transports, an equivalent French force and another made up from the smaller European Navies. Even the Peruvian Navy was represented, they’d sent the cruiser Almirante Grau, with her six inch guns, she had the heaviest battery in the fleet.
The Baldricks had all their remaining armies bottled up in Dis, besieged and isolated. They had no idea of the amphibious hammer blow that was about to land on the far north of the land they had once claimed as their own. Shelanski felt the vibration building up under his feet. His ship was picking up speed for the long run to Tartarus.
1/33 Battalion, Third Brigade, Third Armored Division, Ninth U.S. Corps. North of Dis.
The Third Armored was officially designated as the Spearhead Division although it was less formally known as the “Third Herd”. And a herd it was, thundering north as fast as its tracks could carry it, modified only by a degree of prudence. The baldricks had nothing that could stop a tank, nothing that was known, anyway. Still, it paid to be prudent.
Keisha Stevenson looked around at the array of armored vehicles sweeping across the countryside. Things had changed since her first tentative forays into Hell months before. A handful of vehicles she’d had then and they were all of human forces in hell, stepping gingerly into unknown and hostile terrain. Now she had a full combined arms battalion, two companies of Abrams tanks, two of mechanized infantry in Bradleys and a battery of the new 57mm armed anti-harpy vehicles. A force that dwarfed her previous command and yet was a tiny part of the armored avalanche descending on anything that dared to get in its way. It wasn’t just Third Armored; alongside them and off to the east was Sixth Armored and to the West was the Fourth Mechanized Infantry Division with the 30th Mechanized Infantry following as Corps reserve. Just to complete the formation was another reformed unit, the 26th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Stevenson shook her head, four whole divisions and an armored cavalry outfit that was called a regiment but was closer to a small division all by itself. Times had surely changed.
“Village up ahead Colonel.”
“Deploy, standard drill.” Since her return to Hell, her battalion had done this operation a number of times. This was the first time that they’d been out of the area that fed and supported Dis though, it wasn’t likely that would make any difference. She looked through the tank’s optics and saw an embankment, a few pitiful feet tall crossing the track that led into the scattering of small huts beyond. She knew what was beyond it, a ditch, digging that had provided the red soil that made the fortifications. She almost snorted at that and then remembered her dignity as a Colonel. Lieutenants snorted, Colonels looked fierce. She had to remember that. Even if she had only been a colonel for a few days and had spent barely more time in the ranks between.
“Hokay, all units, on the barricade, high explosive, open fire.”
Thirty Abrams tanks fired in a single salvo, hiding the earth embankment behind the rolling orange balls as the 120mm guns sent their shells downrange. The two Bradley companies held their fire, they were on overwatch, waiting for any harpies to appear. Stevenson looked at the destruction developing the baldrick position and shook her head quietly to herself. This wasn’t war, it was getting to have the unpleasant characteristics of a massacre. Had the troops at Wounded Knee felt this way?
“Cease fire. Advance slowly, prepare to open up again if there’s any resistance.” The tanks jerked and then started their slow roll forward. There was no hurry, the 120mms were loaded and ready to fire. Her battalion had older Abrams tanks, ones pulled from the boneyard and refurbished. The new production tanks had 90mm guns, once mounted in M47s and M48s and stored away. Those new Abrams were called stubbies and their crews were the butts of crude jokes about the size of their equipment. Stevenson shook her head more obviously, jokes like that was never a problem she’d had to face. But, in truth, the 90mm killed a baldrick just as dead as a 120mm and the smaller gun allowed the tank to carry twice as much ammunition.
“Will you look at that?” The voice came over the vehicle intercom. Her Abrams was cresting the battered remnants of the barricade and the crew could see the baldricks who’d been sheltering behind that. “Colonel, I thought you said these things were big.”
“They are, or the ones we met so far were. Eight feet, sometimes ten or eleven.”
“Well these ain’t. Same size as us I’d say. Six feet tops. And they don’t even have tridents. Looks to me like those poor bastards have got farm tools for weapons.”
