5 - 1
BATTLE I
“War is a social phenomenon. In its essence, it is a dynamic of competitive human interaction. Humans interact with each other in ways that are fundamentally different from the way a scientist controls reagents or calculates formulas. These same interactions also cannot be described in the terms of an artist working stone or composing music. It is because of the interaction of human combatants that boldness and passivity, fear and fortitude, luck and misfortune, and other factors, not adequately explained by science or art, are so central in War. The conduct of War is a dynamic process, requiring both intimate knowledge of science and the creativity of art, but ultimately driven, and driven alone, by Human Will.” - Colonel-General Sergei Petrova, CADP-1 ‘Warfighting’ Ch 2.
Her wrist was vibrating. It was dark. She glanced at her chrono. 2230 on the dot. Her body felt stiff, but it was warm at least. She dreaded the thought of exiting her cocoon. Maybe she could just go back to sleep. Maybe this was the dream, and she was really somewhere else.
No, she was very much awake, the wet feeling infiltrating the bottom of her sleeping system was proof of that. She very much longed to be Zhuangzi’s schmetterling as she sat up. Water dripped down from the ceiling onto the bottom of her sleeping system forming a pool between her feet. Water resistant not waterproof. She unzipped and grunted as the pain returned upon moving her leg. She wished the damn thing would stop hurting already, it was supposed to be healed by now.
Activity buzzed as the platoon made preparations to reassume their defensive posture. Mines reactivated, Mem-wire spools sprung back into deployment, weapons were loaded and made ready while the remaining Lionesses rumbled back into their fighting positions. They’d all crossed their fingers and hoped the SOBE would be extended, or better yet, the politicians would kiss and make up, but ROBE was fast approaching. It seemed the only political solution involved violence.
She donned her equipment quickly, only pausing to let Sgt. Santiago replace the broken optics on her helmet using parts cannibalized from Formosa’s. Snoopers would be critical at night and considering he was laid up back in Ridge City at the moment, she needed them more. The last order of business was checking to make sure her rebreather was in good working order. A diagnostic and a few test breaths confirmed its functionality. It sort of surprised her how refreshing they were. Recycled air apparently was an improvement over inhaling the city’s putrid fumes. Unfortunately, they needed to conserve their canisters. After all, they might need them later.
By 2300 on the dot everyone was ready to go. All weapons loaded, all battle positions occupied. Now they were just waiting. Everyone knew what was coming. The feeling of both being the hunter and the quarry battled in her mind.
“All Stations this net, this is Steel Princess 3, R.O.B.E., Time: Now. Cancel Checkfire.”
Her chrono beeped over to 0000. There was perhaps a single heartbeat’s worth of complete silence. Then a distant rumble like thunder. Her Sitaware started screaming in her ear, the display flashing a brilliant red ‘INCOMING IDF’ warning at the top center of her view. They really had done it.
They had to stay put. They were in prepared positions, the odds were in the favor so they scrunched down and waited. The first round landed a few hundred meters to their rear with a crash, caving in the roof of some townhouse and blasting out the ground floor. The second was another few hundred meters in front of them. In plain view from their position landing right on top of a spool of mem-wire, blasting it apart, digging a two meter crater and hurling cobblestones.
They were being bracketed. It seemed archaic, their own electronic warfare capabilities must have been interfering with other more advanced methods of target location. There had to be an Observer giving corrections. The third round landed somewhere behind them but much closer.
He must’ve been unfamiliar with it because they were only making incremental and successive adjustments like they’d just refreshed memory by reading a technical manual. The next one would be somewhere in front of them and they had maybe two more rounds before the fire-for-effect came down on top of their heads. They needed to do something fast.
“Lachenski! What’s going on with Fires? They know we’re being fucking bracketed, right?!” He was busy scrolling through a flood of information looking for something relevant. There was an irregular rumble from all directions as howitzers fired and shells exploded. Their own mortars and smaller organic firesupport attempted a return.
“Yeah! Yeah! They fucking know but so is everyone else!” Lachenski shouted back over the growing cacophony.
“Okay then what the fuck is Devil Ear doing, where’s the counter-battery fire?” She queried.
“They’re working on it! Mortars can’t range it!” Lachenski clarified.
“Useless fucks!” she shouted. They had to do what they could for the time being. “Find that Observer!” she shouted into her comm as the next adjusting round exploded in the darkness somewhere overhead, intercepted by the APS mounted on the roof. Maybe a lost round would buy them some time. There was a flurry of acknowledgement pings as the platoon stuck their heads up and began searching. She stuck her head over a stack of sandbags. ‘Needle in a haystack’ was putting it lightly.
There were a thousand windows, crevices, holes in walls, balconies, roofs; all with potential sight lines. She placed her faith in the fact that everyone was helping her look too. A track blinked into existence in her view. It was far, close to 3800 meters away. She toggled her snoopers to maximum magnification.
