“Good. About time we did something besides chase wild men around the woods,” said Haas, first squad’s leader.
“Okay, enough talking. Give your troops the march order and follow me out of here in ten minutes.”
Chapter Seven
Galen walked in the middle of his squad, five troops to his front and six to his back. First squad was in a file on his right and third squad was in a file on his left. They maintained a spacing of fifty to a hundred meters between the squads, and an interval of ten to fifteen meters between troops. When they came to a field, one troop sprinted across at a time while the rest of the platoon covered all likely sniper positions from the tree line. The actual going was slow, taking all day to travel just eight kilometers. But because the platoon had to go from on-line to column and back several times, and moved along the most concealing terrain, Galen estimated the troops had actually walked about twenty five kilometers. Anyway, he was exhausted when Mortinson finally called a halt at sunset.
“Take thirty,” said the Chief, using all channels to send the message to everyone’s personal communicator at the same time. Then Galen heard, “All Sergeants, up front for a meeting.”
Galen waited for Tad to catch up and walked alongside him. “So how do you like that? He walks us to death, and then has us walk up to him.”
“I heard that, dumbass.” Mortinson’s voice.
Galen reached up to the side of his helmet and switched off the microphone of his personal communicator. Tad did the same.
“This sucks. I just hope we actually get to trash some tanks,” said Tad.
“I want to capture one. I’m tired of walking. I got blisters on my big toes and my heels. If it weren’t for this meeting, I’d have treated them by now. But no, we got to walk some more, then walk back to our squads, then probably move out right away.”
“It’s the fault of the striking workers. If I get my hands on one, I’ll beat him senseless.”
They came to the head of the column and sat down in a circle with Chief Mortinson, Spike and Haas. Soon all five of them had their boots off. Haas and Mortinson were just airing their feet but Tad, Galen and Spike were draining blisters.
“Radio listening silence from now on, until you hear different, either from me or Spike or higher. Have all your troops shut off their microphones and switch to command voice.”
They knew why. Radio transmissions could be detected by enemy sensors. However, the mercenaries could yell at each other without being heard by crews inside tanks.
“Regular infantry from Charlie and Bravo Company have cleared the area of enemy dismounts and have put a perimeter around it. But the perimeter is spread thin so there may be a handful of enemy grunts that cold have snuck back in there. If you meet some, attack them immediately and fight to the death. With them and the tanks together, you’re dead meat anyway so you might as well make the most of it.”
Chief Mortinson paused to let his words sink in. “We’re going to link up with second platoon and board their three skimmers. They’ll take us to battalion where we’ll pick up some flamers, one for each troop. Then the skimmers will shuttle us around the area so we can set up our ambush. At about zero two hundred, we go to ground and wait.”
***
Former Lance Sergeant Ching, the self-appointed rebel leader, looked at himself one last time to check his reflection in the mirror to make sure everything was perfect. His brown worker’s jump suit was new, starched and pressed. His hair was neatly trimmed and held in place by styling spray. His thin moustache and goatee beard added a vicious look to his Mandarin features. Although he was only a hundred and sixty centimeters tall, he looked menacing. He had to. He was leading the tank company of the revolution. The clock on the wall said it was midnight, time to go.
Ching stepped from his office into the conference room. The management scum who used to inhabit this part of the tank factory were safely locked away in the local jail.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Glad you all came.”
Eleven men qualified to command tanks looked at him and said “Good morning, Lance Sergeant.”
“We’ll make an aggressive maneuver this morning. I hope we are all up to it. Any questions?”
Eleven Lance Corporals. Not real soldiers, not real tankers, but they would do.
“Yes, I have a question,” asked a tank commander. He was old but his qualifications as a former tank commander overshadowed the shortcoming of old age. So what if he had been dishonorably discharged from the Confederation’s regular army?
“Speak,” said Lance Sergeant Ching.
“Why are we doing this?”
