Hell's Faire

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Porter’s Bend, NC, United States of America, Sol III 0442 EDT Tuesday September 29, 2009 AD

Indy pulled her arm out of the sleeve of the antiradiation suit, into the still-sealed interior, and used a paper towel to wipe condensation off her faceplate. It was a technique she had picked up while doing a short stint in high school working in a nitrogen chamber and it stood her in good stead today. Now if something else she had learned over the years would just permit her to come up with a miracle, they might even be able to fire again.

“I think we’re pretty much doomed,” she said to the engineering officer below.

Colonel Garcia looked up at the shock absorber of the SheVa’s main gun and admitted privately that she might be right. The gun had been hit by something, with all the damage it was hard to tell what, but the weapon, an HVM or maybe a plasma bolt, had dug a half-meter hole in the side of the massive shock absorber, spraying the area with hydraulic fluid.

“We’ve got replacement fluid,” he said doubtfully, thinking of the parts and supplies the repair brigade had with them. “But we don’t have a replacement shock, short of bringing one in by blimp. And that’s not going to happen. It kind of ticks me off; we’re engineers, we’re supposed to be able to figure problems like this out!”

The SheVa was hull down behind a low line of hills, just south of Rocky Knob. The 147^th had fought its way down to the valley and now was spreading out along a line roughly delineated by the Tennessee River and Oak Ridge. They had mostly cleared the Posleen on this side of the river, but the far side was still strongly held by scattered groups and any blimp coming over the mountain would be Public Target Number One to an estimated two hundred thousand remaining Posleen.

The line of hills was one of the anchors in the defenses and the SheVa, with its surviving supporters, had scuttled for cover behind it as soon as they made the turn around Rocky Knob. If “scuttled” could be used as a term for a four-hundred-foot mass of metal that had lost fifty percent of its power.

“I don’t think a welded patch would work,” Garcia continued as Kilzer walked out from under the gun. “The pressure on firing is too high. It would just blast it right off.”

“There’s welds and welds,” Kilzer said, rubbing a smear of red hydraulic fluid off his suit. “You got any plate sections with you?”

Plate patches were not the standard six-inch steel but ranged from one to three inches.

Garcia looked up at the shock again and shrugged; the structure was the size of a mini-sub and the pressures were high enough that it was unlikely any sort of weld would hold.

“We’ve got them,” he temporized.

“Okay, I need a section of replacement plate, three meters wide and exactly nine point four two three meters long.”

“Exactly?” the colonel said with a grin and a raised eyebrow.

“Exactly. And, hmm, a track replacement vehicle, a hull cutter, two platoons of technicians in rad suits, an engineering officer, sixteen vertical work harnesses, four welding kits, two hundred kilos of C-4 and a cup of Kona coffee.”

Garcia thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “I can do it all except the Kona.”

“Damn the Posleen for cutting us off from our supplies!”

Kilzer had exited the vehicle, still wearing his rad suit, and now walked around the section of hull plate, marking on the surface.

The plate had been cut into a long rectangle, exactly nine point four two three meters in length, by one of the hull-plate cutters. The devices used a chemical-pumped laser that had the ability, among other things, to cut to very precise depths and angles. Which was useful when, for example, a section of hull abutting a nuclear reactor had to be cut away.

After cutting the section of plate, the same vehicle had then opened up a six by six meter hole in the side of the SheVa, then wandered off to find other work. There was plenty to do.

While Kilzer and Indy worked to repair the damaged main gun, the rest of the brigade was busy at work on the “minor” items. There were no more reactors this side of Knoxville and no way to bring them in by blimp, so the gun was going to have to maneuver at half power. But there was more than enough other damage to occupy the brigade as it replaced damaged struts, patched holes in the hull plates, lifted off the destroyed MetalStorm turret and re-ran hundreds of cut electrical cables.

Paul looked up at the opening as one of the techs came out dragging the cable from the top-side crane.

“Three lifting shackles, here, here, here,” he said to the welder, noting the points where the connections were to be made. Then he walked to the other end of the plate and showed another welder where to do the second set. “When you’re both done, put a couple more near the centerline for control lines.”

