Unfortunately, they were out of RPGs. All they had left were their regular M16s.
“Here we go,” Jake said. “One more time.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said.
Jake popped up. Charlie popped up and so did Lee. The three militiamen fired, hammering the armored hide with bullets. Then more militiamen did likewise: they were the last newbies left. Maybe the Sigrid had taken damage elsewhere. Who knew, who cared? The point today was that with all the bullets pinging off it, enough did enough damage that the drone trundled into a shell hole, tipped over and plunged in headfirst. Maybe they had shot out its camera lenses.
“Stop firing!” Jake roared.
As the sound of rifle fire died away, a feeling of awe worked over Jake, a chill of disbelief on the back of his neck. They’d done it. They had stopped the Sigrids or this small bunch anyway. Five lousy machines: were the Germans running out of them?
“Now what do we do?” Charlie asked.
Jake climbed out of the shell hole. The sound of combat came from farther down the line, but right now, their sector was quiet.
Water dripped from him and water soaked his clothes. It made his underwear ride up too high. Someone had to take over now that the lieutenant and his butt-boys had run off or died. It might as well be him. Lee was a corporal, but Jake had once been a sergeant.
“All right!” he shouted. “Let’s gather round, and follow me to the first trench. We need a plan if we’re going to make it back to our side.”
The others didn’t need any more urging. They hurried to him and he led them back to the overrun trench system.
-12-
The GD Armada
From Military History: Past to Present, by Vance Holbrook:
Invasion of Northeastern America, 2040
2040, July 11-16. Breakout. From Rochester, Zeller sent two corps heading for Buffalo sixty-five miles to the southwest. A weakened Twelfth Army sped east on Interstate 90 for Syracuse seventy-five miles away. New York City was 250 miles away from Rochester.
In Southern Ontario, Holk’s heavy assaults against US Fifth Army in the Niagara Peninsula retarded its disengagement and threatened the army’s entrapment within the peninsula.
To the east in New York State, the lead elements of the coastal US XI Airmobile Corps set up screening battalions in Syracuse as the others rushed for the city. Meanwhile, the first Canadian units in Manitoba entrained for the long, roundabout trip to New York. All along the north of First Front—from the northern edge of Lake Ontario to the Quebec border and then stretching across northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire—US Army Group New York and US Army Group New England strove to contain the GD Fromm Offensive.
The Americans sought to defend nearly everything of First Front, as they waited for the Canadian reinforcements. It was a matter of time. They had to stop the new GD blitz along New York Interstate 90 long enough for the Canadians to give them overwhelming numbers. Mansfeld, meanwhile, readied his masterstroke from the Atlantic Ocean.
The unsolvable crisis point for America had almost arrived.
INTERSTATE 90, NEW YORK
In the darkness, Paul Kavanagh slid his motorcycle on gravel, taking it down in a controlled crash. He flipped out of the bike at the last second, twisting his ankle—his foot wrenched against the gear-shifter. He tumbled, weapons rolling off him and body armor compressing against his torso. His helmeted head slammed against a rock, and he lay there for a moment, stunned.
Since leaving Ontario Beach Park and Rochester, Paul and Romo had been involved in one long running and losing gun battle against the enemy.
Paul heard a dirt bike engine, and a tire crunching gravel. From seemingly far away a voice asked, “Amigo, what happened to you?”
While groaning and blinking, Paul sat up. The stars shone above. In the distance and lower down, a dark GD tank column used Interstate 90. Littered along the freeway were blasted M1 tanks, overturned Bradley fighting vehicles and holed Strykers. The US 9th Armored Battalion had made a stand a half hour ago. The brave soldiers had slowed the GD advance, but not for long enough. Paul had watched some of the battle from the air in a stealth helo. He’d seen the battalion die a bitter death.
Now he and Romo used dirt bikes. They’d landed several miles back, wrestling their machines out of the helo. They were close enough to the interstate now that they were going to crawl nearer and wash the tank column with a laser designator. It was the best way to defeat GD ECM, guiding US missiles straight onto target.
“Are you hurt?” Romo asked.
