Come and Take Them-eARC (32 page)
Read Come and Take Them-eARC Online
Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: #Military, #Science Fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Fiction
Half of Captain
Bruguière
’s tracks were wrecked, along with three of the four tanks. Some still burned and others had burned out, with thin smoke seeping from their ruins. The smoke stank of overdone long pig.
He had wounded all over the place, although the dreadful Balboan artillery and mortar fire reduced the numbers of wounded steadily, by killing them where they lay. The company commander tried desperately to think of some solution while directing his own gunner’s fire.
I can’t attack into those buildings. I can’t leave my wounded behind. I can’t stay here or my whole company will be destroyed eventually. I can’t stop fighting to recover the wounded or the locals will murder us. The commander considered something, then rejected it. And I won’t surrender. Let’s pray for the cavalry then.
Cerro Mina
Inn,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
The senior surviving and unhurt leader in the building, a staff sergeant of Third Platoon, Number One Company, Second Cohort, Second Tercio shouted encouragement and orders to his remaining men. Both the centurion and the platoon sergeant were down; killed by the tungsten penetrators of the ARE-12Ps’ cannon, punching through brick and concrete walls. They’d torn through the
Cerro Mina
Inn’s walls as if they were tissue paper. Whether they hit anything after punching through was largely matter of luck, though, when each penetrator carried its own luck, and there were thousands of penetrators.…
Well, luck had been against over half of the platoon, and both the radios, so far as the sergeant could tell. He stepped carefully over a legless body as he moved down a hallway to check on a position set up in a whore’s room and that had gone silent. Blood made the floor tacky to his feet.
Of the three men in the whore’s room, he found only one alive. The others had been torn to pieces, their blood and brains sprayed across the floor and against the walls. The terrified survivor huddled against a corner, covering his head with his hands. That sole survivor moaned and wept continuously, rocking back and forth against the wall.
The sergeant wiped a hand across his face and chin. He couldn’t bring himself to order the broken man back into the fight. And he couldn’t just leave him there, either. Bending low, the sergeant said, “Sanchez, I need you to carry a message to the commander. Can you do that for me?”
Sanchez stopped weeping and looked up. “They’re all dead sergeant? Do you want me to tell the commander that they’re all dead?”
“Something like that,” the sergeant said, as gently as he could. “I’ll write it out for you and then you head back and find the CO.”
Avenida de la Santa Maria
,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
The Ocelot platoon leader and track commander ordered, “Gunner! Armor Piercing! Track.”
“Target,” the gunner announced.
“Fire!” The track rocked back on its suspension. Even a 100mm gun generated a significant amount of recoil for a lightly armored IFV pressed into duty as an armored gun system.
“Shit. Miss.”
“Repeat.”
* * *
It had taken quite a while for the Ocelots to get into action. In the first place they’d been held back, to allow the infantry time to get into position. But when called up, the fighting had already commenced, which set thousands of the urban poor to flight, blocking the streets. Then, too, the streets of the old city were narrow, and made worse by automobiles parked a lot more densely than a maneuvering armored vehicle driver would prefer. Then, worst of all, just before breaking out, the first Ocelot
had been hit by a missile launched from by either one of the ARE-12Ps or a dismount with an antiarmor missile. The only ones who could have told were the turret crew and driver and they were all dead.
Yes, the Ocelot
had had reactive armor, blocks of explosive that deformed the jet stream formed by antitank hollow charges. These had proven inadequate against the tandem warhead of the missile system.
