by neetha Napew
Sly was standing outside, close to Jim. "Can me take a leak, please?"
"Sure. Over there."
The teenager walked slowly over to a pile of rocks, going behind them. He reappeared almost immediately, waving his hands. Jim gestured for Nanci and Paul to turn off the engines.
"What is it, Sly?" he shouted.
"Me hear a plane coming. Whirlybird."
"Helicopter! Shit."
Now he could hear the sound, the vibrating, menacing noise of a helicopter. Maybe two machines. Somewhere out of sight over the hills at the far, southern side of the valley, but undeniably coming in their direction.
He glanced at Nanci and was shocked to see the dismay in her face. Somehow he'd expected a positive response from her, or some sort of idea about what they could do.
"Could be Zelig," he said.
"No. Chinooks. The Hunters. Warn the McGills and then jump aboard. Need to back get over the crest behind us. Chance they won't spot us in dead ground." But he was stricken at how suddenly hopeless the woman sounded.
"TWO BANDITS, south and east, General. Choppers, closing in on us."
Zelig was standing up, head and shoulders out of the top hatch, looking down and in front of his six-vehicle convoy. There seemed to be a large lake, with a dam at the southern end. It looked as if the valley ran steeply away, but the blacktop didn't give him enough of a vantage point.
The voice of the radioman came crackling through his headphones, repeating the warning.
Zelig switched on his throat mike. "Range?"
"Less than five miles, General."
"Pass it on to the others. I'm coming down and sealing off. Could be getting warm in a couple of minutes."
The line of M113s, two towing the fuel tanks, ground on up the hill, closing with the helicopters.
"APCS, CHIEF!" The voice cracked with the sudden excitement. "Six of the fuckers. Got to be Zelig and his men."
Margaret Tabor was sitting behind the copilot and she leaned forward, gripping him by the shoulder, her fingers biting so hard that he actually yelped in pain. But she was too carried away to even notice.
The Chinooks had come in from the south, over a region of total wilderness, seamed with narrow valleys and the tumbled remains of thousands of dead pine trees. They had seen no evidence of any human life at all, though the observers had twice reported seeing packs of large dogs ranging over the bleak ravines. Once there had also been a grizzly. A humpbacked brindled sow, with two cubs following as she loped along the ridges.
Pockets of snow still lay in the hollows, though the recent change to warmer weather had melted most of it. Tracks were slimed with mud, and every watercourse that they swooped over was filled to overflowing.
Now, strung out along a snaking road, the Chief of the Hunters of the Sun saw what she'd been waiting for. The convoy of camouflaged armored personnel carriers was moving slowly along toward a valley headed by a dammed lake. Just below them on the right was the burned-out shell of what had once been a sizable mansion with its own tennis court.
Every eye in the choppers was glued to the tracked vehicles as they roared five hundred feet above them.
Not one eye looked in the other direction, where they would have seen two battered farm tractors, each one towing a dirty horse trailer, vanishing over the ridge on the western flank of the same valley.
THE MOMENT they were into the dead ground, where the road dropped steeply and there were groves of tall, dead trees, Nanci pulled off the blacktop, threw on the brake, killed the engine and leapt from the cab. She yelled for the others to get out of the trailers. "On foot, as far as we can!"
"We can take cover among the trees," shouted Jim, helping Sly and Heather from the horse trailer, making sure that Carrie was also safe. Behind him the McGills were all getting out.
"Yeah. Do it now. They'll have machine guns on the Chinooks. Rip us apart if they spot us."
Jim led the way in among the twisted and blackened branches of the pines, picking a path toward the crest of the slope, where they would be able to look down into the valley and see what the helicopters were doing.
"Think the vehicles are hidden all right?" panted Carrie, at his heels.
"Best we can do," he replied.
But as soon as he neared the fringe of the trees, holding up a hand to warn the others not to go too far, Jim realized that the pair of Chinook CH-47Ms had other fish to fry.
