by James Tarr
“All of them,” George told him. “At least after the first couple years of war. All we see are grocery carts.”
Julius nodded. “That’s what we call them too. Well, with that slatting all around the sides, about all you can do is blow the shit out of the wheels if you’re aiming for the sides. And, as you know, that’s not the plan. That said, they can still move as long as they have two wheels, one on each side. If you disable all four wheels on one side, they’re kinda fucked. That takes explosives, though, bullets and Molotovs alone won’t do the job.”
“Why don’t they ever armor the underside of Growlers?” Quentin asked. “They slap all this armor on the doors and windows, but don’t do shit about the undercarriage. Roll one grenade under one and everyone inside is fucked.”
“No room with the drivetrain and everything else, I believe. It’s just meant to be a passenger vehicle that is protected against small arms fire. The thinking was if you actually need something more than that you’d head out in an IMP. Between the hull and the slat armor IMPs can handle IEDs and even some EFPs, depending.”
“What’s an EFP?” Jason asked.
“Explosively formed penetrator. IEDs are just homemade or repurposed bombs that damage or kill by an explosion, blast, and maybe shrapnel. With an EFP that explosion is contained, usually in a metal pipe, behind a circular dome of metal. The explosion turns that dome into a big powerful bullet that goes through a lot of armor. EFPs have limited use, but what they do they do very well.”
“What about Toads?” Mark said.
“You guys have been fighting probably longer than I have, so it shouldn’t surprise you that mostly what I have for you is bad news. Main battle tanks have the thickest armor of anything out there. Their job is to take the hit and keep on coming. They weigh sixty tons, which is why their treads chew up the roads, and why simple tank traps work. Dig out a paved road and it’ll last under standard traffic for quite some time, most cars and light delivery trucks don’t weigh more than five tons. Get a tank to drive over that unsupported concrete, and the bottom falls out. Of course, the work required to dig out one of those, deep enough that the tank can’t crawl out of it, is immense.”
“A Spike won’t do shit against the armor a Toad has on the front and sides of the body, or all around the turret. You’ll get a nice explosion from the reactive armor, but there won’t even be a dent. It’ll take out a tread, but even with both treads gone the tank is still somewhat mobile and, of course, fully able to fire. They aim using their ISU, Integrated Sighting Unit, which is on the front of the turret. There are armored doors which close over the top of it, but if you hit it with an RPG, or grenade, or even rifle fire when those doors are open you’ll take it out, and then they’ve got to go to their backup, and you can take out that with aimed rifle fire. You take out both the ISU and the backup sighting system and they’re blind. They can still drive and shoot, they just can’t see unless they pop a hatch and stick their heads out. But taking out both sighting systems without getting blasted is tough as shit.”
“Now, most of the time when they’re driving around the tank Commander has his head out of the top hatch because he can see so much better. They only use the ISU when they have to, or at night, because it’s got FLIR. As soon as anything pops off he’ll duck down and close the hatch, but if you’re sniping and happen to be in the right place at the right time you might not be able to touch the tank, but you can take out the CO.”
“We’re well aware,” George told the man.
“Roadside IEDs won’t do shit unless you’re talking hundreds of pounds of explosive or more. Any IED or EFP powerful enough to defeat the armor on a Toad wouldn’t be man-portable. The only real weak spots on a Toad are on the top—the top of the turret and on the back deck. An RPG with an AP warhead or these Spikes will penetrate both. The turret is a juicier target, you hit that and you’re pretty much guaranteed to take out the crew. The back deck behind the turret is a viable target as well, but you’re not guaranteed a kill on the tank if you hit it there. Main gun rounds are stored back there, and even if you can get a secondary detonation there is an armored door between the ammo and the crew compartment to keep the blast from killing them. The engine cover is back there, but even if you score a direct hit on the engine the Toad has its EPU, Emergency Power Unit, which will run for a while, and while it’s running the tank can drive and shoot. Still, you kill the engine on a Toad, they’re not getting any replacements. Even if it can still continue to fight right then, once the EPU is out of juice that Toad is out of the war.”
