The tonsure-haired abbot produced a first aid kit from a pouch on his belt.
“I’m fine,” Elisha protested as she tried to stand up. “I don’t need any help.”
“You’ll sit there and let me tend to you, my child,” Bailey ordered sternly.
“Yes, father,” she muttered.
Alex had to smile. The power of an officer’s orders was nothing compared to those a man of a cloth could issue. “I’ll leave her in your capable hands, abbot,” Alex said as he reloaded his weapon and then moved forward toward the tank.
The tank roared again and again, sending shells to detonate deeper into the woods, its turret rotating down a semi-circular arc as it fired. As he watched it happen, Alex realized what Tangrit was doing. He was purposefully lobbing shells over the heads of the retreating Dommies, creating a wall of conflagration in the woods that the Dommies could not run through. He was forcing them to turn around and fight a tank or flee through an inferno. It was absolutely brilliant and now Alex knew that he just needed a final thrust to end the battle decisively.
Pulling himself onto the tank treads, he got himself up to the point where the turret machine gunner would be able to hear him. “Gunner!” he shouted over the roar of cannon and gunfire.
The gunner turned his head excitedly, a large grin on his face. Alex did not recognize him, but was not certain if anyone should be enjoying war this much. “Yes, sir?” he shouted eagerly.
“Tell Tangrit that I’m taking the men into the woods from the north,” he ordered. “Tell him to concentrate his fire on the southern half of the woods, and then get me some cover fire when Tangrit’s ready for us to move.”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied with another grin.
Alex hopped off the tank and ran over to where the reinforcements were taking cover behind the car that had brought them. None of them were men that he recognized, but he had made himself known enough to just about all of the recruits that they all acknowledged him with a chorus of “LT” and “sir”.
“Get ready, men,” Alex told them. “Once the tank crew is ready, we’re darting into the woods to the north there.” He pointed to where the northern half of the pincer attack had come from. “We’ll cut through the woods in a sickle stroke and Tangrit will take down any of them that try to punch through the woods. All clear?”
He received a chorus of “yes, sirs” in response. Looking back to the tank, Alex could see that the gunner had disappeared, probably to relay his orders to Tangrit. After a moment, he popped his head back out of the tank’s hatch and saluted Alex, before resuming sweeping the forest with machine gun fire.
“That’s it, men,” Alex ordered. “Sprint across the road and take cover once you’re inside the trees. Let’s go!”
They took off at a dead sprint, enemy fire cutting down one of their number before they had made it halfway across the road. The tank answered with murderous fire of its own, and Alex’s squad made their way across the road and into the woods the rest of the way unscathed. In the woods, the air was thick with smoke from the fires burning to the west of them, and there were a few Dommie corpses lying amidst the trees, victims of Elisha’s ceaseless work at the jeep’s swivel gun.
Alex looked to each man of the six remaining members of the squad and said in a loud clear voice, “The Dommies are staggered. Now we deliver the hammer blow. We strike hard and we strike fast. Understood?”
There were shouts of agreement as Alex felt a surge of energy take hold of him. Unleashing a battle cry that his men echoed, he turned away from the tree he had taken cover behind and sprinted through the woods. The squad fell in behind him, racing over fallen logs and trying not to slip on moss covered stones. Alex shot a Dominion soldier that looked like he had been running back away from the fires to the west, a look of complete surprise etched on his face when he saw seven mad Miravallians sprinting toward him.
Shots ripped over Alex’s head from the left, but his men answered with machine gun fire of their own that tore into the trees that two Dommies had been hiding behind. One collapsed to the ground bleeding and the other raised his hands in surrender. One of the Miravallians decked him across the chin with his rifle, knocking him unconscious, as they raced on. They took more and more fire from surviving Dominion troopers, but the soldiers were disorganized and their shots were wild as they tried to hit targets who were sprinting through the woods. The fire of the Miravallians was much more accurate and concentrated, and they left another half dozen bodies in their wake.
