Enemy Within: Thus NATO Fought There
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fanfiction. None of this is real. All views presented in both dialogue and narration are strictly those as told from the perspective of their characters, and do not intend to represent those of the author
Prologue – Lariat Advance
"An armed attack against one or more in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."
— Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty
Near the Inner German Border
Western Europe
06 June 1984
«Lariat Advance! Lariat Advance as of 0230 hours!»
«Roger, Lariat Advance as of 0230 hours!»
The alert had been called suddenly and without warning.
Private First Class James Frederick Ryan, United States Army, kicked off the itchy wool blanket and shot to his feet. In a flash, like a switch being thrown, the sleepy billet had been transformed into a heaving mass of paralytic and sleep-deprived humanity, all shouting and scrambling to get themselves up and squared away, to the wonderful tune of the alert siren bleating dreadfully across the base.
'Lariat advance! Lariat advance!' bellowed the duty officer and his band of SNCO helpers, stomping down the hallway like a herd of bears. They were shouting and pounding on all the barrack doors with their huge, meaty fists. 'On your feet, troopers! Drop your cocks and grab your socks! Lariat Advance!'
Everything passed in a blur. Even Ryan, even barely a month in-country and still a bit tipsy from last night's booze, could feel his body moving on its own - whipped and conditioned by maddening repetition until the process had become entirely automatic; BDUs, socks, and boots - no loose laces, attention to detail! Buttons and belts could be done on the move - hands out of pockets! Then off at the run - everything at the double!
A part of him badly wanted to drop into the washroom, even just to splash some cold water on his face to wake himself up, but there was no time. From the moment the alert had been called, the seconds were counting off - seconds that could spell the difference between freezing his balls off in a muddy ditch, or being turned into a flaming, glowing zombie.
Within ten minutes, soldiers were already spilling out of barracks and bolting down the concrete pathways that weaved through the base. At the armory, a human chain rapidly formed - passing along weapons and ammunition under the gentle guidance of an ill-tempered Sergeant. Men secured their weapons and briefly checked their maps in the ops room, then made for the motor pools. The night's mist was swirling in lazily from a nearby lake, glowing with light from the searing floodlights that lined the base perimeter.
At the fifteen minute mark, the first waking stirs of armored vehicles gurgled and belched into life; roused from their slumber by their crews, and quickly but precisely taken through their PMCS checks. The stench of grimy exhausts and yesterday's grass quickly filled the cold morning air, pushing away the wafting mist. Headlights and amber revolving signals were powered on, stabbing through the darkness like blades.
«Spear Six, this is Pyramid, radio check, over.»
«Pyramid, Spear Six. Roger, over.»
«Roger. Be advised, Spear Four is being redirected to support Sword team. Make sure they go first.»
«Spear Four first, reassigning to Sword. Roger, out.»
Growling, shuddering from their still-cold engines, the first of the garrison's olive-green armored vehicles began trundling out of the park; two M3 Bradley cavalry fighting vehicles - the unit's quick reaction force.
As they set off, the next group of vehicles were already spinning up behind them; an M151A2 1/4-ton utility truck and another M3 CFV headed up a procession of lumbering, whining M1 Abrams battle tanks - their huge oblong turrets swinging around to face forwards like giant carousels as they rolled out. These were new vehicles; the first of a new generation of American fighting machines.
«All Spears, this is Spear Four. We are Oscar Mike. Stand clear!»
As the tanks moved past, other vehicles began to follow behind them; more Bradleys, then M113 armored carriers and support vehicles, forming up first by platoons, and then by troops as they set off. Huffing and clanking, the column of armored dinosaurs rumbled through the base gates and turned out onto a sleepy German side road, on the other side of which sat a clutch of civilian hamlets - lights were flickering on like waking eyes, disturbed by the sudden burst of activity.
Back at the vehicle park, Private Ryan - now uncomfortably lugging an M47 Dragon missile launcher on top of carrying an M16 rifle as his secondary, along with all of his other gear - staggered after his team as they collectively ran towards their waiting Bradley; first aboard was the driver, Private First Class Grouse, clambering up the side of the hull and deftly swinging himself into his compartment with practiced ease. Entering up through the rear access ramp was Sergeant Vahey - vehicle gunner, and Specialist-4 Santini - scout.
Ryan was the last man in. The vehicle commander and squad leader - Staff Sergeant Elias Baker - was waiting for him at the ramp. He was gesturing aggressively and shouting,
'Hurry your ass up Ryan, we're waiting!'
What was his problem? He wasn't the one carrying a big hunk of shit across his back. Still running, Ryan bolted up the ramp, crouching low past the agitated sergeant and into the dull, cramped passenger cabin and took his position beside Spec-4 Santini, who greeted him with a curt but encouraging nod. Unslinging the launcher, Ryan rested both of his weapons down and lay his head back. He was still tense, but at least now his blood was moving and had shaken off his lingering tipsiness.
Making a last triple-check that all his troopers were present and accounted for, Staff Sergeant Baker clambered up into the commander's seat, beside Sergeant Vahey, and put on his bulbous combat crew helmet.
'Spear One-Two is ready,' he said, speaking into his radio. 'We are good to go.'
