"Ok son, tell me everything that happened," Dave Callaghan said to the channeler. One week after the war had started, he had managed to get one battalion sent to the field. They had actually seemed happy when they began the great trek northwards. The soviet army made travel by roads risky as hell, his men were not trained to jump from planes, with the mountains and all, so they had to walk, or rather ski. That had been two weeks ago. On Christmas eve.
American military electronics were the best in the world, Dave had always though. With the help of that, and local guides who knew everything about the terrain, his men had survived a week behind enemy lines before the Soviets could track them. He was certain they had slowed the Soviet advance by at least a day, probably two, possibly even three. But eventually the Soviets did find his men. First men from one of the platoons were found and captured. The next day the company commander reported that his platoons were in heavy combat. He did not hear from that company after that day. Two days later the command-structure in his battalion broke down, and now the first one of his men came back.
The man had not seemed injured, but he had been cold and hungry. Dave had left for the field hospital they kept him in the minute he heard about it.
"Sir, are you General Callaghan? I have kind of a bad memory with faces," the soldier said.
"Yes, but don't worry about that. I just want to know what happened out there."
"Sir, sorry sir. I just have this thing. Anyway, we did what you told us to do, strike the Soviet convoys, outposts, moving units, guerilla style. I think we were in like twenty fights or so, we learnt lots of new things all the time. In the beginning we just threw simple fire, or pushed the cars over with air if we were strong enough. I don't know how many we killed though, most were still in their cars when we struck, and we didn't stay to count 'em. Lieutenant Badger said we didn't have to collect dog tags to be able to brag once we got home. I got this here from one lone guy though." the soldier said as he pulled out a medal from his pocket. "He charged us like a fanatic, screaming and shooting like hell all the time. I only thought they did that in the movies."
Callaghan quickly looked at the medal. "That's a medal for Bravery in Fire Fighting. You keep that." The soldier put the medal back in his pocket. "Lt. Badger. That would mean you were from 3rd company, right?"
"Sir, yes sir. Private Yuki at your service. Sorry I didn't tell who I is... was at once," Yuki said.
"Ok. And you can stop calling me sir after the first sentence," Dave said.
"Sorry."
"So, what happened once you began to lose contact? We here also lost contact with the whole unit. At first we lost 2nd company on New Years day. Then over the next two days we lost contact with the rest of you, and now you are the first one to come here."
"What, but all the rest? I just got separated during an attack."
"Just tell me what happened. I am sure the others will come back too, you were just the first. A large unit moves slower than a single man."
"Yes. It was Jan. 2, Saturday I think. My watch doesn't show days, just dates. I was in a bush, shitting. It was cold. Suddenly I saw the camp explode. Then I took hold of the power, you know you can hear and see much better in it?" Yuki said. Callaghan nodded, and then Yuki continued, "I could hear my friends screaming, and the Russians charging forward, shouting their urra. I threw some fire to where I saw the Russians coming from. They used normals to charge, with magicians somewhere behind making shields like on the soldiers. There were others too, doing their magic at us, fireballs, breaking trees down on us, air-punches, breaking earth, all of it. I did my best to help out, but they didn't even notice me, I think. So I kind of decided to just pull back to where the closest other platoon was supposed to be. But there were Russians there too, so I stopped using the magic so they wouldn't notice me. I though about the direction the Russians had attacked from, and then began to walk the other way. I didn't see anyone else, so I went to this village to ask. They said they hadn't seen anyone, but they gave me food."
"Did you hear more noise when you went back? How far was it to that village?" Callaghan asked.
"No, it was pretty quiet, some noise here and there, but nowhere real close to me. About that village, it was like 3 hours. I wish I could tell you where it was, but we had moved last night, and I let the lt. take care of the mapping for me. I lived in Sacramento all my life before this, I don't know much about nature or snow."
"Well, that's fine. I'm sure you will see your battalion again. I think the others might just have decided to hide for a longer while or take a long route to get back. Once you feel better, have them send you to Oslo. Air-cover is good there, and we'll reform you, the battalion, there, ok?"
"Yes sir. Oslo sounds good."
Dave left the building to let the soldier rest, and moved to his car. He would of course send others to find out every single detail about what had happened, but for now he was pleased with the summary. Is it possible that the Soviets can block our radios with magic? Long battle, short battle or massacre, there should have come some word from some platoon about what was happening. Things did not look too good.
"Did it go well, sir?" his driver asked him once they begun driving back.
