Richard is another Barfly, a posting member of Baen's Bar, who currently resides in England.
"The piece of shit couldn't hang." The Lieutenant Colonel looked around the table, sweeping across the members of the Board of Inquiry. It was clear from his expression that he was expecting support in his disdain of the Second Lieutenant over whom the board had been convened. The lieutenant in question had not completed the "Twelve Day War", the field exercise/final exam for the Armor Officer Basic Course, and his final disposition was now in question. If the battalion commander had his way however, which seemed likely, that disposition was not, itself, in question.
The options available to the board were to allow the officer to redo the field exercise with a different AOBC course, or not, and if not to require that the officer in question resign his commission. The third option, to rescind the commission outright, was to the majority of the board not available.
Unfortunately, the majority in this case was the majority of one.
The single window in the room looked out onto a snow-covered quad outside the training unit headquarters' building on Fort Knox, Kentucky. A brisk, late-February wind blew across the clear blue skies, keeping the temperature outside down, well below the freezing point, where it had been sitting for the better part of the previous eight weeks. Beneath the window, a single 1940's era radiator tried its best to keep the physical temperature inside the room above freezing, but could do nothing against the psychic chill generated by the board president's attitude.
The two junior members present, CPT Grundvig and 2LT Mathsden, made as if to say something in response to their commander's comment, but then stopped as their own sense of self-preservation kicked in. The two things to remember about LTC Feckette were first, he could prattle on for days about his belief in God, and second, the fact that he was a self-described God-fearing Christian Believer wouldn't stand in the way of his dicking anybody over if it progressed his own career, could be done with a reasonable chance of avoiding official recrimination, or frankly, just for the hell of it. The current board of inquiry had him in his element, and the other members of the board could tell that This Was Not the Time.
CPT Grundvig had spent four months working with 2LT Paulson and the rest of AOBC-91-10, and the test scores showed that the absent lieutenant was by far not the weakest mentally or physically in the course, regardless of what the battalion commander might say. The written tests had been a breeze for the ex-enlisted, ROTC officer, the practical tests a bit less so, but once you got the man into the simulators he was on the bounce. One of his instructors had remarked after one such event, "Man. I'm glad that LT is on our side. Otherwise, like, I'd have to kill him!".
Lieutenant Mathsden, who wasn't actually on the board but represented the absent Lieutenant Paulson, initially froze at the battalion commander's statement. As the LTC looked back down at his notes, CPT Grundvig turned slightly and caught the eye of the Second Lieutenant. The two very carefully looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes. A mental shrug was conveyed from the captain to the lieutenant, and the lieutenant's hand, flat on the table, relaxed.
The other captain on the board, CPT Gott, was looking at another piece of paper from the packet that had been prepared, regarding the acts, actions, coursework and service record of the lieutenant. "Sir, did you see this? It's the class Order of Merit list." CPT Gott was from another battalion, and as such was pretty much safe from the board president's extracurricular activities.
"What about it?" asked the LTC, clearly not interested, already writing up the board's final recommendation for the disposition of the failed student, not bothering to have asked a priori for said recommendation.
The captain frowned at the colonel's attitude as he looked back down to verify that he held what he needed. The paper in question was the rankings of the students from the course, based on test scores, evaluations and ratings from instructors, commanders and peers. Gott looked up at CPT Grundvig. "Are these the final rankings?"
"I believe so ... " Grundvig brought up the paper from his own packet and looked at the date. "Yes, yes it is," he said, before re-filing it into the packet before him. The residual frustration at the colonel's attitude kept him from saying more.
"Thanks, Red." Gott turned back to the colonel. "Sir, Paulson was ranked as lowest but five in the class of 125."
"Your point, Captain Gott?" the colonel asked, still not bothering to look up.
CPT Gott gamely continued, trying to break through the battalion commander's air of indifference. "Sir, two students were failed by the evaluators after the TDW. Those two are ranked 124 and 125. Two other students were passed by their evaluators, but still are ranked below Paulson who'd only a DNC. How can that be?" It was clear what CPT Gott saw, that had Paulson completed the course, he probably would have placed in the top percentile of the Order of Merit List, placing him as one of the top two or three students on the course.
"Who the fuck cares, Gott? The "artsy" lieutenant couldn't put up with a little weather. They should have failed his ass outright, not given him the 'did not complete'." The colonel's voice dripped scorn. "This man's Army will be happy to be quit of the little fuck." The colonel dismissed the captain's question with a flick of his head, and looked around the table again. "Anything else? Good. We yank his commission. The piece of shit second lieutenant, for however so much longer, is obviously not Army Officer material. Comments?"
The other board members looked around the table, but nobody bothered to speak up.
Six months and several AOBC cycles later, and beer bottles clinked and music played low as a group of soldiers toasted yet another one. In one corner of the room stood a much smaller group, congratulating Captain (Promotable) Grundvig on his new orders, assigning him to a line battalion in the 8th Infantry, while at the same time commiserating with him that it was an Infantry division and not an Armor one that he had to report to.
This had been going on for some time when another soldier wandered up. The group of officers nodded in greeting as the newcomer verified that he knew everyone standing there. "Gentleman," First Sergeant Timpton said, greeting the group of officers, before turning to the outgoing captain. He nodded a greeting to the man personally, and then, without preamble, said "So, what really happened, Sir?" The first sergeant did not supply any context to the question, however it was obvious that the captain would understand it anyway.
Captain Grundvig didn't say anything for the first couple of moments, as he looked the first sergeant over. Finally, he nodded, saying "You remember he was medevac'd from the TDW?"
"Yeah, I had to fill out the paperwork on that, so even after the whole thing was suppressed I still knew about at least part of it. He was in the gunner's seat when the M1's driver fell asleep and dropped the vehicle into a tank ditch at speed. Paulson took a nasty knock against the gun-sights and was a bit hazy for awhile, then passed out. He was still hazy when he came to. Plus other classic symptoms of a complex concussion, which is why they dusted him off."
Grundvig nodded. "That's right. Then the doctor in the emergency room returned him to duty, and sent him back out to the field."
There was a pause. "So what am I missing?" asked the first sergeant, but before the captain could answer, the way that the captain had said it gave him the necessary clue. Timpton blinked. "What? Immediately? Just like that?"
"Yep. The doctor, a civilian contractor, x-rayed his neck to make sure it wasn't broken, then shipped him back out to the woods. He said that there was no visible external bruising, so he assumed Paulson was making it up."
The first sergeant frowned. "Bullshit. Gun-sights are mostly padding, and I assume he was wearing his CVC helmet. It isn't outside the realms of possibility that there would be no bruising if the CVC took the impact. Happens to football players all the time." Timpton's expression darkened. "And then they pull him off the course and send him home?"
The captain shrugged off the non-com's question. "After about 24 hours, after Lieutenant Paulson had had a chance to think about it, he walked over to the chief evaluator and pulled himself off the course. He said afterwards that if the Army couldn't guarantee someone reasonable medical care in a time of peace, how could he assume that he'd get it during a time of war?"
After a lengthy pause while everyone tasted their beers to make sure they were still cold, the first sergeant said, finally, "and so they showed him the gate."
The captain nodded. "And so, as you say, they showed him the gate."
"If that's the whole story, Sir, that's fucked."
The captain shrugged again. "Maybe so. I doubt that was all of it, but the only one who knows for sure is Lieutenant Paulson."
"Mister Paulson," said one of the other officers, one who obviously knew the much of the story.
CPT Grundvig took the correction in good grace. And he grinned. By way of response, he asked "You want to hear something funny?" This was greeted by cocked heads and inquisitive looks, so the captain said, "We get all the paperwork together to yank his commission, and we send it away to the personnel department at Fort Ben in Indiana. The colonel thinks he's done his duty to the Army and his command, and life goes on. Then about a month ago, we get the packet back, saying that Paulson isn't a Two, he's a One LT. He'd actually been promoted to First Lieutenant several months before the course even started because of time-in-grade."
This caused some confusion in the group, as they tried to figure out how that could have happened.
The captain nodded, then continued. "Because he was an echo, he--"
"An echo?" interrupted one of the blackbird lieutenants in the group. The blackbirds had completed the AOBC course, but were still assigned to the training unit while awaiting their first duty stations.
Grundvig looked calmly at the lieutenant for a moment, until the light bulb burst.
"Sorry for interrupting, Sir," said the embarrassed lieutenant.
Grundvig nodded. "An 'echo' is an officer who's a pay grade of 01e, 02e or 03e, and that means the officer spent at least four years enlisted. Paulson had made Sergeant before leaving to go to college." The captain paused until the lieutenant nodded his understanding. "So, as ex-enlisted, he only needed to take the two year ROTC course and then received his commission, then had to finish his degree, which took another two-and-a-half years. He couldn't get a slot on the course for another nine months, putting him over the three year time in grade requirement. No one bothered to tell him that he'd been promoted, and when he asked about it, was told that the regs would not let him be promoted until after he'd completed an OBC, so no one bothered checking."
"I know about that reg," said one of the other company commanders. "So why was he promoted before the course, then?"
"It's a new regulation. He'd been promoted before that rule came into effect."
"Oh."
"And so we have to redo the entire packet. Which means tracking down everyone who had to sign off on it, including Lieutenant Paulson."
"And that's funny?"
Grundvig laughed. "Oh yeah. We're still trying to track him down. His family says he's traveling across Europe with his girlfriend, and they'd leave a message for him at a couple of postal drops they're using, and would let him know should he call. Better: Lieutenant Colonel Feckette is about to get dinged on his OER by Colonel Ramsey, 'cause the fact that Paulson was a first lieutenant and not a second should have been noted by his command even before the course started. And best: when we finally find the peckerhead, he's going to get a paycheck covering the earnings difference between what an O1-echo and an O2-echo would have made during the course."
The officers in the group laughed dutifully, while the first sergeant nodded. "Thank you, Sir. One other question, Sir, but I will understand if you choose not to answer it."
The captain regarded the NCO for a moment, then nodded.
"What was Feckette's beef with Paulson, in the first place?"
Grundvig nodded. "Thought you'd spot that, Top. Paulson's degree is a BA, not a BS." At the first sergeant's look of incomprehension, the captain continued, saying "His degree is in French, and not something 'real' like engineering or math."
The NCO shook his head and started to speak, then stopped. Finally, he shrugged. "'Stranger Things' ... Fuckit always did strike me as missing something in the brains department. Fucking managers."
There was a non-verbal gasp from the rest of the group; hearing something disrespectful about the standing battalion commander was not expected. The senior NCO ignored them.
Captain Grundvig looked the first sergeant over. Finally, after the first sergeant failed to apologize for the implied rebuke, the captain said "You seem displeased, Top." The use of the nickname, reserved for company first sergeants, and only as a sign of respect, indicated that the captain might actually agree with the NCOs assessment of the situation.
1st SG Timpton shrugged at the implied question. "Yes, Sir. And also 'No, Sir'. He wouldn't talk to me after he came back in from the TDW, and before he left the base to fly home, and that's what bothers me. And still bothers me, too."
Grundvig frowned. "Why was it important that Paulson talk to you, Top? And what makes you think he would want to, in any case?"
Timpton nodded at the question. "Silver Lions, Sir." The first sergeant came to attention, said "Thank you for the background info, enjoy the party. Good luck in the 8th." With that, he nodded again to the captain, turned and stepped off in a crisp, concise military manner.
The captain blinked at the first sergeant's back, wondering if it was worthwhile to call the man back. Before he did, however, he realized that the first sergeant hadn't actually ignored the question. The answer, cryptic as it was, was apparently all he would get. With a frown and a slight nod, the captain tried to integrate what he knew about the first sergeant, and what the first sergeant had said. The other officers looked around at each other, as the captain finally nodded again, this time noticeably, shrugged and turned his back on First Sergeant Timpton. The answer would come, or it wouldn't. Captain Grundvig was not about to lose any sleep over it.
In theory, the man under the desk was trying to track down, test, find, diagnose and either repair or replace a damaged ethernet cable. In reality, he was using the majority of the time to look up his wife's skirt. "I see the problem," he said, carefully, loud enough to be heard by his wife. "The elastic on your cat wrappers is worn thin. When's the last time you changed them?" Because the rest of the ladies in the room were all local nationals, whose first language was not English, the probability that they would understand the comment was remote.
Of course, that probability also stood for his wife, whose first language was English English, and who would always be, by her own preference, a bit hazy on American idiom.
"Sorry?" she asked in return, bending over to look under the desk. From where she was sitting, she could see that her husband was not visible to anyone else in the room. He held a sign that read "I can see your panties." As she started to blush, he flipped it over and on the other side it said, "Wanna boink?" Before she could say anything, however, the phone on the desk above her head rang, and she disappeared quickly upwards. The man on the floor taped the flash card to the underside of the desk and resumed looking for the broken cat-5 cable.
"Political Section, Caithness Weaver speaking ... Oh, hi Carol ... My home number? Sure, I could do that, or, I could just hand him the phone 'cause he's currently hiding under my desk and making rude suggestions ... Sure, half a mo'" Kay stuck her head back under the desk. "Oi, Gov. It's for you. It's Carol."
A hand came up from under the desk and made grasping motions. "Carol from the international school, or Carol from the US Embassy?"
"Embassy," came the reply as Kay whacked the palm with the receiver.
"Ouch. And I'm not old. I'm not even, what, 37? That's not old!" The receiver disappeared under the desk, and without breaking stride the conversation changed to "Hi Carol, what's up? Yeah, sure, I'll hold." There was a pause, and then "Hello? Tom Weaver speaking."
There was a lengthy pause, interrupted only by the tall, lanky man crawling out from under the desk. He stood up and leaned against his wife's desk, and ran his free hand through his grey streaked, half-inch long hair, then carefully adjusted the pepperbox hideaway so its holster stopped pinching. Crawling around on the floor had caused it to move out of its normal position. Tom had lived in any number of interesting places over the past decade. He always carried a backup, in case the third world locals got restless or attempted a return to socialism through clumsy attempts at sharing the wealth.
There was a voiced question from the receiver, to which Tom replied "Yeah, that's me. I took my wife's name when we married." There was another lengthy pause, and the man's voice had lost some of its habitual humor when next he spoke. "Yeah, that sounds like it could be me. Do you have an SSN, last four are 3-8-2-6 ... Yep. Ok, that's me all right."
Tom's gaze went to a 'thousand-mile-stare', and he began biting his lower lip, not seeing or just plain ignoring his wife's quizzical look. "Right now? I'm doing some IT work at the Delegation ... um, the European Commission ... Sure. I'll let the doorman know you're coming ... Sure, until then, then. Good bye." Tom looked at his wife, and then handed her the phone. "That was the embassy."
While that was obvious, Kay realized that something was up so didn't point out the stupidity of what he had just said. "And ... ?" she prompted, putting her hand on his arm.
"Somebody from the military liaison detachment is on his way over. Said something about having received a telegram from Indiana for Tomas Paulson, and they tracked me down through State Department records. All those times that I'd registered with the embassy whenever the commission shuffled us off to another third world country."
"Who do you know in Indiana? And why the military liaison?"
"It's from the US Army personnel department, Fort Benjamin Harrison."
"The Army? Why for you? I mean, it's been almost ten years now."
Tom grinned wryly, the initial effects of the phone conversation beginning to wear off. "Well, if I'd stayed in, I'd have, what, over nineteen years service and be looking at retirement, so I'm not that old." Tom then shook his head like a horse trying to get rid of a fly. "Nah, no idea."
Kay looked up at the ceiling, thinking back. "You know," she said, finally, "you never did receive a copy of the final disposition of your status. For all we know, y'are still in. Maybe you are being retired. Think they'll send you a check?"
Tom snorted. "Don't even joke about that."
The ghost of a haunted look, however, couldn't be hidden from his wife. Because she knew it would be there and was watching for it. Tom pushed himself away from the desk, looking away from the woman he'd married eight years previously. "Gotta go warn Igor--".
"'What hump'" interjected Kay.
"--yes haha. What hump," Tom finished, rolling his eyes for effect. Over his shoulder he said "Hell, maybe this telegram is the final disposition that we've been ignoring for the past decade. Maybe they are just writing to say that they finally got my DD form 214 unscrewed."
Kay snorted, and to her husband's back said "After nine years? Now why would that not surprise me?"
Tom stopped as he passed through the doorway, turned and leaned briefly against the door frame. "Because you work for a governmental organization, and you have a firm, grounded knowledge of what 'bureaucrazy' means?"
There was a short pause, and then the pair said "Nah!" simultaneously.
Tom looked up from the telegram, trying to figure out what his reaction was supposed to be. It was hard. Nine years ago, he had stepped out of the world that had been his since his eighteenth birthday, at the low point of what had started out to be a decent career. He'd started out as an enlisted armor crewman, serving in M60A3 tanks at Ft. Stewart, Georgia with the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), then later with the 8th ID(M) in Germany, achieving the rank of Sergeant. From there, he'd moved on to University and received a commission, again in branch Armor, spending the three years between the date of commission and heading off to AOBC working in the reserves with the 91st Division (Training) in California as a Company Executive Officer. His degree wasn't in his first choice, Math, it was in French because he was running out of money and he finished the requirements for French before finishing the Math. The Army itself didn't care, they just wanted to see a degree. That wasn't true for everyone in the Army, but hey, dice fall where they may.
Then came AOBC, the accident, and the Board of Inquiry.
And now, nine years later, this. He looked down at the paper again, his brain floating precariously free, as if the head space and timing settings were loose.
Dear Sir:
Pursuant to Presidential Directive 19-00, you are ordered to report to RAMSTEIN AIR FORCE BASE, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY, no later than 2400 HOURS, 20 NOVEMBER, 2001, for transport to FORT KNOX, KY ARMY BASE, for further duty with the armed forces of the United States of America. Failure to report will be prosecuted under Section 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: Failure to report for hazardous duty. All requests for waivers on the basis of age, civilian position, health or compassion shall be considered after reporting. Public transportation may be compensated using the attached vouchers. These are good for air travel using United States flagged carriers, MAC or CRAF aircraft, as well as train, bus or taxi when within the United States or certain other national jurisdictions, but may not be used to reimburse travel by personal vehicle. In the event that the vouchers are not accepted, reasonable travel costs will be reimbursed directly.
DO NOT BRING: personally operated vehicles, personal weapons, radios with attached speakers, large musical instruments or ANY communication devices to include cellular phones or pagers.
Do bring: 2 (Two) week's civilian clothing, uniforms, toiletry items, small entertainment devices, radios or music players with headphones, small musical instruments and/or reading material.
Tom looked at the return address again. There had to be some sort of mistake.
"There must be some sort of mistake!" Kay couldn't believe it, staring down at the telegram in her hand. "Why the hell would they call you up? They can't-- they pulled your commission, right?" The concept itself was so far outside the realms of reality, even when dealing with a government bureaucracy, it beggared belief. "It's been nine bloody years! What did the military guy from the embassy say?" She waved the telegram around as if swatting flies.
"He said I wasn't the only one. There appears to be three of us in country. He's going to book us a flight back to Frankfurt together, as soon as the other two make it in. They're apparently working as civilian contractors with the NATO Military Integration Liaison Teams out in Lviv--"
"I don't care where the others are working! This is bullshit!"
Tom looked as his wife for a moment, knowing what was coming. "C'mon Hon. What's the worst thing that could happen? I mean, I didn't break any laws, so they aren't going to throw me into jail. Maybe this is just some sort of training exercise, and I'm still in their computers someplace as a very inactive reservist. Stranger things have happened." He started talking faster, because he could see the warning signs of a really major wobbly coming on. "So I get a flight out to Knox and back. Whippy skip. Maybe a week, ten days at the most."
"And what do I do with Allison and Edward in the meantime?"
"We can call Vita and see if she can drop them off at school, and pick them up again. I don't see that as the major problem, Hon. Nope. The major problem will be getting this dog-and-pony show over as quickly as possible. I'm scared it'll be a classic case of hurry-up-and-wait." Tom had found over the past decade that faking an overreaction had the effect of disarming his wife's own overreaction. It was a trick that would come in handy over the next several days.
