Rebellion's Fury Page 26

Killian dropped slowly to his knees and set the soldier in his arms down gently. “Leg wound, but a bad bleeder.”

  The medic leaned over, but a few seconds later a grim expression crossed his face. “The bullet hit the femoral artery. He bled out.” He looked up at Killian. “He’s dead, sir.”

  Robert Semmes looked resplendent in his impeccable uniform, his decorations, granted for his father’s wealth and power instead of the dedication to bravery they usually signified, polished to a sparkling sheen. The damned fool had decided to go north with the army, much to Granz’s chagrin, to be there, as he put it, “when the rebellion meets its end in blood and fire.”

  Pompous ass.

  Granz had come of age in the first war with the Union, and he’d commanded a battalion in the recent conflict that had seen the other two powers allied against Federal America. He’d witnessed horrors he still couldn’t get out of his mind, but he’d never wanted anything quite as badly as to get the hell away from General Robert Semmes.

  “You may launch the attack, Colonel. There is little to be gained by waiting.”

  Granz knew Semmes was right. He somehow found it frustrating that, for as much as the general was a simpering blowhard, his tactical abilities were genuine. Semmes had been as responsible as Granz himself for the previous victory in these woods, and his orders for the current operation were sound. The federal army was in position, and nothing was to be gained by waiting. It was already after dawn, and he wanted as much daylight as possible. He had actually come to respect the rebel fighters, but his duty was clear, and he was determined to end this destructive conflict here and now.

  “Yes, sir.” Granz could follow his orders, but he just wished Semmes had stayed behind in Landfall, safely in his headquarters and out of the way.

  “With your permission, General . . .”

  Semmes nodded. “Go. There is no time to waste.” Semmes stared at him for a moment, until he spun around and moved forward, toward the advanced positions. Then the general, who’d clearly put on some weight over the long winter, turned around himself and strode toward the massive mobile HQ vehicle he’d brought forward, deploying two dozen troops just to widen the cleared area around the road to force it up through the woods.

  Granz looked to the left and the right as he walked down the gravelly road. His forces were in position, three waves of troops, one supporting the next. When he gave the order, eight thousand federal regulars would move forward.

  Granz was confident, to a point. There was just one thing bothering him. From what he knew of Damian Ward, the rebel commander was no fool. He hadn’t met Ward during the war, but he had heard of him, and nothing he’d learned since could explain to him why Ward, outclassed and outnumbered, would advance and provoke a battle he likely couldn’t win.

  He told himself there were a number of possibilities. The rebel army was demoralized, its strength slipping away. Perhaps supplies were dwindling. A desperate gamble was better than no chance. It all sounded reasonable, and yet he still felt unsettled.

  We’re missing something . . .

  “Major Harrigan, status report.”

  Harrigan spun around abruptly. Granz had surprised him. The officer had likely expected his orders over the comm, but Granz intended to direct the battle from the front. If Damian Ward had some kind of trick up his sleeve, Granz wanted to be ready to counter it.

  Harrigan recovered quickly, though, professional that he was. “Sir! The forward pickets have chased the enemy skirmishers back to their lines. They have re-formed with the advance companies and are awaiting your orders.”

  Granz nodded. “Very well, Major. You may advance.”

  “Yes, sir.” The officer pulled out his comm unit. “All forward companies . . . advance.”

  Granz nodded, and then he looked out into the dense woods. His people had crushed the rebels once before, and there was no reason for things to be different now.

  But as he watched the forward line disappear into the thick brush, he couldn’t force the worry from his mind.

  The fire was heavy all across the line. The federals were serious about this attack, and they were coming on hard, their strike units leapfrogging forward as heavy weapons teams provided supporting fire through carefully designated fire lanes. It was a perfectly planned attack, absolutely textbook. But it was also what Luci Morgan had expected, and her people were ready for it. They weren’t the same troops they had been six months before. The federals would encounter more than they’d bargained for, even before they faced Captain Grant and his people.

  “Watch your cover, and keep up the fire. They’re attacking. They’ve got to come to us.” She shouted facing east, and then turned and repeated herself to the west. Her soldiers were a match for the federals now, or close to it, but the enemy still had the technological edge, and they’d jammed her comm hard.

  They have the technological edge until Grant and his people get here. Then we’ll see . . .

  She crouched down behind the berm her troopers had hurriedly thrown up. It wasn’t exactly a trench, but it was decent cover, and she had a surprise or two ready for the feds, even before the armored troopers entered the battle.

  “Get ready, Cliff.” She turned and looked back at Cliff Halken. The engineer and his team had spent the night leaving care packages on all the trees.

  “We’re all set, Colonel.”

  Ideally Morgan would have waited longer, but the federal jamming capability meant her people had been forced to rely on hardwiring, and while Halken’s techs had tried to hide the cords, she didn’t trust a pile of leaves as cover.

  “Do it,” she said calmly.

  “Yes, Colonel.” Halken held a small controller in his hand, a wire extending from the device over the berm and out toward the federal line. He hesitated, just for a second. Then he pressed a small red button.

