Free Company- Red Zone

by D K Williamson

  “Roger that, Top,” Sam said.

  “Kicking ass, Top,” Vincent added.

  “That right?” Holden said with a look at Hicks.

  “Like ducks to water, Top,” Hicks replied. “Mossy and me aren’t doing too shabby either.”

  The enthusiasm of the four drew a laugh from the top sergeant. “That right? Lucky me. I need four badass troopers for something special. Looks like I found’em.”

  “We’re crack, strac, and ready to attack, Top. Just tell us where you want us to go.”

  “South… again. We have a hunter-killer team going after the remaining opfor mortar tracks and I want you to aid them. A couple of sniper rifles and two machine guns could be useful. The HK team has a couple of commo specialists along because we’re sure the opfor is using beamed or wired coms to direct their fire. Savon troopers fixed that temporarily by dropping the shot caller. The problem is the mortars are still pounding the woods and the area near the roadblock. Until that lessens, we can’t push Keen Steel into surrendering. Help the commo troopers to find the coms and that ought to lead you to the mortars. Stop the mortars and we can end this thing.”

  “Got it,” Hicks replied.

  “Stay here and I’ll have the others join you. Sergeant Dayan heads up the HK teams, but you’re independent of them. You’ve covered the area between here and the river for three days now. If Dayan doesn’t need you, use that knowledge and seek targets of opportunity.”

  “Will do. Any word on how Billy and his guys are doing?” Hicks asked.

  “Bellvue and Nelson were fine last I saw. They’re on the western end of the blocking force supporting the infantry. Taro and Harris caught some splash from a main gun round. They’ll be okay, but I don’t know if they’re still in the game.”

  “Thanks, Top.”

  “It was nothing. Good hunting.”

  Not long after, Sergeant Dayan led a dozen troopers toward Hicks and his team. In addition to typical infantry weaponry, two recoilless launcher tubes were part of their armament

  “Top said you’re adding a little firepower to our hunting party. You ready to go?” Dayan said.

  “We are. Are we following the communications cable?”

  “We are. Machine guns and precision fire will be welcome,” Dayan said. “I know you have autonomy. I also know you have better knowledge of the area we’re moving into, so look at the route I have sketched out and tell me what you think.”

  While the two non-commissioned officers conferred, the two communications specialists moved to a position next to Moss, Sam, and Vincent. The senior communications specialist was an unknown, but the other coms-trained trooper was not, the former antagonist Barb Somers. She smiled at Vincent and Sam before joining them.

  “Still trooping I see,” Somers said. “We get to work together this time.”

  “You’re going to pin down where the mortars are,” Vince replied with a point at the communications kit she carried.

  “Corporal Gibbs will be doing most of that. I’m here to help and serve as a backup just in case.”

  . . .

  Sergeant Dayan’s point man led the force south well east of the road to avoid observation. Once clear of the fighting at the roadblock, they veered back toward the tarmac. Finding no enemy presence, they did find communications cable and followed its course south.

  With the point man well out in front, the column moved slowly until the trooper reversed course and brought them all to a stop.

  “Found them,” the point man whispered when he rejoined. “Less than a hundred meters out. There’s five or six troopers near the com gear. I’m pretty sure it’s a beam unit. The com equipment is small, sitting on the ground.”

  “We’ll need the gear intact,” the com specialist said. “If they move it or damage it, we’ll lose the trail completely.”

  “Are they dug in?” Dayan asked.

  The point man shook his head. “No. There’s a fair bit of underbrush between us and them. It’ll allow us to get close, but getting through it without making noise won’t be easy.”

  Nodding, Dayan said, “We form a line and advance, hit them hard and fast. Get as close as we can before firing, no grenades and watch where you put your shots. First sign they see us, we open up. We need to fire first. Any questions?”

  With none offered, Dayan designated positions for his troopers and agreed to Hicks’ request his four take the right end of the line.

