Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises (22 page)

Jack got back on the radio and ordered the maneuver units to pull back to the second phase line.
The platoons started to break contact and withdraw closer to the town center. This had the effect of moving them away from the Regime forces and it shrunk the perimeter around the town center.

Director Woods had given the executive order approving the mission in Harrisonburg, based on the Intel at hand and the advice from the military liaison staff at the Fusion Center RTOC. Woods himself had little understanding of military operations. What he did know was that he intended to ruthlessly wipe out any resistance in the Shenandoah Valley.

This was personal now, the
Resistance struggle in the valley a direct challenge to his authority.

Woods had been sitting in his chair in the
RTOC since dawn, watching the drone feeds on the monitors. He was frustrated. Most of the view had been obscured throughout the day by clouds of black smoke drifting across the monitors.

It
was clear that the assaulting battle group was not making progress. It should have been a simple operation; drive into town, round up some militia, and execute them.

Woods had been on the radio with Lt-Col Chester a couple of times already during the day, urging him to push on and take the town. Lt-Col Chester was obstinate, assuring him that he could take the town, but so far failing to produce on that promise.

What Woods did not know, and failed to appreciate, was that he was not helping. He was interfering with the operation, harassing the commander, while using a ‘long screwdriver’ to interfere with the ground commander’s train set.

It was now getting to evening time and the platoons moved into new positions for the coming night. Jack did not intend to hang around forever in the town and let the Regime forces fix him in place, so he planned to exfiltrate during the early hours of the morning.

             
The Regime forces felt the pressure of constant ambush, IED and small arms attack lift. As they started to relax and feel their way forward again, Jack ordered the mortar fire controllers to engage. The dump trucks pulled out to their positions again and brought down a rain of 81mm high explosives onto the Regime positions.

It had little effect on the armor, but a massive psychological impact on the dismounted infantry. The
Regime mortar locating radar picked up the mortar trucks again and the counter battery fire began, so the trucks immediately moved and Jack called a ceasefire.

             
As night fell, the town was burning. The thick smoke cloud still covered the area and it had effectively put the drones out of the action as they circled in the sky above. The skyline was lit by the red glow of the fires dotted around. The Regime commander ordered another indirect fire barrage of the town center and the areas in front of his three armored columns. The Resistance fighters waited it out in positions of cover.

             
In the glowing darkness, as the armored columns felt their way forward, they moved into the net of the waiting fighters. The Regime forces had the advantage of greater amounts of night vision equipment, but it also made them clumsy, and the advantage was somewhat negated by the level of ambient light from the fires. The Resistance fighters moved within buildings and avoided the open, and they were able to creep close to the advancing columns and attack them with IEDs and anti-armor rockets.

             
The Regime advance ground to a halt again.

Lt-Col Chester was frustrated, trying to drive his men forward to the victory, but it was not working. The fighters were ghosts and with the obscuring smoke he did not have the advantage of drones to get ‘eyes on’ and survey the Regime forces locations. The artillery and close air support strikes had made no dent in the ferocious resistance they were encountering.

             
The Regime commander finally gave in to the need for additional assets in support. He prepared to call for support. He needed some way to flank the opposition and break the will of the Resistance. He had not been allocated any Apache support for this mission, simply the A-10s and fast jets in a close air support role.

Lt-Col Chester called over his XO and told him to make the call and request
the regional airborne reaction force. This was the same hunter-killer force that had taken on Caleb’s patrol, and came with Apache support. The XO got on the radio, turning to look at the map board.

Just then, the assigned Battle
Group political officer appeared in the Lt-Col Chester’s TOC, set up in a series of connected tents between APCs on the I-81. He was carrying a satellite phone and accompanied by the Battle Group second-in-command.

“Sir, you are needed on the phone,” said the political officer.

“Not now, I’m busy,” said Lt-Col Chester.

“Now sir, its Director Woods,”
insisted the political officer, holding out the phone.

Lt-Col Chester took the phone, “Colonel Chester.”

“Yes, this is Director Woods. You are relieved of command effective immediately. You will surrender yourself into the custody of the political officer. Your second-in command will take over.”

Before the Colonel could
answer, the phone line went dead. Looking up in shock, Lt-Col Chester saw the political officer facing him, pistol drawn, with two Military Police coming into the TOC behind him.

“Come with me now sir.”

The XO finished on the radio and turned back towards the commander. The answer had come back, the request was approved and the Ranger hunter-killer ARF was available. It came with two Apaches in support, the troops mounted in CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

The XO saw the commander being led from the TOC, wrists cuffed. The Battle
Group second-in-command stepped up to him.

“I’m in command now, what’s the update XO?”

“We have the ARF approved.”

“Roger that. Have it logged that I ordered the request.” The second-in-command stepped up to the map board and pointed. “Put them down here, in these fields.”

Around midnight Jack put out the call to withdraw to phase line three, bringing in the noose a bit tighter round the town center and allowing his fighters some temporary breathing room. He was ready to call for the exfil
tration as soon as the maneuver elements reported they were back at the phase line just outside the town center.

Shortly after, one of the OPs called in that the
y heard Chinooks approaching from the north. It was an unmistakable noise, the beat of the twin rotor choppers as they flew ‘nap of the earth’, contouring the ground. Jack put the word out for the mortars to move to fire positions and for the technicals to standby. He also called for the fires to be stoked with more tires, to keep the smoke pall thick.

