Cav and Light Tank then moved south right up to the edge of the city and fired into Mosh positions and waited there until the Mandarin regular army moved north to clear out the rest of the Mosh still in the city’s outskirts. The helos came and picked up the light infantry and then the heavy and medium tanks did a final police call across the area of operations on their way back to the road, headed south in column, back to their designated hide areas in the city of Chong-gok op.
Cav and Light Tank made their ways back to their hides as well. Twelve hours spent, two Mosh light divisions taken out. Galen informed his troops they had two days to lick their wounds and reconstitute for more maneuvers. That was plenty of time. Six Hellcat and two Stallion tanks lost, eighteen troops killed, five more injured too badly to return to duty.
Galen stood in the ops center and stared at the battle map.
Spike walked up to stand beside him and said, “Battle’s over. Get some chow and go to sleep.”
Galen said, “That was too easy.”
Spike said, “Not really. The Mosh lost twenty percent of their warriors and more than half of their combat support weapons when they burned in for a hard landing. They also lost nearly half their line warriors when they first entered the city. Most of what we ran over today was rear-echelon pukes. Then their fighters were caught between us and the Mandarins at the edge of the city. What we really took out today was more like half a division, and they were low on ammo.”
Galen rolled his shoulders, pointed at a spot to the left on the battle map. “Is this data current?”
Spike said, “About an hour old at the most.”
“That,” Galen tapped the unit markers for a Mosh armored corps, “is what I’m worried about.”
Spike said, “They aren’t moving very fast. Their route is hampered by Mandarin units. The Mandarins stand and fight and die in place. They are slowing down the Mosh armor.”
Galen looked at the town at the bottom of the map. “It looks like the bridge farthest to the south is now in Mosh hands. The Mosh armor could cross there tomorrow.”
Spike said, “That bridge was destroyed by the defenders. When the Mosh main force moves in, they’ll need a couple of days to put up a new bridge.”
Galen stared, looked around the map.
Spike said, “Maybe we should send some Marines to the west side of our bridge, bolster the Mandarin defenders.”
Galen said, “No. Don’t split our forces.”
“Our mission is to hold that bridge, I thought.”
Galen smiled. “Yes. That’s why we’re here. But I’m thinking…”
Spike said, “You need rest. Let Tad fry his brain staring at this map.”
Tad entered the ops center. “You talking trash about me again?”
Spike said, “You know it. Brilliant operation you ran today, by the way. You’re an operational genius.’
Tad said, “Whatever. Phase two will blow your mind.”
Galen said, “Phase two?”
“Sure. We let those three Mosh light infantry divisions coming in from the west make it to the bridge, then we punch across that bridge and clear them out of the industrial city. Combined arms, Marines with the tanks. Then we circle back around and get back on this side of the river and then wait for the lead elements of their armor to get on the bridge and then destroy the bridge with them on it. Then phase three, we attack south and meet some Mosh armor head-on.”
Spike said, “You are sick and twisted.”
Galen said, “I like phase two. We’ll do that. Phase three, that’s a whole different story. Phase three, we move back to our old Jasmine Panzer Brigade compound and stand down for a while.”
Tad said, “I’ll get to work on phase two tomorrow. Time for some sleep.”
Galen left the ops center and went upstairs to his office and ate a field ration and stretched out on the couch.
Chapter Seventeen
The Mosh High Chief paced in front of his five Clan leaders, stopped and stared at them. “Sit!”
They sat on flimsy fold-up camp stools. The warehouse they were in was a sturdy steel structure, their command skimmers parked behind them inside the building. The High Chief’s command tank, an eighty ton monster, was behind him. He said, “We are still wining, there is no doubt our victory is certain. But it is taking longer than expected and we are losing more warriors than anticipated.”
“We—”
“Silence!” the High Chief turned his back, climbed up on his tank and reached inside, removed a fold-up chair and climbed back down, set up the chair and sat facing the Clan Chiefs, sat on it hunched forward. “Speak.”
The first Clan Chief said, “The current operation is still salvageable. We have taken three of the four upstream bridges intact. The one farthest to the south was destroyed, but it was the least important to our plans.”
The High Chief said, “As we all know, the Northern Province must be cleared. The Mandarins have mobile space lasers and they pop up in coordinated attacks that damage our transports that carry our women and children and livestock and servants. This must stop.”
The second Clan Chief said, “It will taken longer than expected, it will be a difficult fight.”
The High Chief made a sweeping gesture with his left hand that encompassed the first two Clan Chiefs. “You two, my own sons, were tasked with getting across that river and conquering the Northern Province. Instead we are here wondering how it is possible to fail, how it is possible we lose more in this fight than all previous losses that came before. Your cousins, my nephews, they are doing quite well and want to breach the Central Province’s western defenses and charge right into their capitol city, stab at the heart of our enemy and end this war.”
The High Chief’s operations specialist, an unarmed man wearing green coveralls, made his way from behind the command tank and stood at attention on the High Chief’s left side. The High Chief said, “He will share his thoughts. He will speak freely and take your questions at the end.”
The operations specialist said, “Thank you, Chief.” He relaxed his posture and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “For the most part, the opposition is lightly armed and poorly trained masses of draftees, called up to defend their home world with little preparation for war. Our generally aggressive, straightforward tactics work well against them and we’ve made great headway. However, we are now running into their regulars and they are putting up an effective fight. They are fielding new equipment, individual weapons that are effective against our chain mail body armor as well as shoulder-fired weapons that are effective against our armored vehicles.
“They are also building armored vehicles that in many cases outclass our tanks, although in very limited quantities. That is not surprising. We had to bring our armor half way across the Galaxy while we fight right at the gates of their factories. The most interesting of their tank designs, causing the greatest threat to out advance, is a new vehicle they call a ‘peoples tank.’ It’s a gun carriage with a charge six laser cannon pointing right out of the glacis plate. It’s comparable in performance to our own MS-100 tank destroyer, although it lacks adequate mobility for offensive operations.
“This people’s tank relies on a gas turbine engine for mobility, and then draws power from an external electrical power source for its weapon. In some cases, an escort vehicle with an adequate fusion engine has provided power but generally they tap into the power grid of the towns and cities they defend to have the energy necessary to fire their main gun.