I fire into the hailstorm of incoming missiles, more than I can destroy as they scream toward Madison and its spaceport. I destroy ninety-three of them, but the rest reach their designated targets. Madison’s spaceport sustains heavy damage. Manufacturing plants northwest of the capital explode and burn savagely. Three troop transports from the cluster that scattered, trying to evade my guns, remain airborne. Their fighter escorts have begun strafing runs on my warhull. I fire anti-aircraft missiles, infinite repeaters, and small-bore cannons at the incoming fighters. My guns belch death, filling the sky with incandescent flame. Fighters veer off, attempting evasive maneuvers. The transports drop like stones, using emergency thrust to reach the relative safety of the ground.
One transport vanishes into the Damisi Mountains, doubtless making a safe — and vexacious — landing in Klameth Canyon. A second veers sharply northwest and drops below the horizon line, doubtless intending to use the steep cliffs of the coastal escarpment as a screen. It will probably disgorge its load of infantry and Yavacs northwest of Madison. The third transport attempts to land near Nineveh Base. The base’s anti-aircraft batteries open fire, raking the side of the descending transport.
The enormous ship staggers midair. Fighters buzz and swarm to its aid. Jefferson’s home-defense fighters scream down from the Damisi Mountains, flying nap-of-the-earth in an eerie recreation of the wargames underway when the Deng fleet broke into Jeffersonian space. The human crews engage enemy fighters with air-to-air missiles, moving too swiftly for the intricacies of aerial dogfights, which belonged to a glorious but sadly antiquated era of warfare.
I know blazing pride in Jefferson’s defenders when the untested air force sends a dozen enemy fighters to destruction. They crash spectacularly into the ground surrounding Nineveh Base. The wounded troop transport has made a safe landing, but the speed of my attack and that of the air force has forced its captain into the serious error of landing on the near side of Nineveh Base. This allows me to fire line-of-sight, virtually point-blank. Two Yavacs succeed in off-loading before I rake the transport with fire from my forward Hellbore. The ship disintegrates into a massive fireball that temporarily blocks my view of the base and its scrambling gun crews.
I launch a drone, which gives me a clear view of the two Yavacs that have reached the ground. One, a Scout-class, is of little immediate danger, but the other is a Yavac Heavy, prompting a snarl from my Commander.
“Go after that Heavy before it takes out the whole base!”
I rush forward, redlining my drive engines to reach a vantage point from which I can fire at the Yavac without putting the human personnel and installations beyond at equal risk. I take fire from the Scout-class, which moves in a blur of speed on its jointed legs. A pulse from my infinite repeaters blows apart two of its legs, sending it crashing and maimed to the ground. A Jeffersonian fighter follows it down, firing missiles and 30cm cannons as it strafes the downed Scout. The hull explodes and burns fiercely, but the Yavac Heavy has not been idle.
It opens fire simultaneously on Nineveh Base and my warhull. An anti-aircraft battery simply ceases to be. Three Y-beam energy lances strike my starboard screen, concentrating all three beams onto one spot in another effort to punch through. The energy pouring into the screen fuels my infinite repeaters, which I use to good effect, taking out the Heavy’s radar arrays and small-bore weaponry. But with three beams sizzling into my flank, the screen cannot hold. It fails again — spectacularly — allowing destructive penetration to the surface of my warhull. The terrific energy influx melts three 10cm anti-personnel machine gun arrays and splashes destruction across my starboard sensors and track linkages. I fire infinite repeaters, aiming for the leg joints, not wanting to expose this heavily populated region to more hard radiation than utterly necessary.
Jeffersonian fighters attempt strafing runs, but the lightweight aircraft are no match for a Yavac Heavy’s guns. Five of the seven fighters burst into fireballs. Anger fuels my response. I open fire with my forward Hellbore, then rock on my treads, hit by return fire that digs another long gouge across my starboard side. Pain sensors scream warnings. I swivel twin turrets to bring both Hellbores to bear, delighting in the responsiveness of my retrofitted, independent double turrets, and fire again. The Yavac’s turret shears off and goes spinning through the heart of Nineveh Base. I pulse both Hellbores again and the main body of the Heavy-class fighting machine explodes. It falls, ponderously, and burns out of control.
I swat down the remaining enemy fighters with grim satisfaction. In the momentary lull of noise, a distant sound of explosions from two separate compass directions washes into my awareness. I order my aerial drone to gain altitude.
“Madison is under attack,” I report tersely, angling my drone to pick up the battle raging just northwest of the capital city. Clearly, the troop transport that eluded my guns has disgorged its lethal cargo. I also pick up frantic transmissions from the Jeffersonian air force squadron above the Damisi Mountains. I relay the fighter pilots’ situation reports. “There is heavy fighting in Klameth Canyon. The enemy has blockaded Maze Gap. There has been no action taken against the Klameth Canyon Dam, but Deng infantry are pouring through the farmholds, slowed by intense fighting from the residents. Shelling from the Yavacs has been minimal, compared with attacks on other worlds.”
“They want the canyon’s infrastructure intact, then. Madison?”
I flash video feed from my drone to the main viewscreen. Yavac Heavies are advancing toward Madison’s northwestern suburbs, firing virtually unopposed. General Hightower’s artillery — including twenty-seven mobile 10cm Hellbores — and air-mobile cav units are rushing to defend the heart of the city. Other units attempt to delay the advance along the western perimeter, trying to deny the enemy a far-forward breakthrough that would effectively split our fighting forces in half.
Simon snarls through clenched teeth. “Klameth Canyon will have to wait. We’ve got to stop those Yavacs before they take out the whole city.”
I rush forward at emergency battle speed, firing high-angle mortars that arc above Madison’s skyline. They drop cluster bombs amongst the enemy’s infantry and Scout-class units, wreaking havoc as I rush toward the Adero River, which I must cross. Due to the short distance between the Damisi watershed and the capital city, the Adero River is swift, deep, and narrower than many rivers spilling across a floodplain. This creates a navigational inconvenience, since the riverbed is too steep and too narrow to lumber across it without risk of tipping prow-first into an attitude reminiscent of a duck diving for its dinner.
I therefore redline my engines, roaring down the main road from Nineveh Base toward the Hickory Bridge, which was built east of the capital to accommodate the heavy ore carriers, construction equipment, and freight trucks connecting Madison’s industrial sector and spaceport to other urban centers, particularly the mining cities and smelting plants scattered along the Damisi Range. This bridge was constructed to handle a high volume of heavy vehicles. I hope that it will hold my weight just long enough to cross to the northern river bank.