"Have you ever heard of anyone doing this before?" It was obvious that Kay still wasn't happy about it, but at least she hadn't stopped thinking yet.
"No. And that tells me that everyone from the gate guards at Ramstein all the way to the MEPS station at Knox, and back, will be staffed by povlabis."
"MEPS? Povlabis? What is that, Ukrainian?"
Tom grinned slightly, as if he had put one over on her. "Nah. MEPS is 'Military Entrance Processing Station'. And the other, I just made it up. Persons Of Very Little Ability, Brains and Initiative."
"Piker." She looked around their flat, and out the window at the early season snow falling onto the street, momentarily covering the Podol district, turning it temporarily into a fluffy, white paradise for the district's children, their own included. All too soon, it would become a muddy, waterlogged mess, but at least the kids would be able to play in it some, before the real winter set in and the river froze over entirely. Finally, she sighed. "Ok, what is the worst thing that could happen?"
"Now your talkin'. Let's see." Tom looked up at the ceiling, unconsciously mimicking his wife's own habit. "If there were going to be a really big war, we'd know about it, right?" Tom looked around, thinking, trying to remember everything he'd forgotten about the military structure of the reserves. "Ok. If they had to call up the reserves, they'd start with the active reservists and national guardsmen. Step two would be to call up all the recently discharged who were still in the inactive ready reserve and stick them back onto active duty, or use them to round out the open slots in the reserve units. They'd also activate the reserve training divisions like the 91st out in California, or reconstitute it if it's been mothballed in the interim, if there was a probability that a lot more bodies would be needed."
"Stop saying 'bodies.' You're making me nervous."
"Nyis, dear. Ok, so we've nationalized the reserves. We've activated the training divisions and kicked the 'selective service' over into 'draft' mode. It'll be six to nine months before those come together, meaning a year or more before the first training cycles, using the reserve training divisions, are finished. You'll still get the recruits from the active component, but that won't be very many. From there, the recruits go to their advanced training courses. Result: Up to two years before a real sizeable mass of privates come online."
Tom looked around again, thoughts trying to catch up with his voice. "In the meantime, where needed, they'd activate the remainder of the inactive ready reserve, those that had been out more than two years, but less than eight years since they enlisted, say. After that, who's left? Everyone else on the inactive lists, the recent retirees that they could coerce back into uniform, the borderline medically disqualified and way down at the end, me. I'm so far down the list that they'd have to be expecting to lose World War III before the computers would spit my name out." Tom walked over to the window, opened it, and stuck his head outside into the snow, peering through the sycamore trees that bracketed the bottom of the Andreivskii Spust. After a moment, he pulled it back in, turned, and said "And I don't see any WW III outside the building, do you?"
"And the aliens?"
Tom blinked. He hadn't thought about that. Once the initial hooraw had blown over, everyone had gone back to their lives, secure in the knowledge that the world's armed forces were up to the task of protecting the planet from any 'alien invasion'. Then he shrugged, stoically. The ghosts were back, momentarily, but he shrugged them off. He had had a lot of practice at doing so. Finally, he sighed. "Dunno. Frankly, how bad can that be? But I gave up the commission. Why would they want me?"
"What was that, Geezer?"
"Sorry?" Tom looked up from where he was writing into a little notebook. He was trying to remember everything he could about military customs and courtesies; he could have asked the guys he was traveling with, but they had already started making fun of his age. The whippersnappers.
"You just mumbled something. Sounded like you sighed, then said 'In transit *mumble* *mumble*'." The second corner of the traveling triangle was a big bulky type who had announced his name as 'Terrance K. Schank'. That was how he talked, as if you were hearing it over a public address system. Tom expected every sentence the man boomed to be followed by a burst of static and "using a white courtesy telephone, please".
"Ah, oh. Um, 'In transit, gloria mundi'. The original is 'sic transit gloria mundi' and is Latin for "And so passes the glory of the world". However I just wrote 'In transit', which would mean 'Experiencing the death of the glory of the world", but in reality the 'in transit' bit was English and not Latin. Thus, 'In transit, the glory of the world." You know, all the world's a stage, sort of thing. Sitting here, watching the tireless ebb and flow of random effing humanity, as we hurry up and effing wait for the next effing piece of our little effing odyssey to drop into effing place, pick us up, and shuttle us off on our own effing merry little way."
There was a short pause while the two former NCOs digested this.
"Geezer?" This came from the last corner of the small group, an average sized joe of no significant distinguishing characteristics. The Sergeant First Class had a low, pleasant speaking voice, normal body structure to go with his average height. He had hazel eyes, mud colored hair and could have passed for any normal class of traveler, from any number of Western or even Eastern European countries. His parents, to make up for being so average, and having passed on their lack of distinctiveness to their only son, had apparently named him Zedulon Yanik Xavier Wesley Vance Unger-Thomas. He said that they could call him Stuart, but to make things easier, he would just answer to Zed.
As humor went, Tom thought, it was a pretty feeble attempt. The man's repeated attempts to talk about which part of the family the various names came from were, however, politely ignored. It was however quite annoying that Master Sergeant Schank kept calling him Rhett.
"Yeah?" asked Tom, looking up from his notepad.
"You're mind is just too far out there, dude. They do say that senility is a sign of advanced old age, you know."
Tom snorted. "I'm only thirty-seven, thanks."
Zed (or Stuart, or Rhett) gasped, while Terry said, awed, "Gosh! That's ancient"
Then Zed nodded. "Ahah! I know what it is. You were an officer, weren't you?"
Tom froze, then unfroze, and shook his head in an affirmative. "For a while, yeah."
The two NCOs looked at each other, then nodded solemnly. "That'd be it, yep," said Zed.
"Such deep thinking, such deep thoughts," intoned Terry. "I almost want to spring to attention and salute."
"You'd disturb the locals," said Tom, jerking a chin at the Ukrainian Army privates patrolling through the airport with their Kalashnikovs strung across their backs.
Zed thought about this for a moment, then an elfin grin appeared momentarily across his face. Catching the grin, and its unspoken meaning, Terry sprang to attention just as Zed did. They both snapped off text book, parade ground salutes, in unison, and in perfect, flawless Ukrainian said "Yes, our captain!"
Tom looked at the two, frowning to keep from breaking out into laughter. "Sit down, you fools," he replied, also in Ukrainian. He at least knew that much of the language.
At Tom's response, the two NCOs broke into soundless laughter and sat back down to watch as around the room, all of the patrolling privates turned and began patrolling elsewhere. Specifically, anywhere but close to the three plainly dressed men[, all three of whom exuded an air of competence and command.][ed cmt: Do I want that bit? or is that overdoing it?]
The glass hit the cheap-linoleum covered concrete floor, shattering into several hundred pieces. Kay would have screamed at it, had indeed screamed at equally inconsequential things over the past forty-eight hours, but she was finally beginning to maintain calm in the face of her two children, who stood, frozen, expecting another outburst. Even Edward, the younger of the two, had noticed the intermittent explosions were happening more often over the two days since Papa had left for the airport.
One or the other of their parents were often gone for days at a time, away on business, and to the children, it was just the normal state of affairs. The parent who stayed at home during these instances normally just dealt with it. They went to their job, came home at night, the local au-pair had been with them long enough to know what her job was when this was the case.
That their Mama was reacting poorly to the absence of Papa was something the children found new and unexpected. And generally, "new" and "unexpected" were not descriptions that went well around Mama. If the children had been old enough, they might have described it as a negative feedback loop of her own devising. It was necessary for them to, as Papa called it, 'walk on eggshells', and so they did what they could to not cause trouble, or worse, more explosions.
Kay, on the other hand, was trying to cope as best she could with the absence of her husband, and doing her utmost to not take out her frustrations on the kids. Thus, the explosions directed at inanimate objects. With a bitter sigh at the frustrations that tormented her, she reached around the corner of the fridge and found the broom without looking. "Stay on the chairs, kids. Let me get the glass up, first."
Allison said, "Can I help, Mum?"
"Not yet, dear. Once I get it into a pile you can hold the dustpan."
"Can I hold the dustpan, too?" asked Edward, hoping to help.
"Well, I suppose you could both hold it? But let me get the glass off most of the floor first, so you don't have to step in it."
There followed much verbal horseplay as Kay kept the two children occupied with eating their lunches, making jokes about their ('American') manners and ('Murican) accents, and asking what they had learned in school the previous week.
Eventually, they got the glass cleaned up and the floor swept, hoovered and mopped. As the cleanup operation continued, Kay said less and less, and by the end of the job, the tears had returned.
Edward, always the more observant of the two children walked up and hugged his Mama's leg spontaneously in sympathy. Seeing this, Allison took advantage of Kay's free leg, and when the adult bent over and grabbed the two in a bear hug, the sobs once again broke loose, wracking her body as she tried to ignore the lonely future that she could see, stretching out before her.
The gymnasium was full of tables, the tables were full of computers. Behind the computers, there were chairs, and they were full of civilian clerk typists ruffling through stacks of paper. Above each desk was a placard, happily proclaiming that the desk beneath was for this group of ranks, and that group of SSNs-Ending-In and a single digit. The room had started out full, but that was six hours ago, and it was starting to look like he would have to stop stalling. He'd been able to wander back and forth between various points of the room, here gathering up a cup of coffee (cream, two sugars), or there a packet of crackers (soup, two each), while the mass of humanity (reservists, recalled) separated themselves from the feckless mass and joined the line that they clearly belonged in.
As each person reached a desk, there'd be a flurry of scrambling through boxes of personnel files, until the correct one was found, pulled out, verified and then handed to the person in question. They would then be sent through one of the several doors leading out of the gym, and according to his observation, that was the only way out of the room. His attempts to exit had been politely refused by the Military Policemen standing at the door, nominally there to check IDs against movement orders, but obviously also to prevent people from leaving once they had arrived and signed in.
In one corner of the gym, there was a single desk with a placard proclaiming that the MP sitting below was the source of any help that the returning reservists might require. Apparently, the help that the MP Specialist 4 was equipped to give, however, was minimal. Apparently, it consisted of asking what rank someone had when they mustered out, and then asking what the final digit was in their Social Security Number. Tom knew he would be presenting a problem that the MP would no doubt be hard pressed to answer, given that he himself would be hard pressed to answer it.
Each time it looked like the crowds were thin enough that someone might start taking notice of him, forcing him to run the gauntlet and annoy the MP, another bus load of reservists, fresh from the Louisville Airport, would arrive and restock the tank. But the last bus had been over forty-five minutes ago, and it didn't look like there would be much more. And he had to use a latrine, badly. All that coffee. Tom sighed, braced to attention, and marched resolutely over to the MP.
Said worthy glanced up from the FM he was busily memorizing. "Can I help you ... Sir?"
Possibly, Specialist ... Mott, possibly. There is some difficulty as to which line I'm supposed to be in.
"Easy enough." A hint of resignation creased the MPs face, but he gamely pursued the requirements of his post. "What's your rank?"
"Well," Tom shrugged, "that's the problem. I don't think I have one."
"Not a problem. You're not IRR, then?"
"Nope, at least I don't think the inactive ready reserve database includes me."
The MP looked the supplicant over, noting his age by the graying of his hair, and the lines on this face. "In that case, what rank did you hold when you last served, reserves or active?"
"Um. That'd be first lieutenant. But--"
Now appraised of the man's previous rank, the MP was all business. "There you go, Sir. In this case you will be in one of the Company Grade Officer lines. All the returning soldiers are taking their previous ranks. I'm sure that the Army will decide if you should be promoted past that once you've had a chance to settle in. So for now, you are certainly still an LT. Last digit of your SSN, Sir?"
"But there's still issues with that, Specialist."
"No worries, Sir. The entrance specialists," Spec4 Mott waived a hand around to indicate all the desks and their attached civilians, "will sort it out. We just sorted everything by last rank held to make it easier to track you down. That is by no means an indication of what rank you will be holding during the emergency."
Tom scrunched his forehead up. "Why not just use the computers?"
"Network's down, Sir." The specialist shrugged, indicating that this was the normal state of affairs.
Tom reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. Then he shrugged. "Oh boy. Ok, I guess that's where they'll find my file, then," he said, waving his own hand over at the "Company Grade Officers, SSNs ending in 6" desk. "This'll be interesting." He looked back at the Specialist. "Thanks for your help, Specialist Mott. Hopefully I won't be back over here in forty five minutes causing trouble."
"No problem, Sir. They'll have it sorted in no time."
The confidence of youth ... thought Tom, as he stepped over to the desk and joined the cue. In front of him were a pair of women, both approximately the same age as himself, but they were in an animated discussion about how they'd spent the past decade. Tom's previous decade had been spent filling up the pages in his passport with entrance, exit and residency permits and visas, and moving house every couple of years. He doubted they would find that interesting, so he ignored them, wrapped in his own sense of foreboding.
"Finally! The last one. Good afternoon, Sir. Last four digits of your social?" happily asked the young gentleman behind the desk.
"Three-eight-two-six."
The lad turned away to his row of file cabinets and quickly found the correct drawer. The file, however, appeared to be missing. "Can I see your orders, please?" the man asked, calmly. He didn't appear to be bothered by the missing file, as if this was expected to occur occasionally throughout the day. Taking the orders that Tom handed him, he perused them, then said. "Ah, there's the problem. This code group indicates that you are a Sergeant. Why are you in an officer's line?" The man looked back up, gestured at the placard hanging over his head, and then set about waiting for whatever excuse the accused was prepared to give.
"No idea. The last grade I held was 02e. First Lieutenant."
This took the man by surprise. "You sure?" he asked.
Tom just looked at the man, who, after a moment, blushed lightly and reached for a bell on his desk. "We'll soon have this sorted ... Sir." Tom just grunted in reply. Eventually, an elderly woman, obviously the man's supervisor, arrived, scooped up Tom's orders without speaking and shuffled off again. The man started clearing up his area, locking down his file cabinets and generally getting ready to go home. He tapped a couple keys on the computer keyboard, inspected the screen for a moment, sighed, pulled his hand back and slapped the monitor.
"Did you try waiving a dead chicken?" asked Tom, to pass the time until the supervisor returned.
The civilian froze, then laughed. "It'd take more than that, Sir. I think they went with the lowest bidder."
Tom grinned back, but was saved from having to continue the conversation by the return of the supervisor. "Social security number?" she asked. Tom gave it and she carefully noted it down, then compared it to the travel orders. With a 'hmmmm', she wandered off again, but returned immediately with a 201 personnel records jacket. "That SSN ain't yours."
Tom nodded. "Yip. Paulson. Thomas J-for-John. Currently known as Tom Weaver, or if you prefer what is on the marriage certificate, Paulson-Weaver," he clicked his heels together while sketching a slight bow. "How may I be of service."
She regarded him for a moment, her lips pursed. "Tom Paulson? 'Zat's you, then?"
Tom nodded. "Yeah, that was the name I had when last in uniform ... before I got married."
The woman looked down, then back up from the file. "Trying to complicate things, huh. Say's here your end of term of service was June 27, 1986. Right? Served in Grenada, Right?"
Tom frowned, then half-nodded, half-shrugged again. "First go around, yeah. The 'service' in Granada was a fluke. My armor company was in theatre for all of a hundred twenty minutes before the boat we were loaded on paused, turned and returned to Savannah. The theatre commander wanted heavy armor support, so we were on our way when they found out some Marine armor was passing right by the island on its way to Beirut. They got detoured, we got turned around. Then Germany, then I was honorably discharged, so as to go to ROTC and get a commission. My date of commission was December 9, 1988."
"Don't say nothing here on this DD-214 'bout no commission."
"No doubt. After I left Knox in '92, I got a 214 that just had my time as an officer on it. I tried for three years to get them combined, then just gave up when I couldn't get any movement out of the VA. Is there anything in that file, at all, dated after my ETS?"
"Ummm. Buncha stuff in the reserves ... 91st Div Training out in Cali."
"Yeah, that was the five, six months between my discharge and starting ROTC. Then once I was in ROTC, I worked with the 91st as a cadet, then when I got my commission and before leaving for AOBC I was a company XO. Anything there about that?"
"Ahhh. Nope. Nix. Apparently, you left the reserves in January, 1987."
"That's when I started university, and ROTC."
The woman looked over the file for a moment, deep in thought. "Hm. You enlisted in June of 1982 ... on your 18th birthday?"
"Give or take a few hours, yeah."
"Initial contracts dating from that era were for a total of eight years. You spent four active, you would then be in the computers as a reservist, either active or inactive, until June of 1990, then. But your file was closed out in January '87. That's odd. The only way that I've seen that happen would be through the death or medical discharge of the individual concerned. If you were dead, you wouldn't be standing here, so that cuts that one out. And if it were a medical, there'd be a specific notation on your 214 which there isn't."
By this time, Tom had had time to think about it. He still thought this was some sort of training exercise, so rather than cause trouble, he said "How about I just amble over to the Sergeant's tables, and go through this rigmarole that way. That way I get out of here, to someplace where I can use a latrine, hopefully, and you all can go home. I'm not bothered. Just make a note someplace to get all this sorted out and in the meantime I can play E5 again." Tom was perfectly aware that as soon as they found out about the less than stellar termination proceedings of his time as an officer, he'd be back on a plane, and on his way home. In the meantime, maybe he could find a toilet, preferably before he exploded.
Strangely, the ghosts that he had feared ever since reading the telegram were absent.
The memory ghosts that followed quitters around.
The woman snorted. "You must be a sergeant at heart, Sir. That's way too logical to be something dreamed up by no ossifer."
"I'm sorry, Hon. Are you sitting down? It's for the duration--"
"WHAT?!"
Tom didn't bother stopping, the explanations would be too time consuming, and the phone call was costing a lot. And besides, there was a line forming behind him, or rather the row of phone booths that he was currently a part of. "--I recommend that you finish out the current posting, then quit, abandon everything but some clothing and all the cash, and fly out to California--"
"WHAT!?! You're not an officer anymore!"
"Caithness. Shut up and listen. Everybody who has ever worn a uniform and been in combat is in the process of being called up--"
"You weren't in combat, you said you never left that damned boat!"
"Which is true. I never did. But the records show I was in theatre, and consequently I'm apparently a combat veteran. So now I'm back on active duty as a nationalized reservist. I'm going to be assigned to the 1st battalion of the 149th Armor, California Army National Guard, but I won't be joining that unit for six months at least while I get retrained. Which is why I want you to finish your current posting. By that time, I should know where I'll be stationed, and you can move out that way."
"And your commission?"
"The records file, my '201', doesn't show any service as an officer. It has me down as, and I'm currently standing in the uniform of, a Sergeant. With a twice damned 40th Inf Div patch on one shoulder and a thrice damned 24th Inf Div Mech patch on the other." There was a tone across the earpiece, warning Tom that his money was about to be used up. A recorded voice told him that to continue with the call, he would have to insert an additional $6.30 for another two minutes.
Calling Eastern Europe from a pay phone seriously ran through the quarters.
"Look, Hun, I'm about to run out of money. I'll go get some more and call back, OK?"
"I won't allow--" was what Tom heard, as the phone cut off his wife. He knew he would have to let her calm down first, so he would take some time finding more coins. Eventually, he found a pay-phone that was owned by a phone company that would allow him to make a collect call to Ukraine, but by that time, when he finally did call back, she wouldn't answer.
"Yo, Sergeant Weaver!" The voice came up the company street, intersecting with other sounds and finally making it to the intended target. Staff Sergeant Tom Weaver, Company Training NCO, Delta Company, 1st-149th Armor, 40th Infantry Division (Mechanized), California Army National Guard, turned at the call and recognized the sergeant as one of the NCOs from the battalion S1 section. He held up at the door to the company headquarters until the woman made it to his position. He could see she was carrying several personnel jackets, the brown colored files were unmistakable.
As the sergeant jogged up, she fished out several of the files. "New meat today, Tom. Can you give these to your First Sergeant?" She held out four of the files.
Tom grabbed the stack, and nodding as he did so. "Anything of interest, or just 'cruits?"
