Conquistadors, p.22
Conquistadors!, page 22
“Get into the trenches,” Sergeant Seldon shouted. “Now!”
Dorothy rolled into the trench, an instant before white-blue light slashed over her head in sheets of unnatural lightning. Her hair stood on end, skin crawling as flickers of energy danced through the trench ... she was dimly aware, on some level, that she’d wet herself, but she could no longer bring herself to care. The radiance was sapping her ability to think clearly ... the sergeant caught her arm, as the light faded, and shouted something. She couldn’t make out the words. The ground heaved below her, the trench threatening to collapse ...
The sergeant pointed west, into the town, and jabbed his finger. Dorothy got the message and crawled forward, silently grateful they’d thought to dig an escape route despite all the grumbling about wasting time and energy they could be using to practice their shooting instead. The sergeant remained behind; she glanced back, just in time to see him take up a firing position and brace himself. Dorothy wanted to turn and join him, but she had the nasty feeling it would be worse than useless. The ground heaved again, something exploding in the distance. She told herself it was an invader tank. She feared it wasn’t ...
Her ears hurt. She couldn’t hear anything clearly, but ... something was behind her. She forced herself to look, just in time to see a white-blue flash of light tear through the sergeant’s skull . She’d thought he was too ornery to die; she’d thought ... she promised herself she’d be back, as she crawled onwards. Whatever it took, she’d be back.
***
“Anyone offers resistance, shoot them,” Ruddigore ordered. “No mercy.”
Martín tried not to roll his eyes as the infantry advanced through the edge of town. It was surprisingly large, for a town; back home, at least outside the Protectorate, it would be called a small city. The locals had mounted a fairly effective defence too ... he was surprised, and mildly impressed, that they’d managed to do so much without any real warning. Their earthworks were pretty good too, capable of stopping plasma bolts ... he spotted the handful of digging machines, their purpose easy to grasp despite their strange design, and knew how the locals had done so much. They weren’t dependent on human labour to accomplish anything, from the simple to the complex. They were a technological society in their own right.
One that understands their own tech and knows how to deploy it to best advantage, he thought, feeling torn. The ambush had been well planned, and made full use of tanker arrogance. The armoured knights of the battlefield – a moniker that dated all the way back to the First Global War, when steam-powered tanks had first gone to war – had thought themselves invincible. They’d come very close to being proved wrong. They’re not dependent on us for advanced tech or military supplies.
The fire team advanced forward gingerly through the remnants of the enemy defences, despite their orders to move as quickly as possible. Half the tanks had charged down the enemy street, blowing up anything that looked remotely hostile; the other half had split into two formations and were heading around the town, at least partly to head off anyone trying to leave. The civil affairs units would start incorporating the locals into the growing network of allies, willing or not, but the frontline units had other concerns. The locals would learn from this engagement, and adapt their tactics to build on their successes – and failures. If they could be kept from learning ... Martín shook his head. It made sense on paper, but in practice he was sure it was already too late. There was no way to keep word from spreading. The locals weren’t as advanced as the PEF, but they were hardly primals.
He swept his gaze up and down the earthworks, checking the bodies. Most were clearly dead, charred so badly he was glad of his mask; a handful looked as if they were still alive, but so hellishly wounded there was little hope of survival. There was no time to medevac them out and, even if he did, the odds weren’t in their favour. He lifted his rifle and fired a plasma pulse into each head, giving them the only mercy he could. They would die quickly, not in screaming agony. The bodies would be buried with the rest, after the town was secured.
“Target practice?” Joyce sounded amused. “You’re more sadistic than I thought.”
Martín glowered at Joyce’s back as he led the way through the remnants of the earthworks and up into the town itself. It was weird; there were sections that looked completely untouched by war and others little more than burning ruins, flames consuming what had once been homes and shops better than anything he’d seen in a client state. One building looked as though it had been hit with a tank; he suspected, privately, that that was exactly what had happened. The tankers had few qualms about crashing through private property to get to their destination, even though it was officially forbidden. Under the circumstances, the regimental captain was unlikely to make much of a fuss.
Alerts flashed up in front of his eyes: enemy radio signals. He tensed, his eyes flickering from side to side, hunting for targets as the signals vanished as quickly as they’d come. There was something moving ... he blinked in surprise as he saw a flock of birds flying towards him ... no, not birds. Drones. Smaller than the devices the infantry used to probe ahead of the advance, far smaller than the unmanned aircraft hovering overhead, watching for enemy troop movements, but ... that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. He snapped his rifle into firing position and started to shoot, spraying the enemy formation with plasma bolts; the remainder of the team opened fire at the same moment, the entire regiment trying to bring them down. The drones ducked and dodged as if they were intelligent ... minibrains? Or ... he heard someone snapping orders to bring up the jammers and realised they were actually being controlled. The controllers were good, he admitted sourly. A handful of drones got through the defences and rammed their targets. If they’d had better warheads, they’d have done a great deal more damage.
