Caine's Mutiny, page 51
part #4 of Caine Riordan Series
“Yeah, and when the APCs come boiling out of the smoke?”
“We’ll have a surprise waiting for them.”
* * *
Rulaine’s voice was sudden and loud in Solsohn’s ear. “You in position?”
“Just found good cover. I have eyes on Dugout Four and the middle ford. Well, I would if the smoke wasn’t so thick.”
“Can you target any of the APCs?”
“One or two. They’re trying to stay smoked in, but it looks like they’re running low on cannisters and are having a hard time keeping the cloud density uniform.” Duncan was familiar with the difficulty: once you were inside smoke, it was damned hard to tell when you needed to add to it, to maintain sufficient opacity. “I can paint a couple of them now.”
“Do it. You’re networked into the MULTIs. The rockets will launch high, then go to lookdown mode to find your designation.”
“Roger that. But the OpFor has laid in a third bank of smoke: they’re going to roll out on our side of the river almost on top of Dugout Four.”
“Then load a RAP and prepare to engage.”
“Uh, Bannor, the Hkh’Rkh are going to know where I am if I do that.”
“Only those who can see you through the smoke.”
“Or are flanking me on the opposite bank of the river.”
“Can’t be helped. We need to hold Dugout Four.”
“Roger that. Puppet One out.” He did not bother to raise the CoBro: the Proxie had a vastly more sophisticated and powerful laser designator built into its head. He let the optic sensors measure the density patterns of the smoke, found the thinnest area, the leading APC within it, kept it painted with his laser, looked for the next in line…
* * *
The gunner at MULTI Three sounded very uncertain. “Umpire Two, please say again: I am to fire overhead antiarmor rounds without lascom confirmation of target paint?”
Bannor kept his tone level. “Affirmative, MULTI Three. A target is painted and will be visible and phase-matched once your round clears the smoke-bank.”
“Very well, sir. Firing one.”
Down the slope, Bannor heard a faint thoomf above the more distant noise of battle; one of the MULTI’s comparatively short-ranged rockets leaped into the sky.
* * *
An APC—a slope-fronted box stained with mud—roared out of the mist. Fanny swung his CoBro at it, pulled the designation trigger, thought, Peek-a-boo, you bastard, and remained as close to the ground as he could. As long as the field of view remained unobstructed, the MULTI’s fire-and-forget rockets would not just fly at, but chase, their target as long as they could see it.
But even as Fanny ducked lower, he heard a MULTI launch behind him—in vertical mode. Meaning that MULTI Three, his primary covering battery, was pointed at the sky to launch overhead attacks, not watching the near edge of the smoke. Damn it: they won’t be able to crank down in time.
* * *
The rocket fired by MULTI Three reached the top of its arc, tipped over, activated its seeker head, sweeping the river beneath for the correctly phased UV laser-designation point that matched its targeting data. Much of its primary search footprint, or “basket,” was obscured by smoke, some of which was laser-resistant. But just beyond those drifts, it caught a glimpse of the wavelength sequence for which it was searching.
Using its fins to stabilize and align itself to the target, it prepared to ignite its secondary, intercept motor…
* * *
Fanny kept the CoBro’s laser designator on the APC, even when he flinched at the dull krup-p-p of its smoke launchers discharging, waited for the sound of the smoke rounds going off—
But before they did, there was a distant fire hose sound that up-dopplered swiftly: MULTI Four had swung around to cover the gap left by MULTI Three’s retasking. Which meant that Know-It-All had reacted faster than humans were able to speak, even if they had opted for the same response.
The rocket from MULTI Four hit the APC at an oblique angle on its right hull. The new smoke obscured the flash, but could not diminish the crash of the rocket hitting the armor, the follow-on roar of its warhead ripping through it with a jet of molten metal. Nor could it diminish the sound of another unseen APC being destroyed out in the river, or of the more distant squeal of approaching wheels. That was the next APC in line, which would soon race on into the fog the last one had laid down, and which had rolled over and inundated the ground around Dugout Four.
“Christ, what now?” Akiriri asked at the same moment that their replacement troops threw themselves into the holes left by the earlier casualties.
