The Tahn counterattack reached positions predetermined by Mahoney, positions that were actually indefensible.
The backup armor that Mahoney had moved forward was mostly gravsleds equipped with noise simulators. They broadcast using call signs of the Guards armor and on Guards armor wavelengths.
Only sixteen Guard assault tracks were on the front lines. At dawn, they went forward—and were obliterated.
It was a disaster. But none of the Tahn investigated those smoking hulks and found out that they were remote-controlled. Not a single Guardsman died in those tracks.
Atago sent her armor in to attack through the salient.
The com grid hummed, and outside the Imperial perimeter, hydraulics hissed into motion and gun turrets ripped through turf, their cannon seeking and then locking onto their targets.
Strongpoint Sh'aarl't was alive.
Alive and killing.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
No one inside the fort was entirely sure that the chaincannon, even though they looked functional, wouldn't blow up when the first round went down the tubes. Sten had ordered the crews out of the turrets and the flash doors sealed before he gave the firing command.
The three cannon roared, sounding like, as Tapia somewhat indelicately put it, "dragons with diarrhea." With a rate of fire of 2,000 rounds per minute, the sound was a wall of solid explosions.
The chaincannon had been intended for defense against high-speed aerial attackers. So although the computer may have been primitive by Foss's standards, its ability to acquire the low-speed targets that were the Tahn tanks was infallible.
The shells were supposed to be incendiary, but only about a third of them went off. It didn't matter—the solid sheet of metal simply can-openered the armor.
Sten heard a squeal of "It works! It works!"—probably from Tapia—as he ordered the gun crews back into the turrets.
Strongpoint Sh'aarl't worked very well indeed.
The first wave of tanks was already rumbling through what had been the Imperial outer perimeter when Mahoney ordered the fort to open up. Meanwhile, three-man Guards teams armed with hunter/killer missiles came out of their spider holes and slaughtered the Tahn tracks within minutes.
Sten had more than enough targets in the three kilometers between the fort and the perimeter.
Lady Atago was holding the bulk of her armor back to reinforce the spearhead. Since the Tahn knew they had air superiority and were out of line-of-sight of the perimeter, they had the tanks stacked up along the approach routes bow to stern.
Sten, or rather, Foss—or rather the fort's computer—let the chaincannon follow those jammed rubbled roads. The computer tabbed sixty tanks hit and destroyed, and then a series of sympathetic explosions sent fireballs boiling down the streets. The computer, a little sulkily, told Foss that it had lost count.
A red light gleamed—the quad projectile turret, Alex in charge, was in action. The Tahn infantry had recovered from the shock of being hit from the rear and were attacking toward the hill. As long as the antipersonnel chaingun kept firing, it would keep the grunts well out of effective range. Nothing hand-held could punch through the fort's armor—or so the archaic specifications promised.
"All turrets. You're on local control. Find your own targets."
Finally Tapia had some power. She sat in the command capsule on the gunlayer's sight. It looked not unlike a padded bicycle sans wheels, with a hood atop its handlebars. The handlebars, backed by the turret's own computer, were slaved to the cannon.
Four tanks blew apart before the attacking column was able to reverse out of sight behind a building. Out of sight—but not safe. Tapia shouted for the cannon's rate-of-fire control to maximum and chattered a long burst along the ruin's base. The building toppled, crushing the tanks.
Tapia experimented. If she kept firing her gun at maximum rate, the fort would run dry—a gauge showed that the ammo lockers for the gun were already down to eighty percent capacity. She learned how to conserve. Set the cannon's rate of fire to minimum (about 750 rpm) and tap the firing key. Exit one tank.
This was interesting, Tapia thought. She spotted six armored fighting vehicles crossing into the open, spun her sights, but was too late as another turret blew them into scrap metal. Tapia swore and looked around the battlefield again.
The fort was surrounded by the hulks of burning tanks. Smoke plumed up into a solid column around the strong-point. Tapia switched her sights from optical to infrared and found something interesting.
A track—and it ain't shooting at me. Very interesting. The track was in fact a command track housing the Tahn armored brigade commander. Since the CT had required an elaborate communications setup yet its designers hardly wanted the track to be readily identifiable as the brains behind an attack, the main gun had been replaced by a dummy. Tapia chortled, aimed carefully, and...
And the fort shook and her ears clanged in spite of the protective muffs all of the sailors wore.
In the command center, Sten hit a red control, and all of the turrets popped down, leaving nothing but a featureless hilltop for the now-positioned Tahn artillery to shoot at. The environmental system had finished venting the fort and had stored air in backup tanks. If Atago deployed a nuke or chemicals, Sten was ready to switch the fort into its own environment.
Sten doubted that would happen—Lady Atago needed this real estate to attack through. And only in the war livies did soldiers choose to fight in the balky, uncomfortable, and dangerous fighting suits if there was any other option.
"All combat stations. Report."
"Turret A. All green."
"Turret C. We're fine. Noiser'n hell, Skipper." That was Tapia, of course.
"Turret D. They're knocking up some dust. No damage."
"No puh-roblems from the shotgun squad, boss," Kilgour reported from the antipersonnel turret.
Sten was starting to be a little impressed with whoever had built this fort, regardless of their obviously moronic inspiration.
A screen lit. It was Mahoney. With the fort in the open, he had reverted to a standard com link with Sten.
"Report!" Mahoney, in midoperation, was all efficiency.
"Strongpoint Sh'aarl't," Sten said, equally formally, "at full combat readiness. Expended weaponry filed...now! No casualties reported. Awaiting orders."
Mahoney cracked a smile. "Adequate, Commander. Stand by. They'll be hitting you full-strength next."
"Understood. Sh'aarl't. Out."
The Tahn assault tracks were pulled back out of range of the fort's cannon. Atago tried air strikes.
Sten, not expecting any real results, switched the fire and control computer for aerial targets. Now on fully automatic, the guns elevated, whined, and spat fire.
Tahn tacships were sharded out of the skies. This should not be happening, Sten told himself. I am manning an archaic weapons system. Hasn't technology progressed?
Foss had the explanation. Archaic, was it? The guns were tracking, and the projectiles' proximity fuses were detonating on, long-abandoned frequencies. None of the Tahn ships had ECM sets broadcasting on those frequencies.
Sten was starting to feel a certain fondness for his ancient gray elephant.
"Shall we abandon the attack, Lady?"
Atago ran yet another prog on the computer. "Negative."
Deska tried not to show surprise. "The attrition rate from that one fort is unacceptable."
"This is true. However, consider this. That fort is quite effective. The Imperial Forces are weak. Therefore, if that fort can be destroyed, we should be able to punch completely through their lines. And all that is necessary is to change our tactics. Which I have already done. The first stage shall commence within moments."