The War for Profit Series Omnibus (37 page)

She handed the fuel cap to Galen. “Don’t lose that.”

Galen put the cap in his left cargo pocket. “Damn you’re good.”

As she climbed off the tank she said, “I know. Now get out of my ROM site.”

The crew and the troops mounted back up. Galen stood in the cupola. The trail vehicle was right in front of him now, the battalion parked in a circle. The trail vehicle commander gave Galen a thumbs up, so Galen told his driver, “Let’s go.”

They drove past the trail vehicle and the rest of the column followed. Stone was down in the loader’s position, fast asleep, and the troop who had been driving was at the gunner’s station, looking very comfortable. One more rotation at the final refuel point would rotate the crews back to their primary duty positions. After a couple of hours, right before sunset, Galen pulled to the right of the dirt road and drove along the shoulder for half a kilometer before coming to a stop. Karen’s fueler convoy passed the tanks, zipping out ahead to set up the next ROM. Galen climbed out of the cupola and onto the glacis plate and looked at the targeting lamp attached to the gun mantle. He opened the fuel inlet valve, then spun the igniter knob to light it. A nozzle sprayed a fine mist of organic fuel into the lamp, where the light it made was reflected by the mirror in back, then focused through the thick transparent armor lens. The other tanks in the convoy wouldn’t turn on their night-targeting lamps, they could follow the glow of the hot exhaust of the tanks before them. But Galen, in the lead tank, needed the light to see where he was going. Because the route of march would not come within four hundred kilometers of
Seventh City, it was highly unlikely they would be spotted. And if they were, it was unlikely the 12
th
Legion would even know what they had spotted, and then, it would take them time to react, and then formulate a plan of attack…Galen shook those thoughts out of his head and focused on watching the road ahead, ensuring they didn’t miss a turn, making sure the column didn’t get lost in the dark. It was easy, following the marks left on the road by Karen’s vehicles. Her trail vehicle was a tracked APC which made dark, easy-to-see marks whenever it turned.

The sun rose. Galen turned off the night targeting lamp and looked through the binoculars and saw the next ROM in the distance. He waited until the tank was circling around before waking Stone and the gunner. As soon as the vehicle was parked Galen yelled, “Dismount!”

Galen walked away to stretch his legs, relieved himself, drank some water and by the time he turned around to walk back to the Hellcat, it’s fuel tank was topped off and the auxiliary fuel drum was removed, Karen herself rolling it back to the center of the ROM area. He climbed up, took the fuel cap from his pocket and screwed it in place and then slumped down in the loader’s seat and fell asleep so fast, it was like passing out.

Galen woke up for a few seconds at a time, intermittently, but dozed right back off during the forty kilometer march into the crew-rest area, where the infantry dismounted and pulled twenty-five percent security, then the final fifty kilometer push into the objective area to set up a static defense to prevent the Twelfth Legion of Doom from reaching City Eight. After the tank had been halted for about an hour, Stone gave Galen’s shoulder a hard shake.

“Wake up, Command Smaj. Master Sergeant Sevin is here.”

Galen climbed down off the tank and stood on wobbly legs, sore, aches and pains all through his body. He removed his helmet and rubbed the sides of his aching head, drank some water and breathed deep. After doing some stretches he felt better and began to notice the burnt-hair smell of the vehicle exhaust. A group was gathering in front of Stone’s tank, all the platoon leaders, company commanders and battalion staff from the infantry battalion and the Hellcat tank battalion. They stood facing Sevin in a loose half-circle. Galen walked around to stand on the right side of Sevin.

Galen looked around. For the first time he could ever remember, Sevin was the least-haggard looking soldier around. The tank crews and the infantry troops were tired, dirty and unwashed; Sevin was fresh and clean, the scent of bath soap emanating from him.

“Gentlemen,” said Galen, “it ain’t no secret, we’re going into battle.”

