platoon manning Wyvern SAM launchers. SAM meant Surface to Air Missile. Bill Harris with his twenty Militiamen stayed with the tanks. Most of Bill’s Militia had rearmed themselves with QBZ-23s or they had been issued with grenade-launchers.
At the moment, Stan stood with the major near his data-net, a group of techs with fold-up tables, chairs and laptops. They fed information into the computers as more news kept trickling in.
“We need to ambush whatever heavies they’re going to throw at us,” Major Williams said. Williams wore a parka, with dirt smeared on his face. He had a hawkish nose and aggressively thrust his chin forward as if trying to maintain the image of a classic commanding officer. He studied a computer-scroll and gripped an assault rifle with his other hand. They stood under a pine tree that kept creaking as a cold wind blew between the two granite hills sixty feet ahead of them.
“Is this before or after they saturate us with artillery fire?” asked Stan.
Williams scowled. “I’m not a magician, son. I don’t know how they’ll react exactly. It’s what they’ve been doing, however. Whenever they hit a strongpoint, they rush up artillery and try to smash through. The raining artillery breaks our Militiamen every time and the National Guard troops about half the time. Seems to me the Chinese are eating up their supplies fast, however, supplies they’ll need to take Anchorage.”
“We’re not going to let them get to Anchorage, are we, sir?” asked Stan.
“Do you have any bright ideas on how to stop them?” Williams asked.
Stan looked around, studying the terrain, particularly how the road behind the trenches curved under a slope about a hundred yards to the rear. He’d been questioning soldiers and militiamen wherever he had the chance. This was such a historic opportunity. He’d been speaking into his recorder in the interests of writing battle memoirs someday. The men who had already faced the Chinese had told him some incredible tales, stories that had scared the crap out of him. By their accounts, the Chinese were ten feet tall and never made a mistake. He was glad for that run-in earlier today. Seeing the Chinese die had bolstered his confidence in his tanks.
“Okay, up there,” said Stan, pointing at the slopes behind the defensive position.
“That’s too far behind the strongpoint,” Williams said.
“You’ve said it yourself, sir. You don’t think we’re going to hold this spot forever. We’re trying to bleed them and force them to use up precious supplies. I can understand that, sir. It’s good tactics. But how do we save our survivors once they break? They need covering protection in order to get away.”
“What kind of defeatist talk is that?” shouted Major Williams.
One of the data-net operators looked up. A scowl from Williams and the man quickly turned back to his computer.
“I’m only saying that because I’ve been listening to you, sir,” said Stan.
“Don’t blame me if you want to run.”
“Sir, as you said, the Chinese are mopping up places like this. They use artillery to make us run. Okay. We don’t run this time, but instead make them bleed. It’s only logical that they’ll bring whatever heavy vehicles they’ve brought along with them for the second try. They might attempt an overrun assault to drive us from our position.”
“And how did you come to this glorious conclusion, Captain?”
“I’ve been talking to everyone I can, sir, learning about the enemy and his habits.”
“You’re an intelligence officer, are you?”
“No,” said Stan, “just a soldier.”
“You’re not even that. You’re just a National Guardsman.”
The oldest data-net operator muttered, “It was his National Guard tanks that killed a platoon of Chinese, sir.”
Major Williams glanced at the master sergeant and began nodding. “You’ve got a point, soldier. Sorry,” he told Stan. “I haven’t slept for two days. It wears on you. I’m sick of running, of trying to build a defense and then watching my men sprint away so I have to start running again myself.”
“We’ve been running, but we haven’t been overrun, sir,” the master sergeant said.
“Damn straight we haven’t been!” Williams said. With the back of his hand, he rubbed his forehead. “You’re right,” he told Stan. “We’re not going to be able to hold our position here forever. I like your point. Ambush them while they’re chasing us out of here, huh?”
“Seems like the best time to do it is when they think they’ve got our boys beat. Whatever heavies they have will likely come roaring up to kill us. They’ll think to do it easily. That’s when I send our shells into them. Boom—” Stan said, clapping his hands. “End of the Chinese heavies.”
“I like it. Not too fancy and it uses how we’ve been reacting—running like mad. This has to stop, Captain. We can’t let them into Anchorage.”
Stan thought about his dad sitting in jail, and about his wife at home. He thought about the Boones and the people of the Rock Church. What would the Chinese do to them once they reached Anchorage? “I agree with you, sir.”
“Okay then,” said Williams. “Let’s hurry it and get ourselves set up for round number nineteen.”
Speaking with the data-net master sergeant later, Stan learned some valuable information. According to what they knew, the Chinese hadn’t landed many heavy vehicles so far. Stan had also learned they weren’t facing the Chinese Army but the Chinese Naval Infantry, which was much like the Marine Corps in structure and design. The Chi-Nav, as men had started calling them. It had been Chi-Com during the Korean War, which had meant Chinese Communists. In any case, the naval infantry were independent of the Chinese Army and lacked the heaviest tanks.
The master sergeant had looked up on the Internet for Stan facts about the Chi-Nav. Their TO&E charts helped Stan breath easier. The naval infantry was lightly armed compared to the regular Chinese Army and compared to the U.S. Marines. Their heaviest combat vehicles were infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) and some light Marauder tanks, at least light in terms of Chinese advanced armament.
As Hank brought Stan’s tank into position, Jose Garcia arranged his shells in order. They had an automatic loader, an improvement compared to twenty years ago when a manual loader had shoved shells into the chamber.
“We’re ready,” said Hank, who had hung his cowboy hat to the side, where he kept an illegal .55 caliber hand-cannon.
Stan opened the commander’s hatch, popping his head and torso outside the tank’s protective armor. There was a heavy M2 .50 caliber machine gun here for his use, and two Blowdart tubes secured nearby for quick release. The Blowdart was one of the few modern pieces of American equipment, and with the larger Wyvern SAMs, it helped keep aircraft and choppers from simply mowing them down, at least when the Americans deployed the missiles properly.
Stan had read many times that a tank army’s effectiveness was in direct proportion to the number of tank commanders it lost during combat. In other words, to “see” well, a tank needed its commander in this position, half in the tank to shout orders to his men, and half out so he could see what the heck what was going on around him. He would strap on body-armor later and a bulky helmet. It was some of the latest in American battle-wear. For torso protection, he had durasteel plates inserted in a compound fiber mesh, with armorplast plates and compound fibers on his head, hands and arms.
They were on the reverse side of a slope, meaning the highway was presently hidden from sight. Snow-laden pines loomed all around the tanks. Stan had talked to Pastor Bill, and Bill had his Militiamen sawing off branches to cover the tanks, to help camouflage them from air recon.
The massive vehicles were in a line, waiting for the command to clank near the top of the hill. They would roll forward then and depress the gun as far as it would go. Then the long barrel would poke over the top of the hill. Each tank would
Stan climbed out of his tank and crunched through the snow to the top of the hill. There he tried to imagine what it would look like if the Chinese came charging through the pass. After a time, he muttered, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