Over the crackle of fires blazing on his right and the sounds of war screaming all around him, Alex heard a bellowing voice in the woods directly in front of him. He came to a stop and held up his arm in the air, signaling for the rest of the Miravallians to stop their charge as well.
“Take cover,” Alex hissed as he and the men took position behind trees, stumps, and felled logs in a rough line.
Another Dominion lieutenant was barking orders, telling the dozen or so men around him to hold their position and maintain their cover. He had gotten the force dug in as best as he could in the short amount of time the lieutenant had had. The soldiers looked terrified and their bodies shook with each new explosion that echoed through the woods, often only a few feet from their position. After each salvo, the lieutenant encouraged his men to hold and that they would be fine.
Alex had the feeling that this was last group of Dommies in the woods, as it looked like Tangrit had done a good job of leveling what remained of the woods to the south. They were inches away from winning this battle, but Alex knew that victory could very easily be snatched away from them. A frontal assault against that group was unwise, Alex knew, as though they had the element of surprise, they were outnumbered and the Dominion was ready for an attack. He did have an idea to get them to surrender though.
Setting his machine gun down, Alex grabbed his hunting rifle, placed a few spare rounds into the weapon and locked a round in the firing chamber. Just as another explosion went off in the woods to the south, he sighted and fired, catching the Dominion lieutenant straight through the forehead and splattering his viscera across four of his soldiers. Looks of horror crept into the Dommies who had been closest to the lieutenant. Those who had been looking for words of encouragement after the most recent explosion turned when they did not hear anything and saw what had happened to their leader.
“You’re surrounded!” Alex bellowed at the shocked Dommies. “Throw down your weapons and place your hands on top of your head if you want quarter. Otherwise, the next mortar rounds land on your heads.”
If the lieutenant had still been alive, Alex did not think that the Dommies would have surrendered. However, they were terrified and leaderless, shell-shocked from the explosives that had been going off all around them and completely mystified by the ways that the mountain rats kept coming up with new and inventive ways to defeat them. A dozen tossed rifles came tumbling out of the hands of each man, and twenty-four hands were in the air almost immediately.
Alex turned to the man nearest him and ordered, “Make your way back to the road. Be careful- I don’t want that lunatic gunner shooting you. Advise Tangrit to cease fire and that we’re coming out with prisoners. Tell him to make to the edge of the ravine and fire on anything that starts coming up the road.”
“Yes, sir,” the man answered before scuttling off through the woods.
Alex stood and signaled for the rest of the squad to move forward, keeping his weapon trained on the Dommies in front of him at all times. “Keep those hands in the air or we will kill you,” he announced as they moved forward. “Form two lines, six men apiece, shoulder to shoulder.” The Dommies complied. “Hands on the shoulders of the man in front of you. Men in the front, hands locked behind your heads.” Turning to two of his squad, he added, “Search them for weapons.” For the prisoners’ benefit and wanting to sound as intimidating as possible, he called, “If any of you try anything, we will kill all of you. Is that understood?”
The ca
ptured Dommies nodded as his men went through them removing knives, sidearms and grenades and dropping them in an olive green burlap bag that one of them was carrying. Once they were disarmed, Alex marched them out, his men standing three aside on either side of their prisoners, heading for the road and the exit from the ravine.
When they exited from the woods, Alex started to feel the pitter patter of rain drops falling on his helmet and weapon as he noticed the air had gotten a little bit cooler and the sun had vanished behind a large cloud formation. Abbot Bailey and Elisha were attempting to get the jeep out of the ditch. The engine had apparently not been damaged in the fighting and Bailey was trying to push the vehicle back onto the road while Elisha steered and gunned the accelerator.
“Why didn’t you just have the tank tow it,” he called to Elisha.
“Because you ordered the tank to take position over there, sir,” she called back while pointing to where the road dropped down into the ravine.
Tangrit had moved the tank into position, giving it a commanding view of the ravine below. There was an old beat-up pick-up truck with him that was off-loading another dozen militiamen that he recognized as belonging to Torrace. Leaving the prisoners in the hands of the remaining members of the squad, he jogged over to where the truck was and circled around to the driver’s side.