Fanny was tempted to make a profoundly ironic joke about their timing—arriving just in time to die—but didn’t have the heart. Or the second to spare. “Now, you and I go to dual-purpose rocket-assisted projectiles.”
“Damn, will DP RAPs get through that armor, Top?”
“I sure hope so. Get ready.”
* * *
Almost three kilometers upstream, at the north ford, a lane of smoke reached from the west bank to the east bank. Ezzraamar allowed that, while its tail was diminishing somewhat, the head of the multichemical cloud kept widening as the APCs neared the other side, gathering under its cover for a swift rush into the human positions.
“They are almost across,” Z’gluurhek reported. His voice was dry, raspy, his open jaw cycling air rapidly as he studied the advance through his dioptiscope. Ezzraamar could not imagine what he thought he was seeing: the far bank was hidden by the gray-white mass. “Nothing can stop them now.”
“They will take heavy casualties as soon as they emerge from the smoke,” Ezzraamar pointed out.
“As we anticipated,” Jrekhalkar agreed. “But if each new vehicle fires smoke when it reaches the edge of the screen, we will ultimately have multiple vehicles on the shore. Once our troops dismount and get among the humans, our victory is secured.”
The drumbeat of distant rotors reached them over the sounds of the APC engines and popping smoke cannisters.
“Those rotary-wings are well behind the opposite ridgeline, and heading north,” asserted one of Jrekhalkar’s honor guard, who had left behind his halbardiche and carried a large, drum-fed grenade launcher: a weapon that was usually found on a vehicle mount or a tripod. Its recoil was manageable but its weight was daunting even for a large Hkh’Rkh.
Ezzraamar listened after the rotors, a mix of heavier, slower ones, and several that were lighter, faster. “At least two different kinds of rotary-wings.”
Jrekhalkar, who seemed calmer and more focused, now that battle had truly been joined, flattened his crest in mild negation. “If they attempt to come over the ridge, we have adequate firepower from the APCs still hidden in our woodline to drive them back or shoot them down.” His staff phlegm-warbled their agreement with his dismissal of any risk the enemy rotary-wings might pose to their crossing.
Ezzraamar did not join them.
* * *
Matt Fanny had a sliver of a second to reflect on how realistic his training had been, how well it had technically prepared him for actual combat—and how utterly inadequate it had been at readying him to be within fifteen meters of a hulking slab of an Hkh’Rkh APC. He hastily unloaded the first of the grenades in his underslung launcher: an HE round. He cycled the second grenade—a dual-purpose warhead that had some chance of getting through the enemy vehicle’s armor—into the launcher’s breech, heard the sound of the enemy’s smoke dispensers firing: a dull, muffled sputter.
The cannisters tumbled out over the heads of Fanny’s team across a ninety-degree arc, popping and gushing smoke approximately fifty meters behind them. Meaning that in a few moments, Backstop Two wouldn’t be able to see Dugout Four any longer, and more to the point, nor would MULTIs Three and Four.
A missile, similar to the one that had knocked out the first APC that had loomed out of the smoke on the riverbank, streaked down the ridge from MULTI Four’s position. But whatever laser designation it had been locked to must have been compromised by the growing mist. Instead of hitting the APC in the side, it struck the glacis plate at an acute angle, ricocheted off like a stone skimming on a lake, detonated someplace in the smoke drifts slowly dissipating out over the river.
Fanny rose up, snugging the CoBro to his cheek, called down the line, “Akiriri, set for IR followup.” Maybe two dual-purpose RAPs, a second one following right in behind the first’s IR trail, would manage to punch a hole in the armor facing them.
“Can’t,” Akiriri replied. “IR tracking died with the scope, Top.”
Shit. Of course it had.
The commander’s hatch on the APC opened, swinging forward like a shield. The hulking torso of a Hkh’Rkh was up behind it immediately, grabbing for the machine gun—damn, more like an autocannon—on the pintle mount. At this range, and at this angle, the fighting holes of Dugout Four offered almost no protection. Fanny knew that his next thought was likely his last, was surprised and disappointed at the notion of being shot like a fish in a barrel. Somehow, he’d always imagined getting his ticket punched running in the open, or in a furious close-quarters firefight. But not crouching in a shallow hole like a scared rabbit, a massive armored vehicle looming over him.
