The massive guns and missiles of the Intrepid’s bombard deck opened up full sending a torrent of projectiles and rockets into the Dominion infantry. A series of explosions ripped through their lines as the Dommies scrambled up the ravine to attempt to escape the fire or dove into the river bed. The Miravallian militia opened fire on the men attempting to move up the ravine, while the rest of the Dommies were decimated by the Intrepid’s bombardment or were buried under rock slides caused by explosives detonating into the ravine walls. Aria’s attack continued as her assault began ripping apart the ranks of Dominion tanks.
“This is Curio Waltz One-Eight-One,” a familiar voice came in over the radio. “Come in, Delito Agave Seven-Seven.”
“Good afternoon, Alex,” Dag replied. “You’ll never guess what I found.”
“One day you’re going to run out of ways to surprise me, brother,” Alex replied. “But that isn’t today.”
“Love to chat, but since we’re taking care of the bad guys on the front door…” Dag led.
“We’ll make sure the back door is shut, don’t you worry,” Alex replied resolutely.
“I wasn’t worried,” Dag lied. “Happy hunting.”
“Thanks,” Alex said. “That’s another one I owe you.”
“Just a drop in the bucket of everything you owe me,” Dag replied as he sat back in the captain’s chair.
“Roger that, brother,” Alex said solemnly as Dag set down the transmitter. “Roger that. Over and out.”
“We’re running low on ammunition,” Aria reported via the internal phone line.
“Expend all remaining,” Dag responded. “We need to obliterate those forces.”
For five minutes, the assault continued in what felt almost certainly like a lifetime to any surviving Dommies amid the burned out hulks of tanks, patches of flaming oil, piles of rubble and fallen rock, and the hundreds of Dommie corpses now lying in the ravine.
“That was everything,” Aria reported. “Bombard deck ammunition is spent. Kryski says that the air-to-air batteries are almost empty as well. The phalanx cannons have rounds left though.”
“Understood,” Dag said. “If there are any Dommies left in the ravine, they’re caught between rubble to the south and the lines to the north. Come on up to the conn.” Turning back to Markov, Dag asked, “You’re certain we can’t make it up to the top of the ravine.”
“The ravine itself is too narrow,” Markov said. “And we would be forced to set down about one hundred feet from the top of the ravine anyway.”
“Alright,” Dag said as Aria and the others joined him in the conn. “Find us a place we can set down where the phalanx cannons could still command the exit from that ravine.”
“Roger that,” Markov said. “There’s a place-” He was interrupted by a warning klaxon and quickly raced over to the radar station. “Oh gods!” he exclaimed. “The dreadnought- it never went down completely. Coming toward us from the west.”
“Get us out of here. Fast,” Dag ordered.
34
“I want seventy-five riflemen to maintain this line,” Captain Beaurigar shouted over the roar of the Intrepid’s weapons. “Pick off any Dommies who try to make it out of that ravine, but accept any surrenders you’re offered. Filo, you’re in charge,” he added to the school teacher who had fought with him at Belten’s Bridge. Even though he was not an experienced soldier, Filo was a bit of an authority figure, and he accepted the assignment with a curt nod. “Tangrit, get that tank and your bombardiers over to that intersection. I want Squads Echelon, Falscey, Getta and Halstaff with me and Tangrit. Everyone else follow Alex into the woods. You know what to do, lieutenant?”
“Roll the flank, pin them down, and let Tangrit and his nephews go to work on them,” Alex replied.
“Make it happen,” Beaurigar ordered.
With that, the remains of the makeshift army left the wounded and the worst armed to hold the line while half of the army followed Captain Beaurigar down the road and the other half followed Alex into the woods. It did not take Alex long to find the Miravallian forces that had been set as sentries in the forest. Many of them had been pushed back, and they were maintaining a loose line of shallowly dug foxholes that ran from the cliffs that dominated the western side of Rainer Ravine to the position Alex had previously fortified at the intersection of the western and main roads. How the position had held up so long, Alex was not certain, until he saw the ferocity that each man in the foxhole attacked with. If the Dommies attempted to assault the center of the formation, the men on the wings raced out of their foxholes, using trees for cover and firing on the enemy flank. When they tried to roll up one of the Miravallian flanks, the men in the center foxholes counter-attacked hard. The bodies of at least a dozen militiamen were visible in the charred woods between the foxholes and wherever the Dommies lurked, just out of visible range in the forest.