With a whir of hydraulics, the rear hatch swung up into the closed position, muting the buzz of activity outside and leaving only the grumbling hum of the engine and the chirruping radio noise.
«All Spears, this is Spear Six. We are REDCON-1. Get moving.»
'Spear One-Two, roger, moving out. Driver, advance!'
The engine revved. Then the vehicle shook and lurched forward.
They were on the move.
Were they going to war? Or to training? This was the silent question that everyone always thought about, but knew better than to ask. They'd been through this process before.
For they were cavalry scouts, tasked with guarding the Fulda Gap; the fortified section of the Inner German Border that covered the narrow wasp-waist of West Germany, where any Russian breakthrough would snap the country - and thus, the entire NATO frontline - in two.
The Inner German Border was the densest concentration of military force on the planet Earth. It was the narrow fault line that separated the Free World and the Soviet Bloc like a vast chasm, from where Armageddon itself was surely destined to spring forth in storm and nuclear fire. For the American armored cavalry, the demands of manning this volatile frontier of freedom were only for the best of the best - the most professional, most physically fit, most quick-thinking and battle-ready, and, most importantly, the most well-groomed under the Army grooming standards. Because if war ever did break out, it was they who would be first to meet the mighty Soviet Army on the field of battle, where their success - or failure - would decide the course of the rest of the war.
To prepare for this eventuality, alerts were called at random and unpredictable intervals, sometimes conducted with live ammo, sometimes not, but always unexpected - just like a real war. Every time, no one had any idea whether they would roll around like pigs in the countryside for a few days, or if they really would end up charging to their deaths at the guns of a hundred Soviet tank armies.
So there was no point in asking. They would all find out soon enough. And no one had any illusions about their life expectancy if the balloon really went up either. In the meantime, the alerts kept the men sharp, and the ambiguity kept their edges. The important thing now was for everyone to mount up and vacate the camp as soon as possible.
Ryan clutched his weapon, tense with cold anticipation. He knew as well as anyone that one of these days would be the day they ride off for real, to meet their fates in certain death.
He thought about his forebears, that had fought some of America's most vicious battles from days past; the Revolutionary War, 1812, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Normandy, Vietnam... members of Ryan's family had fought and died in all of those bloody episodes. They too had marched into battle, equally tensed with anticipation, just as he was now. One day, it would be his turn - adding the verdant reaches of the Fulda Gap to that list of blood-stained battlefields.
That day, so it seemed, had not yet come...
...
... But even that was surely only a matter of time.
Hammelburg, Bavaria
West Germany
06 June 1984
It was the air raid sirens that first awoke her, wailing long and loud enough to rattle the windows.
Even without looking, she knew her husband was gone. Probably called away by his unit in the middle of the night, as he had been many times before. The thought made her wonder if this was all just another drill. Or perhaps, a mistake. In either case, a few seconds more and the keening sirens would shut down and let her get back to sleep.
Then came the smell of smoke.
Immediately, Carol Wilder sprang out of bed. A baleful orange glow was creeping in from the curtains, lighting the room enough to read the clock on the far wall.
Two-forty.
Her lips pursed. There was no way there should be any light at all at this hour - something was definitely not right.
Still in her nightgown, Carol went straight for the bug-out bag that her husband had prepared and pre-staged for her, nestled under the bed. Then she scooped up the two things he'd thoughtfully left on the nightstand - an up-to-date copy of the local Non-combatant Evacuation Order plans for Army families, and a loaded M1911 pistol that he'd "found someplace". She tucked them away, keeping the pistol within easy reach.
Outside, frantic shouts began to echo across the neighborhood. Every now and then, there would be a long scream or a sudden, strangled shriek. A horn sounded in the far off distance - deeper and lower in pitch than the still-screaming sirens, a regal yet imposing sound, unlike anything heard in living memory. Then something else screeched in the air. A sick animal? A tortured eagle? Or the overhead whoosh of a ballistic missile? Carol didn't have time to think about any of that. For there was only one thought on her mind now...
Ellen!
Bursting into her daughter's room, she felt a slight relief to see that she was already sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes. Ellen Wilder was only four, but even she seemed to recognize - if only subconsciously - that sirens and smoke meant something bad was coming.
'Mommy...?' she started, her voice trailing off with a yawn.
'Ellie, sweetie,' Carol began, trying to think of a way to explain that they had to get up and leave right the hell now, in terms that her kid would understand. This wasn't the first time she'd had to do this, but every time, she struggled and stumbled over her words. 'It's time to go.' she said simply. There, nice and easy.
'Where are we going?' Ellen asked. 'Where's Daddy?'
'Far away,' Carol said, licking her lips anxiously as she forced a gentle calm she did not feel. 'But we're gonna go find your Daddy, okay?' she said, hoping with a quiet desperation that that really would be the case. 'Come on, upsy-daisy. Get your things, we're leaving.'
Ellen nodded slowly and got out of bed, slightly mollified at the thought of seeing her father again.
They've hardly seen each other as it is. Carol thought gloomily as she retrieved her daughter's bag; a colorful Muppets-themed backpack, pre-loaded with a water bottle, mixed candies, some spare clothes, a gas mask, one of those new "MRE" rations that her husband had "acquired" and snuck inside, and then some coloring books that Ellen had snuck in on her own.
