Russian Amerika (40 page)

Three of the U.S. field pieces opened up on the Russians. dropping shells on the road and into the APCs supporting the tanks. A Russian tank exploded from a direct hit.

A bullet hit Smolst in his upper left arm, blowing blood, meat, and cloth away in a miniature cloud. Crying out, he spun and fell. Wing stopped and reached down to help him up. Something snapped past her ear.

"Major Smolst, come on!" She tugged his good arm and he bared his teeth in pain but staggered to his feet.

She looked up and saw men in camouflage attacking from the left flank. They had her people caught in a cross fire. She jerked Smolst down into a firing pit where one of three men still moved.

"Where'd they come from?" the trooper asked. She recognized Leroy, one of Blue's cousins from Nulato.

"Are you hit?"

"Not yet. Help me load this thing."

Smolst tore at his bloody sleeve. "Shit, shit, shit!" He pulled a belt off one of the dead troopers and cinched it around his bicep.

Leroy and Wing struggled with the heavy ammunition belt until it clicked into the feed slot. He snapped the bolt back once, took aim at the figures advancing from the tree line, and commenced firing short bursts.

Wing saw two attackers go down. She pulled a rocket launcher from beneath one of the dead men. The tanks were now five abreast and approaching the far side of the Chena. She waited, wondering if all the mines had been detonated by the barrage.

As if in answer, the right track blew off the middle tank. The other four continued down the bank. Another artillery round exploded between the tanks, throwing mud and moss over everything.

They don't have any idea how deep the Chena is along here_, she
decided.

Guess they're about to find out.

Two of the tanks stopped and the other two rumbled into the river and completely submerged. They didn't come out. Wing took careful aim and fired the antitank rocket. One of the remaining tanks gushed fire and the crew boiled out of the turret hatch as the machine began to burn.

Something knocked the rocket launcher out of her hands and she realized the enemy flankers hadn't gone to ground. Leroy fired again and two more men dropped.

"Are we the only people left alive out here?" she yelled. The ground heaved and pieces of tundra and permafrost rained down on them. The tanks made deadly forward fire bases despite their inability to cross the river.

The Russian ground troops enfiladed the U.S. artillery positions and killed two crews. The last 105mm swiveled and put three rounds into the woods where the Russians had taken cover. One of the remaining Russian tanks zeroed in on the cannon and hit it with its second shot.

Wing searched the firing pit and found two more rockets. She tried to load and discovered the launcher had been smashed by a bullet.

"Damn!" She grabbed one of the heavy automatic weapons, leaned it on the edge of the firing pit. Wing squeezed the trigger and the stock slammed against her shoulder like a string of hard punches. Her teeth clenched as she concentrated on putting the rounds where she wanted them.

She hit four of the camouflaged attackers and the rest took cover.

"How many are there, Leroy?" When he didn't answer, she glanced over to find him on his back with a surprised expression across his face, eyes turned up as if trying to see the bullet hole in his forehead.

Smolst pushed himself up and pulled Leroy's weapon from his dead hands.

"Help me get this on the edge of the hole," he said, breathing heavily.

She grabbed the tripod and lifted it to the rim as Smolst crawled up behind the weapon. He fired a long burst.

The ground lurched again and debris bounced around the firing pit. Smolst and his weapon fell heavily on top of a dead trooper. The major lay there, panting, and Wing realized he was going into shock.

A lassitude washed over her like a warm tide as she realized they would die alone out here. Her determination to take as many as possible of the Czar's fools with her didn't diminish-she just stopped being careful.

Bullets spattered around their position and she knew one or more flankers were trying to pin her down while others advanced. She popped up and squeezed the trigger while moving the muzzle from side to side. Three more men went down before the others, so many others, dropped from sight.

Gunfire chattered from her right and left and she spared quick peeks to see that some of her people were still in the fight. She and Smolst wouldn't die alone. A round whined past her head and she involuntarily ducked as others followed.

Wing slammed in a fresh banana clip and popped up again, spraying the advancing enemy while cursing them in Athabascan.

