Executive orders - Tom Clancy [597]
LOBO-SIX, this is WOLFPACK-SIX, over.
LOBO-SIX copies.
This is WOLFPACK-SIX-ACTUAL. Whitefang is moving out now. They should be on your left in an hour. You may commence your lateral movement when they arrive on line. Over.
LOBO-SIX-ACTUAL copies, Colonel. Still nothing to see up here. We're in pretty good shape, sir.
Very well. Keep me informed. Out. Eddington handed the radio phone back.
Colonel! It was the major who ran his intelligence section. We have some information for you.
Finally!
THE ARTILLERY FIRE continued, with a few rounds dropping right in the wadi. It was Colonel Berman's first experience with that, and he found that he didn't like it very much. It also explained why the tanks and tracks were spread out so much, which had struck him as very odd at first. One round went off a hundred meters to the left of the tank behind which he and Major Abdullah were sheltering, thankfully to the far side. They both quite distinctly heard the pings of fragments hitting the brown-painted armor.
This is not fun, Berman observed, shaking his head to clear the noise of the shell-burst.
Thank you for dealing with the rest of their guns. It was quite frightening, Abdullah said, looking through his binoculars. The advancing UIR T-80s were just over three thousand meters away, having not yet spotted his hull-down M1A2s.
How long have you been in contact?
It started just after sunset yesterday. We are all that is left of the 4th Brigade. And that didn't help Berman's confidence at all. Above their heads, the tank's turret made a slight adjustment to the left. There was a short phrase over the major's radio, and he replied with a single word-shouted, however. A second after that, the tank to the left of them jerked backward a foot or so, and a blast of fire erupted from the main gun. It made the artillery round seem like a firecracker in comparison. Against all logic, Berman raised his head. In the distance he saw a column of smoke, and tumbling atop it was a tank turret.
Jesus!
You have a radio I can use?
SKY-ONE, THIS is Tiger Lead, an AWACS officer heard on a side channel. I am on the ground with a Saudi tank group north of KKMC. He gave the position next. We are in heavy contact here. Got any help you can send us? Over.
Tiger, can you authenticate?
No, God damn it, my fuckin' codes went down with my -15. This is Colonel Steve Berman out of Mountain Home, and I am one very pissed-off aviator right now, Sky. Forty minutes ago, we beat the snot out of some Iraqi artillery, and now we got tanks coming out the ass. You gonna believe me or not, over.
Sounds American to me, a more senior officer thought.
And if you look close, their tanks are round on top and pointing south and ours are flat on the top and pointing north, over. That bit of information was followed by the crash of an explosion. This ground-pounder shit ain't no fun at all, he told them.
Me too, the first controller decided. Tiger, stand by. Devil-Lead, this is Sky-One, we have some business for you
It wasn't supposed to be this way at all, but it was happening even so. There were supposed to be frag-for fragmentary-orders detailing packages of tactical aircraft to hunting patches, but there weren't enough aircraft for that, and no time to select their patches, either. Sky-One had a flight of four F-16s waiting for some air-to-mud action, and this seemed as good a time as any.
THE ADVANCING TANKS stopped to trade fire at first, but that was a losing game against the fire-control systems on the American-made Abrams tanks, and these Saudi crews had gotten a post-graduate course in gunnery earlier in the day. The enemy backed off and maneuvered left and right, blowing smoke from their rear decks to obscure the battlefield. More vehicles were left behind, contributing their own black columns to the morning sky as their ammunition racks cooled off. The initial part of the engagement had lasted five minutes and had cost the UIR twenty vehicles that Berman could see, with no losses for the friendlies. Maybe this wasn't so bad