Pro hated having his world reduced down to a three-by-six-inch screen. But it beat sitting back at the base, “healing up,” which had been his only other option.
“Remember, we have two Javelin teams out in front of us as well. Nobody shoots the good guys.”
They sat silent, waiting. Pro could barely take it anymore. “Time for a question?”
“The judge’s only option was the Marines or the Army,” Salguero fired back instantly.
“You chose poorly,” Cruz responded in kind.
“I had a choice; Army has to take what’s left.”
When the laughter died down, Pro inserted himself. “We’re a tank. How come we’re so far back?”
Mason spoke up. “If we were fighting the Russians, we wouldn’t be. The Bradley’s TOW missile range is twice or more what our gun has. They’d usually be scouting the edges or behind us. But these assclowns are bringing two Bradleys and a bunch of technicals against us. I think the colonel wants to make the point that we’re here, and not even needed, but I’m guessing.”
“Sounds right,” Salguero agreed. “Hold on—” The tank’s commander abruptly cut off, and once again, Pro was alone in his hole, reclining within the front armored glacis of the tank.
“OK, Javelin teams have them in sight, Bradleys leading the way, infantry riding school buses and trucks. A couple of JLTVs, Humvees, and technicals as well; we should see them soon. Javelin teams have the ball. Be ready . . .” Salguero’s tone had lost all humor.
This sucked . . . Pro’s view screen showed dick-all, besides the two friendly Bradleys ahead. “Here, and not even needed”; Pro hated that more than anything. Reed was on one of those Javelin teams. He should be as well.
“I have the lead Bradley, sir, and what looks like a JLTV close behind at four thousand meters—still coming on.” Lucas Hanson was seated next to him, buttoned up within the M3 Bradley, and manning the suite of sensors and targeting that controlled the TOW missile launcher mounted on the outside of the turret.
Hanson had been the one Marine Lieutenant Bruce had singled out to him as borderline indispensable; as such, the young Marine had either been out on patrol or off training Jason’s folks for the last three weeks. It was the first chance he’d had to spend any real time with the Marine.
“Very good, let me know when they stop or get within twenty-five hundred meters.”
“Stop or twenty-five hundred meters, aye, sir.”
“What’re we you going to do after OCS?”
John had told him that Farmer had been selected for Marine OCS just before the squad had begun their rotation in The Hole. He knew Lucas had joined the Marines as a grunt after college, which, in the days prior to the suck, made Farmer a unicorn of sorts.
“You’ll laugh, sir.”
He was about to give orders to kill fellow Americans, or fellow survivors who’d been countrymen. He could use a laugh. “Try me.”
“I was thinking intel, sir. Maybe try to pick up a foreign language.”
“I would have guessed flight school.”
“The idea of being trapped in a cockpit? No, sir. Not my thing.”
“Claustrophobic?”
“No, sir . . . Range to lead elements thirty-four hundred meters, still coming on.”
“Copy—thirty-four hundred meters.”
“It was the idea of being chased by an air-to-air missile and not being able to do a damned thing about it. Sort of wigged me out.”
He could understand the sentiment, though it wasn’t likely to be a concern for anyone, not for a very long time. Not unless there was a group of survivors somewhere in the world staffed with enough technical people to keep planes in the air, which was something he couldn’t imagine.
“Javelin teams—Gypsy One. Target your nearest enemy Bradley. Wait for my word.” The two hunter-killer teams were well off the highway to either side, closer to the target than he was, and would be targeting different enemy vehicles by virtue of their own locations. He was more concerned with getting these people some experience than he was with either Javelin team actually hitting their target.
“Our new people are more motivated than I’d feared.”
“They are that, sir,” Hanson agreed after a moment. “I heard some of their stories while we had them back at The Hole; most have had a real tough time. Slaves to whoever was running the place before Jason showed up.”
“So I’ve gathered; I think they understand better than we do what Charlottesville is or could become.”
“Sir, can I ask what our long-term plans are?”