He smiled. “So, back deck good, top of the turret even better. The only problem is hitting those vulnerable spots. You can’t see the top of the Toad from the ground, and no good commander should send tanks into a city without shitloads of infantry support in Growlers, IMPs, whatever, so before you can even deal with the Toads you’ve got to take out everything and everyone else first. Unless you can somehow sneak in behind it. On that note, the main gun of a Toad can angle upwards thirty-one degrees…”
As he spoke Julius looked at the men before him. He hadn’t been quite sure what to expect out of the infamous dogsoldiers, but this wasn’t it. One kid, and half of the others too old for fighting. These men didn’t look like soldiers, they looked like people who’d already lost a war. Except…they didn’t act like it. They might have been dirty and tired and stank, and wore dirty jeans and tennis shoes and baseball caps that Julius would throw into a burn barrel if they’d belonged to him, but none of the men, or women, were spent or broken. Far from it. They seemed to have good weapons discipline, but whether or not they’d stand and fight when things got really really bad…that was something he’d have to wait to find out. Then again, who’s to say they hadn’t already seen worse?
Julius gestured at the big SAW gunner with the tattooed arms, wearing shorts and a fucking Hawaiian shirt of all things. “Mark, was it? Step on up, let me run you through this. We’ll go slow at first, until you think you’ve got it, then at speed.”
“If you haven’t met her yet, this is Sergeant Sarah Weaver,” Morris told the men of Theodore. “She’ll be accompanying you on the mission. Another two of my people will be with Flintstone, so with nine apiece your two squads will number eighteen.”
“Gentlemen,” she said, looking around the room. She nodded at Early, who smiled back at her.
“Hmm,” Ed said, staring at Morris, who didn’t quite understand the look, or the questioning sound.
“You an intelligence wonk?” George asked her pointedly. “You ever been in the field? Ever fired a gun?”
“Mostly I’m logistics,” she told him. She’d been expecting the question for some time. “Support. Infrastructure for cells such as yours. And I’m good at it. But I was in the wrong place at the right time and fought in the Battle of Beech Grove last spring. I was only there to set up contact protocols for some of our cells left behind when the ARF pulled back. Then the local ARF commander surprised us by rolling right back in in an attempt to retake the city, and the Tabs did a counter-offensive and tried to crush them. I was right in the middle of that.”
“Armor and infantry?” Mark asked her. Everyone in the city had heard of that battle, as that was the closest the “real war” had ever gotten to the city. 250 miles away in a straight line. Rumor was the Tabs had gotten their asses kicked. The state-controlled media outlets crowed about how the Army had routed the “terrorist instigators” with minimal casualties.
“Some armor, mostly Growlers and technicals,” she said, meaning commercial vehicles mounting larger belt-fed weapons. “None of the vehicles lasted through the third day,” she said, her voice flat. “Then it was back and forth for another two days through the neighborhoods and that giant ass railroad yard, slowly pushing north. Mortars and RPGs and house-to-house fighting. By the end of the week we’d moved five miles north into downtown Indy, fighting for every block. I think I slept six hours total. Two thousand dead on our side, almost seven thousand on theirs before
they retreated to the Lafayette line.”
“I didn’t bring anybody who hasn’t pulled a trigger in combat,” Morris told the squad.
“I never wanted to go through that again,” Weaver told all of Theodore, “but I think this is worth it, so when the Colonel asked for volunteers….” She shrugged.
“Welcome to the squad,” Ed told her.
Morris gestured at the two stacks of ammo cans before them. “All piled up together like this, it doesn’t look like much. I wish we could have brought in more, but smuggling things into the city, in bulk, are a logistical nightmare. Our main concern were the Spikes, of course, everything else was secondary. But hopefully that’ll help.”
“I don’t think you realize how short we are on ammo most of the time,” Quentin said. He cracked open the nearest can and saw it was full of loaded AR magazines—brand new Magpul Gen M5 windowed PMags in MUG, Medium Urban Gray. He then looked at the rest of the ammo cans and did a little math in his head. “You’ve got at least a thousand rounds of 5.56 here.”
