The One Hundred
"FALL IN" shouted the First Sergeant.
The unit came, by and large, to attention. These were not highly trained, extremely disciplined soldiers.
"Listen up for the roll!" continued the First Sergeant, and he called out over 100 names, one at a time. As a soldier's name was called out, frequently he would move to the position of attention and cry out "here, First Sergeant." Almost as often, he would remain at parade rest and holler "here, First Sergeant." Some were absent, and the First Sergeant would call their names out repeatedly. History would be divided on whether they were the lucky, or the unlucky ones.
Eventually roll call was over. "Company, Atten-Shun!" shouted the First Sergeant.
"IRON HORSE!" responded the company as they snapped to attention. The battle-cry echoed around the drill hall floor for a fraction of a second.
"Sir, you got anything?" the First Sergeant asked the Company Commander. Then the First Sergeant resumed the position of attention and did an about-face as the CO moved to the front of the formation to address the company. After a salute, and a brief word from the commander, the First Sergeant marched off to the rear of the formation.
The CO toyed with the ring on his right hand, and paced a bit. Then he spoke loudly to the unit.
"Men, we've got a busy weekend ahead of us. A lot of admin stuff has to be done, and the showdown inspection has to get finished today. There's a lot going on out there in the world, but I need you to focus on the tasks right here in front of you. We get it all done early tomorrow, we go home early. First Sergeant."
The First Sergeant marched back up to the front of the unit and saluted the CO, reassuming command of the unit. "Stand at… Ease!" he shouted, and began listing the tasks that needed to be accomplished.
A popular song by a young female singer started to play loud enough that everyone could hear it. Some of the soldiers snickered, and most started peering around, looking for the source.
"AT EASE" commanded the First Sergeant. The company quieted down, and most eyes returned front.
The CO could be heard in conversation with someone, while the company waited. It didn't last long, and when the CO hung up his cell phone, the First Sergeant called the unit to attention again. This time his voice was different. This time, the unit snapped. This time, "IRON HORSE" made the windows quiver.
The CO moved to the front of the unit again, assuming command from the First Sergeant. "Stand at ease, men" he said. "We have a visitor coming to see us. It's important."
The men held their ground, but a chorus of whispers grew almost immediately to a susurrus that could have drowned out regular conversation. Then the door opened.
The captain snapped to attention and belted out "Company! Atten- SHUN!"
To an outsider, it sounds ridiculous. Again, they shouted "IRON HORSE!" Again, they snapped to a quivering position of attention, except this time, everyone's eyes were on the visitor.
He was already to the commander by the time the echoes of the unit battle-cry had faded. He accepted the captain's salute and returned it, then leaned forward and spoke to the CO for a few seconds. The captain seemed shocked by whatever had been said, and responded. There was a back-and-forth that lasted 30 seconds or so. Then the newcomer saluted the captain, and the captain marched off to the back of the formation.
"Good morning, men" said Captain Rogers. "I'd like to say that I'm here because you're the best-trained soldiers the army has to offer, and that I'm just here for an inspection or a tour, or to shake hands, but that would be a lie."
He paused.
"I'm here because the nuclear power station up the road has been hit by HYDRA, and I need support. I'm here because your unit is the closest military force that can provide support, and because you just happened to be drilling this weekend."
Captain America took a step back.
"Captain Hardesty has turned the company over to me, and I need you to help me retake the power station. HYDRA has a lot of troops, heavy weapons, and some stuff I can't even tell you about. I need you men to assault the power plant to give me time to get them away from the nuclear pile."
"I know you're a volunteer army these days, but I also know I'm asking you to do something that's really far outside your typical mission. I won't take any man who doesn't volunteer…"
Before he could finish, several men stepped forward out of the formation. They were quickly followed by others, and before 10 seconds had passed, every man in the unit had taken a step forward.
"All right," he chuckled. "They told me you had a lot of pride. Let's show HYDRA what you're made of, then! Company, Atten-shun! Platoon sergeants, take charge!"
To an outsider, what followed would have looked like complete chaos. Small clusters of men formed and broke up, with ACU-clad soldiers running in all directions, some heading outside to civilian vehicles, others heading outside to military vehicles, and still others heading to other parts of the armory.
