The seconds ticked by. An orange fireball was his reward. It lit up the night in a whoosh of flame that towered higher than he could believe.
“We must have gotten one of their fuel vehicles!” Paul shouted.
Another ATGM hissed in flight, the bright contrails showing its path. Canister shells exploded in the ice several hundred yards away. The racing TOW missile lurched and harmlessly smashed into the pack ice. The Chinese had slain its operators.
Red Cloud loaded their last missile.
Paul sighted and fired, but this one missed. Fortunately, the range had already gotten too far for the Chinese to fire back.
In a matter of a few more minutes, the enemy was simply a field of bright specks. It didn’t take long until the Arctic night blanketed the world with its darkness. The only bright points were the burning hovers and sleds behind them. It put a thick stink of oily smoke in the air.
The Chinese had burst through their net, taking losses, but far from being stopped.
As that thought settled in, Paul said, “We’re stuck out on the ice again.”
“Maybe we were meant to die out here,” Red Cloud said. “Maybe our fate lies here.”
Paul thought about that. Finally, he said, “Our sled has a little motive power. Let’s go see who else is left alive. Then we’ll start traveling for Dead Horse.”
Red Cloud peered at him through his ballistic glass visor. The Algonquin looked tired, although his eyes seemed harder, more determined than ever. He nodded.
“Unless you want to help fate and stay out here to die,” Paul said.
“No. I will fight to live and live to fight.”
“Sounds good,” Paul said. He himself fought to fulfill a vow and to survive long enough to make things right with his ex. He could see now that he hadn’t tried hard enough with Cheri. He would woo her again. He would…if he could make it home.
“Ready?” asked Red Cloud.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
General Shin Nung swore viciously as another bomber zoomed out of the Arctic sky, launching its missiles. First, a Red Arrow slammed into the American aircraft, causing an explosion in the sky. Then a nearby hovertank exploded, killing it and the nine soldiers riding outside the vehicle.
That’s when the American artillery began pounding the location. The shots created great flashes of light on the horizon. Those flashes showed where Dead Horse, Alaska was, their key objective. As the shells screamed down, exploding over the tundra, Nung’s command hover shuddered and shell fragments rattled against the vehicle’s armor.
Nung swore. He was in a foul mood. He had been ever since the deadly TOW2 missiles had struck his force out on the ice. It had been a costly battle, a nasty surprise. Only fifty-one hovertanks had made it past Cross Island and to the North Slope. Every time he thought about those flashing missiles hitting another hovertank—
Nung struck his armrest again. He had to put that battle behind him and concentrate on here. Technically, they had made it to the oilfields outside of Dead Horse. If Nung had desired, he could have begun blowing the wellheads. What he wanted was Dead Horse, though, the enemy airbase and garrison stationed there. Once he had Dead Horse, the victory would be his.
If he had air cover, the few America jets couldn’t have rushed down at his vehicles in a near suicidal frenzy. The helicopters couldn’t have shot their Hellfire missiles at his sleds. The hovertanks had destroyed most of airborne attackers, but at a bitter cost. The combined total of enemy assaults had destroyed nearly half of his original attacking vehicles.
He kept thinking if, if, if…if Commissar Ping this, the High Command that, the nuclear-tipped torpedo….
He shook his head. War wasn’t a matter of ifs but of dids. He’d made it to the American coast. Now he was going to smash through and take Dead Horse. Then it would be just a matter of waiting for the snowtanks to complete his conquest.
“Go in by lances!” Nung shouted into the microphone. “Infantry, follow on ski.”
Dead Horse was on a flat tundra plain surrounded by American bunkers and command posts. The enemy had mortar-teams and artillery inside the town. Nung had speed, tired hover-pilots and cold soldiers. There wasn’t any finesse to the assault.
The smallest formation among the hovertanks was a lance: three vehicles. Three hovertanks would stop on the cold tundra to provide over-watch fire, tracking, plotting and shooting at anything that moved. A different lance sped to an outcropping, using every fold in the terrain to escape destruction. From the hovertanks slid off Chinese infantry. Some set up mortars and began peppering the Americans.
Then a shell found Nung’s hover. The scream of twisted metal began it. The vehicle slewed wildly and with a terrific thud crashed against a snow bank. Nung grunted as he slammed against his restraints. Groggily, he looked around. The communications officer was dead, his head a bloody mess. The pilot’s arm was broken as the man sobbed quietly.
“Sir, sir,” squawked from the radio.
Nung lifted a mobile com-unit, tucking it under his arm. Then he staggered for the escape hatch. Upon exiting and sliding down the side of the vehicle, he winced as another hovertank howled near. The vehicle came to a stop beside him as it blew snow everywhere. Five riding soldiers slid off.
It was freezing cold out here, colder than it had been on the ice. It stung Nung’s face and his neck. His teeth began chattering. With an effort of will, as he shoved aside the pain, he shouted, “What are you doing? Don’t stand around me. We’re exposed.”
He forced himself to move, wading through snow until he got to more solid ice. After establishing control over thirty soldiers, he shouted, “Get down!”
He had better reflexes than the others did as he heard the whine of shells. The American artillery had zeroed in on the wreckage. Some of the shrapnel sliced a few of the slower soldiers. Their oozing blood looked like a sluggish stain of ink in the darkness. With another effort of will, Nung tore his gaze from the twisting soldiers. He didn’t have time for them now.
“Advance, keep advancing!” he roared into the communications unit he wore like a backpack.
With his voice lashing them, the last hovertanks continued their advance. 76mm shells, Chinese mortars, ATGMs and RGPs pounded the base that rose up like an Eskimo’s igloo in the distance. Occasionally a thunderous flash appeared there, another artillery tube firing its hated shells.
Shin Nung floundered through the snow, shaking off any helping hands. The Chairman had thought him lacking in attacking zeal. They had accused him of cowardice.
“Attack!” roared Nung, mist pouring from his mouth. It was so cold. “Kill the Americans!”
The Battle of Dead Horse was another meat-grinder. The Chinese traded blood and vehicles for ground. The hovertanks dwindled in number as they floated over the ice, amazingly swift in this land of cold. In the end, though, the Americans simply lacked enough men, enough shells, bombers and ammo. The Chinese assault carried through into the streets of Dead Horse. The massacre began then, the shivering Chinese too bitter after surviving the Arctic nightmare to grant any mercy.
The last assault took place as Chinese explosives blew open the way into the Marine command post, a half-buried bunker. In the last room, Captain Bullard fired at point blank range, killing two Chinese soldiers. Then Bullard’s automatic was empty and he drew his bayonet. The Marine captain charged, roaring his challenge. Chinese bullets riddled the body until it thumped onto the bloody floor. The Battle of Dead Horse was over, and the Chinese were victorious.