“Salguero, Gypsy One—advise me when you have enemy heavy vehicles in effective range.” He switched channels and called the Abrams, hull down behind them.
“Copy, Gypsy One. Will advise when they are in our box.”
“Jason asked me the same thing, Lieutenant. Best I could do is some sort of federation of city-states, independent, but hopefully willing to come to each other’s defense.”
“That’s why you haven’t bracketed Charlottesville with artillery. You think we’ll need that?”
He turned his face towards the young man, who was still glued to the padded viewfinder. “I hope not,” he said. “But I’ve learned not to put too much faith in hoping. What’s their range?”
“Just passing twenty-three hundred meters,” Hanson replied. “More JLTVs and technicals visible behind the infantry transports. I can’t believe they haven’t seen us yet.”
“Your first target is the Bradley in the westbound lane,” he said after another glance at his own monitor. If the Javelins missed, that one would be closest.
“Target framed and locked.”
“Gypsy One—Salguero; we are in range.”
“Copy. Salguero—target enemy Bradley in eastbound lane. You are weapons free, heavy vehicles only, after Javelin strike.”
“Copy all—Salguero out.”
“You ready?”
“Ready, sir.” Hanson was as calm as could be.
“Javelin teams, fire when ready.”
Reed heard the colonel’s voice over the radio. He didn’t need the slap on the back from Sam Hirai, letting him know he was clear to fire. He’d fired three practice rounds at The Hole. The Javelin was a fire-and-forget weapon, and they’d be running the second the missile left the launch tube on his shoulder. None of the practice targets had been moving; this one was. It was also, he had to assume, full of people. He could see Sam in his peripheral vision. One thing that had been made very clear to them; you needed to make sure there wasn’t anyone standing behind the launch tube.
The enemy Bradley, just short of a mile away, stood out clear as day in the infrared viewfinder. He locked the targeting reticle and fired. After a short delay, he was momentarily stunned by the explosive booster charge that pushed the missile from the tube. He opened his eyes too soon and was half-blinded when the missile’s propellant ignited thirty feet in front of them. He watched as he followed the track of the missile. He was going to miss. It was far too high.
“Shit!”
“Come on!” Sam was pulling at his flak jacket.
“Wait.” He pushed Sam off as he saw the missile arch over and begin its terminal dive. It slammed into the Bradley with a massive bloom of orange fire.
“Dude! Come on!” Sam pulled at him again. It was time to run. The Marines had called this technique “shoot and scoot,” and when they’d trained for it, they had another missile waiting for them at their next position. They’d only packed the one missile in—it was time to just run.
Skirjanek watched the Bradley being taken out and had time to swivel his camera on the turret to the second Bradley. That missile missed its target, but plowed right through a pickup truck that had been following close behind.
“Switching targets,” Hanson reported without being told.
“Engage when ready.”
He watched as Lucas depressed the firing stud. There was a delay of a few seconds as the gyroscopes within the TOW mis
sile spun up. Insulated as they were inside the Bradley, the actual launch sounded like a large gun going off outside the armor.
“Tracking . . . Tracking . . . That’s a hit!”
He switched to the internal circuit of the Bradley. “Julie!” He kicked the internal metal wall that separated them from their driver. “Back us out of here, pull back.” The Bradley’s twenty-seven-ton frame jerked him in his seat even as heavy machine gun rounds could be heard slapping the hull.
“That’s got to be fifty cal.”
He activated the servos on the Bushmaster 25mm chain gun and selected low rate auto fire. He fired three quick bursts well above the muzzle flashes he could see in his viewfinder. He was just trying to keep their heads down as his driver backed them even farther out of range.
He spotted two JLTVs racing forward of the enemy column, the rest of which had stopped cold.
“Salguero, two JLTVs headed our way. Take them.”
“I don’t have a shot!” Mason yelled.
“Pro, forward! Drive it like a rental. Just keep an eye peeled for our Bradleys pulling back. Don’t rear-end the colonel.”