The second Ocelot, the platoon leader’s track, had taken partial cover behind the first and trained its gun on the Gallic armored vehicle. That had fired a missile, but that missile had been a waste, hitting the destroyed Ocelot
a second time. There had been no time for another shot; with its autoloader, the second Ocelot had been able to fire, miss, fire again, and hit too quickly. A solid shot at close range struck the Gallic IFV. The shot punched through the armor, then careened down the missile rack, destroying three of them and setting the rocket of a fourth alight. The flame from that touched off the other three, then caused all four warheads to detonate, essentially simultaneously. The rear door blew open, flames from the ruptured fuel tank shooting out. One poor bastard emerged, shrieking, a walking mannequin of flame. He fell and rolled, in absolute agony, until a bullet ended his pain. No one could say later if it had been a Balboan bullet or an Tauran one that had put the man out of his agony. No one bothered to ask, either. Sometimes one’s enemy can be one’s best friend.
* * *
“The CO’s track’s been hit!” the Gallic company exec shouted into his microphone. His next words were spoken more softly, mournfully, disbelievingly. “Shit…it’s burning. Boys, we can’t stay here much longer.” The exec forced his brain to formulate a plan that might save them. He came up with something only a little better than, “
Sauve qui peut!
”
“All right,” the exec said, “we’re getting out of here. Two minutes to recover what wounded and dismounts you can. Then we pull back by platoons. Pop smoke, now!”
From either side of the turrets of the ARE-12Ps that were still intact phosphorus smoke grenades flew to impact in the street. A dense cloud of white, choking smoke began to billow up. Unable to see through the smoke to identify targets, the Balboans either ceased fire or kept it up at the last known locations. Both Ocelots and ARE-12Ps had thermal sights. But the Volgan-built Ocelots’ sights were fairly marginal, while the Gauls’ were first rate. The latter had no problem with seeing through the smoke. Their rate of fire increased. Back doors opened to let men out to recover wounded and to allow soldiers trapped outside to get back under cover. Still, the Balboan artillery fire coming from Fort Guerrero—now slackening as the gun platoon displaced by sections to another position—made even the brief trek to the armored vehicles a hazardous one.
Balboa City Train Station,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Inside the light brown stucco of the mostly open-sided building, Porras sucked air, as did most of
his
remaining men, some thirty-three of Figueroa’s platoon, a half dozen combat engineers and fifteen men with four smoothbore rocket launchers from the antitank section. There were also two FOs and a medic left. Cruz flopped down beside the lieutenant.
“No time for a break, sir. You’ve got to get the men into position! That’s what you get the big bucks for!”
“Sergeant Major,” said the signifer, weakly, “you make twice what I do.”
Cruz grinned broadly and said, “Yessir, and I’m worth every
centavo
, too.”
Porras’s weakness came partly from fatigue, partly from fear, and in good part from the horrors the platoon had, so far, fought through. Weakly or not, though, Porras nodded. He arose to his feet, stumbled once, and then began to shout orders. Cruz joined him in moving the men into a position from which they could dominate the only safe routes for reinforcements from Fort Muddville to reach the
Avenida de la Santa Maria
or for the Taurans engaged there to retreat to Fort Muddville.
The rain began to fall again as engineers laid mines across the street. There weren’t many mines, perhaps fifty in all. About half were laid on the other side of the street, half laterally in front of the ambush position. Exhausted from lugging the little five-pound track killers, the engineers moved more slowly than was usual. On the tree covered hill behind the station, Cruz and Porras pushed men into hasty positions, taking advantage of what cover was available, mostly thick tree trunks and shallow depressions.
Chapter Thirty-one
Blessed
are
the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
—Matthew 5:9, King James Version
Avenida
Ascanio Arosemena
,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Shocked with the fury of the battle just ended, the remnants of Number One Maniple slumped in exhaustion or shuddered with terror, each as the feeling struck. They were all, in any case, completely incapable of pursuing the fleeing shreds of the Tauran company.
Recovery—the first baby steps in recovery—began with an acting platoon leader; he was a corporal and the fourth man to hold the job in forty minutes. His first step was finding the presence to order what was left of his platoon to begin to fight the smoldering fires threatening to burn the
Cerro Mina
Inn. He also directed that recovery and evacuation of the dead and wounded begin.
Should have been done sooner,
thought the corporal.