While that was going on, he led the other two welders into the interior and showed them the ragged hole in the shock absorber.

“Cut away the damaged metal, make a nice smooth hole.”

One of the welders looked at the thin coating of hydraulic fluid on all the surfaces and waved his buddy away from the metal.

“Gotta call in a fire crew, sir,” the technician said.

“Ah.” Paul looked around at the hydraulic fluid and shook his head inside the bulbous suit. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

He waited while the fire-suppression crew was called in and made notes. The crew consisted of two blower teams and a safety supervisor. Because the SheVa repair brigade often had to operate under pressure and in less than safe conditions they had developed techniques to handle things like welding around explosive materials.

As the laser welders cut through the materials, the fire team took care of secondary effects. The hydraulic fluid had a high vaporization temperature but with enough heat it would first vaporize and then combust. Generally these were small, smoky fires that were easily put out, but a few were larger and more energetic. The CO2 extinguishers, however, were able to handle both types of fire with relative ease.

Setting up the cut had taken longer than the cutting itself. The two technicians were experienced enough to be something on the order of artists. They skillfully carved around the hole, creating a smooth exterior and a regular opening where before had been twisted metal.

After they were done Paul thanked the entire crew and waited until they had left to find other work. When they were gone he first cleaned the surface of the metal with carburetor cleaner, then applied a thin coating of what looked like double-sided tape to the top of the shock absorber.

“Okay, I get it, you’re going to weld it onto the hole,” Indy said, coming up behind him and looking over his shoulder. “And it’s long enough to wrap around. What I don’t get is how you’re going to get it to hold; you can’t weld from underneath and tape isn’t going to work. And I don’t get how you’re going to wrap it since we don’t have a press that’s nearly large enough.”

“There’s ways,” the civilian said cryptically.

By then the big section of hull plate was starting to slide into the interior. The SheVa techs had carefully wrapped the crane cables through control points so the cables weren’t doing any damage to the interior, but the multiple turns and the length of the cable, not to mention the weight of the huge slab of steel, made for jerky movement.

“Get control lines on the sides,” Garcia said, coming up from the reactor room. “And hook onto the rear with a dozer to stabilize it.”

All three engineers watched as the hull-plate lifted up over the shock and stopped, swaying slightly.

“Don’t drag it,” Kilzer said to the two noncoms who were acting as eyes for the controllers on the far end of the lines. “Drop it straight down on the shock, slowly.”

The plate began to inch down, swayed slightly as one of the side lines slipped, then tapped into place, leaning sideways and then finally coming into full contact with the top of the shock absorber, adjacent to the hole.

“Great,” Kilzer said, taking a remote control out of his pocket. “Hold it there for just a second.”

“Paul, what are you — ?” Garcia asked as Kilzer’s thumb dropped onto the red button. There was a resounding clang! and fire shot out from under the plate.

“Welding explosives!” Kilzer said over the ringing in his ears.

“You’re supposed to shout ‘Fire in the Hole’ or something!” Indy yelled in reply, shaking her head and tapping her ears through the radiation suit. “That was bloody loud!”

“It’s in place,” Kilzer said. “What’s the problem?”

“Paul, that wasn’t a very safe way to do that,” Garcia pointed out, carefully. “Somebody could have gotten hurt. And I’m pretty sure we all just sustained quite a bit of hearing damage.”

“I didn’t,” Kilzer said, pulling his arms out ofr 00 sleeves and reaching up through the suit to pull out earplugs.

“You could have told us!” Indy shouted.

“Wonk, wonk, wonk,” Paul replied, waving at the technicians dangling overhead on lowering harnesses. “Put the explosives in place!”

“More explosives?” Indy asked. “Oh, no…”

“Paul, are you sure about this?” Garcia asked.

“You asked for a press, Warrant Officer Indy,” the civilian said with a smile. “Two hundred pounds of C-4 will do a fine job.”

“Oh, shit,” Stewart snapped. “Boss, we’ve got problems!”

O’Neal had been trying to figure out if he should suggest to Captain Slight that she reform her line a bit when the call came in. Bravo company had taken nearly two thirds of the casualties so far and there was a noticeable gap in second platoon. But at Stewart’s words he glanced at the transferred data and sighed.