“We do this to make a better life for ourselves and our children and to throw off the oppressive hand of the Confederation. We do this to get better working conditions for our laborers. We want to enjoy more of the fruits of our labors. We also want to have more control over the tanks we build; we want to raise the quality of our craftsmanship so we can have more pride in our work and ourselves. We want control over our local affairs, over the schools our children attend, control of…”
“Not that,” interrupted the old Lance Corporal, “we’re with you on that, brother. I’m asking about this morning’s attack. What do we stand to accomplish?”
“Time. We will buy time. It won’t be long before the Confederation police and military forces come to stamp out our rebellion. They act quickly, but the civil government moves slowly. We must keep the rebellion alive long enough for the politicians to take notice. Our march today will hamper the counterattack of the regular military. By moving west down the valley and taking control of transportation facilities in the seaport city of Chon Gok Op, we will delay our enemy. Perhaps it will slow them down by two or three weeks. That should be enough time to buy us a seat at the bargaining table. Then our leaders can negotiate to get many of our demands met.”
The hodgepodge group of pseudo-tankers looked good enough. Their new jumpsuits had proper insignia and patches on them. A lifetime of hard work made them strong enough. They had enough time in the factory’s battle simulator to make them effective on the field of battle. Ching looked at them again. All the years he spent working in the factory had paid off. He would finally realize his life-long dream of leading a company of tanks in battle. If the Confederation had not thrown him out of the Mandarin Armor Academy, they could have spared themselves all this trouble. No matter, Ching would get his revenge.
“Let’s go!”
The worker-warriors left the conference room and boarded their war machines. This mission would be a one-way trip. Ching would carry the campaign well past its objective. He would march on, alone if he had to, until he reached the planetary capitol. Or until he was killed, the more likely result of the campaign. Regardless, Ching had no intention of living if he lost. Life was too unbearable for him under the Confederation. Change had to come, or else. He locked his cupola shut and performed the startup sequence of his tank. Lights and indicators blinked and glowed. He watched the countdown for the main gun’s gyro stabilization as it blinked with each changing number. Two minutes to go.
“Command lance, check in,” said Ching.
“One, ready in three.”
“Two, ready in two.”
“Three, ready in two.”
“First, are you ready?”
“In three,” said the old Lance Corporal.
“Second?” asked Ching.
“Give me three.” Second lance was led by a former shop foreman. He drove tanks from the main plant to the final de-processing plant for twenty years, before he was promoted to foreman. His gunnery skills were somewhat lacking, but he could hold his own against most of the revolution’s tank commanders. Ching waited a full five minutes. All the blinking lights and indicators calmed down and showed a green status. All the gauges had their needles pointing straight up, a normal reading. The distinctive smell of fresh solder, welding and paint made Ching feel good. Let history say what it will about his company, but at least his
troops had experienced the smell of brand new tanks.
“Follow me.”
Ching led the way. The other three light tanks of the command lance were right behind him. First lance followed, with second lance in the rear. The twelve Wasps moved in a column, rolling out of the factory and through the surrounding town. Well-wishers and gawkers lined the streets to cheer on their heroes. Ching wondered why they were there in the middle of the night.
He turned on the external loud speakers of his Wasp. “People of the revolution, we will smite our enemies. Do not lose faith in our dream, no matter what happens. We will prevail.”
His bravado earned him cheers from the crowd, loud enough for him to hear inside the turret. When the last Wasp was clear of the town, he ordered the Wasp behind him to take the lead. The column accelerated to full speed and Ching challenged his troops to keep up. They did. If there was one thing they needed to do, it was move. Time was of the essence.
***
“What the hell is that?” asked Galen. He stood on a hilltop and peered through his NVGs.
“Let me see,” Chief Mortinson snatched the goggles from Galen and peered into the dark. “Where?”
“Almost due east, sixty klicks away. On the highway by the river.”
“Oh, I think it’s a dozen dumbass Hornets moving down the road at full speed; we’ve got about forty five minutes to switch to plan B.” Plan A had already undergone about fifty changes. Galen didn’t even know a plan B existed.