The Chinooks skirted the north of the town and flew round to the west, landing in a field about one kilometer to the west
of the town center, out beyond the huge grain warehouses. As they came in to land, they span round to show their rear to the town, touching down into the field in formation. The ramps were lowered and the hunter-killer force came running off the back, one platoon per Chinook, spreading out into dismounted formation.

As the Chinooks
flared and touched down into the field, Jack called for mortar illumination and one of the barrels fired. The illum round popped and began to descend under its parachute, wobbling towards the ground. The OPs picked up the Chinooks and Jack called for fire, the MFC adjusting fire from all five barrels onto the landing zone, illuminated by the sixth barrel constantly firing illum rounds.

The rounds started to impact around the Chinooks and dismounting troo
ps, a violent series of ‘crumps’ of impacting high explosives. The Chinooks disgorged their human cargo and started to lift off.

A mortar round burst in front of the center helicopter just as it was lifting off, shrapnel tearing into the
crew in the cockpit, killing the pilot and causing the Chinook to crash nose first into the ground. The front rotor smashed into the ground, disintegrating, and the rear rotor continue to spin, pulling the helicopter over forwards until it crashed down on its back.

The dismounted troops started running towards the town, seeking to get out of the barrage in the open field and into cover. Five kilometers to the west
, the two supporting Apaches were observing, hovering in the night sky. Their thermal imagers were degraded by the pall of hot smoke over the town, but one of them picked up the mortar truck firing the illum rounds. Two hellfire missiles streaked towards the truck, impacting and destroying it. Jack ordered the remaining two trucks to seek cover,

Jack ordered the force of technicals to move to the west, to fire support positions, in order to put up
a suppressive screen of machine-gun fire to keep this new threat at arm’s length.

Meanwhile, the Apaches were hunting, handicapped by the smoke over the town. They managed to pick up a few targets and engage them with a mix of 2.75 inch rockets and 30mm
cannon. The effect was an area suppression barrage of explosive rounds, homing in around any targets they identified and engaged. Two technicals were spotted and taken out in this way. Another was destroyed by a hellfire missile.

The presence of the hunter-kill
er force of Rangers to his rear and the Apaches in the sky was a game changer for Jack. That was its intent, he realized. Jack sent out the code word to prepare to withdraw.

He figured that with
the Apaches having a notional endurance on station time of around two and a half hours, he should wait for three hours, till around 0400hrs, before moving anyone. Hopefully by then the Apache’s would have to go off station to refuel and rearm.

Jack had one of the technical crews go and grab a 60mm knee mortar from Jim at the warehouse, along with a supply of ammunition. They had not used these mortars much yet, but he figured that he needed to keep eyes on the advancing hunter-killer force to allow the guns to suppress them and prevent them closing wit
h him from the west.

He had the light mortar team
go mobile on foot, lobbing mortar illum up into the air routinely to light up the fields to the west and allow the technicals to keep the Rangers suppressed.

The Hunter-Killer Ranger force was trying to aggressively close with hi
m from the west, and trying to maneuver, but they were out gunned by the 240 and .50cal guns mounted on the trucks. They were calling down artillery fire from the battle group to the east to try and suppress the technicals, but dispersed as the trucks were in a long ragged line they were not easily targeted.

What Jack didn’t know was that that the company commander of the Ranger hunter-killer company was Captain Aaron Brookings. They had been friends back in Jacks active duty days. They had both served as company commanders on Jacks last combat tour to Afghanistan.

Aaron Brookings was an enlightened man, as were many other
s who served in the Special Operations community. There were many like him, who had the intelligence to question.

             
But Captain Brookings had little choice as did most of his men. There were many motivations for why these men continued to serve the Regime. Some of it was ignorance. Some of them just served as they always had, taking to these new domestic operations without complaint.

Others just did if for the money and security after the collapse, and stil
l others such as Brookings did it because they had taken advantage of the Regimes security measures, moving their families onto military bases to protect them.               Only later had it become apparent that this also gave the Regime security forces control over the fates of their families.

Captain Brookings knew of at least one officer who had dissented and questioned
unlawful orders. He was held to account by the political officer and his family moved to a FEMA camp. The officer himself was unrepentant and he disappeared into a reeducation facility.

             
As a result, despite his inner feelings, Captain Brookings worked ceaselessly to the best of his ability to ensure the wishes of his Regime masters were carried out.

At 0330hrs, Jack moved the two remaining dump trucks out to the west. They were undisturbed by hellfire missiles, so the assumption was that the Apaches had gone off station. Once in position, he moved half of the technicals up to positions where they could engage the armored Battle Group, still stalled to the east.

Jack
did not need these technicals to get too close, he just needed them to be able to fire into the vicinity of the Regime forces to give the impression that his maneuver groups were still in place and simply trying a new tactic.

Jack now had the mortars in position to the north west, a screen of technicals to the west suppressing the hunter-killer force, and another screen presenting to the
Regime armored forces to the east. At 0400hrs he gave the order for the dismounted maneuver platoons to withdraw.

The platoons
disengaged and moved back through a series of checkpoints to the warehouse, where they mounted up in vehicle packets. The aid station and ancillary support elements packed up also and headed out, moving to the north west and the security of the forested hills.