The woman shrugged. "Three privates and a Spec4, but other than that nada. We did get the new smaj though. You might let your First Sergeant know."
"Right, I'm on that. Hope this one lasts longer than the last two." A second lieutenant wandered by at that point, and the two broke off their conversation long enough to salute the passing officer.
Once the lieutenant was out of range, she answered. "He's a retread, so I'm figuring he's here for the duration." With that, the sergeant shrugged, nodded at the other in salutation, kicked off and headed up the street to the next company on the line. With a pro-forma wave at the back of the departing NCO, Tom turned and entered the company headquarters' building.
As he came to the First Sergeant's office, the door was open so he ducked his head in and looked around. The First Sergeant was present, but had his back to the door as he studied a terrain map of Camp Roberts, and its depicted plan for the upcoming battalion-level field training exercise. At the side of the map, and half covered by it, was a sign that Tom knew read "Chance favors the prepared." It was placed so that anyone coming through the door would see it first. As they then made the turn to face the desk, they would see a second sign that read "The prepared take no chances."
And as the visitor turned to leave, there was a third sign that read "Pure dumb luck favors the effing enemy."
"Heya, Top. Word from Battalion: The new smaj just checked in."
1st SG Samuel 'Sock' Audobon nodded, either at the map or at the comment, without turning around. Then he waved a hand in further acknowledgement. "I heard he'd be here this week. Thanks, Weaver. Anything else?"
"Four new crew members. Three Privates," Tom said, looking down at the folders he carried. "Curran, Park and Manaev, and a Spec4, Birch." Tom quickly glanced through the files. "The privates are fresh from Knox ... The spec-four is ... joining us from the 2-70th Armor, compassionate reassignment."
"Joy. He'll be AWOL quicker than you can say 'So, your family's from here, heh?' Ok, throw the files onto my desk. Take the second one from the bottom. That one's for Wilcox. Top one's for Hammersmith. Bottom one's for Johnson. Mr Last-but-not-Least--"
"Miz Last," corrected Tom, grinning, as he continued to shuffle through the files.
"Your shit, Weaver, interests me ... not," said the First Sergeant, still studying his map. Eventually, he continued. "Who gets the girl?"
Tom thought about the vacancies in the TOE for a moment. "Back to Hammersmith."
"Right. And damn straight if he doesn't need one. What's that leave us with, vacancy wise."
Weaver grinned at the double-entendre. Still looking through the record's jackets, he froze. "Uh oh."
"What, 'uh oh'."
"Looks like Birch is more than just a compassionate. Article 15s for insubordination, among other things. Could just be related to the reassignment, though."
"We'll assume so. If it turns out she really is a hard case, we'll just turf her and be done with it. Remind me to send the battalion command sergeant major for 2-70 Armor a bad Christmas card this year. Back to vacancies."
"Right ... um ... ok. Wilcox needs a lieutenant and four more crew members. The Hammer now needs only four more crew. Johnson needs three, and frankly, She needs a new LT also, 'cause 1st LT Beckman is gonna get Charley Company. So that leaves us short two platoon leaders and an XO."
At that announcement, the other finally turned around, and regarded the junior NCO for a moment. "Really? Where'd you hear that?"
"Here and there," Tom said, cryptically, not giving up his sources. "So with a company's nominal strength of 56 in the tanks, we are looking at 43, plus a couple odds and ends, and some pulling double duty like the CO and XOs drivers."
"Hot damn. We might almost be able to field a four tank platoon for the BFX," the first sergeant said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the map. He looked down at the files on the desk, then sighed and grinned wryly. Picking up his coffee cup, he gestured at the staff sergeant with it and asked "You wouldn't happen to know any officers lying around, looking for work, would you? And do you think Alpha company'd notice if we were to kidnap some of their people?"
Tom carefully didn't answer either of the rhetorical questions. "Do you want me to find out about the new sergeant major? I'm heading up to battalion to collect these four, I could ask around."
The First Sergeant took a mouthful of cold coffee and thought about it for a moment, swirling the mouthful of tarry liquid in the hopes of warming it up. Finally, he swallowed and said, "Nah. I'll come up there with you." He set his coffee cup down and gestured over his shoulder at the map again. "Need to talk to someone in the -3 shop about the trip to Camp Bob. Toss me my hat. And, oh. Your coffee sucks."
"I keep telling you, Top. Never ask someone who doesn't drink coffee to make coffee. You're just setting yourself up for indigestion." Tom had very carefully cultivated the image of not being a coffee drinker, and for the most part he wasn't. It was a trick he'd learned back in the -3 shop in Baumholder, back in the day, back when he really didn't drink coffee. The rest of the section had immediately decided that he shouldn't be tasked with making the coffee after having tasted his first couple of batches. It was a trick that stood him in good stead ever since, and in any number of ways.
"Curran, Park, Manaev and Birch! Fall in!" Tom found the collection of in-processing soldiers and called for the four Delta Company replacements to step up. The privates stopped what they were doing immediately and grabbed their duffles before jogging over, coming to attention in a line to his front. The specialist finished her conversation with a wave and ambled over to join the line at its head, and assumed something which could, in a pinch, be related to the position of attention. Tom looked at her intently for a moment, then decided it was time to ignore her attitude as he looked the other three over.
"At ease! Welcome to Delta Company 1-149 Armor, 40th Infantry Division Mechanized. I am Staff Sergeant Weaver, the company Training NCO. The company commander is 1st LT Caldecourt, and has been since he made the Captain's list last Summer. The First Sergeant is 1st SG Audobon." From behind Tom's back, there was the sound of a window being thrown open. "If no one has told you yet, your Battalion Commander's name is LTC Kuzio, and the Sergeant Major's name is unknown to me, but probably known to you all, as he is joining the unit today, also. As soon as 1st SG Audobon comes out of the HQ building, we will head--"
"Lieutenant Paulson!?"
Tom froze. There had always been the chance, and he'd rehearsed this in his mind a hundred times, a thousand times. He unfroze. "--up to the company to meet your platoon sergeants. Any questions?"
Specialist Birch nodded to get Tom's attention, but without saying anything used her chin to point towards the window that the voice had come from, indicating that the voice had been talking to him. Tom hadn't recognized the voice, but that wasn't surprising. If someone had recognized him, their last contact would have dated from almost a decade ago.
Tom looked over his shoulder, than turned completely, noting in passing the stripes sewn to the sleeves of the man's Class-A uniform. "I'm sorry, Sergeant Major?" My god, it's Timpton! "SSG Weaver, Delta Company Training NCO." ... And he must have had rejuv, because he looks like when I met him, back in Baumholder ... "Can I help you?"
The Command Sergeant Major blinked, swallowing what he was about to say, and regarded Tom closely. "Training NCO, huh. Not only that, you're a dead ringer for someone else ... just ten years older I'd guess." Timpton paused, but continued before Tom could respond. "I've got your First Sergeant here, I'll be with him for awhile longer. Drop them off, and then come back. We want to talk about the exercise we've got coming up, and I need your comments on the training schedule between now and then."
"Right, Sergeant Major," Tom said, "It'll take me about fifteen minutes?"
Timpton nodded. "Make it thirty. I need to get the S3 NCOIC on the horn sometime between now and then." With that, the senior NCO in the battalion nodded his dismissal and disappeared back inside.
"Right ... Rest! Pick up your duffles ... and now, off to the company headquarters. Group! Atten ... shun! Right ... Face! For'rd ... March!"
Command Sergeant Major Ronald Timpton pulled his head back into his office and shut the window, but didn't turn away from the view. He carefully watched the staff sergeant as the NCO marched the troops off towards the Delta company area. Behind his back, the First Sergeant stepped over.
"Somat up, Sergeant Major?"
"'Weaver' he said? I want to see his 201." Timpton turned to look at Delta's first sergeant. "What do you know about him."
Audobon blinked and turned to look out the window at his training NCO's back, while he ordered his thoughts. "Called up November 2001'ish with all the other combat vets. Rank of Sergeant. Did refresher training at Knox, then came out here. Promoted just after arrival. Married, but his wife and family live in Ukraine. Oh, he took his wife's name when they married."
Timpton grunted at that. "'Weaver' isn't Ukrainian?"
"No, British, she just works there. He's smart, and knows his shit. Has a four year degree but doesn't like to talk about it. Thinks it ruins his image as an NCO."
"BA in ... " the Sergeant Major looked up at the ceiling, thinking deeply, trying to remember something. From out in the hallway, through the thin walls of the hastily built building came a sound similar to that of glasses clinking, and he looked down as the memory flooded in. " ... French?"
Audobon blinked again. "I ... How'd you know that, Sergeant Major?"
"Let me see the 201 first. I want to check something, make sure it's him. Orderly!"
Tom was thinking hard as he returned to the battalion headquarters. He doubted he'd be able to maintain the act if Timpton came right out and asked, so it might be better to just admit it. What's the worst thing that could happen? It's not like I'm impersonating an officer, he thought, sardonically. Of all the dumb effing luck ...
The specialist sitting at the desk in front of the Sergeant Major's office recognized him, and waived him up. "Sergeant Major Timpton is expecting you, Sergeant Weaver." Rather than use the intercom to announce him, the specialist had just spoken in a voice loud enough to be heard in the next room. Tom nodded and continued up to the door.
"Come on in, Weaver," said the sergeant major as Tom tapped on the door frame.
Tom marched up to the desk and came to attention, staring at the Sergeant Major's hairline. "Staff Sergeant Tomas Weaver, reporting as ordered, Sergeant Major."
Timpton ignored him for the moment, and looking to the side nodded to someone. Behind him, the door closed with an ominous click.
"So. You gonna play stupid, now, LT?"
From behind him, Tom heard a noise that could have been a snort, a choke or a gulp, or maybe all three, as First Sergeant Audobon spun back to the desk from the door that he had just shut. Apparently, the sergeant major had succeeded in keeping the first sergeant from knowing what was up.
Tom's shoulders dropped, as did his point of reference. He looked at the Sergeant Major in the eyes for the first time in almost ten years. "So, you recognized me."
"Yes. I. Did. Two questions. Why the hell are you wearing the rocker of an E6, and second, what do I do with you, Sir?"
Tom blinked away the frustration that suddenly hit him, his composure breaking down almost immediately. "Don't. Call. Me. That." Ten years of hidden anger and self-doubt slammed to the fore as Tom waived his arms around. "They yanked my commission, dammit, at effectively what was my own request. And I'm pretty sure they've lost the damned records, because my 201 only shows service up until I was discharged as an E5, but doesn't show my starting ROTC, but does show my having spent one effing afternoon in the effing Caribbean." Behind him, the First Sergeant was perfectly silent. "So when I got called back up for the duration, they brought me in as a combat veteran and a Sergeant. And here I am." Tom said, hooking a thumb at his chest and then pointing at the floor. Then he looked over his shoulder at his first sergeant. "And I'm pretty sure that Top, here, wants a reasonably competent Staff Sergeant as his Training NCO, more than the company needs a cashiered fucking First Lieutenant as its company commander."
"Commander?" asked the first sergeant, startled.
Tom looked over his shoulder. "I've got time in grade," he snapped, ironically, the taste of the bitterness of the situation on his tongue.
The battalion's senior NCO leaned across the desk and opened his mouth to say something pointed, but he was interrupted as Tom heard the movement, turned back and met him half way.
"And so," he said, bracing his fists on Timpton's desk, "you may assume that First Lieutenant Thomas Paulson is dead, Sergeant Major. If you can't make that assumption, or don't want to work under that assumption, then you can just treat it as a fucking order."
Timpton leaned back from the vitriol in Tom's voice. Carefully, he said "1st LT Caldecourt is on the promotable list. I believe that means he ranks you."
"Bullshit. Returning lieutenants with combat experience were bumped grades. I'd be standing here in at least captains' bars. Probably because of this," he growled, pointing at his collar and the rank there, "I'd have been bumped straight to Major by the California Guard and be sitting at the command and staff college right now." Tom looked hard at the man across the desk, his eyes narrowed. "And now, will there be anything else, Sergeant Major?" he hissed.
Timpton leaned back forward over his desk, not giving an inch. "We will see about this, Sergeant Paulson. Sir. What ever the hell you are. Get out of my office. First Sergeant? Stick around."
Tom came to attention, turned and stalked out of the room. He did not look at 1st SG Audobon as he passed.
The first battalion, hundred-forth-ninth Armor, the 'C Forty Niners', were still pretty far down the list when it came to non-combat related GalTech equipment. The command and staff were repeatedly asking the 40th's supply officer when they would be getting their AIDs, and the G5 was repeatedly telling them 'shortly after I get mine'. Until then, they were making do with standard earth technology for their communications with the world.
Beyond the window, a grey dingy sky looked down on Command Sergeant Major Toby 'Tiptoe' Timpton as he sat, blindly regarding his computer monitor. The blinking cursor on the screen admonished his inactivity, but couldn't seem to break through the man's lethargy. What the computer didn't know was that the sergeant major wasn't lethargic, merely thinking furiously.
If it were an AID, he thought morosely with a sigh, it would.
Perched lightly on the edge of his chair, his fingertips together in a chapel before his face, he rocked quickly forward and back, eyes clearly unfocused. Various girlfriends and ex-wives had usually found the habit to be at first cute, but then later to be an indication that he suffered from Asberger's Syndrome.
Occasionally, the swaying motion would freeze, and the man's hands would drop to the keyboard before him, and he'd type a few words before stilling. Then he would backspace over what he had written and return to staring blindly at the screen, fingers once again in a chapel before his face. The forward and backward rocking motions of both the sergeant major and the cursor on the screen had gone on for over an hour, and through several attempts to get the message out. Finally the man's hands clenched into fists and he looked away from the monitor, his yet unfocused gaze landing on his Love-Me wall.
One of the many plaques there caught his eye and he focused. Azure, a Lion argent passant. He didn't need to read the banner at the feet of the silver lion as it stood there on its blue field. 'Ventre a Terre' it said. Literally the French translated to 'Belly to the ground' but it was an idiomatic expression and was used historically to mean 'with great speed'. A more modern, more creative, and actually much closer translation would be 'balls to the wall'.
As his mind focused on what he was thinking, Timpton snorted. He leaned back into his chair and looked out the window. A gust of winter wind chose that moment to blow a wet leaf up against the window where it stuck momentarily. Eventually, it was prized up again and sent about its merry way, but before it could something about its shape triggered a memory, a memory that was as yet amorphous, but hovered on the edge of awareness.
Just then, a civilian construction vehicle outside was shifted into reverse, and the loud peep-peep-peep of the backing vehicle ripped the vales away. It was a memory of Germany, a winter REFORGER from the mid '80s, that popped up and he remembered. There hadn't been any snow, just a lot of rain and wind and wet, slick leaves on the ground. And memories of the MILES gear, the 'laser-tag' engagement system that was worn or carried by everything from dismounted infantry to crew-served weapons to tanks and APCs, with its near-miss and kill tones. And memories, if anything, are herd animals. They chose that exact moment to stampede.
The observer/referee was relentless in his after-action-review, as he discussed The Plan. Or more realistically, the Failures in The Plan. The Failures in The Plan that had resulted in 'Hell! This wasn't a cluster fuck, this was a god-damned Custer fuck'. The Plan that resulted in over sixty five percent of the battalion being wiped out in the first hour of the defense, The Plan that had required an E-god-damned-5 leading a counterattack made up of a scratch built tank platoon in order to free the less than twenty-five percent that were considered to have got out of the encirclement in the end.
Eventually, the O/R finished his tirade, and then it was the Division Commander's turn. "This is," he said simply, "why we train. Where is the E5 who pulled off the counterattack, by the way?"
Tom Paulson disengaged himself from the back of the tent where he had been standing in a loose approximation of parade rest. He posted himself before the two-star, saluted. "Sergeant Tom Paulson, Sir."
"At ease, Sergeant. Are you a warrior? Or how much luck was involved, Son?" asked the general.
"There were two points that if they had known I was coming, they could have shot us up bad with direct fire, Sir. But we still had some indirect available so I drove them off with that before ducking around that pond. I guess it was pretty lucky they missed when they did have us under direct. And I'd noticed that their indirect kept missing several hundred meters to the west every time they had a sensing round. Looked like their tubes weren't dialed in correctly ... so I knew that we'd be able to dodge pretty effectively."
The general looked over at the O/R who quickly looked at his notes. There was a short pause as the man ruffled out the correct sheet of paper. "Shit howdy," he said. "He's right, Sir. They were roughly thirty mils off. At ten kilometers away, that's three hundred meters offset."
The general looked back at Tom speculatively. "How'd you know?"
"Just something I noticed sitting in the S3 track, transcribing the sitreps and shotreps from the various units calling in." Tom got a distant look for a moment, then nodded. "Anyway, it was a guess, actually, based on that."
The general snorted. "And how would you have done it differently?"
"I would have started with a different defense plan, Sir."
The general nodded. "Brutally direct, Sergeant."
"Yes, Sir," he replied, shrugging slightly.
"And effectively correct. Well then, nothing left but the shouting. Once my G1 gets finished typing up the orders, Sergeant, I'll be awarding you an impact Army Commendation Medal."
Tom blinked. "Thank you, Sir. That's a bit unexpected."
"Just don't tell me your counterattack was a fluke, Sergeant."
"No, Sir. It would have been a fluke if they'd actually been able to get us under direct fire, Sir."
The general laughed. "You got any college, Sergeant Paulson?"
"No, Sir. My platoon sergeant keeps trying to get me to go, though. Says I'd make a fairly decent lieutenant." Tom shrugged it off, though, as if to say that it didn't really interest him.
The general looked at Tom for a long moment, then nodded. "Who's your platoon sergeant?" he asked, looking around the tent.
Tom pointed back over to where he had been standing originally. "SFC Timpton, Sir."
Major General Dekalli laughed. "Ok, if Timpton will go out on a limb so far as to say 'fairly decent', then I guess you've got a reasonably ok career in front of you." He looked around. "Ok, I'm through here," he said, and the tent came to attention. "Colonel Bunch? Lieutenant Colonel Gomez? Major Farington? This way, please."
Timpton returned to the present, leaned forward, and with a pointed smirk, started typing. After a lengthy couple of pages, he reached toward the screen and tapped the 'send' button with his index finger. The touch-command was quickly noted and acted upon.
Timpton nodded at what he had just done, and punched his thigh with another fist.
"Fuck your assumptions, LT. I know someone who outranks your nasty ass any way you look at it. Let's see what Dekalli has to say about this."
The room was an even 350 square meters in area, seventy meters long and fifty meters wide, and the holograph projectors were currently displaying a large portion of the state of California at a 100:1 ratio, centered on the fortress city of Sacramento. The projectors were working from real-time satellite data; the representation was accurate to the nearest half-centimeter on the ground. If you looked carefully, you could even see tiny aircraft flying over the top of the image.
LTC Abraham Kuzio looked out over the Map from his podium, before nodding and saying to the room at large "AID? Center the projection at thirty kilometers due West of Angels' Camp, with a ratio of ten to one." The image flowed and reformed to show the battalion's area of operations. "Now give us the plan ... "
Color-coded defensive fire zones, routes of march, artillery ranges from planned and existing artillery batteries, civilian and military evacuation routes, planned artillery fires, direct fire avenues, routes of ingress and egress for passage of lines operations, as well as hundreds of other details of the minutia of a planned battle appeared on the map. When viewed through the MilSpec visors, parts relevant to the visor-wearer pulsed while those not directly germane faded to grey. Tom had done his best in pre-setting the various filters available, but information overload was still a factor when trying to follow what was going on.
And then it got really confusing.
"AID?" requested the battalion commander. "Give us a landing in the valley, anywhere North of Fresno and South of Modesto. For the viewers at home, this will be known as a landing 'in the South-40'. AID, one lander for this time. Engage the animation."