  The explosions were loud, the closest ones almost deafening. The battlefield erupted in smoke and flying shards of wood as fifty explosives went off at the same time, turning fifty massive trees into matchsticks in seconds.

  Morgan looked out over the field, trying to get a view of the forward enemy positions, but the smoke was too thick. Seconds passed, and still she could see nothing. The enemy fire had trickled down, almost to nothing. She hoped the explosions had taken down some feds, but she doubted it was many. That wasn’t the purpose.

  She stared ahead, as the smoke finally began to dissipate a bit. The trees were gone, and the underbrush, replaced by an open plain covered with shattered chunks of wood.

  A perfect killing field.

  The smoke began to stir, and she saw the federals pushing forward, now out into the open. They moved with confidence, almost certainly expecting to find the same green troops they’d faced in the fall, but they were in for a surprise.

  “Autocannons, open fire.”

  Her heavy weapons were carefully placed, with interlocking fields of fire all across the open area. She watched as almost the entire front line of federals fell, and the troops behind dove to the ground, grabbing whatever meager cover they could.

  “Mortars, fire.” Her force only had three mortars, and they were positioned right behind her. Barely a second after she barked the command, she heard the distinctive sound of the weapons, and then the explosions as the shells landed in the middle of the field. The federals were stalled, and then they began moving back, crawling toward the edge of the remaining woods. Her mortars kept firing, several of them scoring direct hits, taking out as many as three or four enemies at a time.

  “Cease fire,” she shouted. “All weapons, cease fire.”

  The federals had pulled back to their lines. They were in cover, leaving what had to be eighty to one hundred of their number on the field.

  She’d have kept up the barrage, but she couldn’t waste the ammunition. The army still had plenty of small arms reloads, but the mortars and autocannons were almost out. Damian had given her all he could spare, yet the battle could last all day, and no matter
how cautious she was, her people were going to lose their heavy weapon support at some point.

  Morgan stared out at the field with mixed feelings, pride in her people’s performance, in the disciplined manner in which they repelled the federal assault . . . and sorrow for the men and women she had killed, that she had once called comrades.

  And fear, too. Her troopers had given the feds a bloody nose, taught them a lesson for arrogance, for underestimating them, but she knew they’d be back, and they wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  That was war, and her people would be ready.

  The battle had just begun.

  Chapter 32

  Near the Intersection of Tillis and Sanderson Roads

  Just Outside Dover, 46 Kilometers North of Landfall

  Federal Colony Alpha-2, Epsilon Eridani II (Haven)

  The Third Battle of Dover—The Federal Attack

  “General, Colonel Morgan’s forces are being pushed back. She just sent a runner to report she was going to try to make a stand at Carver Ridge.”

  Damian shook his head. “No, no . . . send the messenger back. Carver Ridge is a wrinkle in the ground. It’s not even close to a strong enough position. Tell her to pull back to the prepared line behind Gullen Creek.”

  “Yes, sir.” Katia Rand turned and walked back out of the tent.

  Damian wasn’t surprised. Luci Morgan didn’t like to give up ground. Her people had held on their initial line for far longer than he’d thought they would. He’d almost sent orders for them to retire before Katia made her report.

  Morgan’s people had done their jobs, and then some. He could only guess at the casualties they’d inflicted on the feds. It had to be in the hundreds. The federals had lost more soldiers here in two hours than they had in the entire battle the year before. If they hadn’t realized before that the soldiers they were facing were different, they knew it now.

  And things were just getting started.

  Damian turned abruptly and followed Katia out of the tent. He’d been in headquarters all morning, but he couldn’t stay there all day, no matter how much his people seemed to want to protect him. It made sense, of course. He was the army commander, and aside from whatever actual ability he possessed, the persona that had developed around him had a utility all its own, whether it was deserved or not. He didn’t understand much of it. After a year of waiting and preparation, all he’d managed to do was lose a battle and then drive the few of his soldiers that remained into the ground with merciless drilling. He knew they’d called him names behind his back, cursed him for rousing them at the frigid crack of dawn to march kilometers through waist-deep snow, and yet they also loved him. It made no sense, none that he could comprehend, but he had become, in every way that mattered, the father of his army. He knew his death would be catastrophic to the cause, and though the thought made him uncomfortable, he realized it was true nonetheless.

  Yet worrying about his own safety while sending his people into battle sickened him. He’d always shared the dangers with his soldiers before, and now he realized just how much that had played into his ability to live with it all. He’d been behind the lines for too long now, and he’d had about as much of it as he could take.

  “Sir . . .” Katia turned, even as she was walking back toward the messenger.

  “You have your orders, Lieutenant,” Damian snapped, more harshly than he’d intended. It was the stress, the tension. His people were doing well, better than he’d had any right to expect, but they were still being driven back. Even though that was the plan, it was unsettling, and it only drove home the point that if Grant’s attack didn’t swing the battle, they were as good as lost. The feds just had too much of a numerical advantage, too much superiority in logistics.

  Damian had high hopes for his new weapon system, but now that the fight was raging, doubts started to plague him. Holcomb’s invention was amazing, beyond anything he’d ever imagined, but the suits his people wore had been hastily assembled in tiny makeshift factories, using whatever raw materials John Danforth had been able to find. They were a poor copy of the systems Holcomb had envisioned, like some version of a gourmet meal cooked from half-spoiled leftovers.

