Caine's Mutiny, page 57
part #4 of Caine Riordan Series
Just before Duncan landed, he took a shot at the last active APC he had spotted. This RAP went low, but some of the fragments burst two tires and crippled their suspension: the vehicle started spinning pointlessly, like a rowboat with an oar on only one side. Good enough, he thought as he landed and the airbursting MULTI rounds began slashing down and detonating behind him. Yep: time to jump again.
Duncan’s next leap carried him beyond the back edge of the smokescreen. Beneath him, the snoutlike heads of dozens of Hkh’Rkh stared upwards, too surprised to act, for a moment.
But only for a moment. Assault rifles tracked him in his arc, none of the fire coming particularly close. But, as an experienced Proxie operator, Duncan knew their aim would improve as he came closer to landing. It was hard to gauge a target passing quickly overhead, but the closer it dropped toward the horizon, toward a lateral engagement vector, the more accurate fire became. However, Solsohn had paced his crossing with that in mind, as well as the flight time of the airbursting HE rockets fired by MULTI Four.
As the Hkh’Rkh swung their weapons and snouts skyward, missiles exploded twenty meters above them. The Warriors went down in windrows, clutching ruined skulls, trying to staunch gushing neck and shoulder wounds, arms shredded by fragments.
Duncan landed, counted off two seconds as the next section of Hkh’Rkh Warriors saw him, raised their weapons—and over their heads, dirty blossoms of downward-jetting death bloomed. Before leaping, Solsohn scanned their thinned ranks for spots of heavier density, called the coordinates in to Sergeant Ippolito at MULTI Four.
Her response came after a brief pause. “Major, don’t these rounds constitute a danger to the Proxie—and your mission?”
Duncan jumped again. “Negative. The fragments can’t penetrate the Proxie’s armor.” Of course, they can still take out subsystems or external stores, but I’ll live with that risk.
As if to prove that the universe never misses an opportunity to chastise human overconfidence, the next airbursting round went off only twelve meters behind the Proxie. As the shockwave tumbled the anthrobot, Solsohn felt a transmitted impact on his back. He scanned his system readouts, saw the munitions bay for the back-mounted dispenser change from green to red, jettisoned it just before it exploded.
Which tumbled him again. Realizing that instinct would not handle the new change of vector and attitude in time, he triggered the automatic correction system. Below, he saw the snoutlike faces of Hkh’Rkh staring up at him as the Proxie went through a contortionist’s combination of rolls and tumbles to reorient for an optimal landing.
It was still awkward. He missed his footing on the next APC, skittered over the edge of the back deck, fell into the water on his left side.
The half-dozen Hkh’Rkh that were sheltering there overcame their surprise within a second: they brought up their weapons—
—as Solsohn turned the Proxie in a semicircle, the flashing rifle on its right arm sweeping across them like the blade of a glittering buzzsaw. They fell in a ring. Duncan stood and jumped again as more missiles airbursted along the column behind him.
This leap carried him over the enemy troop concentration at their end of the ford, gunfire following the arc of his progress. He landed in a small clearing he’d spotted between three clumps of clustertrees. He hopped immediately for a larger clearing behind it, where, at last, he would begin to run instead of jump.
The clearing had signs of being a bivouac site for troops, but none were present, other than a few wounded, some of whom moved feebly toward their weapons when he landed. He began running—long, loping, six-meter strides—and checked the status of his grenade launcher. It was fine, but an orange damage sensor had come on for his left knee joint, the part of the Proxie which had absorbed the primary impact of his awkward landing.
He ran into a flood plain, mottled by copses and stands of sapling-sized weeds which roughly paralleled the river, and sped north for seven hundred meters. If there was any pursuit close behind him, there was no sign of it. He consulted the overhead view—he had access to both the feed from an EXHALTED and one of the quadrotors—and found the heavy weapon emplacements that Dugout Two had spotted earlier in the day. He swerved in their direction, bringing up his grenade launcher.
