Battle Lines

Chapter 18: Gaggles and Ground Pounders

02 Jun 03: Union Command Bunker - Tobruk

0630h

Squadron Leader Cho Chang stepped into the command bunker at Tobruk. As per usual it was a hive of activity. Computers, sensor and comms stations lined the walls. In the middle was a large 3D tactical display; clustered around it were a number of military officials, pointing out troop placements and concentrations. Cho walked over to the display, standing rigidly to attention.

'You wanted to see me sir?'

One of the men at the table turned to her. 'At ease Chang.'

At fifty-four years old General Simon McMahon was one of the most brilliant tank commanders since the days of Rommel, Montgomery and Patton. This, coupled with his mastery of the desert had earned him the name from his troops "The Pharaoh". Standing bang on six foot tall The Pharaoh wore a brown leather jacket over the top of his desert cams and a colt single action revolver hung at his belt. As Officer Commanding of the Tobruk garrison could often be seen, standing in one of the bombed out houses of the city, pipe clenched between his teeth, surveying the enemy lines through a set of high powered binoculars.

'Chang,' said The Pharaoh, 'I'd like you to meet a new member of the staff. This is Major Marquette, he's our new Air Liaison Officer. Major, this is Squadron Leader Chang.'

'Pleased to meet.'

The Major stepped forward, proffering his hand. Cho shook it, taking in her new acquaintance. Marquette stood a good head taller than her, wearing his hair in shaven up the sides with just a tuft on top, a definite marine haircut. The Major turned to the display.

'We're being re-supplied today,' said the Marquette to Cho, 'so there'll be a super gaggle coming through in about ten minutes, thought you'd be interested in seeing it.'

'A super gaggle?'

'When we first dug in here,' explained The Pharaoh, 'we were supplied by sea. However, the enemy has a blockade cruising ten miles off and it's difficult to get convoys through, so now we get our supplies heloed in. It's quite a thing to watch.'

'Anyway,' continued Marquette, 'We were wondering if you were interested in having a look. I'm going to be coordinating it from here, but I can get someone else to go up with you if you want.'

'Thanks, that'd be appreciated,' replied Cho.

'Good. SERGEANT THORN! Get over here.'

Cho recognized the face as soon as the Sergeant came over.

'Sir?'

'Thorn, this is Squadron Leader Chang. I want you to take her up for a look at the Gaggle.'

Thorn tuned to Cho, then back to the Major. 'We've already met sir. Howdy again ma'am, if you'll be so kind as to follow me.'

Cho followed Thorn, picking up her rifle as she exited the command bunker. Jumping out from cover in front of the bunker they sprinted across the twenty metres or so to the next trench, throwing themselves into it; snipers were always a problem. Cho was second in, almost landing on a surprised looking Phannan.

'Hey! Watch where you're going!' Phannan suddenly realized who he was addressing. 'Oh, sorry ma'am.'

'It's okay Phannan. I was just a little worried about getting a bullet in my skull.'

'Sounds like a familiar anxiety.' said Phannan, putting on his shrink voice. 'I haff to say that it appears to be a common anxiety in zis part of zee vorld. I vonder if it iz sometink in zee vater? Vould you like to be lieink down here and tell me more about zis paranoia?'

'Shut up Phannan.'

Thorn was looking between the two of then, a confused expression on his face.

'Phannan, this is Sergeant Thorn. Thorn, this is Flight Lieutenant Phannan, pilot and general pain in the backside.'

'Pleased to meet sir.'

'Likewise.' said Phannan with a flourish. 'What's got you two in such a hurry?'

'Going to watch the re-supply,' replied Cho

'Joy, a re-supply.'

Cho looked pityingly at him. 'Apparently it's quite interesting to watch.'

'Whatever.' replied Phannan. 'Well, I've got nothing to better to do, so I'll come with if you don't mind. I was going to see if there was anyone worthwhile tuning around here, but since you just dropped in...'

'Thin ice Phannan.'

