"Sir, I am currently in command of the survivors gathered under Qualtren. I was looking for orders, sir." Mike watched the NCO leading a group across the scattered rubble. The first suit to reach the far side grabbed a piece of rubble and pulled it out. There was a prompt slide into its place and a section of ceiling fell out, momentarily trapping one of the other troops. With some hand motions and swearing on a side channel Green got the group to move more circumspectly.
"Who the hell put you in command?" demanded the distant officer.
"Captain Wright, sir," answered O'Neal. He was expecting some resistance but the harshness of Pauley's voice made him instantly wary.
"And where the hell is Wright?"
"Can I deliver my report, sir?"
"No, dangit, I don't want your dang report. I asked you where Captain Wright was." The panting of the officer over the circuit was eerie, like an obscene phone call.
"Captain Wright is irretrievable with what we have available, Major. He put me in command of the mobile survivors and put himself into hibernation."
"Well, the hell if any trumped up sergeant is going to lead my troops," said the major, his voice cracking and ending on a high wavery note. "Where the hell are the rest of the officers?"
"I am the only remaining officer, Major," O'Neal said reasonably. "There are one sergeant first class, three staff sergeants and five sergeants, sir. I am the only officer on site."
"I do not have time for this," spit the commander, "put me through to another officer."
"Sir, I just said that there are no other officers."
"Dangit, Lieutenant, get me Captain Wright and get him now or I'll have you court-martialed!"
"Sir," Mike choked. He began to realize that Major Pauley was not tracking well. The position of the retreating ACS battalion should have prepared him somewhat, but nothing could have fully prepared him. "Sir . . ." he started again.
"Dangit, Lieutenant, get those troops back here now! I need all the forces I can get! I don't have time to eff around with this. Get me through to Captain Wright!"
"Yes, sir," Mike did not know what to do, but ending this conversation would be a start. "I'll get the troops to your location as fast as I can and get Captain Wright to contact you as soon as possible."
"That's better. And put him back in command, dang you. How dare you usurp command, you young puppy! I'll have you court-martialed for this! Put yourself on report!"
"Yes, sir, right away, sir. Out here. Michelle, cut transmission." He thought for a moment. "Michelle, who is next in this rat-fuck chain of command?"
"Brigadier General Marlatt is MIA. That makes it General Houseman."
"Okay, who is left in the battalion chain."
"Major Norton and Captain Brandon are still in action and collocated with the battalion."
"Put me through to Captain Brandon."
"Left, left! Bravo team, move back!" Captain Brandon was maneuvering the remaining troops in contact on an open channel, usually used for platoon maneuver. Since from the map Mike was scanning Brandon was in command of fewer than forty troopers, it fit the condition.
"Captain Brandon."
"AID, partial privacy," said the captain quickly. "O'Neal? Is that you? I figured you were dead under your pyramid.
"Thanks for the cover," Brandon continued sarcastically, "unfortunately most of my damn company didn't quite make it out of the building!"
"That explosion was not the demolition charges, although they were detonated sympathetically," Mike began, lamely.
"Fine, now come up with some miracle to get us out of this nightmare! Or give me my damn company back!" the captain ended angrily.
"I have some of your troops down here, sir. We're going to start E and Eing out of here as soon as the rest link up. But, I just tried to report to Major Pauley, and, well, he was . . ."
"Babbling," Brandon said, flatly.
"Yes, sir."
"We know, thank you. Anything else?"
"Well, . . .", go ahead, he thought, say it. "What the hell do I do, sir? I'm . . . I'm just . . ." he bit back what he was about to say, " . . . not sure what course to follow, sir."
"I don't have time to hold your hand, O'Neal. Do whatever you think will do the most damage to the enemy until you can get back in contact. Take that as an order, if it helps."
"Yes, sir." Deep breath. "Airborne, sir."
"O'Neal."
"Sir?"
There was a short pause. "Fuck that shit about being a jumped up NCO, you saved our asses by dropping the buildings. Sorry about jumping your ass, it wasn't right. So, good hunting. Pile 'em up like cordwood, Lieutenant. That's an order." The officer's voice was firm and unwavering.
"Yes, sir," said Mike, unfelt conviction in every syllable. "Air-fucking-borne." Vaya con Dios, Captain.
"Now get off my damn freq; I got a war to run here. Alpha team! Position Five! Follow the ball! Move!"
30
Andata Province, Diess IV
0626 GMT May 19th, 2002 AD
As Mike whipped in the current, dangling like a lure on a trolling line, he really wished he had either been smarter, and had come up with a better plan, or stupider and had not thought of this one.
Once the improvised air lock was in place and area flooded, the next problem was how to move through the water mains. Between ongoing use in unconquered areas and unsealed breaches, the flow rate was high. An unencumbered person who is a good swimmer can only swim against three to four knots of current. The water was flowing past their location at what Mike judged to be about seven knots.
Mike had trained under water in battle armor, but never with a current. When he checked the flow going past at the first "T" intersection he experienced a sinking suspicion that his armor would not handle worth a damn, especially since the lack of power meant he could not "fly" the suit under impellers. He was still unsure what the mission plan would be, other than "to stack 'em up like cordwood" but he fully intended to see Diess' fluorescent light again, and soon. That meant getting out from under the zone of total destruction and the only way out from under the buildings was through the water mains, current or no current. Since swimming the armor was out, that left "rappeling" down the current. He worked out a route that flowed with the currents and would come out under a building three blocks away from Qualtren. Since the first principle of leadership was that you never asked someone to do something you would not do, Mike elected, over the protests of his platoon sergeant, to scout the first bound.
A line would be secured at the starting point by universal clamp and paid out with the scout, in this case O'Neal, dangling from it like a spider in the current. Waypoints had been determined, areas where there should be lower currents, and there personnel could be marshaled for the next bound. After the first bound, it had been agreed, other troops would take over the scouting duties. Once the line was emplaced the following troops would clip to the line and rappel to the waypoint.
The winch and line were built-in features of the suits. The winch was a bulge the size of a pack of cigarettes on the back of the suit and the line was thinner than a pencil lead. Designed for microgravity work they were rated to reel in a fully loaded suit against three gravities. On the other hand although the reel system and the universal clamp, a "magnet" that acted on a proton-sharing technology, had been extensively tested for full immersion, neither had been tested under heavy strain while fully immersed.