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Read the last chapter here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=381272
Shaxi led his column through the cluttered rear of the combat area. The road network was decent, allowing his formation to finally speed up and stretch its legs. He had hastily restructured the battalion's internal march order so that the could personally guide the deployment of the three tank companies by laser-delivered morse. The mechanized infantry company was to follow be prepared to clear flanked and overrun positions or provide point defense. The battalion's rear services trailed, with instructions to break off the road when the battalion deployed into company columns, but remain mounted and ready to go.
His small staff and company commanders had worn solemn faces as Shaxi attempted to give them adequate verbal orders. Nothing in their training had prepped them for this sudden acceleration of events. Fear showed openly on Bo's face, his mouth opened partway, revealing slightly buck teeth that made him look hopeless. Pang, Shaxi's most reliable company commander and a good improviser, looked ten years older from lack of sleep. The last tank commander, Xia, stood slouched, grumpy, declaring with his body language, "This is a dog-shit briefing, and we all know it." Xia was cynical, but at least he was competent. Lan, the mechanized infantry captain, looked like he expected something to eat him alive. Shaxi knew that the mechanized infantry officer expected to recieve the dirtiest tasks and the least thanks, but there was no time for coddling now. Shaxi did his best to answer their worried questions, even as his circle of knights tried to phrase their queries in words as tough and masculine as possible.
The column passed battery after battery of guns and howitzers, their tubes raised as if in salute from the midst of broken orchards ur under hurriedly erected infrared-absorbing camouflage nets in open fields. The road passed a medical station where wounded soldiers lay in rows upon the ground. Comms vans and yet another bunching of prisoners filled a sports field at the edge a burning village, and uncollected corpses littered the streets.
As they exited the cluster of smoldering houses, the artillery preparation began. The volume of fire increased the air pressure so much that Shaxi felt his ears pop. The effect was solidly reassuring; Shaxi almost believed the artilleryman's earlier words about killing everything on that ridge before the tanks showed up.
The country had opened out into dry, rolling terrain, and Shaxi saw a sweeping green ridge running east and west, six or seven kilometers in the distance, astride the battalion's line of advance. Orange fire began to erupt from the green earth, as though the ridge had suddenly become volanic.
Shaxi checked his digital map and looked to his right for his sister battalion. A shattered mechanized infantry company appeared to be regrouping, and Shaxi went cold for a moment, afraid that the First Battalion had been hit in transit. But a moment later, he saw their company columns drawn up in a grassy valley beyond the tattered subunit. Everything appeared intact and ready. The lone mechanized infantry company was probably getting ready to leave after being relieved of local defensive duties.
Shaxi hurriedly extended the tank's laser transmission module from the turret and stood erect in the turret. He hit a key on his tablet, ordering prebattle formation, company columns abreast. Then he ordered his driver to slow down so that the trail companies could come up after crossing the bridge. In the middle distance, the wall of smoke and infrared obscurants looked dense enough to gather in his arms. Shaxi led Xia's company off the road, watching Pang hurry to catch up on the left. Pang's company briefly disappeared in a depression, then reappeared exactly where it should be.
Shaxi looked right. Bo was on the right, on his own for now, but Shaxi felt it was the best position for the boy. He would have an entire battalion on his right flank, and the bulk of his own battalion on his left. All Bo had to do was drive straight, keep up speed, and shoot at enemy vehicles. At least for now, Bo seemed to be in control. Scattered small trees staggered his company slightly, but the frontage was approximately correct. And beyond Bo's line of armor, Shaxi could see First Battalion breaking out of a line of trees and hedges from a parallel route.
Shaxi tried to gauge the distance to the wall of smoke, then punched another message through the optical transmitter. He ordered his driver to slow, allowing the tanks of Xia's company to overtake them. On the right flank, First Battalion surged visibly ahead, almost trying to pass through the line of obscurant. Shaxi signaled an increase in speed to 50 km/h, hoping the company commanders were paying attention.
The local roughness of the terrain tossed Shaxi against the rim of the hatch, and he steadied himself as best as he could. The smoke and artillery fire were still two kilometers out but already felt too close. Shaxi dropped the laser transmitter back into roof of the turret. The next command would be given over the radio.
As his tank crested the low ridge Shaxi saw that First Battalion had begun to pull hard to the right. He scratched his head at the developing split in the assault line, but then saw a wind gap opening in the smokescreen, exposing the center of their formation. The artillery had stopped firing smoke rounds too early. Shaxi looked to the rear, searching for an artillery observation post, but there was none.
The textbook response called for Shaxi to guide his battalion to the right, to maintain contact with the lead battalion at all costs. He nuzzled the microphone closer to his lips. But he could not order Bo into the gap. Whoever drove up between the parting curtains of smoke would be the magnet for aimed fire from the entire enemy line. They would likely die in seconds. And, so with the wedding photo of Bo and Maomao suddenly vivid in his mind, the major relented.
