by John Ringo
“I’ll remember that. Thanks.”
“De nada, sir. No offense but we really needed to get laid in.”
“I know. I think the company is really going to need us this time.” The young lieutenant was obviously trying very hard not to look scared. For an officer to look frightened was bad form and also he had been told it was guaranteed to push the troops over into panic in a situation just like this one. Unfortunately he was trying so hard not to look scared that he was looking terrified instead.
“Sir,” said Keren, taking pity on the poor kid. “We’re three klicks behind the line and we’ve got a battalion of line dogs in front of us. What do we have to worry about?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Hell, yes. Want some unsolicited advice, sir?”
“No, but you’re going to give it to me anyway, aren’t you?”
Keren grinned. “Wouldn’t be a specialist if I didn’t. Walk back to the FDC track. Tell Sergeant Ford, who is an asshole and everyone knows is an asshole so they won’t take offense at you, to go to the tracks and make sure that all the .50 calibers have been cleaned, oiled, check head space and timing and get some of the ammo bearers cutting fire lanes for them. Get some mines out, that sort of thing. Pull it out of a book. Then sit there and look regal while you pore over a map you already have memorized. Don’t pace. Sip water from time to time. Make like you’re asleep. Maybe read the manual a few times.”
“And that is supposed to inspire the troops?” The lieutenant gave a tired smile.
“No, but it’s better than watching you run to the latrine every fifteen minutes, sir,” the specialist quipped. “Yeah, the newbies and, hell, even the sergeants are looking kind of light around the gills and they could use the example and some work to take their minds off what’s coming up the road. Act like it’s just another exercise, a nice, cold day in the country.”
“Good suggestions, Specialist. So, why in the hell are you just a specialist?”
“You didn’t hear that, sir?”
“No.”
“I told my last platoon leader his mother was a whore with AIDS who squirted him out in a public toilet and forgot to flush, sir.” He looked momentarily chagrined. “I was kinda drunk at the time. But he really was an asshole,” he finished, as if that completely explained the incident.
“I’ll bet.”
* * *
“Roger, out.”
Captain Robert Brantley carefully hung the microphone back on its clip, settled his Kevlar on his head, adjusted the chinstrap just so, picked up the squad automatic weapon he had appropriated, checked the chamber to ensure it was clear and climbed over the cases of ammunition in the Bradley fighting vehicle and out the troop door. Descending to the loam of the forest floor he caught the eye of his first sergeant and made a circular motion with his arm signaling “rally on me.”
As the sergeant ambled over, the commander took the time to observe the company digging in. At least he watched the few members of the Second platoon who were in view. The order had been clear and, for once, unquestioned. Two-man fighting positions, interlocking fields of fire, M-60E machine gun positions with extra cover, sand-bagged front parapets, everything rikky-tik. Except for a few small points that it was no one’s job but the company commander’s to consider.
“How’s it going?” he asked the first sergeant when he arrived. The first sergeant was a transfer, a large NCO with a beer gut that a few years before would have had him out of the Army. The company commander could have accepted that without qualm — armies had functioned for ages without professional runners being the norm — were he a competent NCO. Unfortunately he was not.
The first sergeant was a nice, quiet simpleton who had apparently risen to his present rank through a series of superiors who were okay with having a nice, quiet simpleton as an NCO. How that had happened in the pre-Posleen Army, Captain Brantley was unsure. The Army he’d left ten years before generally shuffled material like this out by around staff sergeant rank.
“Uh, okay, sir,” the first sergeant said and saluted sloppily. He pulled his BDU blouse down to straighten out the wrinkles and tried to buckle his equipment belt. The maneuver only served to heighten the effect of the beer gut. “Umm, First platoon has most of their people now, but we still ain’t heard from Third. An’ we still ain’t seen any sign of Bravo, so Second doesn’t have anybody out there on their left.”
“How very good. Well, the mortars are finally up and ready to support but they only have two guns. How are the positions coming? And do we have any word on hot chow?”
“Well, we’re not as far along over in First platoon as we are here. And I can’t get the XO on the horn, so I don’t know about chow.”
Captain Brantley refrained from sighing. He remembered his first sergeant in the company he commanded during his last hitch. An NCO who was one of the last with service in Vietnam, he could track a mess section down no matter how “lost” they got and if he did not find the mess section he would get pizza delivered. By helicopter if necessary. Since the time of Wellington, at least, if not Gustavus Adolphus, the importance of a prepared meal before a battle had been highly emphasized. Brantley was not particularly happy going into battle with two-thirds of his company, nobody on his left flank and soldiers who were subsisting on MREs and junk food they had packed along.
“Okay, take the command Hummer. There’s a McDonald’s up at the interstate. Get a hundred and twenty hamburgers and thirty cheeseburgers.” He pulled out his wallet and handed the first sergeant enough cash to cover the purchase. “If they’ll take it, try to give them a chit for the food. If they’re closed, get the makings out of the building. Take Specialist Forrier with you.” He gestured with his chin at the RTO lounging on the troop ramp of the command Bradley. The kid got into enough trouble that he would probably jump at the chance to do a little authorized scrounging.
