Gust Front

by John Ringo

  Now, both sides of the interstate just behind the overpass had been cratered and dug out for fifty meters towards Richmond, creating a shelf in which a platoon of cavalry vehicles crouched with their twenty-five-millimeter cannons pointed northward. They would be able to fire hull-down, protected from most of the Posleen fire, until the Posleen were close enough to be a threat. When the cavalry started taking casualties they could drive away protected by the slight ridge.

  And the wooded patch was lined with two thousand claymore mines.

  Each mine was a narrow curved box, with thin "legs" on the bottom, projections for detonators on the top and the convexly curved front labeled, humorously in the opinion of most military personnel, front towards enemy. The directional antipersonnel mine consisted of a plastic cover encasing a thin metal backstop, a pound of Composition B explosive and seven hundred fifty small metal ball bearings, just a little larger than a standard BB. On detonation the ball bearings would spew out in a cone, tearing apart anything in their path. At fifty meters, the recommended stand-off for maximum effect, the mines were designed to create a zone of total destruction thirty meters wide. Fifty meters was just about the width of the right of way and there was one claymore spaced every two meters, or six feet, for two hundred and fifty meters on either side of the road, on both sides of the interstate. When the daisy-chained mechanical ambush was detonated, nearly a million and a half ball bearings would fill the air, each traveling faster than a rifle bullet.

  "Specialist Rossi," said Mueller, introducing the cav trooper, "this is Amanda Hunt, the lead demolition person for the claymore ambush."

  "Ma'am," said the specialist with a nod of the head and a wave of the hand at his helmet. He knew better than to salute, but wanted to acknowledge her civilian rank.

  "Ms. Hunt is going to go check the demolition circuits." Mueller pointed at the circuit board. "This is the controller for the ambush. One of the things she is going to do is check to make sure none of the detonators have been connected. This is like the claymore clacker, so she would like to take it with her. But she'd have to hook it back up and that takes time. So, you are hereby ordered to remain at this post until personally relieved by Ms. Hunt, understood?"

  "Yes, Sergeant."

  "I've coordinated this with your squad leader and your platoon leader. Now, I don't think that this will happen, but in the event that we are attacked while she is out there, you are to remain at this post until relieved by Ms. Hunt, understood? You are not, I repeat, not to return to your fighting vehicle, but remain here. Understood?"

  "Yes, Sergeant." The trooper was clearly unhappy with the order.

  "In the event that your platoon pulls out before Ms. Hunt returns, you are to destroy the circuit board. Do not attempt to use it, do not let anyone else, not your platoon nor any of the engineers, use it. Understood?"

  "Yes, Sergeant, understood. Why?"

  Mueller smiled. "Because I might be out there, and I don't want any idiot cooking off two thousand claymores because somebody saw a horse run across the road. And if Amanda isn't back, it means that some or most of the detonators are not hooked up. If she makes it back after you destroy the box, she can probably get most of them to detonate anyway.

  "I would order you to stand your post until the Posleen are on you. That would do the same thing, would mean that she and the engineers weren't still trying to hook up claymores. But I'm not going to expect you to remain when your platoon pulls out. You're behind the overpass embankment and the drainage ditch runs right into the fighting position, so even if she doesn't get back when we're taking fire, you can still hold out until the tracks start to move, so stay here until relieved. Understood?"

  "Understood."

  "Repeat it back."

  "I am to remain at this post, letting no one but Ms. Hunt have access to this circuit board, until relieved by Ms. Hunt personally and no other. I will remain under those orders, unless my platoon retreats from its position, at which time I am to destroy the circuit board and retreat with my platoon."

  "Ms. Hunt?"

  "Okay." She looked deeply skeptical. "If I ain't back though, your boss better make damn sure he waits as long as he can."

  As she drove away in her pickup Mueller looked the specialist in the eye.

  "How long you gonna stay?"

  "Till she gets back or the Posleen are swarmin'. I'll get a radio from the track, I'll still be able to call fire right up till then."