“What’s plan B?”
“We spread out by the road and lay some charges. We hit ‘em hard, knock off what we can. Then we just play it by ear.” Mortinson thought for a moment then said, “What are you dumbass Sergeants waiting for? Round up your troops and have them ready to mount up on the skimmers. Converge on point six, that’s where they’ll pick you up.”
The three squad leaders found their troops and had them pick up all their gear and all the flamers. Each man carried over sixty kilograms of equipment and trudged a thousand meters to the pickup point.
“Pack mules, that’s all we are. We’ve been stumbling around in the dark for six hours. When will we get to rest?”
“Not until I say so,” Galen told the troop. “Now just shut up and do your job.”
They boarded the skimmers and rode about three kilometers to the edge of the highway. After the skimmers left Chief Mortinson ordered, “Ground your heavy weapons and come over here. Gather round me for a briefing.” The mercenaries left the heavy weapons piled in the drainage ditch. They kept their rifles with them and gathered around their Chief.
“What we got is twelve dumbass Hornets rolling up this road.”
“Wasps,” corrected Spike.
“Oh yeah, Wasps. Light recon tanks. Anyhow, we have nine teams. That means we’ll have to reorganize. Two troops in a team, twelve of them right here. Actually, I’ll put you fifty meters back off the road, concealed in the brush. One rocket launcher, one flamer per team. Sergeants, give up six troops and two Corporals each. Have them stand over here.” Mortinson indicated his left side, pointing at a spot on the ground about fives meters away.
“You dumbasses pair off and go get your heavy weapons. The rest of you, this is what we’ll be doing.” Mortinson studied the group, counted thirteen troops, “You medics take your broke-dicks and get a hundred meters back. You’re my observation post.” The two medics and the two injured mercenaries left.
“Now, us guys, the nine of us.”
“Ten,” interrupted Spike. “Counting you and me, it’s ten.”
“Like I was saying, us ten guys will be the clincher. We hide here under this bridge. When the enemy column of Hornets is spread out along the firing line, our troops will open up with their flamers and rockets. That’s when we get on line across the road, shoulder to shoulder, and start firing the dumbasses up from their behind. We move right along, giving our ambush an ‘L’ shape, pushing the dumbasses from the rear.”
“That’s it?”
“No that ain’t it, dumbass. Then the skimmers come up and close them off from the front. They stay at maximum laser cannon range and trust in the inability of the enemy to shoot straight. Then the Hornets got nowhere to go but into the river.”
“What’s to keep them from stomping our guts out?”
“A little surprise. You’ll see.”
***
Lance Sergeant Ching slowed his pace to tactical speed. His column of Wasps was getting too spread out. He ordered them to close to a thirty meter interval. When they did, he decided to keep the tactical pace for a while longer, to let his warriors get more accustomed to their machines. Then he would bring them back up to full speed.
Time was of the essence. He had to get to Chon Gok Op before the enemy could react. He had to get there before sunrise. All was going well as the tanks crossed a bridge spanning a tributary of the river. Ching watched his monitor, waiting for the last tank to cross the bridge before looking back to his viewport.
“Dismounts on the left, I read ambush,” came the excited call of the old Corporal leading second lance. Ching didn’t believe him, thought maybe he was having a flashback from some long-forgotten battle.
Then the transparent armor covering the viewport of Ching’s cupola lit up with an impossible brightness. Another rocket slammed into his Wasp, followed by the tip of a tongue of flame.
“Return fire, face left and return fire!” ordered Ching.
The old Corporal was already reacting. He fired at the place where a rocket exhaust trail originated, putting his machine gun and laser cannon right in the target. Then he charged.
“I’ll squash you, you grunt!” yelled the old Corporal. A soldier lying prone fired his rifle, squeezing off a round every two seconds, not shifting his aim. The old Corporal ordered his driver to run over the grunt. The tank ran over the rifle-firing soldier and squashed him under the left tread. A bone-jarring explosion rocked the tank, blowing its track off. The same track which had just squashed the soldier. The Wasp tipped sideways and landed on its right side. Its turret turned to the left to protect its laser cannon from damage. The old Corporal was trying to say something that sounded like “Boo-” when he was knocked senseless by the fall. The tank’s driver was dead.