Morris nodded. “All 62-grain Mk318 Mod 3 Optimized made by Black Hills, which should work well no matter what length barrel you’re shooting it out of. If I was going to go to all the trouble to bring it in, I wanted to bring in the good stuff. We had more at the secondary location where I met up with the squads of Alpha yesterday, so this is all for you guys. Well, what’s left, it looks like locusts have been through here. I think you’re one of the last squads to grab your share. But I don’t want any of it left, it doesn’t do anybody good sitting here.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Ed assured him.
Morris rubbed his chin as he stared at the pallets of ammunition and supplies filling the room, which they’d snuck into the city on trucks or backs over a three month period when there were no Tab-controlled satellites over the city. “It’s interesting. With the war, the Tabs are not getting any new tanks or tank parts. Aircraft or parts. They're hardly getting any new guns. You want to know why? Before the shooting actually started there was a culture war going on. They were doing everything they could to drive not just gun owners but actual guns out of their states. For the decade or so prior to the war just about every firearms or ammunition manufacturer was forced to relocate out of those freedom-hostile states, from New York and Massachusetts, say, to Texas and North Carolina. As a result, pretty much all of the gun and ammo manufacturers ended up being inside the territory we control. While of course there are wartime deprivations, we have continued to make guns and ammo…and other more interesting and powerful munitions.” He gestured at the third pallet against the wall. “The Tabs, on the other hand, have pretty much been stuck with what they had on hand when they started the war. Now, that included a lot of the military bases and their extensive armories, but they're not really making any more, and while they’re getting some from their communist ally states, we hear it’s all small arms stuff, rifle rounds and grenades, and not enough of that.”
Weasel moved to the second stack of cans and popped the top. It was filled with rectangular brown boxes. “What the hell’s ‘M1153 EBR’?” he asked the Lieutenant Colonel, reading one of the boxes.
“Nine-millimeter Enhanced Barrier Round. I wasn’t sure how many of you might have pistols, but I brought a little of that stuff just in case. Armor piercing,” he explained, “but it also expands when it hits flesh, which most AP ammo won’t do. It will only go through soft body armor, of course, not the plates, and you don’t see much of that, but it also does pretty well against unarmored vehicles and the like.” He eyed the MP5 slung at Weasel’s side. “Looks like you might be in the market.”
“Oh fuck yeah. Um, sir.”
“Take as much as you can carry. If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’ve got to make the rounds. Sergeant.”
“Sir,” Weaver said, saluting Morris as he left.
Ed watched Morris head out, and turned to George. He’d spent quite a long time briefing the men of Theodore on the mission, and their part of it. Everyone was in, although not without reservations. George gestured at the pile of ordnance. “The more ammo we have, the better chance this plan has of working.” He wasn’t wrong.
“Grab as much as you can carry, and then grab some more,” Ed told them. He checked his watch. “We’re wheels up in one hour fifteen. Chug water until you feel like puking, eat all the Power Bars and beef jerky you can, then chug some more water. Sounds like the move is going to be all sorts of miserable, but at least we know it won’t last forever.”
He turned to Renny. “How many rounds do you have for your rifle?”
Renny was chewing at his lip. “I loaded one hundred, and fired five to confirm my zero. Came into the city with ninety-five. Left? Eighty-two, if I remember correctly. Which seemed like a ridiculous amount until I heard this plan.”
“Well, there’s no place in the city for you to get a resupply on your fancy caliber I’ve never even heard of, so eighty-two’ll have to do. At least you can grab some of that nine-millimeter for your pistol.” Renny grunted, back to chewing his lip.
Ed looked around, frowning. “Anyone seen Jason?”
Ten minutes later Ed Found Jason in a ground floor hallway of the complex. He was red-faced and looked guilty when he saw Ed. “Your gear squared away?” Ed asked him. “I didn’t think so. Go downstairs, get with Weasel or Quentin, and make sure you’re stocked up on everything you’re going to need. This is probably going to be the most dangerous thing we ever fucking do, and some people are going to die, maybe even you, so get your shit together, and your head on straight, or it’ll be the last thing you fucking do. You understand me?”