Then again, who was responsible at any given time to give the orders? And did they even know? I didn’t until a private pointed it out to me.
Farther to the west, another replacement chief had the presence of mind to lead a squad across to begin the search for Tauran wounded and to take prisoners…if possible. A half dozen men, and all that remained of a twelve-man squad, fanned out to search for survivors or to silence any Taurans who might resist. In this sector, wounded were already being carried back to casualty collection points.
Farther into the city, ambulance sirens, some civil, others military, echoed off of the walls of buildings and down streets and alleyways. The ambulances forced their way to the casualty collection points scattered throughout this portion of the old city. No helicopters were available; the Taurans weren’t allowed to overfly while the Balboans had mostly fixed wing
Crickets
for dustoff, which couldn’t land in the narrow confines of the city.
From the sounds of it, the battle moved on farther toward the Transitway. Even there it was now usually single shots—albeit sometimes very
large
single shots—rather than the deluge of fire that had been the norm for the morning. Some of those large single shots came from the Ocelots, tanks, and SPATHAs whose crews, once they realized that the Gallic armor facing them had pulled out, had begun a cautious pursuit. Because they were buttoned up, that realization took a while.
Balboa City Train Station, Balboa, Terra Nova
“I just got the word over the radio, Sergeant Major,” said Signifer Porras. “The priority of fires for the artillery and heavy mortars has switched to us.”
“Good, sir. I don’t like being left out on our own. Any word from Intel?”
“Just that the rest of the mechanized battalion’s readying at Muddville; almost a full tank company, two mech infantry companies, an antitank and part of a headquarters company.”
“Did they have any idea of how long the Taurans will take?”
“No. I asked. But we’ll get word as soon as they move.”
Cruz stopped for a minute, then said, “Just in case I don’t get a chance to tell you this later on, you did well back there, sir.”
Porras flushed, unseen by Cruz in the darkness. “Thanks, Sergeant Major. Seemed like the thing to do. And…ah, Sergeant Major, if I don’t make it…”
Cruz frowned and waved the nascent comment off. “Don’t even start that shit, sir. The somber morose crap is
my
job, not yours. Besides, you’ll come through just fine.”
Porras gave a noncommittal grunt. The radio crackled to life. It was a two-man team that Porras had placed on flank security toward
Avenida de la Santa Maria
. “Five, this is two-three,” announced the caller. “Five Tauran tracks, one tank, heading your way…maybe three minutes. They’re moving fast.”
“Damn!” cursed Cruz. “First Maniple wasn’t supposed to let them get away. We’re not set up to handle someone coming from that side. Not as well anyway.”
“Two-three,” answered Porras, “this is Five. Roger.
“It was a calculated risk, Top.” Porras recalculated—picturing the layout of his platoon in his mind—then decided. “All right. Take one of the rocket launchers. Cut left and get in position on the other side of the station. They won’t see you there. Toast the first track. I’ll take the other gun and we can handle the last. On your way pass the word that the RGLs are not to fire until one of us does…or an antitank mine goes off.”
Cruz jumped to his feet and ran to the left, shouting Porras’s instructions to the rocket grenade launcher gunners.
300 Barracks Block, Fort Muddville, Balboa, Terra Nova
Compared to this morning’s frantic pace, the usual alert was positively lackadaisical. But their comrades of Company B were in battle, rumor said desperate battle, and the men of the other companies in the 420th Dragoons fairly flew to go to their aid.
Ammunition was short, although not desperately so. Each company arms room and the ready battalion stocks held something less than a full load. There were safety regulations, by and large sensible ones, that restricted the amount of ammunition that could be held on hand. It was only through bending the rules that the dragoons had as much as they did. A convoy of trucks had been dispatched across the swing bridge over Florida Locks to the main Ammunition Supply Point. They had yet to return. Most worrisome was that the battalion had no mortar ammunition. If they fought it would be without the ability to suppress enemy infantry with high explosives from the battalion’s heavy mortar platoon. Supposedly the artillery battery on Fort Nelson could range, but who trusted that?
