by Mark Rounds
Sokolov stopped to brief Lieutenant Ustinov on the plan. The normally enthusiastic young man looked doubtful, but in the end, he agreed to follow Sokolov and the tank as soon as the breakthrough was secure. His lack of confidence was a somber omen.
Sokolov arrived at the Sherman just in time to see Yosep herding a group of infantry to the vehicle. All the commands were in a whisper, but there was no way to hide the malice in Yosep's voice.
"These are our steadiest troops?" asked an aghast Sokolov as he took Yosep aside.
"They will move when given orders," replied Yosep in a hushed voice. "There will be whole squads who will not follow young Lieutenant Ustinov into the hole we hope to create."
"Very well," said a subdued Sokolov. "Let's get started."
Vicktor mounted the tank. Yosep selected four troopers to ride with him. He kept the remainder of the force with him on foot. The bulk of the tank would provide them cover for the advance.
"Will your wound affect your advance?" asked Vicktor after the troopers were set.
"It is but a scratch," answered Yosep easily. "I have been hurt worse by an overenthusiastic lover."
Vicktor chuckled and some of the other troopers smiled a bit.
"Good," said Vicktor with a smile. He reached forward and tapped the turret of the tank with the butte of his pistol. At that signal, the heavily armored Sherman lurched forward. Yosep and the rest of the squad were easily able to keep up as the tank's engine labored to negotiate the steep grade of the hill.
The noise of the straining tank engine drew considerable attention from the cadet lines. The Sherman Jumbo's armor was equal to the task and even the 75mm anti-tank guns, which were the heaviest weapons the cadets had, did not penetrate the thick frontal armor.
The engine bogged down even further as the tank crested the top of the hill. As it crossed a fallen log, which was the first of the cadet barricades, the tank assumed an extreme upward angle. This maneuver exposed the underside of the tank.
"If any of those cadets are alert," he mused silently, "this is the time they will strike. The soft under belly of the Sherman Jumbo and its rear are the only places the infantry fired panzer fausts can penetrate."
The long moment of vulnerability passed as the tank pancaked down over the top of the log. The smoke began to clear as cadet infantry began to engage. The machine guns of the tank began firing as Sokolov hustled his section off of the tank. He took a glance over the other side of the tank in time to see Yosep leading his section into position. Vicktor grinned, for the huge Krasni was literally carrying one trooper by the scruff of his neck.
"There," thought an exultant Sokolov, "We are on the hill. If Ustinov is even partially successful, they will have to declare this game a draw."
#
"Colonel Ubner," screamed the radio, "the Krasni are moving armor forward!"
"Easy trooper," said Taol in what he hoped was a calming voice. "Who are you and where are the bad guys coming from?"
"This is Tortelli sir," said a marginally calmer voice. "I hear one armored vehicle moving up slowly. I can hear a few infantry sounds as well."
"Good report," said Taol in an attempt to cheer him up. "I'll get back to you."
"Jeffy, you up?" asked Taol after turning the frequency knob to the command net.
"Up, Colonel."
"We have armor supported by infantry moving up the south side of the hill."
"Yes sir, we're already laying in some serious anti-tank fire. The infantry is also firing for effect."
"Good enough," replied Taol, "keep me posted."
"Colonel Ubner, this is Svoboda," said a strained voice after Taol had switched back to our common frequency. "A Sherman Jumbo has breached our line with a small amount of infantry support. There are sounds of a sizeable infantry force behind them. All of our anti-tank weapons have no effect on that monster!"
"Take it easy, Sergeant," said Taol. "Pull back from the immediate area of the Sherman. Leave enough infantry on the flanks to slow the advance of the supporting infantry. I'll take care of the rest."
"You got it sir."
Just then, Taol heard a small explosion followed by several secondary explosions. Before he had a chance to query anyone on radio, Sergeant McIntyre came up on the radio.
