‘Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Shiebfonda’(309) Confederate segment

The following interviews were conducted over a six month interval in 309 UC by Professor Reiner A. Hudgeon of Wollongong University. Mr. Carlos Hanninen served in the Confederate flotilla as a demolition specialist aboard the CSN Kapu and later the CSN Mirante.

“I was part of the third wave of reinforcements that arrived in Harbor 17. At the time, uh… I recall being a corporal. My team consisted of a fireteam—a demolitan one. Our primary responbsilities were as one could expect to clear fortifications. Namely this meant blasting sealed doors inside the labyrinth so that our comrades could move deeper.

“The beachhead was thanks in no small part to the Federation fleet’s bold sally forth. It was disheartening watching it unfold. One moment in the distant… you see specks of dots rapidly descending from the safely of their ports. The next thing you see is… (he remains puzzled for a second) uh… total annihilation. Nothing. There was scant ships left when both oppositions engaged in that skirmish. The ship I was on, erm… the CSN Kupu, was a supply ship situated in the rear echelon. She was in a relatively safe spot. However.. It was not rare for stray missiles to hit unintended targets. The battleship next to ours… above, I believe it was the CSN Aktau— she spontaneously exploded from a direct hit.

(He shakes his head and looks sad)

I knew a lot of lads from her. Earlier in the blockade, we played games of cards here and there. A thousand young men and women. Simply just extinguished. It’s tragic. Back then, when everyone and their brother was volunteering for the Navy… it’s a bit shameless to say now, but we revered war. We idolized it. They… made a lot of fancy recruitment videos and whatnot. Stuff that would hook young idealistic men. And it worked. Shocker, isn’t it?

But at that exact moment, and even as we trudged through the Schiefonda. We realized how idiotic it was to justify war. It’s a pointless endeavor and a waste of human capitol. It is nothing but misery and distraught for those that survive. We were young buffoons, but the bigger buffoons were in Vardini and Terra…!”

At this point, Mr. Carlos went on a riveting tangent for the next hour and a half. For the purpose of this transcript the rest of it is omitted in order to keep the interview back on point.

“Right, uh… when the Federation sally was rebuffed, you could squint to see the remaining ships retreat. Then contrary to everyone’s expectations they sallied out with even more—’where did they get these I wonder? Did they pull them out of their arse?’—ships from adjacent ports. They put up fierce efforts, those Feddie fellows. They would dart back and fourth into firing ranges. Hour in and hour out they would challenge us to artillery barrages.

They tried too hard to be heroes.

(He lets out a sigh, then rests his head while looking out the window)

Then it was our boys’ turn for at the forlorn hope. It took three and a half waves…

(Mr. Carlos gestures with three shriveled fingers; his ring finger half gone.)

Three and a half, to clear that harbor. Not only of infantry and static placements… er… the few squadrons of Fed ships that remained too. From the stories I heard from surviving vets… it was nothing less sending sheep to a slaughter. Luckily for me the worst of it was over. But the scene was hard to digest. In that harbor there was no gravity, so… you could imagine chunks of meat and steel all around you. It churned a few stomaches. I know the horrific scenes did it for me.

(Mr. Carlos gestures vomiting and heartily laughs yet with a hint of sadness in his eyes.)

The Feds’ had already retreated into their menacing bunkers, sealing each and every door. There were a lot of those. They really did not want us in.

(laughs)

So teams like mine were tasked with making them accessible.

Yes… let’s see…hm… my fire team consisted of my assistant, Frantz MacLean. Before his enlistment, he was a nail-smith from Side Bereket in the Lönsboda system. Kind fellow, he gave me a sense of guilt for making him lug around the munitions that were needed for detonating impediments…

Then there was Vinnie Kuenstler, the first designated rifleman. I believe she found work as a basket weaver in her home Side of Erdene before the war began. Kind of a apologetic babe for some reason… Vinnie helped out carrying equipment for Frantz whenever she had the chance.

The last rifleman was Devyn Weyer. A bright man from the city of… oh, what was it, shoot…Heilongjiang in the Valicolis system? He was practicing medicine before his call to duty.

