John Ringo - Hell's Faire

“Demons of sky and fire eat and defecate their souls ,” he snarled. “Orostan!”

But the oolt’ondai had already seen the belch of fire skyward. It was far away but he knew that it could only mean one thing.

“I’m sorry, estanaar,” he said, without even looking at the communicator. “It’s up to you now.”

Then he turned his face to the sky and awaited the fire.

The 100-kiloton round was heavier than the penetrator. This was due to a carbon-uranium matrix that was designed to armor the potentially dangerous round against stray impacts. The armor, however, fell away after firing, and the round tracked upward and then over at apogee, after which the tracking system lost lock and the round became an unknown actor.

Fortunately for all the humans involved it caught one more blast of wind from the recently passed cold front and nosed a tad further south, angling in to land just south of the Franklin water tower. And at one hundred meters off the ground, just above the tank farm, it detonated.

The antimatter blast created a hemisphere of fire, the ground zero zone, in which everything but the most sturdy structure was destroyed. Directly at the center was a small patch, the toroid zone, in which many structures were, remarkably, virtually untouched.

Outward from ground zero a blast of plasma and debris from the detonation expanded in a circle, destroying everything in its path. It was this shock wave that did the majority of damage, sweeping over the Posleen gathered in the town center and, unfortunately, over the tank left at the top of the hill. The Abrams was rocked by the blast-wave and the terrific overpressure but all the seals, designed back in the 1970s for full-scale war against the long-defunct Soviet Union, held and the crew survived. They were shaken, but alive.

The blast spread outward, sweeping across the hilltop occupied by the city center and erasing the majority of the historic buildings that made up the previously idyllic town. As the circle of pressurized air increased in size it decreased in power until an equilibrium with the surrounding air was reached… and passed. Then the air rushed in to fill the vacuum at the center and a return wave collapsed inward destroying much of what had survived the outward wave. When the dual shock waves passed, the only thing that was recognizable on the hilltop was the basement and foundations of the courthouse and half of the gem-and-mineral museum.

Bazzett rocked to first one and then another blast-front, leaning back and forth in his crewman’s seat, then started dancing in his seat.

“ ‘If the Brad is a rockin’ then don’t come a knockin’…’ ” He looked over at Utori, who was just starting to look out from under his helmet, and shrugged. “I just noticed the track was rockin’ to the beat.” He lifted his AIW out of the rack and thumbed on the sight, going through an electronics check. “I’m gonna get me a tattoo. I always said, I’d never get a tattoo unless I was in a nuclear war. I think this counts. Even if it is our side that’s shootin’ at us.”

“Fuckin’ nuts, man,” the SAW gunner muttered as the Bradley rumbled to life.

“Most of the tracks are up,” the TC called. “We’re making a speed run from here on out. Hang the fuck on.”

“ ‘If the track is a rockin’ then don’t come a knockin’.’ ”

“Tango Eight-Nine this is Quebec Four-Six,” Glennis said. “I lost three tracks to the EMP; the shields on all the rest held. Also various and sundry electronics and shock damage.”

“You’re mobile, though, right?”

Glennis looked at the tanks and AFVs moving through the predawn darkness and shook her head. “I guess you could call it that, Tango.”

“Next stop firing point Omega, Quebec. Tango Eight-Nine out.”

“Right, the mission is to get the SheVa to where it can support the ACS. Not to kill every Posleen in the valley.” Glennis looked around at the devastated landscape, the smashed houses, tree trunks tossed hither and thither, the blackened ground, and shook her head. “Although…”

“Boss man,” McEvoy called over the platoon circuit. “Posleen lander emissions. Three sources, one heavy two light. System says two Lampreys and a C-Dec. Should we head back and attach anti-lander systems?”

Since the suits had been detailed to resupply the Marauders, Tommy had had them change out their heavy grav-guns for flechette cannons. If the shit hit the fan, it was much more likely that they would need to stop, or at least slow, an attack by the ground-pounder Posleen than that they would have to stop landers. It looked, to most of the battalion, as if the gamble had played out.

Tommy had been looking at the same indicators and now he grinned. “Nah, I’ll take care of it.”

The lieutenant left the puzzled suit to wonder what that meant and laid out two power packs as he prepared the item that he had kept under a blanket.

He turned as his sensors indicated a suit entering the hole and started to nod at the battalion commander. His head just sort of wallowed in the mush within the helmet and his vision swung wildly. But he corrected after a moment and saluted instead.

“So how, exactly, were you planning on taking out three landers, Lieutenant?” Mike said, returning the salute with a wave.

“With this, sir!” Tommy replied, removing the silvery cloth from the device in the hole. “Ta-da!”

“Hmmph,” O’Neal grunted, looking at the terawatt laser. The weapons had been common in the early days of the war but had been dropped out of service within the first couple of years. They were, however, remarkable anti-lander systems, at least against Lampreys and unsuspecting C-Decs. So it would probably work in this instance. “And why were you keeping it a secret?”

“I figured if nobody else knew about it, neither would the Posleen, sir,” Tommy said. “I hope that was all right.”

“Your AID knew,” Mike said thoughtfully.

“I asked it to modify the inventory it sent back,” the lieutenant replied, carefully. “If you didn’t get the word, then neither would the Posleen. Sorry about that, sir.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Mike waved. “Do you know why these were removed from service?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Tommy said. “It never made any sense to me.”

“Well, it won’t affect anything in this battle,” the battalion commander replied. “I’ll just head back to the battalion hole. Good luck, Lieutenant. Good shooting.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”

Mike slithered into the hole that had been dug out for the battalion headquarters just as the first lander crested the ridge.

“Why isn’t he having his suits rearm?” Stewart snapped.

“Oh, he’s got a better idea,” Mike said with a chuckle. “I had a terawatt laser in the cache.”

“And he’s going to use it?” the battalion S-2 said.

“Looks like it. Should be fun to watch. Preferably from a safe distance.”

“I think they’re serious this time,”

SheVa Nine crawled forward slowly over the ruins of downtown Franklin searching for a firing point.

The hill that had once held downtown Franklin, and all the rolling hills in every direction as far as the eye could see, was covered with detritus of the nuclear strike. There was rubble from the houses as well as lighter debris scattered across the roads, and in the neighborhoods around the city there were trees fallen across the roads and fires smoldering from the intense heat of the fireball. There was a fan of tracks out in front of them but for once since its wounding the SheVa could make nearly as good time as the Abrams and Bradleys; what they had to dodge, it could crush underfoot.