He darted forward, eyes searching for targets. The enemy had taken up firing positions and were raining bullets down on the advancing footmen, their deployment dangerously unpredictable. Martín tensed, expecting an ambush at one point only to be pleasantly surprised when the attack failed to materialise; he was caught by surprise and nearly killed, five minutes later, when an attack came out of nowhere and came very close to ending his life. There was no rhyme or reason to the enemy defences ...
His heart twisted. Timeline B had welcomed the invasion. Timelines C and D had been hierarchical societies. The local commoners hadn’t particularly cared who ruled over them, to the point they’d barely raised a finger to defend their elites when the invaders had rolled over them. Martín understood, better than he cared to admit. They’d had no stake in their society and no reason to defend it. But this world was different. It had its flaws – he didn’t need intelligence’s take on how degenerate the locals were to understand there were degenerates amongst them – yet they weren’t primals. They were too advanced to be considered anything of the sort.
And that means that merely taking out or co-opting their leaders isn’t going to be enough, he thought, numbly. A bullet snapped past and he darted forward, eyes scanning for the shooter. These people can fight on their own.
He turned into an alleyway and saw the shooter, a young girl holding a simple rifle. She froze as she saw him, her weapon pointed away ... too scared, he realised dully, to either drop her weapon or try to kill him before he killed her. A girl ... it was rare to see a female primal fight – primals had very distinct views on the proper place of young women – but the locals here had very different ideas. It was another sign they were advanced, socially as well as technologically, more so than any previous timeline. And that meant ...
The others were coming. Martín knew what they’d do, if they caught the girl. The best she could hope for was the labour camp, and that would be a life sentence. He hesitated, then jerked his rifle, telling her to move. She turned and fled, hurrying around a corner and vanishing. He hoped to hell that she had the sense to keep running, rather than finding a place to open fire again. The next footman who saw her would blow her away without hesitation. He might not even realise her sex until it was too late and probably wouldn’t care if he did. Showing mercy to anyone who raised a hand against the Protectorate was asking for trouble ...
But, deep inside, Martín didn’t really care.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Texas, North America, Timeline F (OTL)
The invaders, Sheriff Callam Boone reflected sourly, had one great advantage and that was their speed. They moved terrifyingly quickly, faster than any military force had ever moved before ... fast enough to make him understand, all too well, just how the Iraqis had felt when the US army had marched from Kuwait to Baghdad in three weeks. It had been an unprecedentedly quick military campaign, a blitzkrieg on a scale the Wehrmacht could never have hoped to match, even if the aftermath had left a great deal to be desired. The invaders had that beat, to the point he honestly suspected they could drive all the way to Washington in a week. It was quite possible. So far, they’d shown no real concern about America's defences.
Time to change their mind, he thought, as he lurked in ambush. The enemy weren’t particularly predictable – they didn’t need to follow the roads, which meant they travelled cross-country more often than not – but they did tend to aim for open spaces, rather than cramped terrain that would leave them little room to manoeuvre. Callam had no idea if they’d been stung at some point – taking a tank into urban territory was asking for trouble – or if they were just being careful, but it didn’t matter. If they come at us here, we can give them a bloody nose.
He gritted his teeth, feeling sweat prickling down his back. The military units enforcing the exclusion zone had been scattered or destroyed. The communications network was so badly degraded there was no way to know if some units had been destroyed, or were simply out of contact, making it difficult to set up any kind of organised resistance. Army techs and engineers had set up a makeshift radio communications system, so primitive – they thought – that the invaders would have trouble picking the signals out of the ether, but it relied very strongly on line of sight. Callam would have been happier with a more advanced communications system, or even keeping all of his units bunched together, yet that would be just asking to be killed. Besides, it did have some advantages. The odds of him being allowed to implement his idea, if the REMF had been able to ask his superiors, were precisely zero.
If this works, I’m a genius ... and he’ll steal the credit, Callam reflected. If it fails ... I won’t be around to take the blame.
“Sir,” a young man said. “We picked up a brief signal. They’re coming.”
Callam felt a twinge of guilt. The young man really was young, so young Callam couldn’t help wondering if he’d lied about his age when he’d entered the recruiting office. He’d been some sort of tech genius, the kind of tinkerer who’d put together radios and computers from old junk before he’d entered his second decade ... the kind of person, Callam reflected, who was in increasingly short supply as tinkering became harder and harder. Part of him felt uneasy about bringing such an obvious nerd onto the battlefield, part of him realised the march of technology left them with no choice. The days in which men wielding clubs had dominated the battlefield, or not, were long gone. And yet, the only way to truly control a patch of land was to put boots on the ground.
“Get ready to send the alert signal,” he ordered. They’d sorted out a handful of radio signals to pass messages, but there’d been limits to how far they could go. The techs assumed the enemy would recognise and understand Morse Code. They’d have their own version, if Callam was any judge, and even if they didn’t, they’d find references to it in Flint’s library. “We don’t want any mistakes.”
“Aye, sir.”
