Come the Revolution - eARC

by Frank Chadwick

  This was a real army moving in, not the militia, not a bunch of yokels pumped up on big talk and then slapped down so hard they’d had enough to last them for the duration. This was trouble, probably terminal trouble.

  “How soon can we expect an attack?” Prayzaat asked.

  We looked around at each other but I was probably the one with the most actual time in service with a combat unit, even if corporal was the pinnacle of my responsibility.

  “They brought in the logistical tail first,” I said, “so the combat troops should be able to jump off fairly soon after they get here. On the other hand, and not to sound too much like a crazy optimist, the uBakai Armed Forces haven’t fought a conventional ground campaign in over a generation. The war with the uZmatanki was mostly fought in space and with surrogate and mercenary forces on the ground. I think the uBakai training is okay, so far as it goes, but it’s slanted mostly toward small-scale internal security missions.”

  “That pretty much sums this operation up too, doesn’t it?” Katranjiev said.

  “Maybe. The thing is, it looks like they’re planning a big coordinated assault from four sides, and they can’t afford another fiasco. It’s got to go off right. I wouldn’t be surprised if they spent some time making absolutely sure everyone was in place and on the same page before they pull the trigger.”

  “From what I have seen in our joint exercises with them,” Prayzaat said, “I am inclined to agree. They could launch an attack as early as sundown, but I think it more likely they will wait until predawn to launch a well-coordinated operation. Do you agree?”

  I realized with a start he was talking to me.

  “Sure.”

  “Commander Zdravkova, what condition are our defensive forces in?”

  “The six line platoons are up to strength, about three hundred fighters mostly equipped with RAGs. Number Six Platoon, that’s the Strikers, is pretty good, mostly combat veterans from before the troubles. The other five have seen an hour of intense combat and come through it smarter than they went in. They can execute very simple tasks. Petar Ivanov has managed to fabricate several hundred two-centimeter grenades, for the launchers integral to most of the RAGs. That’s a capability the opposition hasn’t seen from us before.

  “We have five additional provisional platoons, formed in the last two days, armed mostly with civilian rifles and carbines. They’re more backup security and to keep out infiltrators, and I don’t expect much from them in a hard fight. They don’t have any real training, but they have some experienced people running most of the squads, so I’m hoping they’ll hang together and generate some fire until they start taking casualties. I wouldn’t expect them to last long after that.

  “Behind them we have probably two hundred more security guards armed with pistols, not incorporated into tactical units or actually trained to fight.”

  “You clearly have some familiarity with the military, Commander,” Prayzaat said. “Did you serve?”

  She shrugged. “I was a major in the Judge Advocate General Corps, if that counts. I never carried a weapon, let alone fired one, in uniform. I’ve done some shooting since then.”

  “I see. And what sort of antivehicle weapons do you have? Can you stop a mechanized assault?”

  Zdravkova frowned down at the floor before answering.

  “If they throw a vehicle or two at us to scare us, we can hurt them. If it is a well-coordinated mechanized assault, with dismounted support, and delivered with determination, we cannot stop it.

  “We have about twenty improvised antivehicle launchers Ivanov rigged up. Each one is loaded with twelve long-rod penetrators which are salvoed all at once, propelled by a PLX explosion which will destroy the launcher as well. The twelve penetrators will spread laterally, probably a lot, and I can’t guarantee they’ll hit anything, but they’ll make a lot of smoke and noise.”

  I remembered looking one of those penetrators over this morning in the workshop. The actual launcher looked like a lashed-together mess to me, but I wasn’t very mechanically inclined.

  The core of the launcher was a honeycomb of composite tubes, each holding one of those titanium-tipped long-rod penetrators I’d handled back in Ivanov’s workshop, where I’d also seen them assembling the contraptions. Behind the tubes was a reservoir of PLX and a detonator connected by a long wire to the electronic trigger. There was a sheet of composite armor behind the charge and four more sheets making up the sides of the box. The space in the box between the launch tubes was filled with foamstone, and there were a couple fiber straps around it, holding everything together.

