The view began to shift, the Gecko clearly in motion. They couldn’t retreat up the horse path to Dwight’s positon because of the abatis, so they turned the Geckos into the water and began swimming towards the southern shore, leaving the frustrated British in their wake.
“That went well.” Dwight shifted the monitor from the other Gecko’s gun camera to his own. “Do you think they’ll keep a coming?”
“Already have.” Mack pointed to the monitor with the Shadow drone feed. British dragoons moved slowly around the crater through the heavy woods, while whatever they had for sappers were starting to cut down trees, presumably to build a bridge over the crater for their cannon. “Let’s make things a bit more difficult for them.”
Dwight called Sergeant Sullivan on the radio and ordered him to begin hitting the area around the crater with sustained mortar fire. The two Dragon Fire II mortars could each fire four rounds a minute, until they ran out of ammo.
The British were slowed, but not stopped, and the column continued its climb towards the abatis. South of the obstacle, the path was blocked by the last two Geckos, where the two platoon leaders were located. With the British cannon still on the other side of the crater, these vehicles were, for the moment, nearly invulnerable. Their respective platoons, spread out to the left and right of the path, weren’t so lucky, since the forest was too dense to move their LTVs off the path. Those men were dug in with clear fields of fire over the obstacle.
“I sure wish Lieutenant Keating was here himself,” Dwight said. “Has there been any word from him?”
“Nothing since he crossed the Hudson River, Top. Our radios won’t stretch that far.”
“Well sir, I hope whatevah he’s doing is worth it.”
“So do I.” Mack didn’t take the bait, leaving Dwight to wonder what was so important.
Dwight switched two of his monitors to the platoon leaders’ gun cameras just as the Geckos cut loose with their 40mm grenade launchers. As foolish as the British commander was, his men evidently had some instinct for self-preservation, and the dragoons scampered off the path into the heavy woods. Mack switched the feed from the Shadow drone to infrared mode, and they watched as the British soldiers dismounted and began advancing up the hill through the forest on foot.
Sergeant Sullivan radioed that seventh squad was ceasing fire, having reached the pre-arranged number of remaining rounds that might be needed for a final protective fires, or FPF, mission.
“Crap. I’d hoped they’d have packed it in by now, sir,” Dwight said.
“Me too. I guess their commander just can’t stomach being beat by a puissant little country like the Republic.”
The British reached the northern edge of the abatis and began crawling over the first of the fallen trees. The militia opened fire again. After twenty minutes of bloodshed, during which a half-dozen militiamen were hit by either well-aimed or simply lucky shots, the British broke off the attack, and pulled back down the hill.
Dwight asked permission to go check on the wounded, which Mack approved with a simple “Go.” He discovered that two of Keating’s men had been killed and one badly wounded in the fight, and that one of Forte’s men had been killed, one badly wounded, and another had a minor injury. Both platoon medics were hard at work on the wounded men. Dwight would like to have evacuated them immediately, but couldn’t spare the men to take them back to the hospital. At least not until the British decided to go home.
Arriving back at the command post, he found Mack studying the Shadow drone feed.
“It looks like they’re organizing a flanking maneuver between the path and the lakeshore. Go pull a full squad from Forte’s platoon on the east side and redeploy them to protect Keating’s left flank.”
Dwight did as Mack instructed. By the time the British soldiers began their flank attack, it would no longer be quite so exposed. Counting Dwight, there were now seventeen men deployed along the left flank facing downhill towards the lake. At Dwight’s direction, they hastily dug five new foxholes to go along with the two that were already occupied.
During training, the men had always bitched about digging the complex DePuy foxholes, with their offset firing slots designed to provide interlocking fires, and their grenade sumps. Dwight didn’t hear any bitching now. He did hear some praying, and said a silent prayer himself.
Once they were finished, three of the seven foxholes sprouted crew-served 7.62mm medium machine guns that had been dismounted from the squad LTVs. The remaining four held two men each, armed with 5.56mm assault rifles and 40mm grenade launchers.