Shaxi glanced left to check on Pang, and he noticed a terrain feature that he had not noticed on the earlier hasty look at the map. The ridgelines on which the smoke had settled threw a long spur to the northeast. It was obvious now, on the battlefield, that the finger of high ground would hide any American counterattack until it reached the rear left flank of the Chinese regiment. All the Amerians would need to do would be to allow the Chinese to move past the spur into the trap. On the other hand, it offered Shaxi an opportunity to take the Americans in the rear, if they had failed to cover their far right flank.
Shaxi decided to take a chance, and as he spoke his first words, American artillery fire began to crash just behind his formation.
The Americans knew.
"Mustang One, Three, Five, this is Mustang Actual. Amendment to combat instructions. Three, move left six hundred meters. Get on the reverse slope of that spur. Use smoke. Follow it in behind the American positions." Shaxi paused. The enemy artillery had not yet adjusted to hit them; the smoke was working after all. The Americans were guessing, executing preplanned fires. Shaxi now felt more confident in his gamble. Then he found he could not remember the call sign for the mechanized infantry. "Xiao Lan... Xiao Lan, you follow Three. Stay close to him. Both of you, get on their damned flank and roll them up. Call me if you have trouble. Acknowledge please."
"Mustang Actual, this is three. We're losing contact with First Battalion."
"Damn it, I know that. Just get up on that ridge and kill everything you see. Meet me on the far slope. Do you understand?"
"This is Three, executing now."
"Mustang One, Five... let's get them. Into the smoke, fire at will."
"One, acknowledged."
"Five, acknowledged." That was Bo; Shaxi could hear the nervousness in the boy's voice.
"Actual, your hatch is flapping."
Shaxi reached out, trying to snag his hatch cover. The jouncing of the 60-ton machine as it moved cross-country made it difficult. Shaxi remembered how his first training exercise had ended with a crushed hand from trying to do the same thing. Finally, he caught the big steel disk and smashed it down, fastening it.
Shaxi felt as though he had suddenly plunged underwater in the sealed belly of the tank. Trying to keep some connection with the real world from within his fully sealed vehicle, he leaned his forehead against the cowl of his optics, but now the smoke shrouded his vision as well.
The tank suddenly jolted hard, seeming to lift to the side. Then it stopped. The shock smashed Shaxi's brow hard against his periscope. He began to curse his driver, just as the tank resumed movement.
The smoke grew patchier. Shaxi's ears rang, but he didn't know why.
Faster, he thought. Every nerve in his body seemed to scream for more speed, yet he knew that he could not afford to pull the line apart any more than the movement in a cloud of smoke would already do. He resisted the temptation to order an all-out charge, fearing that, in the confusion, they would soon begin killing one another if they became disorganized.
"Target, right, two thousand," the gunner called.
Shaxi looked right. A tank in oblique profile, firing towards First Battalion, clearly visible in a corridor between waves of smoke. Shaxi had missed it.
"Load sabot." Shaxi heard the auto-loader whine into action.
"Sabot up."
"Fire!"
The tank rocked back. The breech jettisoned a fat red casing, and the reek of spent ordnance filled the crew compartment.
The round missed.
"Load sabot," Shaxi shouted, forcing himself to go through the precise verbal and physical motions.
The regimental net scratched like an old phonograph record. "This is Tiger Actual. I'm in deep shit. Ambush, ambush. They're all around me!
First Battalion was in trouble. Shaxi half listened for a response from the regiment, but none came. Shaxi realized there was nothing he could do for his sister battalion except to fight his own fight as well as he possibly could. But it troubled him that no reply from Min or one of his staff officers.
"Range, fourteen hundred," Shaxi said, focusing with all his strength. The American tank sat perfect on the aiming point. As he watched it began to swing its turret around.
"Fire!"
A splash of flame lit the American tank. The turret stopped turning.
"This is Five. Mustang Actual, this is Five. I've lost two tanks."
Bo. He sounded near panic.
"Keep moving, Five. Just keep moving. Fight back. You're all right." But Shaxi knew the boy was not all right.
"This is Tiger Actual, calling any station. I need help!"
"Tiger, this is Mustang. I hear you, but I'm in the shit myself."
"Mustang, can you reach Min? They're tearing us to pieces."
"I'll try, but I haven't heard a thing." Shaxi cleared his throat, rasping at the fumes inside the tank.
"Ringmaster, this is Mustang Actual." Static. "Ringmaster, this is Mustang Actual--Tiger has encountered an ambush, Ringmaster, do you copy?"
No response. Shaxi decided to focus on more pressing concerns. "Target, eight hundred," as another tank appeared. Shaxi could feel cold sweat dripping from his helmet as they played this deadly game of hide-and-seek between the billows and eddies of smoke. "On the right." His gunner began to rotate the big turret.
"Wo de tian a! They're killing us all!" It was Bo again. Shaxi knew beyond any doubt the boy had lost control now.
