The three squad leaders found their troops and had them pick up all their gear and all the flamers. Each man carried over sixty kilograms of equipment and trudged a thousand meters to the pickup point.
“Pack mules, that’s all we are. We’ve been stumbling around in the dark for six hours. When will we get to rest?”
“Not until I say so,” Galen told the troop. “Now just shut up and do your job.”
They boarded the skimmers and rode about three kilometers to the edge of the highway. After the skimmers left Chief Mortinson ordered, “Ground your heavy weapons and come over here. Gather round me for a briefing.” The mercenaries left the heavy weapons piled in the drainage ditch. They kept their rifles with them and gathered around their Chief.
“What we got is twelve dumbass Hornets rolling up this road.”
“Wasps,” corrected Spike.
“Oh yeah, Wasps. Light recon tanks. Anyhow, we have nine teams. That means we’ll have to reorganize. Two troops in a team, twelve of them right here. Actually, I’ll put you fifty meters back off the road, concealed in the brush. One rocket launcher, one flamer per team. Sergeants, give up six troops and two Corporals each. Have them stand over here.” Mortinson indicated his left side, pointing at a spot on the ground about fives meters away.
“You dumbasses pair off and go get your heavy weapons. The rest of you, this is what we’ll be doing.” Mortinson studied the group, counted thirteen troops, “You medics take your broke-dicks and get a hundred meters back. You’re my observation post.” The two medics and the two injured mercenaries left.
“Now, us guys, the nine of us.”
“Ten,” interrupted Spike. “Counting you and me, it’s ten.”
“Like I was saying, us ten guys will be the clincher. We hide here under this bridge. When the enemy column of Hornets is spread out along the firing line, our troops will open up with their flamers and rockets. That’s when we get on line across the road, shoulder to shoulder, and start firing the dumbasses up from their behind. We move right along, giving our ambush an ‘L’ shape, pushing the dumbasses from the rear.”
“That’s it?”
“No that ain’t it, dumbass. Then the skimmers come up and close them off from the front. They stay at maximum laser cannon range and trust in the inability of the enemy to shoot straight. Then the Hornets got nowhere to go but into the river.”
“What’s to keep them from stomping our guts out?”
“A little surprise. You’ll see.”
Lance Sergeant Ching slowed his pace to tactical speed. His column of Wasps was getting too spread out. He ordered them to close to a thirty meter interval. When they did, he decided to keep the tactical pace for a while longer, to let his warriors get more accustomed to their machines. Then he would bring them back up to full speed.
Time was of the essence. He had to get to Chon Gok Op before the enemy could react. He had to get there before sunrise. All was going well as the tanks crossed a bridge spanning a tributary of the river. Ching watched his monitor, waiting for the last tank to cross the bridge before looking back to his viewport.
“Dismounts on the left, I read ambush,” came the excited call of the old Corporal leading second lance. Ching didn’t believe him, thought maybe he was having a flashback from some long-forgotten battle.
Then the transparent armor covering the viewport of Ching’s cupola lit up with an impossible brightness. Another rocket slammed into his Wasp, followed by the tip of a tongue of flame.
“Return fire, face left and return fire!” ordered Ching.
The old Corporal was already reacting. He fired at the place where a rocket exhaust trail originated, putting his machine gun and laser cannon right in the target. Then he charged.
“I’ll squash you, you grunt!” yelled the old Corporal. A soldier lying prone fired his rifle, squeezing off a round every two seconds, not shifting his aim. The old Corporal ordered his driver to run over the grunt. The tank ran over the rifle-firing soldier and squashed him under the left tread. A bone-jarring explosion rocked the tank, blowing its track off. The same track which had just squashed the soldier. The Wasp tipped sideways and landed on its right side. Its turret turned to the left to protect its laser cannon from damage. The old Corporal was trying to say something that sounded like “Boo-” when he was knocked senseless by the fall. The tank’s driver was dead.
“Get ‘em!” yelled Ching, “We don’t have to take this from a bunch of grunts!”
Another tank gunner hit his mark, scorching an enemy firing position with a laser cannon blast. The tank approached the target area and the commander saw a pitiful sight. One grunt was missing both his legs, and his loyal buddy, missing an arm, gripped his comrade’s collar. Both were face down and covered with blood. The one-armed grunt was vainly trying to drag his buddy away, kicking his legs in an effort to crawl. The Wasp driver pivoted his tank and brought the right tread on line to crush the grunts. When he drove over them, they exploded. The force of the explosion blasted the front of the light tank into the air and flipped its turret away. The tank continued to flip, landed upside down. The turret splashed into the river.
Three more explosions went off before Ching realized what was going on. “Stay on the road, there’s bombs, or mines or something. Stay on the road and return fire.” He checked his HUD display, franticly sorting through menus a more experienced commander would have found useful. Still seven Wasps up and fighting. It would be enough to slug it out with the ambushing grunts. Seven tanks were enough to take Chon Gok Op.
Chapter Eight
Chief Mortinson said, “Told you it would work. Those dumbasses always fall for it.” The Chief and his nine flamer-bearing companions emerged from under the bridge and stood on line across the road.
“Yeah, but who would have thought of stuffing high explosives into the chests of first-aid training mannequins?” said Galen.
“You got to be flexible, Sergeant.”
The ten mercenaries fired on the back of the nearest Wasp, not more than fifty meters away. The heat singed Galen’s eyebrows. The NVGs he wore compensated for the bright fire of the flames, allowing him to continue to watch the tank. It swiveled its turret and started to pivot-steer its chassis towards them. Galen watched the tank’s rear hull start to glow brighter, heat from the flamers affecting its fusion engine. A split second before the awful machine’s laser cannon came to bear on the mercenaries, Mortinson ordered them to fire again. They did. The heat was too much for the Wasp’s heat sinks. The engine was too hot, registering high enough for the automatic controls to shut it down. The tank’s main gun sagged. The mercenaries ran to its side—not too close, it was hot—to seek cover. From the tank ahead of it on the road.
“Look at this dumbass.” Mortinson pointed at the cupola’s viewport. The tank commander was inside, beating on the transparent armor and making rude hand gestures at the mercenaries. His face was red with rage and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, but his screams couldn’t be heard through the turret’s armor.
“Tad, get him out of there.”
“Yes, Chief.”
Tad laid down his flamer and pulled his entrenching tool from his butt pack. He stuck the edge of the pick end into the edge of the hatch seal, the way he saw the troop doing it in the picture at the armory. He grunted, pulled hard and then POP, the hatch came open. Two Corporals pulled the screaming commander out and ripped off his commo helmet and flak vest. Two more mercenaries slipped disposable handcuffs around his wrists and ankles. Then they slipped another disposable handcuff between the first two, hog-tying the prisoner.