Some groups huddled around the hero, looking at the maps he laid out on the tables that had been hastily cleared of paperwork and laptops. As he pointed and gestured, different men nodded, or took notes, or asked questions.
Before 30 minutes had passed the unit was fairly uniform in appearance. Kevlar body armor (without E-SAPI plates, a fact which would be brought up repeatedly in Captain Hardesty's court martial proceeding later), Kevlar helmets, black leather gloves, most men wearing protective eyewear. Every man was armed with a rifle, some with machine guns.
But now the bustle was around the military vehicles in the cantonment area behind the armory. Each vehicle had at least five soldiers clustered around it, heavier weapons were being mounted on the vehicles with hard points, and some vehicles were already moving into formation for a convoy.
"Travel time should be 20 minutes, sir" shouted Sergeant First Class Graham to Captain America.
"That's not good enough," responded the hero. "We've lost a lot of time. Tell the drivers to follow as close as they can and catch up when they can if they fall behind. Everyone's been briefed on the route?"
"No, sir," replied Graham. "A lot of them know the way, being from around here, but we just didn't have time for an organized oporder. It's basically 'follow the vehicle in front of you.'"
"Well," said the hero grimly, "I guess you'd better keep up, then."
Captain America slung his shield over his back and revved the Harley's engine loudly. Anyone not in a vehicle looked around for a second and got the message. They piled into whatever was nearby and within 20 seconds the convoy left the armory in a ragged, unevenly spaced line, following the red, white, and blue shield as it roared towards an appointment with HYDRA.
Along the way, lots of conversations took place in different vehicles. Some men had not been deployed before and wondered aloud if it was always like this. Not always, they were told, but sometimes, yes. Some men were excited about the idea of working with a hero, and mused aloud about how exciting it was. The most experienced among them simply looked grim, kept their thoughts to themselves, and did their job. They were all proud of their unit, and they wanted to do a good job. None of them had any idea what they were in for, although some would be less surprised than others.
In 15 minutes, they slowed to a halt. Radios chattered and cell phones started ringing, since the unit hadn't had enough radios on hand to put one in every vehicle. NCO's tended to be a pretty resourceful lot, and had resorted to "alternate communications." The word was passed that the assault was about to take place and the Captain was moving to his own, separate, jump-off point. Everyone understood that the unit was "just a distraction."
Captain Hardesty commanded the lead vehicle, the unit's only MRAP, and the HQ platoon sergeant drove it, with the First Sergeant gunning on top. There was a mix of weaponry mounted on the vehicles, but it was all machineguns. The unit hadn't had any grenades for their Mk-19 automatic grenade launchers in the armory, so they were limited to fifty-caliber and thirty-caliber machineguns.
At the designated time, the MRAP gradually accelerated towards the outer perimeter of the facility. It got within 50 feet of the guard shack and a beam of light reached out to it from somewhere back on the grounds. It continued forward, even as it started glowing brighter and brighter. In less than 3 seconds, it burst into flames and a sound like giant popcorn began.
"Spread out!" shouted SSG Farmer to his driver. "Get off the road and spread out! We can't come at them one at a time!" The driver jerked the wheel to the side and the Humvee bounced through a drainage ditch and into a field, without slowing down. The gunner had already started firing in the general direction of the guardhouses. Based on the speed of the vehicle, the uneven terrain, and the fact that no one had really seen where the beam originated, he couldn't have been actually shooting at anything. But he had seen the elephant and knew when it was time to send some lead down-range even if you didn't have a clear target.
The rest of the convoy spread out as well. They smashed down the 12-foot chainlink fence and several vehicles lost tires to the concertina wire coiled at the top. Most of the drivers simply kept going, although a couple of vehicles had the wire wrap around their axles and ground to a stop. The larger transport trucks stopped on top of the fencing and soldiers started pouring out.
One of the transports vanished in an expanding ball of shrapnel and fire, and soldiers all down the line were pitched onto the ground. The front line of vehicles were all shooting now, and incoming rounds pinged and ticked off of the armored vehicles. The two trucks that had suffered mobility kills from the wire stopped firing as the wave of friendly vehicles surpassed them.
Back with the dismounted troops, squad sergeants were taking command and leading the troops forward. Without time to plan a careful assault, NCO's were resorting to grabbing soldiers near them and pulling them along. They were still hundreds of meters from the control buildings. It had been maybe a minute.
