The signal went flat. “Damn that girl,” Cassy said. “I have no idea how many she’s attacking. How can I give her orders if she turns off her radio? We won’t even know if she’s alive unless she checks in afterward.”
Ethan wrinkled his nose at Cassy, almost like he smelled something foul. “With all due respect, Jaz is a big girl. She and Choony survived out there in the wilds on their own for weeks and months, and they did just fine without you holding their hands.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Cassy, we’re friends, right?” Ethan asked, cutting her off. “So as a friend, let me just say, you’re pissing me off. You can’t be everywhere at once, and we have a job to do right now. So let’s do that job and worry about ‘Jazoony’ later.”
Cassy felt a faint blush rise as a smile grew on her face. He was right, of course. There was nothing at all she could do about Jaz and Choony at the moment, and she still had a job to do that, mathematically speaking, mattered more for the Confed’s fighters than Jaz and Choony did. Even if they were friends, and Choony was something of a head-shrink for Cassy, there was another bigger battle going on. It was time to concentrate on her own damn job.
She looked down at the VASSAL map again, getting her mind back on task. Worry about the rest later… “Ethan, notify Lincoln One to adjust his Third Squad to face heading two-four-zero to respond to unit designation alpha-two-three, or they’ll be flanked.”
“I copy,” Ethan said, and then sent out her message to Michael, who would pass it on or not, depending on his strategy on the field.
Cassy watched as, on her map, the unit labeled “L1-3” swung around in a wide arc, pivoting on the leftmost edge until it faced west-southwest, and then moved forward. Michael must have approved of the idea. She would have liked to be able to issue orders directly, but out there in the field, Michael was in charge. There could only be one commander, after all, and warfare was a task for which Michael was frighteningly well qualified, and Cassy wasn’t.
Watching the VASSAL map update, with impersonal blocks moving around on her monitor, Cassy had to remind herself that this wasn’t a video game. Those blocks were real people out there getting shot up. She swore she’d keep that firmly in mind with every decision she made. She had to stop flailing around.
- 26 -
1000 HOURS - ZERO DAY +256
JAZ LED HER “Army of 300,” as she thought of them, northeast along High Street, straight through the center of Manheim. To either side were buildings that had been mostly abandoned or burned down. The cars were gone, but she could see knocked-over hydrants and poles, houses with holes, all the signs of moving vehicles that had suddenly turned off. Where those cars had gone—along with the ones that should have been parked everywhere at four a.m., when the first EMPs had gone off—Jaz didn’t know, but the effect was creepy. The papers and other debris that lay strewn across every street and lawn didn’t help either.
“Is this wise?” Choony asked. “We can still go around and get three hundred people safely to Clanholme.”
Jaz shook her head, her eyes squinted to see farther ahead. “This is the only choice. Manheim is our ally, a member of the Confederation. They’re under attack by at least a battalion of Empire dweebs. If we leave, Manheim falls and then that battalion just moseys on up to Clanholme to join the party there.”
“That may be true.” Choony’s voice was flat, and Jaz didn’t hear any sign of judgment.
“And also, these people won’t be safe at Clanholme either. It’s under attack, too. But our ‘Three Hundred’ have guns and most of them know how to shoot. Better to squash these goons here, so Manheim and our recruits can both head north and relieve some pressure up there.”
“Either way, we all fight,” said Choony. “Only the part of town east of Chiques Creek is inhabited, except for a few odd survivors. We’re coming from the west just as the Empire must have done. There’s a creek blocking the west edge, though, and a bridge to the north.”
Jaz nodded, and saw where he was going with that line of thinking. “So the fighting is on the north end. We’ll be hitting them from behind.” She grinned. “I always did favor fighting dirty if I had to fight.” Choony gave her his tolerant, slightly disbelieving smile. If he only knew.
They continued on, and then on the left, she saw the tennis club. Only a few hundred feet further, the bridge over the creek. It was fully sandbagged into a strong defensive position, but there were no guards. Eerie. But in the distance now, far to the north, she could hear the popcorn sound of battle.