  "Right." Mueller looked down at the departing civilian contractors. Their grading work done, they were headed to the next ambush. It would probably be less elaborate than this one, but the Posleen were going to be greeted as many times as possible as they advanced.

  "Any word from the scouts?"

  The cav scout pulled a device out of his thigh cargo pocket and tapped the keypad. The box was the size of an old "brick" cellular phone and had a hand strap on the back for ease of carrying. This was useful, for example, when under fire. The LCD display flashed as he scrolled through options and finally settled on a screen.

  "Nah, the Posleen they're watching are still in some sort of security distribution around their lander. There's some sort of armor indicator, maybe one of their God Kings. But they still don't seem to be moving this way."

  "Nice," said Mueller. "What is it?"

  "You've never seen one?" said the surprised scout.

  Mueller held up his wrist where the GalTech AID was wrapped as a thin bracelet. "I use an AID."

  "Oh, well it's a combination of the IVIS and the ANCD," said the scout, using the military acronyms for the InterVehicle Intelligence System and the Army-Navy Cryptographic Device.

  "So it's both a tactical dispositions locator and a code book?" Mueller asked.

  "Yeah. Your position is broadcast by it to command vehicles that gather the data and pass it on. And you can pull down signals information from the intervehicle network. So, like, if I want to call up that battleship, I just search for . . . what was its name?"

  "The North Carolina."

  "Right." The scout tapped keys for a moment and grimaced. "It doesn't want to give me Navy information. Why the hell do we practice Operational Security when the Posleen don't use the information?" he asked rhetorically.

  "Where's it getting its location data from?"

  "Triangulation from the vehicles. They're getting it from reads off of other vehicles that get hard position data from those position markers that are scattered around. We hit one on the way up here and the guidance system has us just about where we are—sitting under the overpass—so it seems to be working." He tapped the device again. "I can put in a call for fire to the artillery battery that's attached to us, but I can't get up to the Navy."

  "You can do a call for fire?" asked the Special Forces NCO.

  "Yeah, in case it, you know, like drops in the pot." The trooper shook his head. "I hope I don't have to, though. That means the chain of command is down to me, you know? How's that thing work?" he asked, gesturing at the AID.

  "Pretty much the same." Mueller held out his wrist. "AID, battlefield schematic out five miles." A holographic projection of the battlefield in three dimensions appeared in front of the two soldiers. As they watched, units, friend and foe, were sketched in. "A little easier, though."

  The trooper shook his head again. "Why'd you ask me?"

  "I was actually thinking you might say something like, 'Oh, yeah, I heard on the radio. . . .' " Mueller lowered the device and it decided the demonstration was over and switched off the schematic. "Little did I know you were going to pull out your own handy-dandy battlefield computer."

  The trooper smiled. "I really love this thing."

  "What's the brief for the front-line scouts?" asked Mueller, wondering if everyone had gotten the same word. "Are they staying out of sight?"

  "Oh, yeah. They're not gonna stick their dicks in there, man. The quickest damn way to get the Posleen to follow you is attack them."

  "Yeah, it's kind of like le
ading a pig." Mueller felt the glimmerings of an idea.

  "Huh?" asked the urban-raised cavalry specialist.

  "The best way to lead a pig is to poke it in the nose," said the NCO with a distracted smile.

  "Oh. Well, until the colonel says different, we're staying out of sight."

  "Yeah, best thing for it."

  "I thought you'd know that."

  "Why?" asked Mueller, warily.

  "Well, wasn't it a Special Forces team that got shot up on Barwhon?" asked the specialist.

  "Actually, it was a mixed special operations team: some Special Forces, Marines, a SEAL."

  "And they stuck their dicks into a Posleen camp, killed some God Kings and got their butts kicked, right?" the specialist asked archly.

  "More or less."

  "So we don't want to do that, do we, Sergeant?"

  "We didn't want to either," Mueller admitted, grimly.