He’d never driven a rental; he didn’t know what that meant. But given Salguero’s tone, he gunned the engine and released the brake. The Abrams went nose up as it climbed back onto the roadway surface. He made the turn out and straightened their path. Even he could see the two vehicles coming down the freeway at them, one in each lane.
“Full stop!” Salguero yelled.
He slammed on the brakes and could tell from how the tank slid to a stop that he’d just chewed up a section of the freeway with the tank treads.
“Gun ready!”
“Fire!”
Pro’s whole world recoiled. He could feel the shock of the cannon firing in his bones. The 120mm cannon fired a narrow bolt of depleted uranium enwrapped in a sleeve of some sort that Salguero had called a sabot. The sabot was supposed to keep the arrow straight inside the barrel and flew away after leaving the muzzle. At over five thousand feet a second, the tank round was converted into superheated plasma as it met the target’s armor. The cannon and the penetrator it fired had been designed to kill other tanks.
In this case, it passed clean through the engine block and firewall of the lightly armored truck, killing everyone inside in a spray of expanding shrapnel. Most of the penetrator was still intact as it shot out the back of the JLTV and plowed into a hillside, three hundred yards behind the burning fireball that had been the JLTV.
“Holy shit . . .” Pro mumbled to himself. He couldn’t believe how fast that had happened.
“Load!” Salguero yelled.
“Target second JLTV!”
“I got him!” Mason yelled.
“Gun ready!” Cruz yelled a few seconds later.
“Fire!”
This round was a little high; it went in through the windshield and must have hit something solid inside, as the fireball shot out the back of the vehicle.
“Pro! Straight at them, no hurry, they’re running!”
He put the tank in motion. He could see the mass of vehicles and buses down the freeway turning around and heading back the way the way they’d come. One of the buses had a large group of people running after it, trying to catch up.
Skirjanek’s command Bradley rolled forward until it reached its original firing position. He popped his hatch, and took a deep breath of cooler air, even if the night was humid, and watched the enemy move back as fast as their legs or vehicles would carry them.
“Not used to somebody else being the hammer,” Lucas shouted up at him from inside. He crawled the rest of the way out, and dropped his headset back down into the vehicle.
“Tell Julie to pop her hatch. You two get some fresh air.”
“Yes, sir.”
He pulled the radio from his webbing as he watched the fleeing enemy, if indeed that’s what they were.
“John, Pavel—Gypsy Actual. They are headed back your way in a hurry. Deploy psyops material at the roadblock. Avoid all contact.”
Chapter 21
“How the hell did this happen?” Lisa’s head was in her hands. She sat on the other side of the room from him. The physical distance separating them was another message that he would have had to have been an idiot to miss. Whatever personal relationship they’d had, it was over.
Marks was done trying to sugarcoat events for her, especially after last night’s activity that could be laid directly at her feet. “We attacked their people without cause, under a white flag—we’ve been expecting a response. Given their apparent resources, I’m surprised they waited this long.”
Her hands dropped away from her face as she took on a confused look. “Under a white flag? Are you fucking kidding me? This isn’t the sixteenth century, and we aren’t playing by the Marquis de Queensberry rules.”
He kept his calm. Lisa could get angry, and often did, but it would pass and she’d come out of it as if the ensuing conversation never happened. The few people who he’d witnessed get angry with her were notably absent. They hadn’t been demoted; they didn’t fall out of favor - they were quietly fertilizing the 14th hole’s fairway. “That is now for certain,” he answered. “But we could have been, and we may come to wish we were.”
“You want me to say it?” she screeched. “Fine, I made a mistake. I fucked up. I thought with the size of our army, you could have handled them. I got that wrong as well.”
One way or another, their fates were tied; he was still of that mind, even if he was beginning to wonder if Lisa still felt the same way. “You weren’t wrong.” He managed to give her that concession. “Other than in making the same mistake I did in assuming that they were no different than everyone else we’ve come across.”