“Duncan,” he said, shifting to a private mode. “I need… three of your troops.”

“That’s going to be tough, boss,” the company commander said. “I’m already starting to get some additional leakers from the way we’re sopping up casualties.”

Mike tossed him the data and listened as the former S-3 swore.

“Boss…” he said and paused, looking at the icons of nearly four thousand Posleen struggling up the steep side of Hogsback. “Boss, I’m not sure they can make it.”

“I’m sure they can’t in the face of any sort of resistance,” O’Neal said. “Slight’s got even more casualties than you do.”

“I know,” Duncan replied pensively. “Major, I’m not doing anything here but sitting in a hole. I’ll take two of my troops and head up the hill myself.”

Mike thought about it for a moment and frowned in his suit. “The purpose of a commander, Captain…”

“Is to command, boss, which ain’t the same thing as leading, I know the mantra. But in this case, I’ve got two platoon sergeants handling the company who can do it just as well as I, and if we’re going to pull people out I’d rather it be as few people from the line as possible.”

Mike frowned again, then sighed. “Accepted, Captain. Do it your way. Just get your ass up the hill.”

“Roger, boss,” Duncan replied. “And… thanks.”

“Oh, gooder and gooder,” Stewart said as Duncan broke off. “And now we have lander emanations.”

“Why is it there’s never a SheVa around when you need one?” Mike asked.

“I’m not sure I’m getting this.”

Colonel Mitchell had just gotten off the radio with General Keeton. The ACS was taking heavy casualties and if the SheVa couldn’t get them some covering fire soon the Gap was going to open up again. Mitchell knew that if the Posleen started pouring through the Gap with impunity there was no way that any number of antimatter rounds would stop them. Maybe if they had a couple more of the hell-rounds the university had developed it might work. But the SheVa’s rounds just had too small a footprint; the Posleen would simply spread out.

So getting to Franklin before the ACS turned into a battalion of smoking holes in the ground was vital. Especially since even if they could push the Posleen back for enough time to retake the Gap, only the ACS could survive in the current conditions.

And getting the main gun up was all part of making that happen. Which was why he was sweating in a rad suit when he could have been checking on the progress of the rest of the repairs or even, God forbid, catching a cat-nap.

“We need the shock absorber functional,” Colonel Garcia said. He had reluctantly come to the conclusion that Kilzer’s plan, crazy as it was, might just work. But it was dangerous enough he felt the SheVa commander needed to know the possible consequences. And the SheVa’s engineer was not happy about the plan.

“Exactly!” Indy interrupted. “We need it functional, not permanently crippled!”

“What Paul proposes,” Garcia continued with a glare at the warrant officer, “is to wrap a piece of steel around it with the underside coated by welding explosives then set those off. He intends to do the wrapping by applying C-4 in a pattern to the outer side of the steel and setting that off. As the metal settles in place a detonator will trigger the weld.

“This will do one of two things. It will work, to an extent, giving the gun some shots, I’m not sure how many, or it will totally destroy the shock. It could neither work, nor destroy the shock. But the safe bet is on ‘either or.’ ”

“Indy?”

“It’s crazy,” the warrant officer said quietly. “When the C-4 goes off it’s going to crumple the shock like a tin-can. The sheet will be forced downward into it and the metal of the shock will fail. That’s just physics.”

“Colonel Garcia?”

“Paul?”

“Janet?” Kilzer said. “Never mind. That may seem like physics, Warrant Officer, but it’s not high-energy physics. I’ll start the explosion from the outer edge so that the plate has the maximum interest in bending and the minimum interest in pressing downward. It will wrap faster than the underlying metal can crumple. And weld explosives are low power; they won’t cut the steel.”

“Essentially correct,” Colonel Garcia said with a shrug. “Part of the reason it might work is that the hole is in the side of the shock; there is a solid arc of metal at the top of the shock. In addition to that, yes, the hull plates are six-inch steel. But the metal of the shock is three-inch steel, which gives you an idea of the sort of pressures we’re talking about. Which is why a simple weld is a ticket to failure. And it’s not as if we can do more damage. Dead is dead and right now the main gun is dead. This might get it functional. It’s stupid. But if it’s stupid and it works…”

“It ain’t stupid,” Mitchell concluded. “Chance of success?”

