Redemption (The Boris Chronicles Book 4) Page 4

  On the other hand, for a combat deployment, Major Petrova was a viable choice. After the deployment, she'd need to be either re-trained or replaced.

  She was tactically and strategically sound. She was decisive without undermining her subordinates. Unfortunately, her lack of interest in the administration of the unit had resulted in these problems. But because of her competence in action, her shortcomings had avoided undermining her authority.

  It still needed to be dealt with. And while substituting a shiny new lieutenant and a sergeant being called back from retirement were not the best options, they were the only ones available.

  In fact, one of the militia units had been operating with only one lieutenant, despite having a full complement of higher officers. Another had been keeping several sergeants on the books, despite none of these men being field capable. Several units were operating short squads.

  In bringing the squads up to strength, the Amazons were vital. Their oversized squads allowed Olaf to find those who had been willing to work with other units by the end of training and transfer some experienced personnel across to the shorthanded units. As a result, they dragged in most of the female recruits to maintain their designated squad size. This kept the Amazons at their authorized strength while avoiding the problems of too many rookies in his other units.

  For the other problems, he was mostly forced to put in shiny new sergeants and lieutenants. He even transferred a few of his assigned bodyguards into sergeant slots, swapping them for reliable men from the units they were moved to. This helped build esprit de corps for the new battalion. He was trusting picked men from each of their units to be by his side if the shit hit the fan.

  In addition to drill, training and assessment exercises, and individual task training, the officers were trained in tactics and strategy while using old style sandboard exercises.

  It took a total of five weeks to get the unit gathered, re-trained, and ready for movement. At least they had all been re-equipped with the regular’s standard issue rifles, AK-74Ms that had been plentiful in one of the supply dumps that had been captured years ago.

  All the militias usually had was the AK-74. The ubiquitous AK-47 had not been used by Boris’s forces. The AK-74 was superior, as was the more expensive, modified AK-74M. Both were within his limited production capabilities. Each troop also had a Makarov pistol. The final issue weapon in his forces was a hammer-backed Tomahawk that doubled as a tool in the field.

  Most of the materials for weapons were being reclaimed from abandoned vehicles and scrap metal, although limited trade with Finland provided an additional source of minerals for the brass in the rounds they preferred.

  Light body armor made of a material that one of the modified crops that Lilith created for them was used instead of the synthetic body armor that was ubiquitous in the early twenty-first century. Incorporating metals and silica into its fibers as it grew, it had superior stopping power to the ceramic plates in many early twenty-first century armors, and lighter weight. It also grew the fibers long and ready for weaving. The biggest problem with it was that special tools were needed to cut it.

  The specialty weapons were also manufacturable in the facilities Boris had up and running. Slightly less accurate than western sub guns, the BIZON was still a preferred weapon for a scout due to its standard-issue flash suppressor and silencer.

  The marksmen and snipers were equipped with Dragunov rifles. Because of ammunition compatibility considerations, Boris had chosen the RPK-74M as the squad light machine gun. Several AA-12 fully automatic shotguns for close combat assaults were distributed amongst every squad as they saw fit.

  At the end of the on-base training, they had a movement to complete. Olaf had arranged with Boris to have some surprise exercises en-route to their interim destination, the new base being set up in the ruins of the town that Danislav had found. The training incorporated into their early movement was to operate against an enemy unit inside their territory. It could involve anything from being ambushed to an all out assault on an enemy position.

  Training rounds had been issued, and during the first days of the movement, they were all that was allowed to be in magazines loaded into the weapons. Live magazines were issued, but not loaded into their rifles.

  The training rounds were a pain, but Lilith had come up with a compound that was dense enough to be fired like a standard bullet and acted as a marker on a hit. The marker rounds left residue in any gun barrel, and cleaning was an issue. They were better than previous attempts with training rounds, but would affect the accuracy of subsequent shots fired through the barrel before cleaning.

  They also taught a lesson by leaving significant bruises on areas hit outside the body armor.

  Going to live ammunition was only permitted after ‘Red Wolf' went over the radio. The exercise answer and response challenge was to be ‘Lair' and ‘Hunter One.'

  Still, within the week they would be on the final leg of their journey, to their proposed base camp. Then Olaf would call in the shuttle, and their real mission would start.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Olaf was cursing his father. Boris had sent in two companies of regulars and a company of militia as his opposition force. They had been sent to ambush and block the route. From the appearance of the dug in and camouflaged bunkers in front of him, three on each side of the road, they’d been sent in early, as well.

  He assumed it had been at least ten days ago to get the positions so well camouflaged that the scouting squad had been wiped out before they had a clue there was an enemy force there. They could be seen on the ground playing dead as the main body approached. The opposition force soldiers that had moved up from the bunkers to remove the ‘bodies' scurried back at the approach of Olaf's force.

  While it was unfortunate that the scouts had been killed for the exercise, they had done part of their job. To prevent a devastating ambush or spot it. The gunfire had prevented an overwhelming assault. The bruises would remind the scouts to be more cautious and observant.

