CHAPTER 32
Fredericksburg, VA, United States of America, Sol III
1950 EDT October 9th, 2004 ad
“Dependents are on their way in, Colonel,” said the supply officer, the S-4. The “Four” had taken over the job of Civil and Dependent Affairs; he was out of any other job. All the equipment and ammunition was issued and there wasn’t going to be a resupply.
“For all the good it will do,” noted the Charlie company commander. “They’re due to land in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“None of that,” said Colonel Robertson. “We do what we can do, and all that we can do. The telemetry looks like the Posleen are going to be spread hither and yon. The probable landing zone stretches from over the Potomac in Maryland to Spotsylvania County. They seem to be spreading out to surround Fredericksburg and the area immediately around the township will be clear. Captain Avery,” he turned to the supply officer, “get the dependents who are under sixteen years of age headed into town with their available parent. That will give them a few more minutes. Who knows, the horse might still sing. Put the other ones to work.”
“Doing what?” the S-4 asked.
“Setting up our Go-To-Hell Plan. Captain Brown,” Robertson turned to the Charlie commander and began snapping out commands, rapier fast, “start entrenching around the city center, with outliers to the interstate but no farther.”
“Yes, sir,” said the company commander, noting the instructions down in his green leader’s notebook.
“Four, have someone call the radio station and tell them to start broadcasting for anyone with heavy equipment to come to—”
“The Mary Washington College parking lot,” interjected the executive officer. He and the operations officer had taken over the tactical map from the two privates who normally updated it and were sketching in a battle plan. The battalion staff and company commanders had been together for years, as was common with National Guard units. At this point they could practically read each other’s minds.
“Good,” said Robertson. He was new to the unit, but he had already recognized that it had a superior staff for a “part-time” unit. And they were coming together beautifully. If he could keep up the momentum and keep them from falling into depression they would teach these centaur bastards a thing or two. “And call for all noncombatants to head for the city center, coordinate with Public Safety on where. Bravo company…”
“Start mining the Chatham bridge…” said Captain Avery, the Bravo company commander, glancing at the map on the wall.
“And the railroad bridge and the Jeff Davis, but not the I-95 bridge; it’s too far out,” agreed the commander.
“I’ll take some of the older dependents with me for gophers. If any of them have a clue I’m arming them.”
“Approved, we’re shorthanded.” Many of the personnel had chosen to remain home rather than respond to the recall.
“Some of those AWOLs will be coming in now, if they can make it,” Avery pointed out. “There’s nowhere to run.”
“And nowhere to hide,” remarked Brown, the Charlie commander, darkly. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, his mind on his wife and two sons gathering with the other dependents on the armory drill floor.
“Gentlemen,” said the colonel, glad that his children were grown and well away from here. “Many of you have wives and children out in the armory. There is not a lot I can say. There’s just not time for you to run, or I would say ‘Run like hell.’ The landing will happen in moments; if you tried to get out from under the interdiction circle you would run right into it.
“As I told Lieutenant Young,” he said with a nod at the introspected assistant division engineer, “the best we can do is hold them back for as long as possible, make it as painful as possible for them, and ensure that the deaths of our loved ones are quick and relatively painless. We should also try to determine some manner by which we can destroy as many stocks of food as possible before we are overrun. We must, unfortunately, include ourselves in that equation; we’ve all seen the reports from Diess and Barwhon.
“Stay straight, keep your troops in hand and do the mission. Our only choice is to stand. We shall stand like Americans have always stood at a moment such as this, on our feet, heads up and fighting,” he concluded. “Now get out and do it.”
As the two company commanders and the staff filed out Lieutenant Young gestured for the battalion commander to remain a moment.
“Sir?” said the young lieutenant.
“Yes, Lieutenant? You’ve been quiet.”
“I have been thinking about what you said at the first briefing, about how in this situation we would all die and all of our loved ones.”
“And now it comes to fruition,” the colonel snapped. Then he relented. “Your point?”
“That is my point, sir. Does it have to happen?”
“There is nowhere to run, son, and the forces outside the pocket are not going to charge in and rescue us.”
“Yes, sir,” admitted the lieutenant in a distracted tone. “But eventually, in two or three weeks, maybe a little longer, we, that is the United States, will have retaken this area. And we’ve got enough demo to destroy every bridge in Virginia.”
“We can’t hold out for two or three weeks against upwards of four million Posleen with a short battalion of light engineers.” The colonel mused for a moment on a couple of terrain features last used in the Civil War but the situation was fundamentally different and he shook off the unreal idea.
“No, sir, our death is a foregone conclusion, I accept that, intellectually, but what about the dependents?” the acting assistant division engineer continued, abstractedly. His eyes, concealed behind thick glasses, began blinking rapidly.
“Lieutenant…”
“That’s it!” the junior officer blurted with a snap of fingers.
“What?”
“I was trying to figure out… Look, sir… damn, this is complicated.”
“Hold on, son, what are you talking about?”
“Okay,” the ADE paused and nodded his head as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. “Okay, sir, here goes. I’m from here, most of you officers aren’t. I got into the history of Fredericksburg in high school really heavily and one of the things I learned is that there are tunnels under the city, mostly forgotten, connecting into basements. Now, if we just stash the women and children in the tunnels the Posleen will find them, right?”
“Hold on, who knows about these tunnels? I’ve never heard of them! Where they are and how large are they?” asked the surprised battalion commander, hearing of the feature for the first time.