Callam shook his head as the young man scrambled backwards, then turned his attention to the west. It was hard to be sure which way the enemy were moving – reports were frequently outdated or contradictory – but it seemed likely they’d be heading east sooner rather than later. Fort Cavazos lay to the east, as did Austin, Houston and much of the state’s population. The invaders would have to deal with the cities sooner or later, if they really were bent on conquest and colonisation, and Callam was fairly sure they’d choose to do it as quickly as possible. Given time, the US could call up the remaining vets and start drafting young men ... as well as building defences, laying traps, and generally turning the cities into meatgrinders. Callam didn’t like the idea of refighting the Battle of Fallujah in Houston, but he was pretty sure the invaders would like it even less ...
“Sir,” a voice called. “Incoming enemy tanks!”
Callam peered through his binoculars. Seven invader tanks – they looked faintly ridiculous to his eyes, something that hadn’t lasted past the first battle – were advancing rapidly towards them, half-hidden in a cloud of dust. He felt a twinge of envy at just how easily they could surmount obstacles that would deter a regular tank, driving right across rivers without needing to seize bridges or build pontoon bridges. The officers at the makeshift base camp had talked about securing bridges, or simply destroying them, but it looked like a waste of high explosive. The enemy tanks could easily cross the river above or below the bridge, then take the defenders in the rear. Or simply bypass them completely. Their tactics certainly suggested they were more interested in chopping up and scattering the defenders, rather than wiping them out piece by piece. Callam had no idea why they weren’t pressing their advantage as much as possible – it suggested interesting things about their thinking – but right now it wasn’t a concern. The range was closing with terrifying speed. If they missed their chance, they’d have to hope they could break contact and run before it was too late.
He counted down the last few seconds, risking a glance upwards. Did the enemy know they were lying in wait? They’d done everything they could to conceal the ambush, but there’d been limits. There could be a drone hovering overhead, so high it couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, tracking the ambushers and relying coordinates to the oncoming tanks. Or some advanced invader aircraft, getting into position to rain death on their surroundings. It wouldn’t take much to wipe out the entire team, not when they’d barely had any time to take position and brace themselves. The idea they’d have time to build concrete breastworks was just absurd.
“Now,” he ordered. “Send the signal.”
“Aye, sir.”
***
Captain Cody Campbell knew, without false modesty, that his unit had been lucky to survive the first hour of open conflict. The 133rd Field Artillery Regiment had been deployed to the outer edge of the exclusion zone, with orders to bombard the invaders if they opened hostilities, and it had been sheer dumb luck they’d managed to break contact and evade when the enemy noticed them. The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System was incredibly versatile, when it came to engaging enemy targets, but the trucks were easy targets and the only reason they’d managed to escape – he suspected – was that the invaders had hit a supply truck, noted the size of the explosion, and concluded that the entire regiment had been effectively destroyed. The enemy point defence, according to the observers, was alarmingly good, better than any American counterpart. It was quite possible the HMARS had been allowed to flee because the enemy considered it harmless.
He glanced down at the map – the paper map, sketched out by the planners – and gritted his teeth. The satellite network they used to find and attack targets was effectively gone. He didn’t know if the satellites had been physically destroyed, or if the enemy had merely fucked up the communications network, but it didn’t matter. They had to engage a fast-moving target without any of the tech they’d taken for granted, which meant a number of missiles were likely to be wasted even if the enemy didn’t shoot them down. Cody had no qualms about expending missiles, under normal circumstances, but these were far from normal. They’d heard nothing from Fort Cavazos, since the shit hit the fan, and it worried him. If they could no longer resupply ...
“Sir,” the radio tech called. “We got the signal!”
Cody felt his mood darken. The regiment had been badly disrupted by the enemy attack. Some of his men had been killed or wounded – they’d had to leave them behind – and several others had vanished, presumably heading back home. None of them had signed up for a war in their own backyard, where their own families would be at risk. The deserters had families far too close to the war zone for comfort, if they weren’t already in it. Cody had had to make do with a hodgepodge of replacements, men from units that had been effectively destroyed or de facto draftees collected during the retreat ... he was lucky, very lucky, that his firing teams remained largely intact. Their escort detail was another story. They’d be lucky to throw together a coherent defence if they came under attack before they could run.
And we’re not just the heavy-hitter, he thought. We’re the bait in a trap.
He took a breath. “Fire,” he ordered. Some of the missiles were self-guided, programmed to home in on anything that looked like a tank. Others would be aimed into the right general area, their programmers hoping for the best. He would have preferred to program them all to engage the tanks, but the enemy tanks were so different to their local counterparts he dared not assume the missiles would target them. They certainly couldn’t use a drone to steer the missiles directly. The enemy would blow it out of the sky effortlessly. “I say again, fire!”
***
“They’re firing,” the young man said.
Callam braced himself. The HMARS had been positioned several miles from the ambush site and there was no way to be sure they hadn’t already been spotted and destroyed. The invaders might ignore a handful of men, assuming they couldn’t do anything dangerous, but military vehicles were a different story. Callam wouldn’t have left them alone if he’d been commanding the other side. There had to be limits to their manpower, didn’t there? They couldn’t afford to throw lives away, certainly not when they had other options. The HMARS were just too dangerous to leave alone.
