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"So what do we do?" Cally asked.
O'Neal thought about that. If it was just one nuke, specifically the SheVa going off, it might not be that bad. It depended, of course, on where the gun was when it went off. But the Wall shouldn't be affected. There was some fighting from there still; or at least those heavy weapons. Those could be Posleen, but think positive.
There were basically two choices. Plan A was hunker in the bunker, fight anything that came up the notch and wait for the Posleen to get wiped out by the Army. Plan B was run like hell. Since the farm had been in the family for generations, Plan B was not their favorite choice.
Without knowing the condition of the corps he had no idea which plan to go with. He picked up the phone installed in the bunker, but there wasn't even a dial tone. He could hike up the ridge to where he could see the corps, but that would mean either both of them going or leaving Cally alone. And with a potentially nuclear environment, getting out of the bunker didn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. Finally he decided to just try to ride it out.
"We'll stay here," he said, pulling an MRE out of a cabinet. "We'll have grilled ham and cheese tomorrow."
"Yup," Cally said with a grin. "For tomorrow is another day." She looked at her MRE and grimaced. "Trade ya."
* * *
"Pruitt, get the gun up, NOW!" Major Robert Mitchell slid into the command seat and started buckling in, flipping all his switches to "On" as fast as he could.
"But, sir!" the gu
There was a reason that SheVa Nine, now unofficially referred to as "Bun-Bun," had a two-story picture of a giant, brown-and-white, floppy-eared rabbit holding a switchblade painted on the front carapace. It, and the "Let's Rock, Posleen-boy!" caption, had taken a few hours to explain to the new commander. After reading the comic, and getting hooked, the commander had reluctantly acceded to the painting; some corps permitted them and some didn't and they would just have to see what the local corps commander was like. As it turned out, they hadn't had time to even checkin with the corps before the fecal matter hit the rotary impeller.
"NOW, Pruitt!" the major yelled. "Load! Fourteen is under attack! I don't know what they are . . ."
"Major!" Warrant Officer Indy called, popping up out of the repair hatch. "Don't move the track!"
"Why not?" the commander called. "Schmoo, are we hot?"
"Coming online now, sir," Private Reeves called back. The private was large, pale, doughy looking and somewhat slow, thus the nickname. But he was a good SheVa driver. From deep in the belly of the tank the sound of massive breakers engaging thundered through the structure.
"I don't have signal!" Pruitt called. "Sensors are offline. I'd guess camo. Whoa! Big EMP spike! It was worse out there than Bun-Bun denied his Baywatch!"
"Crack the camo!" Major Mitchell called. "Manual rotate the lidar."
"Sir!" the warrant said desperately. "That's what I'm trying to tell you; the camo-foam isn't set yet. Until it cures it's . . . malleable. Heat it up and it sets hard ; if it seals the sensors we'll never have an acquisition system. They'll be frozen solid until we can get a CONTAC team out here. With a lot of solvent. I shut them down manually as a safety measure."
"Oh, shit," Mitchell said. His schematic was being picked up from a corps intelligence section still well to the rear. They, in turn, were still getting information from forward deployed sensors and surviving perso
"We can probably move the tracks," the warrant officer answered with a desperate grimace. "If they freeze up they're strong enough to break the plastic. Same on rotating the turret. But until the stuff sets, we can't use the automatics to engage. And it could lock up barrel elevation. So we can't elevate or depress."
"So what do we do, Miss Indy?" Mitchell asked patiently.
"We need to avoid moving the sensors or the gun for about another twenty minutes, sir," the engineer said. "We've got a control run problem with the gun anyway; I'm working on it."
"Do we have any solvent?" Mitchell asked.
"I have a couple of five-gallon buckets," Indy admitted. "But it would mean climbing up on top and pouring it on the ante
"Pruitt, help the warrant," Mitchell said. "After you put a round up the tube. Schmoo, get us the hell out of here."
"Yes, sir!" the private said, engaging the treads. "One foam-covered, screwed up, disarmed SheVa, getting the hell out of Dodge."
"You want me to climb up on top of Bun-Bun while we're moving?" the gu
"Hopefully not," the major said, keying the mike to call the support units. "But if you do, think of it as Torg and Riff on another adventure." After a moment's thought he started looking for the frequencies for Fourteen's ammo trucks; if they survived this they were going to need more than eight reloads.
"But she looks more like Zoe, sir," the gu
"Pruitt, shut up and go help the warrant." He shook his head and checked his schematics again. The landers, now unopposed, were moving in a leisurely fashion to silence all resistance in the valley. "Just how much more screwed up is this day going to get?"
* * *
"Just how much more screwed up is this going to get?" Orostan asked, looking at the mushroom cloud rising over the Gap. "Pacalolstal, report!"
"I don't think Pacalostal is going to be reporting ever again, Oolt'ondai," Cholosta'an said. "I suspect that most of the tenaral are gone."
"Thrah nah toll!" Orostan cursed. "Demons of Sky and Fire, I hate humans!"
"Oh, this isn't too bad," Cholosta'an said philosophically. "We've only lost two ships, the Wall is down and most of the human soldiers are out of our way. This might actually speed things up."
"The tenaral were to be used against the metal threshkreen as well," Orostan snarled.
"We'll deal with them when we have to," Cholosta'an said with a flap of resignation.
"We shall indeed," Orostan said. "Very well; all ships proceed to the Gap. Time for phase two."
CHAPTER 25
Rabun Gap, GA, United States, Sol III
1309 EDT Saturday September 26, 2009 ad
Major Ryan pulled his fingers away from his ears and shook his head trying to clear the ringing. "I swear to God, one of these days I'll remember earplugs," he groaned.
"You okay, Major?" the specialist who shared the bunker with him asked.
"What?" Ryan yelled, standing up. The soldier sounded as if she was speaking from the bottom of a well.
"I asked if you were okay!" the specialist shouted, pulling earplugs out of her ears. "I'm, personally, a little shook up."
"Fine," Ryan shouted back. "Time to see if anything's left."
One corner of the bunker had crumpled, but the rest was intact and the doorway was only partially blocked. Crawling through, Ryan looked out on a scene of devastation.
The picturesque school on the top of the hill had been flattened down to stumps. The bricks of the school were scattered down the western slope of the hill along with various less identifiable bits. Ryan saw a few survivors crawling out of bunkers or, in one incredible case, simply sitting up in the wreckage. But for all practical purposes the corps headquarters was gone. He wasn't sure what might have happened to the three division headquarters, but from his perspective it didn't really matter. The corps was for all practical purposes bound to rout, the only question was what he, personally, should do about that.