Some of the men of the battalion had begun to breathe easier when the sounds of firing had died out, a few minutes before. Others, knowing what the cease fire most likely portended, grew furious.
The Battalion Commander’s ARE-12PC squatted at the head of the line of tracks, nearest the usually locked gate that was the 420th’s standard egress. The commander, Lieutenant Colonel Michel Koenig, a Gaul, despite the name, stood in the commander’s hatch. He had his internal coms tuned to higher, and couldn’t hear anything outside of what came through the combat vehicle crewman’s helmet. Down below his radio telephone operator monitored the internal nets.
Koenig felt a tapping on his leg. Looking down, he saw his RTO holding a microphone up to him. Koenig tore his helmet off, then reached down for the mike.
The RTO said, “Sir, it’s B Company’s XO.”
“Six, over!”
From the other end, broken by static and distorted by the roar of the engine, B Company’s XO sounded nervous and fearful. He was clearly near—if not quite at—panic. “Six; Bulldog Five. We have broken contact and are returning to base. Losses are heavy…” the XO paused and swallowed. “Very heavy.”
“What the fuck happened, Five?”
“Don’t know,” the Exec replied. “We were in our assault position. Firing broke out from the right. I think we might have started it. Then all hell broke loose. We had Balboans in the buildings within twenty meters of our front and didn’t know it. The CO’s dead, sir…I saw him burn!”
Koenig swore before keying the mike. “Calm down, Five. We’re just about ready to roll. If you think you need to hunker down ’til we get there, just say so.”
“Six, Five. No, sir. I just want to…Shit! Shit!” The XO began relaying orders to his driver and gunner without flipping the communications switch on the side of his helmet. Koenig heard confused commands interspersed with machine gun and cannon fire. The static from the radio cut out.
Face a mask of rage and hate, Koenig dropped the mike, climbed on top of his track and spun his finger in the air. “Fuck the ammo! We roll!”
Balboa City Train Station,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Porras—in the grip of terror-induced exhaustion—took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his stubble of hair. The lieutenant’s back and head rested against the tree behind which he had taken cover during the ambush. Spaced 50 to 150 meters away the remains of five ruined tracks and a single burning tank littered the road and a nearby parking lot. The building the parking lot serviced had once been the headquarters for a Federated States veterans organization. Since the FSC had pulled out of Balboa, the building had kept the name and the number, Post 3538, but transitioned to other uses. The organization, itself, had moved to lesser quarters in the city.
Cruz sat on the wet ground opposite Porras. Two radios were propped against the tree between them.
Out in the kill zone, among the smoldering tracks, a dozen Balboans searched for survivors. The sole remaining medic gave what aid he could. The horrible burns and ripped guts he found were beyond his small skill and lesser equipment. Already, on more than one occasion, he had felt compelled to administer a fatal dose of morphine to a hopelessly burned gringo. It was a cleaner end than letting one of the infantry put a merciful bullet in their brains.
The dial light on the radio lit up. Cruz picked up the microphone. He heard the cohort commander’s call sign and another that Cruz didn’t recognize. The speaker reported the imminent arrival at the train station—“within ten minutes, probably less”—of the rest of the Gallic mechanized infantry battalion.
Cruz thought he recognized the speaker’s voice. “Montoya? That you?”
High above, Montoya laughed to himself. “‘Oh, Cazador buddy.’ Cruz, we have got to stop meeting like this.
“Anyway, how you doin’, pal? You the one toasted those tracks I see?”
“Okay,” answer the sergeant major. “And yes. Well, I mean, the people I’m with did.”
“Looks like good work from here. Anyway,
compadre
, you’ve got company coming. Good luck…and out.”