  When the PLX detonated, it would blow the whole thing apart, but the sides and rear would, in theory, contain the explosion long enough for the penetrators to blow out the front, through their launch tubes, and be on their merry way before everything came apart in a giant ball of flame.

  “How do you aim the launchers if they blow themselves up?” Stal asked.

  “We just emplace them pointing down a street, back off with the detonator wire, and when it looks like something’s in the way, light it up. At least that’s the theory. We’ve only test-fired one of them. It didn’t work, but we’re pretty sure we fixed the problem.”

  There was a moment of silence as everyone thought about that.

  “What about gunsleds?” Borro asked. “I saw four of them before crossing the lines.”

  She smiled a gallows smile. “We think we can get a pretty good slant angle of attack by propping some rubble under the front of the launcher.”

  Jesus! I felt the first chill of real physical fear, as opposed to generalized anxiety and dread. They were going to roll right over us. I could see Prayzaat thought the same thing. Katranjiev looked as if he wanted to soil his pants. Stal was as difficult to read as always.

  “We have many civilians to think of,” Prayzaat said. “It may be time to attempt to negotiate a surrender.”

  “What about you?” I asked Prayzaat. “If you throw in the towel, a lot of folks are going to think of that as the end of effective resistance.”

  “It has not rained hard in three days, as I recall,” he said, and I nodded in agreement. It had sprinkled a little bit last night, but it ended almost as soon as it started. “You have opened several shafts to the storm sewers, and the water level should be much lower now. I and my men will try to escape that way. From what Mr. Borro said, there are other pockets of resistance still holding out, yes?”

  “Yes,” Borro said. “One of them is the Black Docks, south of here on the river, a mixed Human and loyalist Varoki enclave. If Sasha was not here, I would have gone there next. But there is a—”

  “I believe we will head in the opposite direction, north, and try to get out of the city,” Prayzaat said, cutting Borro off. He looked down at his desk, although there wasn’t anything there to look at. “It has been an honor serving with you all. I could not ask for a more gallant company with which to share this ordeal, but now I think you should see to obtaining the best terms possible from the Army.”

  “I doubt that is an option,” Borro said. “There is one more thing I have not yet told you.”

  * * *

  The meeting broke up and we all headed back to our people to get things moving. We had a whole lot to do and no time to get it done, but when things get really bad, that’s usually the way. Borro’s last information had been a bombshell, and two of the other Varoki refugees confirmed it. The Army wasn’t making much of a secret of it; uBakai soldiers and militia were openly bragging about it to the locals.

  No surrender. No prisoners. And they weren’t just talking about armed combatants.

  I let the others go their own way and stopped in an alleyway where half a dozen kids were playing with a soccer ball. I looked up at the clear afternoon sky, felt the sun warm my face, listened to the voices of the kids yelling after scoring a goal, probably their last goal ever. What was Marr doing? Was Tweezaa playing soccer somewhere on The’On’s estate? I’d never know.

>   This was it, the finish. This was where it all ended. We had a plan, a way of not going gentle into that good night, a plan that gave some of our people a chance to live, but mostly was just a way to take a lot of our murderers with us.

  The pain of never holding Marr in my arms again and never seeing Tweezaa grow to an adult lanced through me, a sudden physical reaction to loss so intense I bit my lower lip. I should have felt something like that for my unborn son, too, but I didn’t know him. Now I probably never would. I couldn’t miss him as much as the others, but I still felt a burning inside, a mixed-up ache of unfulfilled yearning and regret over a responsibility not discharged.

  I didn’t want him to grow up without a father, like I had, but he’d still have Marr. She was as strong as most men I’d ever know, and she’d do the job for both of us. Hard on her, having to do it alone, but she’d do it. And she’d tell him all about me—the good parts anyway. I guessed my life story could benefit from a little editing. Or maybe he could learn something from my mistakes. Either way, I trusted Marr to sort it out for him. In some ways it would be as good as me being there.