They spent the next few minutes making their way back from the trenches, into the outskirts of the city. Thorn took them into one of the houses on the outskirts. The thing had been bombed out good and proper, a mere shell of a structure. The little party made its way up to what remained of the second floor, crouching down beside a gap in the wall. From her webbing Cho pulled a set of small but high powered binoculars. Thorn had his own set, while Phannan had to make do with his G-36's scope. From the distance came a steady buzz of engines. Over the next minute it grew slowly to a deafening roar. Cho looked up, thundering overhead were literally dozens of helicopters. From the forward part of the group small attack birds broke off, heading toward the lines. There was a small puff of smoke from out in the enemy trenches and then all hell broke loose. The larger transport choppers broke away, dumping flares and chaff as they went. Fire erupted from the enemy positions, tracers and flack roaring into the sky. Shells burst in black clouds of death for the unwary. The attack birds roared down on the enemy, opening up with rockets, keeping the bad guys' heads down. Lynx gunships, the British equivalent of the Huey, roared down the lines, miniguns blazing; death from above. Smaller Eurocopters and Apaches jinxed and weaved, avoiding enemy fire as they pounded them with fire from their chin mounted turrets. The big transport birds were already setting down in the city. Big twin rotored Chinooks dropped off massive rubber bladders full of water and fuel, or crates or ordinance. Navy Super Stallions and army Blackhawks dropped down between the buildings, disgorging troops and supplies, kicking up clouds of dust and sand. Cho switched on her radio, tuning into the air frequencies.

'Chock Four, on the ground.'

'Chock Six, on the ground.'

'AH HAHAHAHAHA! Take that you ...'

'Pipe down Hellfire Four.'

'Jolly Two One is on the deck.'

Cho watched in awe as the scene unfolded. A gigantic display of military air power.

BOOM!

Cho spun round, just in time to see one of the Blackhawks disappear from view behind a building, smoke and fire streaming from what remained of its tail boom.

'Mayday! Mayday! This is Super Six Four, we are going in we are going in...'

Csshhhhhhhhhhh...

Static.

'This is Control,' Cho recognized Marquette's voice over the radio, 'We have a Blackhawk down, I repeat, we have a Blackhawk down in the city.'

Thorn was on the radio. 'This is Sergeant Thorn. We are just a few blocks from the crash. Request permission to move to move in and secure the site.'

Marquette was quick to reply. 'Thorn, you are cleared to move to the crash site. We are sending a MedEvac team in behind you. The enemy hasn't tried anything yet, but we would be much obliged if you could get those boys undercover.'

'Roger that.'

Thorn picked up his weapon, then started crawling toward the stairs.

'You two coming with?'

Phannan had his rifle in his hands. 'Yep.'

With that they made their way over to the edge of the floor, swinging down into the lower part of the building. Thorn led the way, him being the most familiar with the city, M249 SAW machinegun cradled in his arms. Cho and Phannan followed behind, carrying their G-36s. They pounded through the streets, making their way toward the downed helicopter crew. Suddenly Thorn held up a hand in the universal sign for "stop". Cho came to a screeching halt beside him. Phannan wasn't so lucky, sliding over in the loose packed dirt and landing hard on his rear. Thorn was listening.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch! BOOM!

The wall above them exploded in a rain of stone and debris.

'Shit!' yelled Thorn. 'They're shelling the city!'

He was off again; the two pilots close behind as the shells fell around them, hammering the city. They sprinted through the deserted streets, moving through buildings when they could, trying to avoid the falling debris. The little group burst out of another doorway, into a square. On the other side of the open space was the Blackhawk. It was lying on its side, main rotors sheared off at the hub. The entire tail boom was missing where the missile had hit it. They ran across to the wreck, climbing up on its side and through the open side door. There was one man sitting in the passenger compartment, a Samsonite briefcase handcuffed to his arm. He was quite obviously dead. Cho, being smallest and nimblest swung herself into the cockpit area. The crew were still strapped into their seats. The Lieutenant in the command chair was out to it, blood seeping from under his flight suit. Cho reached down and felt his neck, there was a pulse, but it was weak as all hell. There was a groan from above her. She looked up, above her the chopper's second, and army Warrant Officer, was coming to. Cho turned her attention to him.

