The War for Profit Series Omnibus (55 page)

Galen heard heavy, loud gunfire in the back ground. “What was that noise?”

“The gun battery, firing one last volley before making a run for it. Gotta go, three out.”

Galen brought up the overall situation map and gave orders for the medium tank battalion to form back up as a single unit and stage five kilometers west of the abandoned TOC location, in preparation to move into that area after the Mosh divisions went past. He also gave the recon company the task of linking up with and providing security for the TOC en-route to its new location. Finally he ordered the light tank battalion to come off the line and form up as a single unit, and sent it to where the ALOC was headed, to reconstitute and pull security.

Then Galen checked his status. Although the troops on the Awareness Channel seemed happy about it, the Brigade had already lost ten per cent of its combat strength. Sure, some troops would heal and return to duty, and some vehicles could be repaired, later, and the overall loss numbers would go down. But the indigs had more than twelve hundred soldiers killed or injured. Galen balled his fist and wanted to hit something, but knew from experience that punching things inside an armored vehicle was a bad idea. Losing ten per cent was max, as far as he was concerned. And there would be more losses. He felt like some indig commander, making excuses for acceptable losses. He felt like the beat-up fighter who says ‘but you should see the other guy’ as he passes out.

No matter. Phase one complete. Galen took a deep breath and looked at the plan. It was sound, and victory was certain. And there would be more losses.

“Hey Colonel!” Galen heard the voice through his commo helmet speakers. “Your entire brigade of cowards rolled past my division headquarters a few minutes ago and now there are Mosh all over my compound!”

Galen said, “General, I assure you, it’s not my problem.”

“But these barbarians are overrunning my headquarters! They are bashing in the door of my bunker as we speak!”

“You are in command of more resources than me. I’m sure you can figure something out.”

The General said, “And what do you suggest I do?”

“Show them how many push ups you can do and maybe they’ll surrender.”

Galen heard a blast in the background, some rifle fire, then the gurgling sound of a man dying, enough of the General’s voice recognizable in the gurgle for Galen to be sure it was him. Galen closed the channel and switched back to Brigade command net.

“Three, where you at?”

Tad answered, “Give me thirty mikes. The terrain is rougher than I thought.”

“Roger.” Galen then called the ALOC.

Major Polar answered. “We’re in position, six. We occupied the corps headquarters compound.”

“They let you in?”

“It was no problem.” Major Polar said. “Everyone above the rank of Sergeant has jumped in any ride they could get and ran off to the spaceport. The indig soldiers left behind were glad to see us, especially our mechanized infantry battalion.”

Galen said, “That’s good, four, but is it the best terrain to occupy for our mission?”

“Roger. The mechanized commander loves it, and the Hercules tanks fit right into the bermed firing positions like a glove. There are even pop-up firing pits for the guns, too. It’s the best place. And the left-behind indig soldiers are accepting our leadership. It’s easy money.”

Galen said, “So how big is the force collected there?”

“We’ve got the two full heavy tank companies, a third heavy tank company minus the platoon that is with you, the recon company, the entire Mechanized infantry battalion and my entire ALOC. We have the helos with us now, to carry out the after-action logpacs when Mosh ADA is neutralized. Oh, I almost forgot. The Interceptors can operate here as well, there’s a short air strip.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you, four?”

“Not really, six. Maybe. You could send something up the road behind the Mosh so they can’t retreat.”

“I’m on it. How about a battalion of medium tanks?”

“That would do. Thank you so much.”

“Roger, four. Six out.”

Galen called the medium tank battalion commander. “Stallion six this is Jasmine six.”

“Roger, Stallion six here.”

“What’s your strength? You’re showing a hundred per cent but I know that’s wrong.”

“We’re a hundred per cent. I did some shuffling, some platoons have four tanks instead of five, but that still equals three full companies.”

Galen said, “Sure, no problem. You’re on. Follow the Mosh, keep—”

“I gotcha, I monitored your traffic with Jasmine four. Stallion six out.”

Galen shrugged. He flipped the main status screen to the Awareness Channel, but it was just re-showing all the earlier stuff. He then switched back to the current battle map. Tad would have the TOC in position soon. Then he noticed the tiger team unit markers, slowly edging forward.

Galen called Major Sevin. “Hey Tiger six, what are you up to?”