  That gave me some comfort, but only for a minute or so. Then I thought about what that meant.

  If he’d really do as well without me as with me, what good was I? Was I just a sperm donor? If somehow I managed to survive this nightmare, what difference would it make in his life? What would I give him? What would I change?

  Nothing.

  He’d grow up with a good education, enough money to open doors, enough opportunity to follow whatever talents he found in himself, and go as high as a Human could go, but only that high and no higher. I’d gone about as high as a Human could go, and I hadn’t had any of the advantages he’d have, so what good would those advantages do?

  The system was rigged and everyone knew it. We all just made our peace with it, got by as good as we could, and said there was nothing we could do to change it. I’d settled for a place in it for me, and I guess that was my choice. But along the way I’d settled for that place for him, too, and that wasn’t my choice to make.

  I’d spent the last two years worrying about me, about my future, my soul, and all I could come up with was don’t make the same mistakes I made before. Was that it? Sit for the rest of my life at twenty-two and zero and just run the clock out? That was my plan? For what? What difference would it make to anyone? What difference would it make to my son?

  What difference was I going to make?

  “Boss, you okay?”

  I turned and saw Moshe Greenwald, concern on his face. He had five or six gauss pistols in his arms. We’d gotten some from when the line troops got better weapons but we hadn’t distributed all of them yet. This morning we’d decided to.

  I looked down the alleyway.

  “You kids, something’s about to happen, something big. Get on back home, pronto.”

  They looked at me with resentment at first, but then they saw the yellow-orange LOG on my jacket, waved, and took off. Everybody knew LOG, even when they didn’t know it stood for logistics.

  I pulled off the soiled grey arm sling and dropped it into the rest of the trash covering the alley. I flexed my right arm, stretched it over my head. It was stiff, a little sore, but the mobility was satisfactory. They must have pretty good nanites in that Varoki med center. I wiped the tears from my face.

  “I’m fine, Moshe.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You know, I think I really am. Get all the department heads together at the clinic. Ten minutes. We got a nightmare coming and hardly any time to get ready.

  “And give me one of those gauss pistols.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Two hours later I crouched with the troika and a crowd of our troop leaders in the long shadow of a rusty cargo container that smelled of soiled diapers and rotting food. Beyond the shadow, the setting sun turned the tangle of debris and improvised structures soft orange and dull red, like a painting you’d sell to a rich Varoki: a miserable existence scrubbed clean of its despair by cheerful use of color.

  Zdravkova, Katranjiev, Stal, Aurora and I faced the eleven platoon leaders and eleven platoon sergeants of our miniature army. Off to one side my six department heads waited for their own final briefing. Aurora was recording everything, although most of them didn’t know that.

  “Okay,” Zdravkova started, “you know this is how it could have wound up all along, and now here we are. We know from refugee reports that the Army has moved in and that their orders are, ‘No Human Prisoners.’ That means us, and everyone else in Sookagrad.

  “We have two objectives. First, find a way to break out of this pocket. Second, and if that fails, hurt them so badly they’ll think a truce might be worthwhile after all. But your fighters have to understand that we are against the wall. Maybe nobody wants to be a hero. I sure don’t. But today the uBakai Army gives us no choice.

  “So, reserve platoons two-one through two-five have completed their relief-in-place, taken over the defensive perimeter, and assault platoons one-one through one-five are back in their assembly areas. When we break up here you five assault platoon leaders have thirty minutes to brief your squad leaders and get your platoons to their lines of departure. It’s not much, but we need to move fast and hit hard, before the regulars have settled in. Our guess is the militia has effectively stood down in place, now that they think the regulars are here to protect them, and the regulars aren’t expecting any action until they start it. Surprise is our secret weapon. Does everyone understand that?”

  I saw intensity, excitement, and a fair amount of fear in their faces, but I also saw twenty-two heads nod.