She stood up, smoothed her dress down, and walked slowly to the window. “Tell me, then, how are they different? I mean besides the fact that they have fucking missiles.”
“They are well led.” There was no point denying that either in his own mind or to her. “And their initial reaching out to us was probably genuine. Part of me hopes that may still be on the table.”
“How can you say that?” She spun back to her desk and held up one of the flyers that had been strewn all over the eastern roadblock and discovered by the militia as they were retreating. “They’re calling for our heads. Mine and yours!”
“Lisa, if they’d wanted to, they could have killed hundreds last night out on the freeway. They didn’t pursue; they didn’t fire on the infantry. I think there’s a message in that, as well as the one you’re holding.”
Her militia jackboots had collected every flyer they’d found and rounded up anyone who talked about them. Even he had to admit, her militia had been damned effective in their efforts. The flyer’s message had been simple and straightforward; “We are not at war with Charlottesville, only your leadership.” As part of that leadership, he was thankful for the militia’s efforts, but the rumors and whispers would be impossible to stamp out completely.
“You’re not suggesting we turn ourselves in to them? They have no authority here. I . . . we built this.”
“Hell no.” He shook his head. “My takeaway is that they don’t have the numbers to take us on. Some very effective ordinance, yes, but not the numbers to defeat us. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be trying this psyops bullshit.”
“What do you suggest, then?”
“Let them think it worked.” He nodded. “We’ve come to our senses. Ask for a meeting.”
“You think they’d be foolish enough to buy that?”
“Not a chance, but we play for the time needed to locate them, and then we throw everything at them. Their anti–tank weapons aren’t going to stop three thousand infantry. It’ll be ugly, and you need to know that going in. We will lose . . . a lot of people. But I’m convinced it’s people they don’t have.”
“I’ve got another option,” she said smugly. “But you need to find them.”
“The virus?”
Sh
e hid her surprise well. “You knew?”
“No, not until this second,” he admitted. “Your boy Josh and some of his team have been spending a lot of time at the hospital. I put two and two together.”
“You’re OK with the concept?”
The idea sickened him, but whatever principles he had left had been permanently and justifiably bent by the apocalypse. “I don’t like it; any more than I imagine you do. I do think it’s cleaner than losing half of our people trying to fight them.” Besides, he, Lisa, and all their people had been winnowed by the virus. They had lost everyone close to them, lived through the hell of the die-off. Why should a group of people that had managed to avoid all that be allowed to dictate anything on moral grounds to them?
Lisa nodded at him agreement. “Josh is not my. . . anything, Steven. But I do trust him. You said you did too.”
*
“You really don’t want to be in here with me.”
“Dr. Vance . . . Naomi,” Josh corrected himself before she could do it for him. “You know I have to be.”
“I get it.” She zipped up her orange biohazard lab suit as far as she could and then spun slowly in place to allow him to finish the process. “Not like I don’t mind the company.” Her voice was suddenly modulated by the flexible bag helmet and its oversize rigid face screen. “But I can’t imagine this as anybody’s idea of a third date.”
He had to laugh at that. He’d initially taken Dr. Vance as the typical stuck-up, overly privileged type he’d learned to despise having grown up in a college town. Two days of working together had disabused him of that. He’d discovered that they’d almost known each other in the old world. They’d gone to the same junior high and high school here in Charlottesville. Naomi had been a senior when he was a freshman at Charlottesville High, and they hadn’t known each other, and even if they’d been the same age; she had been in the chess and science clubs while he’d played baseball.
He had actually known her father; Mr. Vance had been the head maintenance guy/janitor at the junior high they’d both attended. Which had blown his silver-spoon preconception of her out of the water. Two days of navigating the previously sealed and abandoned virology lab in the basement of UVA’s medical center, in these claustrophobic moon suits, engendered a certain level of trust in who you were working with. Given the fact he didn’t have a clue what he was doing, he had no option but to trust the woman. As he finished zipping up her suit and checking the seals, he realized that she was trusting him as well.
Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow Page 21