Up above them in orbit, Esther knew the gun crews were rushing to get the Tungsicle on the rail, but she needed it now.
“Ralph, let’s make sure we’re on the same page here. As soon as that big boy hits, I want Alpha to push west along the high ground to the north and provide a base of fire across the valley for Charlie. After Alpha comes abreast, I want them both to push west together providing mutual support. Take it to the AA and roll up their flanks.”
“And Bravo?”
“I can’t bring Gill into the fight yet. I want Bravo to follow us in trace, but oriented to the rear. I think they’re going to have their hands full with probes. We’re almost out of arty range, so tell the battery I want them to displace forward in echelon.”
“Out of the city? I don’t think they’ll be too happy with that.”
“I don’t give a shit if they’ll be happy or not. Just get them to do it. They’ll still have their infantry between the AA and them to protect their pampered asses.
“And get Creighton to figure out the best use of the ship. I don’t want the AA to be able to maneuver and mass. I want the Fujiyama to keep their heads down.”
“Roger that. I’m on it.”
Esther studied her display for a moment, trying not to focus on the two new grayed avatars of Charlie Marines that just popped up and keeping her mind on the bigger picture. She couldn’t see anything off-hand that would give the battalion a bigger advantage.
“Wes,” she told the Alpha Company commander, “You’re really going to need to hit them hard. You’ve got to relieve pressure on Charlie, then both of you need to kick some ass.”
“You can count on me, ma’am.”
She knew she didn’t need to call him up and tell him the obvious, but it was almost pathologically impossible for her just to sit back and watch things unfold. But sitting back sometimes was what she had to do if she was going to recognize the bigger issues. She promised herself that she was going to stay off the P2P net and let the commanders fight their companies.
She should inform higher headquarters, though, even if they would be monitoring the fight. She reached into her cargo pocket and pulled out the small hadron communicator, the only one in the battalion. She connected with Sector Command, told the duty officer her intentions, then hung up before some admiral could come on the line to grill her.
“We’ve got increased movement around Bravo,” Captain Montoya said. “I’m now estimating 300-400 fighters.”
“Three to four hundred?” Esther said, surprised. “I thought it was closer to one hundred.”
“That’s what our scanners indicated, colonel. But we’re getting continual updates.”
“Captain Gill already reported increased contact,” Major Kutzman added.
Shit, how did I miss that?
She did a data dump, and there was the message.
“AI, increase the priority of company commander messages to level 1.”
Her AI prioritized all of the data input flowing across the battalion nets, and she’d been focusing on fire support and enemy disposition, but it should have highlighted Captain Gill’s message. She’d been intent on Alpha and Charlie, however, and her AI had that inputted into its algorithm. She needed to look at the entire battalion. Bravo’s only casualties had come from the AA arty, but if the 300 to 400 AA fighters were massing on the company, that would soon change.
“Weapon away. Time to impact two-four-seven seconds,” the Navy lieutenant announced.
Esther started a timer on her display.
“Let Wes and Fred know the countdown,” she told Kutzman.
“Top Yunci, you make sure Captain Gill gets all the fire support she needs. And let me know when the battery starts to displace.”
She looked back at her battle board. Charlie was holding firm, which while it didn’t surprise her, somehow bothered her. Yes, Captain Kingery had a good position around the knoll, but despite the heavy incoming fire, the AA didn’t seem to be advancing.
Maybe they think they Charlie’s about to assault them first and they want hasty positions laid?
The Marines had a reputation of aggressive action, so that wasn’t a too far-fetched guess. If they were digging in, Captain Kingery was just going to have to deal with it.
The mortars! I’ve got to move them!
She started to grab Top Yunci, only to see that the half of the tubes were already displacing. She checked the PP overlay, and she saw that Top had them moving north and to the east side of the valley, just short of the bend. This would let them support all three line companies. Charlie already had four fire missions in the queue, and from their new position, the mortars could execute them.
“One hundred seconds until impact,” Lieutenant Creighton said.
