by John Ringo
She flipped her vision to the rear and leapt to her feet as she saw the line of flashes from a heavy HVM launcher closing on her position, but it was just a fraction of a moment too late. Before she, or First Sergeant Bogdanovich, could do more than stand up the weapons had hit their hole. And when it walked on there was nothing to be found but scattered armor.
* * *
“Shit,” Tommy muttered, as he targeted the third ship. This ship had learned from its predecessors and tried to jink aside, spreading the fire. The terawatt laser was not, however, like the lighter grav-guns. They had only a fraction of the power available to the laser. It scythed into the third ship, clawing through crew quarters and the command bridge. For that matter, the ship pilot had not had significant training in flight at such low levels. The Posleen ships, by and large, managed their operations on automatic, so manual flight was something for which very few Posleen were trained or prepared. And it was evident in this case as the ship, accelerating sideways to avoid the laser, slammed into Black Rock Mountain and bounced backwards, hard, into the very laser it was trying to avoid.
In this case it was unclear if it was the laser fire or the sudden impact, but the third ship stopped, droppped and rolled down the hill and impacted with the C-Dec, where the two of them almost entirely blocked the narrow pass.
Tommy watched the ship roll down the hill then extended the tripod on the laser to jut over the top of the fighting position to where it had a clear line of sight on the approaching Posleen. Down below they must be having a tough time forcing their way past the roadblock created by the two fallen ships but there was still a solid wall of them attacking the front ranks. And with the death of their first sergeant and company commander, Bravo company had started to slacken its fire, letting the Posleen drive forward against that side.
Tommy had a fix for that, however, and he opened fire at the approaching centaurs with a snarl of anger.
* * *
“Good job, Lieutenant,” Mike said with an unheard sigh of relief. “But you might want to cease fire, now.”
* * *
“With all due respect, sir, Bravo needs the support,” Tommy replied, pouring laser fire into the line of Posleen. Already the beams of purple light, designed to destroy ships, had sliced deep into the Posleen ranks, cutting through six or seven of the centaurs at a time as he swung it from side to side.
* * *
“Yeah, but it has a little problem,” Mike said. “Let me put it this way…”
* * *
The “little problem” with the terawatt laser had been discovered within a year of its actual fielding in combat. The weapon was, as previously noted, a poorly contained nuclear explosion. Anti-hydrogen was injected, in carefully measured doses, into a lasing chamber filled with argon gas. The anti-hydrogen, opposite of real matter, impacted with argon and immediately converted itself and some of the argon into pure energy.
This energy release was captured by other argon atoms and when they released the energy it was as photons of light. These photons were then captured and held until a peak pressure was reached when they were released.
All of this happened in a bare nanosecond, managed by vibrating magnetic fields that drew their power from the same reaction.
The same laser, to an extent, was used shipboard and in space fighters. In both cases it was a regarded with awe and respect, for the barely chained sun at its heart was as much a danger to the ship as to the enemy. And so, in the case of the ships and the fighters, massive secondary fields ensured that the slightest slip on the part of the primary fields meant that the system simply got out of alignment for a moment. Perhaps the weapon would “hiccup.” But that was all.
On the ground-mount version, however, these secondary systems were unavailable. And thus, when in a brief moment of chaos the power levels in the lasing cavity peaked over the maximum rated, or posssible, containment levels of the magnetic fields, the highly excited argon, and a bit of still unconverted anti-hydrogen, escaped the confinement. And proceeded to destroy the weapon. Letting all the rest of the highly excited argon out in a manner that was quite catastrophic.
One second Tommy was firing the laser and the next moment he was flying through the air. Well, not “flying” so much as hurtling uncontrollably. Once again his sensors were overwelmed but what he managed to read in the maelstrom and under the G forces that were slipping through the compensators indicated that the external temperature, while dropping rapidly, was pretty similar to that found in the photosphere of a star.
There was one short, sharp shock and then he was no longer hurtling. As far as he could tell he was sliding. Probably down a mountain.
He noted that he wasn’t thinking very well just about the time he passed out.
* * *
Mike looked up from the battalion command hole at the smoking atmosphere and sighed.
“I told him he’d better quit while he was ahead,” he said. The air was still filled with incredibly hot gasses and dust but the systems were already starting to stabilize and it was clear they hadn’t lost anyone to the detonation. In fact, it looked like the laser, which had blown up as usual, had actually cleared the Posleen off their position. Again.
“Nukes,” he muttered. “We should have brought nukes.”
“Oh,” Stewart said, then laughed. “Yeah. Why hadn’t we thought of that before?”
“I dunno, maybe because they were a no-no?” O’Neal muttered. “But some big damned bombs? Why have to ask other people to scratch our back?”
“Or maybe we should just have brought lasers.” Stewart laughed. “Why didn’t you tell him about the secondary ‘issues,’ as the manufacturer puts it?”
“Oh, well, experience is the best teacher,” O’Neal answered. “And, hell, nobody else was going to fire the damned thing.” He glanced at his telltales and gave an unseen half shrug. “He’s alive. Out like a light but alive. And the ships are gone and so are the Posleen. Looks like he did a pretty good job to me.”
