Side Show (26 page)

The Novas were slow responding. Eight had been destroyed before they had a chance to get a round off, but that still left a dozen of them... and five Havocs running away at full speed, their cannons no longer able to bear.

Corgi two was hit by the first Schlinal shell.

A few kilometers away, to the north...

"Got those coordinates?" Eustace Ponks demanded.

"We're on line... now!" Simon replied.

"Ready!" Karl shouted.

"Fire!" Eustace ordered.

The Havocs of Corgi Battery might be running for their lives, but their TA systems were operating, feeding up-to-the-second data on the Novas to the rest of the 13th's artillery. Basset and Dingo batteries, and the one remaining gun from Afghan, all had fire missions on the way.

"Loaded!" Jimmy Ysinde called, no more than twenty seconds after the first round went out. The gun was aimed, the fire order given. The second and third rounds were on the way before the first shells from the initial salvo hit. Corgi one relayed information: two direct hits, two glancing hits that had stopped or damaged Novas without destroying them, and half a dozen near misses.

"Not bad," Eustace muttered. Basset Battery was racing closer to the enemy tanks, cutting across in front of the 13th's infantry. And still firing.

No one in Basset two saw what happened, but three minutes after the battery had started firing, there was a call from one of the other Havocs. "Basset three's been hit!"

Eustace swiveled his rear periscope until he saw the smoke rising from the hulk of Basset three, nearly a kilometer away. "What was it?" he asked over the battery channel.

"Must have been a rocket. Mudders."

"Another ambush." Eustace swore under his breath. "Keep your eyes open, Simon," he said over the crew channel. "It looks like we've got company close."

There was another explosion, ahead and to the left. The new Basset one swerved ninety degrees to the right and stopped.

Eustace had seen this explosion. "Mine!" he shouted. "We've rolled into a Heggie minefield."

"Stop?" Simon asked.

"No! If they've laid mines, they've got this area registered for their guns. Keep going. Bend the throttles!"

"I bend 'em any farther, they'll come off in my hands."

"New target," Eustace called, alerting the men in the rear compartment. "On the TA monitor now. Get it off, Karl." He switched channels.

"Lieutenant Ritchey, you all right?"

"We're okay, Ponks. You've got the battery for now. We're out of action." For the second time since leaving the main lines.

"There may be enemy mudders around, sir. I think a rocket got Four."

"We'll try to hold out until our people get here. Just get the others out of this minefield."

"We're all moving, sir," Eustace replied, checking the blips on his map console.
The three of us left, anyway.

—|—

It took the four Wasps nearly two minutes to respond to Corgi Battery's calls for help. Once they arrived, the Havocs were able to proceed without further trouble. The Novas were unable to defend themselves against the air attack, and the way they had been stumbled upon in hiding had left them too far from their infantry cover.

Corgi ran south, and into long-range fire from one of the Nova units that had fled from the earlier battle.

The bulk of the 13th changed course, just enough to take them around the mined area that Basset Battery had found the hard way. They moved northeast for several minutes, toward the river that they could no longer cross, then turned east again.

Pinched closer together on the detour, the 13th ran into more trouble.

Alpha Company ran into the second minefield. Two APCs were destroyed. The rest ground to a stop and started disgorging their passengers as Schlinal infantry took them under fire. Rockets came in first, hitting one more Heyer.

Briefly, Colonel Stossen brought the entire 13th to a halt, except for the artillery and air, while the staff went through a hurried consultation.

"We've got to get around them," Stossen said. "Put Echo around on the left flank, George on the right. First opening we find, push the recon platoons through, on foot if necessary."

We're blind,
Stossen thought while he waited for his orders to be implemented... and for the next stage of the Schlinal attack. There
would
be more. He was certain of that. A quick hit-and-run just wouldn't do it, and even liberal minefields could only slow them momentarily. Once the minefields had been spotted, they could be cleared quickly by specialists, as long as the fields weren't under direct covering fire.