“If you can’t find any hot food there, keep looking, find a deli, a restaurant, anything. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” The first sergeant looked hangdog. “I don’t want to leave you, Captain. We don’t know when they’ll get here.”
“Just make sure you’re back with some real chow before they do. And make sure you have communications in place; I want to be able to get ahold of you if I need you back here.”
“Yes, sir. Maybe the XO will turn up with some chow.”
“Maybe. Get going, First Sergeant.”
The NCO saluted again and headed for the command Humvee. Give him his due; if you gave him clear instructions he carried them out to the best of his ability. As that headache was placed under control, Captain Brantley saw the Hummer of the battalion commander rolling in through the pine forest.
A tall heavy-bodied officer hopped out of the Humvee before it came to a full stop and strode rapidly towards the waiting company commander. Although he looked about twenty-two, Lieutenant Colonel Hartman was nearly sixty, having retired as a battalion commander in the First Infantry Division in the early ’80s. A solid professional officer, he had taken command of the battalion only four months before and had worked steadily to bring it up to a highly trained level he could be proud of. Unfortunately, the Posleen did not seem to be in favor of giving him the time to correct the unit’s multitude of deficiencies.
As he approached his Alpha Company commander — the only commander he had he considered worth the spit to insult them with — he was rehearsing how to break all the bad news.
“Captain Brantley.”
“Colonel,” the officer said with a nod. “I would offer you a hot cup of coffee, but we seem to have misplaced the mess section.”
“That’s not all we’ve misplaced,” the battalion commander alleged with a patently false grin. “Let’s take a walk.”
When the officers were far enough away from the unit that they could not be overheard, the colonel maneuvered to place Brantley’s back to the soldiers in view. That way they would not be able to see his face when he heard the news.
>
“Okay,” the colonel said without preamble, “there is no good news. None. The bad news is as follows. I know you don’t have Bravo on your left. That’s because there is, effectively, no Bravo Company. There are enough tracks to make up a platoon in Bravo Company’s area of operation. All the others are either lost or hiding. We may be able to find a few more that are simply lost, but most of them are on the run to avoid the battle. They ran, it’s as simple as that. Before the damn battle was even joined.”
He shook his head but did not let the overwhelming sense of shame and anger cloud his features. Even from here he could see the occasional glance from the soldiers digging in and he was not about to let them know how badly they had been screwed.
“Your First platoon has turned up intact intermingled with the Twenty-First Cav and since they’re already there they have been ‘detached’ for the duration as infantry support to the Cav.”
“Oh, shit.” The company commander shook his head and tried not to let the hysterical laughter that was bubbling to the surface overcome him. “Jesus, we are fucked.”
“The battalion trains — including all the spare food, mess section, ammunition, repair units and general logistics — somehow got on the Prince William Parkway and are halfway to Manassas. That’s where breakfast is.”
“I’d be happy to load up and go after it. I mean the whole company.”
“I’m sure you would,” the battalion commander said dryly. “I have seen some consummately fucked-up exercises, but this is arguably the worst.”
“This isn’t an exercise, sir,” said the Alpha commander, all the humor evaporated. A cold wash of chills came over him and his mouth went dry. “Charlie Company?”
“About where you are, effectiveness-wise, with the exception of Captain Lanceman being among the missing.” Something about the commander’s lack of expression seemed to denote a lack of regret at the captain’s absence.
“I put the XO, Lieutenant Sinestre, in charge and he has most of the company, but he is missing his mortars. I sent them Bravo’s mortars and I’m detaching Bravo’s personnel to you as your ‘Third Platoon.’ However, there are two more problems.”
“And they are, sir?”
“The battalion has no reserve, this way, but worse we have no one on our right flank.”
“Where’s Second batt?” the company commander asked, shocked.
“Somewhere around our mess section, thirty miles away near Manassas. That was the location they received to dig in. Brigade is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, so I’m arbitrarily going to extend the battalion. Third batt is on our left, but there’s a divisional boundary on the right. I’ve got the scouts out looking for the Thirty-Third, which is supposed to be out there somewhere, or even the Forty-First. IVIS says there’s no one between here and the Potomac, but I just can’t fathom that. There has to at least be someone around the interstate!”
* * *
“Run that by me again.” Arkady Simosin felt like a half-dead corpse. As many times as he had participated in exercises — from a junior officer leading a tank platoon up through exercises with multiple corps — he had never seen such a tremendous mishmash as had happened during the night. His corps had utterly jumbled units and, apparently, directions and intentions. Now he was finding out just how badly. His staff had assembled to tell him the bad news with the Chief of Staff as official sacrificial lamb.
“As you know, sir, the corps battle plan called for the Forty-First to establish strong positions between the Potomac and the I-95/U.S. 1 area, the Thirty-Third to mass in the area of the roads and the Fiftieth to establish strong positions to the west of the roads, with a cavalry screen to the west and Nineteenth Armor in reserve. This plan was developed on the presumption that the Posleen would drive up the 95/1 axis towards Alexandria.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” snarled the general. His accent went briefly Brooklyn Slavic, always a bad sign. “You said something about the Forty-First being out of position.”