  The line moved forward at a slow and steady pace. With Matt Hicks holding the end position, Moss and Davout occupied the next two with Sam to Vincent’s left. Trailing a distance behind the line was the communications specialist and a medic, while Somers held a position in the line next to Sam. Knowing she was trained as infantry, the four from the sniper team didn’t worry about her competence.

  Before long, Hicks alerted his team with a hand signal, one that indicated he had sight of the Keen Steel troopers at the communications relay. It took but a few steps before the others caught glimpses of them through the trees.

  Suddenly, one of the opposing force troopers sprang to his feet and reached for his slung rifle, fumbling in his haste.

  Fire erupted from both sides at nearly the same time, rounds crisscrossing in the air, the zips and hisses of bullets accompanied by the clipping sounds of those same projectiles striking branches and foliage.

  Firing a burst before flopping to the ground, Vincent rolled to position himself near a sizable tree. A quick glance left and right revealed no casualties as far as he could see, something that came as a bit of a surprise given the amount of fire exchanged.

  A machine gun chattered from the Keen Steel position, its rounds tearing into the tree above Vincent and sprinkling him with displaced bark. Seeking the gunner, he heard Sam’s rifle discharge and the automatic weapon fell silent.

  Hearing footfalls in the ground cover behind him, they passed to his right. A quick look revealed it was Somers. Dashing forward between Moss and himself, he wondered what she was doing.

  With fire shifting her way, Vincent could see where it was coming from and sent bursts in return.

  A Keen Steel trooper low crawled rapidly from left to right before rising to a crouch near a blocky device on the ground. Hearing the report of Somers’ rifle before the man slumped to the ground Davout realized Barb must know something the rest did not. The device had to be the communications link.

  Tracer fire from Moss’ machine gun crisscrossed with Vincent’s as the two gunners drove back those near the com gear. Less than a minute later, calls of “Cease fire!” brought the brief fight to an end.

  “Hicks,” Sergeant Dayan called, “your team covers. We’re moving in.”

  “Got it,” Matt replied.

  “We got wounded,” Sam said looking toward Somers as she winced and writhed on the ground.

  Barb set her rifle aside and grimaced. “I don’t think it’s bad,” she grunted as she grasped her right lower leg. “At least I hope not.”

  Hicks pointed at Sam, an unspoken order for him to aid the wounded trooper.

  Healey and Corporal Gibbs soon joined Somers.

  “What was that?” the senior communications tech asked with a gesture at the Keen Steel position.

  “Their coms trooper risked life and limb to get to the beam array,” Barb replied. “That means he was trying to keep something from us.”

  “I was hoping it was something like that and not you playing grunt. I’ll take a look.”

  Sam peeled back the cover over Barb’s medical readout and shook his head. “I’m pulling some tabs,” he said. “Give me your field dressing.”

  “What’s the verdict?” she asked.

  As he opened the bandage he shook his head again. “You have nano-meds and infection fighters coursing through you and as soon as I get this on, a field dressing to top it off. It looks like the med system doesn’t think much of you,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It says you are classif
ied as a low-mobility slash low priority casualty.”

  “That’s a shitty way of relaying good news.”

  “That’s why I’m not a medic.”

  “Can she be moved?” the com specialist asked as he returned from the Keen Steel position. “There’s something she should see.”

  “I can move,” Barb said.

  “Vince and me will get her there,” Sam said. “We don’t have all day.”

  After helping Somers to the communications gear, she looked over the relay as most of the others gathered.

  “What do we have?” Sergeant Dayan asked.

  “You bled for it. You tell them,” Gibbs said to Barb.

  “There are three beams connecting to this,” Somers said. “Out of detection range so they can connect to three separate stations. They cannot be seen by eye, only by sensors. We have the gear to detect them and that means we can follow the beams to the next points. Textbook beamed coms. A neat trick, unless somebody catches on.”

  Dayan smiled. “We’re those somebodies. Let’s go piss in their punchbowl.”

  Barb pointed to the southwest. “Two go that way, one to the southeast.”