'Are you alright?'

The man looked down at her. 'I don't know. I can't feel my legs man.'

'Your going to be alright.' replied Cho, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. 'What happened?'

'I don't know.' said the WOFF. 'We just had this one dude to drop off. We were coming in to set him down then...'

BOOM!

Cho looked up, out what had been the side window. Concrete and reinforcing steel was falling from where a shell had hit the building above them. She quickly withdrew behind the metal side wall of the chopper.

CRASH!

A block of concrete slammed through the side window. It fell into the cockpit, striking the young Warrant Officer's head. There was a sickening crack as his neck broke.

'Fuck my Roman sandals man,' came Thorn's voice from the back, 'this is really screwed.'

Cho climbed back through into the cockpit. The Warrant Officer was very definitely dead. However, the Lieutenant seemed to have gotten through unscathed, or at least as unscathed as could be expected. From outside there was a rumble of car engines. Cho hauled herself out of the downed bird just as two Humvee vehicles pulled up. On the door of one was a white square with a red cross in the middle. Out of the vehicle jumped two marines each wearing the same cross on armbands. Cho stopped one of them as the other sped off toward the mangled helicopter

'There's only one alive, the pilot, but he's out of it.'

'Thanks,' replied the medic as she sped off after her partner.

Cho looked up, above her the super gaggle was winding down as helicopters delivered their payloads, then bugged out. As she watched the attack birds broke away from the enemy trenches, following their charges out. In the distance, the boom of artillery and crunch of shells faded away as the enemy stopped bombarding the city. They had missed their opportunity to do any real damage and there was no point in wasting ordinance.

It took half an hour for the medics to stabilize the Lieutenant in situe. Finally they brought him out on a stretcher and carried him over to their Humvee, lying him down on the back floor. Cho and the others hitched a ride back with the other vehicle, sitting safe in its armored interior while a marine Private manned the .50 cal gun mounted on the roof. The driver took them right to the command bunker, dropping them off at the door and using the Hummer as a shield while Cho and the others got behind cover. They entered the bunker, Cho still carrying the briefcase they had found in the chopper. She took it over to one of the intelligence personnel and dropped it on his desk.

'This was in that Blackhawk that went in, thought your people might want to take a look at it.'

The Corporal manning the desk looked up at her. 'Thank you ma'am. We'll let you know if anything comes of it.'

Cho turned away from the man, coming face to face with Phannan and Thorn.

'What I'm going to do now,' she said, 'is go find something to eat, then I'm going to have a quiet lie down.'

'I think I'll join you ma'am,' said Phannan.

'You can come for the food, but no the lie down.'

'Aww.'

* * *

03 Jun 03: Outer Hebrides Islands

2100h

'So anyway.' said Nat looking up from where she was loading another mag. 'There we are out at Puckapunyal, dog tired and it's five in the afternoon. Next thing we know, one of the staff has wandered over to let us know that we're going to be spending the night out on the Range. The staff then promptly bugger off back to the officers' mess and the sergeants' mess for dinner, leaving us with a twenty-four hour rat pack each and not much else...'

'Sounds familiar,' put in Ron.

'...anyway. As it turned out, one of the guys had a mobile phone because his wife was pregnant. Another guy there had been in the Army for three years before going through the officer training and knew of a nice little place, just outside the main gate of the base, called Pucka Pizzas. Now, the guy who ran this place was ex-Army, so if you gave him a six figure grid reference he'd deliver, as long as no-one was using the range for artillery practice. So, to cut a long story short the staff returned the next day to find all the rat packs neatly stacked up, and pizza boxes and Coke bottles strewn all over the biv site. The staff blew their nut "Officer qualities!" and "Integrity!"... The only person who had anything good to say was the Sergeant. He just looked at the rat packs all neatly stacked up "Good work, officer thinking. Using initiative."'

Ginny looked over at Nat, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. 'I wish our staff had been that stupid.'

'That's why you train in Australia rather than Britain.'

'Sure. I'll remember that incase I die and want to join the military in the next life.'

