Battle Cry, page 1
Battle Cry
Eric Glocker
Iron Fang Publishing
Copyright © 2021 Eric Glocker and Iron Fang Publishing
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Sand Paper Daisy
Produced in the United States of America
To The Poor Bloody Infantry, Under Whatever Sky He Or She Might Roam.
It was simple chance that the hyper velocity crack of a sniper rifle hadn’t heralded Captain Emma Sterling’s death. She’d dropped to a knee to examine what might have been a landmine. A second later the wake from the round screaming through the air nearly threw her from her feet.
The velocity of the shot was so intense that oxygen ignited in the wake of the hypersonic projectile, scorching the surface of a part of her armor.
As Emma shoved the medic who’d raced to her aid aside and leapt to her feet a red target indicator flared on her HUD. The scouts had spotted the sniper as they fled north.
“Move out! Let’s see if we can’t flush the nest that rat crawled out of!”
Emma slapped one of her soldier’s shoulder pads with a laugh. “Come on Xien! Shake it off and get the lead out! I’m walking off a rail gun round; I don’t want to hear anyone else complaining!”
First Sergeant Ezekial stepped forward and focused his boss back onto her work. “Ma’am, I’d say the odds are pretty good the rat nest is where those hostages might be. Just like intelligence was thinking it was.”
“My thoughts exactly, Top.” Emma jerked her head towards the horizon. “Worst case scenario we might get a lead on some of the high tech gear coming on-planet. That wasn’t a hunting rifle they just tried to kill me with. Still, those transmissions sig-int intercepted pointed to the hostages being there... so we might just need to kick the hornet’s nest. Especially if that nest has a bunch of scared kids in there.”
“Bad manners really ma’am. We’ll have to show them how to treat guests more politely. Orders?”
“Spread’em out, thataway on the double. We don’t have the trucks thanks to the terrain so let’s keep sharp, switch our scrambling to code seven, then resume normal comms.”
Ezekial nodded to Emma and cocked his head at a few troops nearby. “Spread the word by voice only, switch out encryption, preset code seven. Then stand by.”
“Yes First Sergeant!”
Emma watched as her company fanned out and started moving, weapons raised. Today had started with a simple recon mission, with a rescue if the opportunity presented itself. Now A company had switched over to combat mode. Someone had tried to kill their CO, and Highlanders never allowed an insult like that to stand.
‘Shame that the local kids had been dead for at least a day and we never did find any evidence about who was supplying the rebels with weapons.’
“Alright, let's get into our standard fighting profile. Drones up. If someone’s taking pot shots at us it’s safe to assume they know we’re here.”
“Drones up ma’am! Building battles space picture and merging with satcom feed!” One of the techs called out.
“Good, give me something to look at Highlanders, I want to find these bastards and return the favor for trying to take my head off.” Emma offered a wry smile to the members of her security detail as they closed ranks reflexively around their boss.
◆◆◆
The company advanced rapidly through the craggy terrain after that, clambering through the wadis of sandstone and red soil in the heat blasted desert. It reminded Emma of pictures of Mars, if slightly less hospitable.
No raiders or ambushers materialized out of the rocks and dust to engage them. It was still. Calm. The only sounds are the movement of infantry heading forward, the occasional call out as fire teams coordinated among themselves.
The glint of an optic reflecting sunlight heralded a few more ineffectual long range rifle shots whistled out, and slammed into the dirt around their ankles. The Highlander’s marksmen gamely returned fire, with one woman proudly calling out a hit earning back slaps from her squadmates.
Emma fidgeted a bit within her armor as she moved, flipping through various intelligence read outs while trying to suppress the uncomfortable feeling settling in her stomach. Not because she’d almost had her head ripped off by a hypersonic bullet, but because it was obvious to her that they were being lured in. A more decisive flick of her tongue switches her to her private channel with Top Ezekial. “It’s a little bit too quiet, Top.”
“I agree ma’am. Orders?”
“I think we need to proceed. The drones are only coming up with a few small buildings. The insurgents have only had light small arms so far. Even a hypersonic railgun or three doesn’t change their potential firepower that much if we get into a gunfight. If they have those kids, we need to rescue them ASAP before they end up dead.”
'They’re already dead though. They were murdered the day they were taken with all the delicacy of a butcher.'
