«Oh. Damn.»
«Yeah.» He looked out the window. «So now we wait. It's supposed to be the worst part.»
«Even worse than getting wounded? That's what really scares me.»
«Yeah, me too.»
«You? You're not scared of anything.»
«Yeah, I am. I'm scared of being just bad enough wounded that I'm conscious when the horses get to me. That or being captured alive. You heard about their pens?»
«Yeah. That scares me too.» She got a thoughtful look on her face. «Umm . . .»
«Yeah. No problem.»
«You know what I was going to say?»
«Well, it was probably going to be that old saw about, 'if they're goin' to take me alive . . . ' And the answer is, 'okay.' «
«Okay. Thanks. . . . What about you?»
«I'd appreciate it,» he said and paused. «Oh, my,» he said mildly.
«What?» she started and then she heard it approaching.
The sound was a freight train of the gods, tearing the firmament asunder with its roar. All nine of the sixteen-inch, two-ton rounds rumbled over the town with a thunder to drown the Hellbound Train. The culmination was a relatively anticlimactic sound like millions of firecrackers in the direction of the distant mall.
«Fuckin' A!» shouted Tommy, «ICM!»
«What?»
As the Volkswagen-sized shells rumbled over the town, their nose cones began to open and release their submunitions. Each submunition, about the size and shape of a softball, was an onion of destruction. Surrounding the central ball of explosive was layer after layer of notched steel wire and white phosphorus. As the munitions spun gently through the air, a cocking mechanism was engaged by the inertial force. When the cocking mechanism reached a certain point, after some seven hundred spins, the weapon was armed. A moment after impact, the hammer released.
As the bomblets arrived in fan-shaped sprays they first bounced back into the air then detonated individually, giving the weapon its characteristic firecracker sound. Across the length and breadth of the highway interchange, the ground flashed white.
The weapons were designed to detonate at head height on a person, so across the mass of Posleen thousands of grenades began to explode. The explosions hurled the centaurs aside, tearing their yellow bodies asunder, but the worst effect was from the shrapnel. Each bomblet released thousands of tiny bits of metal, each traveling faster than a bullet and along with these bits of shrapnel traveled burning white phosphorus.
The phosphorus and steel wire smashed into the bodies of centaurs throughout the Posleen swarm with terrific effect. Thousands of the Posleen normals were killed, along with their God King commanders, as they drove forward towards the beleaguered defenders of Fredericksburg. Those that were not killed outright were horribly wounded by flying steel and the phosphorus that refused to extinguish even after penetrating the bodies.
The first salvo eliminated the last remnant of Aarnadaha's brigade, which had swept across the mall area only to be decimated at the I-95 interchange. They had paused, fatally, to regroup in the shadow of the melted Quarles Gas truck and were swept away on the tides of destruction. And another salvo followed, and another.
* * *
«What are those?» Chief Wilson asked Charlie company's first sergeant, pulling back her Nomex head cover to hear better.
«Artillery,» answered the first sergeant, not looking up from the circuit he was installing. «What I don't know is where the hell it could be coming from. And it's big, too. At least as big as one-five-five, sounds like larger.»
«It is,» said Lieutenant Young, joining the conversation as he arrived from the bunker. «I think it's one of those converted battlewagons they refurbished.»
«Damn,» laughed the NCO, «with fuckin' sixteen-inch ICM, those Posties are gonna be Post Toasties.»
«Yeah,» smiled Lieutenant Young grimly, «between this an' that, these fuckers are at least gonna know they've been kissed!»
* * *
«Change of mission, boyos,» said Captain Kerman over the squadron channel. «Fredericksburg is still holding out. We're going to be going in as ground support, adding our weight to the North Carolina 's broadside. In addition, set your ground support radios to settings 96-35 and 98-47. Those are the ground support settings for the engineer unit in Fredericksburg. They may try to contact us. If they come over the radio, don't try to respond, we won't have time, just let it uplink.
«One of the reasons for this strike is to try to get more targeting data. We don't know exactly where the Posties end and the humans start, so we're going to continue to pound the interchange. The battleship has to have had an effect by now, so we might survive the encounter. If you do, return to base for bullets and gas.
«Your flight paths are on your computer; modify them as you see fit.» He paused, searching for something to say as the squadron banked out of its figure-eight pattern and lined up to face the embattled city.
«Sir,» interjected Lieutenant Wordly, «what about straying into one of the sixteen-inchers. Shouldn't we avoid their path?»
Kerman blanked for a moment on how to answer the question. «I tell you what, Lieutenant. If you run into one of those shells, you may officially complain about having a bad day.» There were actually a few chuckles transmitted over the frequency-hopping radios.
«Well,» he concluded, «I guess it's time to go back to historic Fredericksburg.»
CHAPTER 37
Fredericksburg, VA, United States of America, Sol III
0524 EDT October 10th, 2004 ad
«Major, they're across the obstacles on Sunken Road,» said the civilian runner, a well-set-up football type with blisters on his hands and blood from a head wound dripping down his sweat-streaked face.
Major Witherspoon looked at the dead and wounded piled throughout the Presbyterian church. The dead were rapidly cooling in the unheated vestibule as medics pointlessly worked to repair the wounded. Then he looked through the broken windows to the west. There the inexorable tide of centaurs was clearly visible, pushing through the piles of demolished trucks and cars at Williams and Washington. A rolled-over gas truck—converted to a suicide bomb by the driver—gave its last spiteful luminance to the scene.
«God,» he chuckled, «I love it when a plan comes together. Okay,» he continued, turning to the now-veteran soldier, «tell First platoon and the militia to pull back and head to the south. We don't want fire directed at the Executive Building. As of now they are detached to whatever means they want to use, just don't get between the Posleen and the Exec. Same general orders to the Second and Third, but tell them to pull straight back.»
«Yes, sir.» The private now had tears mingled with the blood on his face. «I wish we could do more.»
«When you do the best you can, there isn't any more to do, son. We held them through the night; held them longer than the expedition on Diess. You should only have regrets if you have not given your all.»
«Yes, sir.»
«Good luck.»
«Yes, sir.» Then Ted Kendall hoisted his AIW, and trotted off into the darkness.
* * *
«Ma'am,» said Colonel Robertson, proffering a bundle to the last mother entering the bunker. «I'd like you to take this in there with you. When you get your place, just set it down and don't tamper with it. It's booby trapped in case the Posleen try to open it, but it won't injure anything outside the box if it goes off.»
Shari looked at the bundle in bemusement, wondering how to juggle it while carrying Kelly.
«I'll take it down with her, sir,» said the fireman who was carrying Billy. «And make sure it gets in a secure place.»
«It's a record of the defense and the unit's colors. You know, the Flag?»