  “We’ll take the western side first,” the sergeant said.

  “We’ll go after the eastern station,” Hicks replied. “If it’s mortar tracks at all three, the troopers at the eastern end might pack up move on if they hear fighting to the west. If Somers is up to it, we’ll take her along.”

  “I may not be highly mobile, but I can go,” she said.

  “I’ll go with Sergeant Dayan,” Corporal Gibbs said.

  Nodding, Dayan said, “Fair enough. Lack of coms makes this dicey. Play it smart.”

  After looking over his troopers, the sergeant appointed one of them to take the three Keen Steel survivors turned prisoners north. With that taken care of, Dayan led his troops away.

  “I can manage her,” Sam said with a gesture at Barb. “My butt pack will suffice as a seat. If she can use the sensor with one hand and hang on with the other I can keep both hands on my rifle”

  “Let’s see if it works,” Matt ordered.

  Moss and Vincent boosted the com specialist up. Wrapping her good leg around Sam’s waist and holding onto a load-bearing strap on his frag vest allowed her to use the sensing device with her free hand.

  “I’ll take the lead,” Hicks said as he slung his sniper rifle across his back. Drawing his short scattergun from its place on his rucksack he continued. “Follow close enough to tell me where to go.”

  “If their com troops did it right, there will be multiple relays that zig and zag before they reach the broadcast array,” Barb said. “We ought to be able to cut the course if the brush isn’t too thick. If it is, I won’t be able to see the beams very far out.”

  “We’ll go as fast as we can without compromising stealth,” Hicks said. “How big are these relays?”

  “Maybe the size of my fist. If they did it right, they’ll be hard to see with the naked eye. Fortunately we have the tech so we don’t really need to find them.”

  . . .

  Fifteen minutes of following a wavy course through the trees was time enough for the five to have developed a routine. With Hicks leading the way, the tandem of Sam and Barb followed within whispering distance while Moss and Davout moved on the flanks.

  Calling out direction changes, Barb Somers kept them near the relays. Approaching a clearing, Hicks slowed the pace and before long Barb hissed, “The array is twenty, maybe twenty-five meters ahead. I’ll know more once we’re closer, but from here I can’t see anything connecting to the array.”

  Hicks slowed his pace even more and after but a few steps, the sound of a rolling tracked vehicle became audible.

  “Down,” Hicks whispered accompanied by a hand signal in case someone couldn’t hear him.

  Sam knelt to allow Barb to dismount and find concealment.

  It took little time to figure out the track was closing and before long, flashes of movement through the trees brought visual confirmation. Looking and listening, they found it was a single vehicle, a track of some kind and not a heavy combat monster.

  Halting, the vehicle rested less than fifty meters from the tree line, but undergrowth prevented the Red Light team from seeing the track clearly enough to identify its type.

  “Stay low,” Hicks whispered. “Let’s move closer and see what we have.”

  Looking at her com gear, Barb pointed and said, “They’re orienting a com beam to link with the array.”

  “All the more reason to see what we’re dealing with,” Hicks replied. “Can you crawl on your own?”

  Nodding in reply, Barb said nothing.

  “All right. Follow me,” Hicks said before leading off.

  Nearing the edge of the tree line, they soon saw their target clear enough through breaks in the foliage to identify it. Not a mortar track, what they saw was a command and control vehicle parked thirty paces away in a grassy clearing.

  “Think it might be their CO?” Vincent asked once they stopped at the edge of the woods.

  “We’re going to find out,” Hicks replied. “Somers, any chance you can use that gear of yours to contact Dayan?”

  “None. Interdictors have all but the arbiter’s coms jammed.” Looking at her set, she grimaced. “Even those channels are iffy from right here without boosted systems. We’re in a bit of a communications dead zone. With the way they’ve linked their coms, they might have chosen this spot for a reason. Don’t ask me to tell you what that reason is because I don’t know.”

  “So we may not be able to contact the arbiters?”

  “No. I can get them. It might take a little work, but no worries.”

