“Because we fire at their spacecraft,” the chief tech said.
“You spout folly,” Shun Li said. “The American spacecraft would have taken a different flight path if they sought the moon. No. The Americans are using these spaceships to do something directly against us. How badly are the strategic lasers hurting them?”
“The Orion ships are heavily armored,” the tech said. “They must be to endure their own fuel. I cannot agree with your original proposal. If we launch nuclear warheads at them, we risk harming ourselves with massive EMP blasts. It could knock out much of China’s power and electrical grid. It would leave us open to anything.”
“You’re suggesting we’re doomed?” Shun Li asked.
“No, Police Minister,” the technician said. “I suggest we target each Orion ship at a time with our lasers and PBWs. We pour fire into one until our beams destroy it. Then we begin on the second vessel.”
“Yes!” Hong said. “This is a sound proposal. See to it at once. And after this is over, I shall order our Mexico army to invade. Then I will launch the biological agents. After the continental diseases weaken them enough, I will wipe America off the face of the Earth with our nuclear weapons.”
“Could that be their plan, Leader?” Shun Li asked.
“To die hideously?” asked Hong.
“No,” Shun Li said. “Perhaps they are trying to entice us into launching all our nuclear weapons while they are on high alert. If they can destroy our arsenal…”
“I just told you I will launch our ICBMs later.”
“Yes, I stand corrected.”
“Unless you believe I still wanted to launch them now.”
Shun Li opened her mouth, but found herself unable to articulate her words.
“Still, that is cunning reasoning, Shun Li—that America could be enticing us to strike while their defenses are on maximum alert.” Hong nodded thoughtfully. “I see that you are finally becoming dangerous, Police Minister.”
Fear washed through Shun Li. She understood the threat, and she recalled how quickly Kiang had perished. One of these days, someone had to beat the Leader to the draw.
LOW EARTH ORBIT
As the Chinese laser ABM stations and PBW sites poured their beams into the lead Orion ship, the full extent of the THOR bundles maneuvered into position using cold gas.
At a signal from Lexington, Kentucky, the bundles expanded into individual crowbar-sized missiles. Gravity tugged them earthward, and soon they sped for the twin targets of the PBW sites at Xi’an and Lanzhou.
A radar specialist in Beijing picked up the THORs. Chinese Space Defense had become expert at the deadly signature. An order sped throughout China’s Space Command.
The PBW stations quit beaming the Orion ship and targeted individual THORs. China’s Space Defense was the best, and their reaction time was startling. The PBWs destroyed eighty-five percent of the incoming meteors. This time, however, it was too few.
Seven THOR missiles struck the Xi’an station, obliterating it. Seconds later, the strike against the Lanzhou station left it a smoldering ruin.
If the Chinese hadn’t already been focused on the three Orion ships, the THOR strike would have at best only taken out one site. Now, two were gone leaving China with seven PBW stations.
After two minutes of scanning orbital space for more THOR missiles, the seven PBW stations resumed their attack on the lead Orion ship.
ORION SHIP DANIEL BOONE
Paul figured they must be maneuvering into deployment position. The God-knocking outside the spaceship had lessened considerably, enough so the captain came online to tell them to close their mouths before each bomb-blast.
The details: successful combat was all about taking pains with the tiny details like closing your mouth when a nuclear fuel-bomb went off. That way, you didn’t click your teeth together hard enough so you bit off some of your tongue.
“I hope everyone took their anti-motion pill,” the captain said.
Paul hadn’t. They still made him sick. He’d learned to endure, though.
“I won’t lie to you,” the captain said in his calm voice. “The Chinese are pouring it on, and they’ve gotten smart. Their lasers and particle beams are chewing apart Orion Ship Paul Bunyan. I don’t know if they’ll be able to launch their Marines. Still, there’s some good news. According to what I’m seeing, it looks as if our boys have taken out some of the enemy’s PBW sites and more of their laser stations. Oh-oh, hold on a minute.”