"Splendidly. This war will be over by summer," Dave answered back. He was in a sour mood, the only one of his men to get back was just a scared private who had been taking a dump and then got scared and ran away. What would happen once the other magicians who had been civilians, started to begun to be sent into combat. He had wanted to use magician officers and noncoms, but there weren't enough, and those civilians needed experienced leadership if they were to be of any use.
"But, that sounds good. Can I write or call about it home, they are worried there?" the driver answered.
"Just don't tell them I haven't decided what summer or which side will win yet."
"But, umm, yes, sir," the driver said.
"But what?"
"Nevermind."
"Well then, I am not here for your buts, so drive. Bodo, fast."
The rest of the drive was uneventful. The car was a civilian Volkswagen, a blue one. He had asked how blue would help him evade enemy attacks, and they had said to him that because the Soviets couldn't get complete air-superiority, they would only target confirmed military targets. Something a blue Volkswagen wasn't. Dave had decided that if they were wrong, he could always blame them in heaven.
Once he arrived he had a message waiting for him. It came directly from the president, who demanded to know what had happened. Is this the crucifixion? Losing a battalion of mages was shit. But what had they expected when they gave him a week to finish it.
He though about what he was going to say, then sent a simple message. 'Unit broken in battle vs. Soviet magicians, reformation of unit started in Oslo. Heavy casualties expected. Suggestion: Call unit back to train further magicians. If not sent back, possibility to use smaller pairs for harassing action once unit reformed.' It was short, sweet, and didn't tell anything much. Who knew, maybe even half would return. If nothing else, they would be at least be experienced then.
He spent the next week trying to keep in touch with the movements and training back home. He wanted to stay in Norway though, to be able to talk to his men when they got back. If they did.
The next week was horrible. Massive forces of enemy airplanes attacked Bodo on Wednesday. There were four US-carriers getting ready to move into the fight, and the Soviets wanted to use all their airpower now while they still could. That didn't bother him, he was safe in the field outside the city, but what worried him was that it looked like the Soviets had begun to use magicians in their planes. He was sent the next day to the city to look at the damage.
The Soviets had used three planes, or that was what had reached the city. The Norwegians showed him three straight lines of damage, from what Dave knew, it looked like they had used three of the different powers. The first one he assumed used the power he called Earth. It had broken asphalt and a few buildings. The buildings still stood, they just had a collapsed part in their middle. The second one they showed him appeared to have used Air. It hadn't damaged the asphalt, but had dealt powerful blows to the buildings it hit, and a wooden residential building had collapsed. The last one was of Water. It wasn't impressive; he tried to make some jokes about it to improve morale among the soldiers and citizens that were with him. He assumed there might have been a fourth plane meant to use fire, but it had probably been shot down. The plane the soldiers said had used Earth had been shot down and crashed in the ocean.
As the week went by, three more came back, two from the same company as Pvt. Yuki, and another one from the company that he lost contact with first.
The men from 3rd company told him pretty much the same thing Yuki had, but the last one, Lt. Olsen, was from the company Dave had lost first. He said that his platoon had been about three kilometers from the company command-position when he began to hear the sounds of combat. He tried to use his radio to talk to them, but failed. He sent two of his soldiers forward to scout and report back while he began to move towards the fight.
He had marched about a kilometer with the platoon, and he could still hear the fight going on, as one of his men came back. The man shouted that the Soviets were after him. Then the lieutenant told Dave a long story about how he did his best, but kept falling back because he could feel that the Soviets might be trying to encircle him. He fought not only normals, but mages as well. He tried to use the radio to contact others, but it still didn't work. After he stopped hearing anything from where the company HQ had been, he decided that they had retreated, and he should as well. By nightfall he was down to ten men, but he thought that one or two might have just hid.
During the night he finally managed to escape the Soviets, but he was sure that by morning they would find them again. He ordered his men to form pairs and escape towards Sweden, trough where they should move south until they could move back into NATO territory.
His pair had been Pvt. Locke, but shrapnel had hit him in some random artillery-barrage. Olsen said he though it had been American artillery.
The next week many more of his men came back, there were now 60. And he heard that there was one almost full-strength company hiding in Sweden. He heard about that from their media, but he hoped they would make it back in any case. The Soviets were lambasting NATO for using neutral nations to wage war from, and threatened to hunt any US units that crossed the border, and that they might use Swedish and Finnish airspace. Dave though about it, and then came to the conclusion that he didn't care. He needed to get back to America, he had been away for too long, and now that his men were beginning to come back, he felt that he was needed more back home, preparing for their return. The president had OK'd his request to use them for training of new companies. After the initial batch had been sent away within a week, he had promised the rest that they would have 6-9 months of training before going into combat. Finding volunteers wasn't the hard part, it was finding good ones.