“Oh, hell no,” Keren said, shaking his head. “I pull the round and Adams shifts sides to hang. And, sorry Sergeant Moreland, I don’t go yelling ‘Hang it’ and ‘Fire’ unless we’re on timed fire. He just hangs the son-of-a-bitch and fires it as fast as we can get them out the tube. Hipshoots are about speed.”
“And thus we find why he was the artillery coordinator for the Ten Thousand,” Sergeant Moreland said. “Stall, you wanna tell me why it took you nearly a minute and a half to get up?”
“No excuse, sergeant,” the third squad leader said. Short, black haired and hefty for a juv, Wendell Stall was from the Cleveland, Tennessee Urb and had fought most of the war in the 32nd Tennessee “Volunteers” in the battles around Chattanooga. The Volunteers fought the whole war in fixed mounts with fairly constant targets and he was having a hard time adjusting to maneuver warfare.
“That isn’t an answer,” Moreland said. “We’ll discuss this later. News from company is that we well and truly smoked the hilltop. We’re staying here and may have another fire mission coming up. Get back to your tracks.”
“Hedren would have taken out most of the mortar fire,” Captain Cox said. The observer sent in from Corps shook his head. “Your mortars need to fire together to overwhelm it.”
“Hipshoot,” Cutprice said looking through his sight. “Get the metal on the target as fast as possible.”
The company had been in road-march condition when it hit this defensive point on the ridges east of Huzzah creek. The first intimation had been a flight of anti-armor missiles, all of which had been “graded” as destroyed. Given that they were actual rockets, just not anti-armor ones, and that the anti-missile system took them all down, the observer would have had a hard time grading it otherwise.
Bravo company was following Missouri Eight with Alpha well behind it and Charlie flanking them well to the north. The battalion was, notionally, screening an advance of the entire regiment heading towards an objective to the east. But it was a movement to contact. And they had contact. They just had to find out how much.
The Huzzah was a very minor creek, not much of an obstacle, but the ridges long its length were something else. There were only a few places the tracks could maneuver on them. He glanced at his map and then over his shoulder.
“Launch a UAV,” he said to his RTO. “Order Second Platoon to maneuver to the road north of here. Cross the Huzzah there and try to push in on the flank. Stay mounted; we’re in a hurry. Mortars are to begin full speed bombardment of the target.”
“Fire for effect, mix prox and delay, thirty rounds, on command.”
“Opie, set the delay rounds,” Keren said, sliding to the rear of the compartment and starting to pull out rounds. The standard rounds came set for contact. By dialing the rounds slightly one way or the other they could be configured for delay, which exploded a fraction of a second after it hit something, or proximity which exploded two meters above the ground.
Something was troubling him and it suddenly hit him as he was setting the third round.
“Sergeant Moreland,” he said quietly over his comm. It was set to the command channel so that only other squad leaders and the platoon command group, Moreland and Lt. Todd would hear him.
“Counterbattery.”
Lt. Edison McIntosh wished he had Lt. Todd’s position. But he also knew that the mortar platoon commander had about ten times his experience. Todd had been a platoon leader before McIntosh’ father was born and had fought all the way through the Posleen War rising to the rank of Major.
However, the former Major had only fought the Posleen. And McIntosh had been carefully instructed by his boss on one thing that the Lieutenant probably didn’t count on.
As he was reaching into the sachel by his side, though, the lieutenant keyed his comm.
“All tracks! INCOMING! Displace five hundred meters west! NOW! NOW! NOW!”
Fuck. The notional Hedren counter-battery wasn’t due for another thirty seconds.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Balmoral gunned the AFV as it hit the flats to the east of the Huzzah and hammered through the light screen of brush. As it hit the area near the stream, though, he could feel it bogging.
“Ground effect,” Sergeant Toyley said.
Hitting the ground effect button the AFV hammered forward, slamming the troops in the back backwards then dropped into the rushing stream, slowing again and slamming them forward.
“What the fuck are you doing, Ballsman?” Campbell screamed from the back.
“Shut up, Campbell,” Sergeant Toyley snapped as the M84 screamed into action. Their crossing point was in view of the defense point on the stream and they were taking missile fire. The 5mm commander’s railgun sounded like an electric chainsaw the size of a Mac truck and the coating on the rounds left a blue track of fire through the air like tracers.
“Where the fuck is the artillery?” Campbell yelled. “We were supposed to have mortar cover!”
“Shut up, Campbell,” Toyley replied as the track crossed the stream.
As soon as they were on the far side they were in cover from the defense position. Balmoral dropped to the ground and gunned it again, heading up the trace of an old road that climbed through a narrow notch in the cliffs. The trace was half-covered by a brook that was rushing with spring rains and the track tore up a sheet of spray as it headed up into the hills.
“There should be an old trace to the right,” Toyley said, looking forward. “There, you see it?”
“See it, sergeant,” Balmoral said, spinning the track in the narrow corner and gunning it hard. It was a steep damned road and the trees were thicker than normal. But there weren’t any big boulders or stumps. But the trace quickly died in thicker timber from before the Posleen War. “I don’t have a road!”
“Unass!” Sergeant Toyley said. “Get it off the road if you can and lager up.”
As soon as the troops were off, Balmoral spun the track into the trees, shoving it off the road. Other tracks were discharging behind him and for a moment he wasn’t sure what to do.
“We’re staying here,” Sergeant Chofsky said over the radio. “We can partially interdict artillery from here.”
As he said it the blue-force-tracker chimed.
“Incoming Hedren fire. Mark Three Plasma Mortars.”
“You know,” Balmoral said, crossing his arms and leaning his seat back as the M84 began to rave. “This is just a little too real.”
“Thirty!” Keren called.
“All tracks, displace five hundred meters down the road. Prepare for counterbattery mission.”
“Move it, Opie!” Keren yelled, grabbing a stanchion and hauling himself forward.
“Incoming Hedren fire,” the BFT said in a soft contralto. “Incoming Artillery classified as Hedren Mark Six Plasma Artillery.”
The M84 was slewed up and to the right at nothing Keren could see. But he wasn’t going to be graded as killed so he pulled the commander’s cupola down and strapped himself into his seat. What the hell. The vision blocks were wide plasma screens. He could see nearly as well down here as up there.
“Get in line, Opie,” Keren said as Three Gun’s track, which had yet to start moving, started flashing red lights. Keren noted that the commander’s gun was pointed straight forwards. “Well, the good news is that we’re not going to be waiting for Three Gun anymore… ”