Paul felt along his helmet as if feeling his head. The skull didn’t throb, but his eyes felt wobbly. Digging into a pocket, he came up with some painkillers, swallowing two capsules. He didn’t have time to hurt, and he certainty hadn’t had time for sleep these past thirty-six hours.
“I’m fine,” Paul said.
“Is that why I hear a frog in your throat?” Romo asked, shutting off his bike and lying it down. “We don’t dare ride any closer.”
There was scrub here on the rolling hill. A dark farmhouse and barn stood lower down in the distance and to the side. There was a long driveway to a dirt road near the freeway.
Romo crouched low beside Paul, and he scratched his left cheek, digging in his fingernails, making scraping noises. “I fear your country doesn’t have enough to win this one. The Germans are slicing through everything command can throw at them. The Germans are going to take Syracuse. If they do…” Romo stopped scratching because he shook his head.
Paul knew what he meant. Syracuse was the key to the campaign. North and south, Interstate 81 went through Syracuse. It was the supply lifeline for Army Group New York to the north. From Lake Ontario to Cornwall near the Quebec border, the Army Group held back mass GD forces. Without the lifeline, Army Group New York would have to fall back. That would open up Army Group New England’s western flank. If Army Group New England collapsed…
America had to hold Syracuse. The US XI Airmobile Corps stationed on the Atlantic coast rushed to the city. Now, though, nothing guarded the Atlantic seaboard. If the German Dominion used its amphibious force in Cuba to rush to New Jersey, New York or the Connecticut cost…it wouldn’t face anything but for a few policemen in their squad cars.
Paul knew it looked bad for their side, awful in fact. But it had been that way in California, too. It had been that way in Texas, in Kansas, in Colorado…
“This can’t go on,” Paul said.
“This is a sad day for your country, my friend,” Romo said. “I know the feeling. It’s too bad there is nowhere for you to run. When Mexico fell to the Chinese, I could come here. We can’t go to Canada, because soon there will not be a Canada.”
“Okay,” Paul said. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Romo held him back. “Let us wait a few more minutes. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
Paul picked up the laser designator. It looked like a bulky, overheavy assault rifle. He shouldered the strap and tested his bad ankle. Pain flared, but he’d had worse. Slipping off the strap, he set down the designator, sat on the gravel and began tightening the laces of his combat boots. He was going to tie this sucker tight. His ankle could worry about swelling later.
“You’re driven,” Romo commented.
“I guess.” Paul stood, tested the ankle and could feel the tendons stretch until pain flared. It hurt, but he figured he could go another five hundred miles if he had to. If he didn’t, his wife would be a widow and maybe even some Chinese soldier’s play toy. He didn’t like the Chinese. He didn’t like the Brazilians, and he sure as hell didn’t like these Germans either.
“Come on,” Paul said.
Romo sighed, following him.
They worked down the hill, climbed through a barbed wire fence and moved through a pasture.
The enemy column moved in the darkness. No moon, just shining stars up there. Had the Germans planned that, too, attacking during the right phase of the moon? The Krauts were good at war. Maybe the
y always had been. That didn’t make him like them any better.
“This is a good spot,” Romo said.
“We’re close enough?” Paul asked.
“Si.”
Paul lay on the grass. So did Romo. Soon, Paul trained the designator on the distant column. “I got it,” he said.
Romo used a one-time pad, and he spoke with their SOCOM coordinator. In the dark, he told Paul, “They’re on their way.”
There weren’t too many cruise missiles left in stock in this part of the country. Their side had to use them wisely now. It wasn’t like the old days when America could pour hardware at a problem and make it disappear in a haze of countless explosions.
Enemy ECM was damn good, but it couldn’t beat an infrared laser painting the target. No, sir—
“Here they come,” Romo said.
Dark streaks slid through the sky. They homed in on the infrared signal, and the fireworks started. Enemy beehive flechettes, autocannons, antimissile rockets: they blasted munitions that raced to meet the onrushing American cruise missiles.