There they were, prone behind a ground target locator mounted on a tripod, staring right at them from a church steeple balcony. The optic dazzler must’ve been the reason he was adjusting degraded. Another artillery round landed behind them, this time close enough for her to feel the dull concussion in her chest.
Her mind raced through options, nothing organic could range that, even the Lioness’s autocannon. There was no way she was going to waste an AGM on that. She keyed her comm anyways.
“Claymore 1, can you see that ping?” she questioned in her best forced calm.
“Affirm Cutlass 2, we only have sabot.” Eichmann responded.
She wanted to punch him. “Do they fucking know that?! Engage him!” she snapped. There was a moment of deafening silence on the net.
“Rodge, engaging” Eichmann replied. The track switched to an engagement marker tagged with his callsign.
She breathed a tiny sigh of relief. An Ocelot pulled out of its covered position in an alley into the street. The ceremonial lance complete with streamer ratchet strapped to the back of its turret bustle made it obvious it was Eichmann’s Ocelot. The gun elevated and then made a series of rapid tiny adjustments for barometric pressure, local gravity variations, wind direction, and coriolis force. The Ocelot fired. The force of a max-charge shot rocked the vehicle backwards onto its haunches as its hydropneumatic suspension buckled and then sprung back.
It was far enough she could actually watch the round fly out through her snoopers. It cut through the shimmering atmospheric distortion to its target. Low and left. The sabot ripped into the tower balconies railing sending the Observer scrambling to his feet, apparently unharmed. They had some more time now.
“Lachenski, smoke!” she ordered. He was, thankfully, already ahead of her.
“Saber Fires, Cutlass 2-0, Immediate Smoke, Grid Two-One Sierra Mike Victor One-Seven-Three-Two Nine-Nine-Four-Eight, Direction Two-Nine-Four-Zero”
There was another flurry of traffic as the MTO Packet and shot out ping came back. Another adjusting round exploded in the park thirty meters from Eichmann’s Ocelot sending shrapnel pinging off its hull as it reversed back into the relative safety of the alley.
“Shot, Splash: Immediate Smoke,” cracked into her ear through the Fires net.
A trio of Red Phosphorus smoke shells exploded a few hundred meters in front of the Church. A hail of burning fragments trailed a curtain of opaque poisonous fumes obscuring the enemy’s view. No doubt the pieces were starting more than a few fires as they bounced off the street into buildings and unoccupied vehicles. They were out of immediate danger.
Another ‘INCOMING IDF’ warning flashed on her display as a volley of enemy artillery burst overhead. She crouched low next to the wall as a cloud of bomblets descended. A thunderous seemingly never ending cracks like a hundred hand grenades going off at once. They were exploding all over the roof and throughout the park. Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions. She glanced around as the deafening roar died down. Why were they shooting ICM at them? Pavlov’s was a hard target.
“Dismounted APS is down!” Sergeant Santiago shouted. There was nothing it could do against the hail. She cursed under her breath. They’d just have to do without it.
“Vehicles?” she questioned.
“Red 1, Up.”
“Red 2, Up.”
“Red 3, Optic-Mast is disabled. We can still fight.”
“Cutlass 2, Claymore 1 all our victors are still in the fight.”
“Is everyone else al-” another series of larger unitary explosions cut her off as a trio of artillery rounds landed just outside of Pavlov’s house. Shrapnel skittered through the window.
Someone was screaming. She righted herself and looked around. It was Tybalt, a handsized piece of sheet metal ejecta flung by the explosion was embedded in the side of his helmet and had sliced off most of his ear which was now hanging by a precarious thread as he thrashed around on the floor. Doc was on him a moment later rendering aid. He yanked off the piece and unceremoniously tossed it onto the floor. It was the badging of a Clüner groundcar, now stained with blood. Karoff bellowed orders, getting the troops back into defensive positions with their heads down.
This was just the prelude. Another barrage landed off target to their left blasting what was left of a bakery to ruins. She was perplexed, with this many rounds it should’ve been on top of their heads by now. Crouch sprinting across the room to Lachenski she snatched his attention away from dusting himself off with a hand on his shoulder.
“What’s going on!” she shouted, though they were only half a meter away from each other, it was obvious neither of them could really hear.
“They’re shooting low-angle! We’re too close; they don’t have enough adjustment because of intervening terrain. Only way they can bring it any closer is going high angle. They’ll fucking hit the dome!” He replied, righting himself to point at lines on his Fires terminal tracing the incoming rounds trajectories.
“Mask up!” she ordered while turning towards the rest of the room. There was another chorus of acknowledgement chirps from the rest of the platoon while everyone in the room donned their rebreathers.
“They wouldn’t do that? They wouldn’t do that right? Just De-atmo the whole city so they can fucking shell us?” Rand asked no one in particular, his mouth moving at a million K’s a minute, while he dug his rebreather out.
“Rand!” SSgt Karoff snapped, “Put that fucking thing on and get your head out of your ass.” Karoff turned to the rest of them, “Sharpen up, Rifleman! Masks on!”
