Corpsman (20 page)

Chapter 36

Liege watched Dannyboy’s team emplace their charges.  The bridge itself shouldn’t be too difficult.  It was about 15 meters long, 20 meters wide, and hung two or three meters over the creek.  The gap over the creek wasn’t that wide, and if the oncoming enemy had bridging equipment, they could probably span the creek within ten minutes.  The hard part was the area around the bridge, which is why Dannboy’s team, with Gidge, their school-trained EOD Maine, had this mission rather than the more straightforward cliff.  To make it more difficult to get the bridging equipment to the edge of the downed bridge, the team was going to crater the road, but back from the bridge.  It wouldn’t make sense to do it too close where the rubble would flow down and accidently fill the gap.

A fifteen-meter gap would be nothing to a Marine Davis or Pangolin.  Both vehicles had limited hover capabilities, and they could essentially jump it.  But jumping such a huge beast took lots of energy and extra equipment and added significantly to the cost.  The Tonyas and Patties were designed with economy in mind, and neither vehicle had hover capabilities.  They could traverse some pretty serious terrain, but the gap over the creek would be too much for them. They could sacrifice two Patties, however, simply driving over the edge and into the creek, one after the other, to form a makeshift bridge over which other vehicles could drive.

“How long for the captain?” Moose asked.

“He thinks another 70 or so minutes,” Warden answered.

Another eight Marines wouldn’t turn the tide of an upcoming fight, but still, Liege would be happy to see them coming down the far side of Grape.  She’d thought that they would have already married up, but terrain had worked against them.  Seventy minutes was still a long time, however, and, at a minimum, the lead PIP elements should have reached Licorice by then.

Liege looked over to the approach to the hills, trying to figure out how close that lead element was, when something caught her ear.  It took her a second to categorize it.

“We’ve got company coming,” she said.

A Tonya was a hydrogen-powered tank, and her engines were almost silent.  However, there were so many moving parts in the big vehicle, parts that were not always of the highest cost and quality, so after time, they creaked and squeaked against each other as the tank rumbled along.

They’d just been in a firefight five minutes ago, and that had to have been noted by the PIP forces, but they’d figured they had at least 15 minutes before a reaction force from Licorice could arrive on the scene, and maybe not even reaching them by then.  Personnel had been stripped from the checkpoint to head south, and they might simply stay in place until the first element of the divisions arrived.  What the team hadn’t considered was that there had been anyone close enough to the south to react.

Stupid mistake.

Liege ran to the other side of the beak, but for the same reason the dead soldiers couldn’t see them when they were emplacing the charges, she couldn’t see the actual road bed.

“What do you got, Doc?” Warden asked.

“One, maybe two Tonyas.  A couple of Pattties.  I can’t see them.”

“Dannyboy, get out of there.  You’ve got company coming.  We’ll blow what you’ve got.”

Dannyboy looked up to them and waved an arm.  Within a few heartbeats, three Marines were sprinting for safety, but Dannyboy stayed.

“I said get out of there, Dannyboy!”

“Twenty seconds,” Dannyboy passed back.  “I’ll have the last charge emplaced.”

“Doc, where are they?  Are they in the blast zone?” Warden shouted to Liege.

“I. . .it’s hard to tell.  The sounds are echoing,” she said as the first fingers of panic threatened to take hold of her.  She leaned out over the edge, trying to see anything.

“I think they might—” she started, only to be interrupted by a blast below.

She immediately looked to the bridge just in time to see Dannyboy disappear in an explosion of fire.

“Get back now, Doc!” Warden shouted.

Her feet were moving before she realized what she’d heard, and within a second or two, the entire outcropping shook underneath her, knocking her to the ground.  Still prone, she looked back.  The edge of the beak still looked whole, but a huge cloud of dust was rising from the gorge.

“Gidge, blow the bridge,” Warden passed over the comms. 

Liege stood up, hoping that the round that had killed Dannyboy hadn’t dislodged the charges.  A second later, the bridge erupted into smoke as pieces of it flew high into the air.  She edged forward, testing the footing, until she could see straight down below her.

Before Warden had detonated their charges, their view of the road immediately below them had been blocked by a bulge in the outcropping.  That bulge had now been sliced off, and tons of rocks had fallen.  Beneath her, in the rubble, the dust was heavy, but she could just make out what had to be the back end of a Tonya sticking out through the rubble.  A Patty was on its battered side.  As she watched, a hatch opened, and a lone figure crawled and flopped out to lie still on the rocks.