He stopped two hundred meters behind the weapon sites, scanned for thermal signatures, found two clusters roughly where he expected them. He chose those coordinates, selected two HE and one smoke round for each site, and then let the Proxie do the shooting. The anthrobot positioned itself in what an external observer might have perceived as a squatting boxer’s stance and pumped out two HE rounds at the first target, then another two at the second. Sequential explosions flashed among the clustertrees in which the heavy weapons were hidden. Many of the thermal signatures began fading. The others’ biosigns were prone and stationary.
The Proxie swiveled back to its first orientation, thumped a smoke round into the first smoking weapon site, and then another into the second. Twin plumes of dense white billowed upward and outward like ground-spawning cumulus clouds.
Duncan turned and began sprinting directly away from the river, moving swiftly toward the higher, less trafficked ground at the foot of the western ridge. He chinned the link to Puller’s bridge, eight meters away from the gunnery bubble in which he was controlling the Proxie. “Dora, I have completed phase one. Crossing point has been cleared and obscured. Now moving toward waypoint two.”
“Okay. Confirming target coordinates for phase two.”
“Received. Proceeding to search for phase-two target.”
Duncan Solsohn—wishing the sensuit wasn’t so hot and sticky, wishing he had the time to stop and get a drink of water—continued running, angling southward as well as west until his direction indicator centered on his target:
The last remaining broadcast hub of the Hkh’Rkh, located approximately six hundred meters back from the west bank of the middle ford.
* * *
Peter Wu was no stranger to combat, much of which had been at less than one hundred meters range in the streets and jungles of Java. But never before had he seen over a hundred Hkh’Rkh appear all at once, charging straight toward him as a hooting mob.
The real problem was that, long before they reached him, they would swarm over the positions of Dugout Seven, whose defenders were emptying their various weapons into the oncoming horde. Some flowed around its far flank, threatening to break into the gap between Dugout Seven and the much smaller Dugout Six. Wu pointed them out to the crew of the CoBro heavy-barrel, currently configured as a cassette-fed machine gun. “Target right: engage,” he shouted.
The gunner swung the weapon to lead the leakers, squeezed the trigger, and the Hkh’Rkh began to go down. Wu shouted above the stuttering reports, “Fire Teams One and Two, protective fire for Dugout Seven. Remember your zones.” He didn’t need to finish by saying “Execute.” The remaining troops of Backstop Three were already firing into the pack of Hkh’Rkh who were bearing down upon Dugout Seven.
Wu saw Phillips give up trying to rally two of her troops who would not rise to fire; one a young Vietnamese who could not have been older than seventeen, another a Russian who was perhaps a year older. And Wu could not blame them: the storm of fire that swept along the low rims of their fighting holes was heavy, ceaseless. Two of the defenders had already been killed outright; several others were fighting back despite grievous wounds. And the Hkh’Rkh, despite casualties that would have paralyzed any human unit that Wu had seen or heard of, came on with a mounting fury so intense that it made “resolve” or “courage” needless. Their desire to kill had overwhelmed any self-preservation instinct that might have still existed under their rage.
The CoBro machine gun next to Wu finally fell silent. He glanced quickly at the weapon’s kill zone: the Hkh’Rkh leakers were either dead or disabled, the last few survivors crawling toward the concealment of low, irregular bushes. “New target,” he shouted. “Swing left. Clear all enemy within fifteen meters of Dugout Seven. Set weapon for automated engagement. Execute.” He chinned the comlink to Two-Gun Baker, hoped it was still working. “Baker? If you can hear me, stay down: we are employing autoengagement.”
As the machine gun started the strangely irregular chattering characteristic of the automated engagement setting, he heard Baker’s static-lined reply, “Damn straight I’m staying down!” He saw a Hkh’Rkh leap toward his position, saw his CoBro’s long barrel clear the lip of his fighting hole, saw its muzzle twinkle. Baker’s attacker fell limply, halfway in his hole.