"Bo," he replied, ignoring the callsign. "Get a grip on yourself. Fight, or they will kill you." Shaxi remembered the loneliness and self-doubt of the boy in the early morning, but he could not pity him; he felt only anger. Bo had a job to do, and all of their lives depended on it.
"Seven hundred... fire!... selecting... sabot up... adjust to six-fifty... fire..."
Shaxi's tank suddenly emerged from the smoke into the painful clarity of daylight. In his optics, he saw three American tanks and four of his own in a murderous shoot-out at point-blank range. As he watched, the tanks wiped each other out in suicidal combat. The last American tank seemed as though it would live, then suddenly halted and hurled its turret skyward an engine fire found the on-board ammunition storage.
"Smoke grenades away!" Shaxi screamed, slamming his hand down on the big white button below his commander's viewport. "Target..."
His gunner fired. "Got the bastard."
Shaxi suddenly remembered Xia and felt a cold fear creep up his spine. "Three, can you hear me?" Shaxi called, his desperation rising. Static.
"Where are you, Three?"
Instead of Xia, Bo came back on, pleading for help. Shaxi coldly ordered him off the net. An enemy tank appeared in his optics, so close his driver had to stop to avoid a collision.
"Target dead ahead." Shaxi's voice cracked with stress.
"He's too close!"
"Just fire!" Shaxi's field of vision filled with the blast effects. When the smoke cleared, Shaxi could see burning, flailing enemy crewmen desperately opening hatches, then slowing into stillness before they finished their climbs out of the wrecked vehicle. Shaxi felt nauseous, then felt bile rise in his throat. He forced himself to swallow it back down.
"Mustang One, this is Mustang Actual... is that your element mixed up with the Americans on the crest?"
"This is One. I'm still in the smoke. It must be Five up there."
At the mention of his call sign, Bo started talking again. He was weeping. "They're all gone," he said, "everybody's gone."
Shaxi's gunner screamed. An American tank had its gun tube aimed directly at them.
"Point blank, fire!" Shaxi did not even know what kind of round, if any, was loaded.
A burst of sparks dazzled off the mantlet of the American tank's gun. A moment later, the enemy vehicle began to pull off its position without shooting. Shaxi sensed a kill and methodically directed his gunner. The next shot stopped the American tank, and smoke began to climb from its deck.
Shaxi realized Bo was still crying into the battalion net, as though he had lost his sanity. Shaxi found himself almost screaming at the boy, even wishing the Americans would kill him, just to stop him from whimpering. He feared that Bo's panic would become contagious.
"Bo," Shaxi said, disregarding the last callsign discipline. "Xiao Bo, take command of yourself. You're still alive. You can fight back. You're all right."
But the young company commander had begun to babble incessantly. Shaxi could not even be certain Bo had heard him.
Suddenly, Shaxi lost his temper. "Bo, if you don't shut up, I'll shoot your tank myself. Do you understand me, you cowardly piece of shit?"
For the moment, Bo dropped from the net. Shaxi's driver barely avoided colliding with another Chinese tank in a last pocket of smoke. The driver halted to let the other vehicle pass. Shaxi used the pause to help the gunner replenish the autoloader's ready rack. The fin-stabilized sabots that felt so heavy in peacetime exercises now felt feather-light. Shaxi was momentarily surprised at his newfound strength.
Bo called again. This time his voice was marginally more rational. "They're behind us," he cried. "I have enemy tanks to my rear."
"We're behind them, you dumbass," Shaxi called back. "Just shoot."
The driver stepped on the accelerator again, throwing Shaxi off balance. As soon as he recovered, he tried to piece his unit back together over the radio.
"One, where the hell are you?"
"Can't talk," Xia answered. He sounded out of breath. "We're in fighting it out with an entire company. I think they lost their way in the smoke."
All right, at least Xia was still alive. "Mustang Three, this is Mustang Actual." No answer. Shaxi wondered if he had squandered an entire company, and his best company, at that, by sending them around the spur. He ordered his driver to heat for a copse of trees that sat slightly higher than the tank's present location. As the vehicle moved Shaxi watched the treeline carefully.
An American infantry fighting vehicle fired an anti-tank missile in a wide miss, then bolted from the grove like a flushed rabbit. His crew was already reacting more quickly; his driver knew enough to stop the tank, and the gunner already had the target in his sights.
"Fire."
The American IFV exploded in a spectacular bloom of flame.
"Get in amongst the trees and halt," Shaxi ordered. He had lost control of his battalion amongst the smoke and fighting, but he did not see how he could have done otherwise. Now he could only hope and gather what remained of his battalion to him. He did not even know for certain who was winning. If the radio net was to be believed, the fight had been a disaster, yet here he was, hull-down atop a broad ridge, with a trail of destroyed enemy vehicles to his rear. It was hard to make sense of it.
At any rate, there was a perceptible change in the level of combat in the immediate area. A pocket of quiet grew around his tank. He tried again to contact Pang, hoping that his position on the high ground would offer better reception.
