Admittedly there were… issues with the reactors. Despite careful use of Galactic heat regeneration techniques, the drive room was hot as the hinges of hell. And if the reactor took a direct hit, as had happened from time to time, the tiny “pebbles” became one heck of a radioactive nuisance. But the power that the reactors provided more than made up for those little shortcomings. And reactor breaches were what clean-up crews lived for.
The drive system for the tank was just as revolutionary, using induction motors on all the drive wheels to provide direct power. Thus the SheVa could lose one or more drive wheels and still continue moving.
Despite their size SheVas were remarkably fragile; they were mobile gun platforms not tanks, a reality that had been proven again and again in the last few days. But despite that, SheVa Nine had fought its way on a long, slow, painful retreat and survived mostly intact.
Only its crew, and especially its engineer Warrant Officer Sheila Indy, realized just how shot up it was. Although the smoke pouring out through the numerous orifices created by hostile plasma fire gave some clue.
“Now that’s a sight,” Pruitt said. The gunner of SheVa Nine was a short, dark male, stocky but not fat, and he looked about ten years older than he had just two days before. His clothing stunk of ozone and sweat as he looked up at the tower of metal above him.
The SheVa was called “Bun-Bun” mostly because of the gunner, who had hooked the rest of the crew on an addictive webcomic called “Sluggy Freelance” and had personally painted the two-story cartoon of a switchblade wielding rabbit on the front carapace. Most of the picture had been blasted away in the previous day’s battle but the motto “Let’s Rock, Posleen Boy!” was still faintly evident.
“Bun-Bun or the blimps?” Indy replied wearily. The engineer was raven haired, firm breasted and on the near edge of beautiful, but it was hard to tell at present. She, too, stunk of ozone and sweat and her coveralls were covered in grease and blood, hers and others. The blood was beginning to rot and the smell hung around her like a cloud.
“Either,” Pruitt answered. “Both. What’s the damage?”
“Two reactors off-line,” Indy replied. “One of ’em’s got a hole in it; thank God for helium coolant systems. Struts shot out, two tracks severed, damage to the feed mechanism, damage on the magazine wall, electrical damage… all over the place.”
“I don’t think we’re getting out of here any time soon,” Pruitt said. “Good, I can get some sleep.”
“There’s a Colonel Garcia coming in on the first blimp,” Colonel Robert Mitchell said, walking up behind them. The SheVa commander was a rejuv, so he looked superficially like he was about eighteen. But he had trained as a young armor officer to stop the Soviet forces that might one day pour through the Fulda Gap and that training, to shoot and scoot, had permitted him, and his crew, to survive where others had died. He and his crew had fought a slow, delaying action from the Rabun Valley to their present position near Balsam Gap and they had taken a fair bag of Posleen landers along the way. Now it was his unhappy duty to tell his troops that the party wasn’t over.
“He says he can get her up and running in twelve hours.”
“Impossible,” Indy snapped. “He’d better have at least two reactors with him!”
The SheVa’s power source was pebble-bed/helium reactors. They were remarkably stable — even with total loss of coolant they would not go into melt down — but the ones on SheVa Nine had suffered total loss of coolant and weren’t going to be going on line short of a full overhaul.
“He’s got six reactors with him,” Mitchell said. “And a suite of add-on armor. Along with a brigade of repair techs. There are nine blimps on the way.”
“Jesus!” Pruitt whispered. “That was fast.”
“Garcia seems like an efficient character,” Mitchell replied. “He’s also got some engineering whiz-kid with him who’s going to look us over and do some upgrades.” He looked up as the blimp maneuvered into the limited flat area not occupied by the SheVa. “When the repair crew takes over I want you both to rack out. When we get going again, it’s going to get interesting. Especially since as soon as we’re back on line we’ve got orders to retake Rabun Gap. At all costs.”
“Well, sir,” McEvoy said, trying to avoid the Lamprey’s fire. “It would be nice to have a SheVa, but we ain’t got one.”
“No, we don’t,” Tommy agreed grimly as another round from the lander caught one of the Charlie company Reapers. “Major O’Neal?”
“You’re getting hammered, Sunday,” Mike replied. The majority of the battalion had just turned the corner on the hill and was closing on the remains of the Wall. The Wall had once been a six-story-high monstrosity of guns and concrete. Now the area looked like it had been assaulted by gophers determined to smooth it flat; with the exception of a small channel for the creek, the whole pass had been leveled.
“Yes, sir,” the former NCO replied calmly. “We’re also low on ammo. But I think we can take this guy with support. I’d like the whole battalion’s on-call fire, if I may.”
“More is better?” the battalion commander replied dryly. “I see what you mean, though.” He checked his intelligence schematic and there were no forces within sight of the battalion; it made sense for everyone to fire on the Lamprey. “Turning over controls: Now.”
“He must really like this guy,” Duncan said as a priority targeting karat flashed into view. The karat was behind him and he spun in place and dropped to one knee as the entire battalion opened fire on one point on the lander.
“The Lamprey?” Stewart asked. “I’d target that fucker too, if for no other reason than to kill a smart God King.”
“No, Sunday,” Duncan replied. “How many times has he turned over full battalion fire to somebody else?”
“Not often,” the intel officer admitted. “On the other hand, it’s working.”
The three hundred rifles of the battalion, when added to the Reapers, had the desired effect. As the continually rotating point passed over one of the weapons positions the armored hard point first vaporized under the fire of the Reapers then belched outward as the grav-guns penetrated into its magazines.
The lander quickly jinked to the south, throwing off the point of aim as it began to fire towards both the main battalion and the Reapers. But the damage was already done; even as it began a movement to the south it first rose then lowered abruptly, finally falling out of the sky, slamming into the side of the mountain and rolling out of sight.
“Okay, I don’t know why everybody is just standing around looking at it,” O’Neal said. “Change in plan. Charlie, face north. Bravo, face south. Cigar perimeter with the Reapers, wounded, command and staff in the middle. Scouts, figure out how that oolt’ondar got on the mountain; if there’s a path destroy it.”
He looked around at the still apparently frozen battalion and sighed. “Move, people.”