76

Chena Redoubt

As he lay on his cot trying to rest, Malagni heard the thunder of artillery. He was halfway out his door when Sergeant Major Tobias trotted up.

"The Russians are blowing the fortifications to pieces, Colonel. Colonel Demoski's people will never hold them."

"So much for Plan A!" Malagni hurried down the hall, calculating madly.

"Saddle up the reserve force. No sense in waiting for them to hit us here."

"Very good, Colonel." Tobias ran down the hall.

Malagni stopped in his office, grabbed a machine pistol, and put spare clips in his dungaree pockets. He looped a cord around his axe and tied it to his belt to keep it from flopping if he had to run.

Somewhere in this army his little brother, Nik, was preparing for this battle. Malagni had already lost one brother to the damned Russians and the spirits indicated the Russians would get him, too. He fervently hoped Nik would make it through.

Malagni felt the presence of Slayer-of-Men. "I'll avenge their treachery, brother!" he said to the room. "It's a good day to die."

He looked at his U.S.-supplied helmet and grinned. Let the rest of the Dená Army use them, he wasn't a soldier anyway-he was a warrior! He hurried out into the courtyard.

The artillery barrage overwhelmed all other sound.
Wing must be going
through hell
. His reserve consisted of three tanks, five armored cars, and three hundred men.

We are outnumbered so bad I won't even try to figure it out.

A wave of elation swept over him. "Are you ready to fight?" he screamed at them.

"Yes!" they roared back.

"Then let's kill Russians!" Malagni jumped into the command car. Sergeant Major Tobias grinned from behind the wheel.

"I thought you were a pencil pusher, Tobias."

"I earned my stripes in the field, Colonel. I wouldn't miss this donnybrook for love nor money."

Malagni gave him a wide grin. "Then carry on, Sergeant Major, carry on." He threw back his head and screamed his war cry.

They tore through the gate with the entire garrison following.

77

The Russian Front Line, in the 2nd Battle of Chena

Bear Crepov cradled his Kalashnikov and trotted behind the ranger unit along the bank of the Chena. The Siberian Tigers had thrown a "hurry-up" bridge across the water a half kilometer upstream from the highway. These troopers seemed to know what they were doing. Not a Cossack among them.

They arrived at the bridge and a guard waved them across the three-tree bridge. No chatter vied with the brutal cacophony of the artillery.

Across the river without incident and into the trees, the rangers kept up the pace and Bear began to feel his years and habits weighing on him. He gritted his teeth and maintained speed.

He wasn't going to let these kids show him up.

The barrage ceased. The silence felt unnatural. The ranger captain pumped his right arm twice and they increased speed.

Bear's breath came in hard gasps now. He couldn't do this much longer. Small-arms fire broke out ahead of them.

Bullets whined past, thwacked into trees. One punched into the man ahead of Bear. The ranger whuffed and fell to his knees.

Bear stopped beside him, not to help or out of concern, but because it gave him an excuse to rest for a moment.

The soldier turned his camouflage-painted face to Bear, tried to speak. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell on his face. More bullets ricocheted through the forest and Bear sat down next to the soldier and leaned against a tree.

What I'd give for a shot of vodka,
he thought.

The firefight heated up. Bear waited until his breathing returned to normal; then pushed himself to his feet.

Hope they saved some Indians for me
.

He trotted toward the sound of battle.

78

117th Fighter Squadron Over Russian Amerika

Major Ben Hurley scanned the horizon, craning his neck up he searched the sky all around his P-61 Eureka fighter,
Jenny
Love
. Nothing. Flying support for the paratroop transports had been a milk run.

He read his gauges and dials. According to his computations the Republic of California aircraft had just crossed the border between British Canada and Russian Amerika. He radioed the lead transport.

"Flight Delta, this is Foxtrot One. We have seen no enemy aircraft. Flight Foxtrot will now go to Plan B."

"Roger that, Foxtrot One. Thanks for the company and good hunting."

"Thanks, hope your delivery goes well."

The fifteen fighters peeled off and flew directly west.

"Okay, guys," Hurley said, "stay awake, the highway should be about a hundred and fifty miles ahead of us."