As the dismounts moved forward, squads bounding up ten or twenty meters at a time and waiting for another squad to assume the lead, and the risk, things were looking pretty good. The vehicles took a couple of hits from rockets but the up-armored Humvees were still rolling, minus their gunners. One of the hard-shell Humvees had been shot to pieces and had rolled to a stop, burning. No one got out of that one.
Gradually, the unit's line of battle advanced. When NCO's started getting sniped, junior NCO's took over and continued the advance. One mostly whole platoon managed to get to a concrete retaining wall that flanked the parking lot and starting laying down suppressive fire with their M249's. One of the other platoons crawled forward to the bushes lining the parking lot, and hunkered down behind them. It seemed like a safe position, being well concealed. Then claymore mines planted in the bushes went off and killed almost all of them instantly, leaving only a couple of privates alone, minus hands. The unit had been engaged for five minutes now.
The third platoon had followed the vehicles around to the left of the parking lot. The dismounts here lay in a ditch and fired at the HYDRA forces, who could be seen now, on top of the control buildings. They were still over 150 meters away. Only the up-armored Humvees were still moving, the rest of the vehicles had taken fire and seen their drivers killed. Some of the rest of the crews had gotten out alive and joined the dismounts. Some.
The two up-armored Humvees continued to push and then the beam weapon struck one of them from the copse of woods to their left. It, like the MRAP before it, glowed first, then erupted into flames, the ammunition cooking off like hell's own popcorn popper. The last up-armored Humvee halted and the gunner poured fifty-caliber rounds into the woodline. Just as the barrel of the weapon started to glow, a sniper from the control buildings picked off the gunner, and he slumped over his weapon, bleeding out or dead. Eight and a half minutes.
The platoon behind the vehicles had taken advantage of the exchange between the vehicles and the beam weapon, and had moved up to within 50 meters of the building. They started bounding forwards to the door, with part of the platoon laying down heavy fire. After two bounds they were almost there. Suddenly, it burst off its frame and a massive humanoid form stepped out into the light bearing a massive chain gun. As the weapon began buzzing, the platoon concentrated its fire onto the armored suit, but with no real impact. Within fifteen seconds, every man in the platoon was dead or dying.
Fifty-caliber rounds smashed into the armored suit from one of the disabled vehicles, clearly doing some damage. The operator returned fire with the chain gun for only a second and then the buzzing diminished to a loud rattling. The gunner had managed to shatter the feed mechanism of the chain gun, and paid for it with his life. It was probably just a lucky break, but it earned him the Medal of Honor. Posthumously.
Only the platoon behind the concrete retaining wall was left now, but it seemed like HYDRA had spent its load. No more fire came from the rooftop, the beam weapon in the copse was burning, and the armored suit was without its main weapon. Of course, it was still deadly, and its operator was counting on that as he stalked across the parking lot towards the twenty three men who were still in the fight.
Staff Sergeant Dortmund looked at his watch. Twelve minutes had passed since the assault had jumped off. He had the platoon train all its weapons on the enemy stomping across the parking lot, shattering asphalt and kicking cars out of the way. Small-caliber bullets pinged and whizzed off the armored suit as it came closer.
The staff sergeant and three other soldiers died instantly when the operator swung a Mazda Miata like a sheet of plywood at them. Their bodies were found 30 feet away. The rest of the platoon started scrambling backwards, but kept up their fire. The next five men died bloody, and then he was in among them and they couldn't shoot anymore for fear of shooting each other or hitting themselves with ricochets. One soldier leapt at the armored suit with a knife and tried to stab it through the eye-slits. He got a posthumous Medal of Honor, too.
When there were only three soldiers left, the Captain's shield rent the air and knocked the armored suit to the ground. The captain followed his shield and, well, you know the rest. He defeated the last of HYDRA's forces, and the meltdown was stopped. Nobody else died that day.
It turned out that about 20 guys had survived. Every man in the unit was given a presidential citation. They were all awarded Bronze Stars for valor. The survivors received a special crest for their uniforms that read "The Captain's One Hundred."
And everyone from that day forward knew that Battle Company would stand in the breach for America. Because that's what we do. We Shield America.