  "So why did they do it?" asked the scout.

  "We got orders from higher to snatch some Posleen for medical experiments. We didn't exactly like it and we liked the result even less than we thought we were going to. We lost two absolute legends in the special ops community—Sandra Ellsworthy and Arthur Tung—and when we made it back to the Himmit scout we were at Death's door from fatigue and vitamin deficiency."

  "Hold on, by 'we' you mean you were on that team?" asked the cav trooper, his eyes round.

  "Me, Ersin and Mosovich. We were the only survivors."

  "Jesus, sorry, man. I, well, you know . . ."

  "Yeah, you didn't know. It's all right. But the only reason we went into the camp was on orders. The real bitch of it was the whole mission was out of date by the time we did it. They wanted a Posleen to study, but by the time we got back with it there were captured Posleen and frozen Posleen bits out the ass coming in from Diess. Total and complete fuckup."

  Mueller paused, his face hard as he remembered the results of following incompetent orders. The general whose bright idea it had been had never even commented, not even obliquely apologized. Just handed out the medals, tapped them on the shoulders and went on to his next star. "Anyway, the point is, I agree with the scouts staying out of sight." He looked down the road. "AID, how's the installation coming?"

  "Engineers report all claymores installed, all wire run and all blasting caps are in place and ready to be connected. The engineer teams are ready to start connecting the circuits when Ms. Hunt gives the command."

  "Okay, tell the engineer lieutenant to move all the civilians back to the buses and on to the next ambush. What's the status on claymores for that?"

  "Tractor-trailers are unloading them as we speak, however, we have received only seven hundred, since the rest have been diverted to the defenses on U.S. 1 and U.S. 301. If time permits, more will be sent forward when a shipment arrives from the plant. The factory is emptying its storage as fast as it can move the material out."

  "Where's Ersin?"

  "Master Sergeant Ersin is with the forward scouts."

  "Hell. Well, tell him to be careful."

  * * *

  Mark Ersin adjusted the focus on the purely optical binoculars and let out a soft sigh. He and the cavalry scouts with him were wearing ghillie suits, coveralls sewn with dangling fabric strips that made them almost impossible to see against the scrub pine they were nestled in. But Ellsworthy had been wearing a similar suit when she bought it. Up against Posleen sensors, a ghillie suit was cold comfort.

  The Posleen, a God King and about thirty normals, had obviously been left behind as security for the lander. The numbers were far under the normal number of troops associated with a God King, though, and Ersin was nervous about where the rest might be.

  The lander loomed on what had previously been a tobacco farm. A tractor jutted out from under one edge. The God King and normals had begun surveying duties soon after the scouts came on site and, with the exception of the arrival of a small anti-grav tank that was parked on the interstate, no changes had occurred.

  "Three Five Echo Two One, this is Nine Eight Bravo One Seven, authenticate Whiskey Tango, over," came a whisper over the scout's radio.

  "What?"

  "I say again, Three Five Echo Two One, this is Nine Eight Bravo One Seven, authenticate Whiskey Tango, over," the transmission repeated.

  "AID, who is that?" whispered Ersin.

  "Master Sergeant Ersin, that is the Twenty-Ninth Infantry Division's division artillery fire direction center."

  "What? Direct?" asked the NCO, his faintly Eurasian face wrinkling in puzzlement. His nose twitched like a rat sniffing cheese.

  "Yes, Master Sergeant."

  "What's the authentication?"

  "I've got an ANCD here," whispered one of the cav troopers, pulling a box out of his thigh pocket.

  "Don't worry about it," said Ersin.

  "Authentication is Mike."

  Ersin picked up the handset and keyed it. "Niner Eight Bravo One Seven, this is Three Five Echo Two One. Authenticate Mike, over."

  "Echo Two One, require fire mission, over."

  What? "Say again, Bravo One Seven?"

  "Echo Two One, do you have the enemy in sight?"

  "Roger, over."

  "Require fire mission, over."

