"I understand that, General," she said tartly. "But I approve each use. Understood? I want these things used precisely, not at the behest of some . . . officer . . . at the front."
Horner took a calming breath before he replied. "Ma'am, I get the feeling you almost said something along the lines of 'myrmidon' there. The . . . officers at the front are trying to keep us from losing more ground, losing more passes. The targets that need to be struck will often change ; they come and go as fast as the Posleen can manage it. At some point we'll need to reduce the level of authority, Madame President."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," she said, staring the general in the eye. "In the meantime . . . I'm the authority. Only I hold nuclear release." She looked down again and shook her head. "And may the Lord have mercy."
Horner took pity on her.
"Ma'am," he said quietly. "I will say this. The only person I could imagine holding that pass, surviving it for long enough, is Michael O'Neal. It will be worth the clearing."
"I'm glad you feel that way, General," the President said, looking up angrily. "I was just thinking that I didn't care much for the major. I don't care much for someone who is willing to callously slaughter American civilians."
"Excuse me?" Horner asked.
"There arealways survivors," the president snapped. "There are probably thousands of people in and around the Gap, hiding out. If we drop untold numbers of nuclear weapons on that area, there will be no survivors. I guess the vaunted Michael O'Neal doesn't care about those poor civilians. The only thing he cares about is his precious battalion!"
Horner's face was as frozen as a glacier and he waited a full fifteen seconds before answering.
"Madame President," he said in a voice as cold as liquid helium, "Michael O'Neal's daughter lives in Rabun Gap."
CHAPTER 28
Rabun Gap, GA, United States, Sol III
1519 EDT Saturday September 26, 2009 ad
Cally rolled over and coughed at the dust in her throat. After a few moments choking she sat up and looked around muzzily.
"Shit."
The main shelter was still intact and the lights were on, but that was the only good news. The tunnels to the bunker and the house were both collapsed. The main tunnel was clear, though, and it looked like both exit tunnels were clear. That left the question of how long she had been in here. She felt her head and there was a pretty good goose egg already started on her forehead. Her watch had stopped from either EMP or impact and she hadn't been too sure what time it was when they went in the bunker anyway.
She thought about Papa O'Neal's briefing on nuclear weapons and what to do. They didn't get used much, but Gramps had been thorough. Unfortunately the lecture had been a few years previous and she wasn't sure where to begin looking for a geiger counter or how to use one.
She did recall that people could survive better than structures—something about pressure waves—and that meant that Gramps might still be alive. If the bunker falling in didn't kill him.
So the next job was to get out of the main tunnel and try to find Gramps—dig him out if she had to—then head for the hills.
She stood up then sat down as the ground rumbled to another nuclear detonation.
"Maybe in a while."
* * *
"Ooooh, that's gotta hurt!" Pruitt shouted.
Reeves already had the SheVa in reverse so the return fire from the landers, with the exception of one plasma round, tore up the ridgeline. That one plasma bolt, though, ripped into the SheVa's power room.
"Reactors two and three just went offline," Indy called. She unstrapped and headed for the hatch. "I doubt this is going to be a one-woman job."
"We're way down on speed, sir!" Reeves called. He had the throttle all the way open, but the SheVa was barely moving. "Under ten miles an hour!"
"Indy," the commander called over the intercom. "Tell me we can do better than this! Those landers are going to overrun us in about fifteen minutes at this rate."
"Not until I find out what went, sir," the warrant officer called. She slid down the third ladder and grabbed a geiger counter as she sprinted, occasionally being knocked from side to side, towards the reactor room. "We just lost half our power; this is as fast as this thing will go."
"Damn, damn, damn," he muttered. "Pruitt, you have the con."
"What?" the gunner called.
"I'm headed to the reactor room," the commander said. "I think you can ID these things just fine."
"Roger, sir," the gunner replied with a gulp. "Come on, Schmoo, find us another firing position."
"There's one by Fulchertown," the driver said, checking his map. "But it will mean running over a bunch of houses."
"You afraid of getting 'em stuck in our treads?" the gunner asked sarcastically.
"No . . . it's just that . . ." Schmoo looked up and over his shoulder to where the gunner was grinning. "Never mind. I've been trying to stay in the woods so we wouldn't run people over."
"Anybody that's still here deserves to be run over."
* * *
Mitchell waved a hand in front of his face as he went through the door to the reactor room; smoke and steam were pouring out and the air reeked of ozone. "Indy!"
"Over here, sir," the warrant called from the left side of the room. The room was dominated by the four turbine generators; the smaller reactors were barely noticeable cradled along the sides. Mitchell's background was in Abrams power packs, big jet turbine engines that drove the tanks at speeds upwards of sixty miles per hour. But the power contained in this room would provide electricity to a city of a hundred thousand people. It was sobering to think that all this power could barely get the SheVa up to twenty miles per hour on a flat surface.
"What'cha got?" he asked. "And are we hot?"
"No, sir," the warrant called back, handing him one end of a heavy duty cable. "The shot missed the reactors and the turbines, thank goodness, or we might as well have gotten in the Abrams and run. It took out a transformer, through, and cut one of the main power circuits so even though there was a backup transformer there wasn't any power for it. The reactor went into shutdown immediately."
"So what are we doing?" the commander asked.
"Well, you're holding a replacement power cable," she said impishly. "I'm getting out a really big wrench. Then we're going to replace the circuit and reboot the reactors."
"How long?"
"Ten minutes, fifteen tops," she answered, heading over to where the turbine's power bars joined in the middle. She applied the wrench to a large nut where the cable came out and then, when it wouldn't break free, pulled the wrench off and hammered on it repeatedly until the melted plastic sealing it flaked off. "Just be glad it didn't hit the reactors."
"Yeah," the commander said with a laugh. "Or the track. I'd hate to have to break track on this thing."
"Oh, it's no trouble at all; you just call up a CONTAC team," the warrant said, breaking the nut free. "There's a reason that there's a battalion in a SheVa repair team. A battalion of engineers and three really big cranes."
Mitchell dropped the end of the cable on the floor and grabbed a stanchion as the SheVa rocked from a blow. "Uh, oh."
"I can get this," Indy said, grunting as she leaned into the wrench. "Get up top, sir."