He rose up to take what was likely to be his final, futile shot—
A blur to the left of the vehicle. A bipedal figure leaped into view, having sprung out from behind a rock outcropping that bordered on the river. As the vehicle commander swung the APC’s immense machine gun down toward Dugout Four, the figure landed, balancing itself immediately despite its angular and awkward appearance. It was the Proxie, its left arm already raised, mounted with the grenade launcher that was usually underslung on a CoBro rifle—but which had no magazine loaded. Which probably meant that Major Solsohn had equipped it with—
The launcher spat out a stick-RAP with a cough that became a raucous hiss as the small rocket ignited and, riding a tail of flame, drove into the flank of the APC. A bright flash—a HEAT round breaching metal—was followed by the clangor of armor being rent, punched inward—
Fanny dove, yelled, “Down!”
—just as the APC emitted a furious belch of flame and sound from the open top hatch, the figure there slumping over. Smoke roiled up out of its breached side. Judging from the shouts of urgency and pain, Warriors were exiting it from the rear doors.
The Proxie’s sensors had not missed that development, evidently. It sprang—effortlessly—eight meters toward the river, now almost invisible in the smoke. Its CoBro spat in three round bursts: once, twice, then two more times. Each time, wild counterfire responded, and was hastily silenced by the rifle’s next short stutter. Then, from across the river, several machine guns began chattering: tracers zipped through the mists, chewing up the ground just behind the Proxie.
Which, with deceptive ease, hopped clear over the guttering APC, landing in a crouch behind its land-facing side. It was unscathed.
Fanny looked into its eyes—well, three ganged lenses—and breathed heavily. “Thank you. Sir.”
“Glad to help.” Solsohn’s voice was both in Fanny’s earbud and crackling out of the Proxie’s external speakers. “Now get ready. More are coming across.”
Chapter Forty-Six
KAKAAGSUKH RIVER VALLEY, BD+56 2966 TWO (“TURKH’SAAR”)
Jrekhalkar watched the last of the first assault wave’s APCs roll into the River Kakaagsukh’s coursing waters, then glanced around his diminished command staff. “We are making better progress than anticipated. I ask your counsel: should I gamble the second wave?” The tone of his voice told the others that he was eager to do so.
Z’gluurhek pony-nodded deeply, immediately. The others followed, some reluctantly. One, Ssrykh’oon, cast an uncertain glance at the far bank. “Voice, do you now doubt our original plan will assure of us victory once the sun sets?”
Jrekhalkar visibly labored to respond in a tone both measured and calm. “I doubt nothing. The night attack would still succeed, I believe. But there is no reason to forego seizing an even greater victory now. Their many-tubed rocket launchers on the ridge have not been able to engage our vehicles for all the smoke we have laid. The battle horns tell us our formation is ready to break free of the mists in numbers so great that it is unlikely the humans will engage enough of our vehicles in time. We could carry the day, here and now, except for the fact that we held so many of our Warriors back, in anticipation of tonight’s crossing. But if we were to send them across, now, even if many of them had to ride on the backs of the second wave’s APCs—”
Ezzraamar bowed his neck deeply, held the position.
Jrekhalkar was not able to ignore, nor resist, the ancient posture of supplication. He interrupted himself, stood more erect. “I would hear you, Ezzraamar of the Moiety of Nys’maharn.”
“My thanks, Esteemed Voice.” And, now that he had Jrekhalkar’s attention, how best to dissuade him from this overly bold scheme? “I counsel we wait to see how the first wave fares in its first ten minutes on the far shore. If, as you conjecture, the humans are unable to repel our numbers, we shall see it quickly enough. No doubt they will attempt to use their MULTIs to eliminate our APCs, and then, fire HE among our Warriors.