GD tech was the best. The counter fire took out all but one cruise missile. That one exploded and blasted a Ritter tank, flipped the mother and took out a second one. Paul heard the tremendous clangs as the 40-ton tank smashed back onto the ground. A grass fire started, and then a GD fuel carrier exploded. That made things blaze, and smaller vehicles raced away from the mayhem.
“Not enough cruise missiles to stop the column,” Romo said. “We scratched the enemy is all.”
“We need to start thinking about using nukes,” Paul said.
From on the ground, Romo glanced at him. “That wouldn’t be too good for you or me.”
“I guess not,” Paul said.
“Your wife wouldn’t like that either.”
“No…”
“But a nuclear warhead would be more effective,” Romo said. “You are right.”
“Let’s go—”
At that moment, hisses punctured the night, and a German shout alerted Paul and Romo that they were under attack by GD commandos.
Paul slithered around the other way, and he crawled on his hands and knees. He moved faster than a man had a right to move like that. Romo was right behind him. Shots kicked up gravel, bits of dirt around him. Then something slammed against Paul and knocked him face-first onto the ground.
He grunted, and his chin slid through dirt.
Romo cursed in Spanish, surged up and grabbed Paul Kavanagh under the armpits. Paul got his feet, and he ran.
A GD bullet had put him down. American body armor had saved his sorry hide. Now the two LRSU commandos sprinted uphill.
Romo panted, and he was on the horn with a shoulder microphone. They had a helo to pick them up. It was five minutes away.
“We’ll never make it up the hill,” Paul said.
“Si. I’ll take right.”
Romo let go of Paul, and the assassin dove right. Paul dove left, and the two commandos crawled through the grass. They hadn’t made it back to the barbed wire fence yet.
Paul stopped crawling and panted on the ground. Then he slid his sniper rifle from his back. GD Humvee utility vehicles roared this way from the interstate. That was bad. Paul chambered a round, and he used his night vision scope, hunting for the enemy sniper who had put him down.
It might have been nice to use his high-tech visor and computer ballistic hardware. It gave off too much an electronic signature, at least for GD tech to pick up. This old-fashioned night scope could do the trick just fine and without giving him away.
Paul took out a sound suppressor and quickly screwed it into place. Low sound was good. Less flash was better. With his elbows on the ground, Paul searched the darkness and the weeds out there. One bigger weed moved in the wrong direction, at least for the way the breeze blew. Paul studied the weed and the area around it, and he caught a dull color. Was that a GD helmet?
Paul concentrated, aimed and squeezed the trigger as he held his breath. The rifle butt slammed against his shoulder. He watched, and there wasn’t any spume of dirt. The dull patch twitched, though. It had a hole in it, and fluid leaked out.
Backing up, moving to a different position, he heard Romo’s sound suppressor. Then he heard the assassin curse softly.
GD rounds split the air. Three enemy commandos must be firing at them.
“Romo?” Paul said softly.
His blood brother made an owl sound.
That’s all he needed. From prone on the ground, Paul kept hunting, and he grinned, although he didn’t know he did. This was his kind of warfare. He could take these Germans. He could—
“Helo,” Romo said softly. The assassin had crawled near. “It’s going to pop up and give us a barrage. Get ready, my friend.”
Paul scanned the darkness. Then he heard the stealth machine. It would be better if they were on the other side of the hill. Then they could climb aboard and leave. He didn’t like the pilot risking himself and the machine. But everyone was going the extra mile tonight. They couldn’t let Syracuse fall. Everyone had to take a chance.
Paul heard the helo. He heard missiles launch, and he saw missiles and heavy machine gun fire erupt from the GD Humvees.
“Go!” Romo shouted.
Paul got up, and he saw Romo get up from ten feet away. They raced for the helo. Kavanagh was hardly aware of bulling between two strands of barbed wire. Clothes tore, a long, bloody gash spilled blood from his arm, but he was through the fence and sprinting uphill.
That’s when a GD missile slammed into the stealth helo and an explosion tore into the night, causing lines of light to etch across the darkness.
“No!” Paul shouted. He dove, but not fast enough. The concussion shoved him into the dirt. Then metal and other debris rained around him. One piece slashed across his body armor, and Kavanagh was surprised when he took another breath.