After a moment Sevin replied, “Jasmine six, I’m moving my troops a couple of klicks forward. The old areas kind of stink from three years of occupation with poor field sanitation, and some of the areas are tore up from combat action. I’m going a little forward to take up better defensive positions, ones that aren’t already plotted on Mosh artillery charts.”

“Roger, I had to ask. Jasmine six out.”

Tad called, “Jasmine six, this is Jasmine Three.”

“Good news, three?”

“Roger. I’m set up.”

“Fine,” said Galen. “Operational control is now yours.”

“I understand, I now have control. You can start your attack now. Jasmine three out.”

Galen took his comms off command net control and switched to task force net control. He was linked with Tad, and Spike in the tank to his left, and the platoon leader of the tank platoon in front of him, and the gun chief behind him, and of course, the Cav battalion commander.

Galen called the platoon leader of third platoon, Charlie Company, heavy tank battalion. “Charlie three six, this is Jasmine six. Lead this task force across that swamp.”

The platoon leader called back, “Column of two, forward march.”

Galen lowered his seat and closed the hatch of his cupola. The task force moved ahead, leaving the relative safety of the stone hills to enter the salt marsh ahead. The Hercules tanks and the particle cannon gun carriages moved right along, their bows lifted by the ATCS to ride across the soft ground without getting mired. The lead platoon shifted to diamond formation when enemy gun emplacements popped up on the situation map. There were nearly a hundred in all, two or three showing up on the battle map at a time, their firing giving away their location. The Mosh gunners had the advantage of surprise and always got the fist shot. Not that it mattered to the immense armor of the Hercules tanks. Occasionally a Mosh gunner got off two shots before the heavy laser of a Hercules main gun turned the antitank gun and its crew into a char mark. But it all made sense; tanks that heavy weren’t supposed to be able to drive across that marsh. Any combat vehicle light enough to cross the salt marsh should have been an easy kill for the Mosh guns. But not today.

The Cavalry battalion’s vehicles, light tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers and Infantry Fighting Vehicles, had more difficulty crossing the marsh and had to twist and turn to avoid some of the softer ground, and had to stay out of the soupy ruts left by the Hercules tanks. But they kept pace, two hundred meters behind the heavier Hercules tanks.

The lead platoon crept out of the marsh and wound its way to the right of the first stone hill, paused to take out one last Mosh gun emplacement and pulled forward a hundred meters. Galen and Tad moved past them and stopped. The Cav battalion emerged from the marsh and maneuvered toward the objective, the hill from which the particle cannons would fire. They stopped short and let the heavy tank platoon get ahead of them.

Galen smiled as he remembered a conversation with the Cav battalion commander just four days ago. Galen had briefed this op to the task force key leaders, and when it was over the Cav commander pulled Galen to the side and quietly explained that the Hercules tanks couldn’t possibly cross that marsh, and that it was pure insanity to mount a particle cannon on a ground vehicle, and a vehicle thus equipped could never climb the steep hill at the objective point. The particle cannon was too large and drew too much power, he said; mounted on a Hercules chassis, it could only mange one shot every thirty minutes, under optimum conditions. There was a reason, the Cav commander explained, that particle cannons were only mounted on space ships or fixed in ground emplacements. Galen ended that conversation by telling the Cav commander, “Expect the unexpected.”

Cav inched up slowly. Galen and Spike moved their tanks to the base of the hill they needed to climb. The gun carriages lined up behind them. The heavy tank platoon split and two tanks went around the base of each side of the hill and linked back up on the other side and pulled forward two hundred meters on line, a hundred meters wide. The Cav battalion crowded around the base of the hill and into the area between the hill and the heavy tank platoon, which pulled forward another hundred meters to give Cav more room to deploy behind them.

Galen said to his driver, “Get me to the top of that hill.”

After the vehicle pulled forward enough to tilt four hundred mils, Galen engaged the ATCS and turned the knob to the right, the lifter at the back exerting twenty tons of anti-gravity. The tank drove right up the side of the mountain, its one hundred per cent slope no match for the ATCS technology. Near the top, a large boulder obstructed the path of the tank. Galen was about to tell the gunner to get rid of it when the main gun blasted it to smithereens. Spike’s tank was right behind. Galen got on top of the hill and pulled forward and to the right, checking the pitch and roll of the ground to ensure it was level enough for the gun carriages to fire from. Spike pulled up on his left.