The lander came in this time from the west, out over the ocean, with several of its mates from a single battle dodecahedron. The eleven others dropped along the coastal range, landing both before and after the initial range, with some along the shoreline, some in the area South of Silicon Valley, some as far east as Pleasanton along the 680 corridor and the BART light rail line. The single lander that passed beyond the ranges to land in the San Joaquin valley itself, moved pretty far South and dropped onto I5 just West of Los Banos. The oolt and the pair of God-Kings that it disgorged started shooting up cars along the main North/South artery of the California transportation system, as well as west along Highway 152 towards the San Luis Reservoir and the attached hydroelectric power generator.
Almost immediately, however, battery fire of 155mm howitzer as well as 120mm mortar fire, directed by scouts and spotters on the mountain tops, took their toll on the bodies of the exposed Posleen. Once the incoming ballistic rounds swamped the sensors on the Kessentai's tenars, a pair of sniper rounds put paid to the Kessentai themselves, and then two companies-worth of pre-emplaced, dismounted and dug-in mech infantry assets engaged the surviving, leaderless Posleen ferals in the kill sack. It was one hell of a beautifully executed ambush of an airmobile operation with a known objective.
Meanwhile, and contrary to what the humans would expect, the civilian vehicles in the initial landing area were using precise tactical maneuver to disengage and retreat. Vehicles that got hit stayed hit of course, but the actual number taking fire rapidly dropped off as vehicles got into hidden egress routes, or failing that, the occupants jumped out and got into culverts and ditches, and "e-and-e'd" out of the way.
LTC Kuzio was fuming. "Freeze the simulation, AID. What the hell was that?"
There was a pause, and then the AID responded. "This device assumes some error has been committed. Probability is that the lack of pre-set initial conditions, and subsequent assumptions on the part of this device, led to an animation not desired by the leadership present. I'm sorry? Should I have let the invaders win? Instructions?"
The battalion commander turned to the S3. "Major McKinney?" he said, shortly.
The Major was looking around wildly, his gaze frantically searching out salvation. It found it in the stance of SFC Weaver, recently promoted and moved to the Assistant S3 NCOIC position. Tom was currently the S3 NCOIC (acting) in reality, however, since the master sergeant currently on the books as the NCOIC had been arrested on suspicion of aiding and/or abetting the desertion of upwards of four of the battalion's enlisted personnel, some with their GalTech issued equipment.
"Well?" the S3 squeaked.
Tom looked up from his notepad and said, "Yes sir. Taking your points in reverse order, as you know we have a selection of preconceived operations plans, based on probable or even random landings, in the area specified by the battalion commander for the simulation. The majority have yet to be approved however." Tom gestured at the frozen simulation. "If you want, I can bring up one of the more interesting ones, certainly from our viewpoint." Tom's voice lacked all the keys that would have let the Battalion's staff and commanders know what he was thinking at that point about his new boss. "Keep in mind that this battle plan, the one I'm thinking about, has not yet been approved by the S3." At Kuzio's silent, short, sharp nod, Tom continued, speaking directly to his own AID rather than the Commander's ... or the S3's, as that one was nowhere in evidence.
No doubt, it was back on the Major's desk, checking his e-mail for him.
"AID? Battle plan simulation Alpha-Tree-South. Four lander diamond. Exact landing point not stipulated in preconditions, however it must be in the San Joaquin Valley, North of Highway 152. Time now. Equipment light. Initial Posleen axis of advance North ... Battalion initial deployment in defensive diamond, positions centered at Point Charon, Phase Line Nickel." The AID chirped at Tom in acknowledgement, while the simulation morphed back into a real-time representation of the area of operations. Corps, divisional, brigade and battalion level markers appeared, as well as company level for the First of the 149th Armor, 40th Division (Mechanized) of the California Army National Guard.
"Excuse me, Sir. Is the auto traffic and the behavior of the civilians on the interstate realistic?" asked First Lieutenant Valley, the charlie company commander.
The battalion commander nodded. "Good question. AID?"
"Initial conditions not set," reminded the disembodied voice. "Also, vehicle occupant reactions show typical response patterns for humans when facing an armed force of Posleen invaders."
"'Typical'? Based on what?" snorted the battalion XO, Major Li.
"Based on observations of humans classed as 'American' by this equipment on Barwhon and Diess," replied the computer, using the third person 'this equipment' to indicate any of a number of AIDs that it had been in contact with. That said, the AID had obviously failed to take into account that the humans on Barwhon and Diess were highly trained soldiers from the best military forces on earth, and that using them as 'typical' values when modeling civilian reactions was like using 'cornered female warthog w/piglets' when trying to model the behavior of mice.
The commander looked over at SFC Weaver. "Sergeant?"
"I believe the work I did on the civilian refugee streams will take that into account, Sir, but I will look into it specifically."
"Ok, I can live with that. Anything else?"
When no one answered, Tom looked over at the battalion commander. At the man's nod, he said "AID? Roll it."
Almost immediately, actinic washes of plasma flame burned in from the East, coming in from beyond the edge of the simulation, taking out any aircraft that happened to be up in the sky at that point. Eventually, the culprits resolved themselves into the ships making up several battle globes, which appeared in the air over the ocean and moved eastward towards the coast, in line with Monterey and moving northwards. The ships split up as they intersected the coastline; four landers appeared in the sky "overhead" to be heading inland. Quickly they began their final descent towards the landing area. Any light aircraft trying to hug the terrain in the valley, behind the shadow of the coastal ranges, were engaged and destroyed at that point.
Outside the building, a battery of howitzers in training fired a salvo at a distant target; the concussions rattled the walls of the warehouse. Inside the building, several of the witnesses to the simulation jerked at the noise and then looked around in embarrassment, taken in by the quality of the sim.
"AID, simulation, freeze," ordered LTC Kuzio. "How much information would we have about their approach? Would be able to get any civilian aircraft down?"
There was a pause while Major McKinney looked, panic-stricken, at Tom, who answered the question when no-one else seemed prepared to. "It would really depend on when we got notification, and would be handled elsewhere. You might bring that up to Brigade, Sir." Tom stepped out of the bleachers and walked down onto the floor, "into" the simulation. After a quick study of the landers, he nodded. "It looks like they are headed for Turlock, Sir. I'll add your question to the list of start-condition variables, Sir"
Kuzio nodded. "Yep. Ok, what happens next. I'm glad to see that you are on the ball, Sergeant Weaver. Remind us of the overall plan." Most of the ears in the room failed to hear any undue stress on any part of the colonels comments. Specifically, the majority were listening for, but didn't hear, any stress on 'you'. Tom, however, might have noticed a hint of stress on "sergeant", and wondered if he was just being oversensitive.
"Yes, Sir," he said, nodding sharply. "The city of Sacramento has been designated as one of the cities to be fortified, and work is ongoing. There isn't really any natural terrain there to hide behind, or within, aside from the few rivers, but even those are passable with minimal effort. Any significant rush by the horses will take the place.
"Consequently, the way to defend it is to prevent the significant rushes from happening. This can be accomplished by either destroying en masse any conglomeration of the pozzies that shows itself, or alternately, in detail by letting them bounce up against a prepared obstacle that is deep enough to take the recoil. Our operational position, ladies and gentlemen, is of the second sort. We will be providing the defensive overwatch on the obstacle that is known as the Sierra Foothills. We entice the invaders to turn towards the mountains, where we allow them to break their pointy little heads against us ... ably assisted by the gazillion-year-old basalt and granite mountains at our rear.
"According to our intelligence from the Barwhon and Diess campaigns, the horses have a tendency to move to where the shooting is. This means we should be able to get their attention pretty easily, get them to turn into the foothills ... and then kill each and every one of the goobers."
Tom looked back up from the simulation and at the group of watching officers and non-coms. "And to your front, here, you have our first exercise in this simulation tank," he said, pointing at the holo-field. "At this point, the pozzies are landing here, and it is up to us to prevent them from getting to the incomplete defenses at Sacto. Any simulation that we play in this building will be done using real-time data gathered by any platforms that happen to be handy. The only difference will be when the word 'go' is added, then any level of Posleen invasion will be added. Feel free to suggest stuff that we should sim." Tom turned back to the battalion commander. "Sir," he stated, formally. "I recommend that we go with defense Alpha-Tree-Echo, based on the expected landing area around Turlock. According to the Corps' G3, civilian defense authority will have been notified of the imminent landing and refugee streams can be assumed to be forming shortly. This is an 'Alpha' scenario, so there will be no further landings from this group. The civs in the non-directly effected areas should be going to ground and evading where necessary, not refuge-seeking in the mountains yet. That said, I've programmed in a 20% variance factor on the civilians, so we can expect to see a larger refugee stream up highway 4 than what is planned for."
"Thank you Sergeant Weaver. Excellent cover of the high points of the plan." LTC Kuzio looked at the frozen simulation again, then sighed and nodded one more time. "With Sergeant Weaver's information, we know where we are, where the enemy is. S2? How long before initial contact?"
Captain Rodriquez looked down at her notes, then at the display to check that they agreed. "Sir, assuming landing in or around Turlock, initial contact with scattered and unprepared forces will be taken on by units of the First of the 167th Mechanized Infantry plus assorted support. They will have mostly organic arty support, however. There is a single battery of self-propelled M155 howitzers in Modesto." As the S2 continued, her AID helpfully highlighted the assets as she described them. "There is no point in cratering the freeways, as the land around wouldn't cause them any undue trouble. The first East/West feature of any tactical value is the Tuolumne River. In order to make it usable as a defensive line, the flood gates at the San Joaquin fork are shut, and simultaneously the dams on several of the smaller reservoirs in the foothills are opened to create a flood condition in the river bed. Meanwhile, Corps engineer assets are tasked to blow the bridges over it, however they have to get there first.
"The engineer assets will be coming from the Modesto barracks, so will no doubt start with the Modesto bridges, then work there way downstream to the Tuolumne/San Joaquin fork, then return to Modesto and work their way upstream. The reason for this is that we want the horses moving generally due North, or East if we can help it. We certainly don't want them moving West towards the coast, or South, away from the party that we've laid on for them. This means that we leave them an out that way, if they can get to it before the river floods. By shoving them due North and by preference East, they come up against the Sierra foothills, bringing them into the range of the pre-placed artillery along their axis of advance.
"As they get around one river, we use the next the same way, atritting them as they come. Eventually they get to us, and we are the first real resistance that they will see. The plan is for us to pull back and around in line with Phase Line Nickel, then pull even further back to Copper." On the simulation, a pair of colored lines, one silvery nickel, the other an orangeish copper, pulsed briefly, the copper one centered on the ridgeline running NW-SE, just to the west of the small town called Copperopolis, from which the phase lines had got their names.
At that point, we put the vehicles into their pre-prepared hull-downs, and that's as far as we go. Additional assets will move into place at Phase Line Zinc, passing through our lines if necessary. The purpose of 1-149 Armor, however, is to stop the Posleen advance at Copper, and failing that, DRT. Questions?"
Second Lieutenant Nott, the youngest officer in the battalion, asked "DRT, Sir?"
"'Die Right There', son," said the battalion commander. "Anyone else? No? AID? Roll the sim."
The piles of paperwork in her inboxes stared at her reproachfully as she got up to leave for the day. Stretching, Kay regarded the piles, sighed, and grinned almost sadly before giving them the typical British two-fingered salute. There was so much to do and coming into the office in the morning was so much easier when she knew she could bury herself in the work that would be waiting for her. The President of the Commission was coming out for a visit with the President of Ukraine, and Protocol, Kay's bailiwick inside the political section, was working long hours to make sure that it all went off without a hitch. It was what she was good at, and she enjoyed doing it.
Then, of course there were those NATO advisors coming, and the US Embassy had requested assistance from the Commission's Delegation (i.e., her friend Carol had called her up, and begged some help off of her), and then so on and so forth.
In the back of her mind, she knew she was stalling. She'd worked hard to get this post, accepting postings to other, less prestigious delegations so that she could gain the seniority to start getting what she wanted rather than what was left over. She couldn't see why she should give it up to move to California, where her university degrees and skills and languages would have little or no value, except within some marketing or public affairs company, for which she held absolutely no interest. She was a governmental flunky, and damn proud of it. And she'd have to give up her friends in the various embassies in Kiev, and the kids would have to leave the school and all of their friends, there, too.
Of course, that'd be true once her current posting was up anyway, but she was skillfully avoiding thinking about that, since it wasn't until the end of the year. And then they'd be back in Brussels for a turn, before being sent back out to another delegation someplace. Maybe she could swing her acquired seniority in peoples' faces and coerce a posting to Washington DC or New York out of the powers that be. While thinking along these mental pathways, meanwhile, Kay carefully missed realizing that California to Washington DC was the same distance as from London to Moscow, and would still mean living apart from her husband for long, lonely periods. But she couldn't give up her job and become a military spouse. There was no way.
Over the past decade, they had watched one flair-up in the world after another, each involving a certain amount of US Army blood to extinguish. Both halves of the Gulf war, Bosnia, Afghanistan, the names rolled off her tongue one after another. Whenever another news report rolled in about another accident on a training base, or a friendly fire incident, or even, on those very, very rare occasions, casualties from enemy action, and how many soldiers had been killed, they would look at each other and they would joke "I'm glad you're not a soldier anymore ... ."
And yet.
She knew that Tom was haunted by how it had all finished up, there at the end. Occasionally she'd get him drunk enough to talk about it, because she knew he needed the release mechanism that talking about it had built in. And she knew also that without the alcohol, it was buried and wouldn't come out, except in his dreams. She could tell when he was dreaming about the Army ... sleeping at the position of attention she called it. Afterwards, he would only claim to remember shivering, standing at attention, waiting for something to happen. He might remember more, but without the alcohol acting as a lubricant, the brakes just dug in and he'd say "Sorry, don't remember", and roll over and fake going back to sleep.
But all that didn't change the fact that Kay was competitive. She treated everything she had accomplished in her life as the steps in a grand game, and couldn't step away from that contest even for a moment. Kay could come up with hundreds of reasons to explain why she hadn't packed up her children and moved to California. The only one that was really insurmountable, of course, was that she couldn't let Tom win.
Of course, Tom did know the one thing she wouldn't miss in all the world, and so had cheated. The tickets had arrived in the last dip-pouch, sealed into a frilly envelope that was sealed with a sticker in the form a big red pair of lips. The kind of lips that you'd find, with the letters 'SWAK'. Or possibly, the kind of lips that you would expect to see, just before seeing a pair of tickets to a Stones concert at the Warfield theater, in San Francisco.
So she and the kids would fly out to California, no doubt have a great time, and then fly back. In fact, she could drop the kids off at Mums on the way back, and they could stay there until she had closed up shop in Kiev and found a place to live in Brussels. All the better. And what could go wrong? It was six months or so away, so she had time to convince her mother, book the holiday, and get the airplane tickets and all. And with the kids out of the way, she could ship everything to Brussels ahead of time and move in with Carol for the last couple of months.
The more she thought about it, the better it sounded. In fact, the less it bothered her, so she decided to stop whinging about it and just go. Besides, Carol would be sooo jealous! The Stones!
And hell, once the current crop of visiting dignitaries had crawled back under their rocks, it would be an empty plate straight through to next year, and that would be Somebody Else's Problem.
Kay nodded, stood up and headed for the office of the assistant head of delegation. Better do it now, before something comes up to change my mind, she thought. Stop off at home, see Mum ... have a curry, she thought, now grinning evilly. That'll show him! Sit on the beach at Santa Cruz, visit the cabin in the Sierras, See the Stones in a 2300 seat venue ... .
All in all, she decided, this sounds like it's going to be one of those holidays, after which you need to book a holiday to recover.
"Tom, Dude! What's up? You look like you didn't get any sleep last night."
"Didn't. I woke up at three thirty this morning, craving a curry."
"A what?"
"A curry. I could have murdered a vindaloo."
"A vindaloo? Your crazy, Tom. I had one of those once ... I was TDY to a British base in Germany, back in the day. I still wake up screaming, it was that hot."
"Nah. The vindaloo's aren't hot, unless you request it that way. Someone must have been playing a trick on you ... What you want to watch out for are the phal. Anyone tries to offer you one of those? Shoot him."
"British Air nine-five-two heavy come to two-two-oh at angels three two thousand, over."
"British Air nine-five-two dropping to angels three two at two two oh, ta. Traffic, over?" The plane banked as Captain Richard Danter pushed the yoke forward and brought the nose around to the new heading. He had been flying for British Airways for years, and had made the run from Heathrow to San Francisco hundreds of times. The occasional seemingly random diversion was just another thing to help him stay awake while the giant Airbus skimmed across the sky. He looked out through his half of the cockpit windows, saw nothing, double checked his co-pilot's view as she did the same. Nothing about this one seemed out of the ordinary, probably just the ATC kids having some fun.
"Negative traffic, nine-five-two, g'day. United Air seven-three-three, come to angel two-five thousand, new heading two-two-five."
"Now that's odd," said Lieutenant Emma Gibson as the ATC voice in her earphone continued to 'push tin'. It got odder as it continued, more and more planes were being diverted to new headings. "What do you think?"
"Cor. Sounds like 9/11 all over again. Sounds like everyone is being diver-"
"British Air nine-five-two heavy, contact Churchill Field ATC on nine-seven-six-comma-five."
"British nine-five-two, nine-seven-six-point-five, have a good one." The co-pilot reached for her dash with an index finger and changed the radio frequency. "Churchill ATC this is British Airways nine-five-two LHR to SFO, instructions, over".
"British nine-five-two, squawk ident on one-two-zero-zero." There was some movement by the navigator as he punched something into his own board, and then grunted to indicate that he had heard and complied.
After a pause, ATC continued. "Roger, nine-five-two. I see you ... ok, Airbus 370 heavy? right ... ok ... too big for us. Wait, over."
"This doesn't look-" started the captain.
"British nine-five-two, divert to military airfield at Thompson, Manitoba. Come to new heading one-nine-zero, new altitude two-two-thousand. Be advised VFR traffic will be at your twelve, twelve-thirty, indicating nine thousand at range fifteen miles."
"British nine-five-two going one-nine-zero at two-two-kilo, diverting, roger, searching for VFR traffic." repeated the co-pilot as the Captain again banked the plane.
The plane banked again, and this time her head rolling from one side to the other woke her up. Kay had fallen asleep someplace over Scotland, after firmly telling the kids, the flight attendants and the little old lady in the seat across the aisle, that if anyone woke her up, they could expect to be walking the rest of the way.
The threat was to prove prophetic.
"Mum?" Edward was curled up into a small ball onto his seat, but Allison was sitting up and had her in-flight headphones pressed to her ears.
"Yes, luv?"
In response, Allison only handed over the earphones. Kay blinked and put them on. At first, it took her a moment to realize what it was she was listening to, but then it dawned on her. Her daughter had the entertainment program set to the ATC chatter-channel, and was listening in to the pilots' conversations with the ATC centers as they passed over. Kay's own father had been a pilot, and she had toyed with that career also when in her teens, and now her own daughter was showing an interest.
The standard vocabulary of the ATC communications protocols was evident, and from what she heard, it didn't sound good. Kay quickly brought up her own in-flight entertainment system and set it to the map that showed their flight plan and current position. The little airplane that should have been following the dotted line, had turned drastically south and was dropping quickly through the atmosphere towards a big, open space in Manitoba. At the moment, the pilots were still receiving corrections from some Canadian ATC center, so Kay wasn't too nervous. Still ...
"What is it, Mum?" asked Allie.
"It looks like we've been diverted south a bit. Maybe there is some weather up ahead that they are squeezing us around it."
"I've got a bad feeling," said the captain, thinking. "Spike? Kill the internal ATC feed. I don't know how long this will take, but we should be in the landing pattern in about forty-five minutes. Let's not have a passenger riot on our hands."
The in-flight entertainment audio channel carrying the ATC chatter made an ominous click, and Kay was greeted by the sound of silence. The voice had cut off mid-phrase, so it was probably intentional. She noticed that the map on the seat-back video display also had shut off. So whatever it was -- and she recognized the 'if we don't let them know, maybe the passengers won't riot' syndrome when she saw it -- it was something that impacted all the flights in the air. It was obvious from the number of diversions that it wasn't just BA 952, enroute to SFO. Kay wondered how long it would be before the announcement, and wondered if they would claim some sort of mechanical fault. If this were United, they could probably get away with it.