“Same here,” Stewart said, chuckling. Then he sobered. “We still lost Slight. Dammit.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I could give the company to Sunday, as soon as he regains consciousness, but I think I’ll just turn it over to one of the platoon sergeants. They’re down to about a platoon and a half anyway.”
Stewart stood up and looked around in the clearing dust. “Time to go find out how they’re doing.”
“Yeah, and I’ll call Duncan back down. Not much more to do up there.”
O’Neal looked at the battlefield schematic. “I don’t know that there’s much more to do. Period.”
“Well,” Stewart said. “I suppose we could charge.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Franklin, NC, United States of America, Sol III
0726 EDT Tuesday September 29, 2009 AD
Let Bacchus’ sons be not dismayed
But join with me, each jovial blade
Come, drink and sing and lend your aid
To help me with the chorus:
Chorus
Instead of spa, we’ll drink brown ale
And pay the reckoning on the nail;
No man for debt shall go to jail
From Garryowen in glory.
We’ll beat the bailiffs out of fun,
We’ll make the mayor and sheriffs run
We are the boys no man dares dun
If he regards a whole skin.
Chorus
Our hearts so stout have got us fame
For soon ’tis known from whence we came
Where’er we go they fear the name
Of Garryowen in glory.
Chorus
— “Garryowen”
Traditional 7th Cavalry Air
“Quebec unit, follow me!” LeBlanc called over the battalion frequency then flipped to intercom. “Drummond, put your foot in it and head down the road!”
“Where are we going?”
Glennis pulled up her map screen and frowned; it wa
s a good question. She scanned the map and finally found what she was looking for.
“Head down 28,” she said, flipping back to the battalion. “All Quebec units. Order of march, Bravo, Alpha, Charlie. We’re going to head to Highway 64 and get on the road embankment; if we get some elevation on the guns the Abrams might be able to engage the C-Decs.”
“That’s crazy, ma’am,” the Abrams gunner said. “Our guns will barely scratch that thing!”
“The SheVa’s only got four anti-lander rounds left,” LeBlanc answered. “There are six ships.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the gunner replied. “Balenton, load a silver bullet.”
“Aye, aye!” the loader said. “But if she starts singing ‘Garryowen,’ I’m outta here.”
* * *
“Reeves, back us up, fast,” Mitchell said, glancing at his map. “Head northwest. Major Chan! Switch out for one oh fives, it might come down to that!”
“What’s northwest?” Pruitt asked, lining up the first of the targets. It was a real question; should he take the outside ones and work in or the inside ones and work out? Oh, what the hell, right to left. “Target C-Dec, twelve thirty.”
“Confirm,” Mitchell replied, flipping up the appropriate screen. The Posleen ship was just cresting Pendergrass Mountain, less than five miles away. Others were closer, though, and the SheVa rocked again to the slap of one of their heavy guns. “There’s some hills over by Windy Gap. I don’t think we can make it that far and if we do we’ll probably run into ground mounts. But one problem at a time.”
“On the waaay!” Pruitt called, visually tracking the round into the ship. “Target!” he called as the hatches of the ship gouted silver fire. The lander started to fall to earth and then exploded, but not catastrophically. The remains pelted into Pendergrass Mountain and rolled out of sight. “I think I must have gotten a magazine that time,” Pruitt muttered, tracking to the left. “Bun-Bun’s on the WARPATH!”
* * *
“Bloody hellfire!” Kilzer snapped as the back of his rad suit was sprayed by liquid. He looked over at the giant shock absorber of the SheVa gun and shook his head. “Colonel Mitchell, can we call a time out?”
* * *
“Boss, I’ve got a red light on hydraulics!” Pruitt called.
“This is not good,” Mitchell muttered. “Kilzer, Indy, talk to me. How bad is it?”
* * *
“This is Indy,” the warrant replied, climbing through the hatch from the engineering deck. “We’ve got hydraulic fluid all over the gun room, but I don’t see a breach.”
“There’s not one,” Kilzer said, rubbing his hands up the side of the shock. “It just blew fluid through the seals. We should be able to top it up and be back up shortly.”
“How shortly?” Mitchell snapped, looking at the encroaching C-Decs. “We’re under fire here people!”
“Shortly,” Indy said as she gestured one of the loaned SheVa techs over with a hose. “No more than two minutes!”
“This isn’t good,” Pruitt muttered over the radio. The SheVa shook to another near miss as if to counterpoint his statement.
“We’re working on it.” Indy said.
“Reeves, keep backing us away,” Mitchell ordered. “They’re not coming on very fast.”
“No, but they are coming on steady,” Pruitt said. He had pulled up a reservoir indicator on the hydraulics and watched as the level reached yellow and then green. “Sir…”
“You’re up,” Indy interrupted over the radio. “There will be a short lag between each firing while we top off. And God help us if we run out of hydraulic fluid!”
“I’ll get someone right on that,” Mitchell replied. “Pruitt?”
“Target, C-Dec!”
“Fire at will,” Mitchell replied. The SheVa suddenly lurched to a titanic BOOM through the structure. “Son of a BITCH!”