“Ma’am! They just splashed one of the drones when it overflew the quarry. Automatic rifle fire. Probably a lucky hit into the engine intake. We got some footage though. Forwarding to you and Top’s visors.”
Emma tried to wipe her brow in vain, the sweat band was doing its job just fine in the sealed environment of her armor, but old habits truly died hard. She squinted as she reviewed the stream of images in front of her eyes. Tongue controls let her flick through them quickly. Not much the satellites hadn’t seen. A few small camouflaged buildings at the base of the quarry, but not much else.
“Top, keep an eye on the company and the XO for me. Standard dispersion. I’m calling for support.”
Emma flicked her radio over to the battalion net with her tongue.
“Guidons, guidons Black Dog, this is Banshee Six Actual.”
“Banshee Six, Black Dog. What can we do for you?”
“I need the quick reaction force to move to my beacon, time now. I’m moving my company into a narrow area potentially populated with hostiles and if we need help we’re gonna be in it deep fast.”
“Wait one.” Black Dog, the company’s command center, went off the air for a moment. “Banshee 6, the QRF is already committed. They’ll get to you as soon as they can. Command wants you to proceed with the mission if at all possible. We want those hostages back.”
“Copy Black Dog, Banshee Six Actual out.”
Emma’s radio call lasted just long enough for the first of her troopers boots to hit the rim of the quarry. She’d covered her bases, she’d done everything she could to prep for any eventuality. She held a breath in her lungs and let it out slowly, no one was coming. It was up to them. Emma flicked her radio to the company wide net.
“Advance! Let’s go get those people back.”
The company surged into motion, troopers moving into the quarry via a road that had once carried heavy equipment. Their boots were not even denting the hardened red earth of the quarry as they moved.
Still the tension in Emma’s gut remained. In fact, it got even worse as they moved into the quarry... and finally, the tension snapped as the enemy started their ambush.
Small arms fire started to pepper the area around the company as men and women who clearly weren’t the most skilled of marksmen tried to get the range on their rifles. They were arranged in nests along the far wall, some of the nests had been furnished with crew served weapons, Emma noticed, as the world slowed down around her once the adrenaline dumped into her system. Finally time resumed its normal speed as a soldier in front of her yelled.
“Contact front! Get to cover!”
The call for cover fell on a company that had already started throwing itself behind solid objects across the breadth of the road they were on. There was enough solid metal waste scattered around, and enough outcroppings of rock they actually had enough cover for a solid fighting position.
Now, Emma Sterling’s HUD was filled with red icons indicating enemy combatants and the roar of weapons fire filled the air. The company commander followed the suggestion to hit the dirt and slammed into a nearby berm before she raised her head and surveyed the area.
From her new position, Emma considered the situation and moved to eliminate the biggest threat. “Missileers! Burn those crew served weapons, LMGs, I want some suppression on that cliff side! Everyone else, targets of opportunity!
One of the missileers had clearly been locked on and just waiting for an order to filter down from his squad leader or someone else in charge, and a smart missile immediately leapt into the sky on a pillar of smoke before it corrected it’s trajectory and slammed home violently into one of the more prominent machine gun nests firing at them.
Emma was about to congratulate the victorious missileer when the man was cut down by a burst of return fire from the cliffs.
“Man down! Medic up!”
The cries of casualties and desperate calls for a medic started rolling across the comms as the fighting dragged from seconds into minutes. Six of her troopers were injured in the short span of time since the enemy had opened up on them.
Then a new warning marker popped up on her HUD, a flashing red symbol that marked an enemy aircraft that had been detected by one of their dron
Emma swore quietly under her breath as she popped out of cover and took half a breath. The burst of sabot rounds released as she caressed the trigger dropped a rebel at just shy of maximum range, while regulating her emotions for a moment before she triggered her comm.
“Whoever gets me the company’s first confirmed anti air kill is gonna get a promotion if I have to sew the extra stripe out of loose cloth myself.”
That would get the missileers attention. The first person to get a lock and launch would get the kill, the battlefield control system networked the smart missile launchers and would only allow a follow up shot if the computer decided a follow up shot was needed.
As the enemy aircraft moved into view Emma noted it probably wouldn’t be needed. It looked like a ramshackle VTOL of a model similar to the ones used by agricultural workers back on Lorna Do. Albeit those didn’t come with nearly as many guns bolted on.