  Ersin wrinkled his brow and took a deep breath. "Bravo One Seven, this is Echo Two One. Negative, say again, negative. Stay off this net in the future. Out."

  "Echo Two One, this is Bravo Five Nine Actual, over."

  "Okay, AID, who's that?" queried Ersin, angrily.

  "The Division artillery commander."

  "Shit." He thought about it for a moment then keyed the radio anyway. "Bravo Five Nine Actual, this is Echo Two One. Negative fire. I say again, per corps orders, negative fire. Get off my net. Out."

  "Echo Two One, this is Bravo Five Nine. This is an order. Call fire, I say again, call fire, over."

  "AID, contact corps, send these transmissions with explanation. Do it now. Bravo Five Nine, require electronic authentication and link. AID, don't accept the link."

  "I have to. Bravo Five Nine outranks you."

  "Not really, haven't we been transferred to Fleet Strike?"

  "Your team has not been officially transferred yet."

  "Okay, what about divided command authorities? I fall under CONARC, not corps and we are under a corps command not to fire."

  "Most recent orders of a superior officer overrule previous orders. That's Ground Forces General Regulation One Dash One Zero Five. Link confirmed, Posleen positions transmitted." There was a brief pause. "One-Five-Five fire on the way. Your position was noted as well. They are using close support rules as stipulated by doctrine."

  "Goddamnit! Have you contacted corps?"

  "I am unable to contact corps at this time due to message traffic. Material transferred to e-mail and sent to queue."

  "Get me Sergeant Major Mosovich," he snarled at the recalcitrant machine as the sky began to scream.

  * * *

  "He what?" shouted the normally mild-mannered Twelfth Corps commander.

  "General Bernard ordered his artillery to engage the Posleen positions near Virginia 639." The corps operations officer looked like he had taken a drink expecting water and gotten unsweetened lemonade. In a way he had.

  "Send the corps provost to the Twenty-Ninth Infantry Division headquarters. Order him to place General Bernard under arrest for insubordination and disobedience to direct orders. Send General Craig to take command."

  "Craig isn't from the Guard, sir."

  "Fuck 'em. This is the last irresponsible action I am allowing that rat-fuck division command and staff to undertake. Tell George to put a leash on those idiots. Contact Division Arty, tell them that the order is countermanded. Relieve the commander, have him report here, replace him with his XO pending final disposition. Tell the XO he can figure on finding a new home unless he justifies staying in command."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Get me Colonel Abrahamson. He needs to know we may be k
icking off early."

  CHAPTER 42

  There was thirty dead and wounded on the ground we

  wouldn't keep—

  No, there wasn't more than twenty when the front begun

  to go—

  But, Christ! along the line o' flight they cut us up like sheep,

  An' that was all we gained by doin' so!

  We was rotten 'fore we started—we was never disciplined;

  We made it out a favour if an order was obeyed.

  Yes, every little drummer 'ad 'is rights an' wrongs to mind,

  So we had to pay for teachin'—an' we paid!

  An' there ain't no chorus 'ere to give,

  Nor there ain't no band to play;

  But I wish I was dead 'fore I done what I did,

  Or seen what I seed that day!

  —from "That Day"

  Rudyard Kipling

  Dale City, VA, United States of America, Sol III

  0728 EDT October 10th, 2004 ad

  "Does anyone know what the fuck is going on?" asked Specialist Keren, rhetorically.

  "You heard the Pres, so shut up and dig," said Sergeant Herd, but it was without heat. Everyone was confused and uncertain.

  The Fiftieth Infantry Division was a new unit. Its unit colors had been in storage since World War II when it had performed undistinguished service in the Pacific theater. It had nearly participated in the battle of Leyte Gulf. It had performed heroic rear area service during the battle of Tarawa. It had nearly invaded the Japanese mainland and gone down in Army history. Unfortunately, it was only a blip in Army history and an unnoticed blip until the present emergency. And Ground Force personnel had responded appropriately.