The sixty men that Alex had under his command came to a halt as they reached the first foxhole, taking up positions behind tree and fallen logs. Spying Rheinhold, the Harren Falls greengrocer’s son, in the foxhole, Alex gave a fairly good timber hawk impression and got his attention. Keeping low, Rheinhold made his way out of the foxhole and shimmied on his belly until he got to the tree Alex was hiding behind. Carefully, he pulled himself alongside the lieutenant behind the massive trunk.
“There are some snipers out there,” Rheinhold whispered. “What’s going on? I heard a hell of a lot of explosions behind me. Were you forced back into the woods?”
“Long story,” Alex said. “Suffice to say the line is in good shape and we’re launching a counter-offensive. How many Dommies out there?”
“Tough to say, sir,” he responded. “I’d count maybe one hundred about two miles to the north of us. We’ve thinned them out a bit, but if I had to say it- their heart wasn’t in this one. They haven’t yet really tried to drive toward the captain’s position. They were more interested in the intersection.”
Alex immediately saw why the Dommies had been cautious. If they drove too hard through the woods, they put themselves in between two Miravallian forces. They had to make certain the defenders at the ravine had been defeated by the advancing Dominion forces from Rainer Ravine before they could try a strike through the woods, ending with them encircling the battlements that Alex had created.
“Well, if they’re looking to the north, they won’t see us coming from the south,” Alex observed with a wry grin. “Let’s move.”
The Miravallians hurried forward as quickly as possible and they had covered a mile quickly before a rifle shot ripped into one of the men standing next to Alex. “Cover,” the lieutenant ordered quickly as he dove behind a three foot tall boulder as a round ripped off the top of the rock, sparking brightly.
The militia returned fire sporadically as they scrambled to get out of the sniper’s line of fire. Rheinhold was the first to actually try to get a line on the Dommie and brought him down with a well-placed rifle shot. Alex turned to congratulate the young man when a second sniper opened fire and sent a shot Rheinhold’s way. The bullet struck him in the shoulder and he spun around for a moment before falling to the ground. Machine gun fire ripped into the sniper’s position as Alex crawled over to where Rheinhold lay. The gunfire stopped as Alex reached Rheinhold and placed his hands on the bleeding wound.
“Gods damn it,” Rheinhold spat.
“You’re going to be all right,” Alex said as he applied more pressure to the entry and exit wounds and another Miravallian militiaman joined him.
“Sir, I can get him back to the doc,” the militiaman said.
“I can stay and fight,” Rheinhold argued.
“Not with one arm, you can’t,” Alex said. “Keep pressure on the wound and get him back to camp.”
Rheinhold did not look pleased with the decision as he was helped up but did say, “Give them hell, LT,” as he was helped away from the battle.
Two of his men were dead, but Alex realized there was nothing he c
ould do about that now. The dead could be buried later, but now they had to keep moving forward. Once more, Alex and the militia put another mile behind them, but there was no sign of the enemy. A few of the men in foxholes had spotted their force advancing and had left the line to join them, and they too had not seen the Dominion forces.
As they had gotten closer to the Bluffs Road, the cacophony of gunfire and mortars being exchanged by the militia and the Dominion had become increasingly louder, and Alex was becoming concerned. As he pushed them further into the woods, he started to wonder if they had somehow missed the Dominion contingent. Or perhaps the Dommies had fallen back to their position on the road and were digging in for a fight. If that were the case, it would cost a lot of lives in trying to take a fortified position held by several hundred Dominion regulars.
