Mansfeld saluted back, turned without another word and took his leave. This wasn’t the only fire that needed putting out, but it was likely the biggest one he’d have today.
Militia Private Jake Higgins stood at attention as MDG Sergeant Franks prowled in front of the platoon. After leaving them during the battle, the sergeants had returned to find the three survivors. The lieutenant presently stood behind the sergeant, watching the proceedings as he leaned against his jeep. He fingered something, a crucifix perhaps. Was the man a Catholic? The jeep had a big tarp in back, hiding something bulky underneath.
Charlie stood on one side of Jake while Corporal Lee stood on the other. The rest of the penal platoon was a bunch of newbies. Well, most of the MDGs were the original members, but Jake hardly thought of them as human. The newbies shied away from the three survivors. These newbies were a little better trained than the original batch had been, but not by much.
“The Krauts are stirring,” Franks said in his arrogant way. “They’re obviously going to attack us. They have to, because Fifth Army HQ is planning to send Syracuse Command some extra battalions lying around here. Our side has to drive out the little amphibious attack made at Rochester. That doesn’t mean squat to you girls except for one thing. We’re going to throw a little surprise for the Krauts today. Our CO believes the Germans will spearhead the assault with Sigrids. Like what else is new? So we have a little surprise for them.”
Franks turned and pointed at the lieutenant’s jeep. The lieutenant motioned to another sergeant. The MDG whipped back the tarp to reveal a stack of RPGs.
From his place in the lineup, Jake couldn’t tell for certain, but they looked newer than the old ones—the ancient RPGs they’d used days ago. The older pieces of junk had usually bounced off a Sigrid’s armor. The HEAT shells hadn’t even ignited, and therefore had done as much damage as an M16’s bullet.
“Most of you will get an RPG,” Franks said. “Those that don’t will team up with a militiaman who does. If your partner dies, you take his weapon and use it. Anyway, you’re all going to crawl out into no-man’s land. I suggest you do it slow and easy. Otherwise, the enemy’s automated system will pick you off, and we don’t want that.”
Yes, you do, Jake thought.
“Find a shell-hole to hide in,” Franks said. “There are a lot of them out there and plenty of them are deep. Just make sure you don’t hide in one with an unexploded warhead.”
Several of the newbies glanced at each other with incredulous stares. Jake knew they were still getting used to the sergeant’s morbid humor, which always came at a penal militiaman’s expense.
“After you get comfortable,” Franks said, “you wait. When the Sigrids came, you hunker down in the bottom and use your ears instead of your eyes. You let them pass. Once they’re clanking at our first trench, firing at our strongpoints, then you’re going to pop up like gophers. You let them have it at from behind—ka-boom. It will be easy.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake noticed some of the newbies turn white with fright.
“That’s suicide,” one newbie said, an older guy with white in his hair. Jake heard the man had been a pastor teaching the wrong things about homosexuality. The government had certain rules about what priests and preachers were supposed to say behind their pulpits.
Franks strode to the newbie, pulling out a shock rod from his holster as he did. “What did you say?” the sergeant asked.
The newbie with white in his hair began to tremble, and he shook his head.
Franks smirked, and he raised his voice. “Does anyone else have anything to say?”
Jake raised a hand.
Franks’ eyes lit up, and he approached, with the shock rod ready, his thumb resting on the on-off switch. “Go head, Private. I’m listening.”
“Will you be out there with us, Sarge?” Jake asked.
Franks glared at Jake, but finally, he turned toward the lieutenant.
“Tell him,” the lieutenant said. “It’s a reasonable question.”
Jake didn’t twitch or quit looking straight ahead. He still felt the surprise from the newbies: the survivor could ask questions without receiving a beating from the guards.
Jake had wondered before about the lieutenant. Did the man feel remorse sometimes for being part of such a dickhead organization?
“If you had a brain in that thick skull of yours,” Franks said, “you would have already figured out that we’ll be in the trenches.” The sergeant grinned. “We’ll be watching each of you heroes. If any of you runs away…” The sergeant’s grin turned nasty. “If you run, you’re dead meat. We’ll be at the machine guns today.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Jake said. “That answers my question.”
Sergeant Dan Franks stared at him. Then he said under his breath, “One of these days, Higgins…”
Yes, Jake thought. One of these days, he was going to kill Franks. Maybe he’d kill all the MDGs of his platoon. The detention sergeants were monsters who delighted in tormenting penal militiamen and in killing some of them as the opportunities arose.
“Line up!” Franks shouted, as he put away the shock rod. “You’re going to get your RPG and then you’re going to head out into no-man’s land.”
What was left of the Galahad C Troop, along with the other hovers of 8th Squadron, maneuvered through the city streets of Batavia. The town was along Interstate 90 from Rochester to Buffalo, and III Armored Corps HQ wanted it cleared of any active hostiles or partisans.
Lieutenant Teddy Smith didn’t like it. He sat in the pilot’s seat, with his hands sweaty on the controls and his eyes peeled. The town was too quiet, too ghostlike. Fleck’s hover led the way, and he kept passing overturned dinner plates.
The Americans finally have a chance to use IEDs against others, Smith thought. He knew what the overturned dinner-plates were supposed to be: decoys to frighten them. It was odd and a bit funny that the Americans didn’t actually have any IEDs on hand. Therefore, they pretended to have some, setting out overturned plates.
Holloway must have been thinking similar thoughts. The sergeant said from his seat, “I thought America was supposed to be filled with guns.”
Smith glanced back at the sergeant. The man tensely watched through the main gun-port like a man looking out of a cave. For once, the sergeant appeared nervous, wiping beads of perspiration from under his nose. That wasn’t a good sign. They weren’t in Canada anymore, but in the good old U.S.A.
“Why doesn’t anyone fire at us?” Holloway asked. “This is as good a chance as any of them is going to get. I don’t know who sent hovers into a built-up area, but it’s daft.”
That was the military for you. But it was no good complaining about it, especially not out here. So Smith answered the first question instead of the second.
“Didn’t you study your history in school?” Smith asked.
“I guess not,” Holloway said.
“In the past, the Americans debated each other on gun control,” Smith said. “I remember my history teacher talking about it. The US Government used to try to take away the regular folks’ guns. The gun owners wouldn’t budge, though, and there were enough of them that they had the votes to stop any congressman foolish enough to try it.”
“Americans love guns,” Holloway said. It was an old proverb.
“I remember my teacher saying the Americans had a good argument concerning their right to have guns, at least as long as the powerful had theirs. The argument went something like this: As soon as the President and the members of Congress and the rich went without their gun-toting bodyguards, the ordinary people would give up their firearms. But as long as the President wanted to protect his family, the regular folk figured they had a right to protect theirs, too.”