"Colonel, Mason's half-track has been hit,” said Sergeant McIntyre, “There are casualties. I don't know how many."
"Fire smoke to obscure the vision of the tank gunner,” said Taol hurriedly, “Then pop smoke at your own location and get out fast."
"Smoke on the way."
Taol heard the anti-tank gun fire once, then twice. The comparative silence of sporadic small arms fire followed. Apparently, that last ploy confused both sides.
"Jeffy, I am going outside," said Taol over the command frequency.
"Hold on sir," came Jeffy’s instant reply. "Relay your plan to Stoltz. She is right there and can carry it out."
"Jeffy, I don't have time to argue,” said Taol as he gathered his gear. “We have less than twenty-five minutes left in the game and the Krasni have committed themselves. I am going to personally lead the counterattack because I will not waste five of those precious minutes communicating my plan."
Taol switched off the radio before Jeffy could reply and grabbed his MP-38. After exiting the command half-track, Taol moved towards Stoltz's fighting hole and jumped in. He surprised her almost as badly as he surprised himself.
"The Krasni have breached our line," began Taol without preamble. "I need you to keep the lead attacking unit from being reinforced. Leave me your panzer faust team and a couple of infantry troopers, I intend to stop the tank."
"That won't leave me enough troopers to effectively counterattack the enemy," said Stoltz.
"I don't want you to counterattack them,” said Taol. “I just need you to delay them as long as possible. Use smoke and grenades to confuse them.”
“If you need more bodies, you can commandeer any headquarters troops you run into, but you must be in position in three minutes. Move through Svoboda's position and collect her if you can. She has been down there once and can help you avoid the mines and trip flares."
"Yes sir," replied Stoltz.
"Oh sergeant, one more thing," Taol said barely concealing a smile.
"What's that?"
"May the FORCE be with you."
She stood dumbfounded for a moment and then broke into a huge grin.
"I see you had a misspent youth also," she quipped with a smile, "and watched far too much holo."
She was gone before Taol could reply. He gathered up the troopers she had left and made his way forward.
Taol’s little band had just reached the secondary line of fox holes when they started to receive machine gun fire from the enemy tank, so they took cover. After a few seconds, it became obvious that this was suppressive fire, and was not being directed at any specific target. Again, they crept forward and set up weapons in some low brush. Just barely visible through the murk was the enemy tank.
"Everybody listen up," whispered Taol once they had got into position. "There is no way we can hurt them when they stay still. We need that tank to maneuver so it will expose areas of thin armor. To get them rolling, we're going to attack them with grenades and the panzer faust. With luck, they will roll forward and present us a shot.
“We have to move fast because Sergeant Stoltz will be in an exposed position in a minute or so. If this tank is too close, she could get squeezed between the Krasni main body and the force on the hill. Questions?"
There were none. Taol pulled a couple of grenades from his harness and watched as the rest did the same. One of the grenades he had chosen was a smoke grenade. Taol intended to toss that one last to cover their withdrawal.
Taol nodded at the panzer faust team who took careful aim and fired. As soon as the panzer faust rocket was away, he pulled the pin on his first grenade and threw. Taol was in the act of priming his second when the panzer faust hit the forward armor of the
tank. He saw the flash when the warhead exploded. As soon as his vision cleared, he saw a blackened spot on the forward hull of the tank. The vehicle was not damaged in any other way.
The main gun of the vehicle began slewing toward the cadets and the machine gun mounted in the hull began firing into their position. If that wasn't enough, the infantry supporting the tank began firing in their direction. Haloran's troops on one side and Svoboda's on the other began to reassert their numerical superiority when the attention of the tank was diverted elsewhere and soon the supporting infantry took cover and ceased firing.
It was obvious that Taol’s command group had overstayed it’s welcome. A couple of high explosive rounds from the 75mm weapon on the Sherman and the bushes they had taken cover in would be an inferno so he threw his smoke grenade forward and motioned to the troopers to withdraw. Hopefully, this little probe would cause the tank to move forward. Otherwise they would have to try again.