Ellie raised her arms while her mother put on the bag and fastened the straps, then put on the Army baseball cap she had received from her father on fourth birthday. She struggled with the bag for a moment, but she managed.
'Do you have everything?' Carol asked.
Her daughter's answer was cut off by a horrific crash of shattered glass and torn woodwork coming from the front of the house. Ellie screamed, and Carol instinctively moved to shield her. Dust wafted into the room.
Muffled voices began to echo up from the lounge.
Swearing quietly, Carol pulled out the pistol and gingerly cocked the weapon. She was by no means an expert, but her husband had shown her how to use it a few times, and she liked to think that she at least had the basics down.
And now, the life of her daughter - and herself - depended on it. In her husband's absence, the task of defending her dwelling place now rested solely on her shoulders.
With a reassuring whisper, Carol kissed her trembling daughter on the forehead and told her to hide in the closet. With tears in her eyes, young Ellen shook her head and instead clung to her mother with an unbreakable vicegrip. Carol's attempts to gently dislodge her failed.
Swallowing, Carol stood up and raised her weapon in one hand, and took Ellie's quivering hand in the other. Using her own body as a shield for her daughter, Carol began to quietly creep down the hallway.
Ever since her husband had been posted here in Germany, this house had been their home and sanctuary. But now, in the smoky gloom, it suddenly become a sinister and hostile place, haunted by things moving in the night.
She had known this day would come. Living this close to the Iron Curtain itself, she knew right from the beginning that the proverbial balloon would go up sooner or later, that everything she knew about normal life and the world would collapse in the blink of an eye, and leave them all fighting for their lives, like the second half of The Day After.
And yet... and yet...
She could discern separate noises now, having spread from the lounge and up into the kitchen; she could hear the clamp of heavy footsteps, the tumble and crump of furniture being upturned and torn open, and slides and scrapes, like blades running across the floor. Crashes of glass and shattered porcelain.
And she could hear voices - hooting and fussing in a foreign, baleful tongue that she found oddly familiar, yet could not recognize. German? Russian? No, it was something else...
'Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis!'
'Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.'
Carol's blood ran cold. The house was being looted.
Feeling a dreadful shot of fear, outrage, and adrenaline all at once, she tightened her grip on her gun, gently flicking the safety off with her thumb - just the way her husband had shown her. She had to fight to still her own anxious breathing, stirred up by the shuffling specters that were now ransacking her home. She had to be strong now, to resist the urge to run and hide, in order to reassure her baby daughter.
She resumed her slow, quiet walk. Squeezing Ellen's hand, and feeling briefly comforted she squeezed back, Carol Wilder rounded a corner and came into the lounge.
Then she fired. The bark of the M1911 was deafening in the confined space, and the muzzle flash stung her eyes. The sudden recoil slammed back in her hand like the head of a sledgehammer, pulverizing her tendons and only narrowly counteracted by the surging adrenaline.
Ellie was screaming, and Carol quickly realized that she was screaming too.
The gibbering specters were coming for her.
She fired again. Again and again, until she could fire no more, and darkness took them both.
The Rhön Mountains
West Germany
06 June 1984
Thirty minutes after they had first set out, the armored cavalry were trundling smartly down the wide, smoothed surfaces of the German autobahn; twelve Bradley cavalry vehicles, with several M113s and light vehicles in support. Headlights on, they punched through the darkness in a glowing, rumbling trail. The clamor of engines and heavy tracks rolled across the shallow hills and forests clumped through the countryside.
«Spear Six, this is Spear Two. Two-Three's had a breakdown. We've called Nine-Nine's VTR and will continue on, but we're thirty minutes delayed.»
'Two, this is Six. Copy. We'll make do until you boys catch up. Out.'
Captain Robert Herman emerged from the commander's cupola of the lead Bradley and took a deep breath of the cool morning air. It was rich and sweet-tasting - very unlike the American big city where Herman had grown up, to say nothing of the refreshingly clear road markings and conspicuous lack of potholes.
Like all US personnel sent to the German frontier, he was tall and well-built. Through his bulbous headset, snippets of radio chatter were buzzing into his ears; apparently many other NATO units across the frontier were also mobilizing on a large scale...
But surely this was not unheard of - exercises like this had happened before. Sometimes whole NATO divisions would burst from their camps unexpectedly and trawl around the countryside from a period of time ranging between twelve hours and twelve days, before heading home. Whether it was the real thing or an exercise didn't matter - no one would be told until such time as they needed to know...
Above the column, the skies were waking up. A pair of AH-1S Cobra gunships buzzed overhead, their stub wings bulging with FFAR rocket pods and loaded TOW missile racks. Further away, partially terrain-masked below the crest of a nearby hill, a lone OH-58 Kiowa observation helicopter was hovering at treetop level, carrying out surveillance.
Higher still, a pair of A-10A Thunderbolt IIs rumbled through the groggy clouds, invisible in the darkness. They climbed up and turned northeast, trailing off into the night.
Gazing up at them, Herman grinned with warm excitement. Cobras and Warthogs carrying live ordnance? Now that was a rare treat. This was going to be one hell of an exercise...
More curiously, he would also notice German civilian cars passing in the opposite direction - usually in small groups at a time, racing past at top speed, bloated with people and belongings. A curious phenomenon, but one that wasn't entirely unusual; it was summer now after all, and surely even the most workaholic German needed to go on vacation sometime...
