthill yet, to give us a chance to ammo up and get some food in us."
"What have we got?"
"Thirteen tanks still at full capabilities. Another five are engineering failures, and are being worked on right now. And another six are combat damaged beyond the ability of local maintenance to repair. They are being hauled back up to depot maintenance at Murphy's."
"Dead and wounded?"
"Of the 232 tank crew, 173 are dead, another fifteen, including yourself, are wounded and won't be returning to duty any time soon. That leaves 44 still doing their jobs. We've rounded out the crews using company assets, company hum-vee drivers, etc to ensure that the eighteen tanks we have left are full up on crews."
"Command structure?"
Tom rubbed his forehead. "XOs dead, Sir. So's CPT Rundle. Alpha company is gone. Delta has one tank left active and two of the combat casualties on the way to depot maintenance. Charlie and Bravo are the only companies that still have officers, Beckman from Charlie is the only surviving commander. Bravo's got that fresh-out-a AOBC two LT that arrived last week.
"And I believe the rest of the staff section officers are still around. Sergeant Major Timpton is around someplace. Oh, and we've picked up some infantry assets from around the Stockton area."
The battalion commander lay there for a moment, not saying anything. Finally, he sighed. "Ok, consolidate everyone into two light combined arms companies. Either armor heavy or one armor one infantry heavy, depending on how many infantry we've got."
"Ok, Sir. One armor, one infantry."
"Based on the enemy strengths, put the infantry heavy company facing the lighter front."
"That'd be the Stockton side, Sir. We gave them a beating. G2 thinks the infantry accounted for about 30% of the initial landing around Stockton before the retreat, and then we took out 75% of the pozzies that came North and East. There might still be 50,000 of the centaurs out there to our West, but they are busy in Stockton and trying to avoid the artillery fire." Tom didn't think about how they were busy in Stockton. "It's the Turlock landing that's going to be hairy. That one might be at least twice the size of the Stockton one."
"But they've got two rivers to cross and have three times the distance to travel to get here," said the colonel quietly. "And the better part of a division to get through." At the door to the room, there was a disturbance, which the colonel seemed to expect.
Tom looked over and saw the S1 coming through the door. "Good Evening, Captain Harris," Tom said, politely, albeit tiredly.
The captain simply nodded at Tom in response and said the battalion commander "I've got the orders, Sir."
"Do it," replied the commander. He turned to Tom and said "You will sign where you are told to sign, Master Sergeant."
Startled by the unexpected order, Tom blinked momentarily. "Yes, Sir?" he said, ending in a rising note.
The S1 started laying out sheets of paper. "Sign here, please, Master Sergeant Weaver," he said, dryly, holding out a pen.
"What is it, Sir?" Tom asked the S1 as he took the pen.
Before the captain could answer, the battalion commander said harshly "I said sign it, Weaver. I didn't say read it."
Tom straightened up and looked at the commander. Just from the way it was being done, he knew what was happening.
"Now, Weaver."
"I'm not--"
"Are you a warrior, damn you, or aren't you? Sign the damned papers, Weaver, and that's a damned order," yelled the commander, before collapsing back down in a fit of coughing. The attending medic rushed up to check on her patient.
Tom looked down at the papers, his face hardening, and started signing.
* * *
The Posleen landing South of Turlock was induced to crossing the Tuolumne River by the simple expedient of shooting at them. This got the entire mass moving Northwards.
The river itself hadn't flooded as high as was hoped, the time of the year meaning that the reservoirs were well below capacity. So the horses were able to cross carefully when they found the previously arranged fords.
Then they moved north through Modesto, which was almost a ghost town given the large streams of refugees that had fled since the Stockton landing. Modesto, they found, had the annoying tendency to explode also.
It was a large, mostly frustrated band of Posleen that first found a trail of brass ingots leading to Riverbank, and decided to follow it. Brass wasn't as exciting as gold and other of the heavier metals, but the net still considered it a valuable commodity. So they gathered it up.
Other groups found other trails, and since all the trails led to the same place, there was the occasional fratricidal dust up as squabbles happened. Eventually the kessentai sorted out who could lay claim to what and, having decided that the fence enclosed area that they now surrounded appeared to be the location of large quantities of the ingots, they charged it.
And the world's largest claymore mine exploded in their fa
ces. And then yet more of the fuscirto Threshkreen started shooting at them again from across the river.
* * *
Refugees of the infantry and armor units from their south started trickling in the following morning, first heavily damaged but still mobile tracked vehicles with skeleton crews, but then combat worthy but short on ammo Abrams and Bradleys, followed eventually by equipment fighting a running battle with the front edges of the vastly reduced Posleen hoard from the Turlock landings.
Major Tom Weaver took them all in, strengthened his lines around Copper, passed along the damaged and wounded and refugees through and up into the hills. Ammo wasn't a problem yet, so every piece of combat ordinance was reloaded with its basic load. By the time the invaders reached phase line Copper, he would be back up to full strength as an Armor battalion, as well as having at least two companies of mechanized infantry in support, and all the artillery that he could want.
Everyone else was passed along to phase line Zinc, and the Drains.
What he didn't want, however, but what he was looking at getting in the very near future, was close on to two hundred thousand centaur invaders.
The bright side of that equation was that the invaders had started out with twice that many.
* * *
Phase line Zinc ran North-South across a draw that ran Eastwards up into the foothills of the Sierras, due East of Farmington, along highway 4. The draw started out as a single cut between two high walls, but split immediatly into a pair, one running North of East, the other running South East. Collectively and individually called 'The Drains'.
Highway 4 followed the Northern of the two drains, and ran between the two natural and man-made walls that defined the draw. The area between the walls was Objective Hammer.
The South East half ran for over four kilometers of high-walled canyon, called Objective Throat, before it opened out into a many-lobed flat area behind the Farmington Dam. The flat area was part of the flood control plain that made up a large section of the spill area of several large reservoirs further up the mountain side. The flood plain itself was bounded by serious natural terrain. The plain was given the name of Objective Anvil.