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«Fire mission, concentration Echo-One. Final Protective Fire, priority one. Say again, FPF, Echo-One, Priority One, over.»
There was a brief pause and panic set in as he feared he would have to start over from the begi
«Echo-Three-Five, this is Central. FPF on the way. Splash in two-five seconds. One hundred rounds.»
Captain Brantley switched to the platoon local net. «All Echo units, all Echo units, final protective fire, One-Five-Five close. Twenty seconds! Incoming!» He clamped his hands over his ears, hunkered down and smiled at the RTO. «Here it comes! Better late than never!»
«Yes, sir!» shouted the RTO, quickly stuffing earplugs in and dropping into the hole. The captain noticed that his Kevlar helmet had a furrow across the left-hand side. Good troop, he thought.
The commander was still smiling when the first 155mm round dropped in his hole.
* * *
«Juliet One-Five, Juliet One-Five, this is Whiskey One-Five, over!»
Keren turned from the fire control computer and picked up the microphone. The rumbling impact of heavy artillery to the front had been going on for nearly two minutes, meaning that the captain must have called for Final Protective Fire, but there had not been a command over the net for fire from the mortars. Now Third platoon was calling and he still could find no request for fire. At least the L-T had sent Sergeant Herd off to recon their secondary firing position. Maybe if they gave him an hour or two he could be ready to lay in the guns.
«Whiskey One-Five, this is Juliet One-Five Papa, go ahead.»
«Juliet, we're getting pounded by this goddamn artillery! The fuckin' CP is gone and so is Second platoon. It's got the horses stopped, but it's killin' us! Get 'em to stop! We can't reach anybody!»
Oh, Jesus. Keren used his free hand to wave at the platoon sergeant and lieutenant, talking quietly by the Three Track. «Whiskey, sorry, confirm friendly-fire call!»
«Yes, confirm damnit! Blue fire! Blue fire!»
Keren swung around and keyed the Central Fire Net. «Central, Central, blue on blue! Say again, blue on blue! Check fire! Check fire!» At his shouts, every head in sight turned towards him and the two leaders started ru
«This is Central, to calling station, say callsign and authenticate.»
«Central, this is Juliet One-Five, check fire for Echo-Three-Five, say again, check fire, check fire, blue on blue, check fire.» He waited for a response as the thunder of artillery in the distance and the express train rumble overhead continued. A checkfire for «friendly-fire» was supposed to occur immediately, then authenticate. The cumbersome authentication problem was programmed to occur after friendly artillery stopped killing human troops.
«Juliet One-Five, authenticate Alpha Sierra.»
Shit. Fuck this. Something was obviously screwy with Central, he should not even have had to state his callsign. He punched numbers on his ANCD. Since it was for a fire direction track, it held all the «phone numbers» for the entire division. The platoon leader started to reach for the ANCD and stepped back at the involuntary feral snarl that crossed the specialist's face.
He now knew why Keren had gotten demoted; the officer suspected that if he had tried to take the ANCD, the private would have simply shot him where he stood and not even noticed.
«Charlie-Five-Papa-Five-Four,» Keren called, using the callsign and frequency of the artillery battery tasked to support his company. If Central was the problem, then simply take it out of the loop. «This is Golf-Four-Juliet-One-Five, check fire! Check fire! Blue on blue, say again, blue on blue! Check fire! Check fire!»
«Calling station, say again callsign, check fire confirmed! Say again callsign!»
Thank God. «This is Golf-Four-Juliet-One-Five. Check fire!»
«Confirmed.» The rumble of artillery died away overhead as the unit called back. «Juliet One Five, authenticate Whiskey Romeo.»
«Roger, stand by . . . authentication Del-Ta.»
«Juliet, this is Papa, that fire was confirmed by Central, over.»
«Roger, well, we don't have a fuckin' company anymore, Papa. I don't know what's wrong with Central, but you just wiped out Alpha Company First Batt.»
«Jesus. It's a damn authenticated order! And . . .» There was a pause, «Yeah, and the target point is forward of the company on our IVIS! What the fuck, over?»
«What do you have for the company coordinates?»
«Juliet, this is Whiskey, over!» came another call from the Second platoon.
«Hang on Arty!» Keren swung to the other radio as the platoon sergeant picked up the microphone and continued the questioning of the artillery unit.
«Go ahead, Third.»
«We still need fire! The Posleen are massing for another attack!»
«Roger. Stand by.» Keren picked up the intervehicle transmitter and almost called for the pre-laid Final Protective Fire, then looked at the fire control computer. Obeying an instinct he did not want to define, he dove across the compartment and rummaged behind a seat in the Humvee until he found an overlooked piece of equipment.
«What are you doing with that?» asked Lieutenant Leper, trying to keep up with three nearly incomprehensible situations at once.
Keren continued sketching in positions and locations on the mortar plotting board. It was nearly two years since he had last picked up the obsolete piece of equipment and this was turning out to be a lousy time to try to remember how to use it. But with the problems with Central, and the fact that the new Mortar Ballistic Computers interacted with it, he was damned if he was going to depend on anything else at that moment.
«Just checking something, sir.»
«Well, check fast.»
«Mortars, this is Third platoon! We need some damn fire, over!»
Keren picked up the mike without taking his eyes from his calculations, «You want it on the Posleen or on your heads?»
«Keren!» said the lieutenant.
«Sorry, sir,» said the specialist. He pulled out a calculator, looked up a trajectory in a book and made a final calculation. His shoulders slumped. «Shit.»
«What?» asked the platoon leader. The platoon sergeant looked over as well, telling the artillery to hold on.
«This FPF is fucked, sir,» said Keren, scribbling furiously again. «Our computer-calculated Final Protective Fire would have landed right on the company command post. And the mistake is somewhere in the computer.»
CHAPTER 47
The Pentagon, VA, United States of America, Sol III
1342 EDT October 10th, 2004 ad
Major George Nix suspected that he was at the pi
So when the first reports came in of garbled orders, like everyone he took it to be the confusion of the moment, «the fog of war.» But as more and more reports came in, an alarming pattern of data invalidation began developing.
For him, the final straw was an overheard argument between the CONARC and the Tenth Corps commander. CONARC had been informed, out of cha