“Hell yeah! We made it, sir! Bridges secure and the assault team has the beachhead 90 % under control. The drones show some Fed reinforcements moving in, but only small units. Shouldn’t be an issue. The advance party took fifty percent losses, but it’s just a mopping up exercise now.”
Colonel Armistead tightened his grip on the binos. The first of his armored vehicles raced across the thin, swaying bridges. “Oh, we’re far from done. Now comes the hard part.”
Whistling in the air punctuated his words. “Incoming!”
Fountains bloomed in the water and swamped large spans of both bridges. Armistead unclenched his white knuckles when the fountains cleared and the bridges remained intact.
“Good. The Feds are dropping their artillery blind. No observers. Can we get some Goddamn fire support now?”
His artillery liaison officer turned his radio handset away and flashed thumbs up. “Hooah, sir. The Q-36 fire finder radar tracked all incoming rounds. You’ll get counterbattery fire in 15 seconds. Division is psyched up. We’ve now got first priority for all fires.”
Armistead laughed without mirth. “Yeah, looks like the Feds gave us the same.”
Four rocket engines ignited a mile over his head. He gave the outgoing missiles only a brief glance. Command assigned twenty of their fancy air-to-air combat drones to cover him. Enemy air power didn’t bother him so much. Unfortunately, there was no way to shoot down artillery rounds.
As the first of his vehicles neared the end of the bridge, the next federal volley introduced itself. Not as big as the last, since his guns were plastering their firing sites, but still enough to ruin his day.
Six shells landed in a perfect line along the west riverbank, only a hundred yards from his foxhole. Two Bradley fighting vehicles, chalked full of troops and waiting in line to get on the bridge, erupted. No one had time to assist the flaming survivors crawling out. The other tracks just drove around them.
Near the far end of the closest floating highway, a lucky round slammed into the engine compartment of a hulking M1 Abrams. Without hesitation, the tank behind them raised its bulldozer blade and shoved the crippled track over the side, straight into the raging river below. Through his binoculars, Armistead glimpsed the driver’s hatch open at the last second. The unharmed driver tried to climb out of his doomed tank. He almost made it.
“First armored elements across, sir. Even with only two spans, we should have the whole brigade over there in half an hour, if we keep up this pace.”
Armistead folded his map and climbed out of his sandbagged bunker. He waved at his vehicle crew below. “Time to join them. We have four hours to turn the enemy’s flank before they can deploy their reserves here. So let’s make it count.”
He paused before climbing into his track. “What’s the ETA on our follow on forces?”
His operations planner checked his tablet. “Well, the rest of the division is staged and ready to cross as soon as we’re clear. The Teddies screening our own flank should be minutes behind them.”
Three minutes later, Colonel Armistead’s command track drove onto the sandy banks of the state of Mississippi. As his maps called it, deep behind enemy lines.
His driver leaned out the hatch and hooted at a line of shell shocked federal troops being marched west, their unarmed hands over their heads.
“Better luck next time boys. We’ll send you a postcard from Washington!”
Colonel Armistead ignored his excited driver. He twisted around to get a good view of the hundreds of armored vehicles lined up behind him. There were a few stops along the way, sure… but the final destination was no longer in doubt.
He grinned for the first time all night.
For the first time in years, Colonel Armistead fired his spotlessly clean rifle. At his level, he usually did his killing with a map and radio. Like a proper gentleman.
The Feds didn’t seem to care though. With most of the woods around him on fire, he emptied his magazine through the smoke in the vague direction of whoever shot his radioman. A new Bradley fighting vehicle rolled up behind his burning command track a few feet away. The rebel IFV’s thermal sights picked some target through the choking clouds and burrrped 25mm shells in response.
A rocket lanced out from his left, headed straight for the Brad. No telling if it was accidental rebel fire or a Fed anti-tank team. He’d seen both troops in that tree cluster in the last few minutes. The fully automated, radar-guided shotgun on the Bradley’s turret slapped the rocket out of the air. Ten yards short of the track, but only five over Armistead’s head.
“What a clusterfuck!” The colonel winced as a small shard of the exploding rocket sliced his inner thigh. An inch higher and, well… his wife wouldn’t have to bother with birth control anymore.
In his mad rush to outmaneuver the constantly retreating federal flank, he’d overextended his unit. On the plus side, the Feds seemed just as confused as his men were. In the swirling melee in these dense swamps, both sides had no time to react. They slammed into each other like drunken brawlers around every bend in the backcountry roads.
Four years at West Point, fifteen as a maneuver unit commander, three combat tours and even a stint as an instructor at the War College… and this was the best he could do. The culmination of the grand offensive, planned by the best military minds in a generation, and it all came down to nothing more than a bar fight.
Armistead spun back down into the irrigation ditch and swapped mags. “Major! Tell me what the fuck is going on. How did these guys get behind us? Are there more?”
His operation’s chief laid his own weapon down and unbuckled the dead specialist’s radio. He whispered into the mike for a few seconds and then changed frequencies. While the Colonel and headquarters staff fought for their lives, the major ignored the cracks around him. He just kept spinning the radio knob and cut through the much larger chaos descending on his division.
“Sir! No clear picture yet on exact strength, but it looks like a brigade size counterattack, at a minimum. The Feds came in right between us and the Texas brigade to the east. Just kind of walked in; there’s a huge gap. Now the enemy is all over the place. I strongly recommend we fall back and consolidate west of Highway 27. While we still can.”
The firing in their immediate vicinity died down. Colonel Armistead slithered over to the major. He yanked out the junior officer’s field dressing from his vest and shoved it against his arm. “Christ, James! You’re bleeding like a stuck pig. Medic!”
Armistead frowned at the only medic in sight, slumped motionless over another dead soldier ten yards away. “Damn. Here, keep pressure on it. Give me the radio and I’ll find someone—”
The major didn’t take his hands off the radio. “Sir, I got one of the TED units on line.”
“About time! Those bastards did a shit job guarding our flanks. Let me speak to them.”
He didn’t know what call signs the Texans used, since they spoke so infrequently, but he’d met their commander once. “Colonel Roberts? This is Armistead. You need to seal the gap between our units ASAP!”
A frightened young voice came back. “This is Captain Niels, I, uh, I guess I’m in charge. Headquarters got plastered by an airstrike. We really can’t help you.”
“The fuck you mean, over? You have five thousand men only a mile away! What channel are your maneuver battalions on? I’ll take over.”
“Pal, you misunderstand. The Feds nailed every sub headquarters. They caught us out in the open—”