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Saturday, September 16, 2017

Tactics of Delay, Pt. 23. Online Serial. Louis Shalako.


Louis Shalako




In the Walzbruch operation, speed was of the essence. Due to the small force involved, and the distances from Roussef and Ryanville, the retreat was conducted somewhat differently. 

Also the civilian population, far from the capital and dependent on roads for their subsistence, had to be taken into account.

Around Walzbruch, it was all rock, with no farming except for small, private gardens. There were no big cattle ranches, although there might be poultry and some other stuff—she’d have to check, actually. People found a hollow up in the hills somewhere, a bog maybe; all muck and mire, yet full of actual dirt, and so they took a shovel up there and they brought it home in wheelbarrows or even bucket by bucket. Year by year, over the past fifty or a hundred years, the gardens had gotten bigger, a real investment in sweat that paid off in fresh produce for those lucky enough to inherit them over the course of generations. That was the story from the early days of colonization at Walzbruch. It was like everyone that ever moved to the place wanted a garden and began building one shortly after arrival. Even so. It was a big enough population that subsistence by hunting and fishing, produce from the gardens, would be difficult, winter or summer. Any small food processors and warehouses had been left in place for this reason, and it still wouldn’t be enough…winter was eight or ten months long in what was quite the little mountain range.

For the most part, they were being asked to shelter in place. The only exceptions to this order were civilian technicians and skilled engineers. Where they were agreeable, they were sent by truck and van, with their families, pets and a few personal belongings, up the road to where they would be needed. For the most part, they were agreeable. The Unfriendlies wouldn’t be politely asking people, would they?

They’d be taking hostages and barking out orders under threat of death, torture, prison and confiscation.

Their civilian friends knew the stakes, and they had chosen accordingly. The fact was that her troops had turned people away. They already had enough mouths to feed up here.

For this phase of the operation, large bridges, major feats of engineering in this sort of country, were to remain in place. A few smaller bridges and culverts were to be blown. Power generation, to be left in place. Local communications nodes, some of the more strategic transmission towers and heavy industrial infrastructure, destroyed. Charging and fuel stations were to be left in place, large fuel bowsers, mobile electrical recharging vehicles, or other technical, work or delivery trucks destroyed or removed.

There were compromises all over the place, mostly for the benefit of the civilian population. It was a fine balance. As for personal vehicles, it seemed likely that the Unfriendlies would grab what they could use. This would leave a substantial number of vehicles for the use of the civil population.

What the enemy probably would do, as a measure of positive control, would be to ration fuel and energy for those civilian vehicles to that which was absolutely necessary to sustain the life of the community, and no more. There were only so many fuel trucks to go around, and the Unfriendlies were at war. All of that had to come up from Deneb City.

That much made sense. There was much that would remain unclear.

Her forces were racing up the highway, deploying various ambush and booby-positions along the way. With so few people at her disposal, Dona was relying on three teams and dozens of cameras. These teams were equipped with a disproportionate share of weapons, some of which were being cached at tactical locations, as well as boxes of ammunition, food and medical supplies. Starting off with a dozen or so of the smaller, Puma-type vehicles, two out of every three were being stashed at positions deemed useful for the future. There would be stay-behind parties, small ones capable of breaking up into two-person teams and carrying out independent operations. There was no real good reason for the enemy to have too much traffic between Walzbruch and Roussef, but one never knew—there was always a chance.

If nothing else, they could follow the enemy column and wait for opportunity to knock.

The weapons and vehicles at their disposal were as carefully hidden and dispersed as the little units themselves. Anyone not needed was to proceed directly to Ryanville, in the hopes of just keeping it simple. There was plenty of work to be done up there and along the highways and byways above Roussef.

Once the Confederation troops had abandoned Walzbruch, there wasn’t much they could do to stop civilians from making a break for Roussef, Ryanville and one or two other small points north and west.

Certain information had been disseminated—carefully, in all the bars, restaurants and public places in what was a pretty small town. Simple message, there are mines and booby-traps all over the place. There are undischarged weapons, and automatic, robotic systems of defense. 

The instructions were simple too: if you must use the roads, drive during daylight hours, with all of your lights on, transponders on, and have your fucking phone turned on. Be prepared to be challenged, or fired upon, by either friend or foe, at any time. This is a war zone, and the road to Roussef and points further on was going to be very hazardous indeed…travel was not advised, except for the most urgent of purposes.

Even with all the dire warnings, a small cavalcade of the local population, some of them clearly carrying weapons in the camera views, had loaded up in a motley collection of trucks and utility vehicles. They had departed, heading her way, shortly after dawn this morning.

With few women and no children, and by all appearances traveling light, one had to wonder just exactly what the plan was…what would they do when they came to a blown-out bridge?

Abandon their trucks, swim the creek, and borrow some more at the next farmhouse? It was ludicrous on some level, and yet, one had to admit, it could also be done. They would get all kinds of cooperation—and probably more volunteers. Shit. She had no time to train a bunch of amateurs and would prefer not to have to witness a massacre. One of the more junior command centre staff was working the phones, trying to get more information, and hopefully they would make contact.

Whatever they did, whatever they were going to do, it was going to have to be at their own risk.

In a pinch, she could offer medical support for serious casualties, nothing more.

This wasn’t much comfort when she considered the possibilities. Some of those possibilities had been taken into account in her original plan, which was very quickly going out the window…she would stick to it as long as possible. This made it a lot easier on the subordinates, who had been studying it intently as far as she could make out from the access logs.

