“Canteen’s empty, rifle ammo is on the wrong side, your pistol isn’t loaded, rifle sling’s too tight, and chin strap of your helmet’s not fastened.”
“What?”
“You’re all fouled up, snapper Sergeant, but I guess you don’t know better. Are you left-handed?”
“No.”
“Well I am. So I’m the mirror image of how you should look. Pistol on your right hip, with your rifle ammo pouches behind it going on around to your butt pack. You can reach them while lying on your stomach that way. Pistol ammo pouches on you left hip, your canteen right behind them, and snug up against your butt pack. Everything is reversed for left handed troops. Lock and load and put the safety on both of your weapons, fasten your chin strap and fill up that canteen and we’ll be squared away. Oh, and that bayonet goes on your left, in front of your pistol ammo, to make sure you can get to it from the prone position.”
“Fine. I’ll break ranks and square that away now.”
“Pushups first. Not my idea, it is unit SOP. Ten pushups for each gig. Knock ‘em out then go square yourself away.”
Galen did sixty pushups and then dashed off to fill his canteen with water. He stood with Tad and Spike, the three men helping each other reassemble their gear in accordance with the Corporal’s demands.
“Is this for real?” asked Spike.
“If he’s bluffing I’ll mess him up good,” said Tad.
Galen said, “I’ll talk to his boss about this whole incident. They knew three Sergeants were coming. They should have a Chief in charge. Also, all the troops were squared away. No gigs on them.”
“That Corporal in the welcome center set us up, forgot to tell us some minor details,” said Spike.
“Aw, listen to us,” said Tad. “We sound like crybabies. Let’s just write the whole thing off as experience. Hell, most Sergeants have five or ten years experience under their belts. They expect us to know things without being told. With rank comes responsibility. We can’t expect to just walk right in with this rank and be Sergeants. We got to get a little experience. Until then, I plan to bluff it.”
“How?”
“Like just now, when the Corporal was checking out his troops, we could have been checking him out, arranging our gear like his, and double-checking it against the troops.”
“Sounds like a plan.” said Spike.
“Right. We had standards to follow at the academy. No reason this place should be any different.”
The Corporal came over to them. “All squared away now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Here’s your radio codes. Zero seven one two niner. That’s for the channel between you and me, freq two.”
“Got it.”
“Next, five five one six. That’s the channel between you and your troops. Second, use freq three. Third, use freq one. Fourth, use freq five.”
“And command voice?” said Tad, bluffing a veteran status.
“Nine nine six eight, channel one,” said the Corporal.
They punched the codes into their personal communicators. Galen was pleased at how smoothly the commo briefing went. They could play this by ear after all, using common sense and remembering their basic training.
“Get your troops mounted up, we leave in two minutes.” The Corporal gestured at the vehicles. The drivers started their engines.
The convoy was under way and Galen stood tall in the commander’s hatch of the second APC. He held on to the grips of the heavy machine gun, swiveling it experimentally from one place to another. The ammo can had five hundred rounds of twenty millimeter shells ready to rock ‘n roll. More ammo was handy just inside the lip of the hatch. One can was marked “Incendiary” another was marked “Armor Piercing” and the third one was labeled “Trail Mix.”
They rolled out of the compound main gate, headlights blazing on high beam. On the broad concrete highway leading out of town they accelerated to sixty kilometers an hour. The wind felt good in Galen’s face, cooling his body in contrast to the muggy feeling he had before. Civilian cars and busses and all sorts of other vehicles passed the convoy, most drivers beeping their horns and waving as they went by. An older but well-preserved woman driving an expensive hover car convertible with the top down blew Galen a kiss as she went by. Soon they exited the highway and rolled down a two-lane road. It wound and curved around low hills and generally paralleled the path of a creek bed. They slowed their speed to thirty five KPH, negotiating the back road very well. The track drivers were experienced, the best drivers Galen had ever seen.
Radio silence was finally broken by the Corporal leading the convoy. “Roger, Chief,” was all he said. Galen could only hear half the conversation. The commo net was set up that way, each leader in the chain of command listening to and talking to his immediate subordinates and superiors only. Galen could hear everything said by the Corporal and the three fire team leaders in his squad, and they could all hear him. The drawback was he heard only half the conversation between the team leaders and their two troops, and between the Corporal and the other two squad leaders as well as the platoon Chief.
“What’s up, Corporal?” asked Galen.
“Squad leaders, this is platoon leader. Get ready for some action. We have to hit some snipers and street punks in the town about six clicks up the road.”
While still a kilometer from the town, the Corporal’s track veered left and skirted the edge of a stand of trees. The other three tracks followed. Then they turned right and plunged into the woods.
“Diamond formation. Two, on my left. Three, on my right. Four, behind me.”
“Check,” said Galen’s driver. It made sense for the drivers to be on the same channel as the track commander, to cut down the lag time of their response. Galen marveled at how easily the boxy APCs moved through the woods, snapping off saplings and flattening undergrowth as they went. He had to hunker down in the TC hatch to avoid getting smacked in the face by tree branches. He peered through the dark woods and saw the edge of the tree line, the town just at the edge of the woods.
“Team leaders, get ready. We’re going to hit ‘em soon,” said Galen.
“Right, Sergeant. Ready.”
The Corporal came on again and said, “Okay, we’ll come out of the trees and bust into town from the side. I’ll skirt the perimeter of the objective, drop a machine gun crew at three corners of the block and park my vehicle at the fourth. I’ll have the area sealed in. Two, you got the bank. Park at the entrance and drop your ramp. Your fire teams will dismount and enter the building and fight their way to the top. Three, you got the school house. Do the same as I told two. Four, you got the library. There are heavy weapons on top of it, so just crash into the lobby and then stop. Dismount your troops and send them to take the roof. But your vehicle stays in the building until the attack is over.”
“Good copy,” said Galen.
They burst from the tree line and roared into town at full speed. The Corporal cut hard to the right and waved Galen forward. Track one stopped and three troops jumped out and set up their portable machine gun. Then track one sped off to employ three more troops and a machine gun at the next corner of the objective.