  Then there was the other issue. He couldn’t forget that nearly three hundred of his soldiers were carrying rough and poorly shielded fission plants around on their backs. He had images of troopers dropping in the battle, weakening from fatigue, choking on their own vomit as radiation sickness ravaged their bodies.

  The troopers knew the risks, though, and knew what was at stake. The federals were just too strong for his army to defeat without the armor.

  Maybe even with it.

  His people were too outnumbered. Perhaps he’d been wrong. Perhaps he should have been harder on deserters, lined them up against firing squads in front of the rest of the troops. The thought disgusted him, but now he wondered if his mercy had condemned the rest of his soldiers, the loyal ones who’d remained, who’d endured the bitter cold and grueling training and now had to face an enemy more numerous because of those who had fled.

  Damian walked out into the woods. He could hear the distant sounds of gunfire, Morgan’s troops about three kilometers forward and to his left, and Devlin Kerr’s wing extending to his right. And beyond, about five kilometers farther, outside the extent of the federal line, Jamie Grant and his three hundred waited. They waited for the word to advance, a message Damian knew he’d likely have to send by runner due to the federal jamming.

  The timing of that message would be vital. If he sent it too soon, the federals would have time to react. And if he waited too long, his army would be destroyed. However effective those three hundred armored soldiers proved to be, he couldn’t win the victory he needed without the other units of the army counterattacking. He had to send Grant’s people in before the rest of his forces were completely spent.

  He started moving deeper into the woods. He could hear the scuffling behind him, the sounds of orders being yelled, and then leaves and branches rustling, the inevitable guards Ben Withers had sent after him.

  Damian knew Withers himself would have come, save for the express orders he’d given his aide to remain in HQ, to act as his chief of staff and stay on top of the reports coming in from all around the field. Damian’s purposes were deeper than mere organization, of course. If he was killed or wounded, Luci Morgan would take command, but Ben Withers was the only one who knew the plan as well as Damian, and the new CO would need him. As much as Damian valued Withers’s presence with him, he wasn’t going to allow a random enemy shell to take them both in one moment.

  He almost laughed as he realized how that sounded. Only I have permission to get killed.

  He could feel his pace quickening, even as the guards were following him. It was juvenile, and he was also very aware that the troopers sent to protect him would follow at a dead run if he forced them to. He just . . .

  No. Let them do their job.

  He slowed down, slightly, and he could hear them moving up behind him, with two slipping around to the front.

  “Let us screen the path, sir,” the apparent leader, a sergeant, said. Damian knew the man, but he was having trouble coming up with a name. He’s probably ready to die to protect you, and you can’t even remember his name . . .

  “Very well, Sergeant.” Damian sighed softly, but he tried to keep it quiet. Truth was, it didn’t hurt to have some protection. He was being a bit foolhardy. And at least they hadn’t come to try to bring him back. He watched as the men took their positions around him, then said, “I’m going up to Colonel Morgan’s line, Sergeant.”

  He could see the noncom stiffen, clearly nervous about the general going so far forward. But he said simply, “Yes, sir,” and continued forward.

  Damian had to go to the front. He had to do it for himself . . . and he had to see the federal attack, had to gauge just when to send in Jamie and his people. There was no room for error. The fate of the entire rebellion quite possibly rested on t
he timing of that single order.

  “You are to keep moving forward, Major. No halt, no respite. However exhausted your soldiers are, the rebels must be as well. Worse, even. I’m sending you reserves, but I expect you to maintain the pressure without pause.”

  Granz cut the comm line. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to a perfunctory acknowledgment, and less even to arguments why his orders could not be obeyed.

  The rebels had fought hard. More than hard. Though it wasn’t in him to admit the citizen soldiers were the equals of his own troopers, he couldn’t avoid the conclusion that they were damned close. And dug in as they were, the burden of the attack on his people, casualties had been horrific.

  His mind raced to understand what had happened. How had the force he’d faced just over six months earlier become so much stronger? Their numbers had dwindled, perhaps to no more than a quarter of what they’d fielded before, but those who remained were grim and well drilled. They stood in unshakable lines, mowing down his attacking troopers, and then retiring to prepared fallback positions.

  Perhaps worst of all were the constant messages from Semmes, demanding to know when he would sweep the rebels from the field. The frontal assaults he’d sent in hoping to break the rebels had been far too costly, and now he was moving his forces to the flanks, trying to find a less well-defended approach. He still didn’t doubt his forces would win the battle, but now his mind was burdened with thoughts of horrendous casualties.

  He heard a sound from above, one of his airships. The damned raiders who’d been operating in Landfall for so long had devastated his already meager air forces, and now he had a total of three craft ready for service. They were all deployed now, but the rebels remained in the woods, avoiding any areas that presented a target to the aircraft.

  There was nothing to do but fight it out on the ground, one bloody meter after another.

  He reached down and grabbed his comm unit. “Captain, I want fifth and sixth battalions committed at once. They are to reinforce the right and left center, respectively.”