Jaz called out to her column of refugees-turned-soldiers, “We cross that bridge and take the next left, leaving the truck behind. That’s White Oak Road. It takes us north toward the fighting. Anyone who doesn’t want to join us, that’s fine—turn in your gun and best of luck to you. No hard feelings. In three minutes, we move out. The rest of you, if you’re willing to fight, check your weapons and ammo. But do not fire until I tell you to. They’ll be looking forward and we don’t want them to know we’re coming up to flank them. As soon as I fire the first shot, go to town on them. We’re the ‘Army of 300’ and we’ll take ’em all down! Questions?”
She saw little patches of discussion but, of the three hundred or so armed Elizabethtown refugees, only five turned in their weapons and headed west, probably expecting to go back home. One was helping another who walked with a crippled-looking limp. Very good—she only wanted the brave ones and those who were physically able to fight.
When the clicks and clacks of rifles being checked quieted down, she and Choony led the column on, then turned left and headed north. As the sounds of battle grew louder, Jaz’s heart sped up, adrenaline pumping in anticipation of what lay ahead. Her face gradually assumed a predator’s intentness. Yes. She was ready.
* * *
Cassy cursed and threw a stapler against the bunker wall. Their defense-in-depth had worked in part, slowing down the enemy advance and buying the Confederation time. Time for what, she didn’t really know. The three hundred refugees would be a huge help, but she doubted they could make the difference between victory and defeat in the end. Her mother’s voice in her mind said God would provide the miracle they needed if they kept hope in their hearts, but Cassy found it hard to put trust in that. Still, some circumstance might arise that the Confederation could take advantage of, and anyway, where would they go if they ran? It was win or die, and running would only delay, not change that.
“I guess we’d better win,” she muttered, completing her thought aloud, then looked at the VASSAL map again. Still nothing leapt out at her, nothing obvious to give them a chance at victory. And she was stuck down here in the bunker. If the Confederation lost, she could well be one of the last Clanners alive—stuck in a bunker, stuck with her guilt. The thought terrified her.
The map was clear, though. Defeat was imminent. Of the six advanced defensive positions the Confederation held in the beginning, only one remained. It was heavily defended now but when the tactical situation became untenable, Michael was sure to order them to fall back to Clanholme itself. The enemy had taken heavy losses, but they had the advantage of numbers and could afford to press on, and on until, threatened with being overrun, the Confed troops fell back. Then fell back again. And again…
Michael’s command radioman’s voice came through the radio with the dreaded news, “Cassy, we’re falling back. Mortars are out of shells.” All pretense of formality was gone, and in the background she could hear the overwhelming sound of heavy gunfire and people shouting in the chaos of battle.
Ethan confirmed receipt of the information. His other radios squawked and he continued typing in his data. Always his damn data…
Cassy noticed the VASSAL map refresh. At map’s top edge, a gray box appeared. And another, then another. “Ethan, what the hell are you doing over there?”
Ethan, totally focused on his task, didn’t answer right away, but Cassy felt like she would burst with the need to know. How many enemies were showing
up? Where had they come from? “Dammit, Ethan. What the hell are you typing in? Who are those new people?”
Ethan snapped back, frustration in his voice, “Unknown. Units appearing north. Organized, in formation, advancing quickly on foot. Armed with rifles, looks like. I can’t tell what kind but they all seem the same. They’re wearing cammies.”
Cassy felt her heart drop into her stomach, and then her stomach rolled. She grabbed her radio and clicked to programmed channel one, the regimental radio. “Charlie One to Lincoln One Actual, come in.”
A pause, then Michael’s voice came through. “Go ahead for Lincoln One.”
“Multiple inbound units from heading zero-one-five. Estimate at least two battalions, in formations. All with rifles, wearing BDUs. Intent unknown, source unknown. Neg radio contact.”
“Copy. We’ll pull back to position Zulu. Keep me advised. Over.”
“Wilco,” Cassy replied. Michael’s voice had been rock solid and carried that tone of authority even through the radio. His voice was simultaneously comforting and frightening, and she’d had no problem hearing him clearly even over the noise of battle.