  There were the concerns amongst the officer trained members of his bodyguards about the attitudes towards men that were lingering in close to a quarter of the Amazons.

  There were reasons that Olaf was comfortable with the exercise, despite the past influence on the Amazon's rogue lieutenant and sergeant. First, even with the occasional continuing incident, they were overcoming their dislike of men.

  They were seeing that not all male soldiers were like those that their former leaders had told them to fear. That they were people. Good, bad, and indifferent, just like women. This had been helped by mixing some of those with reservations—but not outright hostility—with the other units. They were willing to work with the men in their new units, and none of the men in those formations treated them with any disrespect.

  Beyond that, there was the fear of the consequences. The punishment for a soldier harming another soldier outside the parameters of training was draconian could possible kill the perpetrator. Depending on the situation, it could be from ten years of hard labor or worse. Killing a fellow soldier with live ammunition would be a life sentence as a servant to the soldier's kin, with them having the power of life or death over the perpetrator.

  Finally, now that the problem had been rubbed in her face, Major Petrova was acting with energy and dispatch to stamp out any active action concerning what she referred to as ‘personal opinions.’ She had randomly inspected the ammunition loaded into twenty-eight weapons on the first morning of the march. When one was found with live ammunition, she had called in officers from other units to have every gun inspected.

  Two more were found with live ammunition. Those three soldiers were stripped of gear and sent under the guard of the base police for charges to be laid. A court-martial was ordered. Their squadmates were given extra duty and an additional watch for three days on the march as punishment for failure to report the infraction. The two lieutenants in command of the platoons those squads were in also received punishment.


  Those who still held a dislike of men, for whatever reason, were being very quiet about it. Major Petrova’s mother had been raped and beaten to within an inch of her life in the early years after the Fall of society. She knew what caused the hatred.

  She would not brook it, endangering the force that saved her from the same fate—that had taken her mother and herself in. Olaf suspected there would be some quiet conversations with the women who held to that hatred over the march.

  But that still left Olaf with the problem of how to take the bunkers without using the artillery platoon. The grass was always relatively short at this time of year, so sneaking up in the day would be impossible. Even at night, it would be difficult. All it would take to expose a unit attempting such an action was one man with thermal equipment.

  He scowled at the map, then noticed a crossroads with a dirt track several kilometers back. Turning to his subordinate officers, he pointed to it. “This is our best chance. We use the track to get two companies behind them using the bikes as far as we can. We strip the units down to two days rations and ammunition. If we strip the Shifters out of their squads, we'll have a platoon of scouts—a squad forward and one to sweep each flank. The rest of their unit can split their equipment loads.

  “Two of the other companies to dig in fighting positions just outside of rifle range, and the final company would make closer flanking movements on the same side as our unit will be circling. Distract them.”

  Slowly, Major Petrova and the four senior captains nodded their heads.

  “Sir, I request that the Amazons be one of the units picked for the main flanking maneuver. They need more practice at assaulting fortifications.”

  Olaf frowned, but regretfully shook his head. “No. We are going up against regulars. Besides, if they are one of the units digging into fighting positions, they will have the opportunity to assault once the surprise attack goes in. If we do poorly enough here, Boris may pull everyone off this operation. None of us want that after the last month. We need to work as a unit, and for that, we need the best two assault units in the flanking movement.

  “Besides, you are the second-ranking officer. I need you here to command this half of the assault. I also need you here to assault those fortifications if they decide that my flanking maneuver is the main force. If they come after us in strength and weaken those bunkers by a company or more, you are to assault them as soon as the departing force is clear. You'll need to keep in contact with Ivanov's company to do that.” Ivanov's eastern militia was better at feint maneuvers than the other unit he was planning on leaving with Petrova. “And make sure you have a platoon covering each company's rear.”

  Sighing, the Major nodded in agreement. At least her girls wouldn’t be in the distraction force. Just in the lower risk offensive. If nothing else, it would help them build confidence. That was as important to a unit in some ways as actual skill. A unit with no confidence would never be able to carry through in a real action anyway.

  After organizing the movement and planning for the covering units to be ready to attack from two a.m., Olaf and his bodyguards joined the flanking maneuver.

  With wolves on the flank, he pushed the units hard. The quicker they moved close to the position behind the enemy force, the better. There was howling on his left flank in the distance and gunfire. Probably enemy scouts engaging his distraction. He only hoped that there wasn't an enemy unit patrolling this flank in force. There was only room for two companies to be dug in in the entrenchments.

  Olaf became lost in thought. That meant at least one company was outside the fortifications. Worse, rather than trench or open fortifications, they had covered bunkers. Even if Olaf had training rounds for his artillery, none of his artillery was strong enough to damage the bunkers or their interlocking fire zones. Besides, even though Boris had some facility to produce shells, he didn't waste any of it on training rounds for interunit exercises.