The militia crested a steep hill leading to a dry river bed when Alex spotted a Dommie sentry smoking a cigarette on the top of the next slope. When he saw the Miravallians, he dropped the smoke and raised his weapon, but Alex had all the time he needed to shoot him. The body fell backward, disappearing down the side of another hill, but it was quickly replaced by a dozen more, all armed Dominion soldiers firing down at the Miravallians.
Alex and his men dove into the river bed or threw themselves down at the base of the sharply sloping hill, hoping the angle and their own return fire would keep the Dommies from being able to get a bead on them. The Miravallians attempted to return fire, but several were immediately shot down. Alex resorted to sticking his hand and assault rifle over the river bed that meandered through the woods and squeezing off a few potshots that he hoped were in the general direction of the enemy. He was also kicking himself for falling into so obvious a trap. The Dommies had radios, so they almost certainly knew what had happened in the ravine and that they were about to get attacked.
Dommies were circling around where the hill bottomed out on Alex’s left and right while the men in the center kept the militia pinned down. Another few moments and both wings of the pincer attack would be in the river bed, and they would all be killed. Furiously, Alex leveled his weapon and opened up full, trying to force the Dommies on his right to fall back more than hit them. Much to his surprise, seven of them were suddenly ripped apart by fire and fell to the ground dead. He hadn’t done that, had he? Alex wondered as he looked down to the spent weapon with disbelief.
His internal questions were interrupted by the roar of a cannon and an explosion of dirt, rock and wood from the top of the hill. Over the frenzied sounds of gunfire, Alex now heard another distinctive sound: that of tank treads lumbering through the woods. Tangrit’s vehicle appeared a moment later, plowing through the dry river bed. The tank cannon fired again as the machine gun turret mounted atop the vehicle flashed with nearly continuous fire. Knowing the Dommies had lost their cover from the top of the hill, he jumped up from the river basin and charged to his left, unleashing a savage war cry as he did so. The men of his squads followed suit plowing through the Dominion forces and making their way around the hill the Dominion had held.
The tank quickly caught up with them, continuing its course through the river bed and Alex saw Tangrit pop his head up from the tank’s belly. “Come on Dagenham!” he shouted. “We’re sending them running back to their mothers!”
With a satisfied chuckle, Tangrit slammed the hatch shut and put the tank to full speed. The Dommies were suddenly retreating, running pell-mell back to the north. Alex’s militiamen had formed up around the tank and were sprinting to keep pace with the vehicle. The river bed headed to the northwest, slightly away from where the Dominion was retreating, although it did not prevent Alex from firing haphazardly after them as they fled. He was of half a mind to tell his men to leave the tank and pursue the enemy, when Tangrit suddenly ran over several small saplings and bright sunshine replaced the tree canopy. There was no tree cover just ahead, which meant they had found the road and Alex was willing to bet that they were now behind the Dominion position.
“Make for the treeline!” he bellowed, trying to get the militia’s attention.
Most of them heard him and followed him to the edge of the forest. The Dominion had set themselves in a series of fortifications focused down the hill toward the east, where Captain Beaurigar was now positioned, and the south where Alex and his men were now taking cover in the trees. The Dommies were not dug in strongly, but the infantry was fortified behind earthworks and sandbag daggerheads. There were four mortar positions all facing to the east that were almost certainly preventing Captain Beaurigar from ordering an advance, which was why they were Tangrit’s first targets. The tank’s main cannon roared, destroying each mortar position efficiently as his nephew Banner on the machine gun turret mowed down any infantry trying to assault the vehicle. From his position, Alex could see the Dominion rushing several bombardier units armed with grenade launchers to the rear of their formation, and he immediately shouted for them to be targeted and ordered his men to open fire. Several machine gun nests opened fire into the woods, trying to answer the militia’s attack, but more well-placed tank fire and some hard thrown grenades ended the threat.
With the nearest daggerhead cleared out, Alex raced forward with seven of his men, forced to use just his sidearm as the assault rifle was spent. A new rumble joined the assault as more militia began taking the southerly fortifications for themselves and firing at the camp’s defenders. The second tank, no longer under the threat of mortar fire, had made a mad rush up the road and had crashed straight over the fortifications, forcing frightened Dommies to flee or be crushed under its treads.
