Steel Breach

by Casey Calouette

Tomi keyed the comms and sent the acknowledgment back to Lieutenant Torori. He wondered if the Lieutenant felt the same way about an absentee company commander as he did about an absentee tank commander.

  Mick slid up into the commander's seat. "Tomi, help me out here."

  Tomi started explaining the basic setup when the order came to roll out. He engaged the drive and hollered back into the crew compartment. "Hold on! We're rolling!"

  The tank strained for a moment, then lurched ahead. A creaking sound sang through the hull. Then Tomi saw the track alarm flare on, then off. They'd sat too long in one place and the rubberized track nearly froze to the ground. He passed word to Mick and made a mental note to always keep the tank moving.

  The tanks lined up in four ranks and waited in the blistering winds. From the outside they all looked the same: snowy, scarred, and vaguely gray. Even though they had cleaned the main gun off they were already drifted over. The air had a strange feeling, like the storm knew.

  "All units, go passive."

  Tomi switched off the radar system and shivered.

  They set out shortly after into a wall of white. The storm, as predicted, was wicked. The gusts were enough to scour unprotected flesh. The cold deep enough to slow anything to a crawl, anything but an armored unit.

  The infantry struggled ahead the moment the armor departed. An entire battalion floundered against the winds. It was amazing that they moved at all.

  Tomi steered behind and slightly to the side of Badger and kept his eyes flickering between the overall map and his actual line of progress. The pace was barely faster than a man could walk. The tank crested up a rise then dropped down before doing it all over again.

  Rumbling sounded and the roar of artillery raged above. The comms was eerily quiet, like no one wanted to break the silence and let the Kadan know they were coming.

  Tomi kept pace with the other units to his right and left. The line of armor was ragged. He felt alone but it didn't bother him. It was his tank, his responsibility, and he knew he'd see them through. Or die trying.

  The channel crackled and a voice called out: "Contact!"

  #

  Chapter Thirty

  Lishun Delta – Behind the Kadan Lines

  Colonel Clarke stared at the digital display and watched as contact reports surged in. The command unit crested another shell hole. He reached a hand out to steady himself before he knew it would all start again. "Bravo, close with the center. Delta, watch your flank, you're spreading out."

  The armor was moving ahead. No, struggling ahead. The movement was nothing like the smooth leap and roll that the Sigg had perfected. This was ugly, brutish, and not very efficient. But, he thought, we're moving.

  "Permission to fire?" Shifty Williams called from the tank commander's position.

  "Save your ammo, Shifty," Colonel Clarke said. "We're in the reserve line."

  "Yes sir."

  Clarke liked Shifty. The Sergeant found any, and all, situations to be shifty looking. He was also a recovering alcoholic, or so Clarke hoped.

  Any moment he expected the opposition to stiffen. Gunfire pinged off his tank and his heart beat faster. The anti-infantry turret opened fire and the reassuring thump silenced the incoming fire. His infantry, led by Sergeant Wilsic, sat silently and stared ahead. Private Auroch swelled out of his spot and Cummingham was wedged in tight at his side. The comms team and data staff kept eyes locked on their screens.

  He wanted to stand up, look at the screens, double check. But he knew he couldn't. This op, he hoped, would cement them as a unit. It wasn't impossible, it wasn't even particularly difficult, and maybe that was exactly what they needed.

  They surged ahead suddenly and the rolling back and forth stopped. The ground leveled out.

  "Reform into pattern, Foxtrot, report any infrastructure, conserve your ammo, engage as necessary."

  The tanks slowed for a minute as the advancing wedge reformed into a staggered sawtooth of a line. Sporadic contact still came, but nothing more than small gunfire. Rapid bursts cracked through the snow filled air. Contact was announced and silenced. For a moment it seemed as if they'd punched into an unoccupied line.

  The problem was no one knew what lay behind the main lines. They had ideas, rough drone pictures, but so much was obscured. Clarke had pored over the charts, some as old as thirty years, and picked the best route. But now they were blind, beyond a point that any team had visited in quite some time.