“You look like ‘ell, Dagenham,” Torrace said as he passed Alex a clay jug.
Alex pulled the cork out of the head and took a swig of some delicious cold water. He had not even realized how parched he was until the water hit his throat. “Thanks, Torrace,” he said as he passed the bottle back.
Torrace declined. “Y’all keep it, ye ken,” he said. “Ye will need it more than I.”
“Thanks,” Alex muttered as he took another swig. “We got some prisoners for you to take back. Do you have any rope?”
“Aye,” he replied.
“Good,” Alex said. “Let’s see if we can get that jeep back on the road and then we’ll tie up the Dommies over there.”
He jumped up into the bed of the truck as Torrace turned around and headed back up the road. It took them about twenty minutes to get the jeep on the road, and by that time, it was raining pretty hard. Smoke was pluming up from the western woods in great white wafts as the rain helped to put out the fires.
“The gods smile on us fer a change,” Torrace said as they tossed the last of the bound up prisoners into the truck bed.
Alex nodded and ordered one of the men whose names he had still not learned to serve as a guard for the prisoners in the truck. He assigned Elisha to the guard duty as well, and she protested vehemently that she wanted to stay and fight.
“You’re welcome to turn right around with Torrace and the next group of fighters he brings down,” he told her and that alone got her to agree to get into the truck. Alex walked Torrace back around to the driver’s side and said in a low voice, “Try to get her to stay in the town until she’s healed.”
“Aye, that’s like to ‘appen,” he said. Once he was into the truck, he snapped his fingers and said, “Almost forgot in all the excitement. Cap’n’s coming down with the next group, close to one hundred men along with supplies and the second tank. Should be ‘ere within the hour, I’d think.”
“Thanks Torrace,” Alex said as slapped the top of the truck and Torrace took off, headed for Harren Falls. He then turned to his squad which had shrunk to four men. “Any of you know how to drive?” he asked.
Only one man raised his hand.
“Alright, you’ve got the duty then,” Alex said. “Get the jeep back to Harren Falls, see if Torrace can make any repairs or rearmament and then start aiding in bringing the militia down from the town.”
“Yes, sir,” he said and saluted.
Alex noticed that Abbot Bailey had gathered the bodies of the fallen Miravallians- Jaxton, Donovan, and several others whose names he had never learned- and was saying prayers over each of them. He beckoned for the three squad members to accompany him as they headed down the slight slope from the road to where Bailey was kneeling.
“Abbot,” Alex said when Bailey did not acknowledge him.
“Give me a moment,” the abbot said. “I’m tending to these men.”
“There’s another in the woods to the east,” Alex said. “His name was Andriq.”
“I shall retrieve him momentarily,” Bailey said.
“I’m placing these men under your command to help you in retrieving the bodies and any equipment that the Dommies dropped on either of the forests,” he said. “Once you’ve done that, they will help you dig graves if you think that’s best.”
“It would be best if we sent their remains to their hometowns,” Bailey said.
“I don’t know when we would be able to do that,” Alex said.
“Very well,” Bailey said as he stood. “Come with me,” he said to the trio of militiamen as he led them into the woods.
Alex headed back toward the tank, which Tangrit was now sitting on top of smoking a cigarette with his one remaining hand. “Nice of you to turn up, specialist,” Alex called up to him.
“Yeah, I thought so too,” the veteran responded as he placed the cigarette in between his teeth and offered his hand down to Alex who took it and allowed himself to be helped up to the top of the tank.
“Nice shooting back there and good thinking, cutting the Dommies retreat through the woods off,” Alex commented as he sat down on the tank’s tread, noticing for the first time just how much every muscle in his body hurt.
“Actually, I was just trying to shoot as many as I could,” Tangrit replied with a smile. “My aim’s just a little off.”