Esther could feel the tension rising, so she ran through all the Marine and militia positions on her display, noting personnel strength, ammo loads, and PICS power reserves.
Wait, the arty hasn’t started displacing, she realized as the data was displayed.
“Top, what’s with the arty? I want them to displace now, not tomorrow.”
“They’ve confirmed, ma’am. Just haven’t begun yet.”
“Keep on them. Bravo’s almost out of their range, and we may need them.”
Esther’s eyes kept straying to the impact point on her display. She felt like she should be doing something, anything, but at the moment, the incoming Tungsicle had her undivided attention.
At 30 seconds, Major Kutzman passed the word to companies for all hands to take cover.
After time almost seemed to hold still, Creighton finally said, “ . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . impact!”
Not that anyone needed him to let them know the big hunk of tungsten had struck the hillside. There was a flash that momentarily blinded every real-view screen in the command trac, immediately followed by a huge jolt that shook the Hot Shot. Three seconds after impact, a low rumble that Esther could feel in her bones swept past them.
Son-of-a-bitch, that’s a heavy hand.
If she could feel it inside an Aardvark, it must have felt like a punch in the gut to the straight-leg infantry out there.
She took a quick look at the personnel overlay. Not one Marine had fallen victim to the Tungsicle, which was a relief. She hoped the same wasn’t true of the Azaad Andolan. She needed to have taken out a significant chunk of their force.
“Come on, Wes,” she muttered when Alpha didn’t immediately start pushing ahead, a moment before the rattle of debris hitting the top of the trac brought her up short.
If she was getting pelted in defilade and 1500 meters away, the Alpha Marines had to be getting much more. As if on cue, one of the Alpha Marine’s avatars switched to light blue. Still, Alpha had to get moving while the AA were in disarray. She was just about to pull up Captain McLamb on the P2P when Lieutenant Weisskopf and the company’s still functioning PICS started forward. A few moments later, the rest of the company began to follow.
On the fire support net, Lieutenant Boston, Alpha’s Weapons Platoon commander was calling in fire on targets as they advanced. With the battalion’s mortars still displacing, only three of the tubes were available, but they were steadily putting out rounds. Between the mortar platoon, Boston’s gun section, and Weisskopf’s PICS, that was some serious firepower paving the way for the company. A moment later, two of Charlie’s M249’s started reaching across the valley to support Alpha as well.
“Keep an eye on ammunition loads,” she told Captain Tranh knowing full well that he was doing just that.
At the moment, Alpha needed the fire, but this was only an early phase in the battle. It was going to be a long and bitter fight, and they were going to need the ammo to fight it. She wasn’t particularly concerned—she had two hardened commercial hovers with tons of rounds each, one with Bravo and one with the militia company—but she still needed to keep abreast of expenditures.
A battle is never “routine,” but for once, thing
s seemed to be progressing as planned. Charlie was holding position, Bravo was in light contact, and Alpha was pushing without serious resistance. Esther wondered where the main concentration of AA was, but by taking the fight to them, she hoped she was keeping the enemy commander back on his or her heels. The Nayi Bharat government wanted to bloody the Azaad Andolan’s noses, and Esther began to hope that the battalion could do that without too much more damage to itself.
And the Gods of War took that moment to remind Esther that they controlled the battlefield, not a mere Marine lieutenant colonel.
Esther’s alarm went off a split second before Captain Montoya shouted out, “There they are!”
Directly in front of Alpha, her display lit up like a Christmas tree. Hundreds, possibly a thousand, AA fighters were revealed. How so many had evaded surveillance, how so many had survived the Tungsicle strike, she didn’t have a clue. For a moment she hoped that the avatars were just a spoof, but from the immediate increase of incoming fire, she knew this was the real deal.
Esther took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself. The forward displacing mortars halted in place and started pumping out rounds, and Creighton was calling for fire from the Mount Fuji, but if the numbers on her display were correct, and if the two forces were so close together, then Alpha was going to have to fight their way out of this.
