Gettysburg: A Tale of the Second War for Pennsylvanian Independence Read Online Free Page B

QB wants us and the other squads at attention at
oh-five-thirty. Eat hearty. Double-check your equipment. No FUBARs today,
boys.”
    Stug lightly kicked at a snoring Hawkeye, who snorted and
implied the sergeant’s mother was less than virtuous. But he woke up.
    After morning routine, the men of Alpha Squad were standing
with their comrades from Bravo, Charlie, and Delta. As the QB exited her tent, Echo
Squad, the heavy-weapons support unit, stepped into line. The twenty men and
women of Bestimmung Company stood, wide-eyed and stock-still, in front of the
QB and her aide.
    “Good morning,” she said, and was answered by a chorus of
“Morning, ma’am.”
    “You’ve all been briefed by your squad leaders on the
situation. Our knowns are these: Gettysburg holds a huge supply of okcy. We
need it. There’s at least a dozen enemy soldiers guarding the town. We’re
making that assumption based on the one dropship Bravo Squad engaged yesterday.
The enemy has drones. How many, we’re not sure yet. The town is full of
civilians.
    “Our unknowns are everything else. There might be fewer
Authority troops there than we think. There are likely a lot more. We have no
idea where the sympathies of the civilians lie. They’re employees of Transport,
by and large. Will they obstruct us or open the city gates, metaphorically speaking?
How much okcy is actually in the larger warehouse on the south side of town? To
access it, we need to secure the smaller, cylindrical warehouse at the southern
city limits. What’s in that one? All unknowns. Questions?”
    Trick raised his hand.
    “Lieutenant Mason.”
    “What have our drones told us, ma’am? Have they mapped the
town’s interior?”
    A slight grimace across the captain’s face was all the
frustration she showed her troops.
    “Our drones have not returned.”
    Mumbling among the TRACE fighters. She raised her hand to
quell it.
    “Before you assume anything, here are the facts: at
oh-three-hundred this morning, the first pair of drones surveying the town sent
an alert signal to C&C. Apparently they contacted the enemy at some point
because they evaded, which is standard operating procedure. Before they went
off the grid, we sent them behind the mountains to the northeast. Each of the other
pairs followed. They should have reemerged by oh-five-hundred. They have not.”
    Lieutenant “Charger” Freeman of Delta Squad raised a hand.
    “Yes?”
    “How does this affect our timetable, ma’am?”
    The captain took a measured breath. “It doesn’t.”
    More murmuring. Stug looked sideways at his lieutenant.
    Hatch responded with an almost-imperceptible shrug. Oops.
    “But ma’am,” said Charger, “we’ll be blind without those
maps. And you just said we’ll likely be outnumbered. We already know we’re
outgunned.”
    She nodded, granting the point. “We won’t know the town’s
interior beyond the public GIS maps we already have. But we already know our
target: the warehouses. And the fact that we’re outgunned is precisely why
we’re going in. Without that okcy, we’ll always be outgunned.”
    “Ma’am—” began Charger.
    “More to the point,” the QB continued, “the longer we delay,
the more they reinforce. This isn’t Medieval Europe on old Earth. We can’t
simply besiege the town until they raise their collective hands. Every moment
we delay gives Transport an opportunity to reinforce. They already know we’re
here, and only a moron wouldn’t know why we’re here.”
    “So, then, we’re not sure they know why we’re here, ma’am?”
    Stug was nothing if not sardonic. He received half-hearted
giggles, even a grin from the QB, in response. It helped break the tension
stoked by Charger’s fears.
    “Lieutenant Freeman, you’re right to be concerned,” the
captain said, her quiet voice helping to snuff out the tittering. “But we have
an opportunity here. This war has been going on as long as most of you have
been in the world. It’s true, TRACE