“First, Second, and Third Squads and attached crews,” tall and angular Ackerman, the newly commissioned officer and platoon leader, announced, “will come with me and Platoon Sergeant Kurth for a patrol of the beach! Fourth Squad will guard the trucks!”
“Knock it off!” Staff Sergeant Kurth boomed, although Stephie had heard nothing from the troops. His stare menaced Fourth Squad in the rank behind Stephie. The squad that had drawn easy duty.
“Everybody patrolling the beach, keep your eyes open!” continued Ackerman. “West Point” is what most called him behind his back. “If you see any tracks, call ’em out! This is a free-fire zone! Watch for mines on both sides of the road. The mines underneath the pavement are under positive control and are currently safed. Weapons loaded. Rounds chambered. Safeties on.” There was a steady clacking of metal as men and women pointed their weapons away from their buddies and checked their selector switches. Stephie ejected a curved, thirty-round magazine. The brass cartridges shone from atop their double stack. She reloaded the full mag into her assault rifle and loaded a 40 mm fragmentation grenade into the breach of her launcher. She slid the launcher shut with a snap like a pump shotgun and confirmed that the selector switches on both weapons were on “safe.”
“Pursuant to the Coastal Defense Act,” Lieutenant Ack Ack announced officiously, “this area is under martial law! We have orders to arrest any civilians we come across, and we are authorized to use deadly force! If we come into contact with any Chinese forces, we are to report in, engage, and destroy! Single file! Corporal Higgins, you’re wired for the point! Take the lead! Let’s move out!”
Fifteen was a time of questioning for Stephie. “Why’d those people in New Zealand throw garbage at our ship?” With his mouth still full, her stepfather said they were ungrateful ’cause we didn’t defend ’em. Stephie’s mom cleared her throat at her husband’s table manners. “Why didn’t we defend them?” Stephie asked. ’Cause it wasn’t worth World War Three, ’specially right before the new, second-generation missile shield’s in place. “Who’s stronger — us or the Chinese?” Us. “Then how come we let ’em rape Manila?” Don’t use that word, her mom said. Stephie’s stepfather replied that the Chinese had used Korean shipyards that previously had built supertankers to build their new supercarriers. They’re five times bigger than our carriers and hold three times as many planes. Some are transport ships that can carry twenty thousand troops at a time. “How big is their army?” Stephie asked. Thirty, forty million, give or take. “How big is ours?” Dunno. A few hundred thousand. “Then how can you say we’re stronger than them?” ’Cause of the missile shield his company was helping build. “But aren’t they building one too? Isn’t everybody building one?” Her stepfather grew tired of Stephie’s incessant questions.
One by one, the ranks headed down the highway parallel to the shore, straight toward Stephie’s house. Her squad was third and last in line. With a ten-meter spread, the point man was over 300 meters ahead, but Stephie could see what Higgins saw from the point — an empty ribbon of road that swayed with the point man’s every step — on a one-inch LCD screen suspended on a slender boom before her face. The old-style Kevlar helmets had been retrofitted with a strap-on electronics suite. It consisted of the screen and a microphone on the boom, headphones under the armored ear flaps, and a wire running to a battery and receiver on the shoulder of the webbing. To that ensemble, the point man added a tiny pen-sized camera and transmitter.
The electronics system of the newly-raised 41st Infantry Division was, however, basically just a hodgepodge. It wasn’t nearly as advanced as the equipment of the lower-numbered divisions of America’s regular, standing army. The system used by the professionals was fully integrated into their newer and lighter ceramic helmets.
Stephie scanned the dunes on the left and beaches on the right, but saw nothing save the litter common to any roadside. Candy wrappers. Coke cans. Yellowed newspapers half buried in sand.
“Lookie here!” Stephon Johnson said from ahead. His voice broke in and out on her balky left earphone. Johnson — a corporal — was a grenadier from Washington, DC, and the leader of Stephie’s Fire Team Alpha. He kicked at a used condom with his combat boot. “Looks like you had yourself some good times down here on the Redneck Riviera, Roberts.” Men laughed and commented in turn as they passed the wilted prophylactic.
“Cut the shit!” Sergeant Collins finally snapped. They marched on in silence, skirting a fresh crater in the cracked pavement that was half filled with brackish green water. It must have been from a practice bombing run, Stephie thought, or an air force attack on a Chinese probe.
Stephie’s thighs and lungs began to burn. Her lower back and shoulders grew to ache from the heavy “existence load.” Sweat showed through the men’s thick, woodlands-camouflage battle dress as they marched farther and farther from the trucks. Closer and closer to her house. The only contact they had with the outside world came in the form of an occasional crackle over the commo’s audio/video gear, which carried on the ocean breeze from the middle of the formation where Ackerman and the commo were. Two other platoons in their company were on different stretches of the empty shoreline, and the company commander was with one of them. Although they weren’t in range now, when they were within a four-mile radius of the transmitters, the CO could watch video from any of his four platoons.
Or so it was supposed to work. No one really had any idea what to expect. Their unit — the 41st Infantry Division — had first unfurled its colors at a ceremony at Fort Benning, Georgia, only one month earlier. The six hundred men and women of Stephie’s 3rd of the 519th Infantry Regiment were in one of the division’s fifteen infantry battalions. Charlie Company of the 3/519 had been given orders for this — their first mission — only the day before.
Stephie had wondered about the mission’s real purpose ever since. During a semisleepless night, she had reasoned that they could reconnoiter the coast with airborne drones. But she knew they were sending units south every day. Maybe it was to give them tactical training on the theater’s terrain. A chance to get a feel for the ground on which they would fight. Or maybe it was a purely symbolic act. Going down to the water’s edge one last time to assert U.S. sovereignty over territory that would soon be the property of the Chinese. But even if symbolic, their combat patrol was dangerous. There were skirmishes practically every day. The coast was alive with Chinese scouts, pathfinders, patrols, and raiding parties. But, she decided, we’ve gotta get blooded some time. Better now — against a recon team that we outnumber ten-to-one — than when we match up against the Chinese one-to-ten.