Further to the south, where the rubble ended, another Patty was on the road, slightly dented, but upright.  Soldiers were pouring out of the back, eyes and weapons pointed up.  Liege quickly stepped back out of the line of sight.

“The gorge is blocked,” she shouted to the others.  “It looks like a Tonya and a Patty are down, but another Patty survived, and the soldiers inside are debarking.”

“Going active on comms,” Warden announced.

Liege heard him contacting the MEB with a SITREP, then adding a request for air support on the approaching column.  Liege felt a welcome wave of relief at that.  It was time they were not out there all on their own.

“That’s a negative on the air, Granite-Four,” came back after only 20 seconds, erasing that feeling of relief.  “Assets are needed elsewhere.”

“Are you kidding me?” Warden asked, proper comms procedure out the window in his incredulity.  “We’ve got two full divisions coming down on our asses.  What are we supposed to do now?”

“Granite-Four, delay the column to the best of your ability.”

“What kind of order is that?  ‘Delay to the best of your ability?’” Warden asked aloud before keying the comms and passing, “You do realize that Granite-Four is a recon team, without heavy offensive capabilities, right?”

There was a ten-second delay, then in a quieter voice as if the Marine at the other end of the comms didn’t want to be heard by those around him, “Granite-Four, I hear you.  But we’ve got four divisions heading our way from the east, and the MEB Six is retaining all air assets to protect the capital.  You blocked the highway, so whatever else you might do is your and Granite-Three’s call. Maybe you delayed them enough; I don’t know, so anything you can do to delay them longer will help. I’ll see what I can do to free up an air strike, but I can’t promise you anything.  God be with you. Lightening-Three-Six, out.”

Chapter 37

Warden’s four-man section ran down the upper trail full tilt, heading to the valley floor.  The upper trail ran alongside the high ground, down along Popeye, the smaller hill between Seagull and Licorice, then down the access road from the abandoned home on Popeye to the valley floor.  Fifteen minutes later, they burst through the final 20 meters to join Gidge, Teri, and Hank, who’d simply moved along Grape.  Warden called a hasty halt as he passed the plan.

“We’ve got no time,” he said, breathing heavily as he caught his breath.  “The captain can’t get here for another 40, so he’s stopping up on the high ground where First Team can give us covering fire.  It’s not optimum, but it’s all we’ve got.

“Hank, you can fire that thing?  For sure?” he asked.

“Ain’t nothing, Stein,” Hank said.  “We had ’em in the militia.”

Hank had spent three years in the Panut militia before enlisting in the Marines, and he’d probably thought he’d never have to revert to the older equipment again. 

“Me and Teri, we’ve got it licky-dicky.  You just keep dem pipsters offa our asses.”

“Team Two, we’ve got overwatch,” the captain’s voice came over the comms.   “We count nine combatants, an up-armored Lucy, and what looks to be an Adai technical.  We’re sending you the positions in a moment.”

“How about the column?” Warden asked.

“It looks like it’s getting underway again.  The lead element is at 6.4 klicks.”

“Roger.  We’re commencing in one mike,” Warden said.

“OK, you heard him.  I was hoping the column would delay longer, but it is what it is.”

After the hill and the bridge went up, the entire column, both divisions, had accordioned to a stop.  That was poor tactics, a sign that whoever was in charge out there was overly cautious.  The lead element, at the very least, should have sped into the assault, linking with the small remaining force at Licorice.  Licorice was still out of range for the Marine’s arty, and if air hit them, the hills on either side of the checkpoint would offer a small degree of protection.  Stopping and bunching up on a highway rendered them sitting ducks—which would matter if the MEB released an air strike.  It was poor warfighting, but the Marines had hoped they would delay longer before moving out again.

“We need to move, and move quickly.  We’ve got to be taking them out before they realize we’re coming.  I’m hoping they’re looking to the north to watch their relief, and not back to the south.  So let’s go stick it in their asses, OK?”

He looked around, but no one said anything.  It was a pretty shitty operations order.  But there just wasn’t any time for anything else.  Sometimes, a leader just had to point his Marines in the right direction and then rely on personal training to kick in. 

“OK, then, semper fi, do or die!” he said, turning to jog down the side of Grape.

Licorice was only 400 meters ahead.  As soon as they cleared the stand of oak and popular, they’d be in clear view of the checkpoint, by then only 200 meters in front of them.