Rifleman Tybalt was still screaming while Restrepo glued his ear back on. The chaos subsided for a moment as everyone broke out their rebreathers and fixed them on. She took a deep breath after fixing hers in place, both to test its functionality and to steady herself.
Level head, pool of calm in an ocean of chaos.
“Man the guns, Rand get me a sync from Bat.” she instructed, voice slightly distorted.
“Uh, r-right.” Rand replied and quickly set to work establishing an uplink while she glanced over the Platoon’s stats. Tybalt was the only one hit. The line squads had been spared for the time being.
“Ma’am” Rand held the umbilical out to her. The moment she connected her battletrak was flooded with traffic. Everyone in the battalion was taking indirect, Falchion and Halberd were hit particularly hard.
Their positions were further north and gave enemy observers more latitude to adjust, but everyone was holding fast. It was obvious to her this was the prelude. This section of front was the obvious avenue for a breakout. If they broke through here, it was a straight shot to encircle the rest of the Regiment and then a serious threat to the Cydonian’s flanks. They had some depth to work with but no one was in a retreating mood.
There was also a lot of outgoing traffic, all headed to Reg. and Division. Reports about the blatant violation and requests for counter-battery fire were streaming in. The Regiment's own self propelled artillery was parked outside of the dome on standby to fire as a precaution, but no one was giving a greenlight yet. Feds didn’t really seem to care.
Her battletrak updated again as Devil Ear detected a swarm of EM sources barreling straight for them. An armor company plus at the very least. Noachians must’ve been promised a very big bonus.
“Stand to!” she shouted. Another IDF alert flashed at the edge of her vision. A longer tight barrage of artillery impacted. Volley after volley walked up the length of the park splitting mem-wire and cratering the area. The creeping barrage of delayed fused rounds blasted an irregular but roughly linear series of holes in their obstacle belt. Another obvious prelude to a breach attempt.
Just as the last volley exploded, the 1st Maddox platoon came into view. A doctrinal column followed by a supporting element of LIV-26’s. A pair of Wolverine Assault Breacher Vehicles took up the rear. There were more enemy far to their flanks moving on the rest of the company to keep them occupied but this was the focus of their attack. They intended to breach here.
Wham! And Wendigo, their ablative armor already marred by ICM submunitions, advanced just far enough forward to poke the muzzles of their cannons over the crest of a park hill. They quickly found their targets and fired in quick succession, reversing behind the slope before their rounds even impacted . Both of them landed. One impacted against the turret cheek of the lead Maddox ineffectually, the other sabot slammed into its mantlet, knocking out its main gun. A hellstorm of return autocannon fire erupted, the flurry of shells blasting off any vegetation that remained on the opposite hillside.
The enemy was advancing quickly; they needed to slow them down and buy time. Lachenski had already called for company mortars but the enemy's APS coverage was too dense and they were knocked out in flight.
The rule book was already out the window. Fuck it.
“Santiago, 3 Alpha, blow it!” she ordered. Faux-masonry exploded as Sgt. Santiago mashed a switch on his charge-control box. The brick facade crumbled into the street and the steel superstructure of the storefront followed sagging into the roadway. They’d blocked off entry into the park area from that thoroughfare for a few minutes. Infantry spilled out of vehicles and scrambled into alleys, buildings and side streets. The mem-wire there was still intact there and her battletrak spit a flurry of mine detonation reports.
The Ocelots took turns firing potshots as the enemy vehicles struggled to shift into breaching order in the narrow street. The enemy wasn’t taking any risks when returning fire, Positive ID was more of a suggestion for target selection. Autocannon fire ripped into Pavlov’s house raking the lower floors and then creeping upwards. They’d done additional fortifying since the last time but there was only so much they could do.
A long burst of 30mm cannon rounds tore apart their stacked sandbag reinforcing at the left of the room, sending bits of expansion medium and a hail of splinters shooting across the room. A few shards skipped across the flooring and embedded themselves in her left arm. There was no delay this time, the pain came instantly. Hot and stinging. She yelped reflexively and yanked the largest piece out, still able to feel how hot it was through her gloves. The hail continued for the eternity of another few seconds. A distant boom and flash cut the fire short.
Someone was cackling on the net, she wasn’t sure if it was manic or maniacal, but a Maddox marker turned from blue to black on her display.
“Scratch one!” Eichmann must’ve been having the time of his life. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees as the dust settled, only pausing for a moment to take note of two splinters embedded in her Tharsis flag roundel then another half inch into her skin.
“Claymore 1, clear the net!” she barked, glancing around. Everyone seemed to be okay.
Everyone except for Svertson who was lying on his back gargling and groaning. He’d been right behind the sandbags and was clawing at his face where a collection of shrapnel was now embedded. Dygalo was the first on him, scooping fingerfuls of rubble and broken teeth out of his mouth, then shoving a bandage in the largest wound and fixing his mask back on. The first hit of anti-shock bolted Svertson back upright.