Stossen sat in the APC that served as his rolling command post and stared at a mapboard. The positions of his own forces were marked, and those enemy units that had been spotted. The 13th couldn't reverse course. That would send them straight into the arms of the unit that had been chasing them almost from the beginning. They couldn't head south. There were two Schlinal regiments coming in from that direction, poised to intercept them. And the river meant that they couldn't go north. That was the most impenetrable barrier of all, at least for the vehicles.

"Bal, I need to know what we're facing here, and I need to know right now," Stossen said over the radio.

"Not much we can do but put mudders out on foot to test it," Kenneck said. "Wasps might find
some
of the enemy, but we're more likely to lose planes without learning enough."

"Dezo, what companies do we send, Bravo and Fox?"

"Those are nearest if we're just testing east," Parks replied. "But we can't forget our right flank. I think the next stage is likely to come from there, as before."

"We'll hold the rest of the line companies to meet that," Stossen said. "We've got to punch through as soon as possible."
If it's possible,
he thought as Parks acknowledged the orders.

—|—

Lieutenant Keye briefed Echo's noncoms while their APCs headed north toward the river.

Mines,
Joe Baerclau thought. It sent a shiver up his spine. Rolling into a minefield was a nightmare thought for any soldier. To do it in a mixer compounded the fear. There was no way to take counteraction, no way that individual caution could make a difference. For a moment, Joe sat with his eyes closed, trying not to hold his breath.

There was no chatter inside the Heyer after Joe passed along the news. "We're going to try to get around the enemy and hit them from the side or behind, just hard enough to let the rest of the 13th break through," he told them. "We don't know how many Heggies, or just where they are."

There was still blood sloshing around on the floor. Carl's blood. It had marked the boots of every man in the troop bay. Some of the men avoided looking down; others couldn't help but stare at the blood.

Two men in the Heyer had been slightly wounded in the last firefight, but nothing so serious that they wouldn't be able to fight again. Even Joe had a soaker over a pair of cuts on his right arm where long, thin strips of skin had been taken off by enemy wire. "Flesh wounds"—not deep or serious. But they had bled freely until they were treated, and Joe hadn't even noticed for several minutes. The sleeve of his fatigues had been soaked.

"I can see the river," Lieutenant Keye reported from the front of the APC. A few seconds later, the Heyer slowed down and turned east. Joe nudged Olly Wytten. Olly pulled his head down out of the splat gun turret.

"I want to take a look," Joe told him. He moved into the turret while Olly crowded around to get the seat that Joe had just vacated. There wasn't room for two heads in the turret at once.

Joe had to stretch to get a good view through the turret viewports. He eased the turret back and forth to give him a look at the terrain. They were 80 meters from the river, moving through trees.

That explains why we slowed down,
he thought. The wooded stretch wasn't particularly dense, but the trees were too close together for an APC going full out. A Heyer was no tank or self-propelled howitzer. It didn't have the weight, or the armor, to bull its way through a tree. The drivers had to pick their way around anything thicker than a sapling.

"Be ready to bail out in a hurry if we have to stop," Joe warned the platoon. "We run into Heggies, we're going to have to react in seconds."

He pulled down out of the turret and gestured Wytten back into place. When he sat down again, Joe took another look at his rifle. Not quite a full spool of wire, more than 80 percent of a full load in the power pack. Then he wiped sweat from the palms of his hands. Nerves. It never changed.

Five minutes. Ten. The Heyer turned southeast.

"Get ready," Lieutenant Keye said. "We're going back to feet."

As the Heyers came to a stop, they turned toward the southwest, in line.

"Bail out," Keye ordered.

Joe already had his hand on the latch. He slammed it up and kicked the door open. He went out, to the side and down.

"Unless they've moved, there should be Heggies four hundred meters ahead," Keye said, dropping to the ground next to Joe. "The ones that ambushed Alpha when they rolled into the mines."

"We're going to move 'em out?" Joe asked.

"That's the plan. Let's get moving."

Joe turned his attention to his platoon. At the far end of the formation, the first sergeant was directing 1st platoon forward. The rest of the company moved as well. The Heyers followed, but slowly, letting the infantrymen get farther ahead. The APCs made too much noise. If they stayed close, they would simply announce their presence.