Beside Paul, Romo turned his faceplate toward him. It opened with a purr of sound and a click as it locked. Paul ordered his down too. The air in the compartment smelled like brunt electrical wire, while smoke drifted heavily. That couldn’t be good. He heard a bubbling sound from the other side of the nearest bulkhead, together with a hiss worse than a pissed-off python.
“Remember Lake Ontario?” Romo asked in a shaky voice.
“Sure do.”
“I wish I were back on the dinghy in the deep water.”
Romo hated water and amphibious operations. Maybe now he hated space missions even worse.
“The fun’s going to start soon,” Paul said. “Better seal up.”
“Amigo?”
“Yeah?”
Romo gave him a worried glance. Then the assassin grinned with false bravado. “You…you…are my best…”
“Yeah,” Paul said. “I know how you feel. Same here, my brother.”
Romo’s grin became genuine. “Once we’re down…I’m going to find me a Chinese girl…”
The entire compartment shook, and a loud screech made Paul wince. What caused that? Nothing good, he was sure.
“Get ready for maneuvering,” the captain said in Paul’s headphones, and likely in Romo’s too. “This will be it. Then you have three minutes to cocoon.”
Romo swore quietly in Spanish.
With his gut tightening, Paul closed his faceplate. Twenty seconds later:
BANG!
Silence.
“Paul Bunyan has maneuvered ahead of us,” the captain said in a thick voice. “Half its Marines are already dead. Paul Bunyan will attempt to shield us while we deploy. You’d better remember us, and you’d better remember your people back home. Give them hell, Marines. Show the Chinese they messed with the wrong country.”
Sweat beaded Paul’s forehead. His suit’s air-conditioner clicked on, blowing coolness over his face. Just how hot was it inside the Orion ship?
“Time to cocoon,” the captain said. “Go with God’s grace, Marines.”
Paul’s buckles blew away. He sat up, pushing off the acceleration couch. With a careful jump, he sailed to his cocoon. Weightlessness ruled the compartment. The “cocoon” was a cylindrical coffin, and it belonged to an assembly line of similar coffins. He glanced at Romo. The assassin already wriggled into his cylinder.
This was possibly the worst part of orbital dropping. Each Orion ship would fire Marines like pellets in a shotgun shell. The launchers would blast them in pods of five, as if it was some ancient handgun with multiple barrels.
“I’m in,” Paul told his suit.
With the code word, the cylinder became his private amusement park ride. Cushioned bars snapped into place, locking him into position. The top slid shut, sealing him inside. Claustrophobia hit. He began swearing, cursing at his fear. It helped just enough so he didn’t rave. The sweat intensified, and the cool blowing air on his face told him he was still alive.
Yeah, alive in LEO, Low Earth Orbit, the height of his previous space jumps. The Orion ships would be drifting over Chinese space now, making the final calibrations. The enemy used lasers and particle beams. That meant— A clack and sudden movement blanketed his thoughts. They’d practiced this in simulators, but no one had ever fired Marines into combat before. He’d heard a hundred lectures about this…
Another clack brought another sharp movement to the cylinder. A distant WHAM told him the first pod, the first five men, left the ship’s firing tubes, heading do
wn like meteors.
Clack, WHAM…clack, WHAM…clack, WHAM…Paul counted four launches when everything changed for him. A resounding CLANG told him his cylinder had entered a firing tube.
“Cheri,” he whispered, with his fist clenched.
BANG!
It felt as if another Weapons-grade U-235 blew under him. Massive acceleration pushed him down. He’d be three inches shorter after this was done. Yeah, he’d— Nothing, silence, weightlessness—he was out of the launch tube and free of Daniel Boone. There wasn’t much hope for the captain and crew. They would try to space jump at the end, land somewhere in China, provided the Orion ship couldn’t get onto the other side of the planet, away from Chinese beams.
Paul swore softly. He knew the routine. He could recite it in his sleep. The cylinder had layers, onionskins, chutes, decoys, emitters— Don’t think about it. Enjoy the ride down. This is nothing. Wait until the final layer burns away.