“Make sure you space the claymores far enough apart that you don’t get sympathetic detonations,” he instructed the two fire team leaders that were emplacing the deadly little devices further down the hill.
Dwight called up seventh squad on the radio and provided new coordinates for the left flank FPF mission, should it be needed.
Just as he finished, the two fire team leaders came scrambling up the hill.
“They’re a coming this way,” the first man reported. Dwight looked in the direction the man pointed. A large number of British soldiers moved through the woods. Actually, they were marching through the woods, although their formation was pretty ragged. Idiots. He estimated he was facing about four hundred dismounted dragoons. After reporting the situation to Mack, he ordered his M32 grenadiers to open fire.
Moments later four 40mm grenades exploded in the midst of the British troops, blowing some good-sized holes in their formation. The officers quickly reformed their men and continued marching up the hill. Dwight ordered the grenadiers to fire again, and the British reformed again. After the third volley, the British officer in charge decided his men were close enough to open fire on the militiamen. Dwight watched as he ordered the lead company into a double-line of fire.
When he heard the British commander yell the command “Make Ready” Mack ordered the three machine gun teams to open fire. They tore apart the British firing line.
“Fix bayonets and advance!” Another voice was now commanding the British soldiers. This guy was evidently a little smarter than his predecessor, because the enemy began using the natural cover of the trees, and either crawled or crouched as they surged up the hill.
“Fire at will!” Dwight picked off individual targets with his assault rifle, and his men began doing the same. Still the British continued to advance up the hill.
The new British commander halted his leading soldiers about one hundred and twenty meters from the militiamen. The troops gathered strength as more and more dragoons came up the hill. Dwight waited until it looked like they were going mount their charge, then he called seventh squad.
“Mike Seven Six, this is Mike One Five, Fire Mission, over.”
“Mike One Five, this is Mike Seven Six, Fire Mission, over,” answered Sergeant Sullivan’s radio-telephone operator, or RTO.
“Target Foxtrot Papa Foxtrot, infantry in heavy forest, over.”
“Target Foxtrot Papa Foxtrot, infantry in heavy forest, out.” The line went dead for about thirty seconds, then seventh squad’s RTO came back on the radio. “Mike One Five, this Mike Seven Six, Shot, over.”
“Mike Seven Six, Shot, over,” Dwight replied. Quickly turning to his men, he shouted, “Take covah,” then got as low in his foxhole as he could.
The British charged just as the maelstrom descended. He had timed the FPF mission perfectly. Twenty high explosive rounds airburst over the British troops in the next minute, with devastating impact.
And still the British came on.
When the first large group was about twenty meters from Dwight’s defensive line, one of the fire team leaders shouted “fire in the hole” and the rightmost of the claymore mines detonated, paving a fifty meter fan of destruction down the hill. Shortly thereafter, the other five claymores exploded as well.
Dwight estimated there were about three dozen British soldiers still on their feet, all of whom kept coming. Two of them got close enough to fire in
to one of the militia foxholes before they were cut down. The two men manning the foxhole were both shot, but their flak jackets protected them from serious injury.
With no more British soldiers advancing or firing in their direction, Dwight ordered his men to cease fire. He watched as the British helped one another back down the hill towards the edge of the lake.
Dwight fervently hoped that the British had had enough. Without any more indirect fire support, he wasn’t sure they could sustain another push.
Satisfied that they weren’t going to try the left flank again anytime soon, he had one of the LTV drivers take him to Mack’s command post, which had been moved south to seventh squad’s location. Mack and Private Jones were loading a large brown Pelican case into the back of the Gecko.
“Good job, Top. Looks like they’ve finally decided to pull back,” Mack said. “They’re collecting their dead into wagons and heading north.”
“Thanks,” Dwight replied. “What’s in the case?”
“It’s called a Davy Crockett, and you’re better off not knowing what it does.”
“If you say so,” Dwight replied, but he continued to wonder what the strange device might be.