“Get back in the fight! We need that fucking MAAW now, Svertson!” Dygalo commanded while shoving the tube into his hands. Svertson picked another piece of metal out of his face and then rolled onto his knees shouldering the weapon and gave Dygalo a wave of acknowledgement, unable to speak. Tybalt, having regained some of his own composure, threw another round in the back of the tube and smacked Svertson on the shoulder.
She cinched her rifle tight against her back and high crawled into an adjacent room under the snapping of the few stray rounds making their way through holes in the wall. She couldn’t do a fucking thing if she couldn’t see what was going on.
Small arms fire joined the chorus of battle as the first of the Federal Infantry began their dismounted assault. Icons marking individual soldiers blinked into existence all over her display as she moved to a low crouch and lifted her eyes just over the edge of a window. One Maddox was already a flaming wreck. The two Wolverines had their spades down and were trying to plow their way through the rubble while a pair of Maddox’s laid down covering fire, the others had disappeared, apparently looking for another route through.
She tagged the left Wolverine and Red 2 acknowledged moving out from its fighting hole to launch an AGM and then reversing back around the corner as soon as it left the rail. An Ocelot joined the saturation attack, launching a third of its rack of AGMs from behind cover. The missiles traded information. The Wolverine’s APS fired off a cloud of smoke in reaction as it detected the incoming threat. The closest Maddox tried to assist, its APS swatting two of the five swarming AGMs as they streaked closer. One of them lost its track and veered toward the nearest target of opportunity, the other Maddox. The Maddox blasted it down without much fanfare but the other two missiles landed true. The inside of the Wolverine was blasted out its back quarter in a shower of sparks and flame.
She felt a measure of satisfaction watching it burn. It quickly disappeared as she noticed one of the Maddox’s level its main gun at her. She dove for the floor. A delay fuzed high-explosive round hammered into the front of the building, burying itself in the wall then exploding an eighth of a second later. It blasted away the rockcrete wall on the other side of the room. She was gone for a moment. She could hardly breath, the concussion knocking every ounce of air out of her lungs. The snapping of incoming machine gun fire was the first thing that was immediately noticeable as her senses came back into focus. She rolled onto her back. tracers streamed through the window above her, gnawin at the window ledge and chewing up the wall behind it. There was another crack of an outgoing sabot as an Ocelot returned fire while someone yanked her by her feet into an interior room. She managed to sit up to see Rand wearing a combination of concern and terror.
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She weakly managed to signal thumbs up as she tried to catch her breath. They were getting fisted here. What to do. Double back and find a better position? Trade space for time?
‘Seldom a position is lost because it has been destroyed, more often a leader has decided in their own mind that it cannot be held’. Another oft quoted maxim of Sergei Petrova floated to the front of her mind.
“Ma’am are we staying here?” Rand questioned frantically. His plea opened a wellspring of defiant anger.
“We have to hold, if they break through it’s the whole Regiment’s ass!” She shouted while staggering to her feet. Rand swallowed dryly. She needed to work on her delivery.
The din of battle continued. They were safe in this interior room for the most part, but no winning would be done from here. She motioned at Rand with a snap to follow her and exited back into the mainroom. Dygalo’s gun teams had snatched up their weapons and tripods and were moving down a floor to their alternate positions. Svertson and Roshan took turns firing off their MAAWs while Balachenko played helper. They mostly focused on bunches of infantry with FRAG shells to take up the slack left by the medium machine guns.
They had ammo for now but it was disappearing at an alarming rate. Large piles of spent 7.5 stubs remained where the guns had been and the coaster sized bases of fired MAAWs shells scattered around the floor. A long burst of outgoing fire from the floor below signaled guns had re-emplaced.
“Lachenski!” She searched for him for a moment. He was ducked down behind a desk, eyes fixed on his fire terminal. “Lachenski!” She shouted again, only this time snatching his attention.
“End that suppression mission on those tanks, its doing fuck all. Bring the mortars in closer!”
“What? How close?!” he questioned. She pointed with a finger midway up the park on his terminal.
“Start there and walk them north. Just don’t fucking kill us!” She shouted into his ear while lifting up his headset, trying to compete with the roar of one of the Lioness’s autocannons. Lachenski nodded and quickly began another entry while calling the mortar mission over voice.
“And send a request for Final Protective Fires straight to Reg!” She shouted. Another ‘INCOMING IDF’ warning flashed. The rounds in question and their trajectory instantly populated on Lachenski’s display despite the warning it was obvious they weren’t intended for them. There was a moment of pause for both of them.
“No way. No fuckin’ way” disbelief washed over Lachenski’s face.
They weren’t going to hit the dome accidentally, they were trying to hit it. Lt. Petrova rushed out to a rear balcony and looked upward. A ripple of delay fuzed rounds impacted against the crystalline tiled surface in a roughly rhomboid pattern, right above them. The dome cracked and splintered. A hail of pieces were blasted and fell free showering down from directly above. It was a thousand meters up; they had maybe a handful of seconds.