BEIJING, CHINA
Shun Li cheered with the others in the Ruling Committee chamber. Chinese lasers and particle beams broke apart the first Orion ship. Sections of the American spacecraft fell away, drifting like junk. Explosions completed the destruction, as one section became a fireball while another showed metal crumbling akin to someone crushing a tinfoil ball.
“Are those nuclear blasts aboard their ship?” Hong asked in a worried voice.
“Negative, Leader,” the chief technician said, as she scanned her screen, reading data.
“Can you scan the debris?” Shun Li asked. “Maybe that will give us some clue as to the ship’s purpose.”
“There,” a man shouted, a different technician. “The remaining Orion ships are launching missiles.”
“Where, where?” Hong cried. “Are they nuclear-tipped missiles?”
Shun Li bent forward, watching the wall image. The technicians worked at their portable stations. Technology changed things so much. It gave the top leaders the ability to watch and affect real-time combat by giving direct orders to the participants. In this instance, that was the laser and particle beam commanders at their sites throughout the country.
“Leader,” the chief technician said. “This seems wrong, but—”
“Speak,” Hong said. “I command it.”
“The debris from the first Orion ship, the destroyed vessel…”
“Yes, yes,” Hong said impatiently. “Tell me.”
“The debris is people.”
“Explain your statement and its importance.”
“The Orion ship appears to hold people,” the technician said, “many of them.”
“Why?” asked Hong. “I must know.”
“Ah…” the technician said. “The drifting people wear armor, heavy amounts of metal.”
“Why?” asked Hong. “Why do they wear metal? What is the meaning of this?”
“Leader,” a different technician said. “The missiles heading down are beginning to open up.”
“That does not make sense,” Hong said, shaking his head as he began to nibble on his lower lip.
“Leader, the missiles are pods of some kind. Armored soldiers have appeared. It seems as if the American ships have launched soldiers at us.”
“These are American space soldiers?” Hong asked.
“So it appears, Leader.”
Hong looked at Shun Li, with confusion twisting his normally placid features. Despite that, Hong was the first to ask, “Where are these space soldiers headed. What are their terminal points?”
That’s a good question, Shun Li thought.
“Leader,” a technician said. “The space soldiers are heading for the PBW stations. Different groups are heading for different sites.”
“Of course,” Hong said. “They are attempting to destroy our anti-THOR and anti-ICBM defenses. Instead of missiles, they try to drop men down, thinking we can’t destroy such small objects.”
Shun Li went cold inside. Were the Americans contemplating nuclear Chinese genocide? Did they plan to do to China what they had once done to Japan? The idea would gall the Chairman.
“We must stop them!” Hong shouted, his voice cracking. “Alert the air force, rush soldiers to those locations, and tell the station defenders to prepare for a ground attack.”
“Yes, Leader,” the chief technician said.
“And retarget the lasers on the space soldiers. We must kill every one of these scoundrels. They will attempt to strip us of the ability to defend ourselves from the ultimate revenge. This I refuse to give the Americans.”
Space soldiers that act like paratroopers—what an idea, Shun Li thought. It is so American. Can we stop them in time? We must, or the enemy will take revenge on us for Oklahoma.
UPPER ATMOSPHERE, CHINA
Paul Kavanagh’s final ablative layer exploded outward. Darkness vanished and light blackened his visor. The sky was blue. He was deep in the atmosphere, with the ground a vast panorama below.
He looked everywhere. Masses of pod debris fell above, around and below him. There were also decoy emitters and silvery chaff. Together, they all had one purpose—to make it harder for Chinese radar to pinpoint individual Marines.
As he fell, spread-eagled like any ordinary parachutist, he scanned the approaching countryside. He saw what he hoped was Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province. Beside the city to the north—fed off the same power grid—was the Taiyuan PBW Station, a heavily defended antimissile site.