  The visibility, even with enhanced night vision, was limited by the walls of incoming snow. Contact was made, lost, and made in a fraction of a second. Ghostly shapes danced out of the snow only to disappear again. It was haunting, terrible, and thoroughly disorienting. What had been a stout wind was now a full-blown blizzard.

  "Woah!" a voice called over the comms. "Heavy fire!"

  Clarke sat up and hammered down on his comms key. "Designate the grid."

  "Contact! Holy shit, it's close!" another tank called.

  "We're hit! Track off!" a tank from Delta company called.

  Colonel Clarke adjusted his screen, and sent out new move orders to his troops. "Hit it, Sketchy! Free fire! Tell me what we got."

  The tank surged ahead and they flew across the uncratered ground. The tank hammered into the edge of a trench and leaped out the other side. A moment later the main cannon opened fire with a three round burst. The anti-infantry turrets spat out a handful of rounds.

  "Delta CO, status on your unit?"

  The comms crackled with the sound of cannon fire. "They can salvage it, but it ain't going anywhere."

  "Have your recovery unit tow them back."

  There was silence. Then a response. "Roger."

  Clarke felt a pit in his stomach. They'd taken too long to engage a ghost in the snow. If they kept chasing after everything that fired, they'd get surrounded and overwhelmed. Speed was the key. "Keep moving! We've got another dozen kilometers, engage, move, and report heavy contact."

  They plunged through the growing drifts and disappeared into the darkness. Small gunfire crackled out as they rolled with autocannons answering them from the turrets. They charged through a section where the ground was coated in ice and they halted on the far edge. After that the ground was smooth, cleared on both sides, with a length of fencing running parallel to the road. A deep drift stretched out beside it.

  "I think it's a road," called the lead in Alpha Company.

  "Roll on it! Three abreast, staggered ranks, one hundred meter separation. Alpha, you shoot anything that moves." Clarke had a hunch that units in the rear would be coming up to reinforce the front. The road was heading about exactly where the artillery Officers expected. He sat back and felt the road rumble beneath him, this was going better than he planned.

  The tanks raced ahead, sending up billowing clouds of snow. They adjusted the spacing to tighten up the ranks, otherwise the snow was too thick. As it was, the wind whipped most of it into the distance.

  They raced now like wild horses and thundered over the road. A convoy came into view and before it even had a chance to stop, Alpha company was laying into it with a steady burst of gunfire. By the time Clarke drove past it was a dozen smoking vehicles with Kadan bodies and equipment scattered everywhere.

  The road split.

  "Defensive positions, hold up!" Clarke called and held on while the tank came to a stop. He consulted the map and called up Arap. "Whatcha think?"

  "Arty boys are pretty confident, Cole," Arap called.

  "I'm sending elements from Bravo to the east, we're going west. Want to stay with us?"

  "I'll tail with Bravo," Arap called back.

  "This is the rendezvous point, one hour."

  Clarke relayed the orders and the columns split. He worried for a moment that he was making a mistake but there was so much ground to cover and as far as he could tell the defense was non-existent. Too non-existent, something didn't feel right.

  The armor came to a wide open space with hundreds of empty cargo t
railers. They were heaped with empty containers. On the opposite side low bunkers broke the ground. Clarke gave the order and they opened fire with explosive rounds.

  An enormous explosion boomed out. Everyone in the crew compartment snapped awake.

  Clarke felt the shockwave in his stomach and snapped his head up from the chart. "Shifty?"

  "One of those bunkers popped, sir," Shifty said excitedly. "The whole sky lit up like Founding Day!"

  A sound like a jackhammer echoed against the command tank. More of the bunkers erupted into the sky. The main cannon opened fire a second later and the unit surged ahead against an embankment next to a smoldering bunker. Command comms exploded with new contacts. Infantry contacts swarmed out from every bunker, thousands upon thousands.

  "Weapons clear! Open fire!"

  The autocannon turrets fired nonstop. The rattle of slinging ammunition echoed through the hold.

  "Get clear! Watch for rockets!" Clarke called out on the comms, but he was blocked by the company commanders shouting orders. It was a general chaos as thousands of ground troops swarmed everywhere. Then it hit him: no one was reporting any losses. No one was taking any fire.