  His artillery trained for hip shooting at a target. They never fired in training at friendly units. For the training exercises that simulated artillery attack, pre-positioned charges were dug in. They even simulated artillery effects from guns larger than any Boris used in the field. He did have a dozen camouflaged heavy cannons around both Arkhangelsk and New Romonovka. The railguns still covered the cave itself, but there was now only a fifty-meter kill zone around them.

  Shaking his head, Olaf brought himself back to the present. They had about five hours to cycle around thirty-five kilometers to travel wide enough of the fortifications to make the plan viable. They had to circle so wide of the fortifications to reduce the chance of any patrols spotting them.

  It was a gamble, like everything in war. Given the training mission parameters, there were as good odds as he could engineer. The other option was to use Weres as other forces Arkhangelsk Palden had encountered. Since the Fall, there were two variations that had been encountered by Boris’s force. Shock troops or leader’s bodyguard.

  Neither took full advantage of a Were's abilities. Both stemmed from a belief that they were more valuable than their human compatriots. Boris had lived a long time. He had concluded that Weres were merely different. Perhaps they were more powerful in some ways, but that didn't make them more valuable.

  It caused those who led troops with a group of known Weres to use them in a way that was less than optimal for the force as a whole. Boris's units were fully integrated and tried to have at least one Were in each squad. Most often they would be the designated scout, although in teams that specialized in assaulting building or fortifications, they were usually given machine guns for entry instead.

  The simple fact was there had always been fewer Weres than humans. They could be used to improve the survival rates of a force as a whole, or they could be used as a last resort. Boris had shown in several actions against various warlords that the latter was a losing hand against the former.

  Still, people followed the same pattern as it worked well against everyone except Boris.

  <<<>>>

  It was cool in the evening, and a dry chill had settled in the air as Olaf prepared his companies for a nighttime assault. Four platoons were assigned a bunker each to assault, with the other four platoons to lay down covering fire.

  They were crawling through the grass. and once they were within a hundred meters, the second group would stop moving and start firing at the bunker slits. They were offset from their comrade's line of advance to reduce friendly fire risk.

  They were not spotted. The clicks came over the radio, indicating the two platoons were in position. Boris flicked his radio to all frequencies and transmitted “Lair” over the open channels.

  A surprised, “Hunter One,” transmitted across the radio. As it did, the two assigned platoons were primed. They waited another ten minutes—as long as they thought they could risk. Then they started firing to distract the bunkers from the troops moving up on them.

  Return fire from the bunkers facing his force was somewhat sporadic at first. It steadily increased as more rifles turned to face the firing platoons. That would also kill the firers’ night vision, improving the chances of those still sneaking forward in some ways.

  While they didn’t have training frag grenades, they did have smoke grenades. For exercise purposes, if a smoke grenade was successfully thrown into a bunker, it would be considered out of action, and the troops manning it were casualties. That removed concussive risk to the occupants as well.

  To his surprise, he heard artillery fire from the east. Rather than the explosion he had almost feared when he heard them, he saw the blaze and billow of smoke rounds. He was ashamed not to have thought of them. Major Petrova would be a significant asset to his force, despite any failings, it was obvious.

  Soon, two of the bunkers his force had been targeting were billowing smoke. The platoons that had been targeting them shifted around to the remaining bunkers on their fronts. As they rose, a hidden bunker that had not been spotted by the scouts or himself took them und
er fire. As they started falling, a platoon or more started boiling out of a completely underground dugout.

  With his two companies pinned down and taking casualties, he had only one force he could throw at the suddenly appearing troops. His companies were already shocked by the sudden fire from an unidentified bunker. If a mobile force hit them, they could break.

  Even if they didn't, they would start falling back.

  Looking around to his bodyguards and command squad, Olaf shouted, “Follow me!”

  He charged into the mess, and a few of his men went down as they charged across the four hundred meters. Still, with the forces already in play and the enemy's loss of two bunkers that were meant to be covering the area he was charging across, it was a reasonably safe tactic. Add to that the sheer surprise of the charge, and Olaf only lost two or three of his command and bodyguard group to incoming fire.

  The platoon that had boiled out of the dugout was whipsawed between threats. Once they were within a hundred and fifty meters, the command platoon took a prone position and fired into the standing unit. Looking around, Olaf saw smoke coming out from some of the other bunkers. His troops were moving from target to target.

  His part in the combat was over. If he was honest, it was all a little sour in his mouth. Once he set a plan and it went into motion, his part in an operation would often be over.

  There was no excitement to be found at his rank unless things went wrong.

  <<<>>>

  “So, how did my son's force rank in your post-battle analysis, Paul, Lilith?” Over the years, despite or perhaps because of his change into a Were, Paul had slowly withdrawn from the combat forces. He had spent nearly as large a percentage of his life as Boris soldiering. More of it in proportion actively fighting. After the destruction of the world he had known, he'd lost his sense of humor, as well. Eventually, he had become an analyst.

  There was also the incident that had so upset Alecta, his wife, that Boris had felt compelled to pull him from the field.