“Go,” whispered Romo.
“Full targeting HUD,” Paul subvocalized. Everything disappeared from the visor display. “Times ten magnification,” Paul told his targeting computer.
The jetpack flyers grew to ten times their former size. He could see an Eagle member grit his teeth and the man’s control hand twitch as he minutely shifted the throttle.
On his HUD, a red dot centered on the flyer’s armored chest.
“Fire at the best target acquisition,” Paul said. The ultra-targeting computer judged wind resistance, bullet drop, target’s flight speed and other data. Paul’s cannon used a laser to gather much of the information.
Paul hardly felt the recoil. This thing was amazing. The suit’s electro-elastic fibers compensated at each shot.
The first round sent a depleted uranium slug speeding through the air. It hit the targeted flyer. The soldier’s head whipped back. His hand pushed forward, and he shot upward into the sky. It didn’t matter. He was already dead, leaking blood.
Paul put the dot on another flyer. At the best instant, the computer fired the fifty-caliber. Romo’s did the same thing with his.
When the ninth jetpack flyer jerked in the air, his arms flapping like a kid trying to fly—he plowed into the ground headfirst—the others got wise. They began evasive flying.
“Start lobbing grenades,” Paul ordered his squad.
Afterward, Paul kept targeting flyers, but he missed several times. Grenades blew in the enemy’s flight path. One piece of shrapnel must have sliced a cable. A jetpack quit and its flyer slammed against the ground, bouncing up and finally coming to a dead rest.
“It’s not working,” Dan said. “These guys are too good.”
Just as he said that, another Eagle-team member went down. Nothing had touched him. He’d simply miscalculated his flying.
“I bet they go up now,” Romo radioed Paul.
He was wrong. The Eagle flyers took a detour, swinging wide to the east at speed. It proved to be a bad decision. The Chinese flew into a different Marine platoon’s field of fire, who finished what Paul’s squad had started.
“Now what?” Romo asked.
Paul lowered his gun arm. “Take a stim, each of you.”
“I don’t feel tired yet,” Dan said.
“That’s right,” Paul said. “You take one before you feel tired. You keep on top of the game. We still have a ways to go. Now take your stim. Let it percolate through you. Then, let’s continue onto target, as I don’t see any more flyers in the air.”
Shun Li had never heard the Chairman scream as he did now. It was ugly, frightening, and it brought results.
Jian Hong in his black suit and tie stood before the wall image. “Commander!” Hong shouted. “You will sweep their approach with bombers, lacing napalm.”
“The city—”
“Doesn’t matter!” Hong yelled. “We must save the PBW Station or all China burns. After you carpet bomb them, send in fighters to finish whatever survived. If you fail, I will watch my people slit your belly as others castrate your son before your eyes. You cannot believe what will happen to your wife!”
The general visibly trembled in terror. He snapped off several salutes. “It will be done, Leader. I will give you their heads, Leader. I will—”
“Do not tell me about your deeds. Show—show me!” Hong shouted, with spit flying from his mouth.
If ever Shun Li needed to know how much Hong loved power, this demonstration proved it. He would commit any atrocity to remain supreme.
“Give me the next commander,” Hong said.
Shun Li watched in shock. He appeared rational again, lucid and in charge of himself. Yet when the next general appeared, Hong launched into a similar performance.
US space soldiers swarmed across the country, leaping like insects for the PBW stations.
It’s a problem of numbers, time and distance. How many stations must we secure to keep the American ICBMs in their silos? It was a frightening question.
Halfway across the valley, Paul’s headphones crackled.
“Jets,” Romo radioed. “I’m picking them up at two o’clock. They’re high, but coming down fast.”
Paul looked up, using telescopic sight. “I see ’em.” Three strike jets roared down from the sky.
“I recommend we use another nuke,” Paul said.
“Yeah, good call,” Lieutenant Dempsey said. “Go to ground. I’m launching.”
Paul skidded to a halt so grass and dirt sprayed, and he threw himself down. The scientists in Montana said the battlesuit would shield a Marine from radioactivity. The faceplate had been built to take it, too. Old habits died hard, though. That’s just the way it was.
Paul waited, waited, waited… He heard the boom, and he waited more. Then atomic heat washed over him. He knew because the air conditioners ramped up power. That would drain his batteries, in time. Once they were empty, he’d have to climb out of the suit and try to walk home.
“I guess they never thought of that, huh,” Dan French said.
Paul looked up, and he saw one of the Chinese jets crash against the ground and explode. There wasn’t any sign of the other two.
“Let’s get a move on,” Lieutenant Dempsey said. “We want to reach the station before they can ring it with personnel.”
Paul climbed to his feet just in time to see a Chinese air-to-ground missile.
“Scatter!” a Marine shouted.
There wasn’t time. The missile slammed into the ground and exploded. Paul hefted a sigh. It hadn’t been a big nuke. Heck, it hadn’t been nuclear at all.
“The lieutenant’s dead,” Dan said. “They must have locked onto his radio signal. Looks like you’re in charge of the platoon now, Kavanagh.”
“Right,” Paul said. He gave his suit system the code words, and it upgraded his comm-net. Now he’d have to take the radio risk. “Listen up. We’re going to act like fleas, bounding faster than the Chinese can believe. We have a job to do, and we’d better get there before the whole Chinese Army shows up. If I die, I want to at least take these sons of bitches with me.”
Second Platoon got up. Along with the others, Paul began jumping. One, two, three, he increased his leaps as he built up speed and length of jumps. Once, he barely twisted his foot in time, dodging a big rock. He landed with a jar, but was okay. He’d have slipped on the rock for sure. Soon, he ran fifteen miles per hour, eighteen, twenty, twenty-three, twenty-five— “We’re going too fast,” Dan French said.
“There’s a time for everything,” Paul said. “This minute, it’s Road Runner time.”
He reached thirty-three miles per hour, and so did the others.
“I’m getting a red reading,” Romo said.
“Where?” asked Paul.
“To your left,” Romo said. “Behind those wrecked cars are soldiers.”
“What do they have for weapons?” Paul asked. He saw several muzzle flashes, and a 12.7mm anti-materiel round glanced off his right knee. It knocked the leg out from under Kavanagh. He lost his rhythm, his stride, and the battlesuit went tumbling.
“The First Sergeant is down!” Dan shouted.
At that moment, enemy artillery began to rain. The shells had unerring accuracy, which meant laser guidance—it had to be.
Sergeant Dan French, former SEAL, died as a 120mm round smashed against his suit. Awful dents appeared, but no open breach. It didn’t matter. The Marine inside expired from impact, his brain scrambled.
Other Marines perished to more shells.