Many other Hkh’Rkh started falling as well, and even at one hundred meters, the wounds inflicted by the machine gun were visible. The expanding rounds fired by the CoBro heavy tore open their armor, exited their heavily muscled bodies with puffs of dim maroon mist. The gunner walked the weapon’s field of fire slowly down the line defended by Dugout Seven, her finger holding down the trigger the whole time. But rather than generating a steady stream of fire, the weapon’s sensor-computer controls assessed every new object that occupied the center of its sighting scope, determined if it was friend or foe, and spat a four-round burst. Sometimes it ran across three targets in the course of a single second, sometimes only one, which created its eerie sound: a broken staccato that nonetheless had intervals of regularity nested within it.
Of the two dozen Hkh’Rkh who came close enough to the linked fighting holes to angle their fire down at the sheltering humans, only three survived long enough to unload their own weapons. The Hkh’Rkh either fell back from, or toppled down upon the humans they had killed.
In the brief lull that followed, Wu tried to reach Two-Gun Baker again—the other Cold Guard in Dugout Seven was either dead or wounded—but a wave of static was the only reply he received. He scanned the position; at a guess, half of Dugout Seven was dead or so badly wounded that they were incapable of fighting on. Of those still firing, maybe half could truly be called “combat effectives”—and even that was a generous estimate.
Tactics and humane action required the same response. Wu turned his head, began shouting orders. “Heavy barrel; reposition three meters left. Then swap cassettes and prepare to resume fire. Fire Team Two, prepare to reinforce Dugout Seven. Fire Team One, provide cover fire. Teams: execute!”
As the machine gun’s crew moved the weapon to a new position that would—hopefully—throw off any imminent enemy counterfire, Fire Team One began sniping at the next wave of Hkh’Rkh, choosing any who seemed to be trying to train their weapons on the three sprinting figures of Fire Team Two.
But more and more Hkh’Rkh were emerging from the smoke. The FASCAMs had done their work, but the Warriors had evidently carved a path through them, paved by those the mines had slain. Several at the front of the new horde, at the flank closest to Dugout Seven, did not press on with their charge, but kneeled, aimed at Fire Team Two—
And were hit in the side by a fusillade from Dugout Seven’s fighting holes, only fifteen meters away from them. Susan Phillips had risen, along with Two-Gun Baker and several GIs and Soviets. Their sudden wave of fire rocked the kneeling Hkh’Rkh back: several rolled limp, several fell, tried to rise up. Phillips, having abandoned her scoped Lee-Enfield for a Thompson, vaulted to the top of her hole and charged at them; the mobile defenders of Dugout Seven followed without pause.
Wu, speechless, breathless, realized that her distraction just might enable Fire Team Two to survive their sprint to Dugout Seven.
The more pressing question, he discerned as his team’s heavy-barrel machine gun began to speak again, was whether Susan Phillips and the rest of the defenders would still be alive by the time they got there.
Chapter Fifty-Two
KAKAAGSUKH RIVER VALLEY, BD+56 2966 TWO (“TURKH’SAAR”)
Jrekhalkar moved his civilian-grade dioptiscope higher back on his unusually long head. “I would have your assessment, Ezzraamar Laarkhduur of the Moiety of Nys’maharn: where shall I show my halbardiche? At which ford should the Voice and Fist of Turkh’saar make his personal crossing?”
Which, Ezzraamar knew, was code for: where shall we commit our last reserves to break through? Because the contests were close and fierce at all three crossing points, it seemed wisest to concentrate their remaining resources to forcing just one.
Ezzraamar pony-nodded. “To advise, I must assess more closely.”
Jrekhalkar flung his hand, claws stretched, in the direction of the river: a gesture of permission that Ezzraamar might do as he pleased.
Ezzraamar snugged his military dioptiscope over his eyes, adjusted the magnification to respond to sustained ocular fixity, and watched the river as it swam into and out of focus for a moment. The current was diminishing slightly, which meant that far downstream, in the bay into which it emptied, the tide was probably at its peak. The resistance of the rising water took time to register upstream, slowing the current but also causing more chop. By nighttime, the effect here would be at its greatest: the water would be calmer, but already slightly deeper, even though the tide in the bay would be running out by then. Would that impact the outcome of the battle? Unlikely, since it was still many hours to nightfall. But if the combat was not resolved by then—if, for instance, the Warriors of Turkh’saar had secured a foothold on the far shore but had been contained there by enemy forces—then the slower current would make for an easier night crossing. It would be both safer and easier to send enough Warriors across the River Kakaagsukh to force a breakout from whatever pocket in which the humans had them hemmed.