They were approaching a bridge. Parked on the road beside it were a pair of MAN KAT1 heavy trucks and an M113G armored personnel carrier - their hulls painted in the gunmetal gray of the Bundeswehr.
West German soldiers had already secured the crossing; young conscripts in moleskin fatigues and scrimmed M1 helmets were marshaling the American vehicles forward one at a time. Below in the gully, a pioneer team was carefully rigging the bridge to blow. Nearby, a dug-in MILAN anti-tank fighting position was warily scanning the horizon on the opposite bank. Like the Americans, these West Germans had a wartime mission of their own; blast the first Russian tank they saw, blow the bridge to buy time, then fall back to the next bridge - repeating the process until such time as the Russians stopped coming or they all died, whichever came first. Such was the nature of their mission.
As the American cavalry troop neared the bridge, Herman ordered the column to reduce speed and waved at the Germans as he passed them by. But they only stared back at him - grimly and wordlessly. Pursing his lip in mild disappointment, Herman played it cool by pretending he was actually reaching to scratch the side of his neck. The Germans were still staring after him. Was it possible that they knew something that he didn't?
Well, whatever. As far as he was concerned, the Germans were simply practicing for the day when they would blow that bridge for real. So it was good that they were focused on their jobs. Nothing suspicious about that at all.
Leaving the bridge behind them, the American column kept moving.
Then the headset crackled again,
«Spear, this is Kronos. What's your status, over?»
"Kronos" was the callsign of Colonel Paul Krueger, the regimental commanding officer - and Herman's boss' lord and master. It was no small matter if he was radioing a Troop commander directly instead of relaying through the Squadron commander. In hindsight, that should have been the first warning sign that something big was going down, but at the time Herman remained blissfully unaware. So far as he knew, after all, this was still an exercise...
'Kronos, this is Spear Six.' said Herman coolly. 'We're at seventy percent strength and Oscar Mike, proceeding northeast to our GDP battle positions. Over.'
«Alright.» The response was curt and immediate. «Situation is as follows: hostile forces have occupied the town of Hammelburg, approximately twelve clicks south of your position. Your mission is to redirect south and engage the enemy, delay their advance, and prevent a breakout.»
There was an odd sense of urgency to his voice, but again, Herman paid it no more heed than usual.
Still, he quickly produced his route map. With the help of his gunner, a Staff Sergeant with a Master Gunner qualification - one of two in the entire squadron - and who seemed to know all the roads of West Germany off by heart, they managed to locate Hammelburg and work out a route. It was a new path that they hadn't travelled before, and only now seeing this in front of him, did Herman feel something uneasy in his gut.
'We're not going to the border, sir?' he ventured.
«Negative. Your objective is Hammelburg.»
'... Roger that.'
«A-10s will provide close air support, callsign Ripper. Live fire is authorized. Acknowledge, over.»
Herman went silent as he considered his colonel's words. There was something about them that made him very uneasy, and for a moment he wasn't sure that he had heard clearly. His mind scrambled to put the pieces together - from hearing of the large-scale deployments, then seeing the armed aircraft, the fleeing civilians, and the grim-faced Germans wiring up the bridge...
'... Kronos, this is Spear Six. Say again all after "Ripper", over.' he said. He glanced again at his gunner, hoping that the man's NCO instincts could pick up on any hidden meanings or wisdom in the words, but received only with a dull shrug.
«I say again; Live fire authorized. Acknowledge.»
Captain Rob Herman blinked as the coin finally dropped. The subtext was now perfectly clear.
It was one thing to be ordered to defend a town with tanks and armored vehicles - that was a regular feature in simulated exercises. Even if a tank barged through and collapsed a house, the local residents would be compensated handsomely for all damages. Round up some inmates from the doghouse, and that same house could be rebuilt and cleaned up over a long weekend, good as new. Many enterprising Germans had made a pretty penny off Uncle Sam (and thus, the American taxpayer) doing exactly that.
But to use live munitions into a populated area was an escalation that no amount of compensation or doghouse "volunteers" would truly smooth over. The fact that they were being used at all meant that a situation that required those munitions was upon them.
And there was only one situation that met that requirement:
War.
'... Roger, redirecting south to Hammelburg.' he said, mustering every ounce of professional discipline that had been trained into his bones. 'Will fight a delaying action with live fire. Out.'
Herman closed the channel and relayed the order to the rest of the column, fending off bewildered calls for clarification from three different Lieutenants in the process - including his own XO, First Lieutenant O'Connell. Then he quickly withdrew back inside the Bradley's turret and slammed the hatch shut.
With a hard expression, Herman took a moment to mentally brace himself. He glanced over at his gunner. The Staff Sergeant's face was still blank, but it was clear that he had understood everything. So had the driver. And as for the troopers riding in the back, they would probably figure it out before too long. None of them spoke - they knew what they had to do and what was expected of them.
They were all riding for real now.
But even still, none of them could foresee just how their mission would become a lot more complicated than anyone could ever have imagined...
