End World: The Captain's Tale Read online

  “That’s a wrap sir, one-hundred percent enemy attrition with light casualties on our part. Looks like one of Yankee’s Bradleys is flashing on the hillside there, must have been a lucky snap shot,” Jimmy pointed to the far ridgeline where a yellow strobe gave away the location of the heavily camouflaged vehicle.

  “I would have like to get away clean, but I’ll take what I can get. Not bad considering we were supposed to lose. Commander Owen owes me a beer or two. Maybe then he will tell me why I’m hearing rumors about us going to Texas or some crap like that.”

  “I thought that was just a relocation drill. Like that time they threw us on a train to the desert in California?”

  “When they carted us out there, do you recall them packing up the support element too? If it’s just for training, why go through the hassle and money of sending that stuff there when they already have it? Why are we loading up repair equipment and sending that stuff down South? That’s a ton of logistics they wouldn’t normally deal with for a simple training exercise. They are planning to ship us off somewhere and we haven’t even been home for six months yet. I could do without seeing another desert mountain top, know what I mean?”

  Jimmy thought about it and frowned, “Sorry, sir, I guess I didn’t put that much thought into it. I know you haven’t had much of a chance to wind down at home.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Jimmy, it isn’t your fault. It’s the life I chose and moving around is part of it, have to try to find the positive, you know? Hope Texas has some decent fishing. Heard the bass down there are pretty damn big.” He flicked his cigar off into the gravel, “Let’s roll up the carpet and move down to the meet ‘n greet. We have some serious bragging to do.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jimmy smiled broadly as he pulled the small boom microphone on his helmet back toward his mouth, “All Charlie units, games are over. Meet at rendezvous Papa. Good work out there, made our team look damn good, see you all at the barbecue. Charlie Lead is mobile.”

  Cap-Cap heard several engines in the woods fire up as he walked up the ramp into the Bradley. With a mechanical whine, the door lifted up and closed with a metallic thump solidly behind him. Some brief static on the radio indicated that the platoon was ready moving out. With a jerk, the APC moved forward as the transmission engaged. The forest-green Bradleys fell in behind Caperson’s lead unit as the platoon began moving down the hillside.

  ~1~

  He had both hands on the handle as he rode halfway out of the commander’s hatch. The Bradley ground on the gravel road as they entered the large clearing. Caperson was anxiously awaiting the post engagement run down, both the good and the bad. Although he knew he would get kudos for his team’s work, the loser was most likely going to be burned at the stake for getting so soundly defeated. Someone always had to pay the price for failure, and when the odds were so heavily against Caperson, he knew it wasn’t going to be cheap for Owen. The command tent was tucked under the tree line and covered with an expansive camouflage net. Several radio aerials that looked like metal trees poked up through the netting, reaching nearly twenty meters into the afternoon sky.

  “Jimmy, park us over by Owen’s Bradley,” he said as he pointed to the vehicle with the small flag on the side and several extra antenna stuck to the turret roof.

  The back ramp opened with a creak and the crunch of gravel as it met the ground. Cap-Cap started walking in the direction of the tent as the engine wound down behind him. With a friendly wave of his hand, Owen signaled him over to the radio vehicle where he was talking with a small group of soldiers.

  Owen singled out a soldier from the small group in front of him, “I know you’re a medic, but my radio operator didn’t report in from leave this morning and my backup busted his leg while testing gravity off the top of a tank. I know you have a background running radio coms, so I’m just asking you to sit here and look busy, that’s all. If someone asks for me, send a runner, otherwise just sit and try not to get too bored.” Owen looked slightly agitated as he tried to make do with the few people he had on hand.

  “Sir, can I at least get a message to my captain that I’m not reporting back tonight? He is going to have me cleaning the latrines for a month if I simply don’t show up.”

  “You own the radio now, call anyone you want. I just want to make sure I have a slab of meat sitting in that seat that knows the difference between an on and off switch and can reply to a simple call without sounding like a nitwit.”

  “Uh, thank you, sir.” The female private saluted and turned to salute Cap-Cap as he walked up.

  Their eyes met and locked. For a moment the world seemed to stop spinning for Cap-Cap, “Those eyes. My God those eyes,” he thought to himself. “Who is this woman? Where has she been all these years?” He couldn’t look anywhere else but into those deep, green eyes. He suddenly felt as if he had found someone he had known about his entire life but had never been able to find, until now. He had never seen this person but he could swear he had known her forever.

  Owen was snapping his fingers, “Chris, she can’t walk away until you return her salute, you fall asleep on us?”

  “Oh sorry, was kind of lost in my own world for a second,” he halfheartedly saluted and noted that the private had not blinked once while they gazed at each other.

  “Sirs,” she nodded slightly as she turned and sat at the radio console.

