John Ringo - When the Devil Dances

One of the items that would change, if he had his way, would be the fact that things were scattered through the ship apparently at random. Thus, the personnel quads were found almost anywhere throughout the vessel. In the case of the section holding the last “reaction” oolt, it was in the upper “west” quadrant, a silly place since they then had to go to the lower “north” to unload.

He greeted the Kessentai of the oolt and gave him his instructions. As soon as they landed he was to unload, pass around the oolt’poslenar and attack the gun to destroy its ability to fire, in other words, aim at the barrel.

Having done all that he could to prepare, he ordered the Kessentai to begin the laborious movement to the exit and started back to the command deck. As he did, alarms went off throughout the ship.

“Sir!” Pruitt said. “I’ve got anti-grav emanations.”

“Sir,” Kitteket interjected. “I just got word from one of the scouts; a C-Dec lifted off and is headed this way!”

“Where?” both Mitchell and Pruitt asked.

“He doesn’t know right now sir,” the specialist answered. “He says it’s staying low and he lost it in the hills. He’s up on Rocky Face and he said he just saw it for a second by Joe Mountain.”

“I don’t have a direction, sir,” Pruitt said. “I’m up on penetrators. And I’m more or less on vector,” he added, glancing at his map.

“Elevate the gun a bit,” Mitchell said. “Captain Chan, are you listening?”

“I’m here,” the MetalStorm commander replied.

“This may turn into a knife-fight,” Mitchell said. “How well are you chained down?”

“Not well enough to fire,” Captain Chan answered. “Even if we had power. Which we don’t. As for secondary effects… we’ll have to see.”

“Do you want to exit your turrets?” Mitchell asked.

“No,” the captain replied after a moment. “Better the devil you know.”

“Sir, emanations are strong,” Pruitt said. “I get the feeling they’re close.”

“The fire came from near here somewhere, Oolt’ondai,” the pilot said. He gently tapped the controls so the ship wouldn’t slam into the side of the mountain. “Should we unload the oolt?”

Besonora looked at the view from the outside; the side of the mountain was steep and covered in trees. To let them down would require backing up. However, the map showed an open area ahead; they could put them down there just as well.

“No, follow the road around this ridge and drop them here,” he said, showing the Kessentai the map. “In the bend of this creek which is marked ‘Scott.’ ”

Despite the danger, Captain Chan had ordered all her tank commanders to stick their heads out of their hatches; when it came down to it mark-one eyeball was probably going to be faster than anything else. And each of them had been given an assigned sector to watch.

As luck would have it, the first person to spot the slow-moving C-Dec was Captain Chan. And when she saw where it was she cursed fluently.

“TARGET, C-DEC, TWO THIRTY, LEVEL, THREE HUNDRED METERS. All TCs! Close hatches!”

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Pruitt cursed, frantically slewing the gun down and around.

“Fire when you bear,” Major Mitchell said calmly.

“We’re under three hundred meters, sir,” Kitteket said.

“Understood,” the major replied. “That’s the breaks.”

“I understand, sir,” the specialist replied. “But you know that these rounds have a minimum arming distance, right?”

“Put it down! Put it down!” Besonora shouted.

“I am!” the pilot said. “But there’s no place flat.”

“Fuscirto uut to flat!” the oolt’ondai cursed. “Just get the oolt on the ground!”

“All guns, fire as you bear!”

Eleven “facets” of the twelve sided C-Decs had weaponry on them. Unlike the Lampreys, which only had one face with an anti-ship weapon, the command dodecahedrons sported a mix of heavy and “light” weapons.

In this case, the facet that was pointed right at Bun-Bun mounted quad plasma guns.

“This is gonna suuuck!” Reeves shouted, bending down and putting his fingers in his ears as the gun finally leveled on the C-Dec.

The first plasma round entered the gun system low, punching through a road-wheel and the compartment wall of the engine room. Plasma rounds transferred enormous amounts of energy, but like bullets that shatter when they hit a wall, they didn’t have a lot of “penetration.” In this case, the plasma vented into the engine room, raising the temperature notably, but otherwise doing no damage. The second round did much the same, hitting slightly to the side and taking out a section of track. The SheVa was now effectively immobilized, but maneuvering hadn’t been an issue anyway.

The third plasma bolt hit the upper deck of the engine system and boiled twenty feet of steel into the air. The fourth missed entirely.

Then it was Bun-Bun’s turn.

“TARGET!”

“FIRE!”

“ON THE WAY!”

By the time Pruitt was finished with the “on” the round had already struck the C-Dec, centerline vertically and just off center to the right.

The round penetrated the outer layer of armor and the portions of it that had not already been converted to plasma and gaseous uranium proceeded to crash through the interior and break apart.

This was the point where most rounds would have detonated their antimatter charge. However, as Kitteket had pointed out, the rounds had a minimum arming distance of six hundred meters. What happened instead is that about halfway through the ship, the containment vessel shattered. The result, from the outside, was very like an antimatter explosion, but in reality it was a very fast flash-fire.

“Hooowah!” Pruitt yelled in relief. No huge explosions, just lots of plasma gouting out of all the ports. Some of it washed over the SheVa, but it was not much more than a wall of flame by the time it got there; Bun-Bun could shrug it off. “The Rabbit strikes again!”

“Captain Chan, you with us?” Mitchell called.

“Oh, yeah,” the MetalStorm commander answered. “Did you guys fire yet?”

“Sir,” Kittekut said, “the force in the pass is getting cut up. I’ve lost contact with Major Anderson, but all but one of the transmitters from the tracks has cut out and the last word I got was that there were still Posleen in the pass. Some of the militia scouts say they see columns of smoke and what look like secondary explosions in the area.”

“Oh,” Colonel Mitchell said. “Keep trying to raise them. And try to get ahold of the force on the Asheville side; maybe they can clear it.”

“Yes, sir. A few of the militia scouts are headed over to see what they can do.”

“Good,” Mitchell said, not adding for what it’s worth . “Anybody seen Indy? Or know what the damage report is?”

“We’re dead in the water is the answer, sir,” the warrant officer replied, coming up through the engineering hatch. Her face was covered in soot, but she appeared uninjured. “We’ve got full track severance on the right side and probably some major damage to the drive train; there’s a huge hole in the side of the gun where a drive wheel used to be. I think we might have taken a hit on one of the firing support struts as well. But it looks like we kept all the motors this time.”