  “Here’s the mission: each assault platoon pick a quiet route away from the main barricades, advance in loose column of twos, squads stacked one behind another, with scouts out front and flank. Avoid contact for as long as you can. Get deep, find those regulars, and hit them hard.

  “Trailing squad in each platoon split off and double back to hit the militia roadblocks from behind: plow the road for the reserve platoons and provide rear security for the assault force.

  “Reserve platoons, your main job is perimeter security. But when you hear shooting in front of you, hit the militia as hard as you can. We hit them from both sides, most likely they’ll cave. You’ve got the portable mines. When you move forward and take over the old militia positions, that’s where you place the mines. On their ground, not covering our approaches. Understand?”

  More nodding heads.

  “Assault platoons, show me your flares.”

  The platoon leaders and platoon sergeants of the five assault platoons each held up a hand launcher, designed to fire three yellow flares in succession.

  “Okay. You do whatever damage you can, but you also look for a weak spot, a way out. If you find it, you fire those yellow flares. What do you do if you find an open road?”

  “Fire the yellow flares,” they answered in a ragged chorus.

  “Striker Platoon, I’ll be with you. There may be more than one open road, so we’ll make the decision then, decide where to break out, and we’ll punch straight through. When we make the call, we’ll fire purple flares at the base of the breakout corridor.” She paused and held up her own launcher. “We’ll keep firing them as we move into the corridor, but we only have a few, so keep your eyes open.

  “Assault platoons, when you see our purple flares, or when it gets too hot out there, break off and fall back, passage of lines through the reserve platoons and to the old barricades. Once you make contact with the reserve platoons, you assault platoon leaders are senior, and in local command. Reserve platoons, if the chain of command is disrupted, wait ten minutes and then break off. Fall back and join the assault platoons. Don’t forget to set those remote mines.

  “I’ll try to get runners to you assault platoon leaders when it’s time to collapse the sack and go, but things are going to get very crazy and you may just have to make your own call. Questions?”

  One of th
e platoon sergeants raised her hand and Zdravkova nodded to her.

  “Ammo. Can we get any more? We’re going to burn through our basic load very quickly.”

  Zdravkova turned to me.

  “You’ve got every single magazine we have,” I said, “loaded and charged. When that’s gone, we’re dry.”

  I saw quite of few of them exchange worried looks at that.

  “It works out to every one of your troopers having a magazine in the system and one backup magazine, and then you’ve got a platoon reserve of one more magazine per system. How you want to split that up is your call. But here’s what I’d emphasize to your people: there are a shitload of RAG mags out there where you’re going, all of them compatible with our systems. Snag as many as you can.”

  Zdravkova bobbed her head. “Yes, live off the enemy. Take their ammunition. But also remember, we can’t get bogged down in protracted firefights. Most of the damage we do will come in the first minute or two of contact. Unless the enemy panics and runs, break off and find another spot to hit.

  “What about my reserve platoon?” one of them asked. “Almost every weapon we have is a sporting rifle. Assault rifle magazines aren’t going to do us much good.”

  “If you find RAG magazines, you’ll find RAGs with them,” she said. “Upgrade. Anything else? All right, assault platoons jump off thirty minutes from my mark…now. We’ll meet again on the other side of this. Confusion to the enemy!”

  “Confusion to the enemy!” they chorused, and then they were off, trotting in pairs, each in different directions. They didn’t have a lot of time to spare. I waved my department heads forward and with less precision the six of them moved over and sat or squatted on the ground.

  “Doc, have you got our wounded ready to move?”

  “Those who can move, yes,” Dr. Mahajan answered. “The critical cases will stay, and I’ll be staying along with a med tech and five volunteer orderlies.”

  “I’d rather you came with us.”

  “I know and I appreciate the sentiment, but we’ve been over this. No matter what happens, not everyone will get out. There will be wounded from the fighting as well. My work is here. We just have to hope they exempt the clinic from the no-prisoner order.” She clasped her shoulders with her hands, arms crossed, and shivered, although it was not at all cold.