  The two men turned and started walking toward the command tent. Owen looked over his shoulder to see if the private was still listening and found she had her headset on, “What the hell was that all about, Chris? You gettin’ all sappy for the noncoms or what? Have you been in the field too long? I’m sure we can find you something a little closer to your own rank and not in the same damn unit. You’re going to get yourself fried for that, don’t even think about it.”

  “Just haven’t seen her before, that’s all,” he said sheepishly. “Is she new to the company?”

  “Yeah, she just transferred in from Germany, not sure about any personal details though.” Owen’s shoulders noticeably slumped as he changed the subject, “That was a seriously kick ass job on my men out there. You straight up trashed me. Thought for sure you would be hull down on the other side of the far ridge waiting for me to crest the hill. Thought I had you by going around the base. I’m going to be eating shit from the brass for a long time. We had you outgunned three to one on the ground and even had air assets on call. We should have crushed you, no losses on my side.”

  “I figured that is what training told me to do, sit my entire platoon hull down and wait for your superior numbers to roll over the top and go for hull shots as they crested the hill. I knew you could keep me pinned down while either they dismounted and flanked, or simply worked some armor through the woods and accomplished the same thing. I didn’t like the end result of either of those ideas so I went with something slightly less predictable. You still managed to take out one of my assets on your flank, good reactions on whatever gunner managed to get that off before his yellow light started flashing.” They had stopped walking and Cap-Cap turned to look back at the private as he continued, “So yeah, good fight.”

  “Her name is Private Jen Valder, or just Whiskey. If you ask her, she prefers Whiskey,” Owen said with a smile. “That’s really all I know, you are on your own as far as the rest of the details go. Don’t let the brass discover your little foray, and I sure as hell don’t want to hear anything about it.”

  Cap-Cap blushed for a second, “Don’t know what you are talking about, Owen.” He was going to add something else but the look on Owen’s face told him that trying to lie about what he was looking at was pointless. He may have been masterful on the battlefield but his ability to lie left much to be desired.

  “Just keep me out of it, okay? I don’t want to hear about any fraternization crap, and I don’t want to get called in for some formal inquest. Anyway, let’s head in for the brief. I can’t wait to get my nuts chewed off by Hanson.” The two walked toward the line forming in front of the main tent.

  Just before Cap-Cap entered the tent, he stole one more look back toward the radio tent and caught her just as she was turning away. She had been watching him the entire time. That thought sent a warm tingle down his spine and brought a wide smile to his face.

  ~2~

  General Hanson paced back and forth as he went over the after action reports, “So, Owen, you got your ass handed to you in a big old grocery bag, didn’t you?”

  Owen stood at attention but stayed silent, choosing not to rise to the bait.

  “You had three times as many units as Caperson had. He only had two heavies! I gave you superior numbers, air support, even last-minute intel, and you lost that to a bunch of grunts in the bushes with a few missiles.”

  “Sir, I–”, Owen was cut off as he tried to defend himself.

  “I don’t want to hear it, Owen, you royally screwed the pooch on this one. You’re lucky we are shipping out in less than a week or I’d have you clean something extremely stupid.” He turned to Cap-Cap, “And you! What the hell? You were supposed to lose! How the hell did you manage to pull a victory out of what should have been a slaughter straight out of the damn field guide! How the hell did you know where the choppers were going to come in? Hills and one double-A asset should have made that a crap shoot at best to even get a shot off, let alone down both. If you had any inside information you best let me in on it now! So help me, I will deep-fry the boots off of who ever told you they were even coming. Speak up damn it!”

  He had remained motionless while Owen received his verbal beating, “Sir, it just seemed obvious to me.”

  “Obvious, huh? And how exactly was it obvious to you? Enlighten me, share this wonderful knowledge that seemed so obvious to you.”

&nb
sp; “Sir, for starters, you gave me a missile asset so I naturally assumed that there would be some rotorheads around, the mountains we were fighting in didn’t lend themselves well to A-10s or heavier air support. I knew where first contact was going to be made simply based on the timing of departure from point Alpha and I knew Owen would assume my entire platoon was hull down on the other side of Hill Forty-three because that is what the book says to do. That left two valleys for them to come down. The first approach was the valley that Owen was attacking down but that would expose them to the top of the hill Owen assumed we were behind and antiair units would be deployed there,” he pointed to two points on the map. “The second avenue was the valley that led to the left flank of the few units I had actually hidden there. I had two soldiers hump the three clicks to the first hilltop on their flank with orders to drop whatever flew down that valley.”

  “How exactly did you know they wouldn’t simply pop over the hill behind your units? It’s not like that would take a chopper long to make up the difference and still maintain cover.”

  “Chopper pilots like information, hell, all pilots like information and I think the use of drones and satellites is making them a lot less likely to hop over a hill into the unknown. They want to know they will win a fight hands down before they fly into it. Too many wars have been fought where we have been completely unopposed in the sky. Owen would only be able to report the contact, not the locations, strength or unit type. They would know we had ack-ack somewhere. They had the same combat preview information we did, and would want the longest approach available to identify and shoot at maximum range and long before they were spotted, or were in range of effective return fire as far as that goes. I also know that there is a long river winding up that approach and any helo pilot worth his salt would jump at the chance to fly down twenty kilometers of riverbed at twenty feet off the deck.”