“Cover! Cover now!” She shouted into the net. Spinning around to Rand who had dutifully followed right in her footsteps. She shoved him out of the way and then down under a table hoping it might provide him some protection.
She couldn’t… She couldn’t think of what to do and nothing had prepared her for this. There was no time. The enemy knew that this was coming and didn’t let up their hail for even a moment. A cruel wind blew as the city depressurized and the first artificial corundum shards the size of cars began to impact in an irregular hail. The temperature dropped as the pressure did, the whole city shooting up another few thousand meters in effective elevation. A thin white fog appeared as vapor pressure rapidly decreased.
There was nothing she could do. A stream of incoming bullets zipped through a gap in the wall and through her outstretched left arm, there was hardly even time to notice. A refrigerator sized crystal tore through the roof between her and Rand then smashed itself into the flooring. Another still identifiably flat piece as tall and wide as a Jaguar main battle tank barreled into their unoccupied TOC room splitting it in half and penetrating clear through into the second floor. Fist and golf ball sized chunks ricocheted through windows. One glanced off her helmet as she tried to scrape herself up and knocked her back down.
The rain slowed and then ended, but the cacophony of gunfire hadn’t ceased for even a moment. She barely noticed the pinprick as her suit slapped her with anti-shock. The net was chaos. She flashed her sitaware to the battle roster. There were a frightening number of spiking vitals. Her eyes darted around the room.
Rifleman Roshan was gone, his helmet crumpled, neck broken and face crushed by a basketball sized chunk that careened through a hole in the wall above him. A pool of blood formed around his corpse as his heart quivered its last. SSgt Karoff was groaning as he tried to pick himself up. An oblong piece perhaps 30 cm in length had bounced off a windowsill and into his leg, shattering his left femur. A grotesque bulge was visible through his CES. She and Rand were still up and unharmed. Who else? Her senses clawed for information through the haze of concussion, dust, fog and the roar of battle. Lachenski scrambled to his feet and rushed over to Karoff who was struggling to right himself.
Their guns were silent; they needed to get back in the fight now. Balachenko hopped up and shouldered his rifle, returning fire through a new hole in the wall.
“Dygalo! Dygalo who’s alive down there! Get the guns back up!” She shouted into the net. A burp of machine gun fire answered her request.
“I’m up ma’am. Gun 1’s smashed. Malcolm’s pretty fucked up. Neubach’s pinned.”
“Get anyone you can back in the fight now! That’s Everyone!” The acknowledgement chirps were delayed and disorganized but the sounds of rifle and LMG fire answered immediately.
Everyone except for Cutlass 2-2 responded over the next few seconds. One of Sgt. Weiss’s team leaders responded on her behalf. Lt. Petrova turned her attention back to her immediate bubble of control. Lachenski was halfway through putting a splint on SSgt Karoff’s leg when she practically threw him off.
“Send that fucking FPF to Regiment right fucking now! I’ll deal with Senior.” Lachenski stared at her wordless for a moment. “Right fucking now!” she screamed again, snapping him out of his stupor. SSgt Karoff groaned as she finished cinching the splint down.
“That’s fucking tight enough Lieutenant!” he protested. Karoff took a few breaths as sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Rand, go find Doc!” She ordered.
“Belay that!” Karoff countermanded.
“Wha-“
“Get your fucking head straight, Lieutenant!” He cut her off, jabbing a finger out like one might at a misbehaving dog or erring recruit.
“Slow down, Take a goddamn moment to collect your thoughts” she was stunned silent. He took a pause, ignoring the violence for a moment and leveled his tone. “Let your Squad Leaders do their jobs.”
“Senior, I-“ she tried to interject but he held up his hand.
“Take a moment.” She obliged by taking a long breath through her mask. “Your Riflemen are going to do their damnedest to win this fight for you. You need to focus on what you alone are empowered to do as their platoon commander. Alright?” He counseled.
She nodded.
“Rand, help me get him up.” She instructed. They each took an arm and attempted to raise him. She lifted and pulled feeling something strain and then tear in the back of her right leg. She let out something halfway between a scream and a yelp letting go and collapsing onto the wall for support. Rand strained with a grunt then took Karoff the rest of the way to his one foot.
Her leg, her stupid fucking bum leg that should have been healed already. She hammered her fist into the wall repeatedly, eyes watering with frustration and pain as the battle raged outside.
“Can you walk?” Karoff asked, hopping slightly for balance. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She tested her footing, it hurt but she could still walk. She lifted up her eye pro and wiped at her eyes before she turned around to face them.
“Yeah, I can still walk.” She steadied herself back to her feet. “Take Senior down stairs to the rest of Weapons.”
“Balachenko! Stop shooting and come help me!” Rand called out across the room.
She took another breath to steady herself, “I’m gonna help Lachenski cut through this bullshit. You’ve got it downstairs, Senior.”
“Check rodge, ma’am,” SSgt. Karoff grunted while he was helped down the staircase.