Outskirts of Hammelburg, Bavaria
West Germany
06 June 1984
As one, the Bradleys turned off the highway and dispersed by platoons, six Bradleys each, then into small two-vehicle sections that spread wide like fingers across the pastoral German countryside. Their bounding tracks marred and scraped muddy trails through the lush meadows, maneuvering through gullies and hugging wooded clusters as they advanced. Each platoon had one section providing overwatch at a time while the others advanced.
Private Ryan sat, hot and tense, in the rear of his team's Bradley - callsigned "Spear One-Two". The ride became downright vicious; the Bradley's suspension was bucking up and down like a rodeo, often suddenly swinging from one side to the other, at one point almost hurling him into Spec-4 Santini's shoulder. He could hear metal crashing on soft ground, and woody crunches as they smashed through fences, branches, and undergrowth alike. Ryan reflexively pursed his lip, something he'd done to stop himself from biting his tongue as the ride jolted up and down. It didn't work, and he suppressed a curse.
«Two, this is Three, you're too far out front.» radioed the commander of Spear One-Three, the other cavalry Bradley in the section. «We're falling behind. Reduce your speed!»
'Three, Two,' replied Staff Sergeant Baker. 'No. Out.'
The engine revved and the hull lurched, and Ryan felt himself being pulled towards the rear door as the vehicle negotiated a slope. Then, another jolt as it crested the peak and slammed back down.
'Boys, hold on a second.' Baker said, still tucked neatly in the vehicle commander's seat. 'Things are about to get rough.'
The very next second, something spanked hard against the frontal hull. A kinetic projectile that shattered against the armor - leaving a noticeable dent - and rained down in fragments that tinked against the armor that violently shuddered everything and everyone inside. Private Ryan felt his head kick back like a whiplash and smack the wall with a hard crack - his helmet taking most of the force. The impact reverberated through the entire vehicle, a trilling, ear-splitting resonance that echoed throughout the hull as though it were a giant tuning fork.
'Contact! Taking fire!' Baker shouted. Everything hurled violently as the driver swerved the Bradley into cover before coming to an abrupt halt. 'Vahey, where'd that come from?'
'Can't see jack shit!' spat Sergeant Vahey, blinking his eyes rapidly. His facial orbitals were visibly bruised from the impact slamming them against the gunner's periscope.
'Get a spot on the shooters and return fire! Grouse, you okay?'
'Yeah, I'm fine... I think!' came the muffled shout from the driver's compartment.
'Standby to dismount!' Baker called back.
Hearing this, Ryan and the other scouts picked up their weapons and held them ready.
«One-Two, One-Two, this is One-Six,» radioed the platoon commander, Lieutenant Dan Freiheit. «What's your status, over?»
'Six, we're engaged! No ID on the shooters. Crew is unhurt, vehicle is amber but operational.'
«Copy that, Two. Recommend you-»
«Two, this is Five, be advised; you've got three unknown foot mobiles converging on your six o'clock, ten meters! Ten meters!»
«All Spear One vehicles, this is Spear Six. Get your squads out. Dismount, dismount!»
'Lock and load!'
With a whir of hydraulics, the exit ramp began to lower. Air from the outside rushed into the cabin, hot and foul-smelling.
Tightening his grip around his rifle, Ryan swallowed. This was it.
The ramp was down.
And for the first time, Private James Frederick Ryan came face-to-face with the enemy.
It was a huge, reeking pig-thing, twice as tall as the 6'1 Ryan and built like a dump truck. It was a morbid sack of hairless, puckered flesh, bare from the waist up and smeared with blood and grime, with a disfigured, porcine head that ended in a drooling snout of crooked peg teeth stained yellow that jutted out from rotten gums. In each of its hands, huge like a lobster's claws, were carried massive two-handed axes. Beady, hateful eyes stared out from dull sockets.
The beast roared, a deep bestial bellow that pummelled Ryan's eardrums and rattled his bones. And the smell...
'WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!'
'Holy fuck!' Private Ryan screamed and nearly dropped his M16. Between the immediate shock and fight-or-flight response, the rest of his brain had seized up as it desperately tried to decide whether this was all a hallucination, induced by the stress and sheer madness of the whole situation.
Beside him, Spec-4 Santini was shouting something that he couldn't make out. They were both just sitting there, panicking like startled hens as the pig-thing came charging in, its thick stub-legs stomping in the ground like sledgehammers. They'd all heard that the Russians were ugly sons of bitches, but this seemed too much. And back inside the Bradley, PFC Grouse and Sergeant Vahey were still too busy trying to figure out where their initial hit had come from to notice the new threat.
Only Staff Sergeant Baker reacted with appropriate efficiency. After taking a second to process the confused screaming coming from the rear troop compartment, he abruptly commandeered the control handles of the Bradley's 25mm M242 chaingun, swung the turret around, registered the threat, and fired.
The pig-thing's entire mid-section exploded, sending its upper body and two-stub legs collapsing in a chunky shower of caustic black flesh.
'Alright troopers, there's your opening!' Baker bellowed. 'Get out now! Or getting railed by Porky Pig's retard brother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today!'
Feeling a strong hand in a time of panic, the two milling cavalry scouts snapped out of their stupor. Finally locating their balls, they piled out of the Bradley, down the ramp and then onto soft ground.
They were at the edge of a forest. The ground was soft and the air was still and cool, moist from the night's dew.