"Captain? You need to listen to this," said the navigator, connecting the feed from one of his radios to the Captain's console. The captain nodded, showing that he now had the voice in his headphones.
"So that's the status, ladies and gentlemen. Posleen ships have been engaged by our space going fighters and armed frigates, earth is now on a landing watch, and you all are being diverted to the nearest airfield or port with a runway long enough to handle your specific aircraft.
Ladies and gentlemen? It's just like 9/11 all over again. We took care of you then, and we'll take care of you now. ATC-Manitoba, out."
"Shite," said the Captain, finally.
The navigator reset the main console to their current ATC channel. After a moment, a voice came on line. "So now you know. This is Thompson MAF. As I call the roll, please respond with flight time remaining in minutes, based on fuel first, crew fatigue second. We'll get you down, just hold on. Right, American Air eleven-fife-fife?"
"American Air eleven-fife-fife, Roger, Thompson, MAF ... um, say eighteen-five, I say again one-eight-five minutes, over."
"Roger, American eleven-fiver-fife, I copy one-eight-five. British Airways nine-fife-two?"
"British Air nine-five-two, Roger, two hundred minutes, over."
"Roger, Brit nine-fiver-two, I copy two-zero-zero. Canadian Air sixteen -three-eight? ... "
When the announcement finally came, they told the truth, and that simple fact scared her more than if she had received an expected lie. Then the realization hit and she learned what fear was.
Tom.
The air pressure differential popped their ears as they came down fast towards the runway. The Airbus specification stated that the shortest runway that it could land on was a good thirty percent longer than the military airfield that they were coming down towards. The pilot knew this, but he assumed that the people who wrote the manual had increased the actual value by a third to ensure that anyone trying to land on a marginally short runway would not be able to sue them afterwards.
The pilot touched down by eyeball on the outer rim road, just before the runway proper began and immediately went to full flaps, air breaks, thrust arrestors, foot breaks and if he had had a sea anchor and a kitchen sink, he would have had the co-pilot deploy them also. As it was, it still looked like he was going to end up with his nose in the bushes. "Brace for impact," he said, calmly, judging that it was going to be close.
Both pilots fought hard against their yokes, fighting to maintain their straight path along the tarmac, as the plane skidded and bucked along the ice cracked surface. "I think," said Emma, the co-pilot, in her roll as the eternal pessimist, "we aren't going to make it ... "
"It's going to be close," Richard agreed.
"Brace for impact."
Caithness grabbed her knees tighter and looked to the side to ensure that the kids were braced also. Allison appeared aware of what was going on around her, as tears appeared to be near to overflowing through her squeezed-shut eyelids. Edward, on the other hand, appeared to be "eating this shit up" as her husband used to say.
Some day, preferably sooner rather than later, she planned on asking him just what the hell that meant.
"Are you holding on tight, Edward?"
"Yes, mum! This is the greatest! It's like a roller coaster!"
"Make it stop, mummy?" said Allison, confirming Kay's original, almost instinctual call of the eight-year-olds probable reaction to the rough and bumpy landing.
Looking the other way, Kay could see very little out the windows, but what she could see didn't look inviting. Straight out the window, across the taxi areas of the airfield, she could see several hardened hangers, of the kind she affiliated with fighter aircraft, and towards the front she could make out the occasional glimpse of pine tree forest.
The forest, however, appeared to be getting closer quickly. Reflexively, her mind shied away from that fact, even as her arms clamped even more tightly around her legs. To her side, Allison started whimpering.
As a passenger in a plane that looked like it was about to have a bad day, she needed to stay braced. As a mum, she wanted to reach over and hug her daughter and tell her it was going to be all right. She compromised by reaching out with one arm and patting Allison on the back. "It'll be okay, dear. Just hold on ... "
She looked back out the window, and the forest, while still approaching, didn't appear to be approaching as inexorably as before. But the plane was still moving forward.
Just then, the airframe jerked mightily as several of the tires blew underneath the weight of the plane. Coupled with the skidding and rough surfaces that they were being dragged over, the front gear finally gave in and snapped off, causing the plane to nose down onto the tarmac. No longer able to effectively steer the plane, the pilots braced their feet onto their consoles and held on as the combined friction of the nose against the runway and then the taxi way, along with all the other devices designed to stop the plane when on the ground, succeeded in bringing the plane to a halt as the nose cone passed beyond the airfield proper and ended up against the first couple of trees in the pine forest.
"I think they've bent the plane, mum," said Edward, as loud cheering broke out amongst the passengers.
"I think you've bent the plane, boss," Emma said, up in the cockpit as she looked around, her eyes as big as dinner plates. She carefully reached down and started picking up the larger shards of Plexiglas off her lap. A six inch diameter pine branch had punched through the front canopy and between the pilot and the co-pilot, and would have decapitated the navigator had he not taken the foresight to pop the quick release on his five point harness and duck.
Wild-eyes, Richard looked around also, the adrenaline still mostly in control of his actions. Finally, he unfroze and nodded, saying "Silly place to put a forest, if you ask me."
"I don't mind the forest," said the navigator, picking himself up off the floor, "but I could do without one or two of the trees."
"British Air nine-five-two heavy! Status, over!". The voice was a bit panicky, but understandable.
"Roger, ground control. I believe we're going to need a tow truck." Behind them, the doors on the aircraft slammed open, and all the slide ramps were deploying as per specification. Warning tones and overhead idiot lights came on as the cabin crew began the mostly orderly evacuation of the plane. Looking up at the sound and seeing the blinking lights added "And maybe a few busses, too."
"Roger, Bah-nine-five-two, glad to hear you are ok. Emergency Services are on the way. Be advised, Alaska one-oh-five-seven is landing behind you in approximately ninety seconds. Should I wave him off?"
"How much of the runway does he need?"
"Not as much. Certainly not the bit you are sitting on. But we're going to get a couple dozers out there and a crew. We're going to need to drag you out of the way, since there are a couple more that'll probably need that space your sitting in. The crew will be cutting down the trees and extending the runway down at that end. Meanwhile, we've got a combat repair crew heading out to the touchdown end, too, and they're going to crash extend the runway another couple hundred or so meters in that direction!"
"We certainly could have used it, control ... this is Bah-nine-five-two, we are off the air." Richard ripped off his earphones. "Right, crew. Everybody healthy? Speak up if not, else let's get out of here."
Caithness looked out at Churchill, Manitoba, as they approached it in the military supplied bus. They'd spent several hours at the military airfield while they waited for transport to the nearest town with a rail connection. Now that the landings had started, they couldn't risk putting a plane up to fly them anywhere, and so had to wait for the busses to arrive from Churchill to carry them back. The Canadian air force personnel had used the lifeboat drill, women-and-children-first, which meant that Kay and the kids were one of the first ones to board for the trip up to Churchill. Even then, they still had to wait for several busloads, as there were other women with even younger children than Edward.
Eventually, however, they got their bags onto the accompanying pickup trucks and themselves into seats and now sat impatiently, waiting for them to get where they were going. They were still an hour out, and Kay wondered what they were going to do once they got there. So far, the Canadians had been well generous in getting them sorted and on their way. Kay wondered morosely if that was out of good heartedness, or simply because the sooner they got the damned foreigners out of their hair, the less they would have to feed them and otherwise put up with them.
For the most part of the people they encountered, she assumed it was the first. For the occasional other, however, she was positive they fell in the second group.
They had been promised transport on a passenger train heading south through The Pas to Winnipeg. From there, it was a little less certain, but they said that they could reasonably expect to find them a train heading west through Saskatoon to Edmonton. At that point, however, they would have to see.
It would take them over a week to reach the US/Canada border, they would even have to walk several miles of the distance several times. The main routes were covered using trains or busses supplied by various governments, but getting from one mode of conveyance to another usually meant a trip across some town or other. And the towns were full of refugees who thought 'Someplace else' was better than wherever they'd been beforehand.
With the town full of refugees, the locals were none to happy to be using their own soon-to-be rationed fuel to move them around. So rather than wait for the one or two electric powered vehicles to move them from the bus station to the train station in Churchill, Kay had just sold or traded what gear they no longer needed for stuff that the did, or for fresh vegetables and fruit, and walked. They saved a lot of time, and it would get them to the border that much quicker. What they were going to do once they got there, however, was still unknown.
Tom sat at the S3 NCOICs desk, reviewing plans with his AID, when Private Go stuck her head around the corner. At his enquiring look, she said "I'm back from the motor pool Sergeant Weaver. I've brought your set of keys back."
Tom reached across the desk and grabbed the ring from the Private. "Thanks," he said, just as his AID gave a warning tone.
"Priority Message from Brigade pending, Sergeant Weaver." Weaver looked at Go, who nodded and disappeared. He dropped the keys into his pocket, he'd lock them in the key case later.
"Let's hear it, AID."
"Five Posleen globes have just exited hyperspace in near-Earth orbit. TERDEF analysis calls for landings in approximately three hours."
Tom stared at the AID as it sat, innocuously, on the desk. "Oh, shi ... " he muttered. "Anything else? Any idea where the landings will be?"
"Negative info this time," replied the toneless voice.
"Right." Tom stared around for a moment, then nodded. The curtain was going up, no time to stand around dally diddling yourself. He strode over to the doorway and stuck his head out into the common area.
"This is it, folks. Landings warning coming in over the secure channel, expected landings in three hours. It's showtime. We should be rawhide in an hour. Sergeant Tkachenko, track down Birch, she's probably the only one who knows where the Three is." 'Rawhide' was the code word for pulling up tent stakes and getting out of dodge--it was the same word that the S3 section in Baumholder used. Who knew how many S3 sections in the world used that same word. All it took was one English speaking opfor commo interceptor, who had grown up watching TV westerns from the '50s and '60s to understand what the code word indicated.
Luckily, Tom thought, the Posleen probably were not Clint Eastwood fans.
"Can do, Sergeant Weaver" said Alla Tkachenko from her desk. "She's supposed to be up at the motor pool replacing the tires on the hum-vee. So I'll go look in her quarters, first. Winters, you head straight to the motor pool and get your hum-vee down here."
Specialist Winters, the S3 NCOICs driver, jumped up saying "Roger that!" and headed out the door.
"You do so know your people, Sergeant. Let me know if you have any trouble. If she's done have her bring the hum-vee down here, also. And the rest of you, consider this your deployment orders. All of you with your kit in the quarters, go get it and bring it back here. Let's get hot, ladies and gentlemen, let's get ever so effing hot!"
"Do we know where, yet?" asked Captain Rundle, the assistant S3, coming through the doorway and sidestepping the rush of non-coms and specialists heading out to their quarters to pick up their kits.
"Negative, Sir. Initial landing warning only."
"Check. Keep us informed, will you? I'm off to the arms' room to check out the Three Shop's weapon case." The weapons' cases, sealed boxes that held up to ten assault rifles and as many handguns, as well as cleaning kits, holsters, magazines and other assorted related equipment, were stored ready to be moved to save time. Because they weighed over a hundred pounds, however, it took several people to move them when they were packed. "Send one of the hum-vees around and enough bodies to lift it once they're here."
"I'm on that, Sir. Do you know where Major McKinney is?"
"Negative, Sergeant. That information is on the strictly need-to-know list, and right now I don't think we need to know that."
"You're three kinds of all right, Sir," said Tom. "Why are you still here, Private Go?"
"My stuff's under this desk, Sergeant Weaver."
"Check. Go with Captain Rundle, stand guard on the weapons once he's got them checked out. You okay with that, Sir?"
"Check. The horses are here and it's time to dance, Private, so let's go, Go. I need to stop by the BOQ first to get my own kit, so let's shake a leg."
"Yes, Sir. That joke's old, Sir," Go said as she moved to the doorway to follow the Captain out.
Captain Rundle turned and looked at the private momentarily. "What joke, Private?"
"Sorry, Sir, I thought your were making a joke about my name."
"I never joke about people's names, Private. Weaver, have the team assemble in the yard with their equipment for a quick shakedown. And check on the busses."
"Roger that, Sir," responded Tom, and once he was sure that the Captain was well and truly gone, he turned back to his desk. "AID? Status on transport to Objective Charon?"
"Armor has priority on transport, Sergeant Weaver. The first busses should be arriving in fifteen minutes. Note, insufficient space for crew, staff and personal equipment in a single run. The S4 is working on prioritization."
"And we'll let them. Let me know if the situation changes." Tom pulled his dog tags up over his head and grabbed the key that was with them. The key unlocked the side drawers, and then he quickly reached under the desk and pulled a lever to one side. When he pulled the middle drawer out, the entire drawer came out instead of the just the top three-quarters and the full front. He lifted out the junk and dropped it onto his desk, then lifted the false bottom out and grabbed the holstered M1911A1 Colt .45 ACP found therein. He strapped on the shoulder holster, then quickly verified that the weapon was loaded and that so were the several spare magazines.
It would be awhile before the weapons' case got here. And besides, he always carried a backup.
"Sergeant Weaver? There is a situation developing at the arms' room."
"A situation, AID? How so?"
"Specialist Birch is trying to check out the Three Shop's weapons' case, using the authority of Major McKinney. I understand that Captain Rundle has not yet arrived there, and won't be there for at least another ten minutes."
"That's odd. She's not normally on the access list. Can you access your sensors and find out where Tkachenko and Winters are?"
"Tkachenko and Winters are on there way to the motor pool. They did not find Specialist Birch in her quarters."
"Obviously, as she's now down in the basement of the headquarters barracks, trying to sign out a case load of assault rifles and handguns."
"Sergeant Weaver? There is a tag on Birch's record, recorded by 1st SG Audobon. It says that she is a flight risk. She is also known to have consorted with organized gangs in Stockton, where she grew up, before joining the military. Based on that and other comments and records, I would recommend that she not be allowed access to the weapons."
"Cor- effing- rect, AID. Warn the armory to not release the weapons. I'm heading down there."
"Done, Sergeant."
Tom grabbed his field jacket and put it on as he ran out the door, reviewing what he knew about Specialist Birch. She had been originally assigned to Delta company on arrival, had received two company grade article 15s for insubordination and was suspect in a rash of barracks rat robberies that they had unfortunately been unable to pin on her. Since moving to the S3 Shop to be the Three's driver, most of the problems had stopped. Tom had his suspicions as to why that was, but since what she was doing with the Three, it at least kept both of them out of his hair.
The Three Shop's floor was deserted, but he ran into one of the other section members on the way down. "Beatty. You're with me. Dump that stuff in the commons and run to catch up. I'm on my way to the headquarters' barracks. Do. Not. Dally." The private nodded, out of breath from carrying the duffle up the stairs, and lurched into a jog, taking the steps two and three at a time. Tom continued down to the first floor and out onto the battalion road.
He turned left and sprinted up towards the company areas, heading directly towards the HQ barracks. Parked in front of the building was a hum-vee, and as he got closer he recognized the bumper numbers. It was Major McKinney's vehicle, and as he came up to it, he walked out into the street and looked inside the driver's compartment. The steering wheel was unsecured, and on a hunch, he dug the spare padlock keys that he still had in his pocket, pulled the chain up and secured the wheel.
The front door of the barracks bounced open and four people came out in a rush, carrying two weapons' cases, stacked, each person on a corner. The four appeared to be wearing their ALiCE packs, also, and the packs' top flaps were open and rifle barrels could be seen poking upwards.
One of the four was Specialist Birch. Tom didn't recognize the others.
Tom realized that while the weapons' cases didn't normally carry ammunition, if Birch was doing what it looked like she was doing, then she probably brought her own to the party. From where he was standing, still concealed behind the vehicle, he couldn't tell if the locks on the gun boxes had been defeated. It became apparent as they neared, however, that it was irrelevant. Just over the top of the upper gun box, Tom could see that Birch was wearing a shoulder holster, and the flap was undone. Tom reached into his coat and undid his own holster. He pulled the weapon, jacked it then stepped back from the vehicle further into the street. This gave him the clearance needed to bring the weapon up far enough to not quite clear the hood of the vehicle. He kept it hidden from the approaching group as he side-stepped away from the cab of the vehicle, the weapon kept just inches below the group's impeded sight lines. With the engine block between himself and the approaching bandits, he said "Hold it, Birch!"
As he was noticed, the three strangers shifted their carry holds on the load, just as the specialist at the far read corner let go and stepped around them in a quasi-coordinated movement. The three broke into a jog and ran towards the vehicle's back gate. As Specialist Birch cleared the obstruction that the boxes and their carriers made, her hands came up with a Beretta M9, which she must have been carrying in her off hand. She didn't bother saying anything, just began to zero in on an aim point in Tom's center of mass. She didn't make it.
Tom's first, mostly unaimed round hit her in the shoulder and pulled her aim point off just as her own weapon fired, the round hitting the glass windscreen of the hum-vee and ricocheting away. Her eyes registered shock as Tom's second, aimed round hit her just below the chin and knocked her backwards onto her back.
As the booming echoes tailed away, Tom heard the gun boxes crash to the ground. He turned in that direction, and his third, snap round hit the man coming around the back of the vehicle, just as that one returned fired at Tom. Tom jerked as the bullet passed cleanly through his upper arm.
Using the pain from the wound to harden his voice, he barked "Freeze!", and then, because he didn't trust them, he dove to the ground around in front of the vehicle. This proved to be prophetic, as additional small arms fire passed through the space he had occupied up to that point.
From his current vantage point, he could see the feet of one of the two remaining deserters. From the sounds, the fourth was opening the clamps of the gun box. Rather than draw this out, Tom shot the one he could see in the ankle and then as the man fell, forward, shot him again in the top of the shoulder, the massive forty-five caliber round punching through the man's shoulder blade and passing down into the body cavity.
Before doing anything else, Tom hopped back up and clambered up onto the bumper of the vehicle. He'd just given the remaining deserter ideas, and he wasn't about to stick around waiting for the man to act on them. From where he was standing, he couldn't see the man, so he quickly reloaded the colt.
"Throw down your weapons," he ordered, trying to buy time.
The only answer he got was the sound of a magazine being slammed into the belly of an 7.62mm AIW, and the bolt being shot home.
"Ah, man ... " thought Tom, crouching down behind the engine block of the hum-vee, still balanced precariously on the bumper, as the man fired bursts from the assault weapon blindly into the vehicle a couple of times before stopping suddenly. Tom wanted to stick his head up to find out which way to jump, but was afraid that was what the thief was waiting for. Tom decided to go for the high ground and prepared to hop up onto the hood and from there the roof of the hum-vee.
"Sergeant Weaver! How many are there!" The voice came from behind the vehicle, beyond the fourth deserter.
Tom froze, listening intently. Aside from the moans from someone at the back of the vehicle, he couldn't hear any other noises. Finally he yelled "Four! I hit three!"
"I got the fourth one, we're clear!"
"Beatty?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"You were carrying?"
"Yeah."
"Good thing, that," Tom said. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off and his arm started to pulse pain in time with his heart beat.
"Yeah, well ... I had this Sergeant tell me once, 'always have a backup'. Words to live by, if you ask me ... "
Outside the ambulance was a storm of activity as the Criminal Investigation Division of the local Army command tagged and marked the scene, while around them moved the battalion as it alternately stood in formation waiting for the busses that would take them to their prepositioned equipment, or broke up to search out missing equipment.
Inside the ambulance was a sea of calm however, as Tom sat on a gurney having his arm looked at by a medic. Also in the vehicle was another investigator from the CID, who was alternately asking questions and dictating comments into his AID. "And where did you get the handgun?" asked the CID investigator calmly.
Tom shrugged with only one shoulder. "I keep it locked under a false bottom in a drawer of my desk."
"You do realize that maintaining a privately owned weapon outside the arms' room is chargeable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice?"
Tom looked out the window at the storm that was gathering. He looked back at the CID investigator. He nodded. "I know that. I believe that Colonel Kuzio will be doing an Article 15 on me shortly." The pain killers had dulled his sense of humor as well as his sense of pain, otherwise he would probably have tried to laugh it off.