“Honestly?” Garcia said. “Probably forty/sixty. Maybe thirty/seventy. But it’s a chance. A normal weld won’t hold. Period.”

Mitchell looked around and rubbed at his face tiredly inside the suit. The faceplate had fogged up and it made everything look gray and unreal. Finally he shook his head.

“Do it,” he said. “Down is down. It gives us a chance to be up again.”

“One last problem,” Indy said. “All this hydraulic fluid is going to catch on fire.”

“Oh, I think that we can handle a little fire,” Garcia said with a tired chuckle. “Some nice normal problem like a little fire would be nice for a change.

“Holy Toledo!” Paul yelled, waving the fire-extinguisher into every corner in reach; the entire interior of the firing room was engulfed in flames. “I think I should have checked my notes!”

After most of the brigade flooded the interior with extinguishers, nitrogen guns and finally blankets, the raging fires were finally put out. Many of them went out on their own; the hydraulic fluid was thinly spread and tended to flare and then die.

“It’s a good thing we were shot so full of holes,” Indy snapped as the commanders and Kilzer met back at the scene of the crime. “If we hadn’t been, we probably would have blown up.”

“Oh, get a grip,” Kilzer snapped. “Hydraulic fluid has a very high vaporization temperature. We were hardly ever in danger of blowing up.”

“Hardly ever,” Indy giggled hysterically. “Hardy ever.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Colonel Garcia had been examining the scorched metal wrapped around the shock. There was a slight indentation around the edge but it looked as if the unorthodox technique had worked.

“I think this will do,” he said.

“It will probably leak like hell after the first shot,” Kilzer noted. “But as long as Indy keeps it topped up, and as long as it doesn’t blow off entirely, the gun should be functional.”

“Indy’s got a lot of other things on her plate,” Mitchell noted.

“I think I’ll call for a platoon of volunteers to accompany you on this ride,” Garcia said. “There’s still a lot of damage and you’re going to sustain more. You could use the help.”

“Amen,” Indy muttered.

“Works for me,” Mitchell said. “Where are we at otherwise?”

“All that can be done has been done,” the SheVa repair commander replied. “We had to pull one wheel as too damaged to replace, but with your reduced speed that shouldn’t matter. She’s not exactly ship-shape and Bristol fashion, but she’ll run.”

“Okay, let’s get ready to rumble.”

“Orostan, I note that the SheVa is still coming on.” The warleader looked at the maps and shook his head. “This is not a good thing.”

“I expected it to follow the humans over the pass, or lead them,” the oolt’ondai replied angrily. “Not come around on my flank. It was that which broke the defense at the base of the pass!”

“Humans are like that,” Tulo’stenaloor said, rattling his crest. “Always turning up when you least expect it. But it has to be stopped.”

“I’m trying.”

“Yes.” The warleader looked around and then clapped his lips in humor. “I have more oolt’poslenar than I have trustworthy pilots. But I think I’ll send out some of them, good pilots or not. They’re doing me no good here.”

“This SheVa is incredibly lucky,” Orostan pointed out. “I don’t know how many of our ships it has destroyed, but it is many. And when it does…”

“Yes, problems, problems, problems,” the estanaar replied. “I’ll handle it on this end. You just mass your forces and stop that damned thing. Or we’ll both end up as decorations on some human’s wall!”

Duncan bounded up the hill and flopped to his belly, crawling forward the last few yards so as not to sky-line himself.

Getting out of the position had been harder than getting to the top of the hill. The Posleen fire was almost continuous over the battalion position so the only way out was through the connecting trenches. However, although the Reapers and technical suits had dug trenches to all the fighting positions and command holes, that was as far as they went. There hadn’t been anywhere “else” to go, so the troops hadn’t bothered digging their way out of the fire zone.

It had been up to Duncan and the two troops with him to dig their way to the rear and then around to the east until a projection of rock cut off the sight, and fire, of the advancing Posleen. It hadn’t taken all that much time, but it had been time consuming. So as soon as they got out of the area he had hurried up the hill to the Wall.