More glottal cries were echoing from between the trees - two more pig-things came charging out of the blackness, like beasts from a childhood nightmare, moving with the speed and fury of charging bulls. They were closing in on the cavalry scouts, bulging with sinew and hard muscle.
'Katmuda!' one of them snuffled, raising a rusted maul. Droplets of rancid spittle came spraying out of its vile maw.
Private Ryan quailed inwardly at the sight. But this time he was ready.
'Contact!'
In an adrenaline-fuelled flash, he shouldered his M16 dropped the first orc - his first combat kill - perforating its upper chest and lower throat. It faceplanted down onto the damp forest floor, twitching and gurgling as it squirted black, foul-smelling ichor from fist-sized exit wounds.
The second orc paused, as though momentarily startled by the sudden loud noises, before a flurry of shots from Santini maimed both of its two stub-legs and sent it down in a messy tumble, the sheer mass making a crater in the loamy soil. It squealed and writhed in agony for a few seconds, before Santini ran up and blew its brains out, ending its suffering.
'What the fuck are these things?!' Santini gasped, breathing heavily.
Ryan was scanning around with his M16, the bulky M47 still slung over his back.
'I don't kn-... Holy shit!'
He whirled around suddenly and opened fire. A fourth pig-thing had come creeping up behind them, covered in a thick layer of mud that had masked its fetid body odor until it come within literal spitting distance. Bellowing, it had drawn a notched scimitar - ill-maintained and corroded - and pounced.
Ryan's shots went wide as the beast came in. Santini intervened, quickly snap-firing his M16 and scoring good hits on its arms and upper chest, but the muddy pig-thing kept coming.
'Uglúk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh skai!' it snarled, hissing and spitting in its sickening alien language, a ghoulish expression of an all-consuming rage and hatred against the world. 'Katmuda!'
A flurry of loud thuds made everyone jump. The orc's shoulder exploded, tearing out a huge chunk of its beefy torso with it in a cloud of fleshy black mist. With a strangled choke, it staggered back and collapsed, its huge body crashing into the ground like a felled tree.
Spear One-Five's Bradley came crawling out of the treeline behind them.
«You're welcome.»
Taking advantage of the lull in the fighting, Staff Sergeant Baker briefly emerged from the Bradley's cupola to issue some new orders.
'Get that Dragon up now!' he shouted at Private Ryan. He was pointing intently at a pallid orange glow rising from the distance, past the edge of the treeline. 'There's your arcs, now dig in! Dig the fuck in!'
'Yes, Staff Sar'nt!'
Running forward into position, Ryan slipped the M47 Dragon off his back, removed the shock absorbers, and extended the bipod. Santini, carrying the weapon's guidance unit and night sights, slapped them into place - enabling Ryan to sit down and operate the controls - and then went prone on the ground beside the launcher. They were ready for action.
Meanwhile, the rest of the platoon's Bradleys had caught up and were now rolling into position, flanks screened by their dismount. They moved up and took firing positions just below the crest of the slope in a rough skirmish line. Two M60 machine gun teams set up, heavy barrels shrouded behind shrubbery and blades of tall grass. A lone M163 VADS was bringing up the rear some ways back, gingerly dodging stones and tree trunks as it went.
Peering through the sights on the Dragon's guidance unit, Ryan now had a clearer view of just what the hell was in front of them.
The troopers had been deployed on a forested vantage point overlooking a stretch of farmland lining the southeastern fringe of what their maps told them was the German town of Hammelburg. But all they could see there was a blazing hellscape; the sky had been completely blanketed over by billowing clouds clouds of black smoke and ash-dust that drifted through the air like snow. A change in the wind blew in a gust of the pungent haze, thick with debilitating smoke.
In the fields leading up to the town, bodies of all shapes and sizes were visible.
But not all of them were corpses. Shuffling, shambling shapes were gathering at the edge of town...
From the front ranks, raucous baying was howling up from more of those hideous pig-things, massing like fungi in the open field. A revolting mass of vile inhumanity; most of them were scarred and deformed-looking with coarse pocked skin, some even with horns, and all of them skulking forward with ugly, rusted implements - axes, jagged-edged cleavers, and spiked maces. On they came, wooden torches glowering in the darkness.
They were chanting something in their foul black speech. A bestial, hateful cacophony that made Private Ryan's stomach curl...
'Katmuda~!' the orcs screamed in unison.
'Gorosh!' a single, harsher voice barked out.
'Katmuda~!'
'Gorosh, pushdug'th!'
'KAT-MU-DA~!'
'Gorosh chadar!'
But something even stranger was gathering behind them; there were ranks of men in armor - in silvered, segmented plates and loose red tunics, like Roman legionnaires from the history books. Ornamental eagle-banners and more torches bobbed and swayed at their approach. There was a whole army of them, bellowing horns and rapping heavy drums as their ranks stamped forward in ten tightly-packed square formations of about a hundred men each, shoulder-to-shoulder, collectively presenting a hedge of rectangular shields - emblazoned with a strange emblem of four bat wings forming a rough "X" shape - and long-pointed spears. Their armor and equipment shambled and shunted as they marched in lockstep.
A deep, languid hymn was resounding from their ranks,
'Ubi flagellum, ibi est via~!'
