Paladin of Shadows 4 - Unto the Breach

by John Ringo

  "Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one..." There was a crack of a rifle in the distance and he smiled. "One sniper down."

  * * *

  Lasko had kept up, but barely. And he had been ashamed that Pyotar, from Team Yosif who had taken over as his spotter, had done most of the preparation of the hide. But he had been totally worn out. So worn out all he could carry was his personal rifle and ammunition. It was left to Pyotar to carry the heavier Robar.

  Now, though, he was back in his element. He didn't need the Robar at this range, just the beautiful Mannlicher.

  There were three snipers setting up positions on the hill, probably thinking they were out of sight or range.

  Fools, if the enemy is in range, so are you.

  Of the three, one was taking the most cover, and care, as he prepared his position. He was barely visible behind a rock, rolling more rocks in the way for cover. Really, all that was visible seven hundred and twenty three meters away was his head.

  Stroke, crack.

  Now he had no head.

  * * *

  Chapter Forty-One

  The president looked at the clock on his desk, sighed and picked up his phone.

  "Sarah?" he said, "I do believe it's quitting time."

  "Yes, sir," his administrative assistant replied. "Schedule is now officially clear. No evening meetings."

  "Good, good," he said. "Have a good night. See you tomorrow." He hit the disconnect on the phone and touched another key.

  "Pierson."

  "Ah, Colonel Pierson, I see they tracked you down. Status on the Keldara."

  "They're pinned, sir," Pierson replied. "Predators detected a Chechen blocking force in the pass. The Kildar elected to take a defensive position and hunker down."

  "What?" the president snapped. "That's suicide!"

  "We've been monitoring their communications, sir," Pierson said, uncomfortably. "The Kildar is aware of the correlation of forces but he and Colonel Nielson believe it is possible to ravage the Chechen main force. I presume they believe that will force the blocking force to be committed to the battle. If they can sufficiently damage the main force and the blocking force they have the possibility of slipping out of the noose. Mr. Jenkins' main worry is mortars and other indirect fire and the Predator has been tasked to look for those."

  "That sounds like more of a desperate wish than a plan," the president replied.

  "The reason that they feel that this is, in fact, a plan and not desperation has to do with some fairly high end battle theory, sir," Pierson said. "Do you want me to cover it?"

  "I've got ten minutes free," the president replied. "Can you give me a summary in less than ten minutes?"

  "Yes, sir," Pierson said.

  "Come up."

  * * *

  The colonel had only been in the Oval Office twice before, but he knew the route. When he entered he went to the center of the rug, a presidential seal, and came to a position of attention.

  "Colonel Pierson, reporting as ordered, sir."

  "Would you prefer to sit or stand?" the president asked, waving to a chair.

  "Stand, if I may, sir," Pierson replied, dropping to parade rest.

  "Go."

  "Theory on the psychology and processes of battle has rapidly advanced over the last ten years or so, Mr. President," Pierson began. "Many battles in history had outcomes that defied conventional wisdom. Notable among those are Rourke's Drift, Crecy and Alesia. In each of those cases, numerically inferior units comparable in apparent capability with their opponents were placed in a situation where defeat was, apparently, inevitable. Yet they prevailed. Countervailing these oddities were the much more common experiences where numerically inferior units failed. A well known example of the latter was the Battle of Little Big Horn.

  "Various theories existed over time in classic warfare literature which tried to define the reason for these anomalous outcomes. Most of them came down to sayings: 'On deadly ground, fight.' 'The moral is as the physical by three to one.' And so on. But the mechanism was poorly understood and did not always stand up to tests. At Dieppe, for example, a unit that might have survived under other circumstances was killed or captured. Whereas in the same war, at Bastogne, another unit with comparable correlation of forces survived and beat their larger opponent.

  "Recent theory of the psychology of combat indicates that certain forms of training are synergistic. That is one method of training laid upon other methods, along with a functionality best described as 'esprit', is capable of creating units that have a high 'true' force multiple in combat. A recent example was found during the entry phase of the Iraq war in which a heavy infantry company was cut off and surrounded by the near order of ten times their number. Despite that fact, they were able to not only defeat the attackers but ravage them. They killed nearly three times their number in attackers and suffered a single casualty, he only wounded.

  "Recently, this theoretical form of battle, tentatively called unit form asymmetrical battle, has been used in an ad hoc way notably in Afghanistan. On several occasions our small patrols have been attacked by numerically superior Taliban units. On each of those occasions the small unit was able to not only defeat the numerically superior force but do so with casualties to their attackers that were higher than would normally be expected.

  "It should be noted, here, Mr. President, that all such instances were unintentional. No one in the US Army is willing, at this time, to test the theory in practice. The chance of failure is too high.

  "Theory suggests that there are two sides to the psychology. The first is the psychology of the attacker. Seeing a small unit, trapped, unable to be reinforced and numerically far inferior, the attacker assumes the ability to defeat the unit utterly. They, therefore, press the attack to a much greater degree than would normally be the case. Call it the 'bully' mentality. They can beat up on a group that has been bothering them and anticipate little real difficulty in doing so.