Ethan said, “Still neg contact with the unknowns.” He began typing furiously, and Cassy glanced over. His screen was all text, but then the view switched to a satellite image. It was their general area, and Ethan zoomed in repeatedly until he found what he wanted, the unknown force, and zoomed in further.
Cassy saw they were split into four distinct groups. One was maybe a dozen squads, while the rest were five times larger. When Ethan zoomed in still further, she could see that they did indeed all have rifles but, unlike the initial report, they didn’t all carry the same rifle. Most looked like hunting rifles, though it was hard to tell for sure.
Her heart soared with hope, leaving her stomach alone and lodged firmly in her throat. The alliance! Could they be Confed forces? Of course they could. Lititz, Lebanon, and others were sending troops, and these could well be them, despite the lack of radio contact.
“Any bicycles?” Cassy asked, her throat feeling dry and sounding raw with mixed dread and anticipation.
“No!” Ethan’s face grew a smile, and he let out a sharp “Whoop!”
Cassy understood the feeling, and leapt to her feet. She couldn’t bear to sit any longer, feeling way too excited for that. “Reinforcements! It’s the Confed troops. Quickly, tell Lincoln One.”
On her monitor, the VASSAL map showed Michael’s defenders on their way toward the rolls of defensive concertina wire, which had a few gaps intentionally left for them. When the enemy got there, they’d be forced to either get through the wire, slowing them down, or go through the channels, which would slow them less but would send them into a kill zone of overlapping lanes of fire from Clan defenders—Mueller and the dozen Clan Marines, manning automatic weapons from hastily built earthbag defensive positions.
That same wire would slow Lincoln One’s forces if they broke and routed toward Clanholme, but she doubted that would happen—not with Michael at the helm.
Sure enough, she saw the blue blocks of Michael’s forces stop, then reverse direction and line up along the last low ridge between the enemy and Clanholme. The red blocks of Empire troops halted suddenly. Cassy could imagine their confusion when their prey, on the run, had turned around and started fighting back with gusto. Ha! Eat that, Empire bitches…
“Radio contact with new units, confirmed Confed. Orders?”
Cassy looked at the screen and said, “Tell them to change heading to one-seven-zero and engage the Empire. Hit them in the flank!” Then she clicked her radio again. She had a hard time keeping her voice from shaking when she said, “Charlie One to Lincoln One Actual.”
“Go for Lincoln One Actual,” Michael replied, his voice still rock solid.
“Let’s deploy Delta One and Two,” she said. It was time to bring the battlecars and planes into this. “Request instructions.” That hurt, but Michael would know how best to deploy them.
“Roger. Send Delta One to flank them and strike their line from the south. Delta Two focus on the north end of the OpFor, repeat, north end. Soften them up before new arrivals engage these Empire sonsabitches. Over.”
“Copy. Wilco. Charlie One out.” Cassy grinned at Ethan and added, off-radio, “Roger Wilco and hot damn!” because it felt so good and she felt like it. Ethan was grinning back.
She looked back to her monitor and watched the blocks move around. Blocks made of real people, out there. Other blue blocks appeared far to the south, Frank and the battlecars moving into position. Thin blue lines appeared with a white circle in the center, showing the rough location and heading of their planes. At this scale, she could barely tell that they headed north, taking off, then shifted as the planes banked. She knew it was largely Ethan’s guesswork and his computer algorithms showing estimates of their location and direction, but deep inside, she felt the thrill of a hunter about to leap to a kill. The planes would be deadly…
Abruptly the leading red blocks began moving west, a reversal of direction. Those behind stopped at the crest of hills. Dammit, the enemy was disengaging, regrouping. Right now, the red blocks were pretty scattered, but she was certain they meant to regroup just out of range of the Clan’s current position. “I think they’ve seen the planes or something.”
Ethan grunted then said, “I doubt it. They probably saw the concertina wire behind our lines. They know they’ve got our backs to the wall now—we have nowhere left to retreat, after that. They’re just regrouping to hit us harder.” The smile on his face looked vicious.