'Ubi flagellum, ibi est via~!'
'Nolumus hodie ire ad bellum~, sed dominus flagella dicit "Non non, non"~!'
'Nos ire iter totum diem, tota die, tota die~!'
'Nam ubi flagellum, ibi est via~! Sinistra, dextra~!'
'Flagellum in tergo dicit "Pugnaturi sumus"~!'
'Nos ire iter totum diem, tota noct, et plus~!'
'Quia servi sumus in bello domini obscuri~!'
'Sinistra, dextra, sinistra, dextra, sinistra, dextra~!'
'Ubi flagellum, ibi est via~!'
So went the harmonized intones of nearly a thousand rich male baritones, coming across as much a stoic declaration of pride as it was a miserable lament of their harsh soldierly existence.
At their flanks, huge enforcers draped in animal pelts and beastly skull helmets were cracking barbed whips at the laggards and shouting.
'Age, tu limaces!' one of them snarled. 'Nescisne nos ad bellum esse?!'
Leading each hundred-man formation were armored captains with crested helmets and flowing scarlet capes - centurions - barking out orders and battle commands above the din and clamor of their marching ranks,
'Stultus est sicut stultus facit!'
'Si hoc non legere potes, tu asinus es!'
Arrayed behind them was a row of what looked like giant crossbows, bona fide ancient Roman-type ballistae, in mint condition and full working order. Only one of them had been fired so far - the others around it were still being set up, but it wouldn't be long until they too came into action.
It was like looking at a living period piece, twisted into a demented, nightmarish fantasy like the set of Westworld. It was all so surreal, so unbelievable, that Private Ryan actively questioned his own sanity.
'What the hell...'
Long, drawn out wails pierced the air - the cries of sinister, yet lonely creatures, ending on shrill notes that chilled blood and bone alike. Dark shapes came sweeping out from the smoke haze above.
They were fell-beasts - huge, winged monstrosities bearing neither quill or feather, with long, serpentine necks ending in snapping snouts bristling with hundreds of needle-fangs. Their wings were like huge webs of hide, stretched between horned fingers like a bat's. And they stank - a rotting, noxious stench that twisted the nose and assaulted the senses, even worse than a New York subway in the middle of summer. Winged, armored men were riding on them, wielding huge lances the size of streetlights.
They were creatures from another time, another land...
It was only then that Ryan realized that they were not fighting the Soviet Army at all, but instead something quite different.
The fell-beasts came swooping down, talons bared and shrieking like the damned.
It was the M163 VADS that first answered them.
«Identified four air targets. Eleven o'clock high, closing fast. Assumed hostile.»
«Waste 'em!»
«On the way!»
The rotary Vulcan gun swivelled upward and violently blurted a fiery stream of 20mm cannon fire, mulching one flying fell-beast outright, and shearing the wings off two more.
Thrown and disoriented by the sudden, unexpectedly vicious liquidation of its companions, the last fell-beast came down about a hundred meters in front of Private Ryan's position, braying and bucking against the reins of its armored rider.
'Holy shit!' Ryan gasped, his mind still on an adrenaline high.
'Fire!' Baker screamed. 'Fire the Dragon!'
Ryan hurriedly looked back through the launcher's sights and took aim. His hands were shaking. But trained reflex had taken over, and he was clinging to it as though his life depended on it. He briefly checked behind him, then fired.
'Backblast area clear! On the way!'
The launcher expelled the missile, jolting in Ryan's grip as it blurted out a huge backwash of flame and pressurized gas, singing the grass behind them. The missile flared and swayed erratically through the air, secondary rocket motors crackling off like popcorn that incrementally nudged the warhead to where the sights were aimed, even as Ryan wrestled to keep the guidance unit's crosshairs fixed onto his wildly flailing target.
In the end, training and discipline - plus more than a little luck - paid off. The high-explosive anti-tank warhead struck the startled fell-beast, gouging an ugly chunk out of its slender body in a fountain of bloody viscera. Shrieking, the beast spasmed with such ferocity that the wound split apart and ripped its serpentine neck from its body. The twitching monstrosity finally keeled over onto its side, unceremoniously flattening its rider with a dull crack of crushed metal and bone.
Private Ryan saw nothing past the initial hit. The air lit up in fire and steel as the rest of the platoon opened fire. Weapon systems designed for combat against the Soviet Army were now screaming in anger against a foe of otherwordly horror; tracers slashed and stabbed overhead and into the fields, scything down whole rows of the charging pig-things. Heavy, rhythmic thumps of 25mm chaingun and 50-cal fire lashed in after them, throwing up huge gouts of earth and black flesh alike.
Switching back to his M16, Ryan hit the dirt and began pumping rounds into the fray.
'What are we shooting at?' he asked aloud.
'Just shoot that way!' Santini told him.
'Okay!'
At this range, Ryan didn't have to aim - the enemy was so numerous, so indiscriminate and eager to charge into close combat, that all he had to do was point and shoot.
«Gunner, HEAT, heavy weapons battery. Range nine hundred.»
«Identified! Weapons team, nine hundred meters!»
«Up!»
«Fire!»
«On the way!»
