With the fourth and then the fifth live sections attached, the bangalore was too heavy, at about one hundred pounds, for one man to push forward easily. Cruz and the other legionary strained the assembly forward until they reached the end, whereupon Cruz attached his own final live section, the one that had been primed with cap, fuse and pull-igniter.
Again, Cruz ordered, 'Scram.' The other legionary took off, low and running.
First whispering a very short and eloquent prayer, more or less 'Oh, God,' Cruz screamed out, 'Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!' He then pulled on the igniter. He spent a second making sure the fuse, which had been cut to twelve seconds, had caught properly before turning himself to sprint to relative safety. As he sprinted he counted aloud, 'Nine… eight… seven… six…'
Then, in the dim light of the moon, Bellona, his eye caught sight of the second man in the breach team, the one after Sanchez, on one knee apparently struggling to free himself from another grasping piece of the goddamned wire.
'Five… four… three…'
There was no time to free the entangled legionary. Without much thinking about it Cruz simply changed direction slightly and dove at him.
'Two… one…' Khawhoomf!
The explosion seemed to pick the two off of the ground where they sprawled, shake them like rats caught in a terrier's mouth, then slam them down again. Hard. Very dammed hard. The shattered wire whined dangerously overhead or, in the case of pieces thrown high by the blast, lost velocity and pattered harmlessly down.
The century commander blew a whistle. At least Cruz thought it must be the whistle. It was hard to tell at first; his ears were ringing. Ah, yep, he thought dully, must have been the whistle for the assault because everyone is running past me.
Everyone is running past me?
'Bravo team, Second Squad! Assemble on me!'
Ridenhour had thought those two kids were goners when he saw the one caught fast and the other dive for him. He saw them only briefly as he took what little cover was available and tried to make himself very small. But no, once the danger from bits of jagged, flying metal had passed he saw the two sitting up, looking rather dazed and confused. He jogged over as three others likewise moved to join the pair, one of whom-the kid who'd been chosen to lead the team to execute the breach, Ridenhour assumed-began shouting in Spanish. By the time Ridenhour reached the little group they were already following the trail elements of the assault party through the wire, across the open area, and up the steep slope of the pita's berm.
This is just so fucking unsafe. Don't they even care if they kill somebody?
Apparently, they did not. At the point of the assault on the berm's outer edge Ridenhour found a young signifer, the century commander, directing his sections left and right to begin clearing the trenches that zig-zagged along the top. He noticed the mortars were still firing, but at the far side of the pita, while the machine guns had switched from the open center to the left and right edges.
Ridenhour heard someone shout, in Spanish, 'Backblast area clear!' It took him half a second to translate and remember what that implied. This gave him about one quarter of a second to throw himself to one side as an RGL gunner let fly down into what must have been a hard target in the center of the pita. Another shout, another buffeting by the backblast, and the RGL team arose to a low hunch and moved on.
There was firing, a lot of firing, from the attacking sections' assault rifles and LMGs as they cleared the trench from the center to the left and right. The firing was supplemented by blasts; simulators, small demo charges, or live grenades, Ridenhour didn't know which. He crawled up the side of the berm to lay beside the century commander and peer, like the latter, over the lip of the berm in order to see the action.
Wow.
The interior of the place was lit up like Christmas by flames. One section moved in either direction around the perimeter, shooting and blasting as they cleared each bay of what looked to be an octagonal trace trench. They raced on at a speed Ridenhour thought downright foolhardy. What the hell do they do if they run into each other? Well, at least they've lifted the mortar fire off the objective.
The signifer commanding apparently had thought of that problem. He got on his radio and ordered one section to halt in position and guard. Then he told the other section to clear almost to the halted one.
'All right,' said the signifer to the action section. 'Now back up fifty meters… fast.' He gave them half a minute to finish that move before ordering the second section to clear forward fifty meters. One way or another, the entire thing was gone over at least once.
The centurion for the century arrived and reported. 'Signifer, I have all three machine-gun teams, the other RGL team, the breach team, and the scout-snipers. Where do you want them.' The century commander began bellowing orders.
Ridenhour shook his head and slithered down the berm. He had seen enough for one night.
Cruz's ears were still ringing. Moreover, he was pretty sure he had taken at least one piece of serrated barbed wire across the butt. But… you know… and then he started to laugh, lightly at first. Sanchez and the other man looked at Cruz, questioningly. Then they, too, started to laugh, sheepishly at first but with a growing mirth.
Sanchez was the first to put feelings into words. 'Goddamn, Cruz, that was fun. Jesus, I love this shit.'
Ridenhour and Mitchell joined Carrera and Soult shortly after sunrise. Soult was taking down the tripod with the thermal imager and stowing them in a trailer towed behind his vehicle.
Mitchell spoke first. 'Sir, that was just too fucking cool.'
'It wasn't bad,' Carrera agreed. 'Didn't lose anybody, at least.'
'Not there, sir, no,' Soult said. 'But while you were sleeping I got the word-sorry, I should have told you before but it slipped my mind-that we lost another one, plus four wounded, on the Cohort Deliberate Attack Course at Ranges Eight and Ten at the Imperial Range complex.'
'Hmmm, that would make… ummm… thirty-eight, so far. What happened?' Carrera asked. He didn't seem overly concerned.
'Half a dozen mortar rounds fell short,' Soult answered simply. Carrera shrugged. 'Appears to have been an ammunition problem rather than a fire direction error. Harrington already directed that that lot be pulled out of training stocks and examined.'
Carrera shrugged. You had to expect ammunition quality control problems when you bought cheap.
'You're taking this awfully calmly,' Ridenhour observed. 'Don't you think you're maybe pushing these units a little hard?'
'No,' Carrera answered, then elaborated, 'Look, John, when somebody says, 'There's never an excuse for getting someone killed in training,' what they really mean is, 'I don't care if someone gets killed in combat later because they're not well trained enough, because that won't affect my career, now.' It's just a damned immoral way of looking at things. And I won't permit it in the legion.'
'But how the hell do you explain to a young kid's parents that he got killed for something that wasn't even battle?'
'How do I explain to a bunch of young kids' parents that they got killed in a battle we lost because their units weren't well trained enough?' Carrera countered.
'Are you going to have a unit left when you're done training them?'
Carrera hesitated briefly, pulling up some mental data. 'I planned on one percent deaths-call it forty-nine or fifty men-in basic training and advanced individual training. We actually lost about half that. I assumed we'd lose another dozen in the Cazador, you would say 'Ranger,' School I had FMTG run early on for the selection process for Officer Candidate School and Centurion Candidate School. We lost seven. The unit training I anticipated would cost us another fifty and we are at eight dead so far. We probably will lose another thirty but we recruited enough to make up for those losses plus another couple of hundred more for the badly wounded.'
'But what about the men's morale?' Ridenhour continued to object.
Carrera yawned. 'They don't know any better. We act like it's normal and routine and so they tend not to question it. It's just not an issue. You can ask if you want, but do me a favor and don't act like the bleeding heart press when you do, less still like some hypocrite congresscritter with never a day in uniform. And please don't try to convince the troops that there is something wrong with training that sometimes kills.
'Remember, too, that you're trying to compare apples and oranges. The Federated States has a military