"Mustang Three, this is Mustang Actual, what's your status, over?"
Pang replied promptly and clearly, as if he had never been out of touch. "This is Three. I'm behind them, clean, hidden in a treeline. Shooting them one after another as they pull off. At least ten kills already. It's just like firing on the range." Shaxi could detect more than a hint of pride in his voice.
"Your losses?"
"None. They never saw us coming. They must have been totally fixed on the fireworks in front of them. We ran right through their artillery batteries and drone controllers."
"Niu bi. When you're done at your current location, I want you to sweep back to the northwest, towards me. Close the trap completely. I'm up on the ridge. Just watch what you're shooting at."
So perhaps things were not so bad after all. Shaxi felt a tremendous satisfaction in having sent Pang around the enemy's flank.
"Mustang One, this is Actual. Status?"
"Wait. Load sabot! I'm still in the shit, but it looks about even."
"Are you all right?" Shaxi was mildly surprised at Xia's good fortune.
"Yes, all right. But Bo's gone. Fire! I saw his tank go up, catastrophic kill, turret flying like a soccer ball and everything. The last three tanks of his company died in seconds. They came out of the smoke at an angle, driving right up between my tanks and the Americans. It was really a matter of seconds."
Shaxi felt a momentary twinge of guilt at wishing for the boy's death. Then he forced that emotion back down, too.
"All right," Shaxi called. "Just stay off the crest of the ridge. Three's coming in behind them now."
"I heard your transmission to them. Congrats, Three."
Pang replied. "Thanks."
Shaxi switched over to the regimental frequency. "Tiger Actual, this is Mustang Actual."
"Target, left" Shaxi's gunner screamed.
"Hold it, that's one of ours," Shaxi said. He tried the regimental net again, this time calling for the trail battalion.
"Rhino Actual, this is Mustang Actual."
No response. Where was everybody?
Shaxi unlatched his hatch cover and shoved it up, hard. Unreasonably, he felt that if he were out in the open air, he would have a better chance of reaching someone.
"Comrade Commander," the gunner called, trying to stop him.
Shaxi ignored the tug on his uniform. The air, laden with the acrid residue of the artillery barrage, of the smoke and the tank battle, was nonetheless marvelously fresh after the poisonous fumes in the vehicle interior. The noise of the battle was still there, but at a reduced volume. Then Shaxi noticed a black, smoldering scar on the side of his turret. There was a meter-wide break in the reactive armor modules that gave the appearance of a mouth with a few teeth knocked out. Shaxi suddenly remembered the tremendous jolt that had shaken the tank so early in the fight. His stomach rose up again as he realized how close he had come to dying, then thought of the burning enemy crewmen. This time, Shaxi did not fight it.
Xia's tank, leading five others up the hillside, caught him vomiting over the side of his turret. Several of these tanks also bore visible scars where the reactive armor had saved them.
Shaking his head, Shaxi nuzzled the microphone again. "Mustang One, this is Mustang Actual. Put your tanks in the woodline just below my position. Cover the saddle you just worked up and the ridge to the west."
Six tanks, Shaxi thought, plus his own. Seven. And Pang had reported no losses at the time of his last transmission. So fifteen, out of twenty-six.
Bo was gone, and it sounded like the greater part of his company had gone with him. But Shaxi hoped that a few of them, at least, would show up alive and well as the last smoke dissipated.
Shaxi called Pang. "Three, what's your status?"
At first, there was no response. Shaxi was just about to try again when Pang responded.
"This is -bzzzt-. I can't talk now, I'm in it hot."
Shaxi's newfound confidence began to dissolve.
"Three, I've got seven tanks up here. I'll come over. Where are you?"
"It's all right," Pang answered. He sounded annoyed at the suggestion that he needed help. "We're just shooting as fast as we can. We caught their reserve right in its ass end."
Shaxi breathed a sigh of relief. "One, this is Actual. Prepare to move."
"Acknowledged."
Shaxi knew that they had the Americans now. He wanted to finish the job, but he was worried at the complete silence on the regimental frequency.
"Ringmaster, this is Mustang Actual, can you hear me?"
"Mustang, this is Poplar. I hear you clearly."
Shaxi had no idea who Poplar was. He tried again.
"Tiger, Rhino, this is Mustang. Everything alright?"
"This is Poplar," the unidentified voice insisted. "We're regimental artillery. The attack has failed, it's all over. Air and fire strikes hit Rhino as he was moving up. Tiger never reached the American positions. All of the tanks are gone, it's all over."
"Bullshit," Shaxi said. "We're in behind them. They've pulled off the eastern portion of the ridge. We have their positions under lockdown. Now we're going to roll them up, east to west. Can you support us?"
The net was silent. Then:
"Mustang Actual, this is Dragon Ten. Do you hear my transmission?"
The transmitter was clearly very powerful. Whoever Dragon Ten was, his voice dominated the static and distant stations on the net.
"I hear you."