Moose caught up with Liege, and he raised an eyebrow, a shit-eating grin taking over his face.  Liege blew him a kiss, M91 at the ready.

Liege was afraid, but surprisingly, that was not her chief emotion.  She was excited, her nerves on edge.  Intellectually, she knew that she could die within the next few minutes, but running alongside the six Marines in her team, she almost felt invincible.

In the Hollybolly flick
The Invincibles
, during the scene depicting the Battle of Stiklestad, the Norwegian farmer-soldiers poured over the hills, waving their swords and pikes, shouting out the now famous “
Fram!  Fram!  Bonder!
” as they fell upon King Olaf’s professional army.  The flick had won two Oscars, largely due to stirring scenes like that.  This was real life, though, not a Hollybolly flick, but Liege felt the same stirring as her team burst through the trees. 

Two soldiers were in a fighting position alongside the road, but, as Warden had hoped, both were watching north to the approaching divisions.  As they turned to see who was coming, the little wooden shack seemed to come apart as fire from First Team plunged into it.

At the sound of firing, the soldiers ahead of them spun around, surprise evident on their faces. One soldier darted for the technical as rounds pinged off the vehicle.  He hugged the side of the technical for cover until Fidor, at a full sprint, zeroed the guy.  And that was about all Liege had time to notice before she was engaging.

She cracked off two three-round bursts at a running figure but missed.  She and Moose had decided to take positions at either side of a wall, all that was standing from what used to be a decent-sized home or shop.  Liege rushed for her position, surprising a soldier who was scrambling for cover.  He was an instant slower in recognizing her than she had he, and that was enough.  Three rounds stitched him from groin to throat.  The soldier had on some ancient, but effective armor, but her throat shot dropped him.

She pushed up against the wall, caught her breath, and looked around.  She had several bodies in sight, but no live targets.  On the other end of the wall, Moose slammed back-first into it, making the entire thing shudder.

“Some fun now, huh?” he said.

Liege looked around the edge of the wall.  Hank and Teri were mounting the Koft 79mm gun.  This was the do-or-die moment.  The approaching column had to have seen that something was happening at the checkpoint, and they were well within range of the Tonya’s main 90mm gun.  If they engaged and hit the Koft, the plan, what little of it existed, would be effectively over. 

Hank slapped himself in the gun operator’s seat and powered the beast up.  Liege could see the displays come to life.

Whoever had set in the gun had done a very nice job.  A dirt berm had been erected to the front of the gun, putting the main body into defilade.  A cover had been placed over the gun, both for concealment as well as protection from airbursts.  And as the gun powered up, the tell-tale grasshopper-green glow of counter-beam projectors revealed that the gun had some protection from energy weapons.

Liege tore her eyes away from the Koft, checking the area.  The firing had stopped.  No Marines had been hit, and it looked like ten soldiers, one more than Team 1 had counted, were down.  Liege would have to check them later to see who could be saved—if there was a later.

“The first vehicle is a Tonya,” the captain passed from above them.  “I’m ranging it at six-one-two-zero from your position.”

“Roger that, Captain,” Hank said.  “Engaging. . .now!”

The big gun belched out a burst of smoke, and Liege tried to look downrange.  She saw a flash of light, but her view of the lead vehicles was blocked.

“Hit!” the captain said, the excitement in his voice battling to get out.  “Target destroyed.”

The big gun belched again, and once more the captain called out a hit, this time on a Patty.  Again and again, Hank fired, racking up six hits out of eight fired.

“The idiots only had the one Tonya in the lead element,” Moose called out, “and now, with only Patties, they can’t reach us.  It’s a turkey shoot.”

Patties were decent-enough armored vehicles, and their 30mm chainguns were effective, but they only had a max range of 3500 meters.  While mobile arty and missile launchers could reach them, only the Tonya from the PIP’s armor assets had the range to reach the Koft.  And with that one Tonya in the lead element knocked out, Moose was right; it was a turkey shoot.

But they have an awful lot of turkeys
, Liege reminded herself.

The captain was keeping up a running account of Hank’s effect on the column.  The lead element was at least ten klicks ahead of the main body, and with the attack on the lead, the main body had stopped in its tracks.  The lead element consisted of one Tonya and ten Patties.  The tank and five of the Patties had been knocked out of action.

Six Patties as Hank scored yet another hit.

Soldiers were conducting combat debarks as the vehicles got in each other’s way.  They sprinted to the sides and took cover.  Another Patty reversed direction and started back to the north.