With Mack’s approval, Dwight ordered the seventh squad LTVs to collect the wounded and take them to Saint Patrick’s Hospital. Once they’d dropped off the casualties, they were to go to Fort Evergreen and restock their ammo, then return to the mortar positions.
Dwight and Mack waited at the command post for the remainder of the day, but the British kept marching north. When they finally crossed back into La Patrie, Mack ordered the company to return to Fort Evergreen to rest and reload, except for the one squad hidden near the border, left behind just in case the British were to turn around and march south again.
12 - ANNA
Pennsylvania Dutch: a cultural group composed of late 17th Century and early 18th Century German-speaking immigrants to Pennsylvania and their descendants. The word "Dutch" refers to Deutsch (German). Glossary, An Illustrated History of the Republic, Helen O’Shea, Ed.
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, USA, 5 am, Saturday, August 2, 1834
Anna didn’t go very far when she left the farm outside Springfield; only about fifty-five miles as the crow flies, although the trip on the Potomac River and Conocoheague Creek had been four times that length. Travelling only at night in unfamiliar waters, it had taken her nine days to reach her destination.
She cut the engine and let the boat drift up to the shore. She stepped out of the boat into the shallow water, pulling a line behind her, which she used to tie the boat to a tree. She stepped back into the water, took hold of the basket Jake was sleeping in, and lifted it out of the boat.
After taking Jake ashore, she made a careful note of the exact time reading on the portal generator. If she ever had to, she could access a temporal artifact of this moment and retrieve artifacts of the supplies on the boat, as well as the boat itself.
Anna unloaded what supplies she could carry and set them on shore next to little Jake. After untying the boat, she stepped back into the water and pulled it to a small swampy area that had been created by an eddy in the creek. Pulling up a number of large fronds, she hid the boat as best she could.
She had come ashore just outside the small town of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. She’d chosen the town for three reasons. First, it was a small town well off the beaten path where there was little chance anyone from the Republic would stumble upon her. Second, it was on the edge of Pennsylvania Dutch country, so it provided her a place she might hide in plain sight among the largely Germanic population. And third, the pacifist nature of the Quakers who also lived in the area might help keep Jake out of the coming Civil War.
With Jake safely settled onto her chest in his sling, Anna bent to pick up the bag that held her Uzi and the gold and silver coins. A sudden wave of nausea overcame her, and she was barely able to set Jake down before she threw up.
As the nausea subsided, Anna calculated when she had last menstruated. Can I really be pregnant again? Then she remembered the desperate fight to kick her opioid addiction before Jake’s pregnancy. It wasn’t too bad at first, then the muscle aches and insomnia gave way to abdominal cramping, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting. Six days of absolute misery followed by a month of high anxiety.
She had a sudden desperate longing for Mike, and wrapped her arms tightly around Jake, who nuzzled his nose happily into her collarbone and squealed.
As if the thought of him had conjured Mike up, Anna heard a sound she hadn’t heard in a long time, a soft but distinctive whopp-whopp coming from the sky. Terrified, she pulled the Uzi out of its bag, extended the stock, loaded a magazine, and chambered the first round. She would fight to protect Jake and her unborn child if necessary. She crouched in the dark, waiting for any sign of the time travelers from the Republic.
But the sound of the helicopter soon faded as the aircraft continued northwest. Somehow Anna knew it was the sound of Mike passing out of her life.
13 - CORCORAN
Davy Crockett: a tactical nuclear recoilless gun (i.e. a nuclear bazooka) designed to deliver a nuclear projectile, originally deployed by the United States during the Cold War. The ISRM retrofitted the Davy Crockett with an upgraded W82 enhanced radiation warhead, with a relatively low explosive yield of 72 tons (0.07 kilotons) TNT equivalent, and extended its range and accuracy. Glossary, An Illustrated History of the Republic, Helen O’Shea, Ed.