Joe took a series of deep breaths as he moved forward. There was more relief than tension in him now. It felt
good
to be out of the mixer and back on foot, where an infantryman belonged, where he could respond instantly to whatever came.

Not much cover, for them or us,
Joe thought. But it would do. They would see any enemy before they were close enough for wire to do real damage.

Four hundred meters.
On a track in camp, any man in the platoon could run that in a minute or less. With a full load of gear and an enemy at the end of it, four hundred meters might take ten minutes. Or an hour.

"Watch the ground," Joe warned. "They might have mines here too."
Maybe, maybe not,
he thought. It was dumb to bar your own retreat with mines.

There was a thick layer of wet leaves and moss on the ground. Joe scuffed at one place. The dirt was a couple of centimeters down. It would have been easy to hide mines in that.

At least walking men made virtually no noise on the damp ground. There was even little danger from the proverbial snapping twig. So much rain had fallen recently that even the dead wood on the ground was saturated.

Three squads of the platoon walked the skirmish line. Fourth squad followed behind. The other line platoons assumed the same formation. The heavy weapons platoon came in back of the center with the headquarters detachment. There was only one "noncombatant" slot in a line company's TO—the senior medtech. And even Doc Eddies was out walking, back with the APCs.

Joe glanced over his shoulder when the Heyers turned off their engines. They were close enough, for now. If their splat guns were needed, the drivers could fire up their engines again and close the gap quickly. In the meantime, they wouldn't give away Echo's advance.

"Narrow the line," Lieutenant Keye ordered. "Two squads up and two back."

Joe quickly pulled his third squad back with the fourth. The forward advance slowed as the flanking platoons eased in toward the center.

"Keep a close watch now," Joe said on his platoon channel. "We should be closing to within two hundred meters soon. When we get closer, don't forget that there are friendlies on the other side of the Heggies. Keep your head and your aim low."

"A little more space between the first and second ranks," Keye said over the radio. "Interval!"

Once more, Joe rearranged his platoon, and looked to make sure that his men were lined up with those on either side.

"First man to spot Heggies, give me a whistle," he told the platoon. "Don't shoot until you get the order, unless we're being shot at. And if we're being shot at, be damn sure you know it's Heggie wire before you cut loose." In this type of action, it would be all too easy to get into a firefight with a friendly unit.

"Slow it down." This order came from the first sergeant. Echo was within 150 meters of where the Heggie ambush had been located. The sound of rifle fire was louder now, and the sound of Heggie guns predominated.

"Sarge, Mort." An anxious whisper over the platoon noncoms' channel.

"Yeah, Prof."

"Ten degree's right from me, out about 120 meters, low next to that tree trunk with the cockeyed branch on its right."

Joe spotted the tree by the branch rather than by the bearing. The branch angled sharply down while the rest of the branches on the tree went sharply up. The branch was bent again about two meters out from the trunk, and it ended almost on the ground.

Joe stared for thirty seconds before he saw the trace of movement. The figure was wearing camouflage, but the pattern wasn't Accord, and the lines on the helmet were wrong. Joe switched channels.

"Lieutenant, we've spotted our first Heggie." He explained where. "He's facing away from us, and cutting wire."

"Right. Have one of your men lay a grenade close to the position," Keye said. Then, switching to his all-hands channel, he ordered, "Cover!" The men of Echo went down almost as if they had all been tripped by the same wire.

Joe passed the word to Mort to lay a rocket-propelled grenade as close to the Heggie as possible. As soon as it exploded, Lieutenant Keye gave the order to fire.

At first, most of Echo's wire went into that one narrow area. It wasn't until some of the other Schlinal troops turned around to return fire that Echo really had a good sense of just how dispersed the enemy was... and more targets to shoot at.

At least company strength, Joe thought. He had gone to his knees and ducked behind a tree with the order to go to cover. Once wire started coming back, he got flat on the ground, still behind the tree. The near end of the Heggie line was considerably closer than 120 meters, perhaps even close enough for their wire to penetrate net armor.