“Doc, this one’s alive,” Fidor shouted out.

Liege turned to where the Marine was standing over the body of a PIP soldier. 

“I’ve got this,” Moose said.  “Go take a look.”

The Koft fired again, and the captain identified another hit as Liege ran to Fidor.  There wasn’t any incoming, but she wasn’t about to just casually saunter over there.

The soldier was alive—barely.  He’d been shot low in the back, the round completely severing his spine and blowing out most of his groin in the front.  He was breathing erratically, his eyes closed.  Liege ran a quick scan, which pretty much validated what she’d seen with her naked eyes.

She gave him a Series 4, then hesitated.  She only had 10 ziplocks.  The soldier would probably survive if he got into stasis, but Liege had limited resources, and her fellow Marines were her priority.  Still, with Dannyboy gone, that left seven of them, including her.  Doc Pierce, up the hill with First Team, should have ten more ziplocks with him.

As a member of the team, Liege had killed three of the PIP soldiers today, but as a medical professional, she had to give everyone, friend and enemy alike, the accepted standard of care.

Liege pulled out a ziplock.  The soldier came to for a moment, then looked around in panic as he saw the two standing over him.

“Don’t worry,” Liege said, putting a hand on his shoulder.  “You’ve taken a pretty serious wound, but after regen, you’ll be fine.  I’ve got to put you into stasis first, though.” 

She started to pull the ziplock around the soldier, but he resisted, trying to keep the bag from covering him.

“Fidor, a little help here?”

Together, they basically stuffed the man inside.  He clawed at the bag as she activated it, then within moments, fell first into unconsciousness, then into stasis.  Once he was completely under, Liege asked Fidor to help her drag the soldier out of the way.  Leaving him against some rubble, she’d done what she could do.  He’d have to be treated now by either Federation or PIP forces, whichever side won the battle.

“We’ve got approximately 50 infantry deployed,” the captain continued with his play-by-play. 

Liege looked up, but she didn’t have a good angle from which to see what had happened.  She could see the smoke rising from the destroyed vehicles, but she couldn’t make out the infantry.

“Everyone OK?  No one hurt?” Warden asked.

Everyone checked in fine.  Liege would have never guessed that they could have taken Licorice without a casualty, but the speed of the assault, coupled with the support from First Team, must have been enough.

Still, the soldiers had to have known their brethren to the south had been hit.  Who did they think hit them?  Whoever was giving orders to them had to be incompetent.

“Mighty nice shooting, Hank,” Warden continued.  “How many more rounds do you have?”

“I’ve got nine HEAT
[18]
and four HE.  After that, I might as well be farting at them,” he said.

“That might be even more deadly,” Moose said, unable to resist.

Hank and the Koft had proven to be a deadly combination.  He’d used the old canon to take out 11 armored vehicles.  A modern Marine would barely sniff his disdain for the Koft, thinking they might as well be using bows and arrows.  But with a good emplacement, aided by very poor enemy tactics, the gun had proven itself to be quite effective.

“We’ve got movement,” the captain said.  “Looks like the infantry’s up next.”

Warden spun around, bringing his glasses up.

“Can’t see shit.  The terrain’s too low.”

As the highway approached the hills, the area just to the north of the checkpoint was low, and the mountain creek spread out into a marsh.  This was horrible armor terrain, which was why the armor was in columns on the highway.  To the south of the hills, the plains were higher, and armor could deploy in the broad formations that gave armor-heads wet-dreams, but to the north, it was really better infantry country.

“Can you give us a view?” Warden asked the captain.

“Wait one.”

Within 30 seconds, each Marine in the team had a visual of the area to the north.  The burning tank and Patties were clearly visible, but the infantry to the east of Grape were not.  A moment later, avatars popped up, showing the locations of the advancing soldiers.

“I’m going to hit them with an HE round,” Hank said.

The big gun blasted out a round, followed a few moments later by a muffled explosion. A smaller-than-expected geyser of black mud reached up into the air.

“That’s a negative effect on target.”

“It’s the marsh,” Hank shouted, bypassing the comms.  “I can’t get a good pattern.  The mud swallows everything up.”

“Can you get an airburst?” Warden shouted back.

“Not with these.  They don’t have the capability.  I told you, this is really old tech.”

“Lightening-Three, this is Granite-Three.  We’ve temporarily stopped the armor column at 8734-3396.  We’ve got infantry approaching our position in the marsh abutting Licorice.  Requesting air support, Nine-Line
[19]
to follow—”