Dominikas Palcikas led one company each from First and Second battalions in a flanking maneuver to try to disrupt the Black Berets’ resupply routes to the east, but it proved to be unnecessary. Palcikas’ forces had surrounded the design center and security facility before he realized how far and how fast he had moved across the base. He met up with the remnants of the Fourth Battalion streaming in from the northwest. Third Battalion was mopping up the survivors of the gunship attack. “Third Battalion reports several vehicles escaping out the south gate,” the radioman reported. “Lieutenant Colonel Manomaitis is pursuing.”
“Tell him to let all but the heavier vehicles go,” Palcikas said. “Setting up the perimeter defense is more critical than chasing down a few platoons. Tell him to set up his security teams along the south highway and seal it up tight. We’ll get Second Battalion to join up with him to the southeast as soon as possible, but he’s responsible for warning us of an immediate Soviet counterattack from the Darguziai Army Barracks.”
A few moments later a driver brought Major Drunga, the deputy commander of Fourth Battalion, up to Palcikas in a Commonwealth Jeep flying a red Vytis. “Good job, Major. Where’s Colonel Maziulis? We need to set up his security team for that runway.” Then Palcikas realized why the deputy was reporting to him: “What happened, Aras?”
The young officer, barely thirty years old, was covered with blood. His jacket was missing, his hands were trembling uncontrollably, and he was bleeding heavily from a cut on his left temple. “Medic!” Palcikas shouted as he took off his jacket and threw it around Drunga. “Talk to me, Aras.” No reply — only a stunned, vacant expression. Palcikas raised his voice and shouted, “Major Drunga! Report!”
That shook Drunga out of his catatonia. He straightened his back by force of habit and even tried to salute, but Palcikas held his hand down as a corpsman began treating his head wound. “We were hit by a round from one of the BTRs, sir,” Drunga said. “The shell sliced the whole top off the Colonel’s armored car. The Colonel … he lost … the shell took off … my God, the Colonel’s blood was everywhere!”
“What’s the status of Fourth Battalion, Aras? Give me a report.”
“Fourth Battalion … the battalion is heavily decimated but currently on station, sir,” Drunga said shakily. “Alpha Company… Alpha Company was nearly wiped out in the initial assault. Colonel Maziulis ordered Bravo to sweep north to flank the MSB armored line and break it, and they were nearly cut down as well before the aircraft came in. That aircraft saved us, sir. It saved us.”
“Yes, it did, Major,” Palcikas agreed. “Major Knasaite …?”
“Dead, sir. Everyone in Alpha Company … almost everyone … dead.”
“Major Balzaraite?”
“Dead, sir. Captain Meilus commands Bravo Company, but he’s hurt, too … God, he lost his left hand…”
Drunga finally realized that Palcikas was gently coaxing a full report out of him, that he was in effect commander of Fourth Battalion, so he straightened his shoulders a bit as he continued. “Bravo Company is about thirty-five percent manned, sir; they are regrouping to surround the design center and security facility as ordered. Major Astriene of Charlie Company is leading the security team to seal off the south gate. I recommend … I’m sorry, sir, but I recommend that he be placed in charge of Fourth Battalion.”
“Only until you are better, Major Drunga. Only until you are better.” The medic was easing Drunga down and wrapping blankets around him to ward off shock. “Take care of him, and find Captain Meilus and tell him to report to the aid station. Find Lieutenant Dapkiene or Lieutenant Degutis and put them in charge of Bravo Company.” Palcikas rubbed his eyes wearily and turned to Zukauskas. “My God, I’m having to put my lieutenants in charge of entire infantry companies. Three weeks ago their biggest concern was filing a report in the right folder — now they command hundreds of men.”
He paused, willing the numbness and exhaustion away. The officers of Iron Wolf Brigade were the only family he had had in many years, and to see them decimated like this was difficult. He called them by their rank and surname when speaking with his subordinates, but he knew them as Anatoly, or Danas, or Vytautas, or Karoly. He knew their individual quirks, their leadership style; their strengths and weaknesses. Maziulis had eight children back at his home in Siauliai. Drunga was Mister Spit and Polish. Meilus was the ladies’ man, the peacock strutting around the bars and cafes of Kaunas showing off his awards and medals to all the young ladies …
They were all dead now, dead or horribly maimed or shocked into virtual catatonia by a civil war that he, Palcikas, had started. He could do nothing else but replace them with an even younger, probably more scared officer, and when he died he would have to be replaced by someone Younger and even less experienced. When the officers died out, then he would have to promote noncommissioned officers to company grade rank, and the cycle would start again.
“Sir … General Palcikas, Fourth Battalion is awaiting orders. Shall we proceed to the security building in the aircraft-design area?”
“Hold off on the assault on the security building until we get the command straightened out,” Palcikas said. “The building is surrounded — they are not going anywhere.”
“Sir, what was that aircraft? Why did it first attack us, then attack the Black Beret armor?”
“Either it was a Commonwealth Air Force strike aircraft that made a horrible mistake,” Palcikas speculated, “or some other power has gotten itself involved in our battle. I think it detected the ZSU-23-4 because it detected its tracking radar and judged it to be a threat, but then it judged the armored units defending the aircraft-design compound to be a threat as well — it left our armor alone. It doesn’t matter, though. It saved our lives tonight, and we don’t want to anger the powers that control it.
“Now,” Palcikas continued, “I need a report on our antiair-artillery units, and I want a report on the position of that gunship and any other aircraft in the vicinity. But we’ve got to consolidate and reinforce our hold on the complex before the Commonwealth counterattack begins. I want the commanders of—”
“Helicopters inbound!” someone cried out. “From the north!”
Heads swung in that direction, but the night sky revealed nothing. Through the occasional bursts of cannon or gunfire on the base, they could hear the beat of fast helicopter rotors coming closer. “Slow rotors … heavy helicopter — attack, or troop carriers,” Lieutenant Colonel Simas Zobarskas, commander of First Battalion, said. “One, perhaps two. Flying over the aircraft-design compound. Whoever it is, they’re not attacking, at least not yet.”
“All these overflights seem to be concentrating on the aircraft-design center,” Palcikas said, his curiosity up. He pointed toward the huge howitzer craters surrounding the four-meter-high security fence around the design-center compound. “Look at those craters — they are aligned precisely around the fence, but they did not destroy it. They look like tank traps…
“Tank traps?” Zobarskas asked incredulously. “Against our forces …?”
“I don’t know,” Palcikas said, mulling it over. “But if they wanted to stop us or our armor from coming any closer to the compound, they could have done it more efficiently—”
“Namely, by hitting us with those bombs,” Colonel Zukauskas exclaimed.
“It was not done with bombs, Vitalis,” Palcikas said. “I distinctively heard cannon fire during that gunship attack. The same gunship that was firing antitank machine guns at the MSB was shooting a large-caliber cannon-it probably was responsible for the explosions in the fuel depot as well. I know of only one aircraft in the world that has that capability—”