Galen looked on his status screen. The guns were already half way up, the second one fifty meters behind the first. Galen called the Gun chief. “We have two good firing points for you. Take your pick.”

Guns called back, “I’ll take them both, if you don’t mind.”

Spike’s tank pulled forward and started off down the front slope of the hill, angling a bit to the left to avoid excessive side slope.

“Target!” The main gun fired. Off in the distance a blink of orange that became a puff of dust. Galen zoomed in. The hulk of an annihilated MS-100 tank destroyer burned. A second pulled along side it and Galen’s gunner took it out.

Galen’s gunner said, “We need to get off this hill, sir.”

Galen knew he was just attracting attention to the firing point, that he was drawing fire, that if he didn’t move the Mosh would start bombarding with artillery, direct and indirect. With no immediate threat from overhead, the Mosh might even shut off their space shield and fire at Galen’s Hercules tank with their own plasma canons and space lasers. He needed to get out of the way so the guns would have time to take their shot before the Mosh made the hill top untenable. All this ran through Galen’s mind, confusing him. The only thing he needed to know at that moment was which way he should twist the ATCS knob before giving the order to drive down the hill. And he couldn’t remember which way.

A nudge came from behind, a gun carriage bumping into the back of Galen’s tank. The gun Chief said, “You’re blocking my shot, six!”

Gun Carriage Two pulled up on Galen’s left. The Chief of that gun said, “I’m no good, that burning hulk is deflecting me a tenth of mil too much.”

Galen’s driver pulled forward. The tank tilted downward dangerously and began to slide down the hill. Galen’s gunner punched Galen on the knee, “Knob to the left, sir!”

Galen twisted the knob left and the driver regained control of the vehicle.

Galen looked over at his gunner. “Thanks Corporal Slaughter. That’s what they mean when they talk about initiative.”

Slaughter smiled and twirled his right index finger around his right earpiece. “You just had a brain cramp, sir. Too much going on inside your head.”

A long, bright blue bolt of subatomic particles super-saturated with synthetic electrons shot over the head of Galen’s tank and passed through the narrow line-of-sight gaps left between several stone mountains along its path to get just under the low edge of the Mosh main space shield. After travelling twenty eight kilometers in a nanosecond, the particle cannon bolt smashed into the casing of the power junction and transformer that fed power to the space shield. The Mosh space shield collapsed and the destroyed junction caused a short that took down the entire Mosh power grid. Their generator was still fine, but the short would have to be repaired before the Mosh could start flipping circuit breakers to bring other systems back up. That would take them a while.

Galen said, “All right, Cav, you have thirty minutes to close out that objective.”

The Cav commander said, “Garry Owen!”

The Cav vehicles lurched forward, dashing ahead in a full charge. All the Mosh fixed guns and automated defenses were down. Again, it made sense. Lighter vehicles should not have been able to get past the guns covering the swamp, so the defenses of the compound itself were meant to destroy much heavier units. But with the plug pulled, the final Mosh defenses weren’t fit to stop a squad of toddlers.

Galen pulled alongside Spike’s tank, right behind the heavy tank platoon. He called them. “Charlie three six, mission, police call.”

“Roger.” The platoon pulled forward and moved along the same route the Cav battalion had taken, but slowly, looking for any threats the Cav might have bypassed.

The Gun Chief called. “Jasmine six, fire for effect?”

Galen said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nice view up here, sir. Lots of interesting targets.”

“Go for it, redleg. Tactical targets only. Have fun.” Before Galen was done answering a particle bolt ripped across the sky, a secondary explosion showing the target had indeed been interesting. Galen looked at his tactical display and realized a Mosh 240mm gun emplacement had just been destroyed. Another particle beam ripped thorough the sky, another interesting target taken out.

Galen called back, “Hey redleg, leave their space lasers and particle cannons alone. We’ll nee those for defense after we capture the facility.”

“Roger, six.” Galen saw the guns move on his map and was about to call them, but redleg called again, “We’re backing down off this hill, incoming, mortars.”

Galen said, “Go on back and get inside the TOC perimeter. Your work here is done. Nice shot, by the way.”

“Roger, six. En route. Redleg out.”

Galen was about to open his hatch but the situation map showed that his tank was also targeted by mortars. Small mortars, the sort Mosh light infantry companies would have. The rounds exploded near by, a couple hit the tank, harmless to the Hercules’ armor but loud enough to be an annoying noise to the crew inside.