“What’s wrong, Sergeant? Uh, I mean Lieutenant. Sorry. It’s still weird to say, ma’am.” Hovering above her gunner in the Bradley’s turret, Lieutenant Walker just shrugged. Her recent promotion was the least weird thing going on around here.
“Don’t worry about it, Dixon. You can call me sugar for all I care, as long as you find the damn enemy before they locate us. This is all too strange. I got a bad feeling about this op.”
For the hundredth time in the last twenty minutes, she raised her binos and scanned the northern suburbs of Baton Rouge. The only movement came from the occasional civilian SUV packed with refugees racing away from town on the Interstate to their flank. Her unit tried to flag down a few and get some information, but all the civvies were too frantic to chat. She checked her watch again. Sixty-two minutes had passed since the local commander reported contact with a large Freedom Brigade force trying to cross the river.
It had been fifty-seven minutes since every federal radio in town went offline. No one had heard a thing since.
“Ah, don’t worry about it, ma’am. I don’t care what the TOC said. There’s just no way a Freedom Brigade taskforce swooped in and wiped out our whole garrison in five minutes. I mean, the URA has some first-rate ECM. They’re probably just jamming us. Betcha our guys are all still there, guarding the river, without a clue we’re about to attack them from behind.”
Walker rolled her eyes. After fighting side by side with Dixon for months now, she loved him like a baby brother. Course, just like her little brother, he could be such an idiot.
“It’s more than a lack of comms. You notice how few refugees are running?”
Dixon stuck hard to his ignorance. “Place was evacuated hours ago. No big mystery.”
“Give me a break. Ok, let’s say you’re right. Baton Rouge had around a quarter million people. Even if 90 % ran, there should be tens of thousands of civilians trying to escape now that the battle is on their doorstep. I counted barely one hundred fleeing. Where is everyone?”
Dixon’s eyes stayed glued to his gun sights, but Walker could see him chewing his lips raw. “Okay, that’s weird, I admit, but I don’t hear any firing. There were… I mean, there is, an entire brigade in town. The rebels couldn’t have wasted them all so fast. I hear these Freedom Brigade fanatics are good, but they aren’t that good.”
“Firing…” That was a good point. The occasional short spurt of small arms rattled off in the distance, but no real battle. There also weren’t any smoke clouds in town. How do you overrun twenty-five hundred troops in minutes without causing any damage? This was all so screwy.
The radio crackled and the cocky voice of her battalion commander refocused her attention to the infantry company she was responsible for. Amazing how quickly she’d grown to love her punishment promotion.
“Net call, this is Iron Main. Standby for Op Order: We’re moving in three mikes. Mortar platoon will lay down the smoke screen in two mikes and then we’ll bound by companies. Blackjack, you lead the way. Remember, hold at your Phase 1 objectives. There’s no rush to get to the river. Even if the enemy has breached the defenses, our engineers blew the bridges hours ago. The rebels aren’t likely to have crossed in serious force yet. So let’s take our time and do this right. We won’t have any surveillance drones available for at least an hour. Therefore, once the entire battalion has set up a base of fire along Phase Line Green, I want to kick out scout teams before we move into those narrow streets. All elements acknowledge, over.”
Walker keyed her mike. “This is Blackjack 6: good copy, over.”
She switched to her other radio handset and passed the message to all her troops. Not just the platoon leaders. She’d seen battles in this war that put junior sergeants in charge of whole companies in a hurry. Hell, that’s how she earned her promotion. Walker knew the value of making sure everyone understood the game plan.
As she prepped her unit for battle, Dixon muttered, “Oh…sorry.”
It took Walker only a half second in that cramped turret before she caught on. “Ah, son of a bitch. Will you lay off the Chili Mac MRE’s already? Eat some fruit or something.” She gave her gunner a playful kick.
“Come on, LT. Do you think yours smell like fresh baked cinnamon rolls? I’ve been sitting next to you for months. You might be silent, but you’re twice as deadly!”
Walker’s laugh caught in her throat as she glared at the dead city ahead. She wrinkled her nose. “My God!”
She keyed both the company and battalion net radios at the same time and screamed something she hadn’t yelled since basic training.
“Gas! Gas! Gas! Mask up!”
Even as Walker said the drill, she knew it was a lost cause. Every soldier was issued a gas mask and head-to-toe NBC protective gear, sure, but who carried that worthless kit on their personage? In fact, she even stashed her own MOPP suit at the bottom of her rucksack, strapped outside the vehicle.
Walker kept both mikes depressed and yelled again. “Everyone get your NBC gear, recall your dismounts and seal up! Move it!”
Her battalion commander jumped onto the net as her gunner scrambled over Walker to get the rucks tied to the back of the turret. “Blackjack 6, Iron 6. Do you have eyes on this threat or is it just a guess? Intel has never given the slightest hint the rebels even possess chemical weapons, much less are willing to use them. Full MOPP gear reduces efficiency by at least 20 %. You know that. We don’t have time for paranoia, over.”
Walker’s discipline shook a little. She knew her company would do what she said without a second’s thought, but the rest of the battalion wouldn’t go into battle in those bulky, hot MOPP suits without a direct order from above. A shame Sergeant Major Brown wasn’t still alive to hit the colonel over the head with commonsense. Oh, well. Walker didn’t waste a second thinking about how she was risking her entire career. She had to do something to get the attention of that macho fool.
“Get your head out of your ass, Iron 6! How do you think they slaughtered a dug-in brigade in minutes? Get your MOPP gear on or you’re next!”
As her battalion commander screamed his head off, Dixon tossed Walker her NBC bag. She ditched the radios and spent her time leading by example. Pausing only long enough to make sure all of her vehicle’s hatches were sealed and the overpressure air-conditioning system was set to maximum, she peeled down to her underwear.
Dixon raised an eyebrow. “Uh, is that necessary?”
“Do you think a chem suit breathes like cotton? Especially in this heat? Wear clothes under that at your own risk. Matter of fact…” She unhitched her bra without hesitation, flung her panties off and snatched up the radio. “All elements: make sure you strip down before you suit up or you’ll dehydrate in a hurry.”
The indignant yelling over the net stopped. With luck, everyone was too busy gearing up.
She glanced at the naked infantrymen in the bay behind her, all squirming about to get dressed without touching each other and trying to keep their backs pointed at their female commander. Even Dixon, who possessed the social grace of a hand grenade, blushed as he pulled off his boxers. Walker snorted, despite her fear. Men could be such pussies.
With her charcoal-lined jacket zipped tight and mask snug, Walker was ready for battle, or an ass chewing from her commander. She picked up the radio handset to find out which was coming first.
Walker wished she hadn’t. Despite the quiet around them, all hell was breaking loose over the net. “This is Charlie 6. I’m the senior officer now and am taking command. All Iron elements fall back to the last rally point and wait for new orders, over.”