“Get ‘em!” yelled Ching, “We don’t have to take this from a bunch of grunts!”
Another tank gunner hit his mark, scorching an enemy firing position with a laser cannon blast. The tank approached the target area and the commander saw a pitiful sight. One grunt was missing both his legs, and his loyal buddy, missing an arm, gripped his comrade’s collar. Both were face down and covered with blood. The one-armed grunt was vainly trying to drag his buddy away, kicking his legs in an effort to crawl. The Wasp driver pivoted his tank and brought the right tread on line to crush the grunts. When he drove over them, they exploded. The force of the explosion blasted the front of the light tank into the air and flipped its turret away. The tank continued to flip, landed upside down. The turret splashed into the river.
Three more explosions went off before Ching realized what was going on. “Stay on the road, there’s bombs, or mines or something. Stay on the road and return fire.” He checked his HUD display, franticly sorting through menus a more experienced commander would have found useful. Still seven Wasps up and fighting. It would be enough to slug it out with the ambushing grunts. Seven tanks were enough to take Chon Gok Op.
Chapter Eight
Chief Mortinson said, “Told you it would work. Those dumbasses always fall for it.” The Chief and his nine flamer-bearing companions emerged from under the bridge and stood on line across the road.
“Yeah, but who would have thought of stuffing high explosives into the chests of first-aid training mannequins?” said Galen.
“You got to be flexible, Sergeant.”
The ten mercenaries fired on the back of the nearest Wasp, not more than fifty meters away. The heat singed Galen’s eyebrows. The NVGs he wore compensated for the bright fire of
the flames, allowing him to continue to watch the tank. It swiveled its turret and started to pivot-steer its chassis towards them. Galen watched the tank’s rear hull start to glow brighter, heat from the flamers affecting its fusion engine. A split second before the awful machine’s laser cannon came to bear on the mercenaries, Mortinson ordered them to fire again. They did. The heat was too much for the Wasp’s heat sinks. The engine was too hot, registering high enough for the automatic controls to shut it down. The tank’s main gun sagged. The mercenaries ran to its side—not too close, it was hot--to seek cover. From the tank ahead of it on the road.
“Look at this dumbass.” Mortinson pointed at the cupola’s viewport. The tank commander was inside, beating on the transparent armor and making rude hand gestures at the mercenaries. His face was red with rage and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, but his screams couldn’t be heard through the turret’s armor.
“Tad, get him out of there.”
“Yes, Chief.”
Tad laid down his flamer and pulled his entrenching tool from his butt pack. He stuck the edge of the pick end into the edge of the hatch seal, the way he saw the troop doing it in the picture at the armory. He grunted, pulled hard and then POP, the hatch came open. Two Corporals pulled the screaming commander out and ripped off his commo helmet and flak vest. Two more mercenaries slipped disposable handcuffs around his wrists and ankles. Then they slipped another disposable handcuff between the first two, hog-tying the prisoner.
“Leave him lay, he ain’t going nowhere. Let’s go get the next dumbass.”
Tad said, “Chief, I’m a tanker. Should I get control of this machine?’
“Suit yourself, dumbass. Get that driver out. Haas, you drive. How long before you can have it up and running?”
“Two minutes,” said Tad as he put on the helmet and flak vest. He climbed into the turret and examined the heat gauge, “Make that twenty seconds. I’ll be ready in twenty seconds.”
The skimmers arrived. They stayed at maximum range, scoring hit after hit on the tank closest to them. The Wasp’s armor collapsed, melted in on itself from the heat of the skimmer’s laser cannon fire. The skimmers eased forward thirty meters and started taking apart the next tank.
The War for Profit Series Omnibus Page 9
