There were actually three peaks to the ridge that ran down the center of the arsenaclass="underline" Weeden Mountain, Madkin Mountain and Ward Mountain. None of them technically met the definition of a mountain, since none of them rose to more than six hundred feet over the surrounding terrain and barely 1200 feet above sea level. On the north was Ward, the lowest at barely 900 feet, then Weeden then Madkin, both at 1200 feet. Ward had one battery of one thousand “mine” rockets and a laser projector. Ditto Madkin. The rockets on Ward Mountain faced north, the rockets on Madkin faced south. On Weeden, centermost, there were two batteries, east and west, and seven projectors. These three peaks, overlooking NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the Arsenal and Huntsville itself, held the hopes and dreams of the survival of the human race.
Most of the critical equipment for Asymmetric Soldier had been moved into newly dug tunnels in Weeden Mountain. But the major facilities, the buildings and shops scattered across the Arsenal, were nearly impossible to replace. Holding the probes at the line of the Arsenal border was, therefore, a high priority.
The main defense command center was located in Weeden as well, in a heavily reinforced bunker buried in the heart of the mountain. Since the day when General Riggs had pointed out that “we’re not part of FORCECOM,” things had changed. Besides commanding the Arsenal he now had under his direct control a brigade of light infantry from the 82nd Airborne Division. And, of course, Shane Gries’s “special security detail.” The brigade was scattered around the mountain, holding critical positions in the hopes that they could stop the probes if they broke through the main defense line. But the main doors to the command center were held by the short platoon under Major Gries.
Which was why Jones and Mahoney were watching the fun from a bunker just to the north of the main entrance.
“Security Team,” Gries said over the speaker behind them. “Listen up. Probes have hit the Monte Sano Mountain defenses. Expect to have them in sight over the mountain in about five minutes. Out.”
“It’s gonna be dark soon,” Jones growsed. “How the hell are we suppose to shoot these things in the dark?”
“All life is the darkness of the cave through which we, as searchers, must stumble using only the reflected reality of truth as, as such, a figure shown upon the wall,” Mahoney intoned.
“You’ve been reading again, haven’t you?” Jones said, sighing. “What is it this time?”
“Plato,” Mahoney admitted. “But he’s got a point. What is Truth? Is it, in fact, truth that we will see the enemy in a bare five minutes? Are they even reality?”
“The reality is that you’re going to have a carbon ceramic knife cut your throat if you don’t quit reading philosophy,” Jones snapped. “The reality is that if these things take out the mountain we’re gonna be walking to the next redoubt. So pay attention to your sector.”
“Don’t I always?” Mahoney said. “And, in fact, it turns out that the captain’s estimate was illusion.”
“Huh?” Jones said, leaning towards the firing slit to get a glimpse in the direction Mahoney faced. Mahoney’s position faced northeast whereas his faced due east. And there, to the northeast, was a glittering wall of metal shining above the distant mountain in the light of the dying sun, a red cloud of an approaching storm as pregnant with menace as any hurricane wall. “Damn.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Mahoney said, cocking his M-240R. The R version of the machine gun was a special modification of the local machine shops. A water-filled shroud surrounded the barrel for the purpose of cooling. The fire rate of most modern machine guns was limited by the fact that when fired at high rates the barrel and breech would overheat. This caused various unpleasant effects from jamming to “cookoff” of the ammunition as it touched the super-hot breech to barrel warping, which could cause an explosion. Modern machine guns were, by and large, designed to be mobile and thus were “air-cooled.” But since the defense of the mountain had become a matter of bunkers and holding position, the machine guns had been retrofitted with the water-cooling shrouds. They could, effectively, be fired indefinitely without the need to use carefully controlled bursts and constant barrel replacements.
Thus the machine gun itself was set up on a box of ammunition the size of a large motorcycle. Jones figured if he ended up firing the whole box he should be able to take the rest of the day off. He watched the swarming horde for a moment as it crossed the mountain and dropped onto the city below. At the very top there was a plume of strange smoke, as if the mountain had suddenly erupted. That, too, was caught in the red light of the sun, making it appear to be lava spewing into the air.
“I think it’s time that the Greyhound started playing our song,” Mahoney muttered.
“Nah, it’s not that bad,” Jones replied. “Yet.”
“If that’s not a tempest at the gates I don’t know what is.”
“I got it,” Jones added after a moment. “I got it.”
“Got what, the clap?” Mahoney asked. He might be introspective when the enemy was out of sight, but when the probes were in view he was all business.
“What you were saying before,” Jones replied, excitedly. “We’re like, in a cave, right? Sort of. A bunker anyway. And the light’s shining on the probes, reflecting off of them. That was what you were talking about, right?”
Mahoney sighed. “I am surrounded by Philistines.”
“Now that I just don’t get,” Jones said, frowning. “I mean, we’re not even surrounded, yet, and those are like… alien probes. Is whatever you just said something like that?”
“Interesting,” Shane mused, tapping his mouse to bring up a readout.
“What?” Cady asked, leaning over from his own position.
Shane was much more used to leading from the front than from deep in the heart of a mountain. But any modern infantry officer was more than well versed on using computer networks for what the military termed “C3I,” communications, control, command and intelligence.
Technically Shane should have been using the C3I system in the command post to maintain control over the troops in his area. That area was defined as the distance of the weapons that he had at his command. Since all long-range weapons were at General Riggs’s command, that area wasn’t much. But he had Sergeant Major Cady to handle that and when all was said and done he had less than a platoon to manage. It didn’t take up a lot of his time. So he’d “expanded” the area, both informationally and terrain-wise, that he was viewing. In other words, he wasn’t just looking at the remaining sensors, visual and lidar, that were telling the general what the probes were doing, he was monitoring the whole spectrum.
“General,” the electronic warfare officer said, “probe transmissions have just picked up by fifteen percent. Pretty much across the board.”
“That,” Shane said, quietly, in response to Cady. “They’re generating like mad.”
“What does that mean?” the general asked, spinning in his chair to look over at the EWO.
The command center had been designed by a local firm. It turned out to be the firm that had also designed every NASA control center since the Mercury capsules. So there was a very similar feel. The general’s position was two thirds of the way towards the back at a terminal with various other controlling officers and enlisted men scattered around. Shane, as one of the lowest priority positions, was towards the back and rear. On the other hand, it gave him a great view of the forward information screens and everyone else’s positions.