"Execute your decision," the godlike voice commanded. "We will support you. Antitank helicopters are closing from the west at this time. You roll up the Americans from the east. Be prepared to mark your positions with flares. I will stay on this net. If you have any problems, call me immediately. Stop transmission. Poplar, you will still answer to Ringleader. But priority of fires is to Mustang Actual, is that clear?"
Shaxi no longer had any doubt about the identity of Dragon Ten. It was the major general leading the entire division.
  
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I'm 5-starring for all I'm worth because for some reason you seem to be having your rating dragged down by these.
This is a bit culturally insensitive, but I find the Chinese names quite difficult to remember and separate at times. I've noticed this the whole way through, and I've frequently had to ctrl-F my way through several pages to get things sorted. I bring it up now because in this particular case, I had no idea who or what "Ma" was for 3/4 of the story. I think you may have called him "Pan", in the initial briefing scene, I vaguely remember a Ma from a previous story, and even concluded that he was Tiger actual for a brief while.
I love the tapestry effect you're creating with so many different characters, but you should be aware just how confusing it can be. If you link characters across stories, it would really help if you found ways to sneak in distinguishing markers to jog our memories; pistachio nuts, the one with the beautiful girl, even just grumpy/cynical/useless... all those kinds of things are great. Sometimes that could seem too forced, and that's fine, but I don't find rank to be sufficient all the time. For example, do I know Zhao?
Even within a single story, it can be helpful to re-state roles etc when a character comes back to the action. Switching between names, callsigns and ranks makes things extremely hard when your readers are struggling to even track one set of the three for the volume of characters you introduce. Remember that we don't know them as well as you do.
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On November 12 2012 14:30 Belisarius wrote:
I'm 5-starring for all I'm worth because for some reason you seem to be having your rating dragged down by these.
This is a bit culturally insensitive, but I find the Chinese names quite difficult to remember and separate at times. I've noticed this the whole way through, and I've frequently had to ctrl-F my way through several pages to get things sorted. I bring it up now because in this particular case, I had no idea who or what "Ma" was for 3/4 of the story. I think you may have called him "Pan", in the initial briefing scene, I vaguely remember a Ma from a previous story, and even concluded that he was Tiger actual for a brief while.
I love the tapestry effect you're creating with so many different characters, but you should be aware just how confusing it can be. If you link characters across stories, it would really help if you found ways to sneak in distinguishing markers to jog our memories; pistachio nuts, the one with the beautiful girl, even just grumpy/cynical/useless... all those kinds of things are great. Sometimes that could seem too forced, and that's fine, but I don't find rank to be sufficient all the time. For example, do I know Zhao?
Even within a single story, it can be helpful to re-state roles etc when a character comes back to the action. Switching between names, callsigns and ranks makes things extremely hard when your readers are struggling to even track one set of the three for the volume of characters you introduce. Remember that we don't know them as well as you do.
First off, thanks for the actionable advice and 5/5. Caught the error and changed all the ma's and pan's to Pang.
Second, I, too, have difficulty with this list of characters; I'm not sure how to properly illustrate them all without getting in the way of the action. I had something to describe Zhao with, but I cut it because it didn't really add any "action" to him (was just a scene of him getting yelled at by Shiwen, the commander of the 63rd Group Army and rival to Tengfei, commander of the 54th Group Army.)
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Also, this might not be apparent to non-native speakers of Chinese, but I've been using surnames (Ma, Bo, Zhang, Xia, Lan, Li, etc) to illustrate minor characters, and given names (Shaxi, Shuren, Tengfei, Shiwen) or full names (Nie Zhen) to illustrate main characters that the story will follow.
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The Americans were in a trap. Shaxi turned his tanks eastward behind the last line of enemy positions as smoothly as in a demonstration for visiting dignitaries, working up along a broken plateau atop the high ground. He felt as though he was finally in control of the battle. Most of the targets were infantry fighting vehicles and trucks now, with few tanks in evidence. Twice, Shaxi saw enemy tanks hit his own to no effect; he concluded that the Americans had likely run out of anti-armor rounds and were using their HE shells in desperation.
As Shaxi's armor overran one of the positions, an American soldier emptied his assault rifle at the command tank, then charged the sixty-ton vehicle, holding two live frag grenades in a desperate hope. Shaxi's gunner cut the man in half with his machine-gun. The grenades did nothing aside from spraying dirt all over Shaxi's periscope.
The last of the smoke disappeared, and Shaxi's tankers now fought under blue skies. Shaxi halted his seven tanks halted along the ridge, and Pang's tanks and mechanized infantry joined him. After double-checking to the rear, Shaxi concluded the eastern half of the ridge was cleared. Then he continued onto the western half, towards First Battalion's sector.
