The War for Profit Series Omnibus (17 page)

Sevin’s head drooped backward and then he sat up and reached for another injector. Tad deftly snatched it from him. Sevin didn’t notice and simply sipped his fresh cup of un-drugged coffee.

“So there I was at the observation post, knee-deep in grenade pins…” He laid his head on the table and continued to mumble, finally drifting into sleep or unconsciousness. Galen couldn’t tell.

Tad turned to Galen, “Promise me this: you’ll never drink more than one of these injectors at a time.”

“Sure, bro. Not a problem.” Galen grinned and started to laugh.

The ship’s captain announced over the intercom, “Zero-G in five minutes.”

Tad cleared the coffee trash from the table and dumped it in the steward’s cart. The captain announced jump in five minutes. Galen wasn’t even aware of the loss of gravity. The jump came. The ride through the jump point gave Galen a sensation of flashing colors and mild nausea, but it was nothing like his first jump, nothing like near-insanity caused by eternal existence as mere consciousness.

Galen’s sedative wore off before the turnaround point. He thought about another dose but remembered his promise to Tad. Sevin’s double dose kept him quiet right up to debarkation time. Galen helped Childress put the company commander in his tank.

The boats landed before dawn on a wide field in the river bottom at the high end of the valley. The armored vehicles of the task force drove off the boats and parked in a tight circle, leaving less than five meters between the vehicles. Two infantry carriers were parked between each tank. Captain Rothschild’s command vehicle was parked in the center of the circle with a mess tent on one side and a shower tent on the other.

The light infantry battalion commander--a Major--met with the task force commander and the three company commanders, two other Master Sergeants besides Sevin, for six hours. They sat in a canvas shelter attached to the back of the command vehicle. During that time Galen’s platoon ate, performed maintenance checks on the vehicles, took showers and napped. Galen lay on his back on the flat rear deck of his tank and peered at the puffy white clouds in the blue sky for nearly an hour. Warmth from the fusion engine passed through its heat sinks and rose through the vent grills and warmed his back. The cool air was fresh and felt good in his lungs. The warm sun had burned the dew from the waist-high grass. Orange butterflies occasionally flew over him. The scent of honeysuckle came and went, mixed with the scent of freshly torn sod dug up by the tracks of the armored vehicles.

“Chiefs, meeting!” Master Sergeant Sevin stood on the turret of his tank.

Galen sat up and put on his boots. He considered leaving his pistol belt and rifle but remembered he was deployed on a contract. He dug around in the stowage compartment behind his seat and found his ground troop helmet and put it on his head. It was not nearly as much protection as a combat suit but not nearly as encumbering either.

Sevin sat on the turret of his tank and faced the flat rear deck. The Chiefs sat on camp stools arranged in a half-circle facing him.

“Okay, here’s the deal. We’ll stay on this side of the river and support the light infantry battalion. The mechanized infantry will cross the river and work down the valley from their side.”

Galen stood. “Wouldn’t it be better if we had two equally mixed groups on each side of the valley? I mean, a company of light, a company of mechanized, a platoon of tanks, on each side of the river, the command elements together in a combined TOC with a company of light and a platoon of tanks in reserve--”

“I couldn’t agree more, but the Major and Captain don’t get along too well. Captain Rothschild insisted on maintaining the integrity of his command so I detached myself from his command most quick.”

The infantry carriers pulled out of the defensive circle and moved in column towards the mud of the bank. The vehicles swam across the kilometer-mile wide river, their bilge pumps occasionally gushing a spray of water.

“They should be up to the job but they should wait for us to start our attack before they cross the river.” Sevin shook his head. “The bulk of the enemy strength is on our bank and the enemy vehicles can’t swim.”

“Vehicles?” asked Tad.

“Yes. This group split off from the main Mosh invasion and went deep for some loot and plunder. The Colonel caught them in mid-raid and captured their boats on the ground. Their ships got away but they don’t concern us. Their ground units broke off their raid and ran like hell to this defensive terrain. All we have to do is convince them it’s all over.”

“So we’re fighting Mosh regulars.”

“More or less. This is some sort of splinter group out doing its own thing. The Mosh, they’re fierce but they come apart pretty easy. Just get in there and pour it to them and they’ll usually offer to surrender. But if they have an advantage they’ll really stick it to you. Be careful.”

“Can they whack our tanks?’