The helo crashed into the side of the rolling hill, and another grass fire blazed. This one would outline them for sure.
“Run!” Romo shouted. “Just run! Give it everything!”
Paul knew Romo was right. He got up, but he felt surreal. Blood dripped from his forearm and his back throbbed. His ankle hurt. A bullet whizzed past his ear.
Is this how I die?
He would miss Cheri, and he would miss Mikey growing up to be a man. Damn, he wanted to hold his wife again. He wanted to kiss her and tell her how much he loved her. This sucked. He hated this. Man, he wanted to live. He—
“No,” Paul Kavanagh said. He dropped onto his belly, and he took out his sniper rifle. It took him seconds to set himself and another second to find a GD bastard. The enemy commando must have decided he didn’t need to hide anymore. He had exposed himself for a better firing position, and took a shot.
Paul didn’t flinch. He was too angry. He heard the bullet. It might even have grazed him. It was a great shot, but it wasn’t good enough. Paul’s shot was good enough, and the German commando didn’t learn why he should have stayed in his home country. The German didn’t learn because he would never learn anything ever again. He was dead, and he was missing a face because Paul’s bullet had blown it away.
Paul Kavanagh took out two more GD commandos. He gave Romo time to reach the hill. He gave Romo time to reach the dirt bikes on the hill. He even gave Romo time to start a bike.
“Good bye, friend,” Paul said to himself.
He shot the last GD commando in the neck. The Humvee enemy vehicles were halfway here, and one of the machine gunners had already started blazing with its 12.7mm.
I wonder if I can take out that bastard, too?
Paul was sick of running, and his back hurt throbbing bad. The shrapnel had done something. He might as well fight it out this last battle. Paul was in the process of sighting the lead Humvee gunner when the whine of Romo’s dirt bike penetrated his thinking.
“You’re a crazy-man, Kavanagh,” Romo shouted from the bike. “All you can think about is killing the enemy.”
If
Paul were another man, he might have thought about things a few precious seconds longer. The moment he realized Romo was here on the bike, Paul jumped up in a smooth move and slammed down behind Romo. The assassin twisted the throttle. The rear tire spun, blowing out dirt and grass, and the motorcycle’s back end slewed around, aiming them back uphill. Then they shot forward, the engine revving, with bullets causing fountains of dirt to spew around them.
They beat the GD Humvee light vehicles. Romo didn’t bother stopping for Paul’s bike. They fled before enemy air came, or a missile, or whatever the invaders used to do the dirty to kill them. They knew the fight wasn’t over yet. They had survived another commando mission to fight again another time.
GDN BISMARCK
Warrant Officer Gunther Weise smoked a cigarette outside the control tower of the greatest GD supercarrier of them all, Otto von Bismarck. It displaced one hundred and thirty thousand tons, and carried nearly two hundred of the latest UAVs. Even now, a steam catapult fired another drone into the brisk ocean air. The UAV moved like a wasp, climbing into the sky to fly CAP for the giant armada.
All around him in the hazy mist and low swells, Gunther spied war vessels. The GD had seven carrier groups out here, seven supercarriers, each with their accompanying escorts. They had ten battleships altogether with the latest strategic defensive systems. Those masses—the carrier groups and the battleships—were the heart of the armada. There were more cruisers and destroyers. There were helo-carriers, endless transports, dozens of big infantry and tank carriers and giant hover landers. Then there were hundreds of smaller vessels, fuel tankers, supply vessels…
The world had never seen a fleet like this, one able to disgorge two hundred thousand foot soldiers and vast numbers of fighting vehicles onto a beach. This was the war winner for the 2040 North American invasion, and he—Gunther Weise—was a part of history in the making.
Gunther was an intel analyst, and he worked in the central situation room. He was one of the operators keeping the big screen updated with the latest intelligence. General Kaltenbrunner of Army Group D and the armada’s admiral often debated within earshot of him. Sometimes he glanced over his shoulder and saw one of them scowl or shake his head in disagreement.
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