Hands started going up at this point, but the battle raged for another two minutes as Beaurigar led a militia charge up the hill that exploited the hole in the Dominion defense. The Dommies, to their credit, met their foe head on for an exceptionally brief bloodbath, but the arrival of Alex’s forces rolling up the flank and the continued assault by the two tanks that were now in the Dominion lines forced a fast surrender out of the remaining Dommies.
A few of the enemy forces escaped into the northern woods and Captain Beaurigar deployed skirmishers, while Alex saw to the disarming and holding of the one hundred and fifty prisoners who had been captured. It took an hour to find enough rope to see them all bound, and in the process of searching, a rather large supply of rum was discovered in the camp quartermaster tent.
The booze was rather quickly disseminated among the ranks, and even though there felt like there was still so much to be done, Alex supposed a little celebration was in order. Somehow, they had taken on the Dominion a second time and although they were battered unto the point of breaking, they remained unbeaten. This time, they had not resorted to hijinks and tomfoolery to pull a victory from the Dommie’s clutches; they had done so on grit, determination and sheer willpower. Maybe with some well-timed skullduggery on Dag’s part, Alex conceded, but the main point was that they had gone toe-to-toe with Dominion regulars for several days and they had held their lines. As such, when Tangrit hopped down from his tank and passed him a half-full bottle of cheap Dominion rum with his one remaining arm, Alex accepted, toasted the victory with his men and took a swig. As an irrepressible grin crossed his face, he raised the bottle high in the air and gave a fierce shout of triumph, which was echoed by the militia throughout the captured enemy camp. Alex took a second drink before passing the bottle back to Tangrit, wishing that Dag would hurry up and get there so they could celebrate the victory together.
35
“Colonel Apeniv! The fire in the magazine has reached the aura diesel reserves and it is evaporating!” a nervous engineer exclaimed. “I have aura gas warnings on three levels! Exodus, engineering and bombard decks are heavily contaminated and the gas is rising!”
“Masks!” the Dominion Skyfleet leader ordered. “Prepare to ventilate!”
The command and control crew of twenty-five raced to yellow emergency boxes adorned with the biohazard signal and yanked them open. The conn’s engineer passed out the mas
ks and tossed one to Colonel Apeniv, who put it over his face quickly. In its liquid state, aura diesel was a mostly harmless, if highly flammable, liquid, but if evaporated by extreme heat, it became a powerful poison and could kill an entire airship crew in a matter of minutes.
“What’s our status?” Apeniv demanded of his conn crew.
“Radar’s down. All scopes still negative on visuals,” one of the crew reported. “There’s too much smoke.”
“Advise damage control teams that I want those fires put out immediately,” Apeniv ordered.
“There might not be anyone there to do so,” Scherkov, the engineer, said. “The aura gas originated there. Even if they are still alive…”
“Fire suppression equipment should keep them safe,” Apeniv said. “Find out their status,” he demanded to his communications officer.
“Engines?” he demanded of Scherkov.
“Turbines are damaged, but position is holding,” he replied. “Maneuvering thruster controls were knocked off line.”
“Can you fix it from here?” Apeniv demanded as he settled back into the captain’s chair.
“Negative, sir,” he said. “But I can fire each one manually to give you some steering, and the main engine is online.”
“Weapons?” he demanded.
“We’re getting no response from the bombard deck, colonel,” the gunnery officer responded. “Air-to-air weapons are online. I just need a target.”
Apeniv ground his teeth together. He did not know how the rats had managed to steal one of his airships, but he was going to make them pay for sending the Sky Wraith and the Vigilance to their doom. He just needed to be able to see and for that he needed the fires put out that were still billowing smoke all around his ship.
“Fire suppression crew reporting, sir,” the communication officer reported. “The entire crew on the engineering deck is dead, but the fires have been put out.”
Guerrilla (The Invasion of Miraval Book 2) Page 17