Chapter XXII
Stoltz and eight troopers slipped over the brow of the hill. Sergeant Svoboda was in the lead, pointing out the booby traps she had left behind on her last trip through paradise. They were working their way into a blocking position between the tank and the Krasni main body.
Suddenly, Svoboda made a violent downward gesture with her hands indicating that her squad should take cover. Stoltz's reaction force instantly blended into the brush. Their actions were not a second too soon, for out of the fog of war came the first part of the Krasni effort to reinforce the troops on the hill. They were moving forward slowly, crawling across the earth like a grotesque parody of army ants on the march.
Svoboda and Stoltz slipped smoke grenades from their harness and let fly. The smoke obscured their vision, but they were able to hear the Krasni get off the ground and begin moving toward them. The last game of the match had been joined.
#
Ustinov watched the tank crest the top of the hill amidst a hailstorm of incoming fire. Incredibly, none of the Colonel's troops were injured. This gave the young officer's morale a shot in the arm. He began to organize what troopers he was able to actually see and touch. He managed to gather twenty-two troopers for the assault on the hill. This was considerably less than was available at the start and Ustinov was sure most of them were not injured. Still, twenty-two troopers plus the Hellcat and a couple of half-tracks could make quite an impression, coming on the heels of the Sherman.
Tragedy struck almost as soon they moved out. One of the remaining half-tracks was the target of at least a dozen incoming hand grenades. Two of them landed in the cargo area of the infantry carrier, killing the gunner and rendering the vehicle useless. Ustinov loaded it up with wounded and sent it back after the fire storm abated.
With much coercing and persuading, he got the unit moving slowly forward, low crawling over the intervening twenty meters. Smoke blossomed from grenades tossed ahead of their positions. Thinking this smoke was been laid down by his commander, Ustinov got his force on their feet and began running to get to the top of the hill.
As soon as the Kransi force entered the smoke, they received accurate, close in automatic weapons fire. Several troopers were hit and the entire force began hugging the ground.
The open topped Hellcat did not fare even that well. Several grenades were thrown in its direction. Two of them managed to land inside the turret. The vehicle commander handily caught one of them and flipped it harmlessly over the side. The other hit the floor of the turret. The gunner saw it in time to duck behind the breech of the main gun.
The blast caught the commander and the assistant gunner who were standing upright and killed them both instantly. The driver of the vehicle was startled by the blast and brought the tank destroyer to a full stop.
"How could the enemy possibly attack us here?" thought a shocked Ustinov. "Maybe Sokolov and the Sherman do not have as tight a control on the hilltop as I thought."
Ustinov looked around. With the exception of the half a dozen troopers in his immediate vicinity, the rest of his force was inching back down the hill. With less than two dozen minutes left to play, he knew they were out of the game for the duration.
There was the sound of battle at the top of the hill. The blast of the Sherman's main gun was obvious. More disturbing were the sounds of many smaller explosions mixed in with the high volume of small arms fire.
There seemed to be only a few Krasni troopers that he could motivate enough to move up the hill. Mindful of Sokolov's warning that this was not a "patriotic" war but one of economics, the young lieutenant hung his head and gave the order to retreat.
#
Taol and his troops got out of the bush they were hiding in not a moment too soon, for a 75mm high explosive shell from the Sherman tank along with numerous heavy machine gun slugs passed through the space where they used to be. It was also obvious that the team had motivated the Krasni to move forward and to follow them. Now all they had to do was destroy that tank.
Taol’s little fire team hustled back to the secondary line of defense and collapsed into a couple of fox holes. Heavy machine gun fire from the Sherman's hull mounted weapon and its coaxial machine gun dug up clods of dirt and scattered them all over. Every time they tried to look over the lip of the fox hole, they were greeted with a burst of machine gun fire. This improved their reaction times immensely but didn't help to destroy the enemy vehicle. The tank began moving again. Taol and his troopers were able to look a little longer now, since the Krasni tank was rolling, as apparently, they couldn't see as well when they were on the move and buttoned up.
