What sort of people were these humans? Memnon was bewildered by what he was seeing, the army was defeated. Anybody could see that. What was to be gained by this slaughter? In Hell battles were fought until one side had lost then stopped. Sometimes a battle would never start, one commander would see he was clearly outmatched and stand no chance of winning so he would concede the issue. He had never seen this before, this relentless pursuit and destruction of a beaten enemy. The sight made him shift with rage, boiling anger at human cowardice seething within him. Even destroying the retreating foe, they stood off and killed from a distance, they never closed and fought their enemy honorably. He controlled himself, he had no desire to be a target of the sky chariot’s games.
Finally, when all on the blackstrip was still, the four sky chariots made a final pass over the scene of carnage and left. Memnon was about to leave his cover in the rocks that topped his hill when he saw dust on the horizon. He shrank back into his rocky shelter and watched. The cloud materialized and Memnon saw something that chilled his heart still further. A long column of Iron Chariots, some big, some smaller, with a sky-chariot flying on each side. He watched, appalled as they drove over the demon corpses stretched out on the blackstrip, grinding them into green and yellow smears on the black surface. Then, once clear of the remnants of the column Memnon had watched, they peeled off the blackstrip and spread out in a circle the long tubes pointing outwards.
He was fascinated by the sight. As far as he knew, nobody had ever watched the humans in their iron chariots when they weren’t killing. He saw humans climb out of the iron chariots, oddly the smaller ones seemed to have more humans than the big ones. They walked around, he could see them unloading things from the chariot and pass them around. Then more chariots arrived, great ones that dwarfed even the bigger iron chariot. Some had tents on the back, others great cylinders.
The tented ones started to unload boxes, the humans breaking them open and passing the contents to each other. Strange things, pointed cylinders that gleamed in the sun. They put the cylinders inside the iron chariots and seemed to be happy at the labor. Others were passing around other things from the boxes. But it was the great cylinders that confused Memnon. The chariots carrying them pulled alongside the iron chariots and somehow the humans connected the two with a long snake. Were the two chariots mating? Memnon shook his head in disbelief and continued to watch what happened beneath.
Alpha-One-One, Somewhere In The Desert, Western Iraq, before dusk
“That’s it Hooters, we’re out of gas. Or as near to it as makes no difference. Got a little in case we have to maneuver but we go no further.”
“We don’t have to Biker. This is where we’re supposed to wait for the supply trucks. We clear of the stink?”
That was a lesson the tankers had learned early. Dead baldricks rotted fast in the sun and the smell was dreadful. It was so bad back where the baldrick army had been broken under the hammer of artillery fire and the anvil of armor that there was serious question whether people would be able to live there again. The smell seemed to seep into the soil.
“We’re fine Hooters.” Baldy had stuck his head out and sniffed. “The fly-boys in the Apaches did a good job on this lot.”
“Hokay. Take five guys. Crab, Baldy, stay on overwatch while Biker and I stretch our legs.” She picked up the M4 carbine from its clips and heaved herself out of her commander’s hatch. It took a moment’s effort to scramble down the outside of her tank and then the sand felt good and solid under her feet.
“This sounds crazy Ell-tee, but you know, I’m kinda getting to like the desert. It seems grow on us dunnit?”
“It does Jim, it truly does. There’s a grandeur here, something elemental somehow.” They’d both noticed the crews of the other Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry combat vehicles also dismounting to stretch their legs and dropped the nicknames. “You ever seen a desert before?”
“Nope. I’m from Vermont. Just a rubber who spent the week in the city and the weekend in the hills. Then my Guard unit got called up and here I am.”
“Rubber?” Stevenson looked curiously at her driver. He didn’t look like a contraceptive.
“Rich Urban Biker. Where you come from El-tee?”
“New Jersey. Bayonne to be precise. Joined the Guard to work my way through college and found myself here in the sandpit instead. Then the Message came, your old Ell-tee laid down and died and I was the only spare officer available.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised, he always was a sanctimonious old bastard. When we at camp and he visited a local knocking shop, he’d get on his knees and pray for forgiveness first. Cracked the girls up it did.”
Stevenson whooped with laughter and hook her head. “Don’t it always go to show? Them that talks the talk don’t walk the walk. Right Jim, we better give the others a chance to stretch.
She’d timed it just right. By the time her crew had got their break, the big Oshkosh ships of the desert had arrived and were driving into the laager. Critically, all the fuel trucks were there, their load of fuel was desperately needed. She watched carefully as the hoses were unreeled and the fuel trucks started gassing up the Abrams and Bradleys. Other trucks were unloading boxes of ammunition.
“Hey Ell-tee. You need reloads?”
“Sure do.” She looked at the barrel of her tank. They’d stopped using a single ring for each baldrick kill, now they had a one-inch band for 10 and a quarter inch band for singles. Plus their single white band as well.
“Right, can give you ten Sabot, twenty HEAT, the rest canister.”
“I’d like more canister if you’ve got it. Not much use for sabot.”
“Sorry Ell-tee, we’re running low. We’re sharing out the HEAT and canister and making the numbers up with sabot. The brass tell us they’re flying 120 in direct from home and more’s coming from Europe but we’re still running low here where it counts.”
“Hokay.” Slightly resigned but there it was. Nobody said war had to be easy. Stevenson and her crew started breaking open the crates and bombing up their tank.
They were interrupted by the sound of a Blackhawk landing.
“Captain Stevenson?”
She turned around, slightly irritated. She assumed the mistaken rank was a comment on her dress, she was wearing a tank top and had left the top of her BDUs in the tank. The desert may be grand but it was still hot.
“Its Lieutenant, Err Sorry Sir, I’ll get my blouse right now.” She did a double take. Colonel Sean MacFarland was standing in front of her.
“Well, when you do, you can get to pin these on it.” He handed her a small box, containing double silver bars. “Congratulations. You’ve done a fine job out here.”
“Sir, thank you Sir.” Stevenson looked at the bars in her hand.
“You’ll take over this combat group. You done good Stevenson, especially for somebody thrown in the deep end the way you were. The whole group will be staying here tonight, the way the pocket is shrinking around what’s left of the baldricks, there’s too much danger of friendly fire if we don’t take things carefully.”
“Big jump up Sir.” Stevenson was nervous, what amounted to a company command was a challenge to put it mildly.
“Same for everybody Stevenson. Army’s growing fast, we’re taking cadre out of units to help train new outfits as fast as we can. You stay alive, you’ll have a battalion in a few months. Well done Captain.”
MacFarland wandered off, apparently at random but to those under him, it always seemed that he would turn up an exactly the time needed to spot a problem developing. Around the laagered combat team, the dusk started to settle and the flashes of artillery fire grew more distinct.