Lachenski was across the room, practically disassociating as he punched away on his Fires terminal. She limped over and looked over his shoulder.
“Did you send it up?” she asked.
“Yep. Denied instantly! We’re in an RFA” Lachenski chuckled while throwing up his hands. “The clowns at Reg. are gonna get us killed unless they approve that mission.” Nothing he said sounded serious. For him nothing happening now was real. His mind and body were here, but not in the sense that anything happening around him was of consequence. Like it was a dream or a game.
She glanced outside again through a firing slit. Fed infantry sections were close. They’d moved up to the edge of the wire obstacle, taking turns firing line charges through the minefield while they spewed suppression with small arms. It was a costly advance, but they had gained a lot of ground and continued to do so. A platoon’s worth of Maddox’s were flaming wrecks, but two platoons more had shown were crawling up the thoroughfare on either side of the park to reinforce while Wolverines shoved the way open.
She looked over the stats. One of the Ocelots was smashed under a piece of the dome. abandoned by its crew, two were black on missiles, with only maybe two dozen Sabot remaining between them. Eichmann’s personal vehicle Whiskey Sour had taken a Maddox main gun round to the turret and was all but out of the fight. It could drive, but with its main gun down and AGMs expended it didn’t offer much except the comparatively puny 7.5 machine gun on the remote weapons station.
The Lionesses were in as bad of shape. Red 2 had its autocannon damaged by falling debris and was nearly black on Coax, Red 3 was also nearly out of ammunition. Red 1 was tracked, reduced to a pillbox while Feds took turns firing LATs at it in the hope its APS would run out of charges eventually.
She thumbed her mask mindlessly while her mind raced. She had to do something, without immediate and dense fire support they were as good as dead and this position was overrun no matter how tenaciously they resisted. It was just a matter of how long they could hold.
“Lachenski do you have voice with Reg. on the Fires net?” she queried.
“They shut it down to save bandwidth for data. I dunno why; all they’re fucking doing is denying everyone’s firemissions,” he responded nonchalantly.
This was stupid, this was really stupid. But, she couldn’t think of anything else.
“Captain Beckett!”
He flicked his eyes away from the tactical displays in front of him over his shoulder. Some useless Logician Corporal from S4 was shouting at him. Couldn’t they see that he was fully occupied trying to manage the chaos in front of him.
There was an endless stream of requests for firesupport flooding in and he and his box-operators were struggling to pair requests with local assets. Everyone’s mortars were occupied. They were doing their best despite the situation, but the queue kept getting longer and longer.
The Battletrak projection in front of him in the center of the TOC looked precarious at best. Federals and Noachians were pushing hard at three separate places along 1st Reg’s defense alone. Units across the front were engaged. Their southern flank worried him most, both because it was the worst situation and because he had skin in the game. 2/1’s Reserve company was doing its best to maneuver, but the Federal’s artillery was harassing and stalling them all the way.
“Captain Beckett!”
He relented.
“What! What the fuck is it?” he snapped.
“Your comm is ringing, it's actually been ringing non-stop for the last ten minut-”
he cut her off. “Can’t you see I’m fucking busy, Soldier.” He motioned to the dizzying collection of flashing icons displayed in front of him.
“Sir, I, uh.. Major Jolivak told me to tell you to go turn it off because it’s a security risk in such close proximity to the TOC.” She looked somewhat apologetic as she explained.
He rolled his eyes while standing up, admitting defeat. That fucking field grade imbecile would be worried about something like that at a time like this.
“Hey, Top, hold it down while I handle this retardation.” Capt. Beckett instructed over his shoulder while strutting through the TOC.
“Yeah, yeah I got it Sir.” Master Sergeant Radulovic responded and took over his station while he stormed out. Great, just fucking great. He stomped over the Entry Control Point. A plethora of unauthorized personal electronic devices were laid out in front of a pair of Rifleman who were busy peeking into the building, trying to get an idea of what was going on. He searched around for a moment, he really couldn’t believe he’d forgot to turn the fucking thing off in the first place. He snatched it off the table.
23 missed voice links.
She was getting desperate but she had to keep trying. She ducked down a little lower as a LIV-26 threw another hail of coax fire at her and Lachenski’s position.
“Answer you fucking useless prick!” She shouted in an impotent rage.
“Ma’am they’re not gonna fucking answer. We should just de-ass this shithole while we still can.” Lachenski pleaded.
“We’re not fucking leaving! If they want this building that bad, then they can shovel my corpse out of it! Send that mission again!” she demanded, thrusting a finger at his terminal while her comm requested another link. Lachenski complied with another detached sigh. She was almost shocked when it actually went through.
“Lucy, why are yo-” came through in a confused tone.
“Sam!” She shouted in surprise.
“Is that gunfire?” He questioned again.
“What? Yes, I’m getting fucking shot at!” She nearly shouted, both in frustration of having to explain, and to compete with the din of battle outside. She paused, remembering the earlier advice, and then continued more collected. “Listen, my firemission is at your box right now. Approve it.” She instructed.