It was a bizarre scene, like something out of an old Vietnam vid from seventy years ago.
The far side of the dam, where another road rolled out of sight to the north, a straggling line of tracked personnel carriers had stopped. Men were pouring out of them, and they could hear the faint crackle of small-arms fire. A small group were struggling to set up a grenade-launching tripod.
"Missile," said Nanci, throwing herself flat in the dirt at Jim's elbow.
"What?"
"Erecting a 155 mm launcher. Probably got a laser-guided system for an antitank missile. And they're going to use it against the Hunters' Chinooks." She paused, shading her eyes with her hand. "Although, it looks to me like they've only got the one missile. Could be an old Silverhead. They'd better make it count or they'll get themselves minced sitting out there."
"Where's whirlybirds?" panted Sly, sitting down with his back against the stump of an old ponderosa, wheezing like an old man who'd just completed a marathon.
The choppers had momentarily vanished, though everyone could still hear the sound of their rotors, over beyond the far end of the swollen lake.
"They'll come back on a strafing run and leave a lot of blood in the dirt there," said Henderson McGill, holding little Sukie in his arms, wrapped in a plaid blanket.
"THEY'VE TURNED, General."
Zelig was watching through glasses. "I see them. They will open up as they pass by. We have to hit the first one with the Silverhead. Won't get a second chance."
"Ready, sir!" yelled the freckled sergeant in charge of the launching system for the missile.
"READY!" shouted Margaret Tabor in the second of the big choppers.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was possibly the most important single battle ever fought on the soil of the American continent.
Lexington, Chancellorsville, Bunker Hill, the Alamo, First Bull Run, Fort Sumter… the list of major engagements is endless. But the skirmish between two helicopters and half a dozen armored personnel carriers in a nameless valley in Oregon in late December of 2040 was perhaps more crucial than any of them. For it was to determine the balance of right and power over the reemerging land for the rest of time.
It lasted less than an hour from its beginning to its unexpected ending.
And the opening exchange was all over in less than sixty seconds.
THE LEADING CHINOOK, loaded with fuel and supplies, began firing as soon as it swooped over the crest of the ridge, with the lake, dam and valley extending in front of it.
General Zelig fought against the overwhelming desire to go out there and press the firing trigger on the Silverhead missile himself, but he knew well enough that his operatives were better trained and more skillful than he was.
"Now," he whispered as machine-gun bullets dug a furrow along the side of the blacktop, a stray round pinging off the roof of the APC.
There was the shout of command, followed instantly by the whooshing roar of the rocket being fired.
The Chinook was less than two hundred feet away, making the range the equivalent of pressing the muzzle of a revolver against someone's forehead and squeezing the trigger.
Margaret Tabor, in the second helicopter close behind, saw the burst of flame but didn't even have time to draw a breath to give a warning.
The charge of 68.75 pounds of explosive detonated on impact with the underbelly of the Chinook, ripping it apart in a burst of shock and flame. The stock of spare gasoline ignited almost immediately, and the machine disintegrated in a huge fireball.
"Ace on the fucking line," yelled
Henderson McGill, lying with the rest of the watchers on the fringe of the dead forest.
"Poor people," said Sly, covering his eyes from the sight of the tumbling, burning wreckage.
In her desperate anxiety to wipe Zelig and his small force off the planet, Margaret Tabor had made two fundamental and crucial tactical errors.
She had been too eager to hold off long enough to carry out a proper recon, failing to recognize the threat from the tripod missile launcher.
And she had encouraged the pilot of her own Chinook to fly too close in on the leading chopper, so that the devastating explosion also caused vital damage to her machine.
The whole cockpit glass was starred and splintered, mortally wounding the copilot, while a large piece of wreckage struck the rear rotor. The Chinook lurched to one side, but everyone aboard was blinded by the pall of oily smoke that filled the sky.
"Gotta get down!" screamed the pilot, wiping blood from his face, fighting to maintain control and altitude over the yawing helicopter.
