What’s wrong with me? Am I becoming a sociopath too?
“This is a lousy war,” Jake muttered.
“It ain’t so bad,” Chet said. “Of course, I wish we’d get some pussy sometimes. Maybe we should start using some of these Chinese women as whores.”
“No rape,” Jake said, shaking his head.
“It ain’t rape when they like it. Come on. We’ll pay them first. Think about it. These women will finally have some American boys, some real men. They might want to pay us before it’s over.”
“Everyone is through the minefield,” the lieutenant said over the links. “Let’s move into the kill zone.”
That meant all the outposts had been neutralized. There was a nice sanitized word for you: neutralized. It never spoke about enemy blood spraying a soldier in the face. It didn’t say nothing about gut cramps and fear. No sir, we neutralized them, just erased them like a blank page. So nice, so very nice, thank you very much.
Jake, Chet and Grant spread out and advanced on the Chinese tents. One good thing about these half-trained soldiers was that their officers kept them all bunched together for better command and control. Just as pigs in a slaughterhouse weren’t allowed to run around unsupervised.
“This is like a turkey farm,” Chet said.
“I suppose,” Jake said, as he accidently kicked a stone, which clattered against a half-buried boulder. He froze, but no enemy outcry sounded. So far, none of the Chinese suspected a thing.
Like the others, Jake knew the importance of the mission. If the platoon could take this base without artillery, and some other platoons other forward camps, then American tanks were going to drive through and hit a Chinese assembly area farther south. Hit them where it hurts and do it real quick like so they don’t even know it’s happening. That’s how they were going to win this war.
“Use the white phosphorous grenades,” the lieutenant said over the link.
Jake readied his shotgun. Chet and Grant dug out a grenade each. Both of them had played baseball in high school and were better at lobbing these things than Jake.
“Do it,” the lieutenant said.
Grenades sailed through the dark night. Others come from different directions of the compass.
At the last minute, Chet turned and said, “Take off your night vision, dummy.”
Jake tore off his goggles. Then the white phosphorous grenades exploded and tents began to burn. Almost immediately, Chinese soldiers began to scream and shout in terror.
Jake ran forward, pumping a shell into a chamber. The first enemy soldier ran naked out of his burning tent.
BOOM! Jake blew a hole in the man’s chest. As if a bowling ball had struck him, the man crashed onto the ground and began to shriek. The most murderous part of the mission had begun. BOOM! BOOM! Jake killed the naked man, shutting him up.
Then Corporal Jake Higgins forgot about his worries as the bloodlust boiled in his brain. Together, he and his buddies began to slaughter the helpless enemy soldiers.
General Stan Higgins walked past the giant wrecks of burning T-66 tanks. This latest combat reminded him of something he’d once read in Panzer Battles by Von Mellenthin. It had been concerning the German fight in Manutchskaya on 25 January 1943. Some clever maneuvers, a feint attack covered by smoke, with enemy tanks lured to the wrong place at the right time… Stan sighed as he recalled the action today. A quick and devastating artillery barrage and a rush of Jeffersons had let him defeat the tri-turreted monsters in the narrow lanes of Hung between neat brick houses.
The Chinese had lost over five hundred soldiers here, killed or wounded. Stan had lost three dead, fourteen wounded. And yet, we’re losing the race to Shenyang.
Stopping, putting his hands on his hips, Stan studied the last tri-turreted tank. This one lacked paint. He could see every bolt and weld on the metallic machine that must have left the factory less than a week ago.
We need more soldiers, more tanks. What we really need are the Behemoths.
Yet how would America ship three-hundred-ton tanks? Most bridges couldn’t survive one crossing over them. Yet even twenty Behemoths could make a host of a difference in Liaoning Province.
A corporal ran toward him.
I hope he’s not stupid enough to salute me out here. There could be snipers…
Stan glanced at burning, smoking buildings. Last year, this would have been a small American city. Now, the Chinese got their taste of foreign invasion. How did they like it? Probably not very much.
Turning around, Stan marched to intercept the corporal.
“Sir!” the kid said. His hand began to move.
“Don’t salute me,” Stan warned him.
The corporal gave him a quizzical glance. Sudden realization made him look dazed. “Sir—I mean—”
“What’s your message?” Stan asked.
“The general is on the horn.”
“Taylor?”
“Yes… yes,” the corporal added, having obviously wanted to say, “sir.”
“Right,” Stan said. He patted the kid on the back in a fatherly way.
Moving briskly three streets over, he reached an awning between four parked Jeffersons. They were in a Deng’s parking lot—the grocery store blasted brick and shattered glass everywhere. His battle-net people had set foldup tables with screens and computer scrolls.
“Over there,” an assault rifle-carrying sergeant on guard told him.
“Thanks,” Stan said. He soon reached a small computer screen with Taylor showing, the general staring off into the distance.
“Sir,” Stan said.
On the screen, Taylor faced him. “I’ll get to the point, Higgins. The Chinese launched mass ballistic missiles at our troops circling Changchun.”
“Nuclear?” asked Stan.
“No. The straight stuff with some chemical warheads thrown in,” Taylor said. “The Chinese timed it with a breakout attempt from the city.”
“We didn’t intercept the ballistic missiles?”
“Seventy-three percent never made it to target,” Taylor told him. “But like I said, it was a mass strike. Don’t worry. We beat the assaulters back into their lair of Changchun. The bad news for us is that the Chinese used plenty of civilians in the attack.”
“Why’s that bad?”
“Because it means most of their regular soldiers survived and can do the same thing later.”
“Oh,” Stan said.
“It got bloody. The Russians took the brunt of it, but we have three thousand dead men and many more wounded ourselves.”
“It must have been quite a missile strike,” Stan said.
“I think that’s what I’ve been trying to say. In any case, we’re taking a battalion of Jeffersons from you.”
“Sir?” Stan asked.
“Do you have a bad connection? Can’t you hear me?”
“No, sir,” Stan said. “But I need reinforcements, not to lose an entire battalion, my best one at that.”
“Reinforcements are on their way from America.”
“And when do the first ones get here?” Stan asked.
“Another three weeks,” Taylor said. “I’ll admit it’s only going to be a trickle at first. Then we should get a solid fifty thousand soldiers.”
“When?” Stan asked.
“In six weeks.”
“That’s not soon enough sir, not if we’re going to reach Shenyang this summer.”
“We’ll reach it and beyond.”
“How can you be so certain?” Stan asked.
“Because I spoke to General McGraw, and he told me. No doubt, Director Harold told him. Any more questions, Higgins?”