Lieutenant, page 23
part #2 of Dirigent Mercenary Corps Series
“Keep an eye out for the enemy on the ground!” Lon warned on his all-hands circuit. “If they’re coming, this could be the time.”
The Belletiener infantry was coming, or, at least, they had started to shoot. They were too far off yet for accurate fire from rocket-propelled grenades, but their rifles opened up, aiming for men who were attempting to assist wounded comrades. Then Lon heard the whoosh of rockets, looked up, and saw the trails of small missiles coming in. He yelled a warning over his radio. Three rockets passed over the heads of Lon’s men and exploded behind them—when they struck something. The missiles were not designed as antipersonnel weapons; they were meant for tanks or aircraft, with armor-piercing warheads.
“Just as soon have them waste those like this,” Tebba said on his link to Lon. “Can’t do us much harm, and every one of those rockets they shoot our way means one less they’ve got to shoot at our fly-guys.”
“Until they get lucky and have one of them explode near enough to hit someone,” Lon said, more coldly than he had intended. “There’s enough shrapnel in those to kill a squad.”
For several minutes there was nothing but static fighting, long-range sniping, almost exclusively by Belletieners. Lon had given only his men with beamers clearance to fire if they had a solid target. Then Weil Jorgen called. “Looks like they’re starting to move, Lieutenant. It looks as if they’re aiming to cut the line to our right, either through our first and second platoons or where Bravo is.”
Lon shifted his weight onto his left side to look to the right without exposing himself to enemy fire. There did seem to be a heavier concentration of that fire in that direction, but he was no more certain of exactly how far over it was than Jorgen was. There was too much space between adjoining units. They were spread thin.
“I see what you mean, Weil,” Lon said. “But even if the point of the thrust is there, they’re sure to broaden it, and that means they’ll be coming against us soon enough.”
“If they’re not just probing for weak spots,” Jorgen replied. “If that’s what’s going on, there could be a lot of false starts before they find a route they like.”
“I don’t think that’s what they’re doing. They’ve got about everyone they brought massed. It looks as if they’ve decided where they’re going to attack, regardless of the defenses.”
“There’s about ninety yards open between us and Bravo Company,” Weil said. “Could be that’s where they’re going.”
Just have to make sure the perimeter holds, Lon thought—knowing that would be impossible if the enemy threw three thousand men against it. If the enemy broke the line, they would limit the ability of the defenders to respond. But a ninety-yard gap was not excessive. The enfilading fire zones on either side overlapped through most of the distance the enemy had to cross.
“Be smart with ammo,” Lon said on his all-hands circuit. One Belletiener, one bullet would be nice. “There are a lot of them out there.” When the perimeter was established, extra stocks of rifle ammunition and grenades had been distributed to each unit. But there could never be enough for peace of mind.
The Belletieners started their assault. Lon could not fault the fire-and-maneuver tactics the enemy used. It made their advance extremely slow, but it was the only hope they had—other than a suicidal run across the broad kill zone. While two or three platoons advanced, crawling when they could, the rest of the Belletieners kept up heavy suppressive fire.
“When you’ve got targets, fire,” Lon ordered his platoons after receiving the same order from Captain Orlis. But they were at the periphery of the fight. They were receiving incoming fire, but there were few clear targets for Lon’s men, and those were at extreme range. Lon did not do any shooting. For the time being, his energies were better directed at observation—careful not to expose himself any more than necessary to enemy sniper fire.
By monitoring the common channel used by the lieutenants and captains in the battalion, Lon was able to follow the fight more closely than he could just by looking over the lip of his trench. The wedge of the Belletiener attack expanded slowly to either side as the point got closer to the defensive perimeter. More troops moved into the wedge, increasing the pace of the assault as their weapons made it harder for the Dirigenters to provide a sufficient volume of accurate gunfire. But as the size of the wedge increased, Lon’s men had better targets.
We’re never going to hold them, Lon decided fifteen minutes after the assault had started. They keep coming the way they are, they’ll cut right through the line. “Tebba, Weil,” Lon said, switching to their channel. “Slide one or two men back from each platoon to where we’ve got the extra ammo. If we have to pull back in a hurry, I don’t want to leave any of it behind.”
“We got as much of it distributed before as we could, Lieutenant,” Weil said.
Tebba added, “We got all of the grenades. I think two men can carry all the rifle ammo still back there.”
“Well, get it. But carefully. I don’t want to lose anyone in the process. The Belletieners are taking more interest in us now. And it’s only likely to get worse.”
Time twisted around on itself, as it always did for Lon when he was in combat, when fear and adrenaline flowed. At the same time, it seemed to speed up and slow to a crawl. His senses seemed preternaturally acute, his mind running at peak speed. That made external time drag. With the near flank of the Belletiener wedge getting closer, Lon started taking a few shots, when he had a clear target. Each time, he squeezed off a short burst. The goal was to fire three bullets at a time; Lon was rarely more than one off in either direction.
The attacking troops were taking heavy casualties. That was inescapable. But they kept coming. When the platoons at the point lost too many men to remain effective, they went flat and waited until new troops could be sent forward to reinforce them, and then they started moving again, leapfrogging each other—often by no more than one or two yards at a time.
