"Got it," she said.
"If you manage to clear all the tanks in your zone you can start hitting the supply cars themselves. Ammunition carriers are the primary target followed by hydrogen carriers and then oxygen carriers. Remember, it will take at least two and maybe as many as four shots in exactly the same place to penetrate the armor on those cars. Take your shot and then put your second shot right on the hot spot you just created and then, once you're recharged, do it again."
"Fuckin' aye," Xenia said, feeling her heart hammering in anticipation. "Do you think we'll be able to knock out all the guard tanks as quick as we did back at the guns?"
"Hopefully," Zen said. "And we're getting a little help in that too. Command says that four flights of Mosquitoes are inbound to hit the tanks before we get there. Hopefully they'll do us some good."
"Four flights?" Belinda asked. "That's only eight planes."
"That's all they can spare," Zen said. "The rest of them are pounding on the APCs moving in on the line."
"Oh well," Xenia said. "It leaves more targets for me then, doesn't it?"
"Fuckin' aye," Zen said.
Brian and Matt were one of the planes inbound to deal with the armor. They had been in the plane now for the past twelve hours, landing only to refuel every few hours and then going right back up again. Both men were very tired and very sore, particularly Matt, who still sported an open wound on his gluteus maximus that screamed with pain every time they pulled a turn higher than two Gs — which was to say every turn they made during their firing runs. He could feel wet blood squishing around in the saturated bandage every time he shifted position, could feel rivulets of it running down onto the back of his leg, collecting in the wrinkles where the ill-fitting biosuit he'd stolen from Xavier Goodhit didn't quite provide the proper pressurization.
"How's the ass, kid?" Brian asked as they screamed through one of the valleys. "You holding up?"
"I forgot all about it until you mentioned it," Matt told him.
"You sure?"
"Hey, boss," Matt said, "how many times I gotta tell you? It's just some skin off my ass."
Brian nodded, although he believed Matt's words about as much as he believed the big three military briefings. "You just let me know if it gets too bad. The last fuckin' think in the solar system I need is to have my sis pass out from pain."
"You know it, boss," Matt promised. "You're turning right to two-eight-three in five, four, three, two, one."
"They cut to the right above a shallow series of hilltops between to mountains, pulling 2.8 Gs according to the meter on their screens. Matt bit his lip against the pain, feeling a fresh glut of blood come pouring out of his body. When they leveled out he took a few deep breaths as the pain slowly faded out. He looked down at his telemetry screen again, trying to memorize the locations of all the tanks in the enemy formation so he wouldn't have to search too hard on the firing run. The WestHems had twenty-four mobile surface-to-air lasers protecting that supply column and twenty-four SALs in such a concentrated area meant they were cutting their exposure time down to three seconds to reduce the risk of being felled by a lucky shot.
"Look at all those tanks we put down there," Brian said after taking a brief glance down at his own telemetry screen.
"Hell yeah," Matt said enthusiastically. "More than five hundred of them. They destroyed those mobile guns in ten minutes, man! Ten fuckin minutes to do what we couldn't do after tryin' all night and all day! How the hell did they get that many tanks in the rear?"
"They had to have moved them in over the mountains," Brian opined.
"Is that possible?" Matt asked. "We fly over them mountains all the time. I never saw nothin' down there it looked like you could drive a tank over."
"Let alone five hundred of them," Brian said. "I don't know. I can't think of any other way they could've done it short of driving all the way around the mountains and coming in from behind the LZ itself. That would be a trip of more than four hundred klicks. They would've had to refuel at least twice and probably three times."
"And how would they have gotten by the LZ?" Matt asked. "There's still almost a regiment of tanks guarding that and they have visual from the Sierra Madres to the Overlooks. No way five hundred tanks just strolled by without being seen."
"Well... however they did it, they did it and they killed the shit out of that mobile arty."
"Ready to change your bad opinion of General Jackson now?" Matt asked.
"I don't know," Brian said. "I'll admit that the massive flanking maneuver was a stroke of genius, but don't forget there's a trade-off."
"What trade-off?"
"They neutralized the arty so the ground pounders won't have to get pulverized into oblivion anymore. That's good. And now they're going after the supply column to keep the WestHems from resupplying. That's good too — if it's successful. But don't forget, while those five hundred tanks are out here, the main line is now missing more than a third of it's tank support to help fight off the main thrust. If they push through the main line because we don't have enough tanks to fight them off... well, they'll occupy Eden in a few hours. If that happens this whole brilliant maneuver was for nothing, wasn't it?"
"Well... yeah, I guess you have kind of a point there."
"I sure as shit wouldn't want to be one of those poor slobs in the trenches," Brian said. "When those WestHem marines start moving on them a lot of them are going to get a lot worse than just some skin off their asses."
They flew on, making another course change and then another, their wing following their motions blindly, acting on faith in Brian's skills and Matt's navigation. Soon they reached the IP.
"Thirty seconds to target," Matt said. "I'm picking up multiple search radars and active IR from the column. Nothing strong enough to get a hit off us. Mostly leaky signals coming around the peak."
"Static," Brian said, screwing up his concentration to the max. "Your lasers?"
"Charged and ready," Matt said. "I'm gonna try to hit two tanks per pass but three seconds ain't much time when they're scattered among the supply train."
"Do the best you can," Brian said. "That's all you can do. You got my vectors?"
"When you clear the last hill cut hard right to two-seven-seven. When the carrot moves cut right again to zero-zero-three and pull up to three-four-seven meters AGL."
"Got it," Brian said. "And here we go."
They shot out over the valley and cut hard to the right. Matt felt the sting in his ass again, felt more blood gush out, but he hardly noticed, so intent was he on the mass of targets that suddenly appeared on his screen. He saw towing tanks and SALs and dozens upon dozens of tanker cars and boxcars. But the targets were more than six kilometers away and the plane was moving fast. Matt wasn't able to spot and turn his targeting recticle on an actual main battle tank until they were already turning back toward the mountains and safety. He pushed the firing button for cannon number one and saw the distinctive double flash of a direct hit. A second later, before he could even begin to target a second MBT, they were back in the hills, all the targets gone from his screen. This was one more tank then their wing managed to hit.
"Damn," Matt mumbled. "Only one hit."
"You'll do better next time," Brian said. "It's a bitch of a mission. You got our return course up?"
"Left to two-nine-eight in three, two, one," Matt said.
They circled around again, coming in from further to the west this time and targeting the rear of the formation. Once again Matt was only able to hit one tank but this time the wing managed to hit two. As they disappeared back into the hills there came an eruption of flashes from the SALs as they opened up, trying desperately to make one of those coveted lucky shots. The two planes disappeared without incident. They then came in from the east again two minutes later. This time Matt managed to hit two tanks and the wing hit one.