  “All right,” Hicks said. “Somers, hold position here and cover us. The rest of you, let’s go bag some brass.”

  . . .

  “Lunatic Red, this is Sergeant Clark sending on tight beamed com,” sounded over the headsets in the Red Light walker.

  Jacks responded to the Carmag NCO with, “Send it.”

  Positioned on the north side of a stand of trees strategically placed in the marsh, Jacks and Myles covered the area to the southwest. Keen Steel’s push north had been stopped by Carmag’s troopers backed by walker fire and Clark’s troopers were in the process of relocating to more favorable terrain north of where they had engaged the first enemy heavy walker.

  “Good news, bad news,” Clark sent. “We’ll be repositioned within minutes. That’s the good.”

  “That’s it?” Jacks asked.

  “If your company-mates get here in time I’ll add it to the list, but until then, that’s it.”

  “Gotcha, Sarge. The bad?”

  “Keen Steel’s moving again and they have backup. Need I tell you what that consists of?”

  “Walker, heavy, Keen Steel.”

  “You got it.”

  “Well, we knew it was coming. I don’t like the idea of fighting grunts and a heavy walker at the same time.”

  “I tend to agree. What do you have in mind?”

  “We’ll draw the walker away if you can keep the infantry off us.”

  “I see why you’re a merc and not a businessman. Seems to me you’re giving yourself a raw deal.”

  “Maybe, but if we don’t need to worry about anti-armor warheads coming from all sides, we have a chance.”

  “Fair enough. We can handle their grunts.”

  “Any info on the Keen Steel walker’s location?”

  “South. That’s all my guys could say. They heard it but had no eyes-on. The last of the hunter-killers are coming in now. I’ll call if they have anything new.”

  “Best of luck, Sarge.”

  “Stay upright you lunatic.”

  . . .

  “There she is,” Myles said looking at the bolter’s sight picture. Looking through gaps in the trees, the remaining Keen Steel heavy walker was northward bound.

  The ponderous gait of the heavy walker gave the impression the monster was
casually wading in a shallow pool. Positioned on the left flank of a line of infantry, the vehicle seemed intent on attacking Carmag’s troopers, some of whom were not yet positioned. While wounded and those aiding them headed north, others plowed through water to join Senior Sergeant Clark’s force.

  “Carmag’s hunter-killers aren’t packing it in,” Jackson said as a group of troopers pulled themselves from waist-deep water onto a wooded island. “Look at’em, those that aren’t headed for the docs are going to join Clark. Stupid, stubborn, sunsabitches. Half of them get dead or torn up taking on a heavy walker and the survivors are raring to lock horns with infantry. Stupid, destructive bastards.”

  “Hey,” Myles said sounding vaguely offended. “That’s what good grunts do. When it’s go-time, you go.”

  “You think I don’t know that? I wasn’t insulting them. It was a comment. The amount of stupidity it takes to do what they’re doing is almost as much as it takes for a light walker to go one-on-one with another almost twice as heavy carrying near three times the firepower. Want to guess who I’m thinking of?”

  Myles growled. “Fuck. When it’s go-time, you go. How are we going to draw off that walker?”

  “We go south and west. They’ll think we’re trying to flank them and seeing as we helped drop their comrades in the other walker, I’m sure they’d like to return the favor.”

  “What if they don’t bite?”

  “Then we flank them for real.”

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  Jacks laughed. “I’m not sure I am. Let’s go anyway.”

  Jackson put Lunatic Red into motion, a dash toward another stand of trees a few hundred meters away. The crew in the heavy walker took immediate notice and altered course toward them, the cab-mounted heavy machine guns responding first with long bursts that scored a few ineffectual hits on the left side of the Red Light vehicle.

  Myles pecked at the heavy walker with the bolter, but even with gyrostabilization and target tracking, he wasn’t sure if he managed any hits. A streak of smoke entered the bolter’s sighting vid display, followed soon after by more crossing from left to right. Looking at other vid screens he quickly understood what was happening.