“What?” He asked again, more in shock than confusion.
“Approve my request for final protective fires, right now.” She reiterated in her best calm voice.
“Lucy, I can’t just do that. The local Ground Force Commander has final approv-” he began to explain before she cut him off.
“I don’t fucking care! Do it! Do it right now, or me and my entire fucking platoon are dead!” She demanded more forcefully.
“Lucy I-” He started again, but she didn’t even bother listening.
“It’s your fucking terminal; send the mission to the guns.” She declared, nearly ordered. There was a long pause on both ends of the line, alternating and competing bursts of automatic weapons fire still audible in the background.
“I’ll try.” he responded, breaking the long silence.
“Don’t try; do it!” she finished.
She hung up on him. She hung up on him and left the proverbial bomb in his lap. A million different courses of action ran through his mind.
He could be shot for doing something like that. A general courts martial at least. If everything he saw on the battletrak and what she told him did he have any other choice? Did he like her that much? Even if it did work- he glanced down at his rank insignia. He’d just pinned Captain the day before yesterday. He’d be lucky if he still had anything at all pinned onto his killpatch after doing something like that. He stood there for another few moments, the consequences of both action and inaction battling in his mind. She was really out there, life hanging in the balance.
He felt sick. He hadn’t felt sick like this since Cancun. Even then it was somehow easier to stomach when he was the one getting shot at. He paced around for another moment. What to do. What to do.
Fuck it. He threw the Comm back onto the table and rushed inside. He’d wasted enough time already.
“Top!” He shouted from across the room, drawing more than a few glances from other people. MSgt. Radulovic looked up from the terminal in front of him.
“Combat calls for individuals of action. Hesitation by subordinates should never be tolerated by a commander. When one makes delay or waits for a situation to develop it must be a conscious decision. Leaders must have a great understanding of the responsibility of their station; human lives are counted among the resources that must be spent to achieve victory. Lives must be spent, but they can never be wasted. To tarry in indecision is to carelessly discard valuable time purchased in blood.” - Colonel-General Sergei Petrova, CADP-1 ‘Warfighting’ Ch. 3
“You think he’ll do it ma’am? Is the Cydonian grippy that good?” Lachenski asked. He still had an air of detachment, but the tiny spark of hope had brought him back somewhat.
“I don’t know.” Was all she could think of to say, ignoring his rather crude comment. Not too inspiring. She took count of the ammunition cassettes in her kit. Seven times forty-five, three-hundred-fifteen minus that one round she used to put down that fed the other day.
“What do we do now?” Lachenski asked while closing his Fires terminal.
“We hold. When you think they’re about to overrun us, ax your terminal. Can’t risk it being captured.”
“Think the Feds will accept a surrender?” He asked again, somewhat unsure as he checked over his own ammunition.
“We fight until we can’t. There’s too much at stake.” She smashed her personal comm with the heel of her boot, then quickly looked around for anything else that should be disposed of here, in case they couldn’t later.
“Well, this fucking sucks.” Lachenski sighed while pulling his rifle sling over his head, consigned to whatever fate held in store.
“You’re telling me; didn’t even get a chance to drink my Voltzade.” She remarked trying to bring some levity back. She could tell from the slump in his facial expression alone that her uncharacteristic comment had made the gravity of the situation really sink in. She never joked, if she was joking then it was worse than bad.
They left the Fires Terminal in place and moved to join the rest of the section downstairs. Rand had propped Karoff up behind some sandbags overwatching the main staircase. Ammunition cassettes and a few grenades were neatly arrayed within arms reach.
Autocannons and main guns still thundered outside. Battletrak updates continued to stream in over the platoon net as each of the squad's positions collapsed inward. They could still move and mutually support each other for now but they were slowly being suffocated.
Federal Infantry continued to swarm across the park, advancing incrementally in bounds. Covered by smoke from their mortars and Maddox’s which kept appearing despite their losses. Seven or eight Maddoxs were out of action along with just as many LIV-26s but they just kept coming as their ammunition dwindled.
Neubach was back in the fight. Despite the fact he was missing half of his left hand he tended their one remaining Machine Gun with ammunition and cool barrels while Tybalt fired and Cpl. Dygalo directed. Malcolm was leaned against a wall breathing ragged, entrails held in by a hastily applied bandage. He endlessly babbled some incoherent nonsense about his sibkin while his CES drugged him with special-K. He had no mother and no instinct to call for one.
The feet of a Pioneer jutted out from beneath the same pile of rubble that had claimed Neubach’s fingers and Gun 1. Sergeant Santiago and his remaining Pioneers were doing all they could, firing off their few remaining command-line charges and dumping 40mm grenades into any Feds bunched up. Svertson had tossed his MAAW aside, everything but smoke shells completely spent and engaged with his rifle. Rand still ministered the comms next to SSgt. Karoff, taking input and direction from him. Both were doing their best to compile information and coordinate the defense.