Nat set the last round into the magazine she was filling, and dropped thing beside its siblings in the ammo case. She closed it up, snapping the catches closed. That was it, thirty mags, each with twenty nine rounds in. Ten in her webbing and two cases of extra mags; each case also carrying ten mags.

'Done.'

'Good,' replied Ginny, 'Then you can come and give me a hand.'

Nat moved over to where Ginny was loading fresh belts of ammunition into their boxes for her SAW. Hermione had figured out where Durmstrang was; now they were getting ready for what could quite likely be their last mission; to escort Harry in, and give him the time needed to take down Voldemort, or vice versa. They would be taking their stolen Barge as far as the European mainland, then they would have to requisition a less conspicuous form of transport to reach the institute. The type of insertion into the institute proper would be decided when they go there, though a stealth op was currently the preferred option. Nat finished helping Ginny load the last belt into its box.

'Right, I propose that we all go get some sleep, it gonna be a long one tomorrow.'

'Second that.'

* * *

04 Jun 03: Union Command Bunker - Tobruk

0500h

Cho stepped into the command bunker still wiping the sleep from her eyes. After just over a week in the besieged city the stench of unwashed bodies had ceased to bother her. She was sure that she reeked just as bad, but washing was a luxurious waste of water that could not be afforded in the desert. She made her way to the tactical display where, once again The Pharaoh and his aides were clustered.

The General looked up as she approached. 'Ah, Chang, glad to see you could make it.'

'Sir?'

'That case you recovered from the crash a few days ago. You remember it?'

'Yes sir.'

'Well,' continued The Pharaoh, 'It contained priority data from intelligence and surveillance, in both hard copy and electronic form. From it we got this...'

He brought up a map of the whole Mediterranean area. On the Northern coastline was a massive patch of red. The display zoomed in, showing masses of troops, armor, Fortresses, an entire army; too many to transport by sea or air, making its way around the coast.

'I assume they're not ours sir.'

The Pharaoh shook his head. 'No, they're not. If they arrive here, we will loose Tobruk. Now we've figured that we can bottleneck them here...'

The display zoomed in on the eastern coast of the Med.

'...Mount Megiddo, just outside Jerusalem; in the Valley of Armageddon. If we can get there in time, we may just be able to hold them.'

'Uh sir,' said Cho, 'we're currently stuck in Tobruk.'

'I know,' replied the General, 'we're breaking out, tonight. The USAF has volunteered its B-52s and B-1bs to pacify the enemy lines. We can't hit them ourselves because our artillery will be moving. We've already pinpointed the weakest spot in the enemy lines, that's where we're going out. Three quarters of our force will leave through there, the rest will be sent out by sea. I'll be calling a briefing of all unit commanders at ten hundred hours today, but since you recovered the information, we thought to let you know first. Your Squadron will be riding out in APCs as there's nothing you can do with the aircover.'

'So you're sacrificing Tobruk.'

'Yes. If we stay here, we loose it, and loose the war. If we leave, we loose the city, but have a chance at winning the war.'

'Fine,' said Cho, 'I'll let the Squadron know.'

* * *

05 Jun 03 - Outer Hebrides Islands

0005h

Nat seated herself comfortably at the pilot's station in the Assault Barge. She reached forward and flicked the startup switches. A week or so had given her plenty of time to familiarize herself with the bridge. Hermione now sat at the sensor station, while the other three were stationed in turrets around the Barge's hull.

'Ok, we are live and good to go.' she said into her mic. 'Ladies and Gents welcome aboard Dark Lord Air. Today's flight will be a short hop across to the European mainland so that Harry there can toast Voldie's arse. Hope you've all got your airsick bags and are strapped in tight and remember, please keep all extremities within the craft at all times. I am you captain, Natalie Boone and thank you again for flying with us. Right, lets turn and burn.'

With that se thumbed the slider on the side of the throttle, bringing the big aircraft clear of the ground. When she was just above the tree tops the slowly advanced the throttle, keeping low and stabilizing her bird with the rudder pedals.

'Ok Braniac,' she said, 'keep the guns powered down and sensors on passive. I want to avoid being detected if at all possible.'