The long slope up which Shaxi's sister battalion had attacked presented a chilling testament as to what could happen when a reckless attack met an antitank ambush. Most of Tiger's vehicles sat inertly or burned, sending pillars of dark smoke heavenward. Given the limitations of the plan, Tiger had done well--his tanks were intermingled in the American positions, and here and there Shaxi could see that he had achieved some local successes on a platoon or company level. But overall, the frontal attack had failed to break the defensive order. The combination of Shaxi's sweep and the converging attack helicopters turned the tide. Every single American vehicle on the ridge was now captured or destroyed.
Five or six tanks from Tiger gathered around Shaxi's position. Leaderless, the disoriented crews' general confusion was evident in their tendency to draw too close to one another, as if for protection by virtue of proximity, and in the slackness of their behavior. They began to stop in the middle of seized positions; some crewmen, convinced the task was complete, climbed out and began to relieve their battle-tightened bowels, squatting unashamedly in full view of their fellow soldiers.
Shaxi acted quickly. He had not forgotten the forward detachment mission, and he did not want to lose the chance to lead the first tanks past the DMZ. He ordered the Captain Pang to take one platoon of motorized riflemen along with his undamaged company and push on southwest towards Sep'o and Pyonggang, clearing the roads and radioing if he encountered anything of note. Then he folded every stray, functioning tank he could locate into Captain Xia's battered remnants to form a heavy company of fourteen tanks. His logistics officer provided a pleasant surprise by appearing on the scene with six full trucks of ammunition before the last tanks had stopped firing. The logistics captain, an especially preachy communist who was laughably naive about much of the corruption in the regiment, had come through, living up to all of the hollow phrases about the need for good communists to lead the way. A representative from Poplar, the regimental artillery, came up as well, maneuvering warily in his artillery command and reconnaissance vehicle. It was a captain, a battery commander. He brought with him three self-propelled guns and a drone carrier, all mounted and ready to move. Evidently, the division commander's directives to Poplar had shocked him into action.
Shaxi delayed calling Dragon Ten until he felt he had assembled a sufficient, if lean, grouping that could act as a forward detachment. He personally ran from vehicle to vehicle, insuring that they were on the correct wireless frequencies and ordering them into local positions that provided at least partial protection from ground and aerial observation. The clear sky showed a tangled crisscross of jet trails, and Shaxi felt it was only a matter of time before the enemy would attempt to strike back. Shaxi saw his tankers take the initiative to restock their on-board ammo from the supply trucks without any orders from above, and he smiled at the thought that remembered their training. Then he urged them to hurry, convinced that time was pressing, that the afternoon was waning. When he finally glanced at his watch, he was amazed to find that it was not yet ten in the morning.
As Shaxi remounted his own tank the gunner told him that Dragon Ten had been calling. Shaxi was horrified. "Why didn't you come and get me?"
The gunner shrugged; he was a gunner. Command communications were not part of his responsibilities.
Shaxi hastily pulled on his headpiece. "Dragon Ten, this is Mustang Actual."
The major general responded quickly. "This is Dragon Ten, what's your status?"
"We've cleared Ridge 732. I've formed a grouping by combining my battalion with the remnants of First Battalion. Overall strength, battalion-minus of tanks, with one mechanized infantry company attached and a battery of guns and drones to join us. We are prepared to act as a forward detachment. I've already dispatched a tank company and mechanized infantry platoon to clear the approach route to the south."
Shaxi's body tensed in anticipation. He wanted this mission. He wanted to lead. He had tasted blood, and he liked it. He felt as though he could take on anything the Americans had to offer. His battalion had earned the right to be the first across the DMZ.
"This is Dragon Ten. Do you have a clear understanding of the mission? Do not respond with details on the radio, just yes or no."
"Yes, I understand. We're ready." Shaxi knew this was a slight exaggeration. It would be at least ten to fifteen minutes before he could get everyone back aboard their vehicles and organized into march formation.
"All right. Do you have any longer-range comms equipment with you?"
Shaxi thought hard. What he needed was a regimental command tank or vehicle.
"I have a special artillery vehicle with me. I can use the artillery long-range radio, if necessary."
"Good. Get your vehicles on the road. And whatever you do, keep moving. We will all be behind you."
The gravity in the division commander's voice, and his simple choice of words, moved Shaxi. He switched over to his battalion radio net, anxious to send out the code phrases that would set them all in motion. He knew that his tanks needed more time to resupply; that the stray tanks had not been sufficiently integrated into the grouping to do much beyond merely following the tank immediately in front of them. But he knew that now, with a great hole punched through the last line of the enemy's defense, time was the dominant factor. He felt simultaneously elated and half-wild with small, cloying frustrations. He worked his radio in a fierce, uncompromising voice that had matured in the space of a morning.
Major Wang Shaxi wanted to move.
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The morning mist floated off the Nakdong, blending with the slow-moving darker smoke from the burning buildings. Lieutenant Colonel Zhao Jianmin sat concealed on the bank, alone, allowing himself a brief rest, fighting against his body to maintain the strength to lead. He gingerly touched his injured ankle. The brace on his leg helped, but each step still jarred him with pain. He had selected the brace himself at the hospital, and he had worked it onto his foot and calf, unwilling to surrender himself to any other man's care.