“They have tank destroyers with a low silhouette and a gun sticking right out of the front, MS-100s. They also have shoulder-fired anti-armor rockets, flame throwers, cluster grenades with adhesive backing so they can stick to the belly of your vehicle as you run over their fighting positions, and crowbars to pry your hatches open if you let the bastards climb on your tank. Yes, they can whack our tanks. Next question.”

“How many are there?”

“Twelve hundred, about. They have a company of tank destroyers, a battery of armored guns, and two battalions of motorized infantry. Right now most of them are faced off against the rest of the Brigade at the bottom of the valley. We’ll be up against a rear guard at first, until the enemy recognizes us as a major threat. With the greater threat at the other end, the enemy commander would be foolish to commit his entire force against us. But he might commit half of it.”

The first infantry carrier emerged from the opposite bank. It drove up the muddy slope and angled its way through the water maples growing along the bank as it maneuvered to relieve the light infantry company. They looked like little green animated bricks through the haze hanging over the river as Galen watched them from two kilometers away.

“Oh yeah,” said Sevin, consulting his noteputer, “all their weapons are slug-throwers, chemically propelled. And they use internal combustion piston engines, and their commo is digitized radio frequency radiation.”

“So we have a technological edge.”

Sevin looked away, “Not really.”

The last infantry carrier was half out of the water when it exploded. A few seconds later, the shock wave of the explosion caused Galen’s heart to skip. Then the sound of the tank destroyer’s firing reached him, a muffled whump. Another infantry carrier burst into a puff of fire and dust, the spray of dark brown earth spreading from it in a circle a hundred meters across. The troops inside the undamaged carriers scrambled to dismount, to abandon their doomed vehicles. The sound of the second explosion reached Galen before a third carrier blew up.

Sevin faced his Chiefs. “Time to go to work.”

The Chiefs ran to their tanks. The crews were ready in an instant. As his platoon moved to attack, Galen viewed the mechanized vehicles on his main screen, magnified for better scrutiny. The panzer grenadiers abandoned their vehicles and ran forward and sought cover among the fighting positions of the light infantry troops they were supposed to be relieving. Galen watched as one abandoned infantry carrier after another was destroyed. They were all destroyed in less than a minute. Galen checked his auxiliary status screen. The company command vehicle and a squad vehicle were destroyed with the troops still inside.

“Too bad about Captain Rothschild,” said Sergeant Boggs. He was at the auxiliary gunner’s station. Jones drove. Galen stood in the cupola and scanned for targets. The tank destroyer was on his side of the river but wasn’t visible. The computer used the projectile paths to determine the weapon’s type and location and showed it on the situation map. Galen studied the topography and realized the only way to get a clear shot was to swim the river and drive into its kill zone. Or take the time to push down this side of the river and get it from the side. Too bad Captain Rothschild didn’t have tank support when he crossed the river.

Then Sevin’s voice came over the radio, “Hold up. First platoon, hit the outpost.”

The three tanks of Tad’s platoon fired their laser cannons. The marker for the enemy outpost disappeared from the situation map. Galen noticed a momentary glint in the field ahead of him. He switched his main screen to visual scanner and ran the data back a few seconds. When the glint showed again he paused the frame. He magnified the view and could make out the shape of a Mosh soldier wearing a combat suit peering through binoculars. He licked his finger and made a smudge on the image. He switched the scanner feed back to real time. The enemy soldier was still there.

“See that, Boggs?”

Sergeant Boggs looked at the screen. “Looks like a target.”

The diodes made a low hum as Boggs brought the capacitors up to full charge. Galen stood in his cupola and aimed his rail gun until its crosshair image covered the target image on the scanner screen.

“Fire.”

The laser cannon pulsed for a micro-second, with little more recoil than a handheld flashlight. The indicator lights and status screens flickered and then came back to full power. The image from the scanner showed a blackened bare spot surrounded by burning grass. Galen sprayed the area with his rail gun to ensure the kill.

“What was that, three zero?”

Galen sent a visual replay of the target engagement over the net to Sevin, “I bagged a grunt, zero one.”

“Good. Now suit up. We kick this thing off in five mikes.”

