“Don’t know, sir,” the EWO admitted. “We don’t have a hard fix on how they talk, so we can’t exactly translate it.”
“Updating,” Shane said to Cady. He’d meant for it to be a quiet and personal conversation with his NCO. But it hit one of those dead silences that sometimes fall over a group and it rebounded around the room.
“Say again?” the general said, looking around. “Who said that?”
“Me, sir,” Shane replied, cursing himself. He wasn’t supposed to be looking at signal data at all. The glare that he got from Colonel Summers, the commander of the 82nd brigade, said it all. But he’d already stepped on his hooter; might as well jam it into the ground. “The signals picked up by about five percent when they got close to the lasers. They stayed that way until just a moment ago, then they really picked up. They got some information processed, probably what to do about lasers if they hit them again, and passed it around. Signal level is now back to nearly normal.”
“Good possibility,” the general said, spinning around to look over at the major. “Extrapolate.”
Damn, damn, damn. Surprise is in the mind of the commander, even the surprise of trying to answer a question. What was the update?
“Somewhere they have a higher level battle processor, sir,” Shane replied, after keying the controls so that he was talking directly to the general. He noticed right away that the general had keyed it for general distribution so he might as well have just yelled. “It might be distributed in the probes or it might be one of those big cities over in Europe. That processor told them that they had to do something about the lasers. So far we’ve only seen them tear stuff apart. There’s no reason that they wouldn’t have a higher level ability than we’ve seen. In Greenland we saw them begin destroying carbon to escape traps. Perhaps they’ll use a longer range weapon we haven’t seen before.” He paused for a moment as his mind raced.
“They’ll want to keep most of their systems as extractors. To change will take time. I would look for a group that falls away from the main body to modify itself and then goes for the first laser that fires.”
“Good possibility,” Riggs said, spinning back around. “Hammond,” he continued, looking over at the Information and Intelligence section, “keep an eye on that.”
“Roger,” the J-2 replied. “We won’t be able to code for it. We’ll have to use eyeballs.”
“Do it,” the general replied.
“Probes have entered Huntsville city limits,” the J-3 reporter said. “Approaching Phase Line Deadite.”
Shane smiled at that. When he’d seen the op-plan for the engagement, he laughed his butt off and wondered which staff weenie was an Army of Darkness fan and how they had gotten the codes past the general. A little digging turned up that it was General Riggs who was an Army of Darkness fan.
“Initiate Op-plan Ash when ten percent of the probes have crossed Phase Line Deadite,” Riggs said. “And may God be with the just.”
“Hmmm…” Richard mused, watching the alien probe slow down and then speed up as he tapped the keys of the laptop. “That seems… to have done it.”
“Dat’s nice,” Helena said. “But don’t you want it runnin’ full speed?”
“Absolutely,” Richard replied. “But if I can control one bot I can control many. Or, rather, the military can. Much as I hate giving my secrets to the military-industrial complex, this is one area where they are a utility. And this Dr. Reynolds who is a deputy secretary of defense seems to be an honorable man.”
“Dat’s da guy in Huntsville, right?” Helena said, raising an eyebrow.
“The same,” Richard replied, shutting down the laptop. “I finally determined that he was working with Dr. Alice Pike, which explains many things. She was a bright girl, Alice.”
“Well, if you wanna tell Huntsville somet’ing, you better hurry,” Helena said. “Dey’re under attack.”
“Good Lord,” Richard said, picking up the laptop and hurrying towards the laboratory. “You could have told me!”
“I jus’ did,” Helena pointed out.
“Ten percent and climbing past Phase Line Deadite,” the J-3 tac NCO said.
“Fire rockets,” General Riggs responded.
“Firing.”
Jones slapped his hand over his ears as one thousand J-type rockets launched with near simultaneity.
“Jeeze that was loud!” he yelled over the ringing in his ears. “They could have warned us!”
“Go baby go,” Mahoney said, ignoring his bunker mate.
“I wonder how they’ll…” Jones said and then paused. “Aw… shit.”
“Oh, yeah, and updating their defenses against the rockets,” Shane added to himself, grimacing.
The mass of probes was rapidly spreading across Huntsville and on the vids it was easy to see the buildings crumbling as they passed. The wide-angle vid had a great shot of the rockets flying towards their mass, currently passing over and spreading out along South Memorial Parkway, or “Phase Line Deadite.” It also had a great view of the odd… tubes that extended from the mass, spreading out around the incoming rockets. The tubes were about ten meters across, probes making up the wall of the tubes, and extended along the ballistic flight path of the rockets so that the rockets had to fly down the center. As he watched, the rockets also began to shred and then disappear, without so much as the slightest explosion.
“Major Gries,” the general said quietly over his headset. “Comments?”
“We can now anticipate some reaction against the lasers, sir,” Shane replied tightly. “They didn’t hit the mines on this attack, so those might have an immediate effect. And they haven’t run into IBot yet.”
“Concur,” General Riggs said. “On the eventuality that they will attempt to close with the lasers, I want you to pull your platoon and redeploy them around the East Weeden laser site. Make sure they carry breath-masks.”
“Yes, sir,” Shane said, starting to stand up.
“Turn over control to your sergeant major,” Riggs interjected quickly. “I want you here.”
“Yes, sir,” Shane said with a grimace.
“On it,” Cady added, keying his mike. “Platoon, unass your positions. Move to the armory. Draw nonmetallic weaponry and masks. You got two minutes. Haul!” He reached under the console and pulled out his war-stick. “Time to go swat some bugs.”
Fortunately there were elevators to the summit position where the lasers were mounted. Just as fortunately, the probes were taking their time stripping Huntsville of all its useable metal. But the troops were still panting by the time they got to the summit.
“Top, now that we’re here, what are we doing here?” Mahoney asked as the platoon spread out from the flush-mounted stairwell by the laser bunker. The same guys who had designed the whole mountain complex had designed the laser position and, in keeping with the NASA theme, Mahoney recognized the design from a trip to Kennedy Space Center. It was the same sort of massive structure as the ones used for observers of the Apollo launches. The two-story structure consisted mostly of very large concrete-filled sandbags. More and stronger seemed to be the idea. The tiny projector was mostly hidden on the very top, a glittering ball of crystal catching the last rays of the sun.