With a final surge the SheVa pulled up out of its entrapment and, to the sound of tortured and stressed metal from the abused tanks, it pulled out of the gully and up onto reasonably solid ground.
“Now as long as we don’t have to dig ourselves out again,” Mitchell said grumpily, “or run into any more of those flying tanks, everything should be fine.”
“Well, I don’t think I have to worry about getting back in that tank again,” Chan said; the rear deck had crumpled on hers and the power pack was in pieces on the ground. “I guess we’re walking from here on out.”
“Only if you want to,” Mitchell said. “Your turrets are on our top deck; you can ride in those.”
“That’s an… interesting idea,” Chang said.
“You might have a little vertigo and motion sickness problem,” he admitted. “It’s high. And you can tag along as well, Major,” Mitchell continued, turning to Ryan. “Although I guarantee I can take a bridge down faster than you.”
“Sure,” Ryan said. “But can you do it from out of sight of the Posleen?”
CHAPTER 36
Dillsboro, NC, United States, Sol III
1514 EDT Sunday September 27, 2009 ad
Major Ryan stepped off the SheVa as it began the complicated process of crossing the Tuckasegee River without killing anyone.
They had run into the rear ranks of stragglers near Dills Gap and many of them had latched on to the SheVa. The gun had four “loading points” and each of them was now covered with soldiers.
The good news was that they seemed to have gotten there ahead of the Posleen and, for a wonder, there was a gap between the rear of the stragglers and their pursuers. The word was that some snipers were slowing the Posleen advance, but they were working from the ridges and wouldn’t be crossing at Dillsboro. That meant he probably wouldn’t have to blow the bridge with people on it.
About a platoon of soldiers with a captain leading them was headed for the cautiously maneuvering SheVa and Ryan touched the dismount communicator Major Mitchell had loaned him.
“I think we’ve got a welcoming committee, Mitchell.”
“I see them on the external,” the SheVa commander replied. “We’ll hold up until we find out what they want.”
“Captain,” Ryan said. “Major William Ryan, Corps of Engineers. And you are?”
“Captain Paul Anderson,” the officer replied. “I’m in charge of the crossing, sir, and I’m afraid the personnel riding on the SheVa will have to dismount and be processed.”
He had the crossed flags of a Signal Officer which, strangely enough, made him a line officer. In a situation such as this he could give orders to even a colonel of, say, the medical corps. However, engineers were line officers as well.
“I’ll give you the guys hanging on the outside,” the major said with a faint, cold smile. “But I’m taking my guys over to make sure the bridge is properly prepared to blow.”
“Ah, that would be good, sir,” the captain said with a relieved smile. “I… didn’t mean to come on so strong, but I’ve been holding down this crossing for the last eighteen hours and trying to keep the groups crossing organized; it hasn’t been fun.”
“Been there, done that,” the major smiled back. “How, exactly, were you going to classify the SheVa?”
“I’m going to treat it like the proverbial eight hundred pound gorilla, sir,” the captain said. “Sergeant Rice,” he continued, gesturing at the staff sergeant who was with him. “Get the rest of them across the bridge and sorted out.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, waving the platoon after him.
“We’ve got ammo trucks parked north of town,” the captain said. “Widely dispersed. We also had two groups of SheVa reload trucks, accompanied by some MetalStorm reloads, come in. I sent them up the road to Sylva; there just wasn’t anywhere around here to put them.”
“Those would be Major Mitchell and Captain Chan’s,” Ryan said, touching his communicator. “Mitch, good news. The reload group is just up the road, over.”
“Good,” the SheVa commander replied. “With only eight shots, you get nervous when you’re down to four. Now, how do we get there without killing anyone? There’s only about three routes and it looks like there are people on all of them.”
“How does the SheVa get there?” Ryan asked.
“That’s going to be tough, sir,” Anderson admitted. “We’re reconstituting units on both flanks of the town. The probably means running it straight through. We’ve mostly cleared it because it’s too hard keeping units in control in there.”
“There won’t be a town if we do that,” Ryan pointed out. “Or any roads.”
“We’re running most of the traffic through on the bypass 23,” the captain said, pulling out a map-board. “If he crosses the Tuckasegee east of 23, then turn… well on the town, he can head up 107. We’re running tanks down that anyway, to keep from tearing up the main road; it’s already trashed. His reload group is just to the south of Sylva, off of 107.”
“Gotcha,” Ryan said, conveying the message to Mitchell. “And could you have my boys unload at the same time?”
“Roger,” Mitchell replied. “Could I keep Kittekut, though?”
“I suppose,” Ryan replied, nonplussed.
“I’ve installed her in the commander’s chair. Which means I’ve finally got a commo person.”
“Feel free,” the major said. “I’m going to go check out the bridge.”
“Are you going to be reboarding, Major?” Mitchell asked.
“I doubt it,” the engineer replied. “I’ve got other things to do. I might call you back to knock down a bridge depending on how much demo I have.”
“Well, we’ll be seeing you,” Mitchell said as the SheVa whined back to life. “Keep the dismount commo; I somehow think we’ll be seeing you again.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks, you too.”
Ryan turned back to the captain and shook his head as the SheVa slowly trundled off to the east. “We met up in the mountains; they took that thing over one of the smaller gaps.”
“That?” the captain asked waving them towards the bridge. “How?”
“Not very well on the way down,” Ryan replied with a smile. “They got it stuck as shit. Of course, that was while they were taking out two landers at point blank range. It’s a long story.”
“I can believe it. How did they get out?”
“You see those things all the way up top?” Ryan grinned.
“Yeah, they looked like MetalStorm turrets, but I never heard of those on a SheVa.”
“They’re not attached; they’re just chained down,” Ryan said with another, wider, grin. “We got it unstuck by driving it over the chassis.”
“Holy shit,” Anderson said in turn. “That was one expensive goddamn fix! I assume the chassis didn’t survive.”
“Nope, busted ’em bigger than shit,” Ryan replied, stopping and looking off the bridge at the water below. He was suddenly struck by an intense sense of déjà vu, but he couldn’t place where it was from.
“So how did you get stuck with this shit detail?” Ryan said with a smile, gesturing at the bridge as they reached the far side. “Not to be nasty. But playing rearguard on a bridge is right up there with antimatter injector cleaner.”
“Oh, it’s a shit detail, I agree,” the captain said, shaking his head. “The answer is General Keeton.”