I just took this out of my fanfiction Bubblegum Casualty--a work aiming to
iron over some of the many absurdities of BGC's cyberpunk character. This
scene doesn't reveal much of anything in the way of my distaste for
cyberpunk. I'm actually looking for some commentary from anyone who may
have served in the US Army, preferably working an MOS with armored units or
mech infantry. Of course, style commentary is welcome, especially if you
have no military background. In that case, I can get a feel for how sharp
the technobabble is.
-The Reverend Prez
* * *
Excerpted from Benediction Hymn, Book One of Bubblegum Casualty...
Fort Irwin, California, was large enough, and its residents friendly enough,
to host the 2nd Marine Regiment�s armored infantry today alongside with the
Opposition Force's regularly scheduled guest--the 124th New York National
Guard. That didn�t change a damn thing for OpFor. Since relieving the
Eleventh ACR five years ago, the Fifth Armored Calvary Regiment had taken
the artform of whipping the collective fannies of their better-equipped and
heavier guests to a whole new level.
The Mojave Desert burned hot at one-hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit
today, and any hope for a refreshing breeze was stifled by the calm, hot,
and dry air drawing beads of sweat from Major Cahill�s brow as he peered
through a pair of electronic binoculars and scanned the horizon. According
to his maps, behind the three flat rises three klicks to the northeast lay a
small enclosure about a third a kilometer wide. Large enough to hold to one
or two platoons of armor, or one or two companies of armored infantry. His
intel was solid. If there was anything out there, it would be the Marines.
The Guard had gotten themselves into a harrowing situation last night, when
they tried to move on his left flank just after twilight. The Guard colonel
should have looked at his map. Daniel Webster Cahill�s M-5A2 Ingram-II Main
Battle Tanks were aligned and distributed along a contour that thickened
into a mid-ground encirclement towards the west. His left flank was the most
solid formation he had, because he had the least advantage in ground in that
position. It was too difficult to strike the middle, where he was weakest,
because the terrain made a sudden drop right in front of his third troop of
tanks. Right flank had his anti-personnel passive defenses layed out all
along the miniature ridge formed by the basaltic rock.
It was as ideal as ground could possibly get, and it really wasn�t fair.
Cahill knew all about this place; in fact, so did the whole goddamned
regiment. There had been a few times where the bad guys had figured it out,
and made a run for Cahill�s money, but all too often they encountered enough
resistance to put any idea of occupying Ridge 143 out of their minds. The
Marine colonel was playing it cool, acting as if he hadn�t even noticed the
ridge or Cahill�s presence there. He had two of his three troops centered in
one area. Anyone who studied modern AC tactical doctrine knew that was a
stupid thing to do.
Then again, the most stringent adherents to tactical doctrine that took on
the Fifth ACR still went home with a fistful of dirt to the face and a
broken ego to boot. As for fairness, it was two against one. Well, maybe
one-and-a-half against one; the Marines were--as far as Cahill was
concerned--way out of their league.
"Major? We�ve got something here."
Cahill looked down at the E-4 who sat directly aft from him. "What�s up,
Eileen?"
"This in from Tango Four."
Cahill dropped back into the air-conditioned tank and keyed up his whisker
comm-suite. A thin laser beamed bounced off a satellite and back down to a
sister Ingram II about five-hundred meters due south. The IFF went through
the proper query process, and printed out on the Commander's screen.
"Six, this is Hunter."
"Read you, Hunter. What can we do for you?"
"We just got your IR feed, did you see this?"
"Sir?"
"I�m looking at your IR feed from�say timedate 1004:33. You with me?"
"Er," A small delay followed. "Sorry about that, Hunter. Yeah, I�m looking
at it right now. It looks like a sun splotch, sir. We didn�t make anything
of it, so we thought King might be able to do something with it."
"Don�t worry about it, and good job."
Cahill looked at the feed. IR in the middle of the Mojave desert in day was
as useless as sonar at a heavy metal concert. The ground radiation filter
was strong enough to pierce through terrestrial radiation, but that was when
heat was sinking into the air. During the day, this ground absorbed heat as
if it were a sponge, and that made thermal sensors just about useless. It
was hard to mask an IR signature by cooling your emissions, but it wasn�t
all that hard to raise them up to room temperature.
"Good eye, Eileen." Cahill worked his way aft. Sergeant Eileen King worked
Tracking, and she took up less than a third the space that the gunner and
the tank commander did. If this had been anything but the communications and
command hub of the battalion, she�d share it equally with the staff sergeant
working the guns. Cahill, unfortunately, needed room to do what the brass
called �leading,� and that required two-fifths of the available space.
Someday, the Pentagon would have to invest in cutting out some of the
communication redundancies that offered little advantage and drew a hell of
a lot of attention to his ride.
The feed showed two things that interested Cahill. Ever since they put in
four hours ago and stayed put, they had lost the ability to see clearly into
the valley encirclement. He had cut his scouting assets away to find out
where the Guard had gotten themselves to, and his intelligence officer
didn�t know exactly where Captain Bragg was at the moment. No, he�d wait
until Bragg keyed in on him; breaking radio silence when there might be
Marines just over the hill might--
Somewhere, to the south, a barely audible whine rapidly expanded into a
earsplitting screech.
"Oh shit!" Cahill turned to see Eileen's fingers racing across her keyboard.
"Vampire, Vampire! We�ve got incoming!"
"What in the�?" Cahill began, but caught himself. "Fire countermeasures,
tubes eight and three. IR suppressors on! ECM online!"
Eileen went to work just as Cahill turned to his tactical plot. Fumbling
with the headset, he keyed up the wide-band comm suite and switched the
broadband dial to maximum gain. "This is Hunter to Battalion. Hunter to
Battalion. Zulu, Zulu, Zulu! I repeat! Zulu, Zulu, Zulu! Incoming
Alpha-Sierra-Mike at three-two-two. Let�s move, people!"