He had expected an assault at first light, but the dirty air had been growing paler for an hour, and still the only sign of battle was an occasional rattle from a spooked rifleman in an outlying position. Comms checks with the network of observation posts returned only reports of vehicle noises back in the hills. Jianmin could not understand the enemy's delay. The reduced visibility provided by the mist and smoke offered perfect cover. Later, after the mist burned off, an assault would be much harder. Jianmin could feel the change in the weather; the last of the rain had sputtered out during the night, and the day would be warm and clear.
He was certain of one other thing, too. There would be little mercy shown on either side. As he limped around the perimeter in the first light, he'd been startled by the number of dead civilians in the Gumi streets. He realized house fires had likely driven them from their hiding places right into the middle of the firefights. In the night, they would have just been dark running shapes, impossible for any nineteen-year-old under a heavy combat to distinguish from legitimate targets. Both sides had shot them down. But Jianmin understood that the blame would fall solely on his men. When the enemy returned, they would see only the victims, and they would not pause to consider that their own firepower might have been as much at fault as Chinese weapons. And they would not be inclined to take prisoners--his men would get that message quickly enough.
So be it.
In many ways, so many ways, this was a totally different fight than Uzbekistan. You rarely had such a heavy morning damp, or such thick mist off slow rivers. In high Asia, the air was thin, and the mountain torrents plunged through impassable gorges down into ruined valleys. You did not have so sturdy an urban area as this outside of Tashkent itself.
But the haunting similarities remained.
As a brand-new, unblooded officer, just off the big transport plane with the first windblown sand in his eyes and teeth, Jianmin was garrisoned at Karshi-Khanabad, where the new airborne leaders learned the ropes. A priority then had been reopening the road to Samarqand. The Uzbek forces failed, as always, and Chinese forces recieved the order to do the job. Jianmin commanded a company in a battalion equipped with airborne-variant infantry fighting vehicles. They road-marched south, nervously awaiting an ambush that failed to materialize. Jianmin had not tasted combat directly that time, but he got his first look at war up close.
The column halted in a ruined village, whose dirt streets were littered with fly-covered carcasses. At first, he had only noticed the dead animals, large, bloated, and obvious. Then he realized that the clumps of rags lying about were human bodies. Scavenging birds circled overhead, like attack drones awaiting targets. The column idled in the stench and the heat, anxious for orders that would call them to support a combat operation ongoing in the next valley. But the vehicles began to cook over, and still no word came. Jianmin dismounted to relieve his bladder, and he walked a few meters away from the column, hunting for a place where the flies would not hurry off a nearby corpse and bite him in the crotch. He turned into an alley between two ruptured mud buildings--and faced a carpet of human bodies, butchered until they were layered three corpses thick.
The alley was at least fifteen meters long and perhaps a meter and a half wide. It ended bluntly against a brick wall. The hundred or so natives had been driven into the enclosure. Most of the bodies had their hands tied together, and the lack of bullet holes along the walls implied every shot was one made at point-blank range.
A few pillaging birds lazily drifted away at the sight of Jianmin, too full of dead human flesh to fly quickly. Then a fly pinched his cheek. He batted wildly at his face, gagging at the thought of some strange and hopeless infection. As he was bent over, struggling to master his insides, a hand seized his slung weapon from behind.
Jianmin whirled around and found himself staring into the sun-kissed tip of a combat knife. It was a special-operations major, grinning. "Interesting, don't you think, Comrade Captain?"
Proud, Jianmin struggled to mask his emotions, but it was useless. He still had many things to master back then.
"We... we certainly... didn't do this," Jianmin said.
The special-ops major laughed, releasing Jianmin's weapon and sheathing his blade. The major's skin had cooked a dark brown, almost as brown as the exposed, dehydrated corpses. He looked as though he lived in the mountains with the dushman.
"Of course not," the major said. "This village was loyal to the government." And he paused, smirking, a comedian loosening up the audience before the punchline. "We only do this sort of thing in villages that support the enemy. But get yourself an eyeful, and be sure to use your phone camera. You'll see plenty more, if you don't go home in a tin box first. And you'll want pictures to help you describe our glorious efforts at international peace and harmony."
As he walked away, Jianmin hurried back to the stalled column, seeking shelter in its vigor and familiarity. He pissed against the road wheels of his track, thinking about the spec-ops officer, trying to understand him. Jianmin remembered zipping up in the stink of death and shit and diesel fumes, wondering how the veterans could sit in their turrets spreading fermented tofu on steam buns and eating it. He failed that day, but, later on, he came to understand the man quite well. Death became more trivial than a spilled drink. In six months, he, too, had learned the art of not seeing.
Now he waited, exhausted, in a damp uniform, with the remnants of his battalion. He was a lieutenant colonel, one of the youngest and most decorated lieutenant colonels of his generation and on a fast-track to general officership. He was fighting a civilized enemy half a world away from the land where he had first learned the art of war. But as he walked through litter of charred or ripped or shattered bodies on the streets of Gumi, he knew it was going to be the same.