“However, doing so would occupy almost all the assets they would also need to contest the crossing of the second assault wave. So, if our first wave is even marginally successful, our second wave may cross and enter the battle without any significant resistance. If, on the other hand, our first wave does not meet with success, it will surely be because too many of our APCs are destroyed or disabled as they exit the smokescreen that is even now diminishing. If that is the case, the second assault wave will not only have to make the same crossing but, upon arriving on the far shore, will have its maneuver restricted by the wrecks littering the exit from the ford. Which would then confirm that your plan to cross and attack at night is, indeed, the correct strategy.” As he heard the last words of his careful appeal come out of his mouth, Ezzraamar realized how much he had learned from his time as Yaargraukh’s adjutant: not merely in terms of tactics used on the battlefield, but in the council-circle.
Jrekhalkar stared at Ezzraamar, phlegm rattling in his snout as he testily weighed this advice against his preferred impulse.
Ssrykh’oon swung slowly toward the north, his crest rising. He pointed to where the River Kakaagsukh disappeared in a long westward curve behind the steep ridge that met their shore at that point. Just downstream of the river’s bend was a narrow water gap where rocky teeth stuck up from the foaming current that roared between them. “I hear—”
Before Ssrykh’oon could complete his sentence, the rest of them heard it, too: a syncopated susurration that seemed to emerge from the chaotic rumble of the upstream rapids and the currents that rushed swiftly over the wide northern ford. Jrekhalkar’s immense Honor Guardian jabbed a claw at the base of their own ridgeline where the river flowed angrily around it. “There!”
Swinging around that headland, the humans’ three biggest attack rotaries spread out across the width of the River Kakaagsukh, only ten meters above the white-flecked water. A moment later, the sound of their rotors became more distinct: a heavy beat, like a death drum. Slow for a rotary.
Then another, faster pulse joined theirs: sharper, more vicious, more distinctly mechanical in timbre. Two smaller attack rotaries banked around the ridgeline, falling in behind the three larger ones. The five vehicle formation came downriver swiftly, staggered so that the two in the rear were positioned between the gaps separating the three in the lead.
Jrekhalkar jumped atop the glacis plate of his new command APC, shouted to all the hornwielders who could hear him. “Sound the command! All carriers: get to the closest shore!” Ssrykh’oon had already dived into the APC, was issuing similar orders to the radio operator, who began attempting to break squelch and send the warning. But the human jamming was suddenly absolute.
The helicopters tucked closer against the Hkh’Rkh shore as they came down the river. Ezzraamar admired the bold tactic. By angling in that direction, the humans’ approach put them in an enfilade position relative to the APCs hidden in the treeline of the western bank, and so, put the rotaries out of the ready arc of their weapons. The enemy craft were also positioned to attack the left rear flank of the unsuspecting midstream APCs. With signal horns blaring, engines straining, and radios emitting nothing but static, the crews inside them had neither heard nor been apprised of the approaching rotary-wings. And although the smoke over the middle of the river was thinning, that was mostly to the rear of the APCs; the one flank they believed was safe.
Jrekhalkar was shouting for the second wave’s APCs to commence firing at the approaching rotaries, but only a few of their weapons had viable sightlines: a sparse stuttering of autocannons and machine guns had no evident effect on the human craft. That would change soon, when the rotaries either turned to get back to their shore or flew on past. But before that happened—
The human craft did not launch their rockets all at once. The lead rotary fired two from its drooping, weapon-heavy wing-stubs; one fell short, the other detonated in the water between two of the APCs at the midstream point. The enemy helicopters seemed to make minute attitude adjustments and then each started firing in a slow, deliberate sequence, one rocket after another.
The net effect was a torrent of missiles of different sizes, different shapes, and quite distinctive sounds. The first two missed—
Then they began to hit. The first wave’s column of half-obscured APCs, now stretched out over the length of the ford, became pockmarked with eruptions of fire, smoke, and gouts of water as the missiles slashed into its northern flank. One vehicle’s fuel tank was hit: a sheet of orange flame sprang up with a breathy roar. Another—swerving, tilting, trying to head downsteam out of the line of fire—was hit by two rockets: it rolled with a metallic groan. Water rushed into the passenger compartment, snarling as it turned that protective armored box into an outsized, watery sarcophagus.