This just keeps getting better and better.
“They’ve got C20’s,” Montoya said.
The “Crap 20” was considered a poor-man’s combat suit, but despite their nickname, they were pretty decent protection from the lower energy levels of the Mount Fuji’s meson cannons, and they had the weaponry to take out a PICS if they could hit one. One on one, heck, one on three, a PICS Marine would have the advantage, but there were a lot of Crap 20’s out there.
“Increased activity around Bravo,” the Two announced.
Patterns were forming to the east of Bravo, and the battalion combat AI gave it an 82% probability that the company was about to get hit.
“XO, take the fight with Bravo,” she passed on the P2P. “I’ve got my hands full up here.”
By SOP, a bravo command group bird-dogged the alpha command, ready to take over should the alpha get knocked out. But Esther needed him to focus on Captain Gill and Bravo Company for the moment.
“Roger that,” Major Frazier said. “I’m pulling up the militia.”
Esther put him out of her mind, confident that he could handle whatever was happening back there. Her attention was riveted on Alpha Company. Already, three more PICS had been knocked out of action by anti-armor missiles. These weren’t even high-tech missiles—they were simple rockets, actually, but at such close ranges, they were just as deadly as what the Marines had in their arsenal.
As the fighting intensified, Captain McLamb was coolly giving orders as he maneuvered his company to keep from being enveloped. Even with Charlie diverting more and more of its crew-served weapons to support Alpha, it was becoming clear that there were just too many AA fighters, and they were flowing alongside the company’s flanks.
The battalion still had a couple of huge offensive assets. Back on Last Stop, Noah had righteously pointed out that personnel carriers were not just taxis to move Marines around. They were a pretty powerful weapons platform in their own right, and Esther had two of them.
“You ready to rock and roll?” she asked Staff Sergeant Doug Mueller, the armor detachment commander.
The staff sergeant turned from his raised commander’s cupula, bent over, and looked Esther in the eye, telling her, “Damned right, I am! About time!”
“Move forward until you can engage.”
“Ooh-fucking-rah!” the staff sergeant shouted at her before twisting himself back into position.
“I’ve just told Mueller to move the Hot Shot forward to support Wes,” she told the Three who just nodded, holding up a hand to let her know he heard while still speaking to someone on the comms.
With a lurch, the Hot Shot started forward. Esther put the Aardvark out of her mind for the moment, trying to figure out how the fight was unfolding. Alpha was taking a pounding, but the company was holding its own. The AA facing Charlie were still applying pressure but didn’t seem to be ramping up.
Unless they’re holding back and until our focus is only on Alpha . . .
She gave a quick look to Bravo, but the XO and Captain Gill seemed to be handling things for the moment. Not for the first time was she grateful that she had Major Frazier as her XO. It was a blessing to have someone in whom she had 100% confidence.
She checked the time. To her surprise, she saw that 93 minutes had passed since first contact. It seemed more like 15 minutes to her.
The Hot Shot came to a stop, and a moment later, the zip of the chain gun sounded above her like an angry wasp. The 25mm gun packed more than enough punch to take out a Crap 20, but Esther waited in suspense inside the trac until a blast reached her. The Hot Shot’s 70mm smoothbore had spoken. An instant later, on the far side of the valley, an AA Crap 20 ceased to exist, blown to pieces. There was a roar from within the trac—more than a few of the Alpha Command had monitored the shot.
Esther didn’t have a clue as to how the bulk of the AA combat suits had evaded detection, and that was something for Fleet and Corps Intel to figure out after the battle. But once they’d engaged Alpha, the low-tech combat suits were readily visible. The Hot Shot had forty-five 70mm rounds, both anti-armor and anti-personnel, but even the anti-personnel round could take out a Crap 20 with a direct hit. Unlike on a tank, the trac commander was also the main gunner, and Staff Sergeant Mueller was taking shot after shot, each one a kill. On the chain gun, Lance Corporal Addebe was both racking up Crap 20’s as well as stopping in their tracks the AA who were trying to flank Alpha higher up the slope.
