“Yes, sir,” came back at him. Grace O’Malley was a terrorist and too damn smart for either of their good—her and the six MechWarriors she’d hired. “Get your teams out. Find their flank. Let’s get behind them, come up their asses and put them down. We’ve got to secure this road.”
An hour later a hundred men, plus tanks, gun trucks and eight ’Mechs had beat the bushes. A small rise that seemed the source of their trouble had gone quiet as a church when they reached it. Now the next ridge over put fire on them.
Casualties came in dribs and drabs, but they kept coming. Men whose ceramic armor had shattered under a hit were sent to the rear to draw new armor. L. J. checked with Supply; there wasn’t a lot more armor to issue.
A sniper was finally flushed and brought in. “We dug him out of a hole under some brush,” the sergeant told his commander.
“Yes I was, under that brush and unarmed. They told me to bust my firing pin when you guys got close, so I busted it and I was unarmed and you guys treated me right nice,” the fellow in jeans and a plaid shirt said without taking a breath.
“How many of you are there?” L. J. asked.
“They told me you’d ask that, and they told me I didn’t need to know so I honestly don’t know. But there’s a lot of us, and we’re out there with our water jugs and our rifles, and if I was the first one you got, there’s a lot more of us still there.”
L. J. got in the guy’s face. “How many are out there?”
The guy bent his head back. “I told you, they didn’t tell me and I don’t know.”
“What were you, a platoon? A company?” L. J. roared. The man looked back as if L. J. was speaking some strange language. The guard took the prisoner away and Mallary stepped forward.
“Sir, if what he said is right, they’re behind us as well as in front of us. We’ve got a mess on our hands. I just got a report from A Company outside Bliven. They met resistance where they expected it and brushed it aside. They are advancing unopposed into the Gleann Mor Valley.”
L. J. followed her to the map table on the porch below. In the shade with a cold glass of water, it was pleasant. Strange, the refrigerator was still running. “Where’s D Company?”
“Sir. They haven’t gone far since they broke away from our route three hours back. Seems the locals have been out digging the potholes deeper. With water in them, trucks and ’Mechs don’t know if it’s just your garden-variety hole or a bottomless pit. Makes for slow going.”
“Company A report anything like that?”
“No, sir. I get the feeling the defense kind of fell apart on our right.”
“And the gang to our left is the bunch that swallowed a pretty good slug of Black and Reds,” L. J. muttered. Two good roads came out of Bliven that a flanking company could use to hit Amarillo. He faced an opposed crossing here, as would D on his left. Why fight for more crossings when he already had one?
“Order B and C Companies to fall back. Have B Company get on the road to Bliven. Tell D to have a platoon task force set up a roadblock on good ground and the rest fall back on us.”
“Yes, sir,” Mallary said, and went to execute her orders.
L. J. studied the map. Grace, you’re good, but I’m better. You’ve put together an army in damn fast time, but I brought an army trained and equipped to this fight. “Training will tell,” he thought, quoting his uncle. He frowned. On his left somewhere was a mess of Black and Reds. They’d be road-marching across the front of whatever was holding the west entrance to this valley. So far the enemy had dug in and fought where they stood or run as they had at Bliven. True, the west group had gone out to find the fugitives. The satellite had caught the end of that battle. The Black and Reds had been taken by surprise on their flank. One amateur fighting another, and the Special Police had shown they weren’t all that special.
Should he have that platoon from D Company search forward to make contact with the Black and Reds? L. J. weighed the problem and found that he had a solid basis for assuming the B and Rs could hold their own, and that if he extended his platoon he risked his flank. No, the Special Police should be able to handle any problem that came their way.
L. J. turned back to the situation on his right. That would make or break his attack.
Outside Bliven, Alkalurops
25 August 3134
Captain Yonni Brassenbird, commander of A Company, realized he might have misled Hanson a bit as he heard the new orders come over the static of the long-range radio. He hadn’t actually forced a crossing of the river up ahead. What he had done was flush out six snipers and they had fled in their pickups for the river. Minor difference.
Yonni urged his first platoon forward—a task force with two tanks and two squads of infantry mounted in Giggins armored personnel carriers. “Keep those trucks under fire, but don’t hit them. If they got the need to flee, let ’em go, and anyone they talk to.”
That was Major Hanson’s idea. If a bunch ran, encourage them. Send enough fire their way so they don’t forget why they’re pedal to the metal. Prisoners were to be passed through to the Black and Reds. Yonni didn’t need that blood on his conscience.
First Platoon reached the last bluff this side of the river. Yonni halted them on overwatch and ordered Second Platoon to pass through. Second had two hovertanks well suited for the riverbed. Its infantry were in trucks. They dismounted and began the river crossing on foot. Third and Fourth Platoons, ’ Mech-infantry task forces, would come up on each flank, provide cover fire, and be ready to exploit forward. The ’Mechs should have no trouble climbing down the riverbank and crossing a river barely two centimeters deep.
Yonni led his headquarters section forward in his newly assigned Legionnaire. This big ’Mech was one of the best in the battalion, and Yonni intended to show he knew how to lead from the front. Chasing a running bunch of civilians wouldn’t be much of a test, but the Major expected this push wouldn’t stop until they took Falkirk. Yonni intended his Legionnaire to be the first Roughrider into that burg.
Leaving his command van with First Platoon, Yonni joined Second Platoon as it made its way gingerly down the riverbank. There were plenty of paths worn by the local cows, but only the bridge offered an easy crossing. One squad of infantry moved across it under desultory and inaccurate long-range rifle fire.
“Bridge is rigged for demolition. We’re yanking wires,” the corporal leading that squad reported.
Well away from the bridge, the hovertanks sped down the bank, bouncing right and left as they nosed over. A Condor landed hard on its bow at the bottom and ended up stalled sideways. Yonni took his Legionnaire down a cow path, then patrolled back and forth in front of the stalled tank. Stopped dead, the tank was a perfect target for a antitank rocket, but all the hostiles got off were a few rifle shots.
“We got a tank stopped dead on our front and a Legionnaire just prancing back and forth,” Syn Bakai reported on radio.
“Hold your fire,” Wilson reminded her. He could spot her ’Mech MOD, as well as Jobe’s, under cover behind an iron grain elevator. “I’m coming up. Remember the plan.”
Syn snorted. “You won’t let me forget it.”
Wilson’s son gunned the jeep forward. Two pickups passed them, headed north out of Bliven. The good old boys in the back waved, rifles in hand. They’d done their jobs. Wilson shook his head. Sometimes herding dumb cows was easier than getting ’Mech pilots to do what they were told.
There was no cover the last hundred meters to the elevator. They took some fire, but nothing came close. Yep, there was nothing wrong with Syn’s eyes. A hovertank and a huge ’Mech with one nasty-looking rotary autocannon marched back and forth in front of a parked hovertank. Across the gulch came the sound of a starter grinding. That would be the dead tank.