“Power!” Turabi shouted. “Get the power on!” Someone tried to push past him in the darkness — one of the techs who sat behind the Plexiglas board, panicking and rushing toward the exit. Turabi shoved him back through the hinged board. “Get back to your station!” he shouted. “Get some battery lights on and get the generator restarted! Do it now!”
“They’re dead!” the tech shouted. When the inside battery lights finally snapped on, Turabi could see the whites of the man’s eyes, huge with fear. Turabi saw that the tech had opened up the slit between the command-post cab and the driver’s cab, and a thick curl of smoke was drifting in. That’s where the acrid electrical smell was coming from. “The front of the truck… God help us, they’re all dead!”
The armor plating between the cabs had probably saved them from the same fate met by the drivers. “Close that shutter and get the power back on!” Turabi shouted. The fact that he stayed in the command-post vehicle seemed to boost the spirits of his men, and after a few moments they started working together once again. Soon the generator power was back on and the radios came back to life, and even the frightened techs behind the Plexiglas were updating the tactical-grid display with their grease pencils, writing backward with extraordinary speed and clarity.
“Green One, Green One, this is Bravo Three, how do you read me?”
“Loud and clear now, Bravo Three,” Turabi responded. “We were knocked off the air for a minute. Did you make contact?”
“Affirmative! Looks like eight heavy-tank platoons in a staggered W formation, coming in hard from the north-northwest. We are engaging.”
“Bravo Three, acknowledged. Engage from your position. If you need to break contact, pull straight back to the south. Bravo Four and Airborne Three should be moving in any minute to back you up from the east, and Bravo Six should be moving in from the north. Don’t let them break out past you — keep them in front of you. Acknowledge.” No reply. “Bravo Three, acknowledge.”
A skull-piercing shriek of pain and the roar of an explosion and fire suddenly broke the chatter over the command net. Oh, shit — the leader of Bravo Three or one of the other company commanders on the net had been hit, and his last dying action was to keep his fingers pressed onto the mike button so everyone on the net could hear his death scream. That was not good. “Airborne Three, this is Green One, what do you see?”
“We are engaging enemy tanks on the northwest grid,” the helicopter flight commander reported. “Bravo Three looks like they took several direct hits. The Turkmen are coming with T-72s and maybe even T-80s — they’re shooting on the run.” The biggest tank Zarazi’s force had was a T-64, which had a 125-millimeter smoothbore cannon and autoloader like the T-72, but it did not have a sophisticated laser-aiming computer, so it had to stop to fire its gun; most of Zarazi’s tank force were much older T-55s and T-54s, whose 100-millimeter main guns probably wouldn’t even put a dent in a T-72’s 120-millimeter reactive armor.
“Roger, Air Three. I can see one platoon of Bravo Four moving in fast from the north, but I can’t see the rest of Four, and there’s no sign of Six. I will… shit… oh, shit—” And then his radio cut off as well.
“Airborne Three, come in.”
“This is Airborne Three-Two,” a different voice said. One of the wingmen had taken over on the net. “Lead took a hit. Looks like the armor coming in from the north brought some SAMs with them. We are engaging. I see only four tanks from Bravo Four coming in to help Bravo Three. They’re going to get chewed to pieces here in about twenty minutes if they don’t get more help.”
“Roger, Airborne Three. Did you hear that, Bravo Four? Get in there and help, right now!”
“Green One, this is Bravo One, we have pushed off the enemy force on the highway — they are scattering. The highway is clear. Do you want us to head north to help Bravo Three? Over.”
“Is Bravo Two still with you?”
“They are engaging the Hinds off to the south, but I think the Hinds might be withdrawing to the southwest. We appear clear to the south. I haven’t heard from Bravo Two, but I think they lost only one or two units from the Hind attack.”
“Roger that. Stand by. Break. Bravo Two, this is Green One, are you up on the net?”
“Affirmative, Green One. It looks like the Hinds only had cannons and marking rockets and just a few missiles. They swept in, fired a few rounds, then headed away.”
“Roger. Bravo Two, you take the highway and make best speed to the objective. Don’t stop to fight, just get to the control station and take it as soon as you can. Take as much air defense as you can. Keep an eye to the south — they might try another attack once the Hinds depart. Acknowledge.”
“Roger, Green One. We’re on the move. Our air defense will have to catch up with us. They’ll cover our six.”
“Roger that. Break. Bravo One, wheel north and attack the enemy’s right flank. Get a good positive ID before you shoot — elements of Bravo Four are moving in behind the enemy formation. You’ll be face-to-face.” He hoped.
“Acknowledged. We’re on the move.”
Turabi took a moment to plant the image of the battlefield in his mind. It was not looking good. “Airborne Three, what’s the status of Bravo Three?”
There was a slight pause, then, “Sorry, Colonel.”
Turabi swore loudly — an entire company of tanks, destroyed in less than fifteen minutes. Their entire northern flank was exposed now.
“Airborne Three is breaking contact to reload,” came the report. “We’ve got elements of Airborne Two moving in. I think I saw one more platoon of Bravo Four moving in, but no sign of the rest of them and no sign of Bravo Six.”
“Bravo Six, what is your position? Can you see the enemy forces? They should be about ten kilometers in front of you.” No response. Damn it, Turabi swore, silently this time. They bugged out, probably back up the highway toward their reinforced ammo dump and supply depot at Ravnina. They were going to pay for that! “Bravo Four, have you made—”
“SAM-12 Bravo Two… SAM-12 Bravo Two, southwest!”
“Green One, Green One, many fast-movers, many fast-movers coming in from the southwest, going supersonic, very low altitude!” The Russians had waited until their Mi-24 Hinds moved out of the way and the left flank moved up, and then they swooped in with a force of fighter-bombers.
“Pop smoke! Pop smoke!” He was about to order the driver to move positions, but he remembered that the drivers were dead, the engine and front of their command-post vehicle blasted apart. There was no longer any choice — they were sitting ducks here. He pounded on the Plexiglas board with a fist. “Evacuate the command cab! Get moving!” The techs behind the glass needed no encouragement. They had the board opened and were racing out of the cab as soon as the metal stairs were lowered into place. Turabi remembered to grab the backpack radio and map case just before he leaped out of the vehicle.
The screening smoke was gagging and oily-tasting, so thick that at first Turabi didn’t know which way to run — but soon the explosions started again, and he ran straight ahead until an explosion tossed him off his feet as if the hard-baked desert floor were a carpet that had just been pulled out from under him. He felt white-hot pieces of flying metal rip into his uniform and bounce off his helmet, and the soles of his boots seemed hot enough to melt. The last explosion felt like being hit with a hundred-kilo bag of sand, and he could do nothing else but close his eyes and scream.