“Okay,” he continued, “I guess that will have to do.”
“Yeah! though I WALK though the valley of the shadow of death, I will FEAR no evil!” Pruitt cried as he cycled the gun to “on” and checked the telltales. The hydraulics were still showing yellow, but what the hell. “For I am the baddest bunny in the valley!”
“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,” Kilzer said quietly. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my souclass="underline" He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no eviclass="underline" For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.”
There was a moment’s pause then Mitchell shook his head.
“Just this once, I think I prefer that version,” he said quietly. “Okay, let’s go do unto others before they do unto us. Roll it, Reeves.”
As they crested the hill the world disappeared in water, but not before they saw the entire valley erupt in fire.
“Indy, we’ve already lost power to Turret Nine,” Chan called as the SheVa shuddered from strike after strike.
“Mitchell, this is LeBlanc. There’s concentrations everywhere. Fortunately, they’re all shooting at you!”
“Colonel, we’re getting hammered in here!” Indy said. “We’re getting hit heavy on the right flank.”
“Reeves, turn us ten degrees right,” Mitchell said, looking at the map and estimating their current location. “Kilzer, kill the water, we need to see what we’re doing.”
As the waterfall dropped away, Mitchell could see fire coming from every hilltop. The terrain was extremely broken so there were probably more Posleen in the valleys, but the ones in view were more than enough to worry about.
“Major Chan, engage targets of opportunity,” he said, looking at the terrain and trying to determine a good path that would keep them out of the majority of the fire. Most of the fire seemed to be coming from the flats over towards the airfield; the Posleen had apparently retaken that area already.
“Reeves, keep us down in the river valley,” he finally said. “We’ll head in towards Franklin just before the oxbow up ahead.”
“Hammer it, Charlie,” LeBlanc said. The river had appeared to be fordable to her scouts, but she had no solid numbers on depth or best crossing spots. That being the case, the best bet with an Abrams was just to charge the damned thing and hope that momentum carried them through. It was going to make one hell of a splash.
She thought about the water for a moment, and the cold of the night, and decided, as the bank approached, that discretion was the better part of tanker valor and dropped into the interior. She was probably still going to get soaked, since her hatch had been blown away by an unlucky round. But any little bit helped.
She steeled herself for the impact as the tank dropped off the bank and, just for a moment, hung in the air.
To the massive SheVa crossing the river had barely been noticeable. At least at the level of water depth.
“Colonel!” Indy called as the SheVa wallowed along the bank. “We’ve just gotten a spike on the radiation detectors! It’s not just from the reactor breaches.”
Glennis looked up at the screaming box over her head and had to think for a moment what kind of alarm it was. She realized the meaning just as a huge dollop of water dropped from the hatch onto her back.
“Son of a BITCH!” she screamed, tearing at her top. She was wearing Gortex cold weather clothing and most of the water had rolled off. But she could feel splashes all over her hair. And the radiation alarm was still squawking. “All vehicles! The river is hot! Radiation! Button up!”
The only good news was that the river was low and the Abrams had hardly been slowed by the crossing. It was already on the far bank and climbing the slope of the hill, following on the SheVa’s right rear flank.
She got the Gortex off in the tight confines of the turret and followed it with her BDU top, rubbing at the hair that had escaped her helmet.
“Nichols, get something to mop that shit up,” she said, gesturing at the spreading puddle on the floor. “We need to get all this stuff out of the turret as fast as possible.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the loader said, grabbing a wad of cleaning cloths and slipping out of his seat to slither to the floor of the turret. It was a tight fit and he slammed his arm into one of the innumerable protruding bits of metal as he did so. “This really sucks, ma’am.”
“No shit,” Glennis whispered. The rad alarm was screaming fit to wake the dead and she wondered how many rems she’d just picked up. “Colonel Mitchell,” she said, keying her radio, “this is Major LeBlanc and we’ve got a problem, over.”
“General Simosin, this is SheVa Nine,” Mitchell called. “Be advised that the river is hot, probably from runoff from the blast upstream.” Mitchell paused and checked the tactical readouts. For a wonder nobody was shooting at them at the moment. “Major LeBlanc got exposed, we don’t know how badly. And all of her vehicles, and the SheVa, are hot.”
“Understood,” Simosin said, his voice clipped. “It should make fording interesting.”
“I don’t think fording is an option, General,” Mitchell replied.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Porter’s Bend, NC, United States of America, Sol III
0523 EDT Tuesday September 29, 2009 AD
“Stop it right there,” Kilzer said over the radio. He was back in his rad suit to direct the vehicles into place.
Although the Posleen were on every side they were not in view of the small pocket below the hills surrounding the river. And for the moment, decontamination had to take precedence over assault.
LeBlanc looked at all her tracks snuggled up to the side of the SheVa and shook her head. She wondered if she really was starting to feel sick or if it was psychosomatic. She’d know in a few minutes.
“We’re all here, Kilzer,” she said over the radio. “Do it.” The civilian had found a piece of steel about the right size to cover the hatch and now she slid it into place as a curtain of water fell on the vehicles.
“I hadn’t even considered this possibility,” Kilzer said over the radio as he watched the torrent dropping on the tracks. “What a great secondary use, though.”