'Roger that.'

The big craft smoothly accelerated, carrying its precious human cargo toward the mainland.

* * *

05 Jun 03: Tobruk lines

0145h

Cho sat silent in the back of the APC, G-36 assault rifle resting across her knees. Around her sat the surviving members of Phoenix Squadron, there were eight of them in total, including herself. Boone, Rheinburg and Bull had been seen to be shot down, and none had been heard from since. They had been listed as MIA, Missing In Action. The American Ensign, Thomas Rogers had been killed; Cho had seen him go in, still clutching his broom. Now she waited silently in the back of her transport, waiting for the breakout. The plan was simple; the Air Force's heavy bombers would fly over and unload on the enemy lines. Then the Union forces would attempt to break out, through the resulting gap. The tanks would lead, followed by lighter armor and finally by the soft shelled trucks. A smaller contingent of tanks would then cover their rear. The Air Force and Army were providing air cover and fire support. Still, it would be a tough run out.

* * *

General Simon McMahon stood, torso poking up through the commander's hatch of his Challenger II main battle tank. Around and behind him were arrayed the rest of his forces; more British Challengers, American M1A1 Abrams, German Leopards; a massive wedge of armor and guns, ready to be driven into the enemy lines.

There was a crackle through his headset. 'This is Brimstone Leader. We are inbound on the target, ETA is thirty seconds.'

The Pharaoh lifted his high powered binoculars up to his eyes, watching the enemy trenches.

'Brimstone Leader, bombs gone. Leaving the target area.'

He hadn't even heard the bombers go over. Out on the enemy lines everything seemed quiet. Then, as he watched, explosions began to blossom, forming a long line of fire. More joined them.

Crunch, crunch, crunch...

The sounds of bombs dropping came steadily from the distance. The Pharaoh dropped down into the red lit interior of his tank. The big vehicle's engine roared to life. Around him, more engines thundered.

'Commence rollout.'

The driver in the front of the cockpit threw back and affirmative. The Challenger's engine roared and it began to roll forward, heading toward the enemy lines, picking up speed as it went. The General pulled down the commander's periscope, surveying the scene outside the tank. The bombs had finished falling. Now, more random explosions began to erupt along the trenches. He smiled to himself; those had been a last minute addition. Cruising off the coast, just outside the enemy blockade, were no less than two of the US Navy's Iowa class battleships, their sixteen inch main guns trained on the enemy. They were now lobbing shells, each weighing 2500 pounds a piece, on top of the enemy. The effect was equivalent to throwing a showroom full of Ford Escorts approximately twenty-five miles.

'Half a mile to lines sir.'

'Roger that Sergeant.' replied McMahon. 'Bone Leader, you are clear to commence your run.'

The reply was quick coming. 'Roger that Pharaoh, Bone Leader is inbound, ETA is thirty seconds.'

Outside the crunch of shells ceased as the battleships ceased their bombardment momentarily. The General looked again through his periscope. Into his field of view swept a long, sleek, streamlined shape. Explosions erupted along behind it, annihilating those enemies still left after the earlier bombardment.

BOOOOOMMMMMMRRRROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!

The tank shook as Bone Leader's sonic boom caught it, engulfing the area in noise. More B-1b Lancers followed their leader in, dispensing more bombs, more accurately than the B-52's could ever hope to manage. The ground shook as explosions rocked the enemy lines, their explosions mingled with the roar and thunder of the bombers, propelled above the speed of sound by their four high powered engines. Two full squadrons descended on the trenches, leveling the ground as thousands of tons of high explosive slammed into earth. As quickly as they had arrived, the Bones were past, thundering away into the night's sky. The Pharaoh's tank column rolled across the devastation they had left behind.

'Sir, we're past the enemy lines!'

'WHAT!'

'WE'RE CLEAR SIR!'

'GOOD TO HEAR!'

To the sides of the tanks the crunch of shells landing started up again, covering the Union forces and discouraging pursuit. They were past the initial hurdle. Now it was a mad dash to the Valley of Armageddon, for the Union's last stand.