“Eastern Commander?” the major asked. “How in the hell did that happen?”
“I was laying in cable when the word came that the Posleen had taken the Gap,” the captain replied. “I took a look at the map and figured out where the chokepoint would be for most of the corps. I headed over here to try to… I dunno, help out or something since the headquarters I was laying the wire to was gone. But there wasn’t anybody in charge and there were already problems getting the groups straightened out. So I grabbed the more stable looking units and started to get organized. Then, about the time I had to order around a major, I realized I didn’t have authority for any of it. The cable was laid back to Eastern. I called up there and got ahold of a friend of mine in Operations. He apparently busted in on the meeting when they were trying to figure out what to do and who to send. The next thing I know I’m talking to General Keeton and he’s telling me to do whatever I have to do; I’ve got full authority.”
“Go to your head?” Ryan asked.
“More like hit me with a douse of cold water,” the captain said. He gestured to one side where a group of privates and sergeants were clustered around a mass of tactical radios. “I suddenly realized I was Horatius. And I had to coordinate about a division’s worth of personnel, materials and vehicles.”
“Hah!” Ryan laughed. “That was me in Occoquan, except the coordination part. Don’t let that go to your head, either. It won’t be the last time, hopefully.”
He stopped and looked around. The town was run-down — it was apparent that the economic downturn of the war had hit it hard — but it still was fairly antique looking and, the term that came to mind was “quaint.” Most of the houses seemed to date to the early twentieth century or the late nineteenth. Many of them needed a coat of paint, but obviously before the war the place had been a rather prosperous tourist center. That was when it hit him.
“Damn,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “It looks just like Occoquan.”
And it did. The town was very similar to the site of his first battle. It was clustered around the river on a major highway and had the exact same look. He would bet a month’s pay that before the war the town had been packed with antique shops and little cafes.
Now though, it looked as if it had been mostly abandoned before the arrival of the retreating corps. Hopefully it would get fully cleared out before the SheVa drove over it.
“About Bun-Bun,” Ryan commented to the captain.
“I’ve got a platoon making sure the town is cleared,” Anderson replied. “And they’ll pass on to Sylva and do the same.”
“You know who Bun-Bun is?” the major said with a quizzical smile.
“Well, Bun-Bun is a homicidal rabbit with a switch-blade and a bad attitude,” the captain replied with a grin. “But I assumed you meant the SheVa with the great big Bun-Bun painted on it.”
“You’re a fan,” Ryan said. It was not a question.
“Oh, a huge one,” the signal officer replied with a grin. “But the first guy to call in the sighting was confused as shit.”
“Sighting?” the engineer asked. He looked up at the precipitous hills around the valley. “Of course you’ve got scouts out.”
“There’s a local militia,” the captain replied. “They were actually at the bridge before I was. I sent them out to spot for us; by now they’re all over the hills on four-wheelers.”
“So you’d already figured on clearing the town,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “You’re on the ball.”
“Why thank you,” the captain said with a grin. “I may look like Torg, but I’m Zoe inside.”
“So, what about the bridge, Zoe?”
“I’d appreciate you handling it, sir,” the captain said. “I turned it over to a sergeant who had experience working with demo, but he admitted he’d never rigged something like this to blow. And Eastern is pretty adamant that they want it down. In the meantime, I’ve really got to get back to what I was doing.”
“I’ve got it, Captain, good luck.”
Ryan made sure that what he had mentally termed his “eight pack” — he hadn’t even figured out what most of their names were — had dismounted from the SheVa. The group had moved over by the bridge guards and he was pretty sure would soon be racked out; sleeping on the metal floor of a pitching SheVa was not particularly easy. Fairly certain that they were okay and he knew where they would be if he needed them, he started really inspecting the explosives laced on the bridge.
The bridge was a heavily constructed concrete and steel structure, rising on four pilings about a hundred feet off the river. The river was both deep and swift so it would be impassable to the Posleen once the bridge was down. And bridging it would be difficult for the Indowy; this obstacle would severely hamper the movement of the force. That presumed that the bridge would actually come down.
He wandered down a side road and under the bridge, looking up at the explosives laid on the pilings. After a moment he shook his head. He could see what the captain had attempted, the explosives were laid — as you often saw in movies — at the juncture of the bridge and the pilings. However, they were insufficient in quantity to separate the bridge at that point. The junctures were actually fairly strong and flexible; breaking a bridge at them was tough.
The pilings themselves, however, were round concrete “x”s, about four feet in cross section. If they had taken the explosives they had emplaced up above and simply wrapped the pilings in them, the bridge would come down for a treat. Relaying the explosives was going to take a while. Time they might not have.
But, if worse came to worse, they could always have Bun-Bun knock it down.
“Okay, Schmoo,” Major Mitchell called. “The nice people who are running the bridge have cleared out the town. I want you to cross the river to the east of the bridge then turn into the town and turn again up 107. Our reload team is out there someplace.”
“Got it, sir,” the private replied. “Say goodbye to Dillsboro.”
The driver gunned the SheVa, carefully lowering the front into the river. The stream, which at that point was about six feet deep with a ten-knot current, would have been impassable to most tanks. But the SheVa didn’t even notice; its rearmost treads had barely had time to enter the water before the front treads were climbing out on the far side.
There was a steep ridge on the far side. Before the attack it would have looked like a real obstacle, but after crossing Betty Gap it wasn’t even worth commenting on; Bun-Bun just went straight up, crushing a few houses, and down the other side. It was fortunate in one way that the famous “Home Defense Scorched Earth” policy had only held for the coastal plains; otherwise each of the houses would have been a potential anti-tank mine.
“Sir,” said Kitteket. “I’ve got a group that says they are our escorts. They have Dillsboro completely clear, but they’re having some trouble getting everyone out of Sylva.”
CHAPTER 37
Dillsboro, NC, United States, Sol III
1623 EDT Sunday September 27, 2009 ad
Ryan set the demolition team, augmented by his own people, to work rearranging the demolitions, then walked back over to Captain Anderson’s command post. When he arrived there he could tell something had gone wrong; the captain had a set look on his face and the collection of RTOs was almost silent instead of communicating and chattering as they had been when he came by the first time.
“What?” Ryan asked.
“The Posleen airmobiled again,” Anderson answered, looking off into the distance in thought. “A C-Dec force just took Balsam Gap. They landed on the Blue Ridge Parkway and assaulted the force that was holding it. They’re, the force, it’s gone.”