by Ralph Peters
Babryshkin's anger continued to rise. It was a sharp, general anger, aimed not only at the fool who had issued such an order but at all of his comrades and countrymen who had brought things to such a pass.
"How do we know it isn't a ruse?" he said, his voice changing pitch with excitement, with bitter vigor. "If we can't call back to verify the order, how do we know it isn't a trick, some sort of imitative deception? It could be the enemy ordering us to pull back. How the hell do we know?"
"The code groups…" the political officer said, "… it was all in code."
"But, for God's sake, we haven't received new code books since… since when? Since we pulled out of Tselinograd. You think the bastards haven't captured any code books?"
"It's a possibility," Lazarsky said matter-of-factly. The debate was of no deep interest to him. His was a world of radios, of antennae and cables, of microwaves and relays.
Gurevich would not respond directly to the question. Instead, he simply said, "The situation… is clearly irregular. But we are not in a position to question authority."
Babryshkin felt the weight of command bearing down upon him. It was important, he knew, to think clearly, to avoid emotionalizing. But he did not want to believe that the Soviet forces had been thrown back all the way to Petropavlovsk, the last major city on the northern edge of Kazakhstan, bordering on Western Siberia — and astride the best east-west lines of communication. The very thought was an admission of defeat, and despite the experience of battlefield failures one after the other, Babryshkin was not ready to admit that he had been beaten. Down in his depths, he believed that the Soviet forces would somehow pull off a miracle, first stemming the enemy advance, then beginning to reverse it. He knew that such imaginings had far more to do with emotion than with any reason or logic. But, just as there were certain thoughts he refused to think about Valya, he could not accept any situation in which these grumbling, spiteful, terribly frightened refugees would simply be abandoned.
"Maxim Antonovich," Babryshkin said to the chief of signals, "try to raise headquarters. Just try it one more time." Then his voice subtly altered its target, not really a conscious change, speaking now to the political officer. "I can't just leave them. We can't just turn our backs and go. And this is a good position. We can fight from here."
Sensing a weakness in Babryshkin's voice, Gurevich attacked. "We need to bear in mind the larger picture. Surely higher headquarters has a plan. We cannot be blinded by local conditions. This is all part of a greater whole. After all, winning the war is ultimately more important than any number of… of…"
"Damnit, what do you think this wars about?" Babryshkin demanded. Again, he gestured toward the miserable parade staggering northward. "It's about them, for God's sake."
But, even as he spoke, he knew he was lying to himself. Guilty of subjectivism, emotionalism. He knew that the war was about greater things: minerals, gas, oil. The riches of Central Asia. And the far greater wealth of Western Siberia beyond.
"Comrade Commander," Gurevich said, slipping into the lecturing tone with which he was so comfortable, "the war… is about the integrity of the Soviet Union. About people, surely. But the state as a collective is greater than individual fates. No one wants to sacrifice a single precious life. But we must bear in mind the greater aim."
You bastard, Babryshkin thought. Walk over and look at them. Let them beg you for a few crackers. Then listen to them curse you. But they're not really cursing you, or me. They're cursing what we represent. The failure at the end of all the promises, at the end of all their sacrifices. Go, damn you. Join that parade for a few minutes.
"I am the commander," Babryshkin said, regaining control of his voice. "The decision rests with me. And I do not accept the validity of the message. I believe it to be an enemy ruse. We will stay in these positions and fight, until we receive a message that can be verified directing us to do otherwise. Or until the position becomes untenable or impractical. Or until I decide it's time to move. Let the decision be on my shoulders."
"Comrade Commander, you're tired. You're not thinking like a true Communist."
Babryshkin almost laughed out loud in his exasperation and weariness. Valya would have said the same thing as Gurevich, he knew. Only she would have put it into different words: You fool, you're throwing away your chances, our chances. You've got to learn to give them what they want.
Valya. He wondered what she was doing at that instant. In Moscow.
