They had completed work on the recesses for rocket launcher back blast on the east-west trench, but the north-south guys were still digging.
“We got the tents down and the cover plates hinged up late last night,” Tommy said. “Fake snow is all we can do on the in-barn part of the trenches, but the out-barn stuff is real.”
Papa O’Neal squatted down and looked at the fluffy stuff covering the floor of the barn. “What’d you use?” he asked.
“Asbestos and white spray paint,” Tommy said.
“Nice. Won’t catch fire when the barn blows. I presume it’s going to collapse thataway?” He pointed away from the L.
“Yup, we’ve got ammo stacked from hell, but you know how it is: we can find productive use for any time they give us. Which we’d have more of if we didn’t have damned shuttles of Indowy landing every hour and — say, the next one’s ten minutes overdue…” Tommy and Papa looked at each other simultaneously.
“Alert! This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. All men to your stations,” Sunday spoke into his buckley, which fed into the clean AID battle coordinator and out to the men.
With the first few phrases, the AID had gone on alert itself, picking up the locations of the men’s VR goggles even as the previously off-duty ones ran into the trenches, the previously sleeping ones just a bare few seconds behind them.
“Spray up the launcher areas on the north-south trench, sir?” Lieutenant Green’s voice came through the ear dot Tommy wore day and night.
“Are you still digging?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Green answered.
“We’re awaiting confirmation of the attack,” Sunday said. “Keep digging for now. Start spraying as soon as we confirm they’re actually here. That stuff’s a bitch to dig out if we’re wrong.”
“Yes, sir. Copy keep digging, ready to spray on confirmation.”
“Sunday out,” he looked around at the few workers still piling fake snow around in the barn. “Everybody on the elevator. You too, Cally. Papa, you’re going down below if I have to pick you up and carry you,” he ordered.
Papa O’Neal looked for a minute as if he was going to argue, but if he had been, Sunday’s massive size reminded him that despite his own extraordinary strength, the younger man could indeed make good on his threat.
They packed the elevator tight to get everyone down in the one trip. It might be nothing, but if the balloon was going up, time was an irreplaceable, precious thing.
“We have confirmation of attack, coming in from the east,” the AID said in a pleasant female voice that made it distinctive from all but a few on the line. Upgraded Bane Sidhe operators had been disinclined to be left out regardless of gender, and the thirty DAGgers were a very light force, even to defend a fortress from fixed positions. Every soldier counted, and every Bane Sidhe operator was sniper qualified, with their teams as smooth in motion as a single creature.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Team Isaac was missing from the roster, but George Schmidt was present, filling out team Jacob, helping dig the blast area for the rocket launchers, which they might not need, but would prefer to have.
Almost before the AID had finished the word “east,” Jacob had dropped the shovels where they stood, grabbed up cannisters of thermofoam and began spraying down the walls and back of the butterfly wings.
“AID, what have they got? Where are they exactly?” Green asked.
All the way up and down the trench, men were pulling on their VR goggles and triple checking their weapons, stacks of magazines and belts ready to hand.
“They appear to have two humvee vehicles and a number of civilian vehicles. They are presently departing the civilian…” the machine rattled on in the lieutenant’s ear. George could have picked it all out with his enhanced hearing, but he was busy and concentrating on the task.
Lieutenant Green was standing at the opening back into the main trench, at George’s elbow. “How long’s it supposed to take that shit to set up again?” he asked.
“Five minutes.”
“We’ve got four,” Green said.
“Close enough.” George continued to spray. Even if it didn’t have the full time to set up, the bean counters were hardly going to bitch at them for wasting it. Quantity could make up for quality.
The enemy came in with their humvees in front, light infantry marching out to the sides in ranks three deep, all bunched up, in nice, tidy, pretty BDUs. Every man on the line could see them, first the men at the edges and then the whole line as they got within range of enough buckleys for the AID to build a composite holo for the men’s goggles. A yellowish cast over everything reminded them they were seeing the enemy at a distance, not as close as they appeared.
The guys would have looked great on a parade ground, and probably would have been intimidating if all they were facing were the civilians Johnny Stuart’s AID had said they were expecting.
These guys had never fought professional soldiers in their lives. Today they would get to do so. Once.
Schmidt and the rest of Jacob had gotten clear of the man with the launcher and filed down the trench to their own positions. George had gotten an M26, and was extremely jealous of the guys on the 240s.
The AID had control of all of the deployed buckleys as peripherals, and each buckley controlled a line of the claymores. As the enemy came in, the AID cracked their IFF security with negligible difficulty, making those its peripherals as well. Then it waited.
The men also waited, rifles positioned to go into gun ports as soon as the hatches went up. The adrenaline had hit, making the seconds turn into hours.
“Firing,” the AID said, having waited until the enemy just passed the third concentric ring of claymores, just past optimum range. The idea was to damage them, but let them figure out where they were taking fire from and move.
The rear line of men buckled down, about half dropping where they stood as the rain of ball bearings bit into their thinly armored backs.
Simultaneously, the AID pumped each enemy buckley’s AI emulation up to a full ten, stripping away any personality overlay that might be in place.
As the mercs did the instinctive thing and ran away from the source of fire, the humvees sped up, apparently also trying to get away.
The AID let the men begin to run closer in towards the base.
“Blow the barn,” Green ordered, and everyone felt the whump of overpressure and had the loud blast hit their ears as the building above blew out of their way, as did the grain silo east of it.
The enemy infantry veered to the north, away from the explosions, until the AID, firing a wave of claymores outside them, herded them back.
The wounded survivors of the first run of claymores did the natural thing and stumbled or crawled to follow their remaining fellows, ostensibly away from whoever was shooting at them.
In the trench, Green ordered, “Launcher. Take out the Tonka toys. Fire.”
The heat and flame from the back of the launcher channeled back against the hardening foam, doing damage, but absorbed, but the noise was hellacious in the enclosed space. The AID sounded thin and far away when it announced, “Firing two.”
The fourth line of claymores in blew, chopping down any previously wounded who got past them, and driving the survivors further forward.