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"Confirm!"
"ON THE WAAAAAAAAAY!" the gu
"Target!" Major Mitchell called as the lander stopped in midair and dropped like a stone; that was going to make a nice monument once it cooled in a few years. He laid his aiming reticle on the Lamprey over the western valley. "Second target!"
"TARGET!"
"Confirm!"
"ON THE WAAAY!"
* * *
Cally ducked into the tu
Subsequent generations had taken the lessons of the first Michael O'Neal to heart and the bolt hole had, from time to time, been expanded, improved and restocked. The tu
The mineshaft was reconstructed during the Cold War as a true nuclear bomb shelter, with heavy steel replacing the original wooden supports. It was capable of withstanding a near strike by a nuclear weapon and had been stocked, and restocked as necessary over the years, for three years of almost completely autonomous survival.
Cally opened the i
"Done," he called. "Coming . . ." and the world went white.
* * *
"SON OF A BITCH!" Pruitt shouted as all the viewscreens went black then flickered back on. "What in the hell?!"
The western valley of the Gap had a towering mushroom cloud over it and fires had started in every direction. The devastation area was wider than that from the SheVa explosion and there were no landers visible at all.
"Catastrophic kill!" Major Mitchell said. "Yeeeha! Get us the hell out of here, Schmoo!"
"What in the hell caused it, sir?" Pruitt asked as the shockwave hit. "Whoa big fella!"
"Posleen ships use antimatter as an energy source," Indy said. "You probably managed to penetrate their fuel magazine. I've seen the schematics for them; they're hard to hit and even harder to penetrate. Congratulations. But we've lost some systems from the EMP. Nothing major; most of our stuff is hardened and the EMP really wasn't all that high."
"A couple more of those and we won't have to worry about any landers," Pruitt said, patting his control panel. "Good Bun-Bun, good rabbit. EAT ANTIMATTER, Posleen-Boy!"
* * *
Orostan raised his crest to full height and screamed as the shockwave rocked his C-Dec. "WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!"
"There must have been two of them," Cholosta'an said with a resigned flap of his own crest. "I'm glad we were landed."
"ESSTUUUUUU!" the enraged oolt'ondai yelled.
"There was no report, Oolt'ondai," the Kessentai snarled. "Nothing. It must have just moved into position! I don't know why it waited until then to fire. It is fortunate that we were not all in flight."
"Well, we're all getting up now," Orostan snarled. "All ships in the air! Find this damned gun and destroy it! Stay low except when you must cross the ridges, then look for it quickly and drop back down. Tenaral, forward! Find it, destroy it if you can, locate it and cripple it at the minimum. Go!"
* * *
"Any station this net, this is SheVa Nine," Major Mitchell called. The frequency was designated for anti-lander units. There was damned little chance that anyone was monitoring it, but just in case there was another SheVa in range to fire he could use some help. "Any unit. This is SheVa Nine."
Of course, with the loss of Fourteen, there were only forty other SheVas in existence and he was pretty sure he knew that the nearest was in Asheville, but it beat chewing on his fingernails.
"SheVa Nine, this is Whisky Three-Five," a female voice replied. "Go ahead."
"We are retreating up the Little Te
"Uh, SheVa Nine, stand by over," the voice replied.
He flipped through the codes that he had, but he didn't have an AA unit listed for Whiskey Three Five. Since the landers could only be engaged, for all practical purposes, by SheVa guns, there weren't many AA units of any stripe left; most AA perso
"SheVa Nine, this is Whiskey Three-Five actual," a different, more assured female voice answered. "We're a Screaming Meemie unit attached to Eastern Command, over. Our orders are to move forward and engage the Posleen forces in direct fire mode. What is your situation and location, over."
"We're at UTM 17 379318E 3956630N. Our situation is we are engaging an estimated forty landers of all shapes and descriptions. We're okay with that, but there are some new flying tanks that are a pain in the butt. I think a Screaming Meemie unit is just what the doctor ordered, over."
"Roger, SheVa Nine," said the other voice. "I'm sending the situation up to Eastern; pending their override we're changing our mission to SheVa support. Just do me one favor."
"What's that?"
"Don't blow the fuck up, okay?"
* * *
"Mrs. President, it is not a question of 'will you' release the nuclear weapons," Horner said calmly. His calm wasn't fooling anyone, though; he was smiling like a tiger. "It is simply a question of when you will release them. As Major O'Neal pointed out, you have a valid request from a Fleet officer; you are required by treaty to abide by that request."
"That is arguable, General," the National Security Advisor said. She was colocated with the President, but there were four others in the video conference, and each would be expected to find something to say. Valid or not. "We are required to fulfill any military request for which we have the materials to supply; however, nuclear weapons release are traditionally a political request, not a military one. Ergo, it is not necessarily a requirement for us to fulfill it."
"And I have to question the validity," the High Commander said. The former Fifth Army commander had been promoted to replace General Taylor and was still feeling the limits of his authority. Unquestionably, the Continental Army commander was his subordinate; on the other hand, the reason that most people felt that Horner hadn't been promoted to High Commander was that no one dared remove him as CONARC. Fifth Army, on the other hand, for all practical purposes had ceased to exist so the former commander was flapping around at loose ends.