Armored Tears (25 page)

"I
know it, Legs," he said. "They're good kids. All of them. I... I want
to bring them home, Legs. I want to get them home alive. All of them. All
that's left... And I know I can't. I know I won't be able to. Kids, Legs;
eighteen, nineteen, twenty. They should be out partying... or getting KP duty
for going on a joyride in their tanks n' telling their C.O. it was a 'training
run.' Not this."

Tara
reached out to put her hand on his shoulder.

"What
were we doing when we were that age?" he said, standing up and looking
away just before her hand could reach him.

"At
twenty? I was training in the Armored Corps Officer School," Tara said,
from behind him. "At nineteen, though? I was a gunner at Hope Springs in
'61, riding one of those old C9 tanks. You know the ones? We smuggled them in
from Canada in the late '50s, in pieces... assembled them out in the desert.
First tanks Armored Corps had. They've still got two of them, set up as gate
guard displays at the Armored Corps Officers School."

"I
know. I seen 'em," Younger said, still not turning around, looking out to
the direction that the UEN tanks would have to come from.

"I
was still in basic training in '61," he went on. "When the fight at
Hope Springs started, they handed out rifles and had us stand watch at the
training barracks. In case the UEN tried to move in and shut us down. Guess I'm
a few years younger than you, huh?

"Fuck,"
he added, turning to face her again, looking down to meet her eyes. "What
a fucked up thing, Legs. Two, three generations of kids, wearing the uniform,
fighting, dying. It's fucked up, Legs."

"What
can we do, man? We fight, we win, they come back, we fight again," Tara
said. "We had seven peaceful years. That's something."

"Yeah.
Seven years. You ever wonder, Legs, what it'd be like if... I don't know. Out
of the service? Just living life? Having a peaceful life? A family?"

Tara
managed a tired laugh. "A peaceful life? I'm not sure I'd know what to do
with it, Younger. Maybe... maybe someone else can have that. If I do my
job."

"It
doesn't always have to be you, doing the job, Legs. It
won't
always have to be you, will it?"
         

"Don't
know..." she said, looking at the man in front of her, and wondering.
There's been a time... once; both of them had
been drunk; they'd wound up in bed together, woken up together. Daniel Younger
had been a surprising gentle lover, she remembered, and her prosthetic legs
hadn't seemed to bother him. But both of them had known that it was a bad idea,
and they'd never done it again.

What
would it be like, Tara wondered, to see him like that every day? Every morning?

"I
don't know," she said again. "Now's not the time to worry about it,
though."

"Yeah,"
Younger agreed. "Let's get this job done, then." He smiled wearily.
"You take care, Tara, huh?" he said and turned to walk back to his
company's tanks.

"Yeah...
you too, Daniel," Tara said softly, to his retreating back.

Feldman
was walking over as Younger headed back. The bigger man gave the smaller a slow
nod and then kept walking back to his own company's tanks.

Tara
said nothing as Feldman plunked down next to her. He looked worn, unshaven,
tired. But still focused.

Out
ahead, a team from two tank crews was working together to replace the
rear-right tread of
 
Feldman's own
tank. His new Auxiliary Corps driver was in there, pulling his weight. Piper,
his name was, Tara recalled.

"You
going to keep your new driver?" she asked Feldman. "I can probably
find someone to shift around so you have a real driver..."

"I'll
keep the one I've got," Feldman said. "Private Piper mentioned he'd
always wanted to be in Armored Corps. I figure he's earned his place."

"Sure,
OK."

"They'll
be back in another hour, won't they?" Feldman asked.
          

"Probably,"
Tara replied. "None of our drones made it past their forward positions,
and satellites are still down. At least it's even that way, now. But from what
we got from that one pass worth of data the Aerospace boys shared with us,
there's at least another enemy armor battalion out there, maybe two. Plus
infantry. And we're still between them and where they want to go."

"I
wonder if they tried bypassing us," Feldman mused.

"Not
likely," Tara replied. "Their orbital surveillance would have shown
them how bad the ground is, even if their maps don't. We're covering the only
passable route through the Isthmus Highlands. There's not much room for
maneuver. We're here, they need to get past us. Not much doubt of what happens
next."

"Command
will have to send reinforcements, though. It's got to be clear now that
we're
the ones holding back the main
force," Feldman said.

"Sure,"
Tara agreed. "But that's going to take hours. Maybe by dusk. And the
pissers will be here in an hour. So we hold them one more time, is all."

"Damn
straight," Feldman said, nodding once.

32.

Colonel
Mbala looked grimly at the data on the display. Most of the 2nd Armored
Battalion was gone, wrecked. And there was no telling how many Arcadian tanks
still held the crucial highlands. It was clear now that the Arcadians had
managed an effective ruse, hiding their strength, pretending that they had only
a single under-strength battalion to lure him into launching an insufficiently
strong attack.
 

It
had been a brutal, clever and effective ruse. But one that would backfire badly
for the Arcadians. He had two more battalions of armor, and with the survivors
of the 2nd battalion, he could send both forward at full strength.