Two men in Lon’s fourth platoon were wounded within seconds of each other. A medical orderly crawled toward the nearest, and was himself hit. He managed to crawl on until he could slide into the trench with the first of the men he had been going to, but he could do little more; his own wound was too serious. By the time another medic could reach him, the first medic was dead. The second went on to treat the two wounded men.
A tree almost directly behind Lon seemed to explode—struck by a rocket. The missile hit five feet up, and the trunk snapped, adding wooden shrapnel to the metallic variety from the rocket. The tree seemed to stand suspended over the break for an instant, then the weight of its branches dropped it—toward Lon. He had lowered his head inside his trench, and brought his arms in close to his body at the sound of the explosion. He felt the sharp pricks of small projectiles hitting his back, and the stings of several injuries. Then the tree came down on top of him. Branches snapped as they absorbed much of the energy of the falling tree, cushioning its impact. The trunk did not land directly across Lon’s slit trench, but there were branches pressing against him, not quite pinning him where he was.
The air was knocked out of Lon. He needed a moment to recover from that before he even became aware of the pain of the shrapnel hits. Those stung, and burned.
“Lieutenant?” Lon recognized Tebba’s voice, but was slow to respond.
“I’m okay, I think,” Lon said, the words separated from each other as if they were only distant dictionary entries. “I took a couple of hits, either wood slivers or shrapnel. Then the tree came down on top of me.”
“Can you move?” Tebba asked. “Or do we have to pry the tree off of you first?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I find out,” Lon said, blinking several times. There was an edge of—almost—shock slowing his mind. It was difficult to draw a full breath.
He moved cautiously, experimenting to discover if movement would bring increased pain. When it did not, he tried pushing himself back toward the rear end of his trench, then tried sliding left, farther away from the tree trunk. The branches covering him pressed down, and caught in his clothing and gear.
“I could move if it wasn’t for this tree,” Lon said. “I’ll have to cut my way free. You pay attention to what’s going on. Don’t try to come in for me. I’ll get out on my own.”
It took ten minutes for Lon to cut his way out. He used his bayonet, thankful for the time he had spent stropping the blade until it was razor sharp. The fallen tree would have provided excellent cover, but Lon could not see what was going on from under the tangle. The branches and leaves were impenetrable on the end nearest the enemy. And Lon feared not being able to see what was going on more than he feared the loss of protection.
By the time he did get out and was able to see the progress of the battle again, the tip of the enemy wedge had reached the ninety-yard gap in the defensive perimeter.
23
“All hell’s breaking loose,” Captain Orlis said, talking to both of his lieutenants by radio. Carl Hoper’s platoons had moved back until they were with Lon’s, facing the Belletieners on two sides, and the captain had moved his command post at the same time. “If we can’t shut off this breakthrough in a hurry, we’re going to have the biggest mess you ever dreamed of.”
“We getting any help?” Carl asked.
“There’ll be two fighters down in six minutes, four more eight minutes later,” Orlis said. “But on the ground, we’re it for now. It’s going to take time to move troops up from the west side of the perimeter. They’re already moving, and Calypso is moving some of its people around from the east. But for at least the next ninety minutes, we’re pretty much on our own.”
“Whichever way they turn, they’ve got the numbers to roll us up,” Lon observed. His wounds, all minor, had been treated. Slivers of wood had been pulled from his back and thighs and med-patches applied over the wounds. The anesthetic had already numbed the pain, but Lon’s legs felt stiff.
“If they bother,” Orlis said. “So far, it looks as if their only goal is to push through to Government House.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Hoper protested. “They can’t ignore us. What the hell good would it do to take a building four miles away and leave us all to close back in on them?”
“You’re asking the wrong man,” Orlis said. “Our orders are to hold as best we can, make the breakthrough as expensive for the enemy as we can, buy time for Colonel Gaffney and the locals to move more men into position.”
The only way we have to slow them down is to make them take the time to kill us, Lon thought. He swallowed hard. And I thought the Corps didn’t believe in ‘last stands.’
Two minutes later, even harder orders came from Lieutenant Colonel Flowers. “We’re to counterattack, try to pinch the gap closed again, minimize the penetration,” Captain Orlis told his lieutenants. “Bravo Company will attack simultaneously from the other side. Charlie and Delta are moving in to take care of the ones still to the north. We’ll worry about the soldiers who’ve already pushed through the gap later.” Lon thought that he could hear anger in the captain’s voice.
“Nolan, we’ll pivot on your fourth platoon, use the other three platoons to try to push our half of the gap closed. Hoper, your platoons will be on the wide end. We go in three minutes.”
Automatically, Lon checked the timeline on his visor display. He passed the orders on to Tebba and Weil.
“Pivot on us?” Weil asked. “Hell, it’s all we can do to hold with everyone here. They’ll step on us like we were bugs.”
“Sting hard then, Weil,” Lon said. “We do what we’re told.”