"No," Babryshkin said, digging himself in deeper, relishing it, "Comrade Major Political Officer Gurevich, the problem is that I am thinking like a true Communist. You see, the problem is that it's easy to speak like a Communist, and for a hundred years we've all spoken like good Communists. The problem… is with the way we've acted" Babryshkin found himself foolishly waving his protective mask, posturing on the steel soapbox of a tank fender. He caught a glimpse of the absurdity of it all. This was no time for debate. Anyway, Communism meant nothing, and had meant nothing for a generation. It was an empty form, like the rituals of the Byzantine court. At the end of the Gorbachev period, the vocabulary had been revived, to try to fill the frightening emptiness. But the words had no living content.
Babryshkin carefully stuffed the mask into its carrier. "You may try to reach higher headquarters, if you wish, Fyodor Semyonich. But I will not give the order to move until I receive a confirmation."
Suddenly, the southern horizon lit up with flashes far closer than either of them expected. The sound of battle was slow to follow across the steppes, but Babryshkin realized that the enemy had almost reached his outpost line. Perhaps the outposts were already engaged. Or the enemy had caught up with the tail of the refugee column.
The enemy's presence was almost a relief to Babryshkin. After all the waiting. And the false dilemmas of words. Now there was only one thing left to do: fight.
* * *
Even before the booming and pocking noises reached the refugees, the display of light quickened the column. Women screamed. A vehicle accelerated, and Babryshkin realized that a driver was attempting to plow right through the mass.
Babryshkin had learned the temper of the crowds over the weeks. Far from reaching safety, the panicked driver would be dragged from his vehicle and beaten to death.
"Let's go," Babryshkin shouted. "Everyone in position." He raced back to the command tank, a battered T-94 All of the combat vehicles had been dug into the steppe at right angles to the road. Only their weapons showed above the shorn earth. Babryshkin nearly stumbled as he leapt from the collar of soil onto the deck of his vehicle, and he reached out to steady himself on the dark line of the main gun. A moment later he sat, knees skinned, down in the hull. The basic T-94 design, introduced more than two decades earlier, consisted of a tank hull traditional in appearance, but instead of an old-fashioned turret there was merely an elevated gun mount. The tank commander, gunner, and driver all sat in a compartment in the forward hull, scanning through optics and sensors packed into the gun mount. The design allowed for a much smaller target signature, especially in hull defilade, but tank commanders always missed the visual command of the situation their perches up in the old-fashioned turrets had allowed. The situation was especially difficult now since Babryshkin's electro-optics only worked erratically, and Babryshkin was sometimes forced to rely on an old-fashioned periscope. He had meant to swap vehicles, but the work required to remount the command communications sets into a standard tank involved extensive rewiring, and Babryshkin had always found more pressing matters to which to attend. Now he regretted his omission.
Even the acquire-and-fire system, which identified a target and automatically attacked it if the correct parameters were met, had broken down on the command tank. Babryshkin and his gunner were forced to identify targets and fire on them the way tankers had done it more than a generation before. Only a few of the complex acquire-and-fire systems still functioned correctly in the brigade, and Babryshkin had ordered that they be reprogrammed to attack th
e robot reconnaissance vehicles that always preceded the attacks of the best-equipped enemy forces, such as the Iranians or the Arab Legion. The Japanese-built robotic scouts could steer themselves across the terrain, extracting themselves from all but the worst terrain problems into which they might blunder and providing the enemy with a view of his opponent's positions that allowed him to direct his fires with deadly precision. The recon robotics had to be destroyed, even when it meant ignoring the enemy's actual combat vehicles. Babryshkin felt as though he were waging war with broken toys against technological giants.
"All stations," Babryshkin called into the radio mike, wrenching the set up to full power to cut through any local interference, "all stations, this is Volga. Anticipate chemical strike," he said, hoping he was wrong, that they would be spared that horror this time at least. He knew how the road teeming with refugees would look after the engagement if chemicals came into play. Stray rounds did enough damage. "Amur," he continued, "scan for the robot scouts. Lena, all acquire-and-fire systems that remain operational will fight on auto. All other stations, you have the authority to engage as targets are identified. Watch for Dnepr coming in. Don't shoot him up. Dnepr, can you hear me?" he called to the reconnaissance detachment on the outpost line. "What's out there?"