“Keep it coming,” Captain McLamb passed on the command net.
“Twenty-eight for twenty-eight,” Sergeant Jones said, her voice filled with both awe and pride.
Even given their advanced technology, that was pretty awesome shooting. Esther started to feel more confident that they could break the assault . . . until the fickle Gods of War started playing again.
There was a loud, earth-shattering boom, and almost immediately, the Hot Shot’s fire-suppression foam filled the compartment. The back hatch fell open, and incoming sunlight revealed a mess of what had been a tightly functioning Alpha Command. Directly opposite of her, Sergeant Jones, or what was left of her, slumped in her seat. Next to her, Captain Montoya groaned, right hand clamped to her side. Half of the bank of displays going down the port side had been destroyed.
“Grab your portables and get out!” the Three shouted, and within seconds, the Alpha Command Marines started scrambling.
“Bravo Command, you’ve got the battalion until further notice,” Esther passed.
Staff Sergeant Mueller bent down and asked, “You OK down there?”
“What happened?” Esther asked.
“Took a SASSY on the port side, Colonel. Adedde’s gone.”
“Can you still fire?”
“I’ve got a round in the breach, but after that, without power, I can’t bring any more up. The chain gun might be OK,” though.
“Fire that round, then get out until we can figure out what to do,” Esther said before turning to see Major Kutzman on the ramp, waiting for her. After a quick glance at Jones’ body, she ran out of the trac.
“Bravo Command’s got the fight, but I want us up and running in five minutes,” she shouted. “Do it now!”
***************
“I’m not sure how much longer we can hold out, Colonel,” Captain McLamb passed thirty minutes later. “Anything you can do to help would really be most appreciated.”
Esther’s mind raced through her options, but they weren’t good. Captain Gill and Bravo were locked in combat, and the militia company was slow in supporting them. Charlie Company was in close combat just 200 meters away, which was one of the reasons why she’d order
ed Alpha to push forward to put flanking fire on the AA attacking Charlie. It looked like that assault, though, had been more a holding action, with the enemy commander hoping to draw Alpha out and expose it.
And Esther had complied. Not even 300 meters away, on the far side of the valley, Alpha was getting hammered.
Around her, Captain Peaslee and Noah had formed a defensive position, and they were already getting probed by AA fighters coming down the hillside. Her command trac was a ruin. Staff Sergeant Mueller, blood staining his right thigh, was on top of the hulk, trying to salvage the chain gun, but she didn’t give that much hope.
“Hang on, Wes. I’ll get you something.”
She checked her display. Alpha was down to 52 effectives, only 22 being PICS Marines. Weisskopf, Boston, and Germaine were KIA, and First Sergeant Khan was WIA. He had Lieutenants Nueng and Bronstein, then Gunny Keating back with his crew-served. Swarming them still had to be 400 or more AA fighters.
“Do you have comms with the Fujiyama, yet?” she shouted at Creighton, who was on the deck ten meters away.
He’d lost his console with the Hot Shot, and his portable had been destroyed. He’d been trying to raise him over his PA.
He gave her a thumbs up and said, “I’ve raised her, and they’re patching me through to fire control. Oh, I have them now!”
“Do we have the cannons yet?”
There was a pause, then, “They’re up and waiting for a fire mission.”
“Wes, we’ve got the Fujiyama back online. Can you break out and pull back? I can light up the area.”
“I don’t think so, Colonel. We’re kind of surrounded.” There was a grunt, then “Just took a hit, damn it.”
His avatar switched to only light blue, so she knew he was still in the fight. She briefly pulled up his feed, just in time to see him drop two charging AA with his M90.
Fuck, they’re all intermixed.
“Look, Wes, you’ve got to give me some separation. I can fry the entire hillside, but you won’t survive it.”
There was a pause, then Captain McLamb passed, “I’m not moving. Can’t really. Leg’s all fucked up.”
Blood United (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 5) Page 20