She finally took a moment to examine the bullet wound on her arm. Just a graze. She almost found it funny. Anger and frustration disappeared. They were here, fighting for their lives and she, along with everyone else here, was going to die. She was going to die.
Just like every other Petrova. A brave, honorable and heroic death. First it came for Papa, and then Sergei the Younger, then Yuri and Artyom and Vladimir and now, it was her turn. It was her turn to burn away in the fires of someone else's grand ambition. The only thought she could muster was how fitting and tragically hilarious it was.
She actually felt a fit of laughter bubble. Biting her tongue and turning away for a moment she feigned fiddling with her rifle while chuckling silently manic and detached. Digging her fingers into the wound on her arm until pain returned brought her back. Even through the cocktail of artificial combat stimulants and adrenaline coursing through her system, it was still real.
She was here, she was still alive, and people needed her to lead.
“Ma’am, 2nd’s gonna bounce to us!” Rand shouted. Back in the fight, they had to keep fighting. She flipped down her mapbox and moved to chew on her glove but her mask stopped her again.
“Svertson, smoke on the cross-street to cover their movement. Dygalo, Gun 2 on the closest squad.” She fired off direction in quick succession. Svertson nodded, unable to speak. The wound in his face painting the bandage wrapped around it crimson. Dygalo gave a thumbs up. “Santiago, how much HE-DP do you have left?” she queried.
“12 rounds.” He responded while dumping spent stubs out the cylinder of his grenade launcher.
“Dump all of it on that hill when I give the signal for them to move.” She instructed while tagging the same rise the Ocelot’s had previously sheltered behind. “Claymore 1, Cutlass 2 what do you have still up?”
“A few sabot each track and a few hundred rounds on the remote weapons stations.” Eichmann responded.
“Just pick priority targets, you’ve got better eyes than us.” She suggested flicking through list of tracks.
“Check.” he responded while toggling acknowledged.
“Rest of you, give everything you’ve got on that center sector of fire. Red 1 and 3 cover far we’ll handle close. I want 1st and 3rd to bound back next, alright?” she paused while acknowledgements streamed in. “You tracking 2-2? We’re on your go.”
“2, 2-2 Alpha. Yeah, rodge. We’re gonna be a bit slow, we got 3 casualties. 2-Mike is carrying 2-2 Actual right now, so everything you got please-and-thank you.”
She motioned for everyone to get ready, and found a hole in the wall that would make a suitable firing port and flipped down her snoopers.
“Svertson, fire!” She ordered. He stood up, leaned out and fired. The round impacted dead on the money, but as he leaned back a stream of incoming stitched upwards through his leg and right arm sending him spinning to the ground. It was a good shot regardless, and a smoke could burst into existence directly on target.
Rand sprinted across the room, snatching Svertson by his drag handle and yanking him back into cover. A round had tumbled through his bicep and another through the outside of his quadricep, but Rand was on him instantly patching up the holes with bandages.
“2-2 Bounding!” flashed over the net. The platoon peaked up from their battle positions and let loose a hell storm of suppressing fire, briefly regaining fire superiority. 2nd Squad jumped up from the 1st floor of an electronics shop and barreled at a dead sprint through the Rubicon of smoke.
She dumped the rest of her cassette at a group of Feds in the midst of breaching a spool of wire with a Bangalore then switched her attention to 2nd. She quickly counted their icons. With doc that should’ve made ten. The first section made its way into the ground floor of Pavlov’s at a dead sprint. They slid in and spun around, adding their firepower to the suppression. She counted five, including both of their LMG’s. The second group made their way out through the smoke as a Maddox moved to an opening with a clear line of sight and fired its autocannon through the cloud blindly.
An Ocelot switched its attention from the LIV-26 that had been pestering it with autocannon fire and loosed its cannon, sending a well placed sabot right through the Maddox’s exposed side skirt into its powerplant. The explosion briefly blinded anyone looking too closely as plasma vented in a flash of white. The Ocelot moved back into defilade as a pair of LIV-26’s loosed AGM’s and tore apart the overturned streetcar blocking their view with autocannon fire.
Her snoopers blinked out for a second. By the time the flash-compensation wore off the rest of 2nd Squad was already half-way across the danger-area.
She could see Restrepo near the middle of the pack with Sgt. Weiss across his shoulders. She reloaded and resumed firing this time at a pair of Feds low-crawling towards their far right flank. They ducked behind the half-squished remains of the Ocelot Wham! in response.
The ceramic barrel of their machine gun began to glow a cherry red and flecks of the graphene lining spewed out the muzzle as brilliant sparks while Dygalo screamed at them to keep the fire up. The last of 2nd squad made their way ever closer zig-zaging through rubble and twisted smoking wrecks, the flames long since having sputtered out and died as the oxygen disappeared.
She watched in horror as a burst of autocannon fire landed right at Restrepo’s feet, sending him and Sgt. Weiss both half a meter into the air less than 200 meters from the final threshold of Pavlov’s exterior walls.