Starfist: Steel Gauntlet by David Sherman; Dan Cragg

Author:David Sherman; Dan Cragg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Space Opera, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Military, Marines, General
ISBN: 9780345425263
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 1999-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Company B, 261st Tank Battalion, sped across the plain west of Rourke’s Hills, avoiding the highways and roads Captain Hormujh believed the Confederation Navy Raptors were searching. The forty operable tanks that remained in the company after the air attack in the pass would reach Oppalia in three-quarters of an hour. Every tank that had the capability—only seven of them—was searching the sky for aircraft, paying special attention to the swatch of sky directly overhead. Hormujh grew furious at the memory of that unexpected attack. Who would have suspected that anyone could strike that way?

He wondered how many times a Raptor could survive the stresses of that maneuver before it began to fall apart. Enough, he decided—enough times to destroy his company.

His tank’s communications man and that of his executive officer scanned the frequencies, searching for messages that would tell him what was going on elsewhere. He was particularly interested in the movement of the rest of the First Armored Division as it made its way through Rourke’s Hills. That movement was not orderly. He learned that the squadron that hit his company had moved off to attack the main body, and that squadron was relieved by two more squadrons. Many tanks—security concerns kept anyone from giving out numbers over the air—were killed by the attacking aircraft. Progress was piecemeal. Individual small units—battered companies, even platoons—made it into the pass and continued west, but the bulk of the two brigades was scattered east of the mountains, doing their best to evade fire from the attacking Raptors. A battalion or two had made it back to the base at Tourmaline and taken cover in the mines. Elsewhere, the Fourth and Ninth armored divisions were also having problems with Confederation Raptors. Only the Third Armored Division, slipping carefully along the west face of Rourke’s Hills, was moving unmolested. Somehow, Third Armor hadn’t yet been detected. Hormujh wondered how long that would last.

He wondered why there was so little activity in Oppalia. Yes, the First Tank Brigade had suffered heavy losses, but the invasion force had landed with only a few thousand men. Surely those few thousand had suffered heavy losses as well. The brigade should be fighting, but the communications he was able to intercept indicated otherwise.

He checked the time. In half an hour or a little more, his company would join the fight against the invaders at Oppalia. Then they’ll see how real tankers fight infantry, he thought.

General Aguinaldo glared at the situation map in the air command center as though by sheer force of will he could make it change what it was showing.

This map, unlike the one in Admiral Wimbush’s briefing room, was a real-time projection from the string-of-pearls. The computer that ran the map held a trid view of all the land in the theater of operations. Any part or all of the landscape could be shown in an overhead view or from nearly any angle. The computer overlaid tank icons onto the map. The icons were modified according to the best estimate of the condition of the tanks represented.

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