Another dismounted team bagged one more tank, and then yet another, before the enemy realized their disadvantage. With a rusty roar, six of the M60’s pulled out of their hidey-holes and clanked forward. The remainder unleashed a wall of lead from their machine guns to keep her foot soldiers’ heads to the ground. A lucky burst cut one of Walker’s missile men apart. Now that they were advancing, she’d have to recalculate the fire mission. Much harder to hit a moving target.
Walker gave up trying to guess the speed of the enemy, their location, deflection to the artillery way in the rear, time of flight and all the other stuff needed to call in an artillery barrage. The best she could do was turn her 50 Cal machine gun on the oncoming tracks. Wouldn’t hurt them, but might distract the dangerous dinosaurs from her vulnerable dismounts.
The enemy tanks crept within 500 yards and squealed to a rusty halt. There was no way to miss at that range. One after the other, every man that popped up from the amber waves of grain with a missile launcher was torn to pieces before they could lock-on and fire. Walker was seconds away from ordering a general retreat when four beautiful words came over the radio, “Fire mission! Danger close!”
Her heart fluttered with relief. The Fire Support Team was on the case. That lonely APC coming up behind her, bristling with antennae and sensors, hardly seemed like salvation. Within 25 seconds of their arrival though, they annihilated the enemy without firing a shot themselves. Walker ordered everyone to stay put and tuck their heads under cover, but she couldn’t resist standing up to see the show.
Which was disappointing at first. Walker cheered with the whistle of six artillery rounds coming in over her head, but gasped when they harmlessly popped apart in midair. Still a hundred yards over the enemy tanks. Before she could scream in frustration, two SADARM guided sub-munitions in each shell went to work. From her distance, she couldn’t see the tiny shaped charge canisters floating down with little parachutes attached. A pair tracking and steering itself towards each target below. Just when she believed the strike was an utter failure, every tank exploded. Even the moving ones. Utter beauty.
She was still busily recovering her wounded and dead when the company’s executive officer rushed up minutes later, the MGS gun platforms in tow.
“Great work, Sergeant Walker. You don’t see a motorized infantry platoon wipe out an armor company every day.” He shook her hand quickly, while never taking his eyes off the computer tablet in his hands. “But we have to move. Right now. The first sergeant is on his way. He’ll take over and police up the casualties.”
Walker held up an IV bag for a gut-shot private laying on her Strykers’ ramp. Her other hand pushed down on a sopping wet pressure dressing. The medic was a hundred yards away and busy with someone even worse hit. “Sir, as you can see, we need a few minutes to rest and refit. Why not have the artillery blow up the damn bridge?”
The bespectacled lieutenant never looked up from his tablet. “Been trying to. Damaged the damn thing a bit, but it hasn’t dropped yet. The few artillery units we have within range get a heavy dose of counter-battery fire every time they target the span. The rounds we’ve landed don’t seem to have any effect. Just our luck this is the one decent bridge left in America!” He tapped away some e-message.
Walker didn’t laugh. She hung the IV bag from the radio mast. Reaching up with a bloody free hand, she pulled his computer screen down. Smearing it pretty good with the other soldier’s blood in the process. “Sir, we really need some time to take care of things here. I have too many wounded to move out just yet.”
For the first time, the officer looked down. He gasped and hastily wiped all the blood from his precious computer, but still didn’t notice the source. “We’re wasting time here, Sergeant. Just look at the timeline! We should have taken the objective 30 minutes ago. The enemy is already inside the city and some units are crossing the bridge right now. We’ll penetrate this end of town, while the captain flanks from the north. Textbook breaching operation. We have a short window since you destroyed their screening force. With those assets,” he took one finger away from his typing to wave at the platoon of MGS mini-tanks, “we’ll have the edge in firepower.”
At that instant, two of the MGS gun cars bounced up and down, dozens of tiny flaming holes punched through each. A split second later, the internal ammo torched off and blew the already dead vehicles apart. Walker dived on top of the wounded kid in her arms and covered him as best as possible. Some hard something took her breath away by bouncing off her armored back, but thankfully didn’t penetrate.
A few seconds after the explosions, she heard that distinctive buuuurping sound from the heavens. They hadn’t paid much attention to the skies above in a while and assumed that cut both ways. Apparently not. A lone rebel A-10 Warthog, essentially a giant Gatling gun with wings, circled around for another pass. Barely a mile away. No one in her platoon had a surface-to-air weapon. Only scout elements and the specialized air defense units carried such fancy toys. They were sitting ducks.
“Get away from the vehicles! Help me move the wounded!”
Instead of a helping hand, someone from the FIST team nearby shouted, “Back blast area clear!”
She glanced up to see one of those strange, non-infantry soldiers standing on the roof of his Stryker… pointing a shoulder-fired Stinger missile at the sky. Where the hell did they get one of those? She’d never complain again about those sneaky artillerymen and their raccoon-like need to “acquire” things. Walker whooped as compressed gas shot a rod out of the tube and a few yards in the air. Just as it plunged back to earth, the rocket engine ignited. The falling missile straightened itself and roared off into the distance. The FISTer dropped his launcher and guided the missile to the target with a raised middle finger.
The twin-engine menace popped a couple dozen flares and dived for the deck. Almost made it. The heat-seeking missile ripped off a large chunk of the left wing. Had the pilot been at a higher altitude, the tough little plane probably would have survived. At least long enough to eject. That low though, no way the pilot could generate lift fast enough with a shredded wing. Walker nodded at the fireball over a mile away and turned back to her executive officer.
“What were you saying, sir?”
The lieutenant picked up something off the ground and held it to the light. He gazed on in horror at his PDA’s cracked screen and finally noticed the burning vehicles and screaming men around him. “I guess we aren’t advancing much farther today.”
“Fine job, gentlemen! Unbelievable. Kansas City to Denver, Colorado in barely ten days and fighting the whole way! You boys are all true American heroes.” The congressman, high on this new type of campaigning, didn’t notice a third of the soldiers’ hands he shook were female. He raced around the crowded mobile command center, bumping staffer’s cups and sloshing coffee all over classified paperwork.
General Nat Lyon edged away from the grenade of enthusiasm and tried to read his latest reports quietly in the corner. He did his best to avoid these politicians wandering around his headquarters, while they always did their best to be the center of attention.
Lost in his stack of operational proposals, an old senator whispering in his ear surprised Lyon. “We can’t rest on our laurels, General. After such great progress, why is your army slowing down? You need to hurry up and cut off their main body while we have the initiative.”