"Roger, Two-Seven. Tango Leader copies. Good work, Ken."
Dickle watched the pavement rushing past beneath her. It was marvelous how good night-vision devices had become, she thought almost absently, then nodded sharply as the lights of Carmen, North Carolina, appeared before her.
She swung to port, settling on her new heading, and Sugarloaf Mountain loomed against the starry heavens like a wall.
The first LAW exploded out of the darkness like a meteor. The fire-trailing rocket just missed the lead LAV, and the Marine gunner swung his turret, raking the trees with his co-ax machine gun. The armored vehicle's rear hatch crashed open, and a rifle squad deployed towards the source of the LAW just as a second rocket slammed squarely into its turret.
The LAW warhead performed exactly as designed, and PFC Jordan Van Hoy of Trenton, New Jersey, became the first Marine fatality of the Battle of Sugarloaf Mountain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"Here we go, Admiral!" Dickle shouted, and the Osprey slowed magically, rotating its engines and sliding into a hover six feet above the slope. The LZ was flatter than Dickle had dared hope from the contours, but a hurricane of debris blasted up in the wash of her rotors.
Aston was the first man out the forward hatch, with Ludmilla on his heels. Three squads of First Platoon erupted right behind them, then dashed ahead, fanning out to secure the LZ-and put themselves between any hostiles and Aston and "Captain Ross."
Three more Ospreys had come in with Dickle, and their men spread apart, filtering into the trees and taking defensive positions. The rotor noise faded as the aircraft lifted to clear the LZ for the next quartet, and Aston looked at Ludmilla as they both heard the rattle and crash of fire ... and the coughing roar of exploding ammunition and fuel.
The first Piranha was a blazing wreck, glaring in the darkness, but two squads of Marines filtered through the trees towards its killers. A second LAV edged around the flaming hulk, and a LAW glanced off its side armor and exploded harmlessly. Behind it, vehicle-mounted M2s flayed the night with fifty-caliber fire, covering the advancing infantry, and the heavier, coughing Mk-19 "machine guns" hurled over three hundred forty-millimeter grenades per minute. The diversion had been told to make noise, and it was doing just that.
Taggart cringed as the crump of mortars joined the distant din. What the hell was coming at them? And where was the Troll?! He hesitated, caught between the clamor of battle and the need for direction. His mind hammered at the Troll, but his master was not attending, and Taggart dithered a moment longer, then shouted for his second in command to take charge while he raced up the steep track to the buried fighter.
The last Osprey lifted away, and the rest of Company T was ready to move. The heaped Dragon reloads had been distributed, the scouts were out, and Major Abernathy waved his men into motion.
Aston and Ludmilla moved with strict noise discipline at the center of a protective wedge. It galled the admiral a bit, but he was too much of a professional to object, and Ludmilla hardly noticed. She had activated her passive sensor systems, and she was tasting the night.
Taggart's outposts weren't as well-concealed as he'd thought, nor as well-protected. Three were on forward slopes, and the flash and flight of their LAWs had pinpointed them. Nor had the sentries deployed infantry to protect themselves or prepared fall-back positions.
The Marines' support teams hit them with a short, savage tornado of mortar fire, and then the infantry swept over them in a savagery of grenades and automatic fire. No one offered to surrender; no one would have let them if they had.
Counting the crew of the first LAV, Slugger Force took nine casualties, three fatal, on the way through ... and left thirty-five bodies in its wake.
Taggart stood in the fighter, breathing hard. The sound of battle was silenced here, but it haunted him still, and he drove his mind at the Troll without response, more frantic every second, until desperation made him bold. He pressed the button he'd been ordered to touch only in gravest emergency.
The Troll floated in sensual glory, tingling with the shock and crash of destruction. Asheville flamed against the heavens, streets littered with bodies and wreckage. Even the stubborn, bitter defiance of the city's defenders was a kind of perfection. It whetted the burning edge of his impatient fury, and it would make the ultimate ruin of their hopes even sweeter.
He'd been surprised when the new defenders suddenly appeared, and he chided himself for forgetting their transport aircraft. He hadn't expected them to react so quickly, and the polished efficiency with which they sliced through his rabble dismayed him.
But only for a moment. There was no room in his ecstasy for anything else. Even if these newcomers drove his creatures back, he could always whip them on afresh elsewhere. It was-
An alarm jangled deep in his brain, shattering his rapt contemplation, and a snarl of fury filled him as he roused from his dreams of death. How dared it? How dared it disturb him now?!
He gathered himself to lash out, and Taggart moaned in terror, falling to the floor and covering its head. But the blow did not fall. Before he could strike, the Troll felt its urgency-and then the reason for it.
A tsunami of ferocity washed over him. He was under attack! He was under attack! These crawling, puling primitives dared to attack him!
Rage shook aside the webs of his dreams, but not the blood-taste of their fury.
"Romeo One, this is Screwball. Come in, Romeo." Aston paused, crouched and panting just below the crest of the ridge. Moonlight gleamed on treetops below him, and he could see the crash and sparkle of combat to the west. There were flames, too. At least two vehicles burning-maybe three. They had to be his, he thought coldly, because they were behind the advancing muzzle flashes and explosions.
"Romeo One, this is Screwball. Come in," he repeated into his boom mike. There was a moment more of silence, then a voice replied.
"Screwball, Romeo One. Proceed."
"Romeo One, Screwball is on the field. I say again, Screwball is on the field. Set up the bleachers."
"Screwball, Romeo One copies. Going to burner."
Forty miles to the northeast, forty-eight Navy aircraft rocketed upward and streaked towards Sugarloaf Mountain.
The fifty men Taggart had sent rushing to reinforce the sentries were half a kilometer short of their positions when Slugger Force rolled over them.
Contributions were generous when the Troll "solicited," and ordnance depots were manned by humans, many of whom could be touched and recruited or manipulated. As a result, the Apocalypse Brigade had excellent equipment, but its men had no idea what was coming towards them, and they were far less experienced than Slugger Force with their night-vision gear. Nor were their scouts far enough out.
The Marines' quickly set ambush ran over them like a threshing machine; seven lived long enough to run.
Aston waved to Abernathy, and the bulk of Company T started down the mountain. Second Platoon and its attached Dragons and heavy weapons were already set up, with a better field of fire than he'd dared expect. Trees were a problem immediately to their front, but the critical fire zones were wide open.
"Dick," it was Ludmilla, speaking in his ear, "I'm picking up scan patterns. He can see us now."
"Slider, Screwball," Aston said quickly. "Grendel's eyes are open."
"Screwball, Slider," Abernathy responded instantly. "Affirm. People, watch yourselves. We may lose touch. Stick to the plan and-"
A wash of static drowned the major's voice, and Aston cursed. They'd known it could happen, especially since the Troll's people probably used his communications equipment and didn't have to worry about jamming at all. He only hoped the air cover remembered that and didn't panic.