“1st and 3rd Svergie lead the assault,” I said, finally. I hated to be cold-blooded about it, but the Svergie soldiers were more expendable than A Company and the remainder of my men. “A Company and the support will remain in reserve.”
Ed nodded and headed off to organise the assault as the firing intensified. I’d deployed my snipers to force the enemy to keep their heads down — nothing damages morale like a shot killing someone at an impossible distance — but the enemy snipers were firing back, trying to force us to change our minds. They hadn’t hit anyone yet — we were using our vehicles as cover — but it was only a matter of time. It was a shame we couldn’t use the helicopters to their best advantage, but if we’d rocketed the fort we’d have had to abandon it quickly or waste resources trying to rebuild it. The mortars would suffice for what we had in mind, loaded with anti-personnel rounds; they’d kill the enemy soldiers, without seriously damaging the fort. The UN built them tough.
“I think I’ve located the enemy command centre,” the voice of the pilot said, through my earpiece. A building flashed up on my terminal. “They seem to be communicating from here with runners and shit.”
I watched for a long moment and decided that the pilot was right. “Target the building with a missile and engage as soon as we begin the main assault,” I ordered. The enemy might not have realised the UAV was present — the memory of a particularly embarrassing training session floated up into my mind and I smiled in bitter memory — but they’d probably prepared for mortars and even artillery. How would they cope with a penetration missile? “Ed?”
“We’re ready, boss,” Ed said. He paused. “You’re not leading the assault in person, by the way.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, mom,” I said, tiredly. “I’ll coordinate from here. Go in five; I repeat, five.”
“Five,” Ed confirmed. “We’re ready and waiting.”
The original designers of the fort had cut down all the trees and everything else that could provide cover surrounding the fort, allowing them to see and engage everything that approached the fort. Depending on how paranoid they’d been feeling, they might have sensors designed to watch for anyone trying to dig a tunnel into the base — it had happened on several occasions on other worlds — but over the years some foliage had grown up to provide limited cover. The snipers intensified their duel at my orders, trying to force the enemy to hide behind their walls, although they probably had sensors in the watchtowers. They’d have to be handled through brute force…
I smiled. We’d brought plenty of that along.
“Group One, go,” I ordered. “Pilot, drop the bomb.”
Three of the armoured cars could fire small antitank rockets, designed to give them a ghost of a chance against a real tank — as opposed to absolutely no chance at all — and they could be configured to target other obstacles as well. Four of the armoured cars fired a single rocket at once, targeted on each of the watchtowers, blowing them down in violent explosions. The enemy might have scattered other sensors around, but if they’d stuck with the standard UN system, they were blind now. They’d have to get people up on the battlements to look at us and the snipers would pick them off with ease, even though the haze of the smoke.
An explosion shook the ground as a new pillar of fire billowed up from the centre of the fort. The penetration missile dug into its target and exploded inside, rather than simply exploding on the outside, and anyone caught in the blast was definitely dead. If that had been the enemy command post, it wasn’t any longer.
“Hit them,” I ordered. “Group Two, go!”
The mortars opened fire and threw a hail of antipersonnel rounds into the fort, targeted on areas we were sure had large enemy presences. Anyone who sought cover after the first explosion would be fairly safe, but anyone out in the open would be in serious danger. I clenched my fist as the explosions flared up in the distance and keyed my earpiece.
“Ed, go,” I ordered. “Good luck.”
The defenders of the fort were struggling to get their own mortars into action to return fire, but they hadn’t counted on the UAV and its precise instructions from high overhead. Our mortars threw their shells into their positions and wiped them out before they could get off more than a handful of shells, scattering the defenders and forcing them to seek cover. It proved that they hadn’t kept all of the fort’s original defences; the UN used point defence lasers, just to provide cover from any such assault. If they’d done that, they might even have prevented the UAV from picking off their command post.
I watched as the soldiers swarmed towards the first bunkers. The enemy seemed totally unprepared to see them and, even as they started to fire back, the armoured cars started to launch their rockets into the occupied bunkers. Their firing slacked off as our forces and the defenders became intermingled, but the snipers kept firing, picking off every enemy soldier who showed his face. Whatever else the enemy were, they hadn’t prepared for a conventional fight at the fort… or had they thought we’d just line up and advance towards the fort in the open? Even the UN wasn’t that stupid. The defenders tried to fall back as the first bunkers fell, only to find that a retreat was the hardest thing to do under any circumstances. A handful threw their arms up in surrender, others were shot in the back or tried to keep fighting until they were beaten. The inner defences struggled to hold out, but my men were already within the walls and pushing them back hard.
“They’re falling back to the underground bunkers,” Ed said, in my earpiece. “We may have to go after them unless they surrender.”
I nodded tightly. “Offer to accept surrender if they’re willing to surrender,” I said, seriously. I wasn’t going to risk men trying to capture people who didn’t want to surrender, but the chaos gripping the fortress would make it hard for my men to tell who was trying to surrender and who was preparing to throw a grenade at their positions as they advanced. It was quite possible that we’d kill surrendering men quite by accident, but there was little choice. They should have surrendered before we’d assaulted their fortress. “If they refuse, don’t be gentle.”
The firing started to taper off as the defenders either surrendered or were wiped out. A handful dug into the bunkers and tried to make a stand, but Ed’s men rolled grenades down the steps and blew them out, one by one. Others tried to flee into the surrounding countryside, only to discover that our snipers were watching for anyone trying that and were gunned down. A massive explosion rocked one quarter of the fort as their stored ammunition detonated — they’d blown it to prevent us from capturing it — and the last of the firing stopped. Fifteen minutes after the assault had begun, the fort was safely in my hands.
“You three, escort us,” Peter ordered, as I walked towards the fort. My three bodyguards from A Company fell into formation around me, leading me through the defences and into what had once been a functional fort. I was relieved to see that the defences weren’t too badly damaged, but many of them would have to be replaced quickly. Leave it to the UN to be efficient when it would best irritate us. On the other hand, at least they’d taken out the minefields. If they’d been left there, taking the fortress would have been much harder.
The interior of the fortress was full of scorched and blackened buildings, but I was relieved to see that most of them were still intact. The former command building had been reduced to a pile of rubble and the other buildings surrounding it were damaged, but the remainder were useable. We’d be able to set up home here without many problems. The prisoners lay on the ground in the central yard, which would have once been used to hold parades and inspections, their hands bound behind their backs. Some watched us nervously, others angrily and bitterly, even though we were treating the wounded. They didn’t look like farmers to me and it took me a moment to realise that they were actually miners. I looked over towards the mountains rising in the distance and scowled. The miners had come to aid the farmers, or had it just been a coincidence?