The Long Wall had been laboriously constructed in the years between the first scattered landings and the last major wave. It traveled, more or less, the entire length of the eastern Continental Divide but in this little patch of hell it was a shambles. At passes and other areas that might be struck by heavy Posleen attacks it was built up into modern fortresses of concrete and steel bristling with weaponry. Everywhere else along its length it was about twenty feet high and made out of reinforced concrete with a reinforcing “foot” on the inner side. And, despite the protests of environmentalists, it had no openings. On the inside of the wall was a road, a track really, that had been carved across the entire eastern U.S. Along this wall, when there wasn’t a murthering great battle going on, patrols would crawl along, looking over the wall from time to time to make sure the Posleen weren’t sneaking up the far side.

However, where the UT hell-weapon had hit, the reinforced concrete had taken a bit of a battering. The wall along the top of Hogsback had already had problems, legacy of the first Posleen attack on the battalion when a small force had blasted holes in it to get through to the humans’ landing zone. But the hell-weapon had done far more, smashing a good third of the wall in the area to the ground and truncating all that was left.

The good part to that was that the remaining stumps made dandy temporary fighting positions.

So it was that the company commander stuck his head over a bit of concrete and swore.

“Apparently good sense is contagious,” he muttered; the Posleen were building a road.

It wasn’t much of a road and they weren’t going it very well. But they were clearing away rubble and digging into the hillside, cutting a serpentine path up the hills that, otherwise, were impossible for them to scale. They had barely started, though, so there was plenty of time to deal with it.

“Race, move down that way about thirty meters,” Duncan said, gesturing to the east. “Poole, same distance to the west. Open fire when I do. Target the God Kings.”

He waited until the two suits were in position and had lined up the distant targets. At the base of the hill, about two thousand meters away, was a cluster of concrete stumps that revealed little more than that there had once been buildings there. It was around those ruins that most of the God Kings were clumped but even two thousand meters was was a simple shot with AID targeting systems. He checked that they had designated their targets then lined up on his first and snuggled the rifle, unnecessarily, into his shoulder.

“On three. One, two, three.”

Panoratar drifted his tenar back and forth as he watched his oolt struggle to clear the way up the hill. The majority of the dirt of the mountains had been stripped away by the titanic fire of the human weapon but what there was of it was being stripped even further down and then roughly smoothed to lay down something resembling a road.

It would have gone faster with human equipment, much less Posleen, but there was none locally — any that had existed had been destroyed by the recent blasts — and even if there were, there was not one of the local Kessentai who had the skills to use it. So they had to make the road the old fashioned, and slow, way. Fortunately there were some of the oolt’os who had that as a skill and they were leading the way, skillfully using the rubble from the hill to reinforce the low places and create a narrow path.

Given time, and a few skilled stone-worker oolt’os, they could create a road that would last for a thousand revolutions of the sun. But that would be unnecessary. All that the local force needed was enough breadth to run their oolt up the hill and then take the humans from the rear.

“And won’t the humans be surprised,” he grunted to Imarasar just before his tenar exploded.

The saucer-shaped craft of the Posleen God Kings used a crystal matrix power storage system that was highly efficient; it was, in fact, virtually identical to the system used in armored combat suits. But while it was capable of storing enormous power in a very small space, that power was also barely controlled; if the crystalline matrix was disturbed it started a chain-reaction uncontrolled energy release. Which is another way of saying “massive explosion.” In the case of Panoratar’s half-charged system, it was the equivalent of a couple of hundred pounds of TNT. And then there was the shrapnel from the disintegrating tenar.

The blast slapped outwards and smashed the surrounding God Kings, along with all their most elite normals, to the ground, killing most of them and rendering all the tenar out of commission.

And then more lines of silver lightning dropped among the force at the base of the hill.

“Nice shot, sir,” Race called. The specialist ran a line of fire across the normals who were at the lead of the road-builders and watched as the depleted uranium teardrops blasted each of the normals into yellow gobbets. “I think those were the guys leading the build.”

“Probably the ones with the skills,” Poole said, targeting a God King at the edge of the massed group. “Darn.”