It
would mean that he would be unable to manage the
optics
of the operation as well as he wanted to, but he could adapt
to the situation at hand. The image portrayed by a desperate and costly victory
against fanatical opposition wasn't his first choice, but it could be made to
work. With a little care, it could be just as effective a career move as his
first plan, of a unflustered, clean, invincible advance through hopeless enemy
rabble.

"Send
both battalions to attack," he ordered his aide. "Inform the
commanders that they are to press the attack to victory at all costs. At all
costs. Make that clear to them."
  

"Yes,
sir," the aide said, and ran off to put Colonel Mbala's orders into
effect.

***

"Why
the fuck we gotta dig these holes, Sergeant?" asked Private Palalin. The big
man was walking wounded, but with his broken leg immobilized in an inflatable
pressure cast they'd put on at the aid-station, he could still wear and operate
his frame.
 
 

"'Cause
the Armored Corps colonel told us to, Private," Bernie replied. "And
'cause since we haven't got any anti-tank missiles, there's shit-all else we
can do to help."

Besides
which, Bernie thought but did not bother saying, having the surviving framers
digging made good sense. Framers, using the strength of their frames' servos,
could dig a lot faster than tankers could, using only their own muscles.

That
didn't keep the surviving members of the 9th from griping about it. And since
Bernie —
Sergeant
Polawski—
had found herself the senior surviving leader of the 9th, it was her job to
shut down the griping and make sure the job got done.

The
plan behind the digging was pretty clever too, Bernie thought. A lot of enemy
tanks were headed their way, a
lot
.
And the battered 8th Armored Battalion —which now more or less included
the few survivors of the 9th Frame Infantry Company— had to stop them. So
they were digging a mine-field. The clever bit, though, was that they had no
mines to do it with.

Instead
they were burying a few smart-fuse grenades and a lot of random pieces of
assorted metal junk salvaged from knocked-out tanks. When the enemy tanks
reached the "mine field," they would command detonate the smart-fuse
grenades. They were harmless to a tank, but on the enemy tankers saw something
that even vaguely looked like a mine going off, they would be sure to switch on
their mine detectors... at which point they would find hundreds of buried metal
objects in their path. Once that happened, they were almost bound to form up
into columns and use their counter-mine systems to "clear" paths
through the "mine field" they had found. It wouldn't stop them, but
just like real mines would have done, it would slow them down and bunch them
up.

"Come
on, you guys," Bernie called as she finished burying another chunk of
jagged metal, "dig faster. The last fucking place we want to be is here
when those pisser tanks show up."

That
ought
to motivate the framers, she thought, even if nothing else did.

***

"Hey,
Colonel..." said Private Hanneman, her driver, "could I ask you a
question?"

Her
crew were all in the tank, just waiting, knowing the enemy would be here soon;
the worst part of a battle, Tara thought; the moment where there was no
distraction from your fears.

"Sure,
Hanneman," Tara said.

"I
just... I was wondering. I mean, are we going to make it? Have we got a
chance?"

"'Course
we got a chance, Darryl," said the gunner, Corporal Jalal Shalik.
"We're riding the
Colonel's
tank, aren't we?"

Tara
could sense Corporal Malan, her sensors operator, looking at her across the
compact
 
space of the turret, though
he said nothing.

"What
about it, Colonel?" Hanneman asked.

"I'd
like to tell you we're going to make it, guys. I'd
love
to tell you that," Tara said. "I can't. We... we
might make it. I can't promise it, though. You guys, I think you're the best
crew I ever rode with. The best. And I want to tell you we're going to get
home.

"But
we might not. I can promise you.... I can promise that I won't throw you
away... won't throw us away. I won't spend us if I don't have to. I can promise
you that. But I
can't
promise that I
won't expend you... expend us. We have to hold here. Have to. There's just no
choice. And if that means we have to die here..."

"Hell,
Colonel," said Corporal Malan, "that's what we signed up for, isn't
it? I mean, isn't that why we joined the Defense Force? To protect our home? No
one promised us we'd make it back, though."

"Yeah,"
agreed Corporal Shalik.

"If
I can get us through this alive, I will, guys," Tara said softly. "I
can promise you that. If I can, I will. But that's all."

"Good
enough for me," said Corporal Shalik into the silence that followed.
 

***

The
UEN tanks were moving in again in carefully spaced formations, as if on parade
ground. Watching their advance via one of her drones, Tara wasn't sure if what
she was seeing called for admiration for their discipline or contempt for their
by-the-book, parade-ground tactics. The problem was, with two battalions of
attacking tanks, the parade ground tactics were all too likely to work, she
thought.

The
other problem was the type of tanks she was seeing. Half of them, a battalion
worth, were reading as T-66s. But the other half were something else. The best
"guess" the targeting computer had was brand-new Korean K19s. If that
was true, it was bad news. According to the latest data, the K19 was faster
than the T-66, had better targeting systems, was at least as well armored, and
mounted a cutting edge 47 megajoule main gun. From what Tara had read of them,
the K19s had a decent claim to being the best tanks in existence.

Seeing
them coming at her positions made the waiting just that much harder.

