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"143 jammed!" Private Gattike called, ru
"Unjam it?" Wright asked, getting to his feet. "Any idea why?"
"I du
"Ah." Wright hit the floor as another set of HVMs hit the wall, filling the interior with splinters. The walls had rubber on the interior to reduce the ricochets, but one slammed into the private at his side with the sound of an axe hitting a watermelon. He looked over at Gattike and shook his head.
"DRT?" Alejandro yelled.
"Yep," Wright answered, crawling forward. "I think 143's gone too."
"Okay," Alejandro yelled back. "Where in the hell are Lewis and Schockley?" he continued. "There's nobody on the left side!"
"I du
The specialist shook his head and opened up the ammo port, rolling the box out with difficulty—it was a two-man job—and then hitting the ground as the entire massive structure shuddered. The aftershocks continued for a few moments as he tried to keep the four-hundred-pound box from rolling back on him. "Okay," he muttered. "This day officially sucks."
* * *
Major Jason Porter, commander of SheVa Fourteen, swore bitterly. With some difficulty his driver had hoisted this behemoth to the top of the hill just south of the waste treatment plant and now he could see the Wall, or a portion of it. And the top of the Wall was smoking.
The Posleen were clearly hammering the defenses, but so far there was no sign, from this side, of Lampreys or C-Decs. He considered backing back down the hill; that way they would be out of sight when, if, Posleen ships did come into view. However, as he was getting ready to give the word, the radar pinged with a detection.
One or more ships was moving up the valley towards the Wall. They were staying low, which was unusual enough, but every now and again they popped up for a second. The gun was having a hard time locking on.
"Edwards," he called to the gu
"Roger, sir," the gu
"Come on," Porter whispered. "Get up where we can see you you sons of mares."
* * *
"All ships," Orostan called. "Engage the human defenses."
Despite desperate wi
But these Kessentai arguably had the second most important job in the entire "mission"; removing the Wall. And that meant real weapons.
The viewscreen went dark as the first anti-ship missile impacted on the Wall.
* * *
"Oh, shit," Porter whispered. A section of the Wall the size of a house had just been blasted into the air.
"Solution!" Edwards called.
Porter dropped his eye to the firing sight and hit the confirm key. "Fire!"
"On the Way!"
* * *
"Fuscirto uut!" Orostan snarled. "All ships! Stay low! Tulo'stenaloor, where are those tenaral!"
"Coming up any time," Tulo'stenaloor said over the circuit. "You do want it to be a surprise, don't you?"
"Yes," the oolt'ondai said. "But I have vital missions for every single ship; I need that gun removed. Now."
"Almost there," Tulo'stenaloor said, shifting the data to Orostan's screens. "Almost there."
* * *
Pacalostal screamed in pride as the human valley came into view. The sixty tenaral had taken a winding path up and down the valleys of the area the humans called "Warwoman" and now their surprise was complete. The human valley was open to them and they could see both of their primary targets clearly. The hated "SheVa" gun was on a knoll just to the south of them and the majority of the human artillery was to the west, grouped around "John Beck Road" and "Fork Road."
He sent a command to the second division, which swept down to near ground level and increased speed as it entered the corps rear area. Then he took the first division and dropped onto the SheVa gun to the south.
* * *
The first warning Major Porter had was a garbled call over the corps command frequency. The second warning was when the first plasma blast hammered into his back deck.
SheVas were not, strictly speaking, armored vehicles. They had a lot of really heavy metal pieces on them, some of them quite hard, but they were necessary to support the energies released with each firing of the massive gun. They were not designed to withstand close range heavy plasma fire and that became clear on the second hit, when the right rear track separated.
"Son of a bitch!" he shouted as one of the craft flew past a camera. "What in the hell is that?"
The craft looked like something straight out of a 1950s science fiction novel. It was more or less saucer shaped with a small turret on the top. Most of the turrets seemed to have . . . Posleen plasma guns mounted in them. As he pa
"We've lost the right track and drivers fourteen and fifteen," Warrant Officer Tapes called. "I've hit the track release, but we'll have to drive off of it. And that drops our max speed way down."
"Get us out of here," Porter said. "Back us up."
"Solution!"
"Belay that order," he called, dropping his eye to the sight. Without really looking he hit the confirm button. "Fire!"
"On the Way!"
* * *
"DOWN, DOWN, stay DOWN!" Orostan called. He flapped his crest happily, though, at the sight of the crumbling wall. The massive concrete structure was completely shattered across the center from repeated antimatter and plasma strikes and the way would soon be open. Rocky—the front ranks would have some clearing to do—but open. "And the artillery is dropping off," he added.
"Yes, it is," Cholosta'an said. "Soon we will be through. A real breakthrough. This is amazing."
"It has been years in pla
"And at each point, establishing 'toll booths,' " Cholosta'an said with a flap of humor. "That was brilliant. Anyone who passes through must agree to submit ten percent of their earnings."
"Brilliant indeed," Orostan said. "Tulo'stenaloor feels that these humans owe him much. If he ca
"We should not be too happy yet," Cholosta'an said. "These humans . . . tend to be tricky. And they don't give up easily."
"When we are finished here, we and the tenaral will fly up the valley and take all of the key terrain positions on the initial route. The humans may try to block us, but we shall be there first. As soon as the Wall is down."
"And the SheVa gun taken care of," Cholosta'an said.
"Of course."
* * *
Another ripple of plasma fire slammed into the gun and one of the rounds penetrated through multiple layers of machinery into the command center.
The damage control panel came apart like a bomb as the last burst of plasma buried itself in the console. Control runs fused together sending power arcing through the panel and into the primary gun controls.
Sergeant Edwards flew back from his controls with a yell, hitting the chair release and backing away as sparks flew out of the targeting system. The fire control computer sparked on for a moment and then died with a rasp.