Cassy saw Michael’s blue blocks stop. He was smart enough not to leave his hasty defensive line to chase the larger enemy up a hill right into the teeth of the other red blocks in defensive positions there, of course.
Crap… The new Confed units were set to engage, but would do so without support from Michael’s troops. “Ethan, designate the new regiment as Lincoln Two. Contact them fast and tell them to hold position. They’re rushing in alone. It’s too soon, dammit.”
Ethan got busy on the radio, and moments later, she saw the new blue blocks halt. Ethan said over his shoulder, “I told Frank and Joe to hold off, too. I got Michael on the horn, figuring out what to do.”
Cassy frowned. This sucked, having all their allies and weapons of war poised to fall on the Empire’s goons yet having to delay while everyone figured out what to do. It was hard to imagine that, only one hundred years earlier, this was how the superpowers fought.
The screen now showed red blocks overlapping each other in a long, thin line stretching north to south. Blue blocks, perhaps a third as many, were similarly arrayed at Clanholme’s western edge, east of the red blocks. North of both of them the cluster of new Confed units were bunched up rather than in a line. South stood the battlecars, now motionless. The planes circled low, well east of Clanholme. Everything was completely on hold. So this was what it meant in books when she had read about “a lull in the fighting.”
Ethan grinned and said, “And so the stage was well-set for a true ballet of death…”
Cassy rolled her eyes. “Okay, dungeon master, but let’s hope it’s more like a mosh pit than a ballet, and those Empire bastards do all the dying. Let me know the instant Michael tells us what to do.”
Oh God, the tension of that moment was enough to make a person crack. Sitting in a dim bunker in front of a monitor, she decided, was turning out to be at least as stressful as being shot at.
* * *
Frank sat in the lead battlecar, an old pickup truck with a specially rigged clutch pedal holstering his stump of a leg. He may be missing a foot, but in his armed and armored truck he felt more useful than ever. It was liberating… except that he and the other cars were sitting idle while the battle raged to his north. The thrill of anticipation was overwhelming when they received orders to flank and attack, but then came the order to halt and the feeling of letdown was soul-crushing. The only reason he wasn’t screaming in frustration was t
hat he knew they’d be called in soon. And then he and his other cars would stride across the battlefield slaying the enemy by the hundred, like medieval lancers descending upon a line of pikemen. That’s what these cars were. Modern knights. Rulers of the battlefield. But they’d only be useful once the enemy was fully engaged with the Confed troops, and that hadn’t happened yet.
As he waited, his mind drifted to thoughts of his wife. Mary had died bravely, which made it easier to live with for him, but it hadn’t made it any easier to tell their son, Hunter, that his mommy was dead. If only he’d had time to console the boy, guide him out of the depression that fell on him like a soaking-wet stage curtain. The news of his mother’s death had sucked the light right out of Hunter.
Between the loss of his wife, whom he had been in love with as much as the day they had said “I do,” and his son’s loss of innocence, hope, and light, Frank wanted payback. Revenge. And today, he meant to have it. Whether the Confederation won or lost this battle, Frank intended to even the score before he died.
The new radio chatter gave him mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was clear the Confederation was being pushed back on two fronts, north and west, despite the arrival of new troops. They had evened the odds, made the enemy fight harder for every foot they advanced, yet still the enemy came. But on the other hand, now that everyone was back to fighting, it meant he’d be out there slaughtering Empire troops any moment now. His heart began to beat a little faster in anticipation.
Frank glanced up and to his rear, and gave a smile and nod to his gunner. His truck didn’t just have a cowcatcher on the front—which Frank thought of affectionately as his “eviscerator”—and armor all over. It also had a light machine gun mounted on a swivel on the roof and a trooper behind a curved bullet shield, in the truck bed to fire it. That was in addition to his hood-mounted AK-47s with triggers mounted on the back of the steering wheel. The only thing missing was rockets, he thought with glee. Maybe Dean, redneck engineer without peer, could invent some for him.
Dark New World (Book 5): EMP Resurrection Page 36
