After he acknowledged, I got Frost on the line. He had the reserve company. "Frost, I'm attaching a heavy weapons team to your company. Move up and stay 3 klicks behind Jax's troops. I want you in position to react to any developments. I sent a couple of scouts around each flank to check on activity from the other bunkers, and then I got the request I was expecting but was dreading.
"Major? Captain Yoshi here. Request permission to move forward and observe the action."
I couldn't really refuse. he was here to observe, after all, and it wouldn't do to insult the courage of the PRC's representative. "Ok, Aoki, but I want you to stay with Frost's company. Hook up with his command element, and don't go any farther forward without checking with me."
"Yes major. Thank you, sir."
A few seconds later Jax commed me. "Major, I have enemy troops emerging from two, possibly three points. It appears they are coming out of several concrete structures. The bunkers are not large, sir, so my best guess is they are moving up from underground facilities."
We expected that most of the installations would be underground. Looks like that hypothesis was panning out. After a brief pause, Jax continued. "I have each company deployed in two lines, SAWs will be emplaced and engaged within 30 seconds. I detached a squad to each flank just in case we get any sallies from the perimeter bunkers to each side."
He'd just told me he already did everything I was going to order him to do. "Very well, captain. Outstanding. Carry on." I moved forward myself. Jax was over on the left, though he was controlling the whole line perfectly. I drifted over to the right and moved up to the second infantry line.
There was still a lot of residual heat, and the snow was being vaporized as it fell. There was a haze from the suddenly gaseous ammonia, but the visibility was significantly better than it had been. I could see the first line, and it looked like they were heavily engaged.
The fight was nasty, but we had the edge from the beginning. Jax had the troops perfectly deployed, and the enemy was rushing into formation. I figured we'd taken them by surprise with our nukes, and the only way they could stop us from getting to their access points was to come out and fight us on the surface. From my perspective, every one of them we killed up here was one we didn't have to dig out of some tunnel.
Jax had the company auto-cannons deployed in the center of each forward line. I ordered up the two heavy auto-cannons from the battalion reserve, positioning one on the extreme right flank and sending the other over to Jax to place wherever he thought he needed it.
We were definitely getting the better of the fight, but the enemy was still bringing out troops, and the fire was heavy. We were taking considerable losses, and with current conditions, most of them were KIAs. Right now, just about any hole in your armor was enough to kill you.
I wanted this fight over. I wasn't going to sit here and wage a battle of attrition where every minor wound was a death sentence. I ordered Frost to move his company over to the extreme right. About five minutes later his people were in position.
"Frost, we're going to swing around and hit these guys in the flank as they come forward. I want a section detached to keep those buildings and the immediate area around them under constant grenade attack. Give them something to think about as they are coming up."
Frost acknowledged and snapped out orders to one of the sections while I was still on the com.
"I want the rest of the company to wheel 90 degrees and advance on a perpendicular to our line." I had Hector add Sanchez to the com. He was commanding the company in line on the right. "Sanchez, Frost's company is going to flank the enemy. I want your people in the first line to key off their beacon. As they advance across your position move your troops in laterally to fill the holes further down the line. I don't want any friendly fire incidents. Understood?"
"Yes sir." His voice was strong, clear. God, I was proud of these troops. "Understood. Executing now."
The heat from the explosions was dissipating. In a few more minutes we'd be back in the middle of the blizzard. I wanted to make the best progress we could while we had relatively good visibility. Frost's company pivoted around, using the heavy auto-cannon as a hinge. When they were perpendicular to the rest of the line I ordered the auto-cannon redeployed further down. As Frost's people advanced, Sanchez' troops moved laterally by fire team, each group repositioning to specific areas at his direction. The shortening of his frontage allowed him to plug the gaps where casualties were heavy without committing the second line. I wanted those reserves kept fresh if possible. I suspected the surface battle was only phase one for us.
The enemy, disorganized already from trying to form up as they emerged, were caught in the crossfire, and the entire enemy left flank started to disintegrate. These weren't Janissaries, but they were good troops, and taking prisoners wasn't exactly feasible under these conditions anyway. As our flanking force advanced, the original line became shorter and denser, and the enemy was caught in a savage crossfire. We were losing some visibility - the ammonia was coming down as heavy rain now - but were hardly needed visibility to rake the enemy with fire.
Their left flank broke first. It started in small groups, but within a few minutes the entire enemy left was in full flight. I ordered Frost to pursue and prevent them from rallying, and I had Sanchez wheel his company as Frost had done earlier, flanking the enemy right, which was still heavily engaged with my first company. Their captain, Rijis, was down, so Jax took over direct command, and condensed his frontage as Sanchez's troops advanced laterally.
Caught in the crossfire, with half their troops already in flight, the rest of the enemy troops broke and ran. We had pretty much lost visibility in the slushy ammonia snow that was now falling, but we still had some scanner contact. I ordered Jax to take a platoon and pursue, linking up with Frost and taking overall command on the surface. I took the rest of Rijis' company and Sanchez' crew and headed to the central bunker. We were going underground.
I gave Jax the battalion heavy weapons - they wouldn't be much use underground anyway - and told him to keep the enemy off-balance, but to be very careful. I didn't want our troops getting strung out all over the place in conditions like these. But I also didn't want these enemy troops on the surface to reform and come down into the tunnels behind me.
There were two large, reinforced plasti-crete structures. Both seemed to be access points to the underground complex. I sent Sanchez to one with his company, and I went to the other with half of Rijis' crew and the battalion auxiliaries.
There were half a dozen guards in each building, so we had a quick firefight as we pushed our way in, suffering 4 more casualties before we wiped them out. The access points appeared to be large hatches over circular shafts about 4 meters wide. The shaft was about ten meters deep, and there was a large chamber at the bottom. There were 4 metal ladders, one at each compass point. It looked like there was also a bank of three lifts, but I wasn't about to trust to the enemy to keep the power on while we took the elevators. I lined up a section at each of the ladders, and ordered Sanchez to proceed the same way in his building.
We popped about a dozen grenades down the shaft to disrupt anyone waiting there - I didn't want any fire as we climbed down - and then the sections went over the edge. The first troopers got to the bottom quickly, climbing about halfway down and then jumping to the ground. The area at the bottom of the shaft was a large round chamber about 50 meters in diameter, clearly an assembly point for ingress and egress. There were large pipes along the ceiling with what looked like high powered air and water jets, probably for removing toxic, radioactive residue from armor and protective gear before entering the main complex. I'm afraid we were rude houseguests, though, and didn't stop to wipe our feet.