The investigator nodded. "That sounds like reasonable punishment. My own recommendations upwards will be to allow a simple non-judicial on that. Same thing for Private Beatty."
Tom nodded again. "That's a relief. It would be bad for him to save my life, then turn around and go to jail for it."
"Ok, one more question about the .45 and that'll be it for now. You say you keep it in a locked drawer. Did you take it out of the drawer before your AID warned you about Birch, or after?"
Tom looked up at the ceiling, thinking back. "Had to have been before, wait ... " Tom pulled his field jacket over and pulled the AID out of the pocket. "AID? Replay everything from when you first notified me about the situation that was developing in the arms' room."
The AID dutifully replayed everything, collaborating Tom's rethink. "Yeah," Tom said, eventually. "I was already wearing it when the message came in."
"And that replay also collaborates with your statement. I believe it would be admissible as proof that you did give them every opportunity to give themselves up without anybody getting hurt ... Well, that's about all. Have you got any questions for me?"
"Yeah, the MPs got here almost immediately after Private Beatty. How did they know?
"They had been summoned by the silent alarms from the arm's room. Installed just below the lower half of the two part door is a kick plate that activates the alarm. Your warning through your AID to not allow them access arrived too late to save the armorer, but when he started kicking the plate frantically just before they shot him, it added to the priority level of the notification to the MP station. The MP dispatcher summoned the cavalry even before checking the camera feeds from the room."
"So they wouldn't have got away with it, then."
"Maybe. They must have had a plan for the get-out."
"And all that for only, what, twenty rifles."
"You didn't know?" asked the investigator.
"Know what?"
"Those boxes could have been carried by two of them, if it had only the equipment that your section needed. They'd crammed as many AIWs in there as they could fit, and four or five SAWs, then had filled out their rucks with more AIWs and M9s. They had easily a hundred-thou in black market value there."
"Ah."
The investigator's AID gave a ping noise, and the man listened intently. After a moment he said "Roger." After another moment, he nodded absently and frowned, then said "Ok, thanks for the update." He turned to Tom. "We've found your Three."
"Really? Didn't know you were looking for him ... " said Tom, absently, around the haze of pain, as the medic finished bandaging the bullet wound.
"We weren't. But we found him anyway. He's in his BOQ, stark naked, strapped to a chair and with a bullet through his brain pan. Specialist Birch and the others had initially tried to draw all the weapons using Major McKinney's authorization, and we were wondering how she had acquired the it in the first place. I guess now we know."
Tom nodded, the pain killers deadening any reaction he would have had to the death of the S3. "His AID," he said absently.
"What about it?"
"That's how they knew. His AID would have warned him at the same time mine warned me that the landing were imminent. I think they were rushed."
The investigate nodded thoughtfully. "Good point," he said, then dictated some more notes to his AID. "Any thing else you'd like to know, Sergeant?"
"I won't keep you, Sir."
"Good luck, Sergeant."
Tom focused on the man. "Thank you, Sir. I think I just used mine up, though," he said, gesturing at his arm.
"Sergeant Weaver?" Beatty threw a chin over Tom's shoulder. "Here comes the Six."
"Thanks, Beatty." Tom turned to the road, came to attention, and then came to parade rest, waiting for the vehicle to pass. As it approached, he returned to attention, looked over his shoulder and said "Section ... Attention". As the vehicle neared, Tom saluted.
To the section's complete lack of surprise, the vehicle pulled up and the colonel hopped out. He returned the S3 NCOICs salute precisely, frowning slightly. "At ease, Sergeant. Brigade can't find me another O4 to take over as my S3. That leaves Captain Rundle as Three Acting. Can you live with that?"
If anyone was surprised at the commander's question, they disguised it well. It wasn't often that an O5 asked an E7 for his opinion. Tom nodded, once, sharply. "Yes, Sir. Captain Rundle knows the plans as well as I do."
Sotto voce, so that only Tom could hear him, the LTC nodded, whispering "Which is a lot more than we can say about our late, unlamented ex-S3. If anything, Birch has done us a favor I think ... Sorry to hear about your arm, though. That always was the problem with the Weaver Stance, you know. Leaves the arms exposed ... " His voice came back up to a normal speaking voice for the last part. "Have your assistant get the section out to their vehicles and bring up the net. I'm holding a staff meeting in ten minutes, and there are a few things I want to go over with you. It looks like the initial landings in force are headed for the eastern seaboard, but we might get a rogue or too. Ride with me, Sergeant Weaver."
"Yes, Sir," Tom said, ignoring the pun. He came to attention and saluted. The CO returned the salute and returned to his vehicle, while Tom turned back to the formation in front of which he was standing. He looked down at his watch, then back up. "Right. Initial landing in just under an hour, but it won't be here. Tkachenko, Apple, you know where your teams are supposed to be. Beatty, grab my stuff and follow us. Dismissed." Tom spun back around and jogged the couple of steps over to the battalion commander's vehicle and climbed in.
As he settled himself, the CO tossed him a small piece of cardboard with a three pins attached. "Here, put these on, Master Sergeant. Do you know where your family is, Master Sergeant?"
Tom looked down at the pins and grinned lopsidedly, until the CO's non-sequitur got through to him. The grin faded. "Yes, Sir. They are in England. I left a message for them via the AID, but I don't know if it will get to them anytime soon."
"Wrong. They boarded a British Airways flight this morning and were someplace over Canada inbound to San Francisco when the initial globes appeared out of hyperspace. Their plane was diverted and they are now on the ground in Manitoba, Canada."
Tom's jaw dropped open. "How ... "
"Yes?" asked the Colonel Kuzio when Tom's voice faded.
"They have tickets for next week."
"I guess they moved it up. I need you focused, Tom."
The use of his first name by the commander didn't register. "Yes, Sir. Have I ever not been?"
"I'm assuming I've never seen you in the kind of situation that would cause you to unfocus. I just don't want this to turn out to be one. Your family is currently safe, and on this continent. They are, I'm assuming, enroute to California by other means. Do you know where they will be staying?"
"Yessir. If I can get a message to them, I'll tell them to get to the cabin in the Sierras. That looks like the safest place to be right now."
"You have a cabin up there? Where?"
"Small place straight up highway 4, called Lake Alpine. My family's had it since the late forties. Over the past couple of years we've turned it into a right fortress, dug straight back into the hill and built our own Sub-urb. She knows about it, and has been there before, so that is where I'd tell her to go to."
"Use your AID. I'll have Rundle give the briefing. Get her the message. Are we clear?"
"Sir, we are clear, Sir!" Tom felt stress draining away, stress that he didn't know he had been suffering under. "And, Thanks, Sir."
"No problem, Master Sergeant." There was a significant pause while Tom futzed around with the new rank insignia. "Tom?" the battalion commander said, quietly.
"Sir?" Tom asked, looking up.
"I got a call from a General Dekalli the other day. That ring any bells?"
Tom frowned, as the name did ring a bell. Then he remembered and the frown deepened. He shot a hard look at the battalion commander, his eyes narrow, but didn't say anything.
"Thought as much. Pull over, Cassel." The three soldiers were quiet as the commander's driver pulled over to the side of the road. As soon as the hand break was set, the commander said "And now go take a leak or something."
"Sir," the specialist said, quietly, before dismounting and wandering off.
LTC Kuzio turned in his seat and looked at Tom. "I won't go into what he said. But he asked me to give you these, also." Kuzio dug into a breast pocket and pulled out another insignia set. The rank flashed gold as he handed the set to Tom. "After getting off the horn with General Dekalli, I called in Timpton and he told me a story. Was it true?"
"Probably, Sir," said Tom, staring at the oak leaves in his hand. Tom handed the rank back. "I gave that up, Sir."
"I can give it back, Tom."
Tom's eyes closed. "I don't know, Sir. Even when I was a lieutenant ..." Tom stared at his cap and began fiddling with the newly pinned-on Master Sergeant's rank. "... Sir, I don't know. What if they were right. You tell me ... Am I a warrior?"
"You took down Birch in a pretty warlike manner, Tom."
"Yeah, but that was just ..." Tom waived a hand around.
"Just what?"
"That was just luck, Sir."
"Dekalli thinks you know how to manufacture luck, Tom. Or was that Winter REFORGER end-around you pulled just a fluke ..."
"No, Sir. But they were humans. I know how humans think."
"That puts you a leg up on just about everyone else around here, Tom. Well, here comes Cassell. Think about it. If you put on those leaves, Tom, you'd be my S3 in a heartbeat. Think about that."
But what if they were right?
Later that evening, Tom sat in his hum-vee, reviewing the images from the initial landings in Virginia that afternoon. They weren't good. What was good was that the Posleen fought just as they had been seen to fight on Barwhon and Diess. That meant that the doctrine that was in use there, should work here too.
Quality of the soldiery withstanding, of course.
Tom sighed, then looked up at the ceiling of the vehicle. Finally, he nodded. "The problem with the poke them in the nose strategy is that you can't poke them in the nose with artillery," Tom dictated to his AID. "Sure, you could swat them around a bit, but you can't actually get their attention focused in the right direction.
"To do that, you need to walk right up to them and, well, poke them in the nose. And even that presents its own level of issues.
"First off, you have to poke them in the nose from the correct direction. If a lander came down in the middle of a field, and there are four sentries (or platoons, or companies, or battalions, or pocking great armies), one on each side of the field, then one, and only the one, should grab the horses by the short and curlies and do a habeas testiculos on them.
"But just let one individual or device break fire discipline from any of the other three corners, and its uh-oh time. There will be no way to predict what the horses would do under those circumstances."
"Master Sergeant Weaver? Two incoming priority messages from Brigade S3."
"Go ahead, AID."
"In perceived order of priority: First, the refugee office in Canada has notified the Rail operator, and has passed over your message. The message arrived too late to get to your wife before the vehicle left Churchill for Winnipeg. There are no AIDs on that vehicle. As soon as the vehicle arrives in Winnipeg, the message will be forwarded to your wife."
"Thank you, AID. Keep me posted on that, will you?"
"Yes, Sir. Second message: Inbound Posleen battle globe heading east north east across the Pacific. Expect landings along the Western seaboard and inland, North to Point Arena, South to San Luis Obispo Bay, within fifty minutes."
It was closing time at the Riverbank Army Ammunition Plant, eight and a half kilometers North East of Modesto, but that hadn't stopped the machines as the civil service workers ignored the hooters and bells and continued working frantically.
At first, the government had quietly started stockpiling large quantities of the 7.62 ball and tracer ammunition that was the primary production output of the factory for the Army. Train car after train car had rolled through and been loaded with thousands of cases of the ammunition needed by the AIW infantry weapons.
Then came the initial landing warning in the morning, and the factory had gone into overdrive. The warehouse and docks were full to overflowing of the cased ammunition loads, but the trains weren't coming fast enough to bleed off the excess. Not that they were supposed to, the factory had its own local, home-grown, "defense strategy".
Then came the west coast's first landing warning, and the factory production had, if anything, gone up a further notch. Now, however, the trains had stopped and Army deuce-and-a-half trucks had moved in, even now were rolling through the enclosure, having two pallets of 7.62 ammo loaded via forklift and then rolling back out again.
But the machines assembling the ammo were still working faster than needed to supply the machines that were taking the fruits of their labor away. The excess production of bullets and powder was being stacked around the fences in a long pile behind hundreds of thousands of brass ingots, along with whatever heavy metal sheeting that could be found. Around and through the pile were being placed large quantities of combustibles and explosives ... and detcord. Lots and lots of detcord, because that was the secondary production output of the factory.
As months passed before the landings, the ring around the facility had got higher, and thicker, and more substantial.
The original fence around the Riverbank facility was over two and a half meter high and close on 1200 meters long. By the time that time ran out, just inside the original fence was a new, secondary fence that was a half meter shorter, a meter and a half thicker ... and some wag had painted "Front Towards Enemy" on the inside in meter and a half high characters.
The Battle Globe, or rather what was left of it, glided effortlessly up to the coast and split into thirty or so Battle Decs, each in turn fanning out to cover a wide area of the Northern California area.
The Globe had started out much larger, much more complete, but it had run into several of the converted frigates of the Earth orbit defense forces, and before destroying them had had a large portion of itself destroyed in turn. It had shed all the damaged landers and Command Decs and had reconfigured itself as best it could, but all told it had gone from several hundred of the Battle Decs to something slightly smaller than one-sixth its original size.
A one-sixth size Battle Globe is still at least a quarter million Posleen normals and more than 600 Kessentai.
As the space ship came in over the coast it began shedding single and multiple landers, which spread out and began to drop towards wherever their was enough terrain for them to land on.
The people in the Northern Central California Coast looked up and watched the invaders' ships as they passed high over head, and for the most part there was panic as many of those who were out and about tried to return home.
But for many, they had watched video of the East Coast landings on the news and the Internet. They understood that the only way to prevent their family and loved ones from being eaten by the invaders was to stand and fight. Those people were at least somewhat mentally prepared for what was now happening, and they turned to their vehicle cabs, and their trunks, and their gun cabinets, and brought out an infinitely variable collection of weapons, from medium and large bore handguns, to assault rifles bought on the black market, to shotguns.
As those singleton landers dropped and opened up to disgorge their complements of Posleen normals and lone Kessentai, they were engaged by whatever organized military units, law-enforcement and unorganized civilians that were on the scene and happened to be armed. The remaining civilians in the immediate area changed their status to instant refugee and made a run for it, covered in part by a mass of disorganized fire that took the Posleen by surprise.
While the Posleen had a vast superiority in weapons, they were still outnumbered at any moment by three or four to one—and each and every one of those pesky Threshkreen were carrying weaponry that, while not as flashy or high tech as those carried by the invaders, still carried enough bullets to drop an oolt.
Which point the defenders were also noting with glee. While a single 9mm pistol round wouldn't stop one of the horses, the thirty or forty of its mates coming in from every other direction would certainly do so.
And there were even enough sniper rifles around to put paid to the Kessentai who were aggressive enough to come out of their landers riding their tenar.
What it meant then was that for the most part, the singleton landers were vastly overwhelmed by the local forces. Battle Decs, however, that dropped their landers where they could support each other, succeeded in making beachheads throughout the area between the coast itself and the coastal mountain ranges. But even they found themselves in highly hostile terrain where even the pens where the Thresh lived would explode if they were entered injudiciously.
And then they found out what all the mountain valleys in the coastal ranges were good for. They were good for hiding artillery. And artillery likes nothing more than big, fat dumb landers to shoot at, where they don't have to worry about counter-battery fire.
For the most part, any landings between the coast and the coastal mountain ranges were enveloped, contained and destroyed in short order. Yes, there were massive casualties on the civilian human side. But the sacrifice they made to keep the Posleen bunched up long enough for the Army to show up with the big guns is what saved the day for that part of California.
But once the remains of the Globe passed over the coastal range and split in half, things were different. The sparseness of the populace coupled with the miles and miles of tactically flat terrain meant that the landers could drop anywhere, in any force, and not face any amount of significant resistance while they organized and moved out to their objectives.
The Globe commander seemed to realize this, and as it crested the range above Los Banos it turned North and split into two parts.
"What are they up to, Captain?" Lieutenant Colonel Kuzio was finishing his staff meeting when news of the Globes bifurcation came in over the brigade tactical net.
Captain Rodriquez was looking down at her notes when the question came. She looked up, frowning. "One half, the smaller one, appears to be heading towards Stockton, and will pass over it in approximately fifteen minutes. It's really moving slowly, much slower than we know they are capable of. Division thinks that from the small size of the Globe, and the indications of battle damage, that it is damaged in some way. Or, the commander of the ship has learned restraint. We'll probably never know.
"The second half is moving towards Turlock. I guess they want Turkey for dinner—"
"Turkey?" broke in the commander.
"Turkeys from Turlock, Sir. Turlock's primary export. If they land south of the Tuolumne, we can slow them down at the river. If north of it, then we'll only have the Stanislaus and a bunch of aqueducts to work with."
"Ok, but we really need to worry about the smaller bloc at the moment. Stockton is due West of here, and there are no significant terrain features between there and here and Phase Line Nickel." 'Here' was the small town of Farmington, where the command post was currently set up.
The battalion commander looked down at the floor of the schoolroom in which they were standing or sitting on the little people's desks. "Ok. First priority is the smaller one. Sixes?", he said, to get the company commander's attention. "Move out from the diamond to a line along highway 4, and then move up to the positions at Phase Line Cobalt. Don't go into the hull downs until you get word, though. I might need to swing you around to Nickel on the south front, based on what both halves do. If the small half passes north of Lodi, then they're out of 3d Brigade's Area of Operations, and into Somebody Else's Problem." The colonel looked around. "Questions? Suggestions? Points?"
"Infantry Support?" asked one of the company commanders.
"Sorry, we're organic for this one. Infantry are spread out all over hell and gone, because the overall defense plan says they should be. Further deponent sayeth not. If they drop into our AO, we will get some crunchies passing through lines. In what condition they are, again, further deponent sayeth not. Next question?"
"Refugee streams," said Captain Crupi, the S5. "They've already started coming up highway 4 and on through up into the mountains."
"Right, those would be the smart ones." responded the colonel. "They stay off the roads. This is all farmland, they walk through the orchards and along the drainage ditches. Orderly vehicles can pass through. Anyone being disorderly can walk. This shouldn't be a problem since they widened the 4 from two lanes to four. Anything else?"
Captain Rodriquez had her AIDs ear bug on and was listening to something. "Sir, the small one is breaking up and landing. Looks like just south of Stockton ... Brigade confirms, the Metropolitan Airport."
"And the big one?"
"Still moving more Eastwards than North, Sir. Maybe pass just North of Turlock, North of the Tuolumne. Might continue beyond the Sierras, Sir."
"Ok, we ignore it for now. Boogie on out, Ladies and Gentlemen."
The minefields to their front were all clearly marked, because it was assumed that the horses couldn't read English or Spanish. That didn't stop the odd group of refugees from trying their luck, however. The only incident so far had a family group killing themselves by defeating a triple concertina wire fence, and detouring around a warning sign, and then triggering an anti-personnel mine when one of the children kicked it ... The mines were meant for the horses, so to solve the problem, one tank gunner from each platoon position was ordered to fire three round bursts from their co-axial 7.62 machine guns at anyone trying to not use a cleared channel.
Which meant that anyone not on a road ran the risk of catching a round fired either at them, or at someone else. Anyone who wanted to complain about this was offered a lift back to the Brigade Forward Headquarters in Modesto, which was currently in the state of being overrun by ninety thousand Posleen invaders.
Surprisingly, nobody took them up on the offer.
In addition to the tanks along the battle line, there were also several hundred bunkered manjacks, pre-emplaced by Army Corps of Engineer assets at the same time as they had built the tank hull-downs.
Each bunker had three high-capacity 7.62mm M60 machineguns, manjacks, each with its own 50,000 round battleboxes of ammo.
"Tango six-two, this is Tango four-eight, We've got a situation developing here, Sir, over" Tom said into the tactical radio set, as he looked down over a map projected by his AID.
There was a short pause, then a voice which Tom recognized as Birch's replacement. "Tango four-eight, this is Six-Two Foxtrot, wait, over."
Tom looked up from the hood of his hum-vee, where the map was being projected, to look out over the valley towards the sounds of thunder coming from the Stockton landing. Almost immediately, the radio squawked back to life.
"Tango four-eight, this is Tango six-two actual. Talk to me, Master Sergeant," replied Captain Rundle, still acting as the working S3. Division Headquarters had promised the battalion commander a replacement S3 as soon as they could find one. Nobody, from the battalion commander down, was pressing them however, confident as they were in the team they had now.
"Sir, Stockton is being chewed up and spit out by the horses. I doubt we'll get anyone out of there who was still within the city limits when the landing hit dirt."
"How is this a problem for us?" Rundle sounded a bit peeved, but Tom knew it wasn't about his comments. He was probably still fighting off the Brigade Three's "helpful staff". "Less refugees. Improves the human genome. We're selecting for intelligence."
"Whoa. Bloodthirsty, Sir. But that isn't the problem. The other half of the lander looks like it is about to drop onto Turlock. They've been wandering around up there indecisively for a good ten minutes."