“Clever. They pinned us down and brought in an airstrike.” Emma zoomed in with her helmet optics. “Damn those are pretty modern looking bombs it’s got strapped underneath. Not jury rigged fuel canisters or anything.”
Ezekiel snorted derisively. “Still looks like a mess to me.” before he switched to the company net “Will someone take that damn thing out of my sky? It offends me.”
As if in response to the whisper thin question from the company first sergeant, a missileer found a steady guidance lock and the smart weapon raced into the sky. Its warhead partnered up with the BCS “looked” at the ungainly vehicle determining the weak point in the air frame.
The weapon adjusted its course with micro jets and accelerated to mach 4 in a heartbeat, burying itself in the target and turning it into a brilliant ball of fire and shrapnel which rained down on the far side of the canyon.
“Hmm... things are going well for an ambush.” The knot in Emma’s stomach hadn’t lessened. Her gut was telling her something but damn it all to hell if she could figure out what. “Top, transmit to all missileers, hold fire, they’re to conserve ammunition.”
“Watching out for more aircraft ma’am?”
“Or whatever they might have up their sleeves Top. Let’s get moving into the quarry, I want to get this done before the sun sets.”
“Copy, transmitting orders.”
Emma continued to watch the company as it moved and reacted to their shifting opposition. The fire that had been rained upon them had slackened a bit, most of the heavier emplacements had been reduced to smoking craters.
Finally the other shoe dropped.
The explosion from behind the company catapulted a few of the Highlanders holding up the rear guard into the air and sent others crashing down into the depths of the quarry in a shower of stone.
“We’re cut off! They collapsed the ramp!”
Emma cursed to herself under her breath, “Alright, keep your kilts on people, we’re not trapped in here with them, they’re trapped in here with us.”
Top’s voice hissed across the channel, spitting with rage. “Come on, you mother’s darlings expected the enemy to fight fair? Well if they’re fighting dirty, we drag them up to our level and beat them to death with experience!”
‘Here it comes.’
“Thank you First Sergeant, platoon leaders, reform and adva...”
The second stage of the enemy’s trap cut Emma off in the middle of her sentence. In the middle of the quarry eight carefully concealed heavy weapons popped out of cargo containers and other pieces of camouflage. Emma’s mind only had a half second to process this change in situation before the multi barrel autocannons opened fire with a full throated roar.
“Cover!”
The Captain followed her own order and threw herself to the right, and slid into something that approximated cover, though with such high caliber, high velocity rounds in play, a lot of the available cover was just concealment now.
As Emma huddled against the berm of rock she could feel high velocity autocannon rounds as they passed overhead while around her men and women bled and died.
“Respectfully ma’am, what in the nine hells is going on here? They shouldn’t have that kind of firepower! intelligence said...” Top’s frustrated voice cut in over their private comm channel.
“I know what intelligence said, Top. They clearly were wrong. Unless you wanna walk down and tell those gun mounts they don’t exist.”
“No ma’am. Hunker down and wait for reinforcements? QRF should be on the way eventually.”
“Black Dog's not told me if they're even on the way and frankly, I don’t think we’re going to last long enough just to sit on our hands.” Emma flipped a switch in her helmet with her tongue and brought up a monitoring display. “I got a lot of dead troopers on my screen already, Top. Lots of injured... and I feel like the bad guys have enough ammo to shoot away our cover.”
“Ma’am, I wish I could pull a rabbit out of my bottomless hat of wisdom for you like when you were a fresh faced lieutenant, but this time we are well and truly in it up to the neck.”
“I know... just... give me a second to think.”
Emma switched off the channel and focused, her brow knit together as she took a few deep, slow breaths. She needed options... she didn’t have many options at all. The mounts she’d seen were armored, maybe too armored for the smart missiles.
The weapons hadn’t looked particularly modern and were probably manned instead of automated turrets. They’d probably have limited sensors. Could she risk the lives of her unit on probably? Emma took another deep breath, switched on her comm and began to issue her orders
“Alpha platoon, deploy smoke canisters, Charlie, move up towards Alpha then drop your smoke past them, then Bravo advances, missileers, I can’t order you to, but if you get the chance to pop up and pop one of those turrets, you are authorized to take out targets of opportunity.
Nine missileers in the company, one or two missiles left apiece. One missileer quickly organized her comrades over the comms and moved into the open to let her launcher, and therefore the other soldiers’ launchers, “see” the turrets.
