Уильям Дитц - Battle Hymn

Mac heard a thump followed by a dozen more in quick succession. She frowned. “What was that ?”

“The rebs are using cannon fire to clear a path through the minefield,” Evans replied.

Mac’s estimate of Oxley’s abilities went up a notch. He wasn’t the first officer to use the strategy. And it made sense to clear a path before shelling Mac’s defensive positions. Once Oxley accomplished that, he could send his infantry forward even if his tanks had been destroyed.

Just as Mac couldn’t stand being cooped inside a Stryker, she didn’t like being stuck in the bunker. Plus, she needed to talk to Lieutenant Burns, who, according to Duke, was on the front line just east of the HONEST ABE.

Mac left the bunker, with the RTO following close behind. She led him through the main trench to a smaller ditch that provided access to a four-man fighting position. Burns was present, along with a two-man AA team, and their launcher. “Good morning,” Mac said cheerfully. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

Burns had dark skin, wide-set eyes, and a friendly grin. “Thanks, ma’am… We aim to please.”

Mac brought her glasses up and swept them from left to right. The tanks were out in the open but partially obscured by the smoke that was pouring from their onboard generators. Both M-1s fired, and high-explosive shells landed in the minefield. Each impact triggered secondary explosions that launched geysers of black soil up into the air. Mac turned to Burns. “Divide your fire between the tanks. Both groups will launch on my command. Understood?”

Burns looked concerned. “Permission to speak freely?”

Mac nodded. “Of course.”

“Aircraft are one thing,” Burns said. “They’re relatively fragile. But a Stinger doesn’t pack enough punch to stop a tank.”

“That’s true,” Mac agreed. “But we’re going to fire fifteen Stingers at each one of those bastards, and our Stryker 1128s are going to hit them, too.”

Burns’s eyebrows rose. “Holy shit, that might work.”

Mac smiled grimly. “Here’s hoping it does. Get your people ready. Let me know when they are.”

Burns spoke into his TAC radio, answered a couple of questions, and turned back. “We’re ready, ma’am.”

Mac took the handset from Duke. “This is Six actual. The 1128s and the AA teams will fire on my command. Ready, aim, fire !”

A lot of things happened at once. Four Strykers, all equipped with 105mm cannons, rolled to the top of specially graded pathways and paused. Because of the way the vehicles were designed, they couldn’t depress their guns very far. That meant the “pop-up” ramps had to be just right in order for the vics to target the tanks.

Four seconds passed while their gunners used the heat generated by the M-1s to target them. Then they fired. Not in perfect unison, so the reports overlapped each other, to create a sound like rolling thunder. Six seconds were required to reload and fire again . Then, after ten seconds in the open, the Strykers backed down and out of sight.

Mac’s binoculars were focused on the tanks. She caught glimpses of them through the drifting smoke. M-1s were equipped with composite armor. It offered superior protection against the sort of high-explosive, antitank rounds the Strykers were firing at them.

Mac saw that five out of the eight shells fired at the tanks had been on target. And having been through the armor school at Fort Benning, Mac knew the pounding would take a toll.

Meanwhile, fifteen Stinger missiles had been fired at each tank. Each launch resulted in a loud bang. So as thirty of them sped downrange, it sounded as if a string of giant firecrackers was going off. Smoke trailed behind each missile. And there were so many of them that most of the battlefield was obscured as the Stingers found their targets.

Mac saw bright flashes through the haze. But she couldn’t assess how much damage had been done until a light breeze blew some of the smoke away. There was a loud boom as the tank on the left fired its gun, but the machine on the right had been holed, and the crew was bailing out. “This is Six actual,” Mac said. “ Don’t fire on the tank crew… Let them go. Over.” The Marauders watched the rebs sprint to safety.

“All right,” Mac said. “Let’s finish this. Ready, aim, fire!”

The pop-up Strykers loosed another salvo. But, because all of them were aiming at the same target, the results were even better. After taking seven hits, the remaining M-1 exploded. Flames shot up through the top hatch, and the tank shuddered as shells cooked off inside the hull. That was followed by a loud BOOM as the hull disintegrated, and chunks of metal flew every which way. “It worked,” Burns said. “It actually worked!”

“Of course it worked,” Mac replied with a confidence she didn’t feel. “But this is far from over. The tanks plowed a passageway through our minefield, and now their infantry will try to use it.”

Duke interrupted them. “Lieutenant Forbes is on the horn, ma’am. She says that three self-propelled barges are crossing Black Lake—and all of them are loaded with troops. ETA, fifteen minutes.”

Even though the move wasn’t unexpected, Mac felt a sudden stab of fear. Could the Marauders fight on two fronts and win? They were about to find out.

Jet engines screamed as two enemy fighters swooped in, dropped two-thousand-pound bombs on the complex, and accelerated away. Powerful explosions shook the ground as three Strykers were destroyed, and a dozen soldiers were killed. The real battle had begun.

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

Sloan had been in New Orleans for a day by then. The purpose of the visit was to convince critics that he wasn’t asleep at the wheel, as some of them claimed, and to boost sagging morale. Even though the Mexican advance wasn’t pretty from a military perspective, the sudden influx of enemy troops had been devastating. Because contrary to what some people expected, the Mexican troops had come to fight. The reason for their fervor wasn’t entirely clear and was the subject of considerable conjecture.

Fortunately, Union forces had been able to stop the advance west of Baton Rouge. But a lot of hard-won ground had been lost. And now, rather than the big push that Sloan had been planning, he faced another stalemate.

That was what he’d been told the previous afternoon. And now, as Sloan sat through still another briefing, everything he heard amounted to more bad news. The latest tidbit was that a battalion of troops had been sent deep into enemy territory in order to capture and hold the West Hackberry Strategic Oil Reserve. Now they were trapped and fighting for their lives.

That would have captured Sloan’s attention no matter what. But the fact that he’d been to the Hackberry site as Secretary of Energy and survived the ill-fated attempt to capture the reserve in Richton, Mississippi, meant that he could imagine the battle that was taking place. He raised a hand. “Excuse me, Admiral… Let’s back up. I’d like to know more about that battalion and our plans to extract it. There are plans, right?”

Three generals, two admirals, and a dozen lesser officers were present in the meeting room. The admiral gestured toward one of them. “The battalion in question is part of JSOC—and that’s Commander Trenton’s area of expertise. Commander? What can you tell us?”

Trenton stood. Sloan saw that the woman had a hard face and was dressed in camos, rather than the khaki uniforms that the other naval officers had chosen to wear. Was that intended to set her apart? To emphasize her membership in the special forces community? Perhaps.