  "The other side, the combat psychology and ability of the defender, is arguably the more important. The defenders must have several conditions to succeed. They must see no possible outcome but utter destruction and universal termination if they lose. Surrender must not be an option. They must have total confidence in their superiority. They must have capable leadership. And last but arguably most important, they must have a level of training that places their combat skills in a multiple over their attacker.

  "In World War II, for example, the Japanese had three of these pre-conditions: unwillingness to surrender, confidence and capable leadership. And during the early phases of the war they were superior in training. Thus they often were able to defeat opponents that were numerically superior. As time went on, however, and the level of training of American and British forces improved, they were unable to effect their earlier successes.

  "Modern Western combat training has been tested and proven to create soldiers that have a combat ability that is unheard of up until recently. Modern American standard infantry soldiers find, localize, engage and destroy targets with a coldness and precision that was unthinkable only twenty years ago. The reasons are complex and involve both new methods of training and certain societally common experiences. But the effect has been proven, repeatedly, to be synergistic and give the individual soldier and unit a combat multiplier over any of our standard opponents on the near order of twelve to one.

  "The Kildar is apparently banking that the combination of prepared defenses, which are normally gamed as being a three to one advantage for the defender, and the combat multiplier of the Keldara over the Chechens, on an order of six to ten to one, will permit him to survive the encounter. And given the psychology of the attacker, that the Chechens will press the attack hard enough that he will not just defeat them but devastate them. That concludes my lecture, Mr. President."

  "Well done," the president said, smiling. "How many times have you given that lecture?"

  "About three, Mr. President," Pierson replied. "I specifically avo
ided words like 'transformative' but I am in a small but growing community that believe that the really 'transformative' aspects of warfare don't lie in the cool gadgets or 'effects based warfare' but in transforming the ability of the individual to bring death and destruction upon the enemies of America, in stressing the training and psychological preparation of the combatant. I was unaware that Colonel Nielson was a fellow traveler but that is apparently the case."

  "So you think this will work?" the president asked.

  "Sir, honestly, I don't know," Pierson admitted, slumping slightly. "Every case in which this sort of thing has worked it has been when units were more prepared and had better support. Even in Rourke's Drift one aspect often overlooked was that it was a supply base. They had virtually unlimited ammunition and were well rested and fed before the battle. The Keldara have been running all night, they haven't had anything to eat in nearly twenty-four hours and they're yellow on ammunition already. That is they are below eighty percent of their standard ammunition load. They have little or no functional indirect or air support; a couple of Hinds just don't do it for the current situation and one of those is down. They also don't have a source of water immediately available; there are two streams nearby but when they are under fire they will be difficult to access. Last, but not least, the Kildar, while capable, is not a trained officer for this sort of engagement. He depends to too great a degree on Nielson's professional input. Nielson, being remote from the situation, inevitably will overlook items of importance. If I were the Chechen commander, I'd set in a ring of heavy weapons and emplacements and starve them for a couple of days. Then I'd attack. Fortunately, with the nature of the Chechen resistance, that is unlikely. They just don't have the cohesion."

  "When will we know?" the president said with a sigh.

  "Sir, I would anticipate that the battle will go on for most of the day," Pierson replied. "That will carry it well into the wee hours of our morning. Either that or, unfortunately, be over swiftly. In which case we will have lost a key ally in the black side of the current war as well as a friend."

  * * *

  Shota was not an expert digger. He just didn't have the mentality to learn the basic tricks of how much to dig up with each shovelful, the better angles to strike, the best way to cut through a root or move a rock so as to not wear himself down.

  However, in his case, it didn't really matter. The guy could hurl a shovelful of the heaviest substance on earth a couple of hundred feet and keep going. Where other Keldara would roll a small rock out of the way, in Shota's case they kept their helmets on; rocks the size of small boulders were likely to go flying by.

  But even the strongest man needs food to work, and Shota was wearing down.

  Mike looked up in surprise as the front wall of the bunker started to disappear, the rocks and dirt flying upwards and to the side. In the case of some of the rocks they were flying nearly to the emplacements fifty yards away.

  When he saw Shota's head start to emerge from the trench he understood.

  A boulder the size of a small suitcase was in the Keldara's way. Unable to budge it with the small entrenching tool, the Keldara grabbed it in both ham-like hands and simply lifted it over his head, tossing it out of the trench. Although more or less rectangular in shape, it rolled ten meters.

  "Hi, Shota," Mike said as the Keldara started hacking at the opening, widening it. "How you doin, man?" Despite the cold the Keldara was stripped to his undershirt and still sweating. He also was covered in dirt. Mike wasn't sure how much of it was getting out of the trench. On the other hand, it was pretty good camouflage.

  "Hungry," Shota replied, tossing the dirt out of the trench in fountains of dust. "Really hungry."