The unexpected was always going to happen and she would have to live with it. Or die with it—

If only she could get a decent sleep.

***

Her eyes felt like they had been sandpapered.

The horizon, viewed from just five kilometres west-north-west from Walzbruch, was studded with columns of black, greasy smoke from fires in the town and further out in mining country.

Trooper Freddie J had signed up anonymously, and according to his brief service record of two and a half years, was known by no other appellation. He had no planetary or national social insurance number. No next of kin. Any death bounty, or any savings, any arrears of pay, would go to an orphanage in New Delhi. He probably was from Old Earth. An interesting insight into the minds of her own troops, at least some of them. The young man, listed as twenty-eight years of age, had posted a camera on top of a rock shelf with a clear view down the road. The man himself had his back to the shelf twenty metres away, breathing calmly. According to the readouts, his heart-rate was only slightly elevated. There were three civvy pickup trucks in the picture, with people inside and in the back.

“Yes, Colonel. We saw quite a number of civvies going through here about a half an hour ago. Unfortunately, these guys must be stragglers.”

It was going to complicate matters if they didn’t clear the hill and the ambush point in the next five minutes.

Ignoring Walzbruch, whose fate was tied to that of Deneb and to a lesser extent Roussef, the Unfriendlies had driven through the town and headed out towards Roussef as soon as it became apparent that the Confederation troops had abandoned their positions. As things presently stood, another small column of trucks and vehicles had left Deneb City. At the turnoff they had steered straight for Walzbruch. This had been dubbed Occupation Force W on their battle maps. They could always change the name later. With the original force driving straight through the town after about a twenty-minute stop, all of the Confederation’s concealed assets were still in place.

The enemy troops were just over the next hill. The little valley in between was only so wide, taking only so much time to cross, and these damned civilians were dawdling along at a bare fifty kilometres an hour.

“Shit, Colonel.”

 “What, Trooper.”

The pictures spoke for themselves, as the vehicles crested the hill, and then came to a complete stop. People got out, talking and shouting and it was all one big jumble in the poor audio. To be fair, their best camera shot was from a good seventy metres away, and the synthetic parabolic microphones were subject to a lot of wind pop.

“Shit.”

Freddie J was on the ground, and his opinion counted for something.

“Talk to me, soldier.”

“Yes, Colonel—ah.”

He was flipping back and forth between a half a dozen cameras, his sergeant right there and two other pairs of soldiers in good position to fire and recover their heavy weapons. They were in no position to do anything about the civvies. Freddy J was the least skilled or qualified of the six and so they had put him on the com unit.

“Fuck. They’ve got guns—they’re mostly in camouflage hunting clothes. Boots. Side-arms on some of them. One of the trucks is white if you can believe it.”

“All right.” In a similar kind of logic, Dona had a very young trooper working her board for her as she had taken to wandering the room.

He looked surprisingly comfortable in the hot-seat and it probably was good experience.

On the job training.

Join the Organization and see the Galaxy.

The fire-team’s vehicle was five hundred metres away, on a short stretch of logging road that petered out into a hundred other temporary little working-loops in the hills overlooking the highway.

“Sit tight. If the civvies fire on the Unfriendlies, they’re basically doing our job for us. If that is the case, do not, I repeat, do not detonate your charges. Hold your fire for as long as possible. If you can snag a big vehicle, because they will and must advance, do it then. Over.”

Sergeant Worzakowski came on the circuit.

“Roger that, Colonel.”

He was the one that would be giving the orders, not Freddie J and so it was up to him to acknowledge.

Things were in good hands.

They sat, crouched, huddled in a pit, or lay on the ground, watching the scene below intently as the vehicles and their drivers moved on…pulling into the brush halfway down the other side as far as they could determine.

The two soldiers were shoulder to shoulder, screened well enough from enemy fire. Voices spoke in their ears and icons moved about on their visor displays.

“Where are they?”

“Hidden in the woods now, sergeant.” Freddy J’s heart had sped up a bit, but he still seemed pretty cool.

It wasn’t just physical fitness with this one. This was a kind of psychological fitness. He must have some kind of backstory. That anonymous sign-up said a lot. It forgave, or at least set aside, a lot of sins. Mustering out some years later, he’d have a whole new identity.

“Ah…” The Unfriendly column was just on the other side of yonder hill.

The sound of heavy vehicles was barely discernable, but it was there and now it seemed that the forest had gone silent, the birds and insects and other creatures, unfamiliar to most of them, perhaps sensing that there was trouble in the air.

The faint hum of an enemy drone, somehow penetrating even now, came from somewhere behind their heads. The machine was no doubt very interested in the heat and electromagnetic signatures of the civilian vehicles…

“Sergeant.”

“Yes, Freddie, I see it.” In the satellite view, and in one of the cameras, the enemy column had clearly come to a halt.

Hmn. If nothing else, it was another delay.

Sooner or later, they had to move.

In the meantime, it was a fine autumn day and there was nothing to worry about except this, in all of its naked simplicity.

***


(End of part twenty-three.)

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Images.

Image One. Denebola-Seven Chamber of Commerce.
Image Two. Collection of author Louis Shalako.
Image Three. CPCO.
Image Four. CPCO.
Image Five. Hans Erndl Photography.
Image Six. Boy Scouts Handbook.
Image Seven. CPCO.


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