A thunderclap of propellant charge and displaced gas blasted out across the line. A 105mm shell came whinnying through the air and plastered one of the distant ballistae in a luminous flare of flame and dust, shattering the ancient siege weapon's reinforced superstructure into a thousand splinters and atomizing most of its operating crew.
«Target, cease fire! Driver move up!»
Three M1 Abrams battle tanks, collectively callsigned "Spear Two", came grumbling out of the forest behind the cavalry skirmish line. Smoke was wisping from the long-barrelled M68A1 rifled gun on the lead tank. They bellied down into firing positions, heavy gas turbines hissing and trilling as they joined the battle in earnest. The ground tremored as they began whipping out volleys of 105mm gun fire, mechanical thunder rolling through the burning air.
And further behind them, concealed behind the hurricane of gunfire, was the low rumble of subsonic jet engines...
Two A-10 Warthogs came powering out of the night, the first swooping in a low, wide arc to line up its attack run, west-to-east in a flanking enfilade across the charging enemy ranks.
«Ripper One is coming in hot.»
«That's cleared, Ripper One, you are cleared hot! Go hot! Danger close!»
An enemy centurion, whose name would forever be lost to history, was the only one to notice the distant thunder of the flying wonder machine and figure out what it meant for him.
'O futuite! Testudo! Testudinem formate!'
But he was already too late.
A deluge of freedom and democracy tore out from the maw of the incoming Warthog, tracers searing like a lash of fire that ripped ugly scars across the ground and threw up a sparking carpet of displaced soil and dismembered flesh, followed a few seconds layer by the signature bark of the GAU-8 Avenger.
«Ripper One, guns good! Guns good!»
The howling blasts reverberated through the air like an enormous wet fart, and howling screams rang out not long after that.
Then the second A-10 came in.
«Ripper Two, in hot. Pickle, pickle.»
Triple-clutches of Mk 81 250-pound bombs fell away from its huge wings, flung wide like cast stones that erupted as the munitions slammed into the ground. The massed, ornately-armored ranks of the enemy cohort vanished behind a curtain of dust and flame. Hundreds of arms and legs and internal organs were suddenly granted liberty and independence from the tyranny of their bodily attachments. More screams pierced the air.
'Fuck yeah!' someone whooped. 'Get some!'
«Alright, we're gonna make a second pass. Stand by.»
The A-10s came back around. Some of the enemy legionnaires broke formation, deciding to take their chances with the whips of their enforcers. But perhaps remarkably, most of the others grimly swallowed their lots and kept on marching.
Yet even so, the Warthogs did not discriminate between those who ran and those who stayed; there were only targets, and well-disciplined targets. Once again, their heavy nose guns erupted in torrents of 30mm depleted uranium fire and death that dredged more ugly scars across the heaving, shrieking meadow.
«Ripper Two, Winchester.»
«Roger. RTB.»
The Warthogs pulled up, whistling like birds of prey as they banked wide and soared away. A stinking mist of shredded grass and pulverized flesh and steel swirled up from the field and permeated the air, eliciting gags and swears from the cavalry troopers on the hill.
'Vae, ecce hora!' a hard voice barked out amidst the rancid smoke and blood-fumes. 'Uxor mea me necabit! Recedere!'
Another horn parped out a riff that conveyed an odd sense of urgency. Responding immediately, the remaining enemy troops - most of them walking wounded now - abruptly turned about and began to stagger back into the town. Desperate, agonized moans from the crippled and dying followed them.
«All callsigns, this is One-Six. Cease fire! Cease firing!»
The American cavalry fire relented, gradually petering out as the enemy forces melted away into the scenery.
End of Prologue – Lariat Advance
Author's Notes:
▪ "Lariat Advance" was the codephrase used to put all US troops in Germany on alert; units were expected to mobilize and move to their pre-designated alert locations without delay. These alerts could be called at any time, on any day, without any prior warning... and often without anyone clearly knowing whether it was a real alert or just a test
▪ This chapter has a second half, which I cut for being too long and not really helping the wider story. It can be added in here if enough interest is shown
▪ This is a project that has been brewing for a while, the basic idea coming from playing Wargame one too many times
Also - because someone has asked, here are the translations of the Imperial Army's speech in rough order of appearance:
▪ The orc auxilia are speaking the Orcish language from Lord of the Rings - lifted straight from the various books and movies
- "WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" - this one is actually from Warhammer 40k; the battle cry of the Orks
- "Katmuda!" - "Death to men!"
- "Pushdug" - "Dungfilth"
- "Gorosh!" - "Louder!"
- "Gorosh chadar!" - "Loud enough!"
▪ The Imperials themselves are speaking Latin, courtesy of Google
- Their marching song is the first verse and chorus of "Where there's a whip, there's a way!" - from the 1980 cartoon version of Return of the King
- "Age, tu limaces! Nescisne nos ad bellum esse?!" - "Come on, you slugs! Don't you know we're at war?!"
- "Stultus est sicut stultus facit." - "Stupid is as stupid does."
- "Si hoc non legere potes, tu asinus es!" - "If you can't read this, you're an ass!"
- "O futuite! Testudo! Testudinem formate!"- "Oh fuck! Testudo! Testudo formation!"
- "Vae, ecce hora! Uxor mea me necabit!" - "Good heavens, just look at the time! My wife's gonna kill me!"
- "Recedere!" - "Retreat!"