Then Taol saw something that made his heart flutter. As the Krasni tank attempted to climb the log barricade built by Haloran and her crew, a good deal of the tank's vulnerable underbelly was exposed. The moment was lost as the Sherman slid backwards off of the rolling logs that made up the barrier.
As soon as the armored behemoth stopped sliding, it began to move forward. The row of fallen logs was now considerably smaller because several of the timbers had tumbled to the side from the initial impact of the tank's treads.
Unfortunately, the trooper with the panzer faust was in the other hole. Taol sneaked a quick peek in that direction and saw to his horror that both troopers in that hole were hunkered down and not watching the tank move forward.
"The underside of that tank will be visible for a couple of seconds at most," Taol thought rapidly to himself.
Before he could give himself a chance to think about it, Taol jumped up and began running for the other hole which was only seven or eight meters distant. The Krasni tank came to a full stop and began firing both machine guns at him. Dirt and dust jumped all around Taol, just like in the old holo videos he used to watch. Unlike the old videos, they were getting closer and closer as the Krasni gunners at last had a decent target to fire at.
Suddenly, Taol felt a hot poker go through his calf and another through the fleshy part of his rear end. The impact knocked him off balance and he fell. When he hit the ground, Taol had enough sense to keep tumbling, allowing him to fall into the other fox hole. He hit the two other troopers pretty hard, but it did get their attention.
"Shoot the tank!" shouted Taol.
On reflection Taol thought that it wasn’t his brightest line, but it got the message across.
While he lay on the bottom of the fox hole, Taol heard the whoosh an anti-tank rocket makes as it leaves the launcher, and because he was on his back, Taol was momentarily blinded by the back blast. The range was only fifty meters, so the impact followed very quickly. They heard the muffled thump of the shaped charge which made up the warhead of the rocket. There was a long second or two when Taol, who couldn’t see the target, despaired and thought they had missed. The silence was followed by several loud secondary explosions as the tanks internal store of ammunition cooked off.
By then Taol’s vision had cleared enough to allow the world to come back in view. The anti-tank team was cheering, and after a couple of seconds, they helped Taol up to see for himself.
The panzer faust had punched a neat hole in the underside of the tank. All of the hatches were blown off the top side of the vehicle. Various parts of the behemoth were scattered over most of the field of view. The troopers in the fox hole were joined by the rest of the detachment on the hill. They were a little out of control and Taol had to remind them he was wounded.
They had just started to do some serious first aid when Taol heard one of the Refs’ drones. It dropped its camouflage field and became visible a meter in front of Taol. The drone projected a hologram less than a meter high of the head and shoulders of one of the Refs.
"Colonel Ubner, Colonel Sokolov has asked to negotiate a settlement," he said formally.
"What terms does he offer?" Taol asked as he stalled for time to allow his head to clear.
"He offers a draw."
A draw meant both sides would split all prizes. They would each reclaim their damaged equipment and go their merry way. That stuck in Taol’s craw a bit. They had destroyed most of Sokolov’s armor and killed a lot more of his troops. This was no draw.
"Tell him we will fight on," said Taol immediately.
There was perhaps thirty seconds of silence while the message was being relayed.
"Colonel Sokolov suggests that we declare a thirty-minute time out to discuss terms."
In thirty minutes Sokolov’s subordinates could easily rally the remnants of the Krasni forces for one last push. With his current foothold on the hill top, that could be a near thing. As there was only about fifteen minutes left in the game, Taol thought a thirty minute time out was excessive. Still, if the Condor Legion could negotiate a settlement, they could stop the battle and the potential loss of friend and foe.
"If he can get to my location in two minutes, I'll give him ten," said Taol. His leg had begun to hurt and he was getting cross.