He placed his hand on the fender of a burned and blasted tank. A faint warmth lingered under the slick of the morning dew. He stared up calmly at the tank commander whose body had been caught halfway out of his hatch. The body had shriveled so much that it resembled a blackened monkey.
There was no point in trying to understand it all, Jianmin thought. The point was simply to win, to outlive the other bastard.
Next part: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=381696
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Shaxi no longer had any doubt about the identity of Dragon Ten. It was the major general leading the entire division.
This is much better. Before, the buildup and the mysterious name made me think I should know this character. Now, the weight is in the right place, and I see Shaxi realising how big a deal this is without feeling like it's over-done, or like I'm missing something.
He ordered the clever Captain Pang to take one platoon of motorized riflemen along with his eight tanks and push on southwest towards Sep'o and Pyonggang, clearing the roads and radioing if he encountered anything of note. Then he organized every stray, functioning tank he could locate into a heavy company under Captain Xia, his remaining company commader.
I'm actually going to contradict myself here, having seen it in text. These both sound kind of forced. I guess it depends on your medium, and how you expect people to read it. Having read the whole thing in a short timeframe and having been talking about this, I know who Pang and Xia are and it feels like I'm being pulled up short. If I were returning to the story after a break, though, it would probably help.
The challenge is finding ways to do it that help a lost reader without jarring one who's kept up. I find I don't like "clever". I think adjectives are useful as a short-term link when all we have to go on are impressions from a briefing. Now I've seen him in action, I'd rather my memory be jogged through more immediate information:
"He ordered Captain Pang to take his undamaged company along with one platoon of....", for example.
Xia's is better, but you could also do the same thing and say, "Next, he folded every stray, functioning tank he could locate into Captain Xia's shattered company," to complete the comparison. Or something, I don't know.
On November 13 2012 05:52 Shady Sands wrote:
The morning mist floated off the Nakdong, blending with the slow-moving darker smoke from the burning buildings. Lieutenant Colonel Zhao Jianmin sat concealed on the bank, alone, allowing himself a brief rest, fighting against his body to maintain the strength to lead. He gingerly touched his injured ankle.
This is the kind of thing you should be trying to do.
It's been a very long time since we saw Jianmin, but within two sentences I've linked him to the broken ankle. This is the hardass airborne officer who dropped into a major city, and who spends more time musing about Uzbekistan than he does actually fighting. Good. I know where I am, now.
And at the same time, if I knew Jianmin already, it wouldn't phase me in the slightest to hear about his ankle again.
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On November 13 2012 08:35 Belisarius wrote:Show nested quote +Shaxi no longer had any doubt about the identity of Dragon Ten. It was the major general leading the entire division.
This is much better. Before, the buildup and the mysterious name made me think I should know this character. Now, the weight is in the right place, and I see Shaxi realising how big a deal this is without feeling like it's over-done, or like I'm missing something. Show nested quote +He ordered the clever Captain Pang to take one platoon of motorized riflemen along with his eight tanks and push on southwest towards Sep'o and Pyonggang, clearing the roads and radioing if he encountered anything of note. Then he organized every stray, functioning tank he could locate into a heavy company under Captain Xia, his remaining company commader. I'm actually going to contradict myself here, having seen it in text. These both sound kind of forced. I guess it depends on your medium, and how you expect people to read it. Having read the whole thing in a short timeframe and having been talking about this, I know who Pang and Xia are and it feels like I'm being pulled up short. If I were returning to the story after a break, though, it would probably help. The challenge is finding ways to do it that help a lost reader without jarring one who's kept up. I find I don't like "clever". I think adjectives are useful as a short-term link when all we have to go on are impressions from a briefing. Now I've seen him in action, I'd rather my memory be jogged through more immediate information: "He ordered Captain Pang to take his undamaged company along with one platoon of....", for example. Xia's is better, but you could also do the same thing and say, "Next, he folded every stray, functioning tank he could locate into Captain Xia's shattered company," to complete the comparison. Or something, I don't know. Show nested quote +On November 13 2012 05:52 Shady Sands wrote:
The morning mist floated off the Nakdong, blending with the slow-moving darker smoke from the burning buildings. Lieutenant Colonel Zhao Jianmin sat concealed on the bank, alone, allowing himself a brief rest, fighting against his body to maintain the strength to lead. He gingerly touched his injured ankle. This is the kind of thing you should be trying to do. It's been a very long time since we saw Jianmin, but within two sentences I've linked him to the broken ankle. This is the hardass airborne officer who dropped into a major city, and who spends more time musing about Uzbekistan than he does actually fighting. Good. I know where I am, now. And at the same time, if I knew Jianmin already, it wouldn't phase me in the slightest to hear about his ankle again.
Points taken. I'm going to make the edits and put up a new chapter, about the son.
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EPT