“Missed the power box, huh?” Duncan said. “Your targeting systems won’t pull those up. You have to specifically designate it.”

“How do you do that?” Race asked as a storm of 3mm rounds slammed into the concrete behind which he was sheltering.

“Here, I’ll show you,” Duncan replied, activating a command so that Race could watch as he brought up the menu.

“Uh, if you could just tell me, sir?” Race said, sliding backwards down the hill and scrabbling sideways. “We’re kind of busy.”

“First you bring up the menu for secondary targeting parameter,” Duncan replied, ignoring the private’s response and a series of HVMs that hammered below his position. “Then choose ‘power systems.’ Once you have that you can see that the gun targeting karat automatically starts prioritizing not just the God Kings but the power crystals in their storage compartment under the God Kings. Then you just stroke the firing button,” he finished, sending a needle burst of teardrops through the power system of an approaching Kessentai and detonating the God King’s saucer. “You’ll notice that it gives a pop-up reading of power levels as well, and if you have the time you can use those to fire on the better-charged saucers, giving you more bang for your buck.”

There were six overturned tenar and a couple of disintegrated ones at the base of the hill now and if there were any God Kings they were lying low. Duncan nodded his hand and highlighted a couple of the tenar.

“This is a widely gathered force,” he pointed out, bringing up the bows of the tenar in high relief. “Note the rounding. We’ve got two that are almost pointed, one that is rounded almost into a semicircle and one that is halfway in between. This sort of difference has been noted before in the saucers, called tenar by the Posleen, and in weapons design up to the design of the landers. There seem to be four or five broad styles.”

Poole ducked down below the concrete and scuttled sideways again, trying not to giggle hysterically at the lecture. “You know, sir, this is just the right time for a lecture on distinctive Posleen styles in saucer design.”

“What causes the style difference?” Race asked with a laugh.

“Nobody really knows,” Duncan said. “But it’s interesting to note that while our enemy seems like formless waves of one-ness, they do have some individual and group differences. Probably it’s the difference between Ford and Chevy, but they do have differences. At least the leadership, the Kessentai.”

He glanced down the hill again where most of the mass of normals was still trying to climb the hill.

“Not much you can do about these jokers, though,” he sighed, starting to pour fire into the mass. “You just keep killing them until they stop trying to kill you.”

Mitchell glanced up at the main viewscreen and shook his head; the whole valley beyond the river was peppered with red enemy indicators. Cresting the hill was going to be a “special” moment.

“Everybody ready?” he asked.

“We’ve got four minutes of water,” Kilzer said. “We found a community water supply but it only had forty thousand gallons. After that’s gone, we’re open to plasma fire.”

“We’re still here,” LeBlanc said. “We’re rearmed and we’ve got enough replacements that we’re at ninety percent strength. And the river looks fordable.”

“We’ve got about fifty percent power,” Reeves said. “When the MetalStorms are really going, cross-country speed is going to be cut by two-thirds.”

“Storms are up, the ones that are left.” Captain Chan sounded tired over the radio. Her crew had consumed half the IV’s in the SheVa and Glenn had had to be evacced. But other than that they were fine. Exhausted, but fine. “Garcia redesigned the reloads so we could have six available each. But we’re down to only fifty-three total reloads so I put six on each of the front systems and scattered the rest out. Once those are gone, the nearest are on the road from Knoxville. The long way. We need to shut these guys down soon.”

“Eight rounds loaded,” Pruitt said. “Six anti-lander and two of the euphemistically entitled ‘area of effect.’ Also known as God’s Lightbulb and The Big One. And behind us there’s a string of tacitly avoided and spread-out vehicles filled with more hellfire and destruction just in case four ain’t enough. We’ve got a half a pack of cigarettes, a tank of gas, it’s ten miles to the FP and we’ve got sunglasses on.”

“What??” “Are you crazy? It’s pitch black out here!” “Pruitt, get off the radio…”

Mitchell shook his head. Even after all the fighting Pruitt was irrepressible.

“Okay,” he continued, “I guess that will have to do.”

