But it beat being out in the cold with a nuke going off over the next hill.
“Look at this thing. It’s got a choice of nuclear annihilation or nothing.” The Squad Automatic Weapon gunner had broken down his SAW and was brushing at the breech with a worn, green toothbrush.
“It’s got the MetalStorms,” Bazzett argued. Both of them were ignoring the fact that at any moment an antimatter round could land on their heads. Part of the reason for the four thousand meters minimum range of the SheVa area effect round was that it was notoriously inaccurate at short ranges. Because it was designed for a fifty-plus kilometer range, firing at short ranges meant firing practically straight up in the air. At that angle, it was practically a matter of luck where it would land.
“Sure, but they’re just forty millimeters.” Utori snapped his weapon back together and took a drink from his camelbak. “It needs some 105s with some small antimatter rounds. Like… I dunno a ten KT round, maybe. That would be enough to clear a hilltop. Not a fucking hundred KT, which requires clearing out the whole damned county.”
“Maybe, but it wasn’t designed for direct assault like this.” Bazzett set his spoon down as the TC stuck his head into the crew compartment.
“The SheVa just fired.”
“Shit, what’s the time of flight?” Utori asked, grabbing his helmet and pulling on it as if he wanted to crawl up inside.
“Must be nearly a minute,” the TC answered, crawling back up into his chair. “Hang the fuck on,” he added, shutting down his radios and throwing all the breakers; the blast would have an unpleasant electromagnetic pulse that could damage the electronics of the track.
Bazzett raised the plastic and metal pouch to his mouth and squeezed out the last of the entree, beef and beans, then tossed the packet into the ammo can they used as a trash can. He washed it down with a swallow of water then put his fingers in his ears, bending over and opening his mouth. “This is gonna suck.”
“Damn,” Pruitt muttered, watching the shifting reticle of the estimated impact. The SheVa tracked the round on its upward flight and predicted its probable point of impact based on observed flight. “Not good.”
“Where’s it going?” Mitchell asked.
“Looks like it’s veering northeast,” the gunner replied. “If it doesn’t veer back it’ll land as close to LeBlanc’s unit as it does to the Posleen. The only good point is that I set it for proximity impact. So as long as it lands on the Franklin side of the valley, they should be in the blast-shadow.”
Mitchell just grunted; there was nothing anyone could do at this point.
Tulo’stenaloor looked at the report of a high ballistic fire and flapped his crest in agitation.
“Demons of sky and fire eat and defecate their souls,” he snarled. “Orostan!”
But the oolt’ondai had already seen the belch of fire skyward. It was far away but he knew that it could only mean one thing.
“I’m sorry, estanaar,” he said, without even looking at the communicator. “It’s up to you now.”
Then he turned his face to the sky and awaited the fire.
The 100-kiloton round was heavier than the penetrator. This was due to a carbon-uranium matrix that was designed to armor the potentially dangerous round against stray impacts. The armor, however, fell away after firing, and the round tracked upward and then over at apogee, after which the tracking system lost lock and the round became an unknown actor.
Fortunately for all the humans involved it caught one more blast of wind from the recently passed cold front and nosed a tad further south, angling in to land just south of the Franklin water tower. And at one hundred meters off the ground, just above the tank farm, it detonated.
The antimatter blast created a hemisphere of fire, the ground zero zone, in which everything but the most sturdy structure was destroyed. Directly at the center was a small patch, the toroid zone, in which many structures were, remarkably, virtually untouched.
Outward from ground zero a blast of plasma and debris from the detonation expanded in a circle, destroying everything in its path. It was this shock wave that did the majority of damage, sweeping over the Posleen gathered in the town center and, unfortunately, over the tank left at the top of the hill. The Abrams was rocked by the blast-wave and the terrific overpressure but all the seals, designed back in the 1970s for full-scale war against the long-defunct Soviet Union, held and the crew survived. They were shaken, but alive.
The blast spread outward, sweeping across the hilltop occupied by the city center and erasing the majority of the historic buildings that made up the previously idyllic town. As the circle of pressurized air increased in size it decreased in power until an equilibrium with the surrounding air was reached… and passed. Then the air rushed in to fill the vacuum at the center and a return wave collapsed inward destroying much of what had survived the outward wave. When the dual shock waves passed, the only thing that was recognizable on the hilltop was the basement and foundations of the courthouse and half of the gem-and-mineral museum.
Bazzett rocked to first one and then another blast-front, leaning back and forth in his crewman’s seat, then started dancing in his seat.
“ ‘If the Brad is a rockin’ then don’t come a knockin’…’ ” He looked over at Utori, who was just starting to look out from under his helmet, and shrugged. “I just noticed the track was rockin’ to the beat.” He lifted his AIW out of the rack and thumbed on the sight, going through an electronics check. “I’m gonna get me a tattoo. I always said, I’d never get a tattoo unless I was in a nuclear war. I think this counts. Even if it is our side that’s shootin’ at us.”
“Fuckin’ nuts, man,” the SAW gunner muttered as the Bradley rumbled to life.
“Most of the tracks are up,” the TC called. “We’re making a speed run from here on out. Hang the fuck on.”
“ ‘If the track is a rockin’ then don’t come a knockin’.’ ”
“Tango Eight-Nine this is Quebec Four-Six,” Glennis said. “I lost three tracks to the EMP; the shields on all the rest held. Also various and sundry electronics and shock damage.”
“You’re mobile, though, right?”
Glennis looked at the tanks and AFVs moving through the predawn darkness and shook her head. “I guess you could call it that, Tango.”
“Next stop firing point Omega, Quebec. Tango Eight-Nine out.”
“Right, the mission is to get the SheVa to where it can support the ACS. Not to kill every Posleen in the valley.” Glennis looked around at the devastated landscape, the smashed houses, tree trunks tossed hither and thither, the blackened ground, and shook her head. “Although…”
“Boss man,” McEvoy called over the platoon circuit. “Posleen lander emissions. Three sources, one heavy two light. System says two Lampreys and a C-Dec. Should we head back and attach anti-lander systems?”
Since the suits had been detailed to resupply the Marauders, Tommy had had them change out their heavy grav-guns for flechette cannons. If the shit hit the fan, it was much more likely that they would need to stop, or at least slow, an attack by the ground-pounder Posleen than that they would have to stop landers. It looked, to most of the battalion, as if the gamble had played out.