«Gentlemen,» she said to the Posleen filing through the doorway, «welcome to historic Fredericksburg,» and dropped the clamp.
* * *
With the closest simultaneity that an experienced engineer NCO could achieve, sixty one-hundred-gram charges of Composition Four, located on window ledges, detonated. The detonations simultaneously ignited the liquid propane gas still being pumped to the interior and ensured oxygen was provided to the environment to sustain the reaction.
In a pair of milliseconds, every window in the seven-story building imploded, as the air for three blocks in every direction was sucked down to near vacuum by the reacting propane.
As the propane consumed the oxygen, the inrushing air served to compact the highly energetic reaction until virtually the last molecule of the propane was consumed, at which point the superheated air erupted outward with cataclysmic force.
For Morgen Bredell and Colonel Robertson—along with all the surviving humans and Posleen above ground in historic downtown Fredericksburg—it was a sudden moment of breathless vacuum as a hurricane of wind rushed towards the city center and ice picks drove into ear drums, an almost unnoticeable pause and then darkness as the shock wave slammed outward leveling everything in its path.
«Nuke!» shouted Jones at the sun-bright dome of fire, automatically snapping his fighter into a hard right bank away from the formation as Kerman snapped into a hard left. Wordly was left with the unsurvivable up and yanked his stick back in a twenty-G climb at nine hundred knots.
His fighter was immediately acquired by God King saucers from Marlboro Point to Spotsylvania as well as landers and C-Decs. A pyramid of light beams followed his exploding fighter as it climbed into the sky, a high-tech Vesuvius, a bright triangular firework in the dawn to punctuate the erupting town.
The shockwave propagated outward, leveling the Public Safety building, historic downtown, finally demolishing the cut Chatham bridge, ripping up rails from the railroad tracks and tumbling them through the air.
Wendy screamed as the ground bucked like a bronco, brick and dirt raining around her. She had one arm over her head, and noticed that Tommy had his over her head as well, so the only thing protecting her ribs when a melon-sized rock fell on them was the body armor. As the rubble fell around her, she inched the Hiberzine injector towards her thigh. . . .
To Shari and the fire fighter in the bunker, the effect was only a slight tremor, the combination of the blast shadow from the railroad embankment and the tons of overburden serving to reduce the concussion to a minor nuisance. They stopped their gin game for a moment, said a prayer, swiped at the tears again and returned to the distraction of cards.
Jones hit the afterburners as soon as his ass was to the blast and settled into his seat as the fighter rocketed towards its maximum speed. The fighter began to buck from ground-effect and then the buffet increased as the shock wave started to catch up. Finally the buffeting slowed as the shock wave receded and he reduced speed and turned back towards the town.
Or where it had been. For five hundred meters on every side of the tall building offset from the city's center the ground was as flat as if scoured. The quaint buildings that had survived multiple bombardments in the Civil War were erased down to the cornerstones. The largest remaining structure was a nub of grain elevator south of the train embankment.
The ridge where they had previously dropped napalm was wiped as clean, the churches gone, but the sheltered valley beyond was still intact and there was sporadic fire as he rocketed across. He banked sharply north, avoiding the open area around the interstate, and called base.
«Ground control, this is Tigershark Five, over.»
«Tigershark, Ground.»
«You copy this uplink, over?»
«Roger, Tigershark.» A single turret volley from the battleship landed in the swale from which he had taken fire. «Return to base, Tigershark.»
«Tigershark Five.»
«Two,» echoed Kerman, unexpectedly.
The last survivors of the Peregrine squadron turned to the north and headed for Andrews Air Force Base.
* * *
«Are you all right?» asked Tommy, sitting up as brick chips, mortar and dirt cascaded off him. He flicked on a portable fluorescent light.
«I'm alive,» said Wendy, staying horizontal, but kicking some of the debris off her legs. She pushed aside the stone that had glanced off her side. «How all right am I supposed to be?»
«Jesus,» said Tommy, shining the light up at the intact arch above them. «I can't believe this held,» he continued, looking at the sealed tunnel at both ends. He pulled off his helmet and scratched his head vigorously then wriggled out of the body armor.
«What if the Posleen find us?» asked Wendy, gesturing at the doffed armor as he detached the side connections and laid it out flat.
He shook it to get the last brick and stone chips out and flopped down on the field-expedient mattress, hands cradled behind his head. «At this point, if the Posleen want me, they can just eat me, okay?»
Wendy snorted, sat up and shook the bits off as well. She took off her own body armor and stretched, wincing at her bruised ribs, then lay down and put her head on his chest. He wriggled over to let her get on the armor-mattress. After a few moments, they both sighed as the tension came off the day.
Tommy's breath began to deepen as the strains of the long night took their toll. At some time in the future—he feared many times in the future—he would think about the destruction of all he held near and dear. But for now it was enough that, for a moment, there was peace, if only the peace of the dead.
Just as he was drifting into sleep, he felt a pair of fingers slip under his T-shirt. He froze, suppressing a snore and a moment later, one of these fingers began playing with the hairs around his navel. Wendy leaned forward, her breasts pressing into his chest and put her face against his ear.
«Tommy Sunday,» she whispered, flicking his ear with her tongue, «if you don't take off your pants right now, I'm going to cap you with your own Glock.»
CHAPTER 41
I-95 near VA 639, VA, United States of America, Sol III
0629 EDT October 10th, 2004 ad
During the early morning hours, work had virtually stopped on the Richmond defenses. Occasionally the crash of explosions could be heard in the distance and the portable TVs receiving broadcasts from Continental Army Headquarters held everyone enthralled. However, with the breaking dawn the enormous boom of the FAE in the distance and the uplinked video broke the spell and the tired cavalry troopers and civilian grading contractors returned to preparing the I-95 fighting positions. Meanwhile teams of women and teenagers emplaced claymores and other mines along the verge. It looked to be a hot reception for the Posleen.
«Let's get to it, boys and girls,» said Sergeant First Class Mueller as the extended break ended. «It's us next.»
* * *
«Are we ready?»
«Yes, Mr. President. Obviously, given the time of day and all the transmission problems there is not a major audience. But there is a higher share than normal because of the emergency.»
«It'll have to do.» He turned to the secretary of defense. «What is the situation with Tenth Corps?»
«They've turned around and are headed back down to Quantico. It's a bit confused but I'm sure they'll get straightened out in time.»
«They'd better. What about Ninth Corps?»
«They're headed for Manassas. The whole First Army is heading into northern Virginia, with the exception of the Fifty-Fifth Armored Division, which is assaulting a landing in Maine.»
«Maine. Maine and where else?»
«Arkansas, California and Oregon all have at least one landing of a battlegroup,» answered the FEMA representative referring to her notes. «Several other states have already dealt with individual landers. But only Fredericksburg has been hit by a full globe. Not counting Fredericksburg or areas that haven't turned in complete reports, we have over fifteen thousand civilian casualties. Most of those are in the immediate area of landings. About two-thirds are mortalities.» She almost continued with a report on the evacuation of northern Virginia.