Republic of Indian Stream, Saturday, August 2, 1834
Corcoran was immensely happy that Mack had not had to use the Davy Crockett nuclear bazooka to destroy the British regiments. Not only would they have lost several dozen good soldiers and their equipment, they would have introduced nuclear warfare into the world more than a hundred years before its time, with unforeseen consequences. Humans of this brutal era could not be trusted with such power. History, it seemed, had been on their side for once.
Liam Keating returned to the Republic with Mike Wilcox, aka Mike Roberts, in irons. He also had the purloined portal generator, but reported that it had been damaged beyond repair in a fire that had also killed Anna Mannheim. It had taken Liam more than a week to track Mike down. He’d eventually found him drunk in a tavern in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
“We can remove the handcuffs and leg irons,” Corcoran told Liam. “I don’t think Mike is going anywhere.” Liam reluctantly did as instructed, roughly turning Mike around to undo the cuffs.
They were in the small conference room in the converted cargo container at Fort Evergreen that served as Corcoran’s office suite. Corcoran turned his attention to Mike.
“I’m sorry for your loss. You must have really loved her to have risked so much to save her.”
“Spare me your false sympathy. If you’re going to kill me for starting the new temporal tide in 1988, just do it.”
Corcoran frowned. Mike was belligerent, not the man Corcoran had known back in the 21st Century.
“I know why you made the transit to 1988, but why’d you pick the rather inconvenient year of 1832 for the second jump?” Corcoran asked.
“I didn’t pick it, you did. I just followed you here. You can’t blame the temporal tide started in 1832 on me!”
“Mike, you left in 2028, we didn’t leave until 2035. Ipso facto, you started the 1832 tide, not us.”
“But I saw the transit logs of a dozen trips to 1832 in the machine before I left,” he protested.
“A trick of time travel,” Corcoran said. “But now I understand your reasoning.” And history is clearly screwing with us again. “Tell me why you jumped back in time again on July 24th.”
“There was an explosion and fire in our trailer while I was away. Anna was killed when the propane tanks exploded. At first I thought it was you, but based on the damage to the trailer, I think it was a lightning strike. I tried to go back and save her, but I messed up the timing somehow and jumped in too late. When I tried to get her out of the trailer, my coat caught on fire, and I ju
st threw it off without thinking.” He showed Corcoran the burns on his hands and upper arms.
“I was too panicked to remember that the portal generator was in my coat pocket. When I thought to get it to try again, I found it had burned up.” He slumped his shoulders in defeat.
Corcoran looked over at Liam.
“Everything he says matches what we found at the property. I even dug up the woman’s body and checked it over. It was definitely alive when it burned, not a damn artifact. We reburied her, then came home.”
“Why are you here anyway?” Mike asked sullenly. “Didn’t you cause enough trouble in the 21st Century?”
“We’re here because we didn’t stop the plague, only delayed it,” Corcoran answered. “Did you interact with yourself while you were in 1988?”
“I only spent about thirty seconds in the living universe in 1988, all of it in Anna’s cell in East Berlin. My other self was three hundred and fifty kilometers away in Bamberg, on the other side of the Iron Curtain.”
“Nevertheless, by jumping back into your own lifetime, you caused what Barbara O’Malley calls a temporal riptide. It may have disrupted our efforts to stop the plague,” Corcoran said. “The outbreak that occurred in 2035 was even worse than the original.”
Mike suddenly looked very ill. “Are you okay?” Liam asked.
“No,” Mike replied. “I need a bathroom.”
“Across the hall,” Corcoran pointed. Holding one hand over his mouth and another against his stomach, Mike ran to the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. Retching noises came from behind the door, followed by a flush and the sound of running water.
A few minutes of silence ensued, then there was a thrashing sound. Liam tried the door, but it was locked, so he kicked it open. Mike writhed on the floor, an open can of drain cleaner at his side. Corcoran called for help, but it was too late. Mike lay still a moment later, a rictus of pain on his face.
The Legend of Indian Stream Page 8