"Well, then, we should take a look," Roberts ordered.
"Tommy, give me a hand," Top ordered him. The two of them dug their armored hands into the wall boards and ripped them off.
"Hey, Marines, you off duty or something?" Tommy said to Bates and Howser. They joined in tearing out the wall, flooring, ceiling, wiring, plumbing, anything that was in their way.
After about two minutes of that the wall was gone, but there was an opalescent blue glow in its place. Tommy tapped it with his knuckles, and it felt as solid as armored deckplating from a supercarrier, or harder.
"Here." Bates pulled up his HVAR and started to fire a round into it. The railgun round vaporized into the field and splattered plasma back in his face. Had he not been wearing his visor, he would have been blinded and maybe even killed.
"Corporal, do you have a fucking death wish?" Top shouted at him. "Stand the fuck down!"
"Sorry, Top."
"Can we blow it with HE?" Tommy asked.
"No. We don't carry anything that would take out a field like that. And even the most precise strike from one of the carrier's DEGs could easily destroy not just the field, but everything inside it as well."
The lieutenant turned to the colonel. "Sir, my master's thesis was on the military application of SIFs for the infantry. I studied them considerably. It'd take a half kiloton or more explosive to take it out."
"Did you say a half kiloton, LT?" Tommy grinned.
"Oh shit," Bates said. "Here we go again."
"Well, Gunny?" Roberts laughed. The rest of the squad did as well—except the new second lieutenant. "Looks like you're up."
"Fire in the hole!" Tommy ducked behind the riverbank down into the water with the rest of the AEMs. But they were in suits. He was in his UCUs. All good marines carried a minimal change of clothes in the suit packs. He actually had a layer of light armor and his cover, too. He hated having to actually blow his suit, but at least he wasn't wearing it this time. And there was atmosphere to breathe, so he didn't have to have his suit to survive. But to an AEM, not being in his suit was damned near torture. Besides that, he had to duck under water and hold his breath for as long as he could once his suit's power core went critical. He hated not being in the suit.
They had tried to get an HE bomb from up top, but the QMTs were all to busy moving wounded and fighting equipment around. Besides that, it would have taken too long to rig a small device for the job. Most bombs on the bigger ships were much too big for the job. So Tommy's suit was the answer, or at least his answer.
His AIC triggered the overload in the suit's power core. Three seconds later the quantum vacuum–energy storage unit overloaded and released almost a half kiloton of energy right on top of the SIF wall inside the governor's mansion. The mansion vanished in a giant fireball and mushroom cloud. There was no radiation because the suit overload was just a release of energy. Well, there was a blast of X-rays during the blast, but there was no radioactive fallout to worry about.
Tommy held on behind the bank of the river and Howser lay prone over him to give him more protection. The river was a good kilometer and a half away, but that put them right in the edge of the high-wind zone. The blast wave passed over them, throwing dirt, debris, and water everywhere. Tommy held his hands over his ears and kept his mouth open to prevent having his ears burst. The howling winds subsided, and they rose up over the bank to look at the result.
There was a smoldering crater where the governor's mansion used to be. There was a bump the size of a troop carrier right in the middle of it. The marines rushed it. Tommy humped it the old fashioned way. Willingham, who had a hole in his knee, stayed with Tommy.
About that time, nearly a hundred new FM-12s and Ares-T fighters dropped down from the sky. Drop tubes pounded into the ground, and tanks and other AEMs burst out of them. Two supercarriers tore through the atmosphere at several hundred kilometers per hour to the south and west firing DEGs into the enemy line.
"Did it work, sir?" Tommy and PFC Willingham were still a good forty-five seconds out.
"Damned right it did, Gunny. There's an eleveator shaft here leading down two or three stories. The Madira is about to QMT some experts down, and we're going in to clear it first."
"Yes, sir." Tommy huffed out the rest of the run over the scorched terrain. He came to a stop where the rest of the squad gathered. Then Willingham vanished into thin air. "What the—?"
"That's a good sign that the fleet is getting ahead of the Seppies. Willingham's injury was noncritical. If they are already getting the noncritical wounded up, then we must be finally winning this thing," Second Lieutenant Nelms said. Nelms started speaking quietly into his comm. Tommy decided that he liked the young officer. He was a good and smart U.S. by-God Marine. There was another flash of light, and the sound of sizzling bacon.
"Gunnery Sergeant Suez, you are out of fucking uniform for this type of AO, soldier," Top shouted at him.
"Uh, Top?"
"You better suit up if you're going down with us," Tamara said, pointing behind Bates at an empty AEM suit on the ground. Nelms must've had a spare suit sent via QMT. There was also ammo for the rest of the squad. Damn fine marine.
"Yes, First Sergeant."
Chapter 31
July 1, 2394 AD
Ross 128, Arcadia
Friday, 3:48 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
"Admiral! The enemy ships are disengaging, sir!" the CDC officer radioed up to the bridge.
"Yeah, I see that, CDC. STO? Any ideas?" Wallace watched in his DTM as the enemy ships pulled away from the planet, heading out of atmosphere.
"Sir, looks like their fighters are going with them. Do we pursue?" the air boss asked.
"Where are they going?" the XO asked. "Come back and fight, you chickenshits!" He waved a fist in the air as he growled.
"I got it, sir," the STO finally replied. "They are clearing the atmosphere and starting to jaunt. The first one is already popping out at the QMT jump sphere zone."
"They're leaving?" the COB asked. "Good damned riddance if you ask me. It'll give the CHENG and the firecrews time to get us back in shape, sir."
"Why are they leaving?" the ground boss asked. "Do they know something we don't?"
"Maybe they do. We don't care for now," RADM Wallace Jefferson responded. "Our orders were to take this system, and it looks like all that is left to do in achieving that goal is the mop up. So, let's mop up."
"Damn right, sir," the XO agreed in as much an enthusiastic manner as the old Marine mecha jock ever spoke.
"XO, get us a courier back to find out what is going on. Hopefully, soon we'll be able to control that facility and won't need the damned couriers."
"Aye, sir." General Chekov turned and in his gruff Marine voice shouted for the quartermaster of the watch.
"CO! The enemy ships just jumped. As far as I can tell, they are out of the system," the STO announced.
"Good . . . I think." Wallace studied the battlescape in his mindview for a few seconds, scrolled through the casualty list, glanced at the piling-up damage reports, and lingered on the intel. There had yet to be any sign of the Arcadian government officials. Well, he didn't expect they would find them on this trip anyway. He'd wait to see what the marines dug up from inside the bunker under where the governor's mansion used to be. He laughed to himself about that damned Ramy Roberts and his Robots. Then he focused in on how the ground campaign was moving along.