The first two Shrikes hit the Belletieners in the gap while Alpha and Bravo companies were marshaling for their counterattack. The planes came from the south, diving straight into the advancing enemy, as if they were trying to stick fingers in a leaking dike. They strafed with rapid-fire cannon and fired rockets. The ferocity of the attack had to stop the Belletiener advance, if only for a few seconds. Before they could start to move again, the mercenaries on the ground started toward them.
Lon moved with third platoon, staying close—almost too close—to Tebba and his second squad. They all crawled, one squad moving forward a few feet while the other three squads provided covering fire. Then the next squad edged forward.
The first pair of aircraft came back for a second pass, then peeled off to the east, climbing for orbit. Until the next fighters came in, the men on the ground would be alone again.
During the first moments of the advance, the enemy did not seem to be aware that a counterattack had started on the ground. The Belletieners in the wedge resumed firing at them, but much of that fire went well overhead, as if it were still aimed at the positions that Lon’s men had abandoned.
The attack from the air left them dazed, Lon guessed. It would not last long. “Let’s push it a little before they get their wits back,” he told Tebba. Then he called Captain Orlis and said the same thing, making it a suggestion this time.
“Do what you can,” Orlis told both lieutenants. Like them, Orlis was moving forward, with his headquarters squad, only a few yards behind the line.
Dirigenters did not go into combat wearing body armor. That had proved to be a vain quest generations before. Whenever better body armor was invented, someone else came along with bullets that would penetrate it, until the necessary level of protection could only be had at a cost—in weight—that was too much to allow an infantryman to carry an effective load of anything else. Only their helmets provided any real protection against small arms fire and shrapnel—as much for the benefit of the electronics as for the soldier—and even that was not one hundred percent effective.
Lon felt one bullet ricochet off his helmet. The force of the slug slammed his face into the dirt, dazed him, and started a ringing in his ears that shut out any other sound. When he did start to hear voices on his radio again, they seemed hollow, faint. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and ran the helmet’s diagnostics to make certain that the electronics were still functioning.
He slid forward another six inches, firing a couple of short bursts as he moved. The enemy was so close that they were almost impossible to miss if they got any higher off the ground than Lon was. He moved behind the trunk of a tree about eighteen inches thick. That could cover him from only some of the enemy.
A deep breath. Lon squeezed his eyes shut for just an instant. They had been watering freely. He blinked several times to clear his vision. The radio chatter was louder, almost normal.
“Flatten out and stay put!” Lon recognized Captain Orlis’s voice, then noted that he was on the company all-hands channel. Lon went motionless. No more than five seconds passed before he heard incoming fighters and their streams of cannon rounds and rockets. The two Shrikes went south to north, through the Belletieners who were part of the breakthrough and across the open field to spray the enemy troops who were covering the assault. One fighter peeled left and the other right.
Orlis changed channels to talk to his lieutenants and noncoms. “There’ll be four passes altogether, two by this pair of fighters and two by the next. As soon as the fourth pass ends, we go, and we keep going until we link up with Bravo.”
That’ll help, Lon thought, his faceplate in the dirt. It takes time to recover from that sort of hell. Aerial strafing could be deadly when the targets were in the open with no cover … and the Belletieners in the gap between Alpha and Bravo had very little. Much of what foliage there had been had already been shredded, and each aerial assault pruned it back even more. Lon turned his head to the side, so that he could see a little of what was going on. The Shrikes came back for their second pass. The cannons opened up earlier this time, targeting the enemy troops who had taken the tip of the Belletiener wedge past the defensive line on the ground.
Lon watched the strobing muzzle blasts of one Shrike’s cannon, saw the trail of fire and smoke behind a missile. Then the aircraft was past, out of sight, but the sounds of guns and rockets continued, marching north through the enemy troops.
Don’t give them time to start moving again, Lon thought. Keep hitting them until they’re too shocked to do anything. He could not think of the enemy as humans now, not men like him, obeying orders and trying to do their duty. The worse they were hurt now—the more killed and wounded—the easier it would be for Lon and his men. Fewer friends and comrades would die.
The next pair of Shrikes made their first run. The return of the cacophony shut out the cries of wounded and dying Belletieners, some of them no more than thirty yards from where Lon lay. The strip of forest itself continued to suffer mightily from the airborne assault. Bullets ripped through foliage and snapped small branches, wounded larger branches and even trunks. Rockets blew trees, some of them a century or more old, into kindling. Lon could smell burning wood, a new tincture added to the odors of combat—predominantly the smell of gunpowder and other explosives. Lon tried to assure himself that there was too much moisture in the trees and grass for the fires to spread far. The wood was not dry enough for the fires to burgeon into a major conflagration that might be more dangerous than the Belletieners.
Another pass. For a few seconds, Lon squeezed his eyes shut, focusing inside. Soon, he would have to get up with his men. Once the last pass of the fighters ended, Lon and his men would be up and moving across the river of blood and death that the Shrikes were leaving.
“Tebba, Weil. When the time comes, get everyone moving in a hurry,” Lon said. “The quicker we make this linkup, the fewer casualties we’ll take. Get the hole plugged, then worry about the enemy inside our perimeter later.”