Babryshkin waited. The airwaves hissed and scratched. He did not know very much about the communications equipment in foreign armies, but he doubted that they were still using such old-fashioned radios. Except for the similarly equipped rebel forces, he never heard inadvertent enemy transmissions on his net. The confused, stray voices that occasionally appeared in his headset were almost invariably Russian.
"Volga, this is Dnepr," Senior Lieutenant Shabrin reported in. He was the only reconnaissance officer still alive in the brigade. "Looks like a rebel outfit. No Japanese equipment. No robotics. A mix of T-92s and 94s. Old BMP-5s. Possible forward detachment structure, feeling their way. The firing isn't directed at me. They're shooting up the vehicles in the refugee column."
Shabrin's voice betrayed more than the lieutenant might have hoped. Babryshkin could feel the boy struggling to control his emotions, to do his job as a recon officer. But the unmistakable tension in the voice conjured up images of the rebel forces savaging the helpless civilians.
Fury rose from under Babryshkin's weariness. Rebels. Men who still wore the same cut of uniform as his own, who had sworn the same oath. Who now believed that ethnic differences were sufficient reason to butcher the defenseless.
Babryshkin wanted to move forward, to attack the attackers. But he knew it would be a foolish move. He had no assets to squander on gallantry. In a running fight his men would divert themselves trying not to harm the refugees — while the rebels could devote their full attention to destroying Babryshkin's handful of vehicles. No, the correct action was to wait in the position his men had so laboriously prepared, to block out the suffering, to sacrifice some for the good of the many — was Gurevich right after all? — and to allow the enemy to close the last kilometers, hopefully without detecting his force, coming on until they became visible to the target acquisition systems, until they were silhouetted on the low rolling steppe. Be patient, Babryshkin told himself. Don't think too much.
"Volga, this is Dnepr. Looks like a reinforced battalion. Hard to tell for sure. I'm getting some obscuration from the column, and they're deploying on an oblique. Listen— I don't think they're just taking random shots as they roll along. They seem to be going after the refugees with a purpose. It's hard to see, but I think there are some infantry vehicles in among them already."
Again, Babryshkin could feel the terrible strain in the tired voice from the outpost line. But he could not indulge Shabrin, any more than he could indulge himself.
"Keep your transmissions brief, Dnepr," Babryshkin radioed. "Just send factual data. Out."
He stared into his optics. The horizon dazzled with golden explosions and streams of light. He knew the central Asian rebel units very well. Ill-disciplined, apt to run out of control. That's right, he told himself as coldly as he could, that's right, you bastards. Shoot up your ammunition. Shoot it all up. And I'll be waiting for you.
Still the flashes that kept lifting the skirt of the darkness would not give him any peace. The display insisted that he acknowledge the level of human suffering it implied, and he could not suppress the mental images, no matter how hard he might try. He toyed with the idea of moving out in a broad turning maneuver, taking the unsuspecting rebels in the flank.
No, he told himself. Don't let your emotions take control. You have to wait.
"Dnepr," he called, "this is Volga. I need hard locations. Where are they now?" He realized how difficult the task of pinpointing the enemy was in the steppes, in the dead of night. Even laser-ranging equipment helped only so much — and Shabrin had been forbidden its use, so as not to reveal his position to the enemy's laser detectors. Now Babryshkin was asking a frantic boy to define the exact location of enemy vehicles in a fantastic environment of darkness and fire, while the enemy continued to move.
"How far out are they now?" he demanded. "Over."