“Badly, sir. The Twenty-First and Fiftieth divisions are the only ones on the correct east-west axis. The Forty-First is set up seven miles to the rear and the Thirty-Third is set up four miles to the rear of where they are supposed to be. We have logistics trains forward of our combat teams and combat units. Currently we have three divisions echeloned instead of massed which is going to invite…”
“Defeat in detail.” Arkady grimaced and glanced at the screen of his PC. “That’s not what this says. It just notes that they are not at full strength.”
“It perceives that a percentage of each unit is in the right location and, given the current chaos, that is their actual axis, General. Unfortunately, most of each division is in the area I just gave you. Those are the locations that they received to set up in or, in some cases, chose to set up in.”
“Okay.” Simosin flogged his tired brain for a solution. “Call the Twenty-First. Tell them to hold in place. If the Posleen make contact they are not to decisively engage but they should try to slow them down. Pull the Fiftieth back to where the Thirty-Third is actually axised. Pull the Forty-First forward to that axis. Get as many units properly joined up as possible in the time allotted along that axis.”
“That will put us almost on the Prince William, General,” noted the G-3. “Well north of the President’s stated intent.”
“North or south of the Prince William?”
“South of it, sir.”
“Good, the President will have to suck it up; having that road at our backs will give us a way to move reinforcements back and forth and to retreat if necessary. Move the corps artillery north of the Occoquan; they’ll be able to range for close support. And move all the logistic elements except ammunition and food north of it too. Tell the division commanders to make their own judgement on where their artillery should be placed. They should know that if it’s north, if those bridges go down their artillery will be out of contact.
“What is the status on the bridges?”
“They’re cored, mined and ready to drop, General,” said the Ninety-Fifth ID Assistant Division Engineer, a major-promotable. As the most senior noncommanding engineer left in the corps, he had been seconded to act as engineering liaison to replace the absent corps engineer. “They will drop them when the last of the units are south and the refugees are north or when the Posleen come into close-contact range.”
“Well, we’ll just have to try and make sure that doesn’t happen. Okay, get to shuffling units. We still have time to straighten this out, people; we just have to keep our heads on straight.”
CHAPTER 43
Near Ladysmith, VA, United States of America, Sol III
0912 EDT October 10th, 2004 ad
The Twenty-Ninth Infantry Division artillery fire was like a slight tap against a hornet’s nest. Slowly at first, practically one at a time, the hornets began to wander out, looking around for whatever had kicked their home.
Ersin held onto the ceiling grab bar and the seat in front of him as the Humvee left the ground for the fifth time, this time striking a streambed with a tremendous splash that threw water over the hood of the all-terrain vehicle. Above him the twenty-five-millimeter chain gun burped. How anyone could expect to hit anything while airborne was beyond him but the gunner in the seat next to him grunted in satisfaction.
“Better get us hull-down, Tom,” the gunner shouted over the howl of the engine as the vehicle dug itself out of the stream. “I got the God King.”
He turned to look at the Special Forces master sergeant on the seat next to him and laughed. “I knew all that time playing Death World was going to come in handy someday!”
Ersin glanced out in time to see the trees behind them begin coming apart under the hammer of Posleen guns. In response the Humvee cornered so hard his clamped hand came loose and he slid across the compartment and slammed into the gunner. The wide stance and advanced traction of the combat vehicle permitted maneuvers that would roll any normal off-road
vehicle.
“Sorry!” he yelled to the gunner as he forced himself back across the seat.
“No problem, Sarge.” The gunner tapped the four-point harness holding him in place. “That’s why we changed out the belts in this thing.” He glanced at his monitor and shook his head. “Nothing in sight.”
“Another klick to the interstate!” shouted the vehicle commander over the howl of the diesel engine. “I told them we’re coming in!”
“Just make damn sure they’re ready to pass us through the lines!” Ersin tapped his AID. “AID, get me Sergeant Mueller.”
“He is standing by, Master Sergeant Ersin.”
“Mueller?”
“Yeah, Ersin. I understand we got company.”
“How’s it coming?”
“We’re hooking up the blasting caps as fast as we can.”
“Well, you got hostiles at about a klick, klick and a half from the IP. Hurry.”
“Roger. We need to keep them from coming down U.S. 1, they’re not as far along.”
“How the hell do we do that?” snapped Ersin.
“Do you know how to lead a pig?” asked Mueller.
“No.”
Mueller explained.
The master sergeant gave a feral smile in return and spared a glance out the back window. The Posleen were not to going to like their reception by Twelfth Corps.
* * *
“You sure about this, Sergeant?” asked the Bradley gunner, as the TOW launcher rotated outward.
“No, but it’s the orders. Edwards,” he continued to the driver, “you be ready to put your foot in it as soon as you get the word.”
“Okee-dokee, Sarge,” said the driver of the Bradley. In sheer nervousness she gunned the throttle.
“Now, Irvine, you gotta…”
“… launch the rocket off-axis. I got it.”
“Hopefully, that way the lander won’t fire right at us. When the Posleen turn this way, we’ll lead them down 632.”