  Hanson pulled a cigarette out of his chest pocket and smiled briefly, “Spoken like a true ground pounder.” He turned back to Owen and his face turned stern, “Think any of that information would help you find your way out of your own ass, soldier? Does it help you see the light at the end of that long colon tunnel you are currently living in?”

  Owen had a quick flash of anger at being called out in that manner but bit his tongue and replied, “Yes, sir. The battle did not quite convene in the manner that I had expected nor did I plan for the expectation that Mr. Caperson would do anything beyond a textbook preparation for a defense.”

  “I guess that’s what a real enemy is going to do, right? They are going to look at the same play book you use and pick out the defense you are most likely to expect?”

  Owen sighed slightly, “No, I don’t think that is what would happen with a real enemy, sir.”

  Hanson lit his cigarette with a wooden match and flicked the still burning stick into the gravel. He exhaled a large cloud of smoke into the mountain air, “Any reason you didn’t have scouts moving off center of your lead element? They would have walked the ridge directly into the middle of those troops set up to ambush you and may very well have walked into the middle of the defensive commander’s position. I’m guessing this would have ended quite differently had you done that, correct?”

  “Sir I was overly confident that Chris, I mean, the enemy, would be hull down on the other side of Hill Forty-three. It would have been the standard tactic to use.”

  “Was the enemy on the other side of said hill?”

  “No, sir. Blue units were parallel to our approach and they were able to employ a very effective ambush strategy to both my lead element and my support assets that were following close behind.”

  “So instead of having a secondary plan of action, or any plan beyond where you expected the enemy to be and what you expected them to do, you simply decided to hand them a heavy armored battalion and several tens of millions of dollars of the finest the US of A has to offer in military hardware along with the best damn soldiers this planet has ever seen?”

  He sighed and gave in, “That would be a correct observation, sir.”

  “Caperson,” the general continued as he turned back, “how would your units have fared had Mr. Owen used off-center scouts ahead of his main element?”

  “Sir, I think I still would have stolen his lunch money to be perfectly honest.”

  “And how on this God’s green Earth can you be so confident in that?”

  “Sir, in the valley Commander Owen expected to find me I had placed generators under heavy netting in order to appear in both sound and night vision that our vehicles were in fact there and running, this was also to provide cover in the event the choppers decided to fly down the same valley Owen was using as an approach. I did not expect close in tactical assault prior to the main element moving through our prepared position. I knew there were only two approach vectors that he could use and wouldn’t waste the several hours it would take to use the second. I also did not think he would move his units slow enough for dismounted scouts to walk the hillsides. I was confident I had predicted the outcome of the battle prior to it actually beginning, sir.”

  The general nodded as he paced back and forth. He took several heavy pulls from his cigarette. Off to the left side of the stage, Cap-Cap noticed Whiskey arguing quietly with one of the MPs standing at the back. Finally, the MP held his hands up in mock surrender and took something from her hand. She disappeared out the side of the tent as the MP walked over to the general and handed him a small slip of folded paper.

  “What is it?” he snapped at the soldier impatiently.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but this is apparently very important,” he saluted as he handed the general the note.

  After reading the short note the general wore a look of genuine sadness, “Seriously? Well shit. Folks, there has been a change in orders. I want all of you to report in with your respective units and prep for a possible move out. This may be a long-term displacement. I want full rucks, not day packs. Any weekend passes are hereby revoked. Do not make plans for anything in the near future. You have my apologies, soldiers, you had earned them, Owen and Caperson meet me at my command vehicle in thirty. I need to go figure out what the hell this is about,” he saluted sharply and walked off the stage shaking his head.

  ~3~

  “Man, I’m really sorry. I didn’t know he was going to lay into you like that. I would have thrown a couple freebies at you had I known,” The two were walking across the open parking area as they headed to the command tent.

  Owen was shaking his head, “Don’t ever apologize for crushing an opponent when the odds were stacked so unevenly against you. You blew me away fair and square, I deserved it. I didn’t like it, but I deserved it. I should have walked away with that but my overconfidence did me in. Live and learn.”

  The two soldiers approached the command assembly tent and could already hear Whiskey talking very loudly into the radio.

  “But what are they rioting against? These reports don’t even make sense. Who the hell riots in Boise? Half of them would have to burn down their own stores! I do not understand what the damn protest is about. Is there someone in charge there that I can relay through? Is there anyone on the rioting side that has identified themselves as a leader? Do you have anyone that is driving this thing right now?”

  A distant voice came over the speaker, “Not sure, sir. I just know the police are declaring an emergency and they can’t deal with how quickly the incident has escalated. The level of organization is making them think it was some demonstration organized over the internet that kind of got out of control.”