Stevenson looked down, at the bodies surrounding the tank. They were smaller than the ones she’d seen on her first tour all right. And their weapons? She could see a pitchfork and a scythe. One had a wooden pole with what looked like a knife tied to the end. A crude spear. They’d faced up to tanks and they’d been armed only with farm implements and kitchen knives?
She flipped to the battalion command frequency. “Hokay, we take the village. Don’t shoot if you don’t have to, the baldricks over here are just farmers. Remember, a scythe can kill you just as dead as a 120 so if anybody fights, waste them. But if they don’t fight, we don’t shoot, got it?”
Her tank nosed forward again, heading for the gap between the rows of huts that served as a main street. There was nobody in sight, no barricades, nothing. It was an eerie sensation, the words ‘its quiet, too darned quiet’ ran through her mind. Then, from one of the buildings a baldrick ran out, one more of the size she remembered and this one did have a trident. She reacted instantly, the remote-controlled machine gun mounted over the main gun swiveled and fired a burst. The baldrick lurched as the. 50 caliber bullets tore home, then collapsed as a second burst finished it off. That was it, that was all?
The mechanized infantry were dismounting from their carriers, spreading out through the huts. Stevenson joined the lead group (much to the private dismay of the Lieutenant who was also leading it) and waited while two of the men moved up to the building. The job was done in standard style, they kicked the crude door in, it was barely more that a collection of brushwood anyway, and a second pair dived through, rolling as they landed, their M4 carbines scanning for targets. Stevenson followed them in, just in time to hear the scream from the dimly lit room.
“No, please, don’t kill them.” A female baldrick was in one corner of the hut, crouched over something, her arms spread protectively over whatever it was she was hiding. “Kill me but don’t kill them.”
Stevenson looked closely, and listened. There was a thin wailing from under the baldrick, one she recognized from her childhood in Bayonne. An infant that had picked up on its mother’s terror and was itself terrified although it didn’t know why.
“Hold fire, she’s protecting her kids.” Stevenson looked again, more closely. “There’s two of them. Get a light over here.”
One of the infantrymen brought a flashlight over and shone it on the female baldrick. She was still sprawled over the infants and moaning gently. “Not my kidlings no.”
“Aww, ell-tee look at this. Their babies. Cute little things, even got little beards.” The private looked at his battalion commander. “Sorry Ma’am. Forgot you were here for a moment.”
“Forget it private, I guess I shouldn’t be.” Stevenson turned her attention to the female. “It’s all right, we’re not going to hurt them. You don’t fight us, we don’t fight you. Have you food for them?”
The female nodded, her yellow slitted eyes looking around suspiciously.
One of the soldiers had come over and was looking down at the babies. “They really are cute.” He dug in a pocket and got out a candy bar. “Reckon they can eat this all right?”
Stevenson nodded. “Saw it back at Hell-Alpha. Abigor’s people love chocolate. Even the kidlings. Ma’am, is it all right for us to give your kids some candy?”
The female still looked suspicious so the soldier with the bar broke off a piece and ate it himself. Then he broke off another piece and gave it to the kidling who seized it and started to chew. The chocolate vanished with astounding speed.
“Here, kid, have another piece. YOW! Hey Colonel, ell-tee, be careful they bite.”
Stevenson remembered her job. “Check this place for weapons then move out.” She left the hut, watching the soldier give his candy bar to the female as they left.
Out in the center of the village, her medical team was working on another female, this one smeared with bright yellow blood. “Colonel, we need help. This one caught a stray fifty-cal. Hurt bad.”
A brief nod, one thing her division wasn’t short of was medical facilities. The ToE was built around a reasonable casualty level, not this walk-over. Once again her conscience started pricking her. “I’ll get a medevac for her. Lieutenant, see to it. Pronto.”
Most of the other villagers were kneeling in the dust of the street, their hands clasped behind their heads. They were all much smaller than the ones she’d seen before, the baldrick her tank had killed had been the only one
