Unexpected Encounter 7
06 Apr 2016Rebecca Hail
10 years ago, Ehecatl A7, 100 Kilometres north of New Philipsburg.Rebecca sat in the backwards end of the loading area, holding her scoped rifle with both hands, as the truck slowly advanced over the destroyed highways towards New Philipsburg. She looked over the Anti-air tank behind her truck, along the rest of the endless seeming convoy.
Truck, Truck, Truck, Anti-air tank, Truck, Truck, Truck, Anti-air tank, … 200 trucks per convoy, 40 soldiers per truck, 5 convoys with nearly 40.000 men and women to reinforce the frontlines in New Philipsburg.
The young recruits who were issued to her platoon to replace the men they lost during the attack on the guerilla camp talked about politics and strategies to win the war.
„ … if we get the control over the New Philipsburg Spaceport and it's orbital defenses, we’ll control the whole northern hemispherical airspace! They can't bring in supplies and if we take out their jamming transmitters, the Federal Navy can assist our advance with orbital bombardments. I want to make them pay for what they did to Point Sterling!“
Four months ago the rebels on Ehecatl A7 decided to wipe out the capitol of the United Democracy, Point Sterling, with two atomic bombs. Nearly 10 million people and almost the whole leadership lost their lives. But their plan backfired. Instead of breaking the moral of the United Democracies army and advancing further in the northern hemisphere, they encountered fierce resistance. What was left of the United Democracies propaganda department turned the tables and used the attack to incite the soldiers on the frontlines. The bombs killed a federal senator coordinating the evacuation of refugees, too, and the federal senate decided to intervene into the conflict by deploying the federal navy to the system.
Not even two weeks later the federal navy blockaded the system, took back some of the stations and outposts in the system and began landing marines on Ehecatl A 7. With the support of the federation, the United Democracy began to make territorial gains again and pushing the rebels back to the south. 5 weeks ago the United Democracy began advancing onto the last stronghold of the rebels on the northern continents, the former 20 million metropolis, New Philipsburg. After an intense tank battle in the flat lands surrounding the town, they tried to advance into the city, but the rebels resistance was too strong to advance and secure the town. Now five weeks later, they resorted to carpet bombing, artillery barrages and human wave tactics. The districts under the control of the UD were completely destroyed and the body count on the frontline grew higher and higher.
„Don't get to excited for that bombardement. They would have taken these jammers out a long time ago, if it would be easy. And these orbital bombardments tend to hit the wrong people.“
Roland, a former teacher and veteran of the platoon, sounded quite angry when he answered.
„Do you want to say our people up there can't aim? You should trust them a bit more.“
„Yeah, look where „Trust the feds“ have brought us. I don't think you've realized we're on our way to the bloodiest f*cking battle in this whole sh*t war.“
One of the sergeants sitting near the driver cab stood up and shouted: „CUT THE CR*P! BOTH OF YOU!“ He pointed at the new recruit. „You leave the decisionmaking to the high command.“ Then he pointed at Roland. „And you're stopping that demoralizing talk now.“
„Hey, Sarge, how far are we from New Philipsburg?“, Rebecca asked.
„Around 95 kilometres. Why?“
„I can hear them.“
The whole truck went silent. Under the sound of truck tires hitting potholes and moving over filled bomb craters, the soldiers were able to hear the chatter of the men and women in the truck in front of them. And under that chatter there was a sound like muffled thunder far in the distance.
„W … What's that?“
Roland answered in a worried tone: „You're hearing the rear artillery batteries.“, then in a more sarcastic tone: „But I'm glad that the hearing senses of our battle b*tch are as sharp as ever.“
Suddenly the turret mounted double railgun of the Anti-air tank behind them started moving, aligning to something in the sky.
The sergeant shouted quickly: „COVER YOUR EARS.“
Not even ten seconds later the double railgun began firing projectiles with an insane speed into the sky. The soldiers who reached their ear protection were lucky, the others covered their ears with their hands to protect them from the sonic booms caused by the supersonic projectiles.