The flight dropped until they were a thousand feet above the terrain and bored onward, their propellers radiant in the Alaskan sunshine.

Tank Kommander Colonel Boris Lazarev breathed a sigh of relief when he received the radio communication from General Myslosovich. Immediately he told his driver to go to full speed. He knew the other tanks and armored personnel carriers behind him would keep up. He once had broken a captain to the ranks for not maintaining pace, after that it had never again been a problem.

Being the lead tank gave him the advantage of not eating any of the dust they threw up in stultifying clouds. They traveled in battle formation, each tank staying within thirty meters of the machine in front of it. Colonel Lazarev glanced at the column behind him as it wound up the series of switchbacks to reach Baranov Pass, the only road pass in the Alaska Range.

Every tank commander stood in his hatch, goggles and helmets facing forward. His command had arrived in Russian Amerika less than forty-eight hours previously. This was quite different than patrolling the China/Russia border. For one thing, the scenery from absolutely striking.

On one side of the road the mountain rose at an angle nearly impossible for a man to traverse, on the other side of the road, below the switchbacks, lay a valley at least four hundred meters deep. Across the valley a long ridge, displaying a variety of hues as if painted by a gargantuan artist, ran for miles. The locals called it Rainbow Ridge.

Abruptly he thought of the transport plane from their small armada that had crashed on takeoff, killing twenty of his men and destroying one tank. He detested waste, and flying.

They sped along at thirty kilometers per hour, steadily climbing toward the summit. He hoped the Indians would hold long enough to insure his men would not be cheated out of combat; they had come a long way for this. He had it on good authority that the Czar used political maneuvering in order to gain time for this buildup. He also understood that the Indian rebels had gone along with it completely.

Colonel Lazarev!" the voice in his headset all but shrieked. Before he could bark an admonition, the voice went on, "Aircraft!"

"Where?"

"East, northeast, coming straight at us."

"Man your machine guns!" He stared at the incoming planes; so far he counted seven, trying desperately to identify them. Could they be friendly?

The Dená didn't have aircraft as far as he knew.

He finally recognized the slim profile with the underfuselage air scoop. "Oh, my God, they're R.O.C. P-61 Eureka fighters. And we're roosting chickens with a wolf in the henhouse."

Vainly he looked for options. "All personnel out of the troop carriers, fill the sky with fire!" He glanced back to see men scurrying like ants around the halted column.

No cover, we have no cover.

Major Hurley spread his flight out like a wide wave heading for a distant beach. Intelligence said there were a lot of Russian tanks and APCs headed north out here somewhere, and unless they were stopped the Dená were going to lose their asses. He spied a ribbon undulating across the landscape in the distance.

"Is that it, guys, dead ahead?"

"Negative that, skipper," Lieutenant Donaldson replied. "That's the Tanana River."

"You sure there's a road out here, Major?" First Lieutenant Christenson said with a laugh.

"Damn sure, we have pictures-"

"Tally ho! This is Foxtrot Nine, the road's over here to the southwest, just past another river."

"Good going, Captain Shipley. You heard the man, boys. I want two waves. We should find them under a big dust cloud."

"I see it, there they are!" Hurley wasn't sure who the voice belonged to, it didn't matter anyway.

"My gawd, they're sitting ducks," Christenson exclaimed.

"They're heavily armed ducks, don't forget that," Hurley snapped. "Get the troop carriers first, those tanks aren't going anywhere. Drop your gas."

A series of microphone clicks told him his people understood. Two allbut-empty long-range fuel tanks dropped from beneath the wings of each fighter, instantly giving the aircraft less weight and drag. The planes suddenly seemed agile as ballerinas.

"Okay, gentlemen, rank has its privileges. Follow me!"

He put his fighter into a long turn and came up the mountain behind the armored column. As if the stationary vehicles had lost a load of diamonds, the ground suddenly sparkled with muzzle flashes. Hurley grinned and pulled the trigger on the front of his stick, relishing the roar of his six .50

caliber machine guns.

Both of his wingmen opened up as they bored in, passing over the first bend of the long, snaking column. All of the Russian APCs carried twin .30