“Yeah! though I WALK though the valley of the shadow of death, I will FEAR no evil!” Pruitt cried as he cycled the gun to “on” and checked the telltales. The hydraulics were still showing yellow, but what the hell. “For I am the baddest bunny in the valley!”

“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,” Kilzer said quietly. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.”

There was a moment’s pause then Mitchell shook his head.

“Just this once, I think I prefer that version,” he said quietly. “Okay, let’s go do unto others before they do unto us. Roll it, Reeves.”

As they crested the hill the world disappeared in water, but not before they saw the entire valley erupt in fire.

“Indy, we’ve already lost power to Turret Nine,” Chan called as the SheVa shuddered from strike after strike.

“Mitchell, this is LeBlanc. There’s concentrations everywhere. Fortunately, they’re all shooting at you!”

“Colonel, we’re getting hammered in here!” Indy said. “We’re getting hit heavy on the right flank.”

“Reeves, turn us ten degrees right,” Mitchell said, looking at the map and estimating their current location. “Kilzer, kill the water, we need to see what we’re doing.”

As the waterfall dropped away, Mitchell could see fire coming from every hilltop. The terrain was extremely broken so there were probably more Posleen in the valleys, but the ones in view were more than enough to worry about.

“Major Chan, engage targets of opportunity,” he said, looking at the terrain and trying to determine a good path that would keep them out of the majority of the fire. Most of the fire seemed to be coming from the flats over towards the airfield; the Posleen had apparently retaken that area already.

“Reeves, keep us down in the river valley,” he finally said. “We’ll head in towards Franklin just before the oxbow up ahead.”

“Hammer it, Charlie,” LeBlanc said. The river had appeared to be fordable to her scouts, but she had no solid numbers on depth or best crossing spots. That being the case, the best bet with an Abrams was just to charge the damned thing and hope that momentum carried them through. It was going to make one hell of a splash.

She thought about the water for a moment, and the cold of the night, and decided, as the bank approached, that discretion was the better part of tanker valor and dropped into the interior. She was probably still going to get soaked, since her hatch had been blown away by an unlucky round. But any little bit helped.

She steeled herself for the impact as the tank dropped off the bank and, just for a moment, hung in the air.

To the massive SheVa crossing the river had barely been noticeable. At least at the level of water depth.

“Colonel!” Indy called as the SheVa wallowed along the bank. “We’ve just gotten a spike on the radiation detectors! It’s not just from the reactor breaches.”

Glennis looked up at the screaming box over her head and had to think for a moment what kind of alarm it was. She realized the meaning just as a huge dollop of water dropped from the hatch onto her back.

“Son of a BITCH!” she screamed, tearing at her top. She was wearing Gortex cold weather clothing and most of the water had rolled off. But she could feel splashes all over her hair. And the radiation alarm was still squawking. “All vehicles! The river is hot! Radiation! Button up!”

The only good news was that the river was low and the Abrams had hardly been slowed by the crossing. It was already on the far bank and climbing the slope of the hill, following on the SheVa’s right rear flank.

She got the Gortex off in the tight confines of the turret and followed it with her BDU top, rubbing at the hair that had escaped her helmet.

“Nichols, get something to mop that shit up,” she said, gesturing at the spreading puddle on the floor. “We need to get all this stuff out of the turret as fast as possible.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the loader said, grabbing a wad of cleaning cloths and slipping out of his seat to slither to the floor of the turret. It was a tight fit and he slammed his arm into one of the innumerable protruding bits of metal as he did so. “This really sucks, ma’am.”

“No shit,” Glennis whispered. The rad alarm was screaming fit to wake the dead and she wondered how many rems she’d just picked up. “Colonel Mitchell,” she said, keying her radio, “this is Major LeBlanc and we’ve got a problem, over.”

“General Simosin, this is SheVa Nine,” Mitchell called. “Be advised that the river is hot, probably from runoff from the blast upstream.” Mitchell paused and checked the tactical readouts. For a wonder nobody was shooting at them at the moment. “Major LeBlanc got exposed, we don’t know how badly. And all of her vehicles, and the SheVa, are hot.”

“Understood,” Simosin said, his voice clipped. “It should make fording interesting.”

“I don’t think fording is an option, General,” Mitchell replied.