the boy half senseless and forced his head down.
Bunker Meem Thalata (M3),
Hill 1647, 0708 hours, 13/2/461 AC
Sergeant Mohammad Sabah's mother didn't raise any fools. He'd felt the destruction of bunker M1 and even managed to catch sight of the debris falling to earth. Then he'd actually seen M2 disintegrate. That was enough. Shooting like that did not just happen. Someone was using guided shells and systematically destroying the forward bunkers.
Sabah made the not unreasonable connection between remaining on M3 and his own untimely demise. Since remaining on the hill- period-was also likely to be life threatening and trying to get off the hill by going north would only get him shot, or worse, by his own side, he opted to head toward the enemy rather than away. There was a little depression a few hundred meters forward that he knew of.
'Follow me,' he said to men, taking his machine gun, one corporal, and three privates. 'We'll hide forward.'
Maybe we can surrender, Sabah thought. After all, we haven't done the enemy any harm, personally.
Led by Sabah, the five Sumeris slipped over the trench and began working their way down the steep slope of the hill.
Stollen Number One,
0735 hours, 13/2/461 AC
A piper standing outside the Stollen played ' Boinas Azules Cruzan la Frontera' (Blue Bonnets over the Border) as an Ocelot bearing a long, narrow footbridge passed by. Cruz and his fire team emerged from the shelter. Some of the men who knew the new words began to sing along with the pipes:
Many an eagle's wings
Fly where the shellfire sings.
Follow your crest that is famous in story.
Stand and make ready then,
Sons of the jungle glen.
Fight for your legion, your God and their glory.
March, March, Principe Eugenio…
Perhaps they found it calming. Cruz didn't sing; he didn't feel the need to. Instead he watched. The bridge, he saw, was actually up in the air at about a forty-five degree angle, held in that position by ropes that ran to the rear of the vehicle. The bridge seemed to Cruz to be about one hundred feet long.
'Come on, shake it out!' shouted Cruz to his fire team. With his hands, he directed them to form a shallow wedge based on himself as the point man.
Right, he thought. Maybe it doesn't make sense to take up a wide formation before we hit the footbridge, but it will make it easier to get the boys back into formation once we cross.
Ahead the Ocelot stopped a scant two meters from the river bank. The track commander emerged from his hatch and crawled onto the rear deck. He looked across the river to make sure he had judged his spot well, then took out and swung a machete to cut the rope. The bridge hesitated briefly before plunging down to span the river. It bounced twice before finally settling. Then the sergeant dismounted to cut the footbridge loose from his vehicle's bow.
Off to the right another Ocelot approached the river bank, this one also bearing a footbridge on its prow.
The signifer for the century blew into his whistle, signaling the attack. Then he double-timed to the bridge and, without hesitation, began to cross. A shell came in, exploding on the near bank. The signifer was apparently unhurt as he increased his speed to get across the bridge.
'Come on, you assholes,' Cruz shouted above the din. 'The future's on the top of that hill. Follow me!'
As Cruz and his men began to cross, he chanced to look up at the hill ahead. It was-section by section- disappearing as the mortars switched from pounding it with explosives to dropping white phosphorus shells along a line on the slope to blind any of the Sumeris in the forward trace who might be still able and willing to fight.
Forward trench outside Stollen Number Three,
0736 hours, 13/2/461 AC
Carrera followed the progress of the men through his binoculars. He looked for Parilla, but in vain. The light was still too dim to make out individuals.
Still, up the slopes the flash of rifle and machine gun fire, punctuated by major blasts as the infantry and engineers chewed their way through the wire and mines, told the tale well enough.
The artillery and mortars suddenly switched targets, the 120mm mortars laying smoke just below the crest of both fortresses, while the artillery took to pounding targets farther back. The lighter, 60mm, mortars ceased fire as their crews packed up to begin the backbreaking trek to the slope to join their centuries once the hilltops were secured.
Now, Carrera thought, if everyone is still following the plan…
Ah, there they were, eight Turbo-Finch Avenger close air support aircraft and three Cricket recon birds winging in out of the rising sun. The Avengers formed circle a couple of kilometers to the east, taking turns to dive in and lace the fortresses with rocket and machine gun fire. Once, but only once, a light antiaircraft missile lurched up to attack the planes. All eight Avengers circling at the time had sensed the incoming missile and automatically spat out flares and chaff. The missile overcorrected and ended up ultimately crashing to the ground harmlessly.
And where are my Cazadors?
He needn't have worried. The four remaining centuries of Cazadors, borne on ten of the twelve medium lift helicopters, passed through above the highway by Multichucha Ridge and continued along it. As the choppers passed low between the fortresses atop Hill 1647 and its companion, door gunners blasted away more or less indiscriminately with machine guns. Once past, the choppers continued on. The Cazadors had a blocking position to take up farther to the north.
Slope of Hill 1647,
0745 hours, 13/2/461 AC
'Hah!' Parilla exulted as he forced his body up the hill, 'Not bad for a man of almost sixty.' Even so, I wish to hell the slope ahead weren't too steep for tanks and tracks.
Parilla was followed by a small guard from the Headquarters cohort, plus two radio-telephone operators. They were the poor slugs who had to hump the heavy radios up the hill so that Parilla could stay in communication with Carrera and the command post to the rear, as well as the infantry cohorts to the front.
The call, 'Fire in the hole!' came frequently now as infantry and engineers dropped small charges to explode surface laid mines, or used bangalores to clear paths through buried belts of them. Some of the sappers dragged heavy sleds holding rocket-propelled mine clearing line charges. These, intended in most armies to replace bangalore torpedoes, had one major problem. Bangalores could be adjusted and assembled to suit the depth of the obstacle. The MCLC was one size fits all. Thus, while it took six bangalore sections of about one hundred and twenty pounds to clear two five-meter deep obstacle belts set sixty meters apart, a single MCLC, at about the same weight, could clear the first obstacle but would fall short of the second.
Fortunately for MCLC fanciers everywhere-most certainly to include engineer century commander Sam Cheatham-there was at least one broad belt of mines very near the base of the ridge. As the sappers and grunts blasted their way forward as fast as they could set a charge and duck, the more specialized engineers dragged their sleds forward, Cheatham cheering them on, ducking the flying rocks and metal as required. Their feet slipped on packed snow, and they cursed the entire way.
Parilla had to admire the engineers for their damned determination and grit. He stopped and took one arthritic knee- Oh, that frigging hurts-to watch as they reached the
edge of the broad minefield with a MCLC.
Operation of the MCLC was simple It involved little more than removing a watertight plastic cover from the plastic sled, rotating a rocket assembly to point generally frontally, hooking up an electric connection and then running to cover. Once behind cover, the engineers merely hooked up a small generator, and wheee. At that point, electricity applied, the rocket took off downrange with a great deal of smoke and flame, dragging the line charge