He swung his head northward, but paid more attention to the faint, erratic hisses and frying sounds in his earpiece: the radio degradation from the flare was continuing to build. With any luck, it would force the humans to ground their rotary aircraft. Usually, engines were not as sensitive as communications or computing equipment, but flares were unpredictable, and the consequences of an in-flight failure were usually final.
He steadied his head so that it was aimed in the direction of the northernmost ford. The image swam, grew, resolved.
There wasn’t a lot to see, other than the masses of infantry crouched among the ruined APCs on the ford, a line which disappeared into the still-screened far shore. It was impossible to make out the weaponfire from here: the thundering exchanges at the middle ford—barely three hundred meters away—drowned out all other sounds. However, the amount of infantry that seemed to be waiting, rather than moving, among the wrecks on the northern ford was not promising. It indicated that whatever else was transpiring there, the pace of the assault, and the speed with which forces were securing a foothold on the far bank, was quite slow. And in attacks such as this one, a slow pace tended to favor the defender, not the attacker.
He moved his view southward, scanning the stretch between the northern and middle fords for some sign of the activity that had drawn his attention to the area earlier. The dioptiscope showed no activity on the human side, only a faint wisp of smoke where helicopters had arrived to either drop off or pick up troops near the river. Their purposes had not been clear. But the militia’s machine guns had brought down one of the smaller rotary-wings, its rotors suddenly askew, one of them tearing through a patch of underbrush that ran down to the water. The other aircraft had not tarried, but sped away shortly afterward.
Ezzraamar’s view swam back, reducing the magnification, as the dioptiscope grazed across the middle ford. It had been the site of the worst losses to date, worsening further when, just a short time ago, a human robot had come leaping out of the tower of smoke on the far shore, bounding from one ruined APC to the next like a whelpling using conveniently spaced rocks to hop across a stream. Covered by a devastating barrage from the humans’ MULTIs, the robot had single-handedly broken the attempt of a second wave of APCs to skirt the wrecks on the ford and support the assault. It had then bounded into the clustertrees behind their side of the ford and apparently attacked and suppressed the heavy weapons that had brought down the human rotary-wing between the north and middle fords. Jrekhalkar had sent a full troop in pursuit of the mechanical monster but, so far, they had reported no luck in finding it.
Ezzraamar finally swung his head toward the south ford, where the largest mass of Warriors was moving swiftly across the shallows, disappearing into the smoke on the other side. The roar of gunfire and explosions from beyond those thick, billowing drifts was fierce and relentless. Still, if only a fraction of the Warriors pouring on to the far shore were surviving to secure a foothold, it was by far the most promising of the three assaults.
Ezzraamar pushed back his dioptiscope. “I agree: the southern ford. But I am concerned that the human robot is still on our side of the river. It has the power to disrupt our forces, our plans.”
Jrekhalkar’s answering gesture was dismissive. “We have over fifty of our best Warriors tracking it. They will find and destroy the abomination.”
Rather than offer his opinion regarding their ability to carry out that mission, Ezzraamar approached the topic obliquely. “The automaton is very fast and is no longer engaging us directly. It may be difficult to hunt.”
Jrekhalkar did not seem concerned. “Most likely it is looking to locate and eliminate our heavy weapons. We shall continue to pursue it, but concern with it must not undermine our commitment to the current attacks. Actually, I would rather have it on this side of the river than over there, fighting to turn us back from the far shore.”
Ezzraamar saw the wisdom of that, but also saw the danger the device might pose operating in their rear. However, Jrekhalkar’s opinion was well-founded in one regard: they did not have much “rear area” left to protect. All their assets had been brought up to the line to carry out the attack. The few mortar carriers which had not been eliminated were now almost as likely to hit Warriors as humans, so their moment had passed.