A low, murmured laugh made its way around the group, with some coughs from dusty throats. Galen continued, “I now cede the floor to Sevin.” Galen took two backward steps.

Sevin said, “I’m Master Sergeant Sevin, your Battle Captain for this operation. Hate me now even more, because I’m the only troop here with an electronic device, this personal communicator.”

He held it up for all to see. The envy showed on every face.

“Now listen up, here’s the deal. The Twelfth has left
Seventh City and will be here in a couple of hours. Intel shows they are bringing everything they have, a show of force to intimidate Eight into paying them not to destroy their city. Chatter indicates they know we have something here, but they have no idea we have two battalions here. Regardless, they do have sufficient force to mount a strong attack that would most likely fail but would inflict over eighty percent casualties on us.”

Sevin paused. Galen looked around. The troops stood resolute, accepting their fate.

Sevin continued, “We have a surprise for them, something to stop them in their tracks, but as always, be prepared to take action in case that measure fails. Command and control is limited, so this is one of those fights where orders will be scarce. Feel free to take action and exercise initiative in the absence of orders. We all understand each other?”

Loosely said, almost in unison, strained, the gathered group said, “Hooah.”

“Be sure you wear your darkened desert daytime goggles, this is very important. After the first round goes down range you can take them off if you want, but until then have them on. Okay, one last thing. Chief Polar has an after-action logpac parked in Eight, twenty kilometers to our rear. If we’re successful, she’ll come forward and support our advance and conduct the collection of casualties, prisoners and enemy equipment. Otherwise, she’s our fallback position, and has two ground-mobile heavy rail guns and a company of Hornet light tanks with her to secure your retreat.” Sevin took two steps back.

Galen stepped forward. “Any questions? No? Well then, prepare to be challenged!”

“Check!”

***

Galen and Sevin stood on top of the tank, peering into the distance with binoculars. The dust cloud was getting closer, kicked up by the armored air cars and the commander’s skimmer, the Twelfth Legion of Doom getting closer. They were in column, then slowed and turned left, and then faced right and approached on-line.

“They’ve detected us,” said Galen.

Sevin said, “Most likely they’ll close to three klicks and dismount, knowing the maximum effective range for our main guns against large targets are two and a half klicks.”

Galen said, “They sure don’t want us hitting their armored air cars while they’re full of troops. And their dismounts, in powered armor suits, will be hard to hit once they dismount and start running. Not as dumb as I thought. You plan better work.”

Sevin spoke into his communicator, “Polar, we have contact.”

Galen ducked down into the tank and slid open the cover of the ammunition magazine and extracted a round that was painted bright yellow, a radioactive symbol stenciled on it, the letters ‘EMP’ stamped around it three times. It was an expensive round that cost more than ten year’s take-home pay for most enlisted mercenaries. But this contract included the cost. It would still be very profitable. He screwed the fuse out of its tip and removed the locking pin and then began adjusting the settings. Stone watched and read from an instruction list he had written earlier, after making all the calculations manually with pen and paper, using the small abacus mounted in the turret to the right of the Commander’s seat and the gunnery tables printed in the hard-copy manual of the Hellcat tank.

Stone said, “Fuze, seven point two.”

Galen made the adjustment and said, “Seven point two.”

Stone looked at the device. “Confirmed. Fail-safe, one hundred.”

“One hundred.” Galen set the proximity fail-safe fuse to detonate the round if it fell back to within one hundred meters of the ground.

“Confirmed, one hundred. You are within prescribed parameters.” Stone signed the bottom of the instruction sheet and handed it to Galen. “Good luck.”

Galen screwed the fuse into the projectile, checked its seating and fit, opened the breech of the 90mm main gun and inserted the round. Then he shoved the round hard as he could into the barrel, seating it solidly. Then the closed the breach and cocked the igniter handle.

Galen read from the instruction sheet. “Gunner, elevation eight seven four.”

The gunner elevated the gun and said, “Eight seven four.”

Stone checked the bubble. “Confirmed.”