We endured a lot of hardships together.

(he nods in silence)

It was hard in there.

Getting inside Harbor 17 was possibly the easiest part of it all. The fierce fighting through every nook and cranny… it was terrible. It was like… we were marching into the very halls of Hell itself. We were always in the rear, waiting for the van guard to flush out any staunch defenders. Typically, our procedure was to wait until the sector was confirmed clear before we did our thing. Wait for the action to die down, set up the munitions. Wait for the denotations, then shadow the vanguard troops. The process was simple as that.

I think…

(he remains puzzled for at least a minute)

Our time in the Schiebfonda was about a week. Maybe. It felt longer. Each minute that ticked by felt like a hour. Each time we slept on the cold steel floor—separated only by our thin cheap cots—felt like an eon. Each maze of corridors seemed like it was longer than the last. The amount of corpses piled up… uh… more the further we descended into the fortress.

Eventually we were tasked with capturing the control rooms. We were able to track down their approximate location in the maze of corridors from captured intelligence. We didn’t exactly have the resources for a pitched battle in the Schiebfonda. Neither did the enemy hiding in their makeshift barricades. It was a …what do you call it, a ‘us or them’ dilemma. Time wasn’t on our side… it wasn’t on anybody’s side. The best they could do was kill as many as my friends as they could and hope we would fall back. And the ranks and file were more than eager to finish this so we could all return home.

I think the assault on the control facilities housing the Shiebfonda’s mainframe systems lasted less than a day. Er… it’s hard to tell what’s day or night in there (laughs). The wristwatch I had, er… the little hand was a little past six when we launched the offense. After everything had ended, it seemed like it was on the same hour, so it was perhaps a long engagement.

The platoons I was with secured the entrances, and once that was accomplished we were greeted by a vast open area with a enormous tower-like structure in the middle—

(Mr. Carlos holds his arms out real wide)

—and a hail of lead, grenades too. It was almost impossible to move up for a long time. Thus my squad was ordered to retrieve a artillery gun back from a docked ship (laughs). Thankfully they only asked for a small pounder. I could not imagine lugging around one of the monstrous ones!

Once the pounder was wheeled into place, we would huddle behind the gun shield and fire salvos as cover fire, so the assault squads could move in. Most enemy fire originated from the tower, once uh… once we secured the base of it.

But… the gun shields, they uh…

(Mr. Carlos does a curved up-and-down motion with his right hand)

The shields weren’t particularly adequate. And my squad had causalities because of this oversight. Frantz peaked over the gun shield…

(Mr. Carlos struggles to continue, and we agreed to continue the interview another day)

(A few days later, Mr. Carlos and I stand beside a replica of one of the artillery guns he manned. He kneels next to it, with grave sadness in his eyes)

Uh… when Frantz craned his head over this gun shield, when a bullet…

(Mr.. Carlos grimaces in silence and chokes on unintelligible words)

entered his… …temple and left behind a gaping hole in his upper back.

Son, I don’t need to tell you… it was gruesome. He was only twenty-one.

After that… uh… in a split second, I was thrown with such force away from the gun. The enemy had a shoulder missile launcher that landed next to one of the wheels, the left one, I believe. Frantz was on the right side. He was the loader. I couldn’t move a inch of my body. Not my feet nor my hands. I was paralyzed. It felt like my life flashed before my eyes. ‘Is this what it’s like to die? Madeline my love, I am sorry.’ At least, in due time I did regain my senses. Vinnie… dragged me into cover, she was barking something at me but I couldn’t hear (he does circular motions near his ears) the ringing was critical. I think I lost my hearing from that, at least a little bit.

A couple hours later, and the only thing I could hear—the screams of young men, gunfire et cetera…—subsided. I remember… being in a makeshift ward, turning my head to Weyer and telling him, ‘Weyer! I believe I have gone completely deaf! I hear the machines of war roar no more.’

But Weyer smiled and hook his head; ‘No monsieur! The fighting has stopped. We have won.’”