But the men and women of Operation Tempest hadn't escaped without death and injury.
A flood of burning gasoline had sprayed over the area to the side of the dam, covering two of the six vehicles. Though most of the personnel managed to scramble out safely, many were burned or in a state of shock as their M113s blazed behind them.
One of their fuel tanks went up, as did all of their supply of grenades and explosives.
For three or four minutes the watchers on the hillside above couldn't see what was going on. There were fires and the booming shocks and screaming and shooting.
Carrie spotted the damaged Chinook coming in for a clumsy emergency landing on the flat area farther down the valley on what had been the tennis court of the ruined house above.
"Hunters got a load of soldiers," she said. "Must be at least fifty or more getting out there. Don't seem to be many of them wounded."
Jim was concentrating on watching Zelig and his surviving forces. "Only about half that number got out uninjured. It's serious chaos over there." He glanced at Nanci Simms. "Who's got the edge?"
She was holding the Krieghoff Ulm-Primus .375 rifle, considering whether to open fire on the Hunters. "Too much damn smoke," she said. "Who has the edge? The one with most troopers and weapons. And that looks, I fear, rather like the Hunters of the Sun. The only thing Zelig's people have going for them is high ground."
"WE'VE STILL GOT THEM, Chief."
"They hold the high ground."
"Sure, but it looks from the explosion up there that they lost most of their ammo. Sent a scout up and she reported back they're in a mess. Wounded and burned. No more missiles, that's for sure. We got twice the force. All we have to do is go up, slow and careful, and take them out."
"The Chinook?"
"A team is working on it now. Nothing too bad. We can fly in an hour if we have to."
The conversation was carried out at the tops of their voices to ride over the thunder of the stream that rushed down the steep valley just behind them.
"Then let's go to it." Margaret Tabor was staring up from cover, using powerful field glasses. "Who's that moving below the dam?"
But a shroud of black smoke drifted across, and by the time it had cleared, the face of the dam, with its white concrete supports, seemed deserted.
JIM WAS COVERED in freezing brown mud from head to toe. At first he'd made a half-hearted effort to keep himself clean, until he realized how stupid that was. If they had glasses or sniper scopes down below, then he could be in deepest trouble. A veil of smoke ghosted across from the burning personnel carriers and the crashed helicopter, helping to cover his slow, careful progress across the dam.
The blasting powder was heavy, but he'd insisted on going alone, telling the others to get ready to give him covering fire if it became necessary. The smoke across the valley was so thick that he was confident that Zelig and his unit wouldn't see him at all. Once he reached the top of the dam, he would effectively be in dead ground, with the only moment of danger when he crawled down over the concrete supports.
It was a strange feeling.
As he crouched down, placing the powder where Nanci had suggested, it was as though he were in the bowels of some gigantic living creature.
The pressure of the water was enormous, seeping through the entire structure. With no way of relieving the weight, far greater than the builders had ever imagined, the dam was creaking and straining. Hundreds of gallons from higher ground were added to the load every minute.
It seemed to Jim that the whole thing was likely to go at any moment. Crumble and break up, trapping him in the great tomb that knew no sound.
But that wouldn't be good enough.
IT TOOK HIM twenty-five minutes to reach the dam, plant the charge and return to the safety of the fringe of dead trees to join the others.
"Dirty bird, Jim," said Sly Romero, giggling. "Muddy bloody dirty birdy."
Jim Hilton slid alongside Nanci on the muddy ground. "Can you see it?" he questioned anxiously, still short of breath from the strain and exertion.
Squinting along the barrel of the rifle, she paused before answering. "Yeah. The smoke doesn't help, but it's much worse lower down and on the far side. Yes, Captain Hilton, I believe that I can hit it."
"Then do it."
Her finger tightened on the trigger. "Now?"
"Now," he said.
ZELIG HAD BEEN staring at the dam, since one of the men under his command had pointed out how dangerous it looked. But all their main explosive material had gone up when the Chinook disintegrated on the top of them.