He and Alex shared a laugh as the hatch opened and two more men popped out of the tank. One was the gunner that had struck Alex as being a little mad and the other looked like he could have been the gunner’s twin. They each accepted a smoke from Tangrit and puffed away, blowing smoke rings down at the dozen militia men who had arrived with Torrace and were milling about waiting for direction. Alex knew he had to take command of the men and give them something to do and was just about to do so when Tangrit interrupted his train of thought.
“Just realized I hadn’t introduced you to my sister’s boys- Banner and Balfry,” he said, indicating the gunner and his doppelganger. “The lads apprenticed in a machine shop- helped me get this beast up and running.”
“Good to meet you,” Alex said quietly as he stood and stared down into the ravine.
The vantage point from the top of the tank was incredible and even in the now cloudy and rainy day, he could see for miles all the way to the town of Rainier Ravine. A small tendril of smoke was still swirling up into the sky from the town, and Alex would have sworn that he could even see the drifting silhouettes of Dominion airships, looking no bigger than vultures from this distance.
Tangrit pulled out a pair of binoculars that he had found in the tank and handed them over to Alex. With them at maximum magnification, he could make out metallic wings and hulls through the smoke of what remained of Rainer Ravine. That could not be correct, he thought to himself. He had never seen an airship in person, but on the television, they were always wooden hulled and kept themselves aloft using hot air trapped in massive air bladders. The steel monstrosities that seemed to have a series of spinning propellers keeping the ship aloft were unlike anything he had ever seen. The only comforting notion Alex could take from the new airships was that they were still hovering just over Rainier Ravine, apparently unable to proceed into the canyon because of the narrowness of the walls at that point and unable to circumvent it because it was already operating as high as it could go in the atmosphere.
There was a sudden flash and Alex had to tear the binoculars away from his eyes. For a moment, Alex thought it had been a streak of lightning but then a salvo of mortars struck the walls of the ravine and tore up the road well below them about five hundred yards away. There was another flash and the explosives this time landed shorter. The Dominion airship tried
one last time and managed to hit about four hundred yards away from where the tank was parked, but could get no closer.
“I guess the secret’s out that we’re up here,” Tangrit said. “And that we’ve just spanked another one of their “elite” units.”
Alex put the binoculars back to his eyes. “Well, let’s not start the party yet,” he said as he trained the lenses on the city itself.
Marek had been right- Rainier Ravine had been left in shambles by the Dominion assault, but the road had been left in even worse condition. The New River crisscrossed through the canyon a dozen times on its way through the canyon to the city, and each time it did so, the builders of the road had been forced to build a bridge. Most of those had been destroyed when the Miravallians had fled the city, and now Alex could see tiny Dominion soldiers working on rebuilding the last bridge in the town itself. That still left a handful to repair before they could send their tanks roaring up the ravine, but it would not take them too long. They had to move quickly.
10
Alex had immediately set about coming up with fortifications for their position at the top of the ravine. Everything about the topography of the land worked in their favor. Heading immediately north from Rainer Ravine, the canyon walls were near vertical stretches of sandstone that could not be climbed without the appropriate mountaineering gear, which was not Dominion standard issue.
The road from the Crest had been sent through Rainier Ravine because it was the only truly passable way into the south. Anyone attempting to move north from the flatlands around the city without using the road would encounter dense forest and extremely steep slopes in places. Vehicles could not make it through the forests or up the steeper inclines. Even people would need ropes and climbing gear to make it up to the top of the canyon from the south. No, Alex thought to himself, the Dommies would have to come up the road at them.
The ravine stayed very narrow as well for almost its entire run up to where it flattened out at the higher elevations the Miravallians commanded. About two hundred yards from their position, the slope of the ravine walls leveled enough that it could be stormed up by a decidedly aggressive force. It also broadened at the egress so that if the Dommies made it that far, they would be able to send multiple tanks and divisions at the Miravallians, but Alex believed he could set up his defenses so that they would never make it that far.
Guerrilla (The Invasion of Miraval Book 2) Page 7