  "Jailbird, they're unarmed, uh, civilians? Drones?" Alpha company's CO called.

  "Engage," Clarke called back. "All units, engage, continue moving ahead, those guns have to be right here. Engage active radar."

  All around the armor was a winter slaughter. Unarmed ground troops fled into the wastes. They plowed past burning bunkers, through soot stained snow drifts, and finally came to the objective. A series of low pits came into view and at the bottom of each was an enormous artillery piece.

  "Dismount! Armor, cover the infantry, go in and blow those," Colonel Clarke said. He turned to Sergeant Wilsic. "Bring me back some of those bodies, scour for anything interesting."

  "Dah," Wilsic said.

  Colonel Clarke turned away from the cold as the door opened then stopped and looked outside. The blizzard had an orange hue from the towering flames raging out of the bunkers. The sound of gunfire was almost constant. The hatch closed back up and he was in a subdued silence again. Never before had he felt quite like this, it was success and his.

  The first of the artillery pieces detonated a minute later. The explosions were small compared to the bunker explosions, but they were enough to detonate the breeches on each of the guns.

  Then, as if to show that Lishun Delta called the shots, the storm broke. The radar on each of the tanks linked up, collated the data through Clarke's command tank, and spit out a detailed scan of the horizon.

  "Colonel!" Captain Wolzca said. "Contacts inbound! Kadan armor judging from the size."

  "How many?"

  "Two hundred, no, two-fifty, count is rising!"

  "Bring 'em back in," Colonel Clarke called. His heart hammered in his chest, now the excitement came to a head. They'd struck a blow, now to get out before the enemy has a chance to counter punch. "It's time to go."

  #

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Lishun Delta - Kadan Logistics Area

  The road stretched on and the armored units flew along it. At intervals they encountered empty bunkers and staging spaces, but the whole area felt abandoned. The walls of white rolled in, blocking out everything, and just as suddenly the wind whipped it clear. At most, the visibility was a hundred meters, and only for a brief moment.

  Bravo Company stopped at a rise in the road. The lead tanks crawled up and took cover.

  "The hell is that?" Mick said.

  Tomi rolled up and went to turn off the road and caught himself. He remembered what Hans had told him. "A tank can go anywhere, exactly once." Instead, he turned at an angle.

  "Keep rolling," Mick said.

  The lead tanks crawled over the rise. A set of three metal rails ran along top and disappeared into the distance.

  "Railroad?" Tomi said.

  "Huh. Well, looks like Arap left 'em a present," Mick said.

  A bulky demolition pack hung off the side of a rail.

  They rolled a while longer. Then a light grew in the sky. The tanks halted once more.

  Tomi shivered and felt snot running down his face. He just couldn't reach his nose when the headset was on and he didn't dare take it off. The whole tank was like an icebox, but still fifty degrees warmer than outside. Someone snored in the back and Tomi just shook his head.

  "Listen up!" Arap said over the comms. "There's something ahead and we're going in guns blazing. Rush in, crush, rush, and smash, then we get the hell out. Don't stop for a goddamn second. On my lead in three, two, one, go!"

  "Wake up!" Mick shouted.

  Tomi cranked up the speed and chased right after Big Bodacious Bastard. They rolled up a slight rise.

  There was a bowl with metal buildings built into the earth. Half of the doors were open and aircraft were emerging. Support crews swarmed around the facility while snowplows were clearing the space leading up to a covered takeoff strip.

  The aircraft was shaped like a wedge. It was the same kind that they'd knocked out a few days prior. A stocky little truck towed them clear of the bunkers.

  The Vasilov armor raced down the slope and slammed into the aircraft. The first few that were closest to the tunnel exploded in a shower of white sparks. The supports crews scurried away and darted into the bunkers.

  Tomi drove past a smoldering aircraft and aimed right between another pair sitting on the edge of the facility. The main cannon fired a steady thud-thud and the front edges of the aircraft folded apart. One tumbled over and fuel poured out. The other exploded wreathing both in a halo of incandescent white.

  Bulldog turned sharply and skidded on the snow covered ground.