  "We've got some food on the way," Mike said. "Don't know if it will be before or after the first attack. But it's on the way. I held back a package of crackers if that will help?"

  "Food?" the Keldara said, dropping his e-tool.

  "And I've got one bottle of beer left," Mike admitted, pulling out the package of MRE crackers and one of the plastic bottles of beer he'd gotten made and issued for the Keldara beer ration. "Have at it."

  The big Keldara stuffed the crackers in his mouth and washed them down with the beer. The entire bottle disappeared in one swig. Then he belched.

  "Better," Shota said. "Thank you, Kildar."

  "Now head back to your position," Mike said. "Don't fire the rocket until Dmitri or Oleg tell you to."

  "Okay," Shota said. "I go back now."

  "You know," Olga said, "if he was smart, he'd be scary."

  "Yeah," Mike admitted. "Knew a guy like him on the teams, once. But smart. Wasn't as big but I'd swear he was just as strong. And you're right. He was scary. There's a couple of Deltas like that. Big as a house and smart. Those guys are freaks of nature. How are the boys?"

  "Still with us," Olga said. Her arms were red to the elbows with blood. "But they're losing a lot of blood no matter what I do. When can we get them out of here?"

  "Valkyrie, Valkyrie, ETA?"

  "Five mikes, Kildar."

  "Standby." Mike reached down and switched frequencies without looking. "Tiger Three, status?"

  "Looks like a council of war. There are a bunch of guys scattered around on the hills just hanging out. Minimum of fifteen mikes if they move right now. Got some sniper fire. Lasko's picking them off as fast as they get in position, though."

  "Roger, out." Another freq switch. "Valkyrie, Valkyrie, dust-off hot. Position will be marked with yellow smoke."

  "Roger, Kildar. Inbound your position, three mikes."

  "YOSIF!" Mike yelled. Team Yosif had set up secondary positions to either side of the command bunker, a combination final security team and reserve.

  "Yes, Kildar!"

  "Dust-off coming in! I need some bodies!"

  Mike crabbed past the casualties then crawled through the rear exit of the bunker—a narrow passage between the original boulders—and stood up in the area behind. It was on the reverse side of the small hill from the Chechens and, hopefully, out of sight of their snipers. He pulled a yellow smoke grenade off his harness and tossed it to the more-or-less level ground just as he heard the "whop-whop" of the Hind on its way in.

  "Valkyrie, LZ is marked."

  * * *

  "LZ in sight," Tammie replied. "Stella, we taking any fire?"

  "Negative, ma'am," the crewchief replied.

  "Okay, the job is toss the boxes out as fast as possible then load the wounded. I'm not going to stop while you toss, just for the wounded. Got it?"

  "I think I can handle that, ma'am," Stella said, a note of humor in her voice.

  * * *

  Stella Kulcyanov was seventeen, just. She had all the height and musculature of the Kulcyanov Family but was dark of hair and eyes, the latter showing the traces of some Tartar ancestor. Her first experience of a "real world" mission had been sliding down a rope into the offices of an Albanian owned nightclub in Romania, in the midst of a hot firefight. Her job had been to pull every last hard drive in the room in no more than three minutes. She had managed to do it in two minutes and forty-eight seconds, slightly bettering her best time during rehearsals.

  As the Hind slowed while passing over some boulders she released her grip on the spades of the minigun, slid back the troop door and started tossing boxes out of the helicopter. About half of the cargo was ammunition crates which were heavy but nothing compared to hay-bales; she picked up one in either hand and hurled them out the door. The rest were wooden boxes, gifts from the Mothers of the Keldara to their sons. Those, she handled with a bit more care.

  The last thing out the door was a big rubber bag. That was the hardest to maneuver. It had to be rolled and there wasn't a good way to grab it. She finally lay down on the floor and pushed it out with her boots.

  By that time the helo had come to a stop and she scrambled forward to help with the stretchers.

  "We've got it," Yosif said, climbing into the helo. "Hey, Stella. Where's Gre
tchen?"

  "In the Halls," Stella said, looking at the casualty. Ama Ferani had been hit by something that had smashed his leg just above the knee. A tourniquet was on and he wasn't losing much blood but she didn't think he'd keep the leg. "Hit by the bunkers in the pass."

  "Shit," Yosif said, shaking his head. He grabbed the next stretcher and put it in the rack. And the next and the next. Two were walking wounded, Karoly Makanee with a round that had punctured his body armor low on the left side and Pedar Shaynav hit in the upper right arm. The round had hit the brachial artery and he was half unconscious with blood loss. "She was true Keldara."

  "As are you, Yosif," Stella replied. She was already hooking Pedar up to a liter of whole blood. She wasn't sure which of the stretcher casualties, or maybe even Pedar, would need the defibrillator. The Ranger medic had started to explain it and she'd cut him off; she'd seen one before and the instructions were easy enough to read. Compared to circuit diagrams they were comical. "Aer Keldar."