"Under ten kilometers from your location," Shabrin responded. Good boy, Babryshkin said under his breath, good boy. Hold yourself together. "I've got them within top-attack missile range from your location," Shabrin continued. But now Babryshkin detected a dangerous wavering in the lieutenant's voice. And, inevitably, the breakdown followed. "It looks like they're driving right through the refugees, running over them… we've got to… to…"
"Dnepr, get yourself under control. Now, damnit." Babryshkin was afraid that the boy would do something rash, perhaps attacking with his handful of reconnaissance vehicles, compromising everything. It was critical to be patient, to wait, to spring the trap at the right moment. Even if he were to open up with his limited supply of top-attack missiles, it would only warn the bulk of the enemy force that there was trouble ahead. And he wanted to get them all, to destroy every last vehicle, every last rebel. He gave no thought to taking prisoners. His unit had not taken any since the war began, and neither, as far as he knew, had the enemy.
"… they're just killing them all," Shabrin reported, almost weeping. "It's a massacre…"
"Dnepr, this is Volga. You are to withdraw from your position at once and rejoin the main body. Move carefully; Do not let them see you. Do you understand me? Over."
"Understood." But the voice that spoke the single word bore a dangerous weight of emotion.
"Move now" Babryshkin said. "You'll get your chance to deal with those bastards. If you fire a single round, you'll just be warning them. Now get moving. Out."
Babryshkin dropped his eyes away from the cowl of his optics. He snorted, sourly amused. One officer wanted him to retreat a hundred kilometers, and five minutes later another one expected him to launch a hasty attack. While he himself was hoping that he could just get off the first rounds in the coming exchange, to hit first and very hard. Still he was glad he was not in Shabrin's position. He was not certain he would even be able to muster as much selfdiscipline as had the lieutenant.
"All stations," Babryshkin spit into the mike, change to combat instructions. Enemy force approximately battalion in size." He hesitated for a moment. They're rebels. No robotic vehicles in evidence. Automatic systems will be placed on fire-lock. No one opens fire until I give the order. I want to make damned sure we get as many of them as possible." He paused, worried about the length of his transmission, even though he knew to direction-finding equipment could locate a broadcast station in a split second, if any intercept systems happened to be in the area. "After Dnepr comes in, no vehicle is to move," he continued. "Any vehicle in movement will be fired upon." He said it forcefully, trying to sound as ruthless as possible to his subordinates. Considering that the rebel equipment was so similar to their own, a running battle would soon degenerate into hopeless confusion and fratricide. The only real difference between his equipment and that of the rebels, he consoled himself, was th
at theirs was apt to be in even worse condition. The central Asians were terrible at maintenance, and Babryshkin expected to have an advantage in functional automatic systems. We can win this one, he thought. "All stations acknowledge in sequence," he concluded.
One by one, the platoon-sized companies and company-sized battalions reported in. As he listened to the litany of call signs, Babryshkin peered out through his optics. He could not help but translate the spectacle of light in the middle distance into terms of human suffering, the destruction of his people, his tribe. Without fully understanding himself, he felt an urge not only to drive forward and kill the other men in uniform, but to continue southward, to kill their wives and children, responding to them in kind, pushing to its inevitable resolution this war between the children of Marx and Lenin.
* * *
Bogged down in their sport with the refugee column, the rebels were slow to advance. Babryshkin's men sat at the ready for hours, watching as the dazzling lines of unleashed weaponry simmered down into the steadier glow of the burning refugee vehicles. Babryshkin could sense the nerves prickling in each of his men. He could feel their torment through the steel walls of the vehicles, through the earthen battlements. They existed in a volatile no-man's-land between exhaustion and rage, aching to act, to do something, even if it proved to be a fatal gesture. They did not think about dying because they no longer thought about living. They hardly existed. But the enemy… the enemy existed more palpably than the frozen earth or the mottled steel hulls of the war machines. The enemy had become the center of the universe.
In the middle of the night, in the hours beyond the clear recognition of time, a furious banging started up on the exterior of Babryshkin's tank. The first thump was so startling in the stillness that Babryshkin thought they had been fired upon and hit. But the force of the blows was on a more human scale. Someone was hammering at the tank with an unidentifiable object, trying to get them to open up.
