When the Devil Dances

“What?” the gunner said, looking up as if in disbelief that they were alive.

“Bad things are about to happen to other people.”

* * *

“I don’t like this!” Kitteket shouted as the boulders continued to rain on the bouncing, jolting Humvee over their heads.

“Neither do I,” Ryan replied equanimably. “It could be worse, though!”

“How?!”

“You want a list?” he asked. “We could be stuck in a basement, surrounded by a Posleen force that has already overrun everything in its path and with them pounding on the last door!”

“We’re about to get crushed by a rain of boulders!” she shouted. “That counts as really bad in my book!” But even as she said it the worst of the shower had passed.

“Everybody okay?” Ryan asked, rolling out from under the vehicle despite the continuing rain of small debris. “And ready to walk?”

“Oh, man, it’s trashed,” Kitteket said, getting to her feet and looking around. “What a mess!”

Rocks ranging from pebbles to boulders large enough to have crushed the Humvee were scattered in every direction and most of the trees had been swept off the mountainside. From their perch at the edge of Betty Gap they could clearly see the SheVa gun down in the holler, apparently wedged into a ravine. A unit of MetalStorms was picking its way down the slope towards the gun. And a Lamprey, crumpled like so much foil, was well down the holler.

“It’s a mess, all right,” Ryan replied, keying his code module. “Dig around in the gear and find anything salvageable. A radio for choice.”

* * *

“Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie,” Pruitt said.

He was standing on one of the boulders, looking down at the SheVa stuck like a cork in the gully.

Gully was something of a misnomer; the small valley could have easily have contained a few single-family homes if the area was a subdivision. But the SheVa was still stuck.

“Look,” Reeves said defensively. “I did my best.” The edges of the gully were barely above the treads and didn’t, quite, intersect the turret. But some of the boulders that had tumbled down the slope were piled on the sides of the machine. “At least I didn’t blow a mountain down on us.”

“I prefer to think of it as blowing a Lamprey off of us,” Pruitt said. “And here’s our Greek chorus…”

“Damn, sir,” said Captain Chan, walking over to the group peering at the SheVa. “I’ve seen some tanks get stuck in my time but… Damn, sir.”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said, walking back and forth and looking at the gun. “I think that the big problem is the lip in front of it; it can’t get any traction to pull itself out.”

“We could hook some of your tracks up to it, ma’am, and try to pull it out,” Reeves said.

She looked at him in amazement. “Did you actually think before you said that, Private?”

“Uh…”

“A Meemie weighs just over sixty tons; how much does one of these things weigh?”

“Errr, just over seven thousand,” the driver admitted. “I hadn’t realized there was that much difference.”

She looked over at her track then up and up at the SheVa towering nearly two hundred feet in the air. Tanks made her feel small; SheVas made her feel like an ant.

“I don’t think that will help, son,” she said. “It would be like trying to move one of my tracks with a tricycle.”

“You know, they’re talking about making one of these as a close combat support vehicle,” Mitchell said. “Think about how much one of those will weigh; especially covered in armor.”

“Ouch.”

“And, golly gee,” Pruitt said with a grin. “We’ve proven that they can be used in mountain warfare.”

CHAPTER 35 Betty Gap, NC, United States, Sol III 0829 EDT Sunday September 27, 2009 ad

“I think they’re stuck, Major,” Kitteket said.

“I do believe you’re right, Specialist,” the major replied with a chuckle.

It had taken the group nearly a half hour to travel down the hillside, during which the group around the giant weapon had performed a thorough study of the area. Along the way Ryan’s small group had obviously been spotted.

As he walked around the back of the monstrous piece of machinery, a female soldier appeared out of a hatch over the treads and walked down them. After a brief moment’s inspection she saluted.

“Warrant Officer