Stephen Coonts - Combat

“Here they come!” Mary May yelled from the aft compartment. Turning his sights to the rear again, Bolde caught the last of Nate and Johnny’s wild slide down the slope face. They still had the Javelin launcher. Good men!

A sharp tack tack tack sounded against the windshield and bullet stars danced across the Armorglas. There were still Algerians out there trying to make a fight of it. Bringing the grenade launcher around, Bolde raked the stone outcropping across from their position, covering his last people home.

The ramp dropped and the deck rang as Johnny and Nate threw themselves and their equipment aboard. “In!” Mary May screamed.

Rick Santiago didn’t need a “go” order. All hands were thrown back in their seats as ABLE lunged forward at maximum acceleration.

Rick fought with the cavalry vehicle’s wheel as they tore down the first switchback below the pass. Dios! This thing is just a goat path! This grade will be hairy enough in daylight and at a sane rate of speed!

Beside him Lieutenant Bolde chanted a mantra. “Faster … Faster … Artillery … Faster!”

Artillery? Shit! Somebody up there in the pass must still have a working radio. They’d left a whole lot of really pissed off Algerians just on the other side of this hill range, and now they no longer had to worry about the presence of friendly troops!

ABLE tore into the next corner, broadsiding through it like a sports car, her outer set of tires more over the edge than on the road. Rick tore back his night-vision visor and slapped his palm down on the auxiliary panel, kicking on the headlights and running lights full beam. Screw stealth! He had to see!

One … two … three … four … five … six … interminable switchbacks, then a short down grade and then the gravel pans.

“Off the road!” Bolde’s yelled command rang in the confines of the cab.

Killing the headlights, Rick swung ABLE into the open desert. A dune loomed ahead, and the Shinseki didn’t as much drive over it as through it, blasting a bow wave of sand to either side. All eight wheels momentarily left the ground. She hit hard once and then concussion bounced her into the air again as the night cracked open and bloody orange light flooded in. There were no definable single explosions as much as a continuous ear-crushing thunder as the massed time-on-target barrage rained down on the Taoudenni caravan road.

Rick’s heart stalled in his chest. But after a moment he realized that they were steadily pulling away from the fire zone. The bombardment wasn’t swinging onto them but was only marching down the roadway. The Algerians were firing blind, raking the caravan route, a frustrated tantrum of high explosives hurled after a brazen and escaping enemy.

They were out. They were all out. Backlit by the shell bursts, Rick could even make out the battered silhouette of CHARLIE drone lumbering faithfully behind them. Then and there, Santiago made a pledge that the next time he got home, he would remember this night and he would go to church and light some candles. He would also go out and get really, really, drunk, but first, he would light the candles.

Over at the commander’s station, Lieutenant Bolde unsnapped the chinstrap of his helmet. Lifting its weight off with a sigh of relief, he ran a hand through his sweat-sodden hair. “Well, that wasn’t such a chore now, was it?”

“You want me to push her for a while, Rick?”

“Nah, LT. I poured a little coffee down my throat, and I’m good to the replenishment point.”

“Just checking.”

Steel-splinter stars still gleamed overhead and the cracked cab hatches admitted a stream of pure, chill predawn air that blew away the stenches of powder and sweat and fear. Bolde and Santiago had the driving watch. The others caught what fragmentary rest they could.

Brid Shelleen drowsed intermittently in her workstation seat. Mary May lay on the deck beside her, her head pillowed on her flak vest. Aft, things were silent in the scout bay as well. Even Lee Trebain slept with the aid of a morphine ampoule.

Somewhere over the horizon, an Army heavy-lift quad-rotor was outbound to meet them. Aboard it would be fuel blivets and ammunition reloads and a flying squad from squadron maintenance to help repair their battle damage.

His injured man would be airlifted out to a field hospital for care. And maybe there would be hot A rations and a clean uniform and an extra liter of water for a bath. And maybe a chance to sleep. Maybe really sleep for several hours straight through.

Bolde grinned to himself. Luxury in the eyes of the field soldier. But not yet. Not yet. There were still things to be considered.

What had he done this night? What had he accomplished that had been worth the gamble of the lives of his people?

Destroying the Recon company had poked a sharp stick into the eye of the enemy. Worthwhile. The Algerian army was weak on logistics. There would be no replacements for those destroyed tankers. Another gain. And the attack on that Algerian mechanized battalion would have a cascade effect. Knock out one of a brigade’s three maneuver battalions and you cripple that brigade. Cripple one of its three maneuver brigades and you weaken the entire balanced structure of the division. A plus.

More importantly, though, was the time. It would take hours for the Algerians to re-form and resume replenishment. More hours for casualties to be dealt with and replacement supplies to be brought forward. More hours cautiously to probe forward and learn if any new and nastier surprises were set to be sprung.

Half a day bought? Maybe a day? It was enough. What was that rueful joke making the rounds within Third World military circles? If you are planning a war, best also plan to win it before the Americans can get there . The Algerian fait accompli had been blocked. Their aggression had been stalled. When they finally ventured south of the El Khnachich range, they’d find more than just a scattering of cavalry patrols waiting for them. They’d find an army.

Bolde slouched deeper into his seat. The risk and return had balance. It had been worth it.

Half-asleep at her workstation, Bridget Shelleen lifted her head as she heard a soft trilling whistle grow in the darkness. It had the lilt of the old country to it, and it took her a moment to place the melody over the rumble of the tires. When she did, she smiled.

Common Modular Missile System —The replacement-to-be for the US Army’s current TOW and Dragon antitank missile systems. An interchangeable family of warheads, guidance packages, and booster engines, CMM rounds can be assembled in the field to produce a number of differently missionformatted antiarmor and antipersonnel missiles. Capable of being launched from both Army land and air vehicles.

HMD (Helmet-Mounted Display) —An integral multimode imaging system built into the visor of a combat helmet. It can be used to present readouts of personal or Velectronics systems, as a video display for operating remotecontrolled vehicles and equipment via telepresence, or as an access to a virtual-reality environment.

Javelin —A shoulder-fired, infrared-guided, “fire and forget” antitank missile. The replacement for the Dragon ATM, the Javelin is just entering the US inventory at this time, making it a veteran weapons system by 2021.