Galen pulled his combat suit from the stowage compartment behind his seat and laid it on the outside of the turret. He took off his pistol belt and ground-troop helmet and put them in the compartment then climbed out of the cupola. He gripped the wide neck of the combat suit and stepped into it. He pulled the collar up and worked his hands into the built-in gloves. He climbed back into the cupola and put on the combat suit helmet, connected the power cord, the air inlet/outlet hose and the commo spaghetti cord.

Jones and Boggs were suited up. Galen switched to platoon push. “Status?”

“Two three, roger out.”

“Three three, roger out.”

One three and four three were destroyed on Hobart…

Galen changed to command freq, “Zero one, this is three zero.”

“Three zero, this is zero one, over.”

“Green status. Three zero out.” He left the auxiliary receiver on command net and switched the receiver-transmitter to platoon push.

Sevin’s voice came over the aux, “Move out slow.”

“Cautious advance, third herd.”

The light tank company moved forward slowly. The tank commanders stood in their cupolas and scanned visually for targets. The auxiliary gunners watched their main gun sights for opportunity targets. The drivers kept their vehicles on line as the company advanced. A schematic of the enemy tank destroyer came up on Galen’s auxiliary status screen. A low hull on a Christy chassis, a 100mm gun sticking out of the sharply-sloped glacis plate. The front armor was eighteen centimeters thick, enough to withstand a direct hit from the light laser of a Hornet on normal combat charge. The side armor was only four centimeters, a soft target for the Hornet’s laser cannon. The vehicle’s top speed rivaled that of the Hornet, but the tank destroyer had no secondary weapons, no commander’s cupola. Strictly an antitank weapon, the MS-100 crews would have no higher priority than killing the Hornet light tanks.

The tanks came on line with the fighting positions of the light infantry and stopped. An infantry Chief climbed up the back of Sevin’s tank and handed him a data cartridge. Sevin made a thumbs-up gesture. A few seconds later, symbols for enemy units appeared on Galen’s situation map.

Across the river, artillery shells landed among the destroyed infantry carriers. They couldn’t hit the infantry fighting positions; their trajectory was too flat to clear the low hill between them and the grunts. Galen imagined the commander of the enemy tank destroyer cussing out his artillery for firing too late. The artillery stopped. The marker for a six-gun battery of armored guns popped up on the situation map. 150mm guns, medium artillery firing from thirty kilometers away. The infantry would have to get within twenty kilometers to return indirect fire with their 85mm mortars. The panzer grenadiers could have easily returned fire at that range with their 120mm mortars if they hadn’t been shot all to hell while crossing the river.

“Move out.”

Light infantry squads clustered behind the tanks as they drove forward at a walking pace. Galen adjusted his cupola machine gun for the terrain and enemy situation. He reduced the projectile velocity to a thousand meters per second and increased the rate of fire to ten rounds a second. He also loosened the accuracy so that the spray of projectiles would hit within a circle three meters in diameter at a range of one thousand meters. He sent the programmed changes to the two tanks in third platoon. The status screen showed that the other tank commanders accepted them.

The platoon was heading up the side of the first low hill. Just as he was able to see over the crest, Galen ordered a halt and waved for the squad behind his tank to go ahead. Three troops moved ahead at a crouch and then crawled up to the top of the hill. Their leader signaled for Galen to go ahead.

Third platoon drove on, the squads walking behind the tanks. Galen checked the topography of the situation map. The pace of the operation was way too slow and tedious for him.

“Zero one, this is three zero, over.”

“Go ahead, three zero.”

“We need to go a little faster, over.”

“Tell me how, three zero, and we’ll make it happen, over.”

“Right. Let me cover from this high ground and have first and second embark their grunts and drive across the low ground for about three klicks. Second can take the high ground on the right and cover first and third as we move to the next hill.”

“Gotcha, three zero. Break. One zero and two zero, this is zero one. Did you hear three zero?”

“This is one zero, roger good copy, out.”

“Two zero here. Roger out.”

“Make it happen. Zero one out.”

Galen halted and assigned sectors for his two subordinate tanks to watch. He watched his sector as first and second platoon drove along the flat, low ground near the river bank. Soon second platoon was perched on the top of the low hill three kilometers ahead of third platoon. Galen signaled for his infantry support to mount up. Eight troops sat on the flat rear deck of his tank and three troops were on the glacis plate, half-standing with their heels on the spare track shoes bolted to the front. Boggs elevated the main gun so the coaxial machine gun wouldn’t be pointing at the back of a passenger’s head.