  "Oh shit!" Tomi said.

  The tank gained traction and the whole vehicle was on one track for a split second.

  "Move, move!" Mick cried out.

  Commander Arap came on the comms. "Bulldog! Dismount, get me a prisoner, you're right in the thick of it."

  Mick went to slide out of the commander's seat then stopped. "Puck! Dismount, get me a prisoner, then get the hell back in!"

  Bulldog opened up with both autocannon turrets. The main gun was trained on the nearest bunker and fired whenever anything appeared. Tomi ran the main cannon while Mick floundered with the others. Mick didn't have the feel of running the turret and wearing the enhanced vision system. He fired too low and with every burst struggled to compensate.

  The infantry ran away from the armor and disappeared through the swirling snow and ran toward where more of the aircraft burned. There was a series of grenade explosions and then a rapid stream of small gunfire. Two soldiers sprinted back into the tank.

  Tomi's teeth chattered. The rear hatch was open and the interior temp dropped to about -50. He wanted to shout for them to hurry the hell up. He worried about Nikov and Kallio for a second but after checking the rear he saw them both swaddled in sleeping bags.

  "We need some cover!" Puck hollered over the comms.

  "Back up!" Mick said.

  Tomi slammed it in reverse and the hatch acted like a giant snowplow. At the same time he slung the main gun to the side.

  Around the burning wreck the infantry squad was hunched in cover. A low armored vehicle was skewed fifty meters away with a set of four cannons pouring fire down the lane. The vehicle had wide wheels and looked too low to carry any sort of passenger.

  "Shoot that fucker!" Mick yelled.

  Tomi grasped the trigger, adjusted the aim, and punched a quick burst. There was a flaring of blue light along the sloped edge that was like liquid electricity.

  A heavy thumping sound clattered against the side of Bulldog. Armor alarms fired. The attacking vehicle adjusted aim and all four cannons hammered at the Vasilov tank.

  Tomi adjusted the fire. Then he stopped and hammered the button to load an anti-tank round. He clenched his teeth and sent off another burst. Suddenly the blue light disappeared and the rounds punched through the armored car. Gray smok
e billowed out of the holes and the firing stopped.

  "Get in, goddammit!" Mick called on the open comms. He slid out of the commander's seat and ran out the back of the vehicle.

  Puck limped with Bosovitz and Veriha behind. Mueller and Hess carried Gous. Hutchins came up with the rest and a short, stout, limp body. The hatch creaked closed.

  "The hell was that, Bulldog?" Arap called.

  "I don't know, sir! Four barrels, a blue glow on it, it was little."

  "Get us out!" Mick called from the rear.

  Tomi accelerated away and crawled toward where the remaining tanks from Bravo company were position. The others were still punching rounds through the snow and keeping the facility locked down. The tank hit the rise then slid sideways against an icy embankment.

  The tracks struggled to bite. The vehicle shuddered. Tomi slung the tracks to the side and felt the satisfying acceleration as the tank crawled up the rise.

  "Come on, baby," Tomi said. Sweat ran down his face and he tried to wipe beneath the headset.

  A clang cracked through the tank and alarms rang out. The fire extinguishing system blasted out a cloud of green foam. The tank skidded to a stop and the lights dimmed, but just for a second before everything blared back on.

  Tomi held his breath and stared at the dead headset. He was numb to everything else. There were cries in the back, screams, sounds of terror. All he focused on was the blinking green text that read "Starting up."

  "Out, out!" Mick called.

  "No!" Tomi yelled back. "She's coming online!"

  The headset filled with light, then resolved into the outside view. Tomi hammered on the throttle and the tank skidded ahead. He gave a quick glance behind him and saw three of the new style armored units burning on the opposite hill.

  The blizzard had stopped, the walls of obscuring snow were gone. An enemy armored platoon was firing from the opposite hill. The Vasilov units were mostly hidden on the downslope of the hill and peppering away at the opposite side.

  "—Report. Bulldog! Report!"

  "We're clear!" Tomi called out just as Bulldog rolled over the crest. He didn't let up on the accelerator until he had blasted past Arap's tank and was under cover.