The engines roared to life as the tank lifted itself off the ground. The
M-5A1 was a true hover-vehicle, using a miniaturized variation of the
turbofan that relied on electic super-convection rather than combustion to
superheat air. A hydrogen slush pod replaced the kerosene tanks of the
tread-days, and it fed into a liquid-compression turbine that provided
nearly a megawatt worth of power. The powerplant was sufficient to keep the
tank operating for nearly thirty-six hours straight without refueling. Since
engagements lasted forty or so minutes at most, and nearly all ground
battles maxed three or four engagements a day, the Ingram II was capable of
operating for damn near a week before refueling. Good thing to. With the
moves Cahill planned to pull today, he'd need as much juice in reserve as
possible.
"Bypass is online at 20%, Major."
"Go to 70% bypass on the fan," Cahill knew that the Marines knew they were
here. It had to be them. Vampires? They must have called in air support from
Nellis! Bickers--damn him!--must be getting a kick out of this. With that
bastard�s sense of humor, he�d probably put a nuclear bomber wing on
Cahill�s ass just to get his goat. Well, he wasn�t going to give this enemy
an easy win; after twenty years in the Army, Cahill had long since learned
to look out for sucker punches. The extra bypass would give him away at
close range--vibrational sensors could pick it up at one-hundred meters.
Still, it cooled enough of the exhaust to distract IR sensors. Hope it does
some good. Cahill wasn�t so sure, but that Marine colonel didn�t seem like
the kind of guy terribly comfortable with relying on his electronic vision.
No, they�d pick up no distinctive advantage that way. Still, Cahill needed
to consider every option available to the enemy take every opportunity
available to him to regain control of the situation.
There'd be tremendous losses, Cahill had to admit. Tango Six, which had fed
the original IR data now known to be the Marine armor formation, took one of
the incoming ASMs. Another tank, and then another was picked off as Cahill
struggled to regroup himself. Finally, he got Tango Three to light up its
air defense radar. Two blips came onto his display.
"Shit, Harriers."
Well, they are part of a Marine Air Ground Task Force, he reminded himself.
The Harrier IVs were detached to the 6th Marine regiment; the goddamned
jarheads got to play with whole friggin West Coast for the summmer. Bickers,
damn him. Only General Bickers would have the clout and the balls to breach
in exercise security like this. Probably the stodgy old bastard wanted to
humble Cahill's CO after eighteen months of straight wins. Well, Cahill
smiled, point taken.
"Eight, this is Hunter."
"This is Eight. Go ahead, Sir."
"I want you to detach and kill some birds for me. You see �em?"
"Marine barbecue. Yes, Sir, I gotcha."
Somewhere to the south-west, Tango Eight roared through a small dip in the
ridge as it ascended to the ridge line�s peak. Tango Five and Nine followed
along, and as soon as they got to a flat, they zig-zagged across the
leader�s tail, trying to confuse any strike track that might lock onto Eight.
They almost succeeded. A Vampire took out Nine as it came out of the dip and
onto the flat. That left even money on Five and Eight, and the jet jockeys
probably had a good idea which was which.
Unfortunately, the Harrier pilots didn�t count on Staff Sergeant Wilcox.
While down-looking IR was pointless on this terrain, the Harriers were
flying on the opposite side of the horizon from the sun; the disadvantage
that the jet jockeys were cursed with did not apply to Wilcox. The first SAM
response scared the shit out of the lead Harrier, who veered off sharply and
lost track. The second Harrier was caught off guard for just a second, long
enough for its onboard computer to register a �hit� on its left wing.
Cursing, the Harrier pilot followed along with his friend and pulled out of
the exercise area.
Distracting air support was a difficult enough task to succeed at and sure
as hell one worthy to be proud of, but Cahill had lost four tanks to enemy
fire. His scouting element had gotten the word, but they were still too far
away to get back in time. The Guard was still nowhere to be found, and
Cahill found himself up against the full strength of a Marine armored
infantry battalion. They came over the rises in droves, but the first
advance was blunted by a powerful, mobile response from Cahill�s forward
platoon. A few infantry managed to take out One-Two and One-Three, but they
were slaughtered soon after crossing into Lieutenant "Guns" McIntyre�s
territory.
The Marines and OpFor remained locked in this engagement for nearly
twenty-four minutes, with computer projected missiles flying across
everyone�s viewscreen. When it came to knife range, the infantry began to
pound on First and Second Platoons. Bravo Troop stayed well and clear of the
dogged Alphas less they loose their range advantage. Cahill made sure that
he had enough light units to mix it up on his right flank, but even they
were feeling the toll. After eighteen minutes, the fighting reached its
peak, and afterwards both sides were failing to score kills. Ultimately, the
Marines were pushed back to and then out of their rocky bastion. After
half-an-hour, the two sides finally disengaged completely, and moved to
regroup.
Violent, swift, yet indecisive; the missing one-third of that equation
clouded Cahill�s view of the �victory� he had achieved here today. At 1049,
he peeked out of his tank to get a visual on the situation. His gaze turned
to a lone, dying bush at the foot of his tank�s right-fore. The sun blazed
brilliantly against the bleached rockbed as the plant wiltered into
oblivion. As he looked at the datapad tallying up the Task Observers�
grades, he couldn�t help but feel as if his mood and the bush�s fate were
inextricably connected. Cahill sighed and descended back into the tank.
"All right, boys and girls. Saddle up, and let�s get this over with."
* * *
* * *
+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
| Presley H. | Political Science / Computer Science |
| Cannady II | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+ Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|