"Wait
for them to slow down for the 'mine field' before unmasking from cover and
opening fire," Tara called on the battalion command push. Not that Younger
and Feldman didn't know the plan, but repeating it one more time gave her
something to say... which beat just silently watching the overwhelming force
roll in.

The
enemy tanks knew where her tanks were; both sides were launching enough drones
that some were staying up long enough to be of use, but the Arcadian tanks were
immune to direct fire till they showed themselves, or till the UEN tanks got so
close that they could get angles of fire around the cover.

Of
course, her tanks weren't immune to missile attack.

Here
it comes again, she thought with a wince, as infantry forces behind the UEN
tanks salvoes dozens of anti-tank missiles. It was the same move that had cost
her so dearly last time.

"Battalion!
All units stand by counter-missiles and point defense!" she ordered.

The
enemy missiles were streaking in now, just as they had before.
   

"Designated
units," she called, "launch drones. All units, stand by to receive
anti-missile targeting from the drones!"

Not
again, you don't, she thought. Not twice. This time her tanks would have
targeting data on the inbound missiles in time for effective anti-missile fire.
If only she had thought of it last time, she thought bitterly.

Anti-tank
missiles streaked in, skimming low over ground littered with wrecked tanks.
From behind covered positions, counter-missile salvos flashed up, their
targeting data fed to them by the circling drones. Dozens, and then hundreds of
puffs of dirty smoke marked the detonations of missiles and counter-missiles.

A
few tanks fired second salvos of counter-missiles. Two tanks opened up with
Metal Storm turrets on inbound missiles that the drones had warned them were on
the way. Not a single anti-tank missile hit an Arcadian tank.

There
was cheering from a few tanks, coming through on the battalion comm push.

"Knock
it off," Tara ordered. "Cheer when
we
kill
them
, not when
they
miss!"

Wait
for it, she thought silently. Wait for it...

A
half-dozen small explosions went off in front of the advancing enemy tanks;
smart-fused grenades detonating. There was no possible way they could seriously
damage a modern tank. But the effect was
everything
that Tara had hoped for.

She
was pretty sure every single pisser tank was switching on their counter-mine
systems. And those systems would be finding hundreds of buried masses of metal,
with no way to tell that they were only inert junk.

As
far as the enemy was concerned, they were about to hit a mine-field and the
entire UEN formation slowed and began to pull into a half-dozen columns of
tanks, ready to push through the "mines" ahead of them.

"Stand
by," Tara called. Just a few more seconds...

"Designated
units, unmask and engage as planned!" Tara shouted into the comm.

A
half-dozen War-Hammers, Tara's included, rolled forward to bring their guns to
bear, acquired an enemy tank, and fired a single burst, before rolling back
under cover.

All
six bursts hit, but only three of the leading "mine-clearing" T-66
tanks were hit hard enough to stop; one with a shed track and two with
penetrations that sent survival pods and tongues of fire shooting out from
their hulls and turrets.

UEN
tanks returned fire, raking the covered positions with main gun fire, sending
up clouds of pulverized rock, but their targets were already out of reach.

"Second
detachment, unmask and engage!" Tara called.

Another
six War-Hammers unmasked from different locations and fired, before reversing
back into cover. Two more UEN tanks started to burn. Return fire thundered
back, but the UEN tanks had been focused on the positions of the first six
War-Hammers, and the second six all managed to get behind cover before any
hostile rounds reached them.

So
far, so good, Tara thought. If they could keep this up long enough, they could
stop the enemy cold. The problem was, she knew they couldn't.

Ahead
of her, the enemy were reacting. UEN tanks popped smoke and began to fall back.
She was tempted to order her tanks to unmask and fire, but the number of enemy
guns made it too dangerous; in the time it would take her tanks to acquire a
target through the concealing smoke, the UEN tanks would be able to fire back
in overwhelming numbers.

"Hold
positions and do not unmask," Tara ordered, just in case some tank's crew
got too eager. With the odds she was facing, she could not afford any early
losses.

Nor
did the UEN tanks retreat far. Instead they stopped about a half-kilometers
before the "mine-field" and then began to rake the ground ahead of
them with long bursts from their main guns.

A
hurricane of blasted dirt and rock exploded into the air as hundreds of main
gun shots pounded into the ground. Tara blinked. As a means to clear a
mine-field, it was crude, but innovative and effective. She'd have to remember
the trick, she thought... assuming she survived.

Amid
the cascade of erupting dirt and stone, the UEN tank crews probably had no way
to tell that there were no actual mines to detonate. Nor did the wall of dust
and debris give Tara's tanks any good chance of making some quick sniping
shots; the Arcadian tanks kept to their cover.

The
storm of fire and debris lasted for less than a minute as the UEN tanks swept
lanes through the non-existent mine-field, and then the guns fell silent and
the UEN advance resumed.

Tara
watched them come, waiting till it was time to spring the next the next trick.

At
two kilometers, a dozen Arcadian tanks suddenly began to target the front rank
of the UEN advance. They seemed to appear from nowhere; the laser ranging
pulses were coming from cold tanks hidden behind camouflage netting, and the
UEN crews had written them off as knocked-out if they had noticed them at all.
But now those tanks suddenly showed thermal signatures and were reaching out
with targeting-laser pulses.