Cruz relayed the warning to Porras, who wearily arose from the tree and began to issue orders. The platoon, instead of retreating, moved forward a few hundred meters. The oncoming Taurans should not expect them to do that. The cohort commander, maybe two miles away, approved the move. The maniple commander piped in, giving some orders to his other two platoons that would put them in position to support each other across the northern end of Brookings Field.
Tauran News Network, Headline News Studios, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova
“Newsflash! Heavy fighting in the Republic of Balboa. More in a moment.” The camera cut out to allow the newscaster to mop his brow and collect his thoughts over the advertising break. When the camera returned, the ’caster reported, “Heavy fighting in the Republic of Balboa between Tauran Union Forces and the Balboan
Legion del Cid
, the mercenary organization that has taken over the country. Reports indicate that this is a localized battle, centered on the area between
Avenida de la Victoria
and Brookings Air Base.”
A map showed behind the ’caster, a marker for an explosion superimposed on the image. Though the name,
Avenida de la Victoria
, was rarely used, the map did, in fact, show the old name given the avenue by Belisario Carrera.
“Casualties, to both sides, are said to be heavy. TNN has also been able to obtain this exclusive video of the outbreak of the fighting. We turn now, to Brent Strider in the Republic of Balboa. Brent?”
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Brent Strider reporting from the Republic of Balboa.” The camera backed off to show Strider standing next to a diminutive, elderly Balboan. It also showed ambulances carrying away the many wounded, as well as a long line of the plainly dead, lying side by side under ponchos along the sidewalk. “I have here
Señor
Eduardo de la Mesa. Mr. de la Mesa was an eyewitness, a video eyewitness, to this morning’s unfortunate events.
Señor
, if you please, tell our viewers what you saw happening this morning at about quarter to three.”
As de la Mesa spoke, a simultaneous translation was dubbed over his words. “I was woken up at about midnight by the sound of many engines and a funny squeaking. It—a Tauran unit taking up position near my apartment—has not happened in some time and so I thought I would video tape it. I was filming the
tanquito
nearest where I live when suddenly it turned its guns and began firing a machine gun. I turned my camera to record what the machine gun was shooting at and saw several dozen Balboan soldiers lying helpless in the street.”
Strider asked “Señor, do I understand you correctly? Tauran forces opened fire first.”
“Yes, sir. That is what I saw.”
A technician caught Strider’s eye and gave a thumbs up signal. “We turn now to what Mr. de la Mesa saw through his video camera a few hours ago.”
Strider’s image cut out, to be replaced by a grainy, erratic video shot, illuminated initially only by street lights, then only by muzzle flashes. Those Taurans awake and watching saw an ARE-12P’s turret rapidly turn and begin to fire. The camera swung to follow the tracers. A lone Balboan, without a visible weapon—his pistol was hidden by his far more prominent aid bag—ran across the street. On the videotape his medic’s armband, white with a red cross, stood out. A burst of fire, heard but unseen by the camera, was made plain by the medic’s “Spandau ballet.” The image died, as the medic had, spinning to the end.
“What did you do then, señor?”
De la Mesa looked at Strider as if he were stupid, or crazy, or both. “Then? Then everybody in the world started shooting! I ducked and ran to the back of my apartment. What do you think I did?”
The camera closed again on Strider, cutting de la Mesa out of view. “Back to you, Guillaume,” said Strider.
Estado Mayor
,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Sitting in his wheelchair at Headquarters, watching television, Fernandez smiled as he watched one of his better agents.
You’ve earned yourself a hefty bonus, de la Mesa.
Roughly halfway between Balboa City Train Station and
Avenida de la Santa Maria, Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
“We can’t hold ’em much longer, Top,” said Porras. Blood seeped out from a bandage that bound the lieutenant’s chest, courtesy of a near miss from an IFV’s cannon. Air gurgled, frothing the blood; it was a sucking chest wound. Of the seventy-seven men the platoon had started with, assigned and attached, fewer than thirty remained. Many of those were wounded, some badly. The dead, and some of those wounded too badly to risk moving had—reluctantly—been left behind.