“Azimuth, one three seven seven.”

The turret turned a few mils to the left. “One three seven seven.”

“Confirmed.”

“Pressure, sixteen.”

The gunner pulled a valve that allowed vehicle fuel to enter the main gun’s combustion chamber, under pressure from the gunnery pump, as a fine mist. The needle of the pressure gauge on the side of the breach moved from zero to a couple of ticks beyond the straight-up position to a reading of sixteen.

The gunner said, “Sixteen.”

Stone checked the gauge. “Confirmed.”

Seven peered down through the hatch. He said, “Any time now is fine.”

Galen gave Stone a thumbs-up. Sevin tossed his personal communicator away.

Stone yelled, “Fire!”

The gunner pulled the firing trigger; the EMP projectile pushed into the sky in a high arc and came down above the center point of the approaching line of armored air cars. The EMP bomb went off with a bright flash and sent a visible shockwave through the air. The air cars lost power and plowed into the ground, most of them settling into a rough nose-in-the ground halt, others flipping end-over-end to land upside down, the troops trapped inside the overturned open-topped vehicles. The command skimmer slid sideways and rolled a couple of times; the diodes and capacitors of its laser gun burst.

A single armored air car on the far left flank continued on, unaffected, too far away from the EMP. A full company of tanks, C company, fired a volley at it; vaporized it seemed, in a cloud of dark dust.

Galen stood in the loader’s hatch and put his hands on the grips of the loader’s machine gun. Sevin stood behind the turret and tapped Galen on the left shoulder and pointed. Sevin’s old personal communicator had burst and was burning feebly, the plastic of its outer casing on fire. Sevin then scanned ahead with binoculars and then tapped Stone on the left shoulder and gave him a thumbs-up.

Stone raised his flare gun and fired a green flare out ahead. The battalion of tanks moved ahead at a walking pace, a squad of infantry waking with each of them, one fire team to the side of the tank, one fire team behind. As they closed on the enemy line, Legion support troops who weren’t wearing powered armor came forward to check on the wrecked and disabled vehicles. Some had removed Legion troops from their disabled battle armor and provided first aid. The only non-electronic weapons the Legion had were a very few side arms, knives, and pointy objects picked out of the wreckage.

At a distance of a hundred meters, Stone fired an amber flare to signal a halt. The infantry battalion commander signaled his troops by hand, the message passed along the line. The riflemen began moving forward, crouched, ready to go to ground and then return fire at the first sign of trouble. Galen removed the loader’s machine gun from its swivel and climbed down the front of the tank. Sevin walked beside him, pistol drawn.

Sevin turned to walk backward and yelled at Stone, “Signal Polar to come forward.”

The turret of Stone’s tank turned to the rear, the gun elevated to eight hundred mills and then fired three white flares into the sky. Galen looked back and noticed the sun would set in less than an hour.

Sevin faced forward again. “This was too easy.”

Galen said, “The element of surprise. I just hope the bonding commission doesn’t cut me in half for this.”

Sevin said, “What for?”

“Using a nuke.”

“It’s not a real nuke, just an EMP bomb.”

Galen said, “Well, even for an EMP, it can only be fired by a field grade commander.”

Sevin said, “When they gave you that exception to policy to be the Brigade commander, it gave you the authority to take all the actions of a Brigade commander. You have nothing to worry about.”

They walked up to the overturned skimmer of the Legion commander. The laser gunner was dead, his battle suit burned and bubbled on its surface, a metal rod from the laser itself sticking through his chest. The driver was trapped in an immobilized battle suit under the skimmer, but his eyes were open and moving. The Legion commander himself was face down on the ground, about ten meters behind and to the left of the wrecked skimmer. Galen held his machine gun pointed at him while Sevin undid the back plate of the power suit. After a couple of minutes of unsnapping and unbuckling, the Legion commander stood in front of Galen, barefoot, wearing only underwear and a t-shirt. That’s what they wore under their powered battle armor suits.