If some tin-pot Napoleon thought he could march down here with an army, Gilbert intended to send him back home with his tail between his legs. If the White Sands group lost their advantage of surprise, Bayclock could move his troops to safety and come at them from a different direction.
A cloud of metal shrapnel flying at five times the velocity of a bullet would surely demoralize Bayclock’s troops—especially coming from a bunch of supposedly defenseless scientists. If nothing else, the railgun would make the army wonder what else Spencer’s hot shots might come up with.
Arnie poked his head out from the launcher command post. “Ready for the bank to go hot, Gilbert.”
“Has the projectile been checked?”
Arnie sighed. “Twice by you and three times by us. We loaded Rita’s special shrapnel mix of chopped up razor blades, nails, and broken glass. If we pop it now, it should spread out to hit their camp. It won’t be pretty.”
“It’s not supposed to be pretty.” Gilbert looked around for Romero. “Heard from Spencer yet?”
The radio man shook his head. “The farm says they’ll contact us when he gets there.”
Gilbert thought fast. He had to go with it. Command decision. Spencer and his crew had been anticipating this moment ever since Bobby Carron had deserted and stayed behind.
Years earlier, Gilbert had been yanked from his work at the Sandia National Lab, sent over to the Middle East as a military consultant during the first Gulf conflict. He had left Cynthia and the kids behind in Albuquerque, unable to tell them what he was doing—much the same way he had left them in Alamogordo during the past few weeks. He hadn’t protested then because he believed in his work. And now, he had never felt stronger about anything in his life. Spencer’s solar power farm must not fall into the hands of a military dictator.
He drew in a deep breath. “Okay, charge the banks. Launch on my count.” He twisted his head. “Romero! Get an updated range from Bobby.”
“Right.”
Gilbert scrambled over a thigh-thick cluster of cables to position himself at the railgun’s crude rangefinder—optics from a high-powered rifle juxtaposed with a protractor and a plumbline. Within seconds Romero relayed elevation and landmark information.
Grunting, Gilbert reached up to rotate the unwieldy device with the hand crank. When the starlit peak across the valley was in sight on the crosshairs, he elevated the long metal railings until the plumbline registered the correct position. “Talk about spit and chewing gum,” he muttered.
“Bank’s hot, Gil. Your call.”
Gilbert eyed the crosshairs one more time, then gently moved away from the device. He slapped Romero on the back. “Get some cover.” He nodded at the tech in the control room. “Light it!”
“Roger!” Arnie yelled into the blockhouse. “Hit it!”
Fifty feet away from the railgun, Gilbert turned to watch. He saw a weirdly ionized ball shoot the length of the rails, sparking across the gaps as the heavy shrapnel projectile accelerated upward. He had never seen a nighttime launch, and it looked beautiful.
Then a blinding flash erupted from the capacitor building. The sounds of the railgun and the capacitor exploding hit him at the same time.
Gilbert felt the pop of the shock wave as the dynamic overpressure hit. He started running toward the railgun, not knowing what had happened. A secondary explosion came from the capacitor building. “No, dammit!”
He barely saw the fragment of metal spinning toward him as it hit him in the knees. He fell, trying to pummel the ground with his fists as he passed out.
General Bayclock rode at the front of the army advancing toward the microwave farm, accompanied by Sergeant Morris and Dr. Nedermyer. Five security policemen on horseback surrounded him. Behind him and spreading out like a wedge, rode his two colonels and their respective groups of soldiers.
The troops marched on foot, weary but excited to be finally reaching their destination. They had lost five horses early in the trek during the raid from the pueblo dwellers, but the general had commandeered other mounts from ranches on the way.
Bayclock still thought of himself as a Wing Commander, and his two groups made up the remainder of his military command. The lines of communication were short, and he had no doubt they would easily take the solar-power facility.
But Bayclock remembered from National War College that overconfident troops were easiest to overcome; he did not want his troops to fail because Lockwood’s people put up an unexpected fight. Yet it was hard to take the group of scientists seriously. He had not yet decided how lenient he would be with them when it was all over.
Bayclock turned to Sergeant Catilyn Morris, intending to call the troops to a halt when he first heard the sound—like a million angry insects suddenly buzzing, filling his head.
Sharp, startled screams broke the air. His people dropped, horses bellowed then whinnied in pain. All around him, the peaceful desert seemed suddenly to spew forth a plague of locusts, hard projectiles pattering the ground and whizzing through the air. The screaming buzz seemed to go on and on.
Bayclock pulled his horse around—two security policemen behind him fell on the ground; one writhed, the other lay motionless. Beside them, a horse struggled, trying to get back to its feet and leaving splashes of blood on the white gypsum sands.
Just as suddenly as it started, the deadly rain stopped. The night sky continued to fill with yells of terror.
Bayclock yanked his rifle from its holster. “Sergeant, get my staff up here!”
“Yes, sir!” Sergeant Morris pulled her horse around and galloped back into the starlit night. Bayclock turned in his saddle and yelled at the security policemen. “You, man—help your buddy! You others post a guard in a semicircle. Speed out!”
Chaos overwhelmed the night as the sounds of panicked troops scrambling to follow orders mixed with moans of pain. Bayclock held his rifle on his knee, trying to drive a wedge through the darkness with the sheer force of his anger. What in the living hell just happened?
He heard horses come up behind him, and he made out the forms of Sergeant Morris and Colonel David. The colonel held his injured left arm against his side.
“Report!” snapped Bayclock. “What have you got?”
Colonel David shook his head, coughing. “Nothing definite, sir. I don’t know how many people I’ve lost. We’ve got a shitload of injuries, everything from impact wounds to shatter fractures. I haven’t seen anything like this since the fragmentation weapons used in the Gulf.”
“Those daisy-cutters were dropped by B 52s, Colonel—have you heard any planes around here lately?”
The colonel shook his head; Sergeant Morris suggested tentatively, “Maybe the scientists have mortars, sir.”
Bayclock glared. “Daisy-cutters are five-hundred-pound bombs, Sergeant! I’ve brought them on my own missions. Now shut the hell up while I speak with my staff.”
Sergeant Morris grew tight-lipped. “Yes, sir.”
Bayclock turned back to the colonel. “Where’s Nachimya?”
“He bought it, general. He was twenty yards away from me when he died. Large wound through the trachea.”
“Who’s his second in command?”
Colonel David shook his head. “Major Zencon took off after some of the troops, sir. It was clear they were deserting.”
“Why didn’t he shoot the bastards? He has standing orders to shoot deserters!” Colonel David remained silent and closed his eyes. “Answer me, Colonel!”
Sergeant Morris answered quietly, “Major Zencon apparently deserted as well, sir. Colonel David couldn’t shoot them because of his own injury. We’ve probably lost a quarter of our troops already.”