Parilla walked among the men, clapping a shoulder here, giving a kind word there, reaching out to pat a cheek or grasp and shake an earlobe when he recognized someone from the old days. Mostly, though, he just looked the men in the faces, his own face smiling with confidence as if to say, 'We can do this.'
After a few minutes, Parilla turned to go. The door to the Stollen opened letting in the crashing thunder of the artillery and mortars. He was about to leave but then suddenly turned back to the men.
'CAN WE DO THIS?' Parilla bellowed.
'Fuckin' A, we can, sir!'
'Goddamn right.'
With that shout ringing in his ears, Parilla emerged back into the darkness of the night. Overhead he heard the mixed drone of the legion's remotely piloted aircraft, fixed wing and small helicopters both, beating their way forward to the objective.
Forward Command Post, Stollen Number Three, 0503 hours, 13/2/461 AC
A small portion of the shelter had been marked off and partitioned with empty ammunition boxes to create a distinct command post.
Carrera glanced at his watch. 'Almost showtime, boys and girls.' He stood up from his field table and walked over to the Ic, the MI, desk in one corner of the bunker. 'Report.'
Fernandez stood up. 'Sir, we have seven deep recon teams in position. The eighth is missing. I have had the ala redirect a Cricket to cover that sector and to look for sign of our men. Four RPVs and four remotely piloted helicopters are moving to the far side of the objective. We observe no noticeable change in posture on the objective. Some Sumeri artillery and mortars have been identified.'
Carrera looked over at the Fire Support desk. The FSO volunteered, 'From the Ic I have two batteries of guns, believed to be 122mm, and one of large caliber mortars. I have assigned one section each of multiple rocket launchers to the guns and the enemy heavy mortars. Countdown to time on target has begun. Communications are excellent. The Target Acquisition and Counterbattery Century is standing by.'
Carrera paced to the Ia, or Operations, desk. Kennison just raised a thumb and smiled. Carrera gave the thumbs up signal as well. He studied the map for a few minutes then, nodding and placing his helmet on his head, and walked across the bunker to the exit.
As Carrera closed behind him the double tarp that kept light from escaping from the Stollen, he heard the FSO beginning the final ninety seconds countdown. To his left as he walked along the trench to his observation position he saw a bright flash light up the horizon. He stopped to watch as a few, and then dozens, of flashes joined the first. He didn't try to count them. He knew there would be nearly sixteen hundred shells and rockets sent toward Hill 1647 in the first minute of the bombardment. But still he stayed to watch as the muzzle blasts of ninety-seven guns, mortars, and rocket launchers lit the landscape like so many strobe lights. It was strangely beautiful.
In the Great Global War, at its beginning, I'd have needed three times the guns for the same effect. Shells have improved. Propellants burn cooler now so guns can fire more, faster. Gotta love the modern age.
Though I wonder how much more improvement is possible. The FSC and Taurans are, allegedly, working on liquid propellant guns; railguns, too, for that matter. Will I be able to afford them when they come out? Will I be able to not afford them, when they come out?
Hill 1647, 0505 hours, 13/2/461 AC
The feet of the last Balboan legionary drummed futilely against the floor of the trench as the Sumeri guard made a final twist to the rope around the dying man's neck. By the diffuse light of the moons overhead Ali watched the spectacle with enjoyment. He hadn't learned anything, but oh, how satisfying to see your enemies die like cockroaches. Better even than making a Yezidi husband watch while twenty of your men raped his wife and daughters.
After the last few feeble kicks of the legionary's feet, Ali turned his attention to something off to the southeast. There were flashes lighting up the overcast sky all across his field of view. Fuck, guns, lots of them. The sound hadn't reached him yet but he knew what was on the way. 'Incoming!' he shouted and began to run to his own bunker. He was surprised that he made it before the first rounds hit. Then he realized that the very first rounds were passing over head.
Shit, they're going after the mortars and artillery first. This isn't just a punishment bombardment.
In his well-appointed personal bunker Ali picked up a field telephone to relay this insight to his uncle, the brigade commander, when the top of the hill was swept by fire. Even so far below, a wave of concussion slammed Ali against the wall of the dugout. When he realized, semi-stunned though he was, just how close that shell had been, and how big, he began to shake.
Forward trench outside Stollen Number Three,
0511 hours, 13/2/461 AC
Soult joined Carrera in the slit trench, taking shelter under the overhead cover Cheatham's engineers had thrown up. Together they watched the fireworks display. Four illumination shells hung almost motionless over the hilltop. A new one would burst into light seconds before the previous one burnt out.
'Why the illumination, Boss? To ruin their night vision?'
Carrera pulled his head back from the viewport he had been looking through. 'Hmm? Oh. Partly that, but mostly to make them feel observed and helpless.' He went back to the spectacle.
This was Soult's first real action. He felt the compulsion to talk; many new initiates to battle did. Carrera didn't mind. Indeed, he liked explaining. One never knew when a subordinate would have to make a decision on his own. The more they understood, the more likely that decision would be the right one.
'Do you think the artillery will kill them all, Boss?'
Carrera didn't turn away from his view when he answered. 'The way they're dug in? Very few, actually. That's not the point.'
'Huh? Then what's the point, sir?'
Carrera thought for a while before answering. He began his answer with a question. 'Have you ever almost been killed, Jamey?'
Jamey smiled. 'In Balboa? The way they drive? Of course.'
'Were you driving an automatic or a stick?'
'A stick,' Soult answered.
'Hmm. How long before you could drive away?'
Soult took a moment before answering. 'Well, you know how it is. I was driving on a mountain road in the eastern part of the country. There were actually cliffs on both sides. I made a turn and there was a bus coming towards me and another car passing the bus. Narrow road, too. I slowed down just in time for the car to miss me, but I ended up going fifty plus miles an hour backwards. I'd have gone off the cliff altogether except that there were three skinny palms growing close together where I went off the edge of the road. They just barely stopped me. My leg was shaking so badly at first that I couldn't use the clutch. That lasted maybe a half an hour. Then, for about two hours, I giggled like a girl at escaping.'
A tremendous explosion two hundred meters away rocked the two men. It was followed by a storm of shells impacting all around the entrenchment. Carrera and Soult ducked down low. After the storm lifted Carrera picked up the radio dedicated to fire support and listened momentarily. 'That was theirs. The counterbattery people are already on it,' he announced.
Soult laughed. 'Just like a car wreck. I'm shaking now. I see your point, Boss.'
'I'm not sure you do, Jamey. You were in one-almost-car wreck. That was just light shellstorm. What the people on top of that hill will be going through is the equivalent of a near fatal car wreck every minute or two for the next several hours. They'll be a very long time in laughing about it.'
'So you mean to break their morale?'
'Some will break, I suppose. But you know, Jamey, in battle fear and fatigue are almost indistinguishable and are mutually interchangeable. Those men up there are going to be so repeatedly petrified that by the time they see the first of our boys they'll be too tired and too shaken with fear to so much as shoot straight.
'And besides that,' Carrera finished, 'I'm training them.'
