CHAPTER 34
Betty Gap, NC, United States, Sol III
0747 EDT Sunday September 27, 2009 ad
"Oh, shit," Reeves said calmly and threw the giant tank into reverse as a shudder rumbled through the ground. Then he slammed the accelerator to the stops as it started to slide.
The first part of the descent had been uneventful; the SheVa had started down the steepest part of the slope, towards the upper end, and handled it quite well. But just at the top of Betty Branch, where it first issued forth from a shallow spring, Reeves had had to traverse the tank slightly to negotiate the bluff above the spring and the slope had given way.
Now the SheVa had started to ski down the mountain and there didn't seem to be a thing to stop it.
"Oh, I don't like this," Pruitt whined. "I don't like this at all."
"Reeves . . ." Major Mitchell said, but he knew there was nothing the driver could do to stop the slide that wasn't already being done; the treads were tearing up the bare rock of the hill and not getting any traction at all.
"SheVa Nine!" Captain Chang called. "Warning! Posleen landers, three o'clock!"
"Shit, shit, shiiit . . ." Pruitt said slamming sideways as the SheVa hit a solid chunk of rock and bounced. "Our center of gravity is going to shift if I rotate the turret!"
"If we haven't fallen over by now, we're not going to!" Indy said.
"Go for it," Major Mitchell called, starting the rotation.
The crew compartment was in the base of the turret, so the ride just got stranger as the tank went one way, jouncing up and down on the rough slope, and they turned another.
"Oh, shit," Reeves said in a muffled tone. "I'm gonna ralf!"
"What happens when I fire this thing?!" Pruitt yelled, locking in a round.
"I don't know," Indy said tightly. "We're on a forty degree slope, sliding downward in max reverse, firing sideways at about forty miles per hour. We're not designed to do any of those atall!"
"Shit," Mitchell muttered.
"I'm losing it here, sir!" Reeves called. "We're headed for a bluff!"
"TARGET! Lamprey, two thousand meters!" Pruitt sang out.
"Danger close!" Mitchell called, indicating that the explosion of the gun's own penetrator could potentially damage it; the minimum recommended distance for a SheVa to engage was over three thousand meters. "Fire!"
* * *
"Take the pass, he says," Gamasal complained. "Where is the honor in that? Where is the loot?"
"We get a higher cut," Lesenal replied. The two were nest mates, an unusual occurrence in Posleen society, and instead of taking individual oolts had chosen to colead a single company. It was perhaps this oddity that had led them to attach themselves to Tulo'stenaloor; compared to a Posleen trying to make himself a general, coleaders of an oolt was nothing. "A cut specifically of everyone who uses the pass."
"But once they swing around and open up the other passes, everyone will use those," Gamasal grumped and adjusted the oolt'pos to clear the ridge as low as possible. "I still say we could take that other gap, the one the humans call 'Newfound.' "
"Ah, but the way there is too easy to close," the coleader pointed out. "In those hills the humans and their snipers can pick off the Kessentai like so many abat. The way to Balsam is clearer. And with us in place, the humans will be scrambling to find a way to escape. Follow the plan. And watch out for that gun. We were lucky yesterday, I don't want our luck to run out."
"Oh, fuscirto uut," Gamasal replied. "You mean that gun?"
* * *
The round from the SheVa gun hit the Lamprey high and silver fire jutted from every opening. The skyscraper-sized ship dropped out of sight immediately, but there was another right behind it.
The second Lamprey was, however, the least of SheVa Nine's problems.
"Aaaaah!" Pruitt screamed as the overstressed vehicle slid sideways on the slope, bounding off a bluff and hitting at an angle with a sound like a thousand junkyards being dropped from the sky.
Major Mitchell opened his eyes to red emergency lights and swore. "Indy!"
"I'm here, sir," the warrant officer said. "We just blew every breaker in this thing; if this was a Star Trek episode, Pruitt would be flying across the compartment. But we didn't lose the tracks!"
"I got nothin', sir!" Pruitt called. "And we had another Lamprey up!"
"I saw," Mitchell said. "Are we functional? What's our status, Indy?"
"I'm working on it, sir," she said. After punching a few buttons lights started coming back on. "So far, everything is working. But if you want me to certify the gun as functional, I can't, sir. We just took a hell of a beating; we're almost sure to have stress damage on the supports."
"I'm up!" Pruitt said. "Where's the Lamprey?"
"I'm not!" Reeves said, gunning the SheVa as his treads spun in place. "I think we're stuck!"
* * *
Gamasal slammed the Lamprey down through the trees and opened the assault door. "Let's go!"
"Why are we doing this?" Lesenal asked. "Our mission is to take the pass!"
"The gun is in the way!" his coleader said. "We'll cross this ridge and destroy the gun. Then continue on our mission. Oh, and since we're here and have taken out the defenders . . ."
" . . . The net will designate it as our fief," Lesenal said. "Clever. You realize, of course, that we could just drop below the level of the ridge and fly around. And so will Orostan."
"We are but simple oolt-Kessentai," Gamasal replied with a flap of his crest. "How could we have thought of that?"
* * *
"No, no, NO!" Orostan swore. "Go around!"
"And miss a chance to kill it on the ground?" Cholosta'an said. "Not to mention getting that as a fief for taking out the defenders? No chance."
"Besonora!"
"Yes, Oolt'ondai?" The Kessentai had been with him from before he joined Tulo'stenaloor and Orostan preferred to have him available. But he was running out of trustworthy Kessentai that could handle ships. "Take an oolt'poslenal. Gather the best of the local forces. Take Balsam Gap. Hold it until I get there. Do not fail, do not get distracted and do not get high ; there is a heavy defense center nearby."
"Yes, Oolt'ondai," the Kessentai replied. "I go."
"All other ships," the oolt'ondai called over his communicator. "Get that GUN!"
* * *
"Major Mitchell?" Chan called. "What's your status?"
"Oh, we're stuck," the SheVa commander said calmly. "We're jammed between two bluffs, stuck in a ravine. There's a company of Posleen on the ridge above us. We expect they'll be attacking any time now. And there are, presumably, other landers around. They should be showing up just as soon as it goes from bad to worse."
"Any chance of you getting out?"
"Oh, sure," the major said sarcastically. "If we had an engineering team to blow up the cliffs."
* * *
"Jesus! What was that?" Kittekut said. The concussion of something had echoed across the mountains.
"SheVa gun," Major Ryan answered. "I'm pretty sure anyway; nothing else sounds quite the same. It think it's down by Betty Creek. How in the hell did a SheVa gun get down by Betty Creek?"
The night had been a long series of tiny roads on knife-edge ridges. It would actually have been easier in a smaller vehicle than the Humvee; one of the old Army jeeps would have been perfect. But the Humvee was what they had. Often the team had had to unload and either rapidly widen the road, under the major's expert direction, or even in some cases make temporary bridges across otherwise uncrossable gaps. At each obstacle the major had been right there, blowing up the rocks, cutting down the trees and filling in the holes; nobody could complain that he was a hands-off officer.