Jason swallowed. “Yes, sir.” He headed downstairs.
Ed turned to look at Brooke, who was just finishing buttoning up her blouse. She and Jason had just exited one of the rooms down the hall when Ed had spotted them. “Really?”
She shrugged and smiled. “Boy’s old enough pick up a gun and fight for his country, maybe die, seems only fair he should have a full and complete idea of what that freedom tastes like.” She had a glint in her eye. “Feels like.”
“Christ.” Ed sighed and shook his head and checked his watch. “When are you heading out?” Morris had the squads staggering their departure times.
Brooke checked her own watch. “Forty minutes. My guys are good to go, and all I’ve got to do is throw on my vest and pack. Which I’m not looking forward to, I think it weighs more than I do. And you’re leaving after us, right? So we had plenty of time. Hell, a jackrabbit his age, exploring new territory, I figured we had time to go twice.” She threw him a smile and headed for the stairs. “Turns out I was wrong,” she said, without looking back. She started down the stairs. “Boy was good for a hat trick,” he heard her say, voice echoing up the stairs and, behind it, her delighted laugh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Oh dear God,” Ed wheezed as he stood up under the weight of his backpack after climbing down the ladder. Between his backpack and body armor and rifle he normally carried forty to fifty pounds of gear, depending on how low the squad was on ammo and water. As he stood there it felt like his boots were sinking into the concrete beneath him, and he guessed his current load was pushing ninety pounds. Everyone on the squad was at least as heavily laden as he was, including the new addition to their squad. Sergeant Sarah Weaver certainly didn’t seem to be enjoying the weight on her muscled shoulders, but she bore it without complaint. He could see she was nervous, even though she hid it well.
The eighteen dogsoldiers of Theodore and Flintstone (including Morris’ loaners) stood at the bottom of a dry swimming pool at the other end of the sports complex from where Morris had done his briefing. The two squads would be making the move together, as the plan called for them to be working in tandem once they arrived at the objective.
“We took a week to travel twelve miles and now we’re supposed to do eight miles in as many hours, and none of this shit is going to get any lighter,” Weasel said, bowed
under the weight of his backpack. As far as he was concerned it was piss poor planning. “Are we going or what?”
Morris had climbed down the ladder with them to see them off, as he had the three squads who’d departed before them. “I’ll be heading out with the remainder of my people in a couple hours,” he told them. “And I hope to hear from you soon.”
Ed gave the nod to Quentin, who would be on point for the first leg of the trip. Q turned on his handheld Surefire flashlight on its lowest setting, just five lumens, and moved out. At that output the batteries were supposed to last thirty hours, and the five lumens should be more than enough. If the batteries gave out early he had spares. They all did.
As they passed him, Morris shook each man’s hand, and gave Sarah a smile and a pat on the shoulder. George had more combat experience and seniority than anyone in Flintstone, and waved both squads past him before taking up position at the rear of the column. He watched as Hannibal ducked to walk inside the hole dug into the side of the pool. It was not quite six feet in diameter, hacked into the concrete wall of the pool with sledgehammers.
The men of Theodore and Flintstone had watched Sylvester disappear into the dark hole not quite half an hour earlier, then carefully lowered their gear into the pool. Then they double- and triple-checked their gear nervously while waiting to go.
“Good luck,” Morris told George.
“We’ll see,” George said through gritted teeth. He was carrying just over a hundred pounds of gear, but luckily didn’t have to stoop to fit through the hole. At its low setting his Streamlight flashlight put out ten lumens with a fifty-hour run time. The wide beam clearly illuminated the jagged edges of concrete as they gave way to the earth and clay beyond. Dug by hand, with pick and shovel.
The crude tunnel curved downward and to the left, heading northwest. Here and there it was reinforced with planking. The narrow shaft echoed with the muted sounds of heavily laden men moving as quickly as they could, the glow from several lights swinging back and forth as the men shuffled forward. George saw silhouettes of bodies in front of him as the smell of dirt filled his nostrils.