"Maybe they are trying to figure out what a turkey is?"
"No way, Sir. Posleen are a strict dichotomy: Can I eat that? Yes, No. Maybe they're having a turf war up there. Whatever. But if they get off their butts and land, that means that we'll be trying to entice both sets into Zinc. And if that happens, we'll do what we can to whittle them down, but I don't think we can do that from Cobalt."
"No, the Turkeys would roll right up our South flank. Suggestions?"
"We may need to pull back as far as Charon, Sir, before either the 'turkeys' or the ... the ... well, cows get here."
"Cows?"
"Only critter ever to come out of Stockton, Sir."
"Right. So you believe that if the cows turn this way at all after the turkeys land, then there is no way we can hold Cobalt."
"Right, Sir."
"Where are you right now, Master Sergeant?"
"With Bravo, Sir. They've got a pretty good sight line in the direction of the Stockton landings. Can't see all the way there, but can see a goodly distance."
"Ok, I'll get with the Six. Anything else?"
"Not at this time, Sir."
"Roger, Master Sergeant. Isn't what you are doing the job of the Assistant S3?"
"Fresh out of officers, Sir."
"Humph. Ok. Tango six-two, out."
The tank commander of tank Bravo Three Two stuck his head out of the hatch and looked around. Spotting the S3 NCOIC, he called him over. "Something odd on the thermals, Master Sergeant," said the staff sergeant. "You wanna take a look?"
"Sure, Sergeant. Any reason to hop into a tank nowadays is a good one. Let's see what you've got." Tom grabbed hold of the tow cable that was strapped to the outside of the turret to steady himself, as he stepped across the gap between the wall of the engineer-built hull down position and the M1Es fender.
He threw a momentary look at the quad-pod of 25mm 'Bushmaster' cannons on the near side of the turret and shrugged ruefully. He'd like to track down whoever it was that thought that up and slap him around a bit. Sure, the firepower inherent to eight bushmasters mounted coaxially on the turret sounded like a good idea. But did the guy know how much damned Ammo those things could go through? The 25mm ammo bunkers almost doubled the size of the turret, in both width and depth, and added almost a foot around the bustle rack, completely covering the blowoff panels for the main gun round bunkers.
And even then, the guns could go through all of the available ammo in less than twenty seconds of firing on full auto.
Probably some ex-infantry guy. Damned crunchies.
The tank commander had dropped down inside the turret and stood behind the breach of the main gun, the loader having scrunched further around to make room. Tom hopped up onto the turret to allow the gunner the ability to traverse the turret without having to worry about ripping the Master Sergeant's legs off. "Ok, Gunner. Show me what you are looking at."
"Right, Master Sergeant. See these glows here? Those are refugees, they were pretty clear a moment ago, but now they just seem to be standing there looking around." The gunner traversed and elevated the gun sights a bit to the left. "And this glow here is what it seems they are looking at. Any idea what that is?"
The thermal device showed a glowing spot just cresting the distant horizon momentarily before settling back down behind the hill. Tom reached to the side of the display and punched the magnify button just as it started to bob back up.
Tom froze as he recognized the thing. The Barwhon and Diess campaigns had generated a lot of intel over the past several years, much of which he'd been able to see as part of his various positions during that time, or from having been shown them by the S2 as 'Hey, wanna see something cool?' type video shots ... and even had found a lot of them on the internet using any number of civilian search engines.
What he was looking at was the perfect thermal signature of a tenar, one of the 'flying saucers' that the Posleen leader caste rode. He gulped. The vehicle was up in the air, and he doubted that it was traveling alone. Probably the mass of its oolt'os would be found just below the horizon created by the range of low hills just to its front. "Ok. Sergeant, take your hands off the cadillacs. Do. It. Now." Once the sergeant had clearly released the turret traverse and gun elevation handles, Tom continued. "Estimate the range on that, Sergeant. Do not, and I repeat, do not use the laser rangefinder."
"Um." The sergeant reached up and flipped the sight from thermal to visual, then magnified. "I dunno Master Sergeant. Maybe ten clicks?"
Tom grabbed his AID. "AID, I need the battalion artillery push and the FSO."
"Frequency enabled. Your call sign is Tango four-eight, the Battalion Fire Support Officer's call sign is Foxtrot eight-eight."
"Thanks. 88. How fitting." Tom looked down into the turret. "You'd better get back up here Sergeant. The show is now. AID, estimate angle and range to that tenar, and its offset from the nearest Target Reference Point."
"Yes, Master Sergeant. The Posleen vehicle is at TRP 3, left 300, up 300. Would you like me to call it in?"
"No, thanks, AID." Tom looked out over the sea of grass, to where he could just make out the floating vehicle that was moving slightly towards them, and slightly to the North. There were now signs of movement along the range of hills. No doubt, the accompanying oolt'os. "No, AID, I think that this one is on me. Foxtrot eight-eight, this is Tango four-eight, adjust fire over."
"Roger, Tango four-eight, this is Foxtrot eight-eight, authenticate Alpha Tango over."
"AID?"
"Romeo, Master Sergeant."
"Foxtrot eight eight, this is Tango four-eight. I authenticate Romeo. From objective Deimos. TRP 3, left 200 up 200, horses in the open, over."
"Roger Tango four-eight, welcome to the net. From Deimos, TRP 3, left 200 up 200, horses in the open. Six rounds One-Fife-Fife Super Quick fused HE, wait over."
Tom watched as the tenar moved towards the offset that he gave. "C'mon, c'mon," he mumbled.
"Shot, over," came the voice of Foxtrot eight-eight out of the AID.
"Shot, out," replied Tom. Far to his rear, he could hear the sound of a single cannon battery firing.
After several seconds, the voice from the AID said "Splash, over."
"Splash, out," replied Tom. Off in the distance a perfect hexagon of 155 HE rounds detonated, just beyond the range of hills. Tom could clearly see the broken body of one of the horses being thrown clear by the blast. "Fire for effect. Drop 500 right 200 repeat."
"This is eight-eight, roger. Fire for effect, drop 200 right 50 repeat." Tom watched the impacts through his binoculars, continuing to call in corrections as the mass of Posleen normals swarmed out of the way of the incoming artillery.
As this was happening, the tank commander had called up his platoon leader and had made a sitrep. The third platoon leader had repeated it up to the Bravo company commander. The Bravo commander had duly notified the Battalion S3 shop, who didn't bother notifying the battalion commander, because the battalion commander had one of his auxiliary radios on that same frequency.
"Tango-Tango-Tango, this is Tango six-six. Battalion fire! Beehive! Tanks, troops in the open! Range eight-five-zero-zero meters! At my command!"
And fifty eight tank loaders loaded fifty eight 120mm anti-personnel flechette rounds and announced "Up!" almost as one voice ...
And fifty eight tank drivers started fifty eight turbine engines ...
And fifty eight tank commanders designated enemy concentrations or enemy tenars as their pre-configured orders determined ...
And fifty eight gunners laid in their guns on the targets so designated ...
"Master Sergeant!" yelled the tank commander of Bravo Three Two over the sound of the turbine engine and the turret's hydraulics replenisher which chose that exact moment to squeal.
"Yeah?" replied Tom, as he continued to look down range through his binoculars.
"You might want to get down, Sir. All hell is about to break loose!"
Tom replayed what he had listened to but not heard in his mind. "Holy shit. Roger that, Sergeant. You keep your head down, too!" Tom jumped down off the tank and sprinted over to the hum-vee. He climbed in and started rummaging through his pockets for hearing protectors. Beatty handed him a pair, then started the vehicle's engine.
"Thanks," Tom said, taking the little spongy buds. "You ever see a battalion fire, Beatty?" he asked as he poked them into his ears.
"Yes, Sir. Fort Irwin, couple years back. A thing of beauty. It's a thing to warm even a tanker's heart."
In the back seat of the vehicle was an array of radio receivers. Tom turned up the sound on the one tuned to the battalion frequency.
"What's he waiting for, Sir?" asked Beatty.
"Probably a high enough concentration of the horses. Probably wishing we had some sort of air support to at least get a picture of what's happening out there."
"Fire! And keep on firing you sorry sons a' bitches!"
And fifty eight gunners pulled fifty eight pairs of triggers, and fifty eight 120mm smoothbore guns fired, almost simultaneously.
It was, as Private Beatty said, a thing of beauty.
A thing of beauty that lasted for almost a second, before all hell broke loose.
"Holy shit! Get us out of here!" barked Tom, as the mass of Posleen returning fire rent the air above their heads.
Beatty threw the vehicle into reverse and skidded around in a half circle. As soon as he was clear, he rocketed off back down the hill towards the S3s current location.
"Sir!"
"Yeah, Beatty?"
"You realize I've heard you say 'Holy shit' at least three times in the past ten minutes? You don't normally swear, Sir."
"Beatty?"
"Yes, Sir?"
"Why do you keep calling me Sir? I work for a living."
"Yes, Sir. One hears things, Sir."
"You call me 'Sir' one more time, Beatty, and I'll cap your ass myself."
"You wouldn't do that, Sir."
"You think?"
"Yes, Sir. You might need me to save your butt again sometime."
The 'beehive' flechette round had a secondary timer on it that determined how far it had flown, based on nominal speed of flight from the time of firing. The top of the round had a dial on it that the loader set to the distance required, generally about fifty to a hundred meters in front of where the enemy infantry concentration was found.
Once the round reached its range, it detonated, spraying thousands upon thousands of finned, four centimeter long aluminum darts out in a cone in the direction of travel. It had a spread not unlike a shotgun round.
While one or even five of the darts hitting one of the Posleen was not a sure fire way to kill the horse, hitting one of them with a thirty or forty certainly was. And since the Kessentai rode on top of open-topped vehicles, it meant that they were just as vulnerable to the weapon as their normals.
Beehive rounds weren't as classy as a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle, but they did the job ... and since there were still several thousand aluminum darts that would miss the prime target, they were almost guaranteed to still hit something. Consequently, the first wave of Posleen that met the 'C Forty Niners' on phase line Cobalt suffered almost 70% casualties in the opening salvo.
Unfortunately, it also meant that the score of waves coming up behind them now knew where the enemy was. Almost immediately, Posleen survivors from the first wave, as well as the follow on waves snapped around and returned fire.
Most of the normals in this group were carrying the Posleen equivalent to a flechette shotgun, and were miles out of range. There were, however, those in the crowd with 1mm and the odd 3mm railgun, as well as the much more dangerous automatic HVM guns and plasma cannons.
When ever one of the centaurs fired a plasma cannon, however, it was like lighting a beacon inside the tanks' thermal sights. Those horses so designated received a lot of counter fire and were quickly taken out of the equation. Even then, the plasma guns had to be fired first before the tanks could counter them.
Whenever a kessentai got sloppy and popped up too high on his tenar, they would acquire special attention, also. But the HVM launchers amongst the enemy were difficult to spot amongst the masses down range, and it was those that were starting to take their toll. Brava Three Two was one of the first of the First of the 149th to end up on the wrong end of an automatic HVM, which stitched its turret and peeled the top six inches back like a can of sardines.
One of the benefits of the rounds being hypervelocity, however, was that they didn't tend towards spalling the inside face of the armor. The staff sergeant tank commander, unfortunately, happened to be popped up and using his binocs for a direct look when it happened. The hypervelocity rounds cut him in half. Surprisingly, the vehicle was still running, and without prompting the driver kicked it into reverse and backed back down the back side of the hill their hull down position had been cut into.
With the top of the turret gone, so to were the gun sights. With no way to aim the main gun, the tank swung around and rabbitted back up the track to the road. It swung by the company command post to let them know they were out of combat and then continued up highway four. It wouldn't stop until it was beyond phase line Zinc and the Farmington Dam.
Behind them, the tanks of Bravo company, as well as those of Bravo's sister companies, continued to pour fire down upon their enemies. And all the while the artillery continued to pound the enemy concentrations.
Over the next twenty minutes, thirty five thousand Posleen normals and over seventy Kessentai would die as the massed fire of the battalion artillery and direct fire from the tanks rained HE from 155mm and 8in guns and 120mm mortars, 120mm beehive and sabot rounds, and 25mm HEAP from over four hundred bushmaster auto cannons.
During that twenty minutes, a large collection of broken up units of infantry and support groups passed through the lines, coming from the fall of Stockton. The support units continued on up into the foothills, while those portions of the infantry still able to fight took up positions along cobalt.
As the centauroids pulled up close and the tanks had run out of their primary ammo, the fight degenerated down to .50 caliber and 7.62 from the co-ax and loader's and commander's machine guns, as well as the bushmasters from the infantry's Bradley AFVs and AIWs. The horses were having a hard time digging out the bunkered up weapons platforms and hunkered down infantrymen.
And all the while, the artillery continued to grind the horses into dog meat.
And then the other Globe-half landed, just South of Turlock.
"Tango Tango Tango, this is six-six acting. Bugout! I say again, bugout!". As the surviving tanks pulled off phase line cobalt and turned to retreat back to copper, the mechanized infantry jumped back into their vehicles and followed. Of the 58 tanks on the line at the beginning of the engagement, only one in three made the trip and of those only two-thirds were still able to fight effectively. Over the preceding twenty minutes, the battalion's combat strength had been reduced to that of a single armor company.
Behind them, the pre-emplaced manjacks opened fire to cover their retreat as the first of the horses reached the minefield.
Tom found LTC Kuzio in the classroom being used as the field hospital, being treated for significant second and third degree burns related to plasma cannon fire. "Doesn't look too bad, Sir," he said, peering intently at the man's face.
"Fuck you, Tom. How do we look?" the man said, voice hazy under the influence of GalTech pain killers.
"The landings weren't at full strength, which is why we are still alive. Had that been a full Globe, we would have been staring at over two million of the beasties. As it is, the total amount is probably only on the order of a quarter million made it into the San Joaquin Valley.
"Surviving units are moving back to copper, where the battalion ammo details are waiting with quick-load pallets." Tom rubbed his eyes and sat on the edge of a nearby desk. "The second landing came down South of the Tuolumne, so they've got to get across that, then the Stanislaus. We've asked the Southern units to not kick the anthill yet, to give us a chance to ammo up and get some food in us."
"What have we got?"
"Thirteen tanks still at full capabilities. Another five are engineering failures, and are being worked on right now. And another six are combat damaged beyond the ability of local maintenance to repair. They are being hauled back up to depot maintenance at Murphy's."
"Dead and wounded?"
"Of the 232 tank crew, 173 are dead, another fifteen, including yourself, are wounded and won't be returning to duty any time soon. That leaves 44 still doing their jobs. We've rounded out the crews using company assets, company hum-vee drivers, etc to ensure that the eighteen tanks we have left are full up on crews."
"Command structure?"
Tom rubbed his forehead. "XOs dead, Sir. So's CPT Rundle. Alpha company is gone. Delta has one tank left active and two of the combat casualties on the way to depot maintenance. Charlie and Bravo are the only companies that still have officers, Beckman from Charlie is the only surviving commander. Bravo's got that fresh-out-a AOBC two LT that arrived last week.
"And I believe the rest of the staff section officers are still around. Sergeant Major Timpton is around someplace. Oh, and we've picked up some infantry assets from around the Stockton area."
The battalion commander lay there for a moment, not saying anything. Finally, he sighed. "Ok, consolidate everyone into two light combined arms companies. Either armor heavy or one armor one infantry heavy, depending on how many infantry we've got."
"Ok, Sir. One armor, one infantry."
"Based on the enemy strengths, put the infantry heavy company facing the lighter front."
"That'd be the Stockton side, Sir. We gave them a beating. G2 thinks the infantry accounted for about 30% of the initial landing around Stockton before the retreat, and then we took out 75% of the pozzies that came North and East. There might still be 50,000 of the centaurs out there to our West, but they are busy in Stockton and trying to avoid the artillery fire." Tom didn't think about how they were busy in Stockton. "It's the Turlock landing that's going to be hairy. That one might be at least twice the size of the Stockton one."
"But they've got two rivers to cross and have three times the distance to travel to get here," said the colonel quietly. "And the better part of a division to get through." At the door to the room, there was a disturbance, which the colonel seemed to expect.
Tom looked over and saw the S1 coming through the door. "Good Evening, Captain Harris," Tom said, politely, albeit tiredly.
The captain simply nodded at Tom in response and said the battalion commander "I've got the orders, Sir."
"Do it," replied the commander. He turned to Tom and said "You will sign where you are told to sign, Master Sergeant."
Startled by the unexpected order, Tom blinked momentarily. "Yes, Sir?" he said, ending in a rising note.
The S1 started laying out sheets of paper. "Sign here, please, Master Sergeant Weaver," he said, dryly, holding out a pen.
"What is it, Sir?" Tom asked the S1 as he took the pen.
Before the captain could answer, the battalion commander said harshly "I said sign it, Weaver. I didn't say read it."
Tom straightened up and looked at the commander. Just from the way it was being done, he knew what was happening.
"Now, Weaver."
"I'm not--"
"Are you a warrior, damn you, or aren't you? Sign the damned papers, Weaver, and that's a damned order," yelled the commander, before collapsing back down in a fit of coughing. The attending medic rushed up to check on her patient.
Tom looked down at the papers, his face hardening, and started signing.
The Posleen landing South of Turlock was induced to crossing the Tuolumne River by the simple expedient of shooting at them. This got the entire mass moving Northwards.
The river itself hadn't flooded as high as was hoped, the time of the year meaning that the reservoirs were well below capacity. So the horses were able to cross carefully when they found the previously arranged fords.
Then they moved north through Modesto, which was almost a ghost town given the large streams of refugees that had fled since the Stockton landing. Modesto, they found, had the annoying tendency to explode also.
It was a large, mostly frustrated band of Posleen that first found a trail of brass ingots leading to Riverbank, and decided to follow it. Brass wasn't as exciting as gold and other of the heavier metals, but the net still considered it a valuable commodity. So they gathered it up.
Other groups found other trails, and since all the trails led to the same place, there was the occasional fratricidal dust up as squabbles happened. Eventually the kessentai sorted out who could lay claim to what and, having decided that the fence enclosed area that they now surrounded appeared to be the location of large quantities of the ingots, they charged it.
And the world's largest claymore mine exploded in their faces. And then yet more of the fuscirto Threshkreen started shooting at them again from across the river.
Refugees of the infantry and armor units from their south started trickling in the following morning, first heavily damaged but still mobile tracked vehicles with skeleton crews, but then combat worthy but short on ammo Abrams and Bradleys, followed eventually by equipment fighting a running battle with the front edges of the vastly reduced Posleen hoard from the Turlock landings.
Major Tom Weaver took them all in, strengthened his lines around Copper, passed along the damaged and wounded and refugees through and up into the hills. Ammo wasn't a problem yet, so every piece of combat ordinance was reloaded with its basic load. By the time the invaders reached phase line Copper, he would be back up to full strength as an Armor battalion, as well as having at least two companies of mechanized infantry in support, and all the artillery that he could want.
Everyone else was passed along to phase line Zinc, and the Drains.
What he didn't want, however, but what he was looking at getting in the very near future, was close on to two hundred thousand centaur invaders.
The bright side of that equation was that the invaders had started out with twice that many.
Phase line Zinc ran North-South across a draw that ran Eastwards up into the foothills of the Sierras, due East of Farmington, along highway 4. The draw started out as a single cut between two high walls, but split immediatly into a pair, one running North of East, the other running South East. Collectively and individually called 'The Drains'.
Highway 4 followed the Northern of the two drains, and ran between the two natural and man-made walls that defined the draw. The area between the walls was Objective Hammer.
The South East half ran for over four kilometers of high-walled canyon, called Objective Throat, before it opened out into a many-lobed flat area behind the Farmington Dam. The flat area was part of the flood control plain that made up a large section of the spill area of several large reservoirs further up the mountain side. The flood plain itself was bounded by serious natural terrain. The plain was given the name of Objective Anvil.
