“General Larson believed we had to defend Los Angeles by attacking here. Sometimes, gentlemen, life or God, I’m not sure which, hands you a shit job. We have such a job this time. We signed up as soldiers, and that means that sometimes you have to put your body in harm’s way. Well, I love my country. These aggressors are here to steal it out from under me. That means I’m going to fight until I’m dead or until I’ve driven them into the sea. I’m sorry for talking so much. I’m sorry for many things. I suppose I mean to make up for everything rotten I’ve done by laying down my life. ‘Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.’ That’s from the Bible, gentlemen, the very words of God. We’re going to lay down our lives in the next half-hour. Let’s make sure we do it in such a way that we save our brothers so they can drive the Chinese into the sea.”
Wilson set down the microphone as a strange calm settled over him. He felt like a still lake on a perfect day, the sun a delight on the skin. One by one, his tank commanders called in, agreeing with him.
Afterward, near the city of Riverside, began the death ride of the Behemoths into the heart of the Chinese advance.
It began as long-range howitzers rained down a sheet of steel against them. The Chinese had seen their advance and likely they knew their route. Normally, that should have been enough to set up a perfect ambush. It didn’t work out that way this time. The howitzers attempted to pummel the Behemoths, but most of the shells never made it through the tank defenses. Those that did rained on reinforced armor. The Behemoths, unlike most modern tanks, had put as heavy armor on top as they did in front. It made for an extra-heavy and tall tank, but with this engine, it didn’t matter.
Drone hovers appeared, firing as they raced like greyhounds toward the Behemoths. If they could get close enough, the experimental tanks would be unable to use their defensive fire effectively. Behind the hovers came Marauder light tanks. For several minutes, confusion reigned. The Chinese vehicles and howitzers spewed mass fire against the five American giants.
Wilson winced each time an enemy sabot round made it through the blizzard of defensive fire and hit the tank. Each round clanged like a hammer, ringing in the Colonel’s ears. But none of the lighter cannons had the force to break through the special armor.
In return the five Behemoths reaped a swathing harvest of enemy vehicles. Hovers exploded, flipping over and burning. One flew into the air, spun and landed so the cannon bored into the earth like a drill, until it snapped and the vehicle crashed again, this time onto its side. A light tank burst into flame. A crewmember opened a hatch and tried to escape. The hatch banged onto him, trapping the man. He opened his mouth, screaming surely. His hands covered his face, but the flames melted those and soon the man sagged, dead.
It was grim. It was war, and the Behemoth was a demon in its element of destruction.
“I’m seeing the howitzers, sir, in the long-range scope.”
“Give the AI its head,” Wilson ordered.
The turret swiveled, a targeting laser sighted and the tank shuddered as the cannon spewed a shell. Two miles away, a howitzer blew into separate pieces.
The other howitzers continued banging away, sending their shells in a ballistic trajectory. The Behemoths fired their penetrators in a nearly straight line and many times faster than the enemy munitions.
Chinese infantry began to appear from ditches, doorways and on rooftops. They popped off RPGs. Those had no effect on the Behemoths, but they kept trying. Too many failed to run away in time and died to flechettes shredding them into gory ruin.
A mile and a half later, the first T-66s entered the fray. They were eighteen of the advanced Chinese tanks in the first wave. None survived, although they knocked a tread off a Behemoth.
“What are your orders, sir?” the crippled Behemoth commander asked.
“Tell me this,” Wilson said. “Can you bail out and run back to our lines?”
“We would never make it, sir.”
“I agree.”
“So…”
“So you remain where you are, commander,” Wilson said. “Your cannon has greater reach than any other vehicle on the battlefield does. You’ve just become our artillery support, in a manner of speaking.”
“Yes, Colonel, I understand. Good luck, sir.”
“We do this for America, commander.”
“And for our families, sir.”
“Yes,” Wilson said. “They are the heart of our country.”
Because the first wave of T-66s failed to halt them, the Behemoths advanced. A new American recon drone appeared overhead after a Chinese SAM had destroyed the first one. This UAV provided them targeting coordinates on hundreds of big Chinese supply trunks in the distance.
“Fire at will,” Wilson ordered.
In a matter of three and a half minutes, one hundred and sixteen haulers exploded and began to burn. Very few escaped.
“I’m low on ammunition, Colonel,” one Behemoth commander radioed.
“There’s no help for it now,” Wilson said. “We keep advancing. Choose your targets carefully. If nothing else, you can provide us with protective fire.”
The four Behemoths, three surviving Bradleys and two brave and lucky Humvees reached the outskirts of Riverside. The final battle began with another cruise missile attack, followed by a thousand special infantry, fifty light tanks and two hundred and forty-one T-66s. It was an inferno of destruction, with nearly one hundred percent Chinese losses.
Then the first Behemoth finally died as four T-66 shells made it through the defensive fire and together hammered through the amazingly thick armor.
A new air assault destroyed a second Behemoth, this one to the rear of the formation. That left three experimental tanks, then two and finally Colonel Wilson was alone with his crew among a sea of burning Chinese vehicles.
Wilson viewed the screens. He had never seen a battlefield like this. Over two hundred and twenty triple-turreted tanks burned or lay on their sides, destroyed. The Behemoths had become a plague to the Chinese tanks.
Now three more big enemy tanks clanked into view.
“Sir!” the comm-officer shouted.
The Behemoth turret swiveled. The giant tank shuddered, and they destroyed yet another enemy tank. Then the world ended for Colonel Wilson as the enemy cannons blew past the defensive fire and opened holes in the battered armor. The huge engine exploded. The world turned white and Colonel Wilson became simply the latest Killed in Action in the defense of his homeland.
Three days after the original breakthrough of the Behemoths into the Escondido Pocket, Paul clutched the butterfly controls of a Browning .50 caliber. He shared a foxhole with Romo outside of Poway. Clouds hid the sun. The Chinese were stirring in the rubble of the destroyed city, likely getting ready for yet another attack. To Kavanagh it seemed as if the enemy never slept.
All during the exodus of the trapped Americans through Escondido and I-15, the Chinese had fought their way through Poway, trying to rush the rearguard, to shatter them and collapse the pocket.
Paul’s eyes felt gritty and he yawned. He’d been fighting nonstop for days and he just wanted to sleep. He feared that if he did, he wouldn’t wake up in this world. He’d been thinking a lot about his family lately. He realized now that he would never get to see them again, but at least he had done his part to make sure LA didn’t fall to the Chinese.
“How many did you say again?” he asked Romo.
The assassin sat in the bottom of the foxhole as he clutched extra ammo. He had been to battalion HQ and come back with news.