* * *
Indy ducked as a live cable swung overhead throwing sparks. The cable itself dropped onto one of the luckless SheVa techs, sending him spasming across the deck. Indy’s flailing hand snatched a stanchion as the firing chamber filled with a rush of superheated air, and held on for dear life as it seemed the entire weather-shield, with its attached armor, was going to rip loose. The shaking finally stopped and the air cleared, too quickly; she looked up to see stars where four MetalStorm mounts had once been.
“Oh, my God,” she muttered, keying her radio.
* * *
“Colonel, we’re hit,” Indy said, unnecessarily. “We just lost the upper left side of the gun cover. Along with three MetalStorm turrets.”
Mitchell closed his eyes and shook his head. “Pruitt, are we up?”
“The gun reads as functional, sir.”
“The gun wasn’t hit,” Indy interjected. “Just the side of the cover. But I don’t think we can fire any of the Storms until we’re sure of the structural integrity.”
“Colonel Mitchell, this is Kilzer,” the civilian said over the radio. “I’m looking at the damage, too. We might be able to fire the right, rear Storms. But all the others aren’t going to have enough structure to withstand the shock of firing. And the frontal armor is… creaky. The hit slagged some of the supports on the left side and I can see support beams dangling. The whole place looks like a pretzel twister with an evil sense of humor got loose in the gun room. I think the combination of the heat and the shock probably broke the welds. And we’ve got a lot of electrical damage.”
“We can still fire the main gun, right?” Mitchell pressed.
“As long as it lasts, sir,” Indy replied, nervously.
“Pruitt, get as many as you can, while you can.”
* * *
The gunner slewed the turret and sought out the next target as the SheVa lumbered laboriously to the north. There was nowhere to hide; it was just a matter of shoot and hope like hell the Posties kept missing. So far they had.
Pruitt lined up the third C-Dec as another shot crackled overhead and one slammed into the ground, tearing up soil and leaving a smoking crater large enough to swallow an Abrams.
“On the way!” he called, then “Target!”
This time the target vanished in silver fire, and a mushroom cloud formed where it had been. However, although the nearest C-Dec rocked in the blast front, it neither was destroyed nor wavered in its course.
“Blast, they’re too far apart!” Pruitt snarled. “Why did they have to get smart.” He lined up the fourth ship and then paused. “I want it to get a little closer, sir.”
“Okay,” Mitchell replied. At least the fire had been halved and the third C-Dec had been the closest. Mitchell glanced at his map then at the external monitors. Most of them were down from the damage but a few on the right side were still functioning. “Reeves, to the right rear, see that gap?”
“Yes, sir,” the driver replied, angling the SheVa slightly to the right. “Are we going to be hull down?”
“Close,” the commander replied.
“Okay, they’re closing,” Pruitt said. “Hydraulics are up. On the way!” The round tracked straight and true “through the x ring” and the C-Dec rolled to the side, seeming momentarily to be under power, then dropped into the river before rolling out of sight.
At the tremendous splash, Pruitt sighed. “That’s it, sir. Four rounds. We’re out.” He glanced at his indicators then at the targets. “Then again, maybe not. Sir, where are the lead elements of the division?”
* * *
“General Simosin, this is SheVa Nine, over!”
“Station on this net, identify!”
Mitchell frowned at the radio; every other time he had tried to call the general he had gotten the general. So who the hell was holding the radio this time?
“Look, this is SheVa Nine. I don’t have time to identify because, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got Posleen landers on the way in. We’re going to try to take out the last two, but there’s a problem; what we’re going to do will probably hit the division. Now, where ar
e your lead elements?”
“I can’t answer anything unless you identify yourself and I certainly can’t give you the location of our units.”
“Okay, well, in that case I hope like hell that they’re all behind the line of hills around Wooten Mountain. If they’re as far forward as East Franklin, tell them to duck and cover because it’s about to get nasty. Out.”
“Okay, Pruitt, whenever you’re ready,” the colonel said.
“Sir, are you sure about this?” the gunner said. He had keyed in the particulars and was just updating the target point now. “We are going to catch the division in this blast.”
“I don’t like it, but that’s what we’ve got to do,” Mitchell replied tiredly. “Fire.”
“Roger, sir,” Pruitt replied, looking straight into the rising sun. “On the way.”
* * *
The area effect round tracked straight and true to a point two thousand meters above an imaginary line between the C-Decs and then detonated.
The ships were interstellar battle cruisers as well as transports for the Posleen. And under normal circumstances a 100 KT round detonating 2000 meters away would have been shrugged off. In vacuum. Between planets.
In this case, however, it was not in vacuum and it was not between planets except by the widest description thereof. And all of the differences came into play.
The shock wave from the explosion slapped downward, hurling the ships aside. If the violent acceleration from the nuclear-driven hurricane of wind were not enough to defeat them, the sudden stop as they slammed into the unyielding ground did the trick. Subjected to forces they were not designed to withstand, the two ships hit the ground, crunched, bounced, and rolled to a stop, one just east of the Cullasaja Bridge and the other on top of the West Franklin Wal-Mart.