Major Weaver and the 1-149 Armor's job was to poke the Posleen in the nose to get their attention (which Tom conceded, was much easier done than said), and then to make a hasty withdrawal up towards the Anvil. As the Posleen followed, they would be serviced first by the First Brigade, 40th Infantry Division, Mechanized, who currently sat on the high ground in engineer built bunkers and firing positions along both sides of the Throat.
Any Posleen who wandered up towards the Hammer was entitled to the services of the First Brigade, similarly emplaced.
But because the bulk of the forces were arrayed around the Anvil, that is where the Posleen needed to be. For that reason, the C-Forty Niners would need to make their withdrawal under fire, because anything else would risk causing the Posleen force to lose interest, and not make it to the Anvil, where the 41st Infantry Division, in its entirety, was to be found.
In engineer constructed devensive positions, on the high ground.
All told there were about nine thousand "Shooters" arrayed around the hills, along with several thousand manjack emplacements, several tens of thousands of anti-personelle mines, and the odd civilian refugee who had brought their own weapons to the party.
All told, it came out to about a 20:1 ratio of horses to shooters. Tom did the math, and decided it was going to be close.
The view down over phase line Copper was unnerving. The horses, still at over five miles distance, looked like nothing more than Amazonian army ants as they flowed northwards across the grass cow pastures. Even through the binoculars, Tom was having difficulty making out individual Posleen, however the odd God-King on his Flying Saucer stood out like a metallic leaf against the sickly yellow background created by the mass of normals.
Almost continuous artillery fire landed amongst the massed invaders, but they flowed over, around and through the momentary interruptions like a lake around rain drops.
"Entertain a question, Sir?"
"Sure," Tom replied, without dropping the binoculars.
"You told that gunner from Bravo company to estimate the range to the saucer out at Cobalt. You didn't let him use the laser range finder. Why?"
Tom didn't answer for a moment. "I dunno. Those things are supposed to have an excellent sensor suite. I know that our passive devices, like the thermal sights, don't register on them except as just a power source. But I don't know how they'd react if you bounced a laser off of them. They might consider that a hostile act and react immediately." Tom shrugged, finally bringing the binoculars down to look at Beatty. "Didn't want to risk starting the furball early."
Private Beatty nodded his understanding, and went back to staring down range through the hum-vee's windscreen.
"That's the second time you've done that."
"Done what, Sir."
"Commented about something I said, but I don't remember you being there when I said it."
"Oh, that. I think your AID likes you. It broadcasts everything you say to this radio, here," the driver said, pointing over his shoulder at one of the PRC receivers behind his back. "Has done, ever since you took down Birch."
"AID?"
"Yes, Major Weaver?"
"Is that true?"
"I don't broadcast everything, Sir."
"Thanks ... I think." Tom brought the binocs back up and looked at the mass of horses. "AID, battalion push, please."
"Enabled, Sir."
"Thank you--AID, what's the battalion callsign today?"
"Romeo One Victor, Sir. You are officially Seven-Three and your driver is 'echo'."
"Thanks. Victor-Victor-Victor! This is Victor six-six. Remember. Half your ammo loadouts, then disengage and retreat to the throat. No resupply this side of 'game over, dude.' ... Victor, this is Victor six-six. Engage, out. AID! Roll the thunder."
And with that, the Five hundred men and women of Task Force Copper engaged 200,000 Posleen with their direct fire weapons. All the while, two divisions worth of artillery rained fire upon the invaders' heads.
Tom sighed. "Okay, Beatty, take us to the first line of the Throat. We'll probably need to be standing there to catch the retreating units and make sure their guns are pointed in the right direction."
Fifteen very long and very loud minutes later, vehicles started pulling off the line and retreating back from Copper into the Throat. The first vehicles to arrive were guided into the first line at the mouth of the draw, once those positions were filled the follow on units were guided up the right hand draw to the positions there.
Eventually, no more vehicles left Copper, as the only vehicles left on Copper were burning cheerfully.
As the horses came up over the top of the berm that marked the phase line, they were engaged by the line at the mouth, again with one half their remaining ammo. This had the correct effect, and the wave of horses turned eastwards.
The 120mm smoothbore loaded with a sabot round is just as effective as a .50 caliber sniper rifle ... and has a range that is four times longer. By the time the Posleen wave crested the berm, most of the God-Kings from the mass were no longer living, or had gotten down off their saucers having found them to be bullet magnets.
A lot of the horses in the mass were, by this time, effectively feral, un-bonded to God-Kings because their God-King had been killed. That didn't stop them from following the mass towards the fire coming from between the two hilltops.
As the mass turned, the line at the mouth backed out of their positions and fled up the Throat, bypassing the second line.
As the horses entered the mouth, the second line got their attention and then also fled up the Throat.
And the artillery continued to pound them as the horses turned to follow.
"Will you look at that," said Tom from his position with the second line as they fell back. Edward Beatty, currently serving as the Battalion Commander's hum-vee driver was a bit unhappy about being the only unarmored vehicle amongst the two platoons' worth of tanks and infantry AFVs.
He did not 'look at that'. "Busy drivin', Sir. What else should I be looking at?"
"They bought it. Private? Do not hesitate to outrun the tank line. I'm beginning to feel a bit exposed here ..."
"Yes, Sir!" he said, jamming the accelerator to the floor.
"AID, what do we have left?"
"Twenty four tanks, eighteen AFV. Ammo supplies read about 25% across the board, Major."
"Ok. Battalion push ... Victor this is Victor six-six. Get behind the dam and back on line. Use up every last bit of ammo you have, than head for the flood basin egress points. Do not dawdle, and don't wait for stragglers. Six-six, out."
"How many you think will make it, Sir?" asked Beatty, concentrating hard on the gravel road they were following.
Tom, eyes closed, didn't reply.
"AID, what do we have left?"
"Six tanks, twelve AFV, Major. Ammo supplies read 0% across the board."
Tom opened his eyes as they sped across the flood plain. The wave of invaders were still several hundred meters short of the dam, but they were being hammered by the artillery, the bunkered manjacks, and 2d Brigade. Tom hoped that it would keep them beat back enough to allow the remains of his task force to get "around the corners" and to the egress points.
The egress points started out as zigzag tunnels, just wide enough for a human. Survivors would abandon their vehicles and run for it on foot.
Also slowing down the horses was the problem treacherous footing, of trying to run over the top of 50,000 of your dead fellows. And where there wasn't a dead centaur, the ground was six inch deep slick mud made up of two parts dust and one part Posleen blood.
The hum-vee pulled up at one of the corners and waited, watching as the remaining vehicles bolted for the exits. Along the dam were a score of burning vehicles. Any wounded who had made it out of the tanks and AFVs alive had either made it to one of the retreating AFVs, or hadn't bothered. He could still see at least ten people, prone and firing from the reverse slope of the dam.
"Idiots," Tom said, over the thundering drone of combat.
"Maybe not, Sir," replied his driver. Beatty pointed off to one side, to where an AFV stood, exit ramp down, even with the infantrymen, below the level of the dam, but not moving. "I saw that Bradley move. I think they are picking up the stragglers."
"I thought it was a maintenance casualty," Tom said.
Just then the line of infantry scrabbled backwards, almost as one, and dropped back down the flood plain, and it was clear that they were, in fact, all wounded to some extent or other. They flooded into the AFV, and once inside it took off like a rabbit as its ramp came back up. It headed for the nearest corner.
Tom was watching where the fire from the surrounding hillsides was concentrated, using it to judge where the front of the Posleen wave was. "I don't ..."
Horses began cresting the dam, using the same access ramps that the human vehicles had used earlier. The fleeing AFV's bushmaster was pointed over the back deck, and it opened fire as soon as there were targets. Horses exploded backwards as they caught 25mm explosive rounds, knocking follow ons back also.
Unfortunately, one of the invaders not so blessed happened to be carrying a 3mm railgun, and that horse turned to fire at the fleeing AFV. One of the incoming rounds hit the Bradley and tumbled it, end over end, where it came to a halt and then suffered secondary explosions.
"Idiot," said Tom.
"Hang on, Sir!" said Beatty, as he floored the accelerator and the hum-vee zipped backwards. As soon as they had the basalt wall between them and the Posleen, he spun the wheel and bolted off towards the clearly marked exit point.
Later, Tom sat in the canteen, in his grimy, sweat soaked uniform, listlessly eating a bowl of soup. In the distant background, he could hear the thunder of combat as the Posleen came onto the anvil and were hammered into paste. In a distant corner of the room, Beatty sat staring disinterestedly at his own meal.
Tom sat, wondering why they had all had to die. They had been that close to safety.
There was a disturbance at the doorway and Tom looked up with dead, read-rimmed eyes to see Colonel Binghamton come in, followed closely by a Lieutenant Colonel who looked vaguely familiar. Also in the group was a very, very angry looking CSM Timpton.
The brigade commander looked around the room, and then, seeing Tom, headed in his direction. "Good afternoon, Major Weaver. May we bother you for a moment?"
"Certainly, Sir," Tom said, pushing his half-eaten soup away and standing to acknowledge the man. As the group sat, Tom nodded at the Sergeant Major, seeing him for the first time since leaving the Modesto barracks.
Timpton nodded in return, however did not lose the angry, burning glare that he leveled at no one in particular.
"I don't believe you've met my new S3, Lieutenant Colonel Feckette," said the colonel, introducing the third man.
Tom froze, then turned to look at the man directly. At the name, Tom remembered who he was. Years of mental meanderings about 'what I'd do if...' played back over his mind. And he grinned evilly. "Holy, Ape Fucking Shit, Sir. It's good to see you again. And how's the family?"
Timpton froze, and then burst out laughing as LTC Feckette turned red in anger in turn. "Do we know each other, Major?"
"Well, shit, Sir! I guess you don't recognize me, it's been, what, fourteen years? I took my wife's name when we married, which is probably it. You might remember me as First Lieutenant Tomas Paulson, Sir," said Tom, standing and offering his hand to shake.
The light colonel snapped a look at Timpton, who was still failing to control his mirth at Tom's reaction, realizing it for what it was.
"And still an L-T-C, I see," Tom said to Feckette, looking at his pristine, pressed BDU uniform, internally suppressed anger making him careless. "Shit, well, don't worry, Sir. The promotion opportunity for combat vets around here just went through the roof, you know. Christ, I started out this mess as an E5, just yesterday I was a Master Sergeant. You should make Colonel in no time. Sir."
Every time Tom put stress on a word, it was a calculated insult. Tom's own belief in God was based on "Don't bother me, and I won't bother You", but he really detested anyone who waved their beliefs in your face and then used it to justify their own actions.
Tom turned back to the Colonel. "S3, Sir? What happened to Lieutenant Colonel Jubal?"
Colonel Binghamton frowned, looking back and forth between the evilly grinning Tom, and CSM Timpton, and the apoplectic Feckette. "Lieutenant Colonel Kochan was killed in an auto accident last night. Colonel Jubal's my new XO. Am I missing something here?"
"Long story, Sir," replied Tom. "What can I do for you Sir? You obviously came down here personally to find me."
"The horses are figuring out that to head up to the Anvil is to die. So they've started looking elsewhere. We need you to go out and kick the anthill again."
Tom looked hard at the Colonel, then nodded. "Okay, Sir. Can do. What have I got to work with?"
"We've reconstituted two companies worth of the 1-149 Armor. Your still the battalion CO ... which reminds me." The colonel reached into a pocket and pulled out silver oak leaves and tossed them onto the table. "Battalion Sixes are Lieutenant Colonels. General Dekalli is the authority for this, but I suggested it." As the rank insignia hit the table in front of Tom, Timpton collapsed into helpless laughter, his anger totally dissolved.
Tom looked over at Feckette. "See?" he said.
Thirty one tanks sat in rows, turbine engines idling over waiting for the word to move out. The tanks hadn't been the problem, tracking down enough qualified crewman had. Many of the vehicles had three person crews, the loader position being taken over by the gunner, and the tank commander firing the weapons from the TC position.
Of the ninety nine men and women in the vehicles, exactly two had been in the 1-149th two days previously. Both had worked in the S3 shop, one as the NCOIC, the other as one of the hum-vee drivers.
Tom was looking over the maps one last time. The Posleen force had backed off from the Mouth and were in the process of consolidating or reorganizing, or whatever it was that the horses did.
The ones out there hadn't been routed, they had been the ones with the God-Kings who were smart enough not to enter the draw in the first place.
Tom's job was to take his two companies down through the Hammer, poke the remaining Posleen in the nose, and then retreat back up the hill. He was to lead the enemy up the Hammer, because the ammunition was critical on the Throat and Anvil sides, and because the manjacks on the Hammer side were still available.
Posleen plasma cannon could take out the manjack bunkers, and so the bunkers on the other side had been reduced to blasted and scorched rubble during the fighting.Tom's job was to take thirty one tanks out into the jaws of over sixty thousand remaining Posleen invaders, and kick them in the tonsils. These were the smart ones, and poking them in the nose might not be enough.
"Victor, this is Victor six-six ..." Tom started to say, but then saw a hum-vee come rushing up.
A figure hopped out of the still moving vehicle and ran up to the tank. Without permission, he hopped up onto the front fender, moved over to the loader's position and told the woman there to get into the gunner's seat.
"What are you doing here, Timpton?" asked Tom, not in the mood for games.
Timpton didn't say anything, just moved into the loaders position and put the spare CVC over his head and ears. "Good evening, Sir. Permission to ride along?"
"Get out of here, Toby."
"Sorry, Sir? There must be something wrong with this helmet. The intercom doesn't seem to be receiving. Daylight's burnin' Sir. Don't you think we should be out of here?"
Tom frowned at the sergeant major. "Remind me to kick your ass when we get back. Victor, this is Victor six-six, wedge by company, Alpha, then Bravo. Move out!" Tom waited while Alpha company pulled out of the bivouac, moved on line and then vee'd out into an echelon. "Driver, move out," he said over the intercom. "Pull in behind the Alpha point vehicle ... Stay back about three tank lengths."
Behind them, Bravo pulled out and formed up.
Normally, a maneuver like this by a scratch built unit could expect to go to hell in a hand basket in a hurry. Coordination of this nature would require weeks of practice before a unit showed any sign of coherency. Practice, or GPS computers and route finding software built into the engine speed and steering controls.
Tom found that he liked the new navigation software that the drivers had to work with. It made ARTEPs a breeze with the purely mechanical stuff, and let the teams concentrate on the important stuff like gunnery practice.
As the two wedges passed out of the Hammer into the Mouth, heading due West, the tanks' thermal sights started picking up hotspots. "Victor, this is Vic-six-six. Alpha, echelon left. Bravo echelon right. I will be the point. Battalion fire! Whatever's loaded! Whatever's moving! At my command!"
"You call that a fire command, Sir?" asked Beatty from the driver's compartment over the intercom, laughing hysterically.
"Sabot up!" announced Timpton, as he loaded the round and pushed the safety forward into the armed position.
"Sabot indexed!" replied the gunner. "Saucer Identified!"
"Fire!"
"Target!" announced the gunner a moment later, as a distant tenar disintegrated and then exploded with the actinic glare of an antimatter containment failure.
"Gunner, six rounds Beehive, Troops!" yelled Tom over the intercom, over the ripping sounds of the coax quad-pod bushmasters.
Tom popped his head out of the turret momentarily and looked around, counting burning tracks as return fire picked off members of the thundering herd. Thirty seconds later, the gunner announced "Rounds complete! Gunner! Co-ax! Troops!" and opened back up with the quad-pod.
"Victor, Vic-six-six! About FACE! Forward MARCH! Quick time MARCH!"
Eighteen tanks spun around in narrow bends, their turrets remaining pointed in the direction of the enemy thanks to their four layer stabilization equipment. Two others, who'd had their antennae shot away, continued towards the enemy for several seconds longer until their crews noticed that they were now alone. By that time, the Posleen sensors had noticed them. Neither succeeded in making their turns before they exploded under the concentrated HVM and plasma cannon fire.
Behind them, the hornets nest followed.
Tom popped his head back out and looked around again. He didn't see any more tanks burning, other than the ones that were facing forward, and it looked like they had thrown off the scent. "Victor, slow down. Don't outrun the pursuit. If we do this wrong, we're just going to have to do it again!" He flipped the toggle switch over to intercom. "Driver, slow down."
The Mouth was approaching quickly, but now the hoard of invaders could keep up.
"TC," yelled the gunner through the intercom. "We're out of 25mm co-ax."
"Roger. Use up the beehive. TC, .50 cal, troops," Tom said, grabbing the controls for the commander's .50 caliber machinegun.
Several exciting minutes later, Beatty spoke up "There's the Mouth, Sir!"
"Thanks. Ammo check?"
CSM Timpton did a quick check. "Two 120mm Sabot. Co-ax 7.62 full up. Loader's 7.62 full up."
"Right, fire the two sabot, then go to co-ax, loader's 7.62. The Ma-Deuce is out, but I can't take the time to--"
There was a massive concussion to their left, as the wing tank on that side caught an HVM and their remaining ammo cooked off, throwing the turret clear, as the tank went up in flames.
Before anyone could react, however, the same centaur HVM gun put a round through the vehicle currently carrying the designation six-six. The round entered the turret just to the right of the main gun, passed through the gun sights without noticeably slowing, decapitated the gunner and ripped off the commander's left leg before exiting out the back of the turret where it eventually impacted with the distant wall at the back of the Mouth.
"Holly SHIT! What was that" yelled Beatty.
"Tom's hit! DRIVE DAMMIT!" Timpton grabbed Tom and pulled him down to the turret floor, yanked off his belt and tried to get a tourniquet around his upper thigh.
The vehicle lurched forward, moving quickly up to its top governed speed of 60 miles an hour, and Beatty guided over and up onto the highway 4 road bed. He ignored what the tracks of the sixty ton vehicle would be doing to the road, however.
The damage to Tom's leg was too high up, Timpton found, and he had to press on the pressure point on the hip to stop the blood flow instead. By the glow of the turret lights and molten metal, he could see the gunners head bouncing around down by her feet. He looked away.
"Smaj?"
"Yeah, Beatty?"
"I think you should tell anyone else to bugout, too."
Timpton grabbed the toggle at his ear. "Victor, this is Victor six-six lima. BUGOUT! I say again, BUGOUT!"
"Is he going to make it, smaj?"
"I don't know."
"This came last night, Sergeant Major. Have you seen it?"
"No, Sir." Sergeant Major Timpton sat outside the hospital, on a park bench, smoking a cigarette. It was the first one he'd had in twenty years. He'd stopped, because a young Spec 4 had asked him to.
He'd been impressed enough by the kid to do so.
Colonel Binghamton handed the man a single page of computer print-out, which he read. Slowly his hand dropped back to his lap.
"Do you think he knew?"
"I don't know. Now neither will."
Private Beatty sat on the wet grass watching the sunrise. He was momentarily tempted to look over his shoulder and say something.
To: General Arkady Dekalli, Commanding
From: Canada/US RAP, Winnipeg Office
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 16:42:03 PDT
Subject: Info Request 041016:091014:16
Dear Sir:
Your request for information regarding the status and where-abouts of Caithness Paulson-Weaver, Spouse of LTC Tomas Paulson-Weaver, Allison Paulson-Weaver, their daughter, and Edward Paulson-Weaver, their son is as follows:
Caithness Paulson-Weaver: Killed in action involving Refugee Train #041015-AXT, Sat, 9 Oct 2004, enroute from Churchill to Winnipeg, engaged from orbit by Posleen kinetic energy weapon. Identification through DNA records supplied by British consulate in Toronto.
Allison Paulson-Weaver: Missing, presumed killed.
Edward Paulson-Weaver: Missing, presumed killed.
Due to the nature of the attack, and assuming that the children would have been in the same compartment with the mother, the Refugee Assistance Program believes that the children died at the same time as their mother. Since the Posleen used a KEW on the train, and there are no DNA records available for the children, it is unlikely that their bodies will be positively identified.
We are sorry to bring this news to you. Our condolences to LTC Paulson-Weaver, should you see him.
/s/Allison Paquin,
Refugee Assistance Program,
Canada/US (Winnipeg)