"Hunters are grouping by the old house," reported a young female sergeant. "They look just about ready to come up at us, General."
The exchange of fire had more or less stopped, with only the distant crackle of flames from the wrecked vehicle and helicopter still audible in the background. The single, distinct crack of a rifle shot made Zelig look around.
"What was that?"
"Saw a ricochet spark off the front of the dam, sir," said someone.
"Won't blow it up like that." Zelig grinned humorlessly. "Like killing an elephant with a spit-ball." He tried to focus his mind on whether they should run and leave some of the wounded, with the hope of fighting again another day. Or stay where they were and risk the probability of being massacred by the Hunters with their greater firepower and superior numbers.
Then he heard the rifle's sharp report again.
It was followed instantly by a huge, muffled roar. A great cloud of thick, dark gray smoke billowed up from one of the buttressed arches below the face of the dam.
FROM THE SHELTER of a line of dead pine trees, Margaret Tabor had seen the tiny flash of flame and puff of smoke at the top of the valley, high above them. Her first thought was that Zelig had managed to get a couple of snipers across the dam to fire down at them, but the range and angle made that unlikely.
She missed the second shot, but everyone saw the spectacular result.
"They're trying to blow the dam on top of us," she screamed. She took a breath to yell orders for a fast retreat, but suddenly realized that the smoke was clearing, and the mountain of earth still stood, undamaged by the explosion, holding back the limitless water. "Failed, you failed," she crowed exultantly.
"IT DIDN'T work, Dad," whispered Heather Hilton.
The charge of blasting powder had been detonated by the second round of the .375, fired with great accuracy by Nanci Simms. But the dark cloud had blown away, and the mountain of earth and stone still stood, unmoving.
"Wait!" Jocelyn McGill said. She had excellent sight, and now she was crouching forward, pointing with a trembling finger. "There, about halfway down, there's…"
"Water coming through," continued Jim. "Hallelujah, brothers and sisters."
"But will it bring down the—" Paul McGill stopped in midsentence, stricken by what they could all see.
"Going, going," said Nanci, standing up and dusting dirt off her knees.
>
"Gone!" whooped Sly, clapping his hands together.
FIRST THERE was the trickle of silvery water, fountaining out under pressure. It was hardly more than a spray, only a couple of inches across, working its way through a network of fine cracks in the basic structure. The cracks widened and deepened near the heart of the explosion.
Another spurt of brown water, wider and thicker, strong as an iron rod, hurled itself fifty feet out into the cold air of the valley.
A much wider fissure appeared near the top of the brimming dam, splitting downward, and the entire structure wavered briefly like a mirage in the desert and finally started to crumble.
Zelig bounded up from behind one of the M113s, letting the binoculars dangle around his neck. "By God, whoever's done that job… Could it be Jim Hilton?"
MARGARET TABOR also stood up as she watched the dam beginning to fall apart, hundreds of feet above her and her soldiers. Someone started to curse in a high, shrill voice of doom, and one of the older men had fallen to his knees, frantically tugging out a silver crucifix as he began to mouth a prayer.
"Run!" shouted someone.
But you can't run from death.
The whole front wall disintegrated, leaving a gap fifty feet wide and forty deep, opening up so that the great lake of meltwater could pour through in an unstoppable torrent.
Margaret Tabor vanished beneath the frothing flood, her last sentient thought a furious, bitter rage that she had been finally defeated.
THE VALLEY was scoured clean, the second Chinook tossed aside and torn to splinters like a cardboard toy. Not one of the Hunters of the Sun escaped the dam burst, all of them swept away by the wrath of the pent-up flood.
Jim and the others crowded to the edge of the cliff and stared down, awestruck and silent.
Beyond the thunderous cascade, General John Kennedy Zelig raised his glasses again and focused them at the ragged group of ten men, women and children.
"Excellent," he said to himself. Then he raised his hand into the air in a victory salute.