Swallowing hard, Paul studied the Chinese city of millions. Would he drift off course? Would he land with pinpoint accuracy? How many of his squad and the three platoons dedicate to destroying the PBW station, would reach Taiyuan in time? There were so many imponderables. It didn’t mean that— Paul swore with amazement. A beam in the shape of a lightning bolt flashed upward, passing him by several hundred feet.
They’re shooting at us. That can’t be good.
Just like his space jump in Montana, Paul had various chutes ready to deploy. He fell at terminal velocity, the ground rushing up fast now. Instead of shaking in terror or letting worry devour his thoughts, Paul opened his mouth and laughed. Sure, this was frightening, but it was also exhilarating. Instead of defending America, he took the fight to the invader. It was time for the Chinese to eat atomic fire and die.
A beep in his helmet alerted him. He deployed a chute to cut down speed. It jerked hard, slowing him, and the chute tore away. A second one deployed, lasting a little longer, until it, too, ripped free.
Paul wanted to know how the others were doing, but they maintained radio silence during the actual drop. Why give the enemy an easier target? Make the enemy work for it.
His visor turned darker as another particle beam shot upward. This one flashed closer. He heard hard growling in his earphones. Bad, bad, that was all bad. The good came from one thing: he knew the exact location of the PBW site now, five miles from his landing zone. Considering what it had taken to get here, that was fantastic accuracy.
Five miles, I have my work cut out for me.
Then the antiaircraft guns began firing. He didn’t know until black puffs appeared in the sky with him. Something fast and glittering bright shot past Paul.
Was that a piece of Chinese shrapnel? I can’t worry about that. It’s go time, baby.
“Deploy,” Paul subvocalized.
A huge chute billowed into existence. It snapped him, ripped him seeming upward and he began to float the final distance to the ground.
They have to see this.
Maybe they did, but another piece of luck helped him. A US Orion-launched missile slammed down from the heavens, and exploded. The non-nuclear explosion took out a radar array. Antiaircraft guns sent more shells aloft, but none near Paul afterward.
That’s your last chance. “Release,” he muttered. The chute’s clamps unbuckled, and First Sergeant Kavanagh dropped straight down the last fifty feet. He braced for impact, and struck, his servos whining. The back of his head tried to snap backward, but the cushions in his helmet softened t
he blow.
He was down, and he scanned around him. A water tower, some sheds or buildings, waving trees—big slender things—and— Trucks appeared at the top of a rise. These were big black-painted trucks—Chinese Army—with canvas backs or covers. The huge machines roared down a blacktop road toward him. He’d bet infantry sat on benches under the canvas. What was this? Machine guns fired from the top of the cabs. He spied tracers. Some of them sprouted dirt in a line, approaching him, and clack, clack, clack. The rounds struck his chest plate. He staggered backward from the impacts. They couldn’t penetrate his armor, not yet anyway, but they would weaken it.
He jumped to the right, leaping thirty feet. The bullets no longer hit him. He landed hard, going to one knee. The Chinese machine gunners were good. The tracers already came after him.
I’m done playing with you.
Paul stood, raised a big tube, a stubby launcher of unusual size. It held a nuclear round. Sighting with his HUD and using the targeting computer, Paul subvocalized, “Launch.”
A fat compact missile popped out of the tube, and its solid fuel ignited. The missile flashed at the convoy of troop carry trucks. Maybe Paul could have engaged them with his infantry weapons—maybe. He didn’t have time for that and others landed. Besides, Paul was here to kill and destroy.
“Nuclear warhead going off,” Paul radioed. “Put on your blinders.”
He lay down on the grass, pushing his faceplate against the soil. He heard the explosion, felt the blast and knew a small mushroom cloud billowed where the trucks had barreled for him.
Ten seconds passed, and Paul got up, standing. None of the trucks remained upright. As if the fist of God had swatted them, the big black trunks lay on their sides, many of them burning. Like littered trash, broken and dead Chinese soldiers lay everywhere.
That was too bad for them.
“Anyone hear me?” Paul radioed.
“Roger,” Romo said. “I’m five hundred yards to your left.”
Paul turned, looked and saw Romo raise an arm.
Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5) Page 43