Rebecca put in her ear protection when the tank stopped firing to reload, then she stood up and grabbed her thermal imager. She switched it to binocular mode and looked up into the sky.
Several kilometres over the ground a wing of six Eagles swarmed around an Anaconda. One of the Eagles was hit by an anti-air round, started spinning and the pilot ejected with his emergency pod.
"Looks like a bunch of Commanders from the pilots federation try to engage a federal bomber."
Then with a mocking laugh:
"The AAs are ripping them apart. I bet they're not going to try something like this again."
She watched the sky until the AAs stopped firing, then she put down her imager and sat back onto the foldaway seats mounted on the side of the loading area.
The trucks rumbled south over the shattered highway, kilometre after kilometre and slowly the sun began to set. Rebecca almost missed the transition from the hills to the gigantic flatlands around New Philipsburg in the incipient dark. From her seat at the end of the loading area she had a good view over the flatlands and what she saw with the last rays of the sun scared her.
Scattered throughout the flatlands there were thousands of wrecks. Not only tanks but also APCs, trucks, spaceships and planes. The federation had paid a high price for the advance on the city.
She turned her head and noticed a green shimmer from the driver cabin. Apparently the driver activated his night vision.
With every kilometre, the thunder in the distance grew louder.
Her eyes wandered around the loading area and she realized that most of her comrades had their ear protection on and tried to sleep for the last few hours. Only a few soldiers were awake and tried to distract themselves somehow. Even Kenneth, who had been assigned to her and was primarily responsible for carrying the heavy anti-material rifle plus the according ammunition, tried to sleep.
Suddenly the convoy slowed down and stopped. Some soldiers woke up and the veterans immediately grabbed and checked their weapon, then turned to the lieutenant. He had already stood up and spoke with the men in the driver cabin through the small window.
"All clear. We're waiting for the second convoy. They should be here already but apparently they're running late."
The soldiers went back to sleep, while the sergeant and the lieutenant walked past her and descended to the highway. The lieutenant walked around the truck, probably headed for the command vehicle four trucks earlier. Her sergeant just lit up a cigarette.
"Requesting permission to leave the truck, Sergeant Baeza."
"Granted."
She grabbed her rifle and jumped down to the highway, where she shouldered it.
"Have you slept, Hail?"
"No, not since Drostin."
"You should. I doubt you can in New Philipsburg with all the noise they're making."
"How's that AMR you got assigned?"
"I had no chance to test it, Sir. The only 15mm I fired was during marksman training a year ago. I'll prefer my 10mm rifle. It's not as heavy and massive as the AMR."
"The first thing you're doing tomorrow is to ask for the shooting range. I'll notify the armourer to issue you ammunition for it. If you have to get a feel for it in combat, you're faster dead than Leman when he tripped and hit that landmine with his head."
"Yes, Sarge."
They walked about 10 meters to the edge of the highway, then she stopped and looked up into sky. She noticed a lot of bright, fast moving points between the stars flying in groups.
"Are those the ships of the blockade?"
"Yes. Can I ask you something?"
"Of course, Sergeant."
He stared a while up to the stars, then he said:
"You started fighting in this war before you were 15. Now you're nearly 18. But what are you going to do when this war ends?"
Rebecca remained silent.
"I don't know ... I honestly never thought about it. I think I never truly believed that I would survive. My whole family is dead, most of the people I know are either fighting or have left the planet. I don't know what to do after the war, I always wanted to be a vet, but couldn’t even complete school. I guess war is the only thing I’m really good at."
"Do you want my opinion?"
"Let me hear it."
He smiled, then said.
"Maybe you should go up there. I heard the Pilots Federation offers a good education additional to the pilot training. You can certainly live good as an independent commander, even if it's hard in the beginning."
"Commander Rebecca Hail." She waited a few seconds. "That really doesn't sound too bad. I'll keep that option in mind. Thanks, sergeant."
She smiled, then she turned around and went back to the truck.
"No problem, Private."
Back in the truck she tried to make her foldaway seat as comfortable as possible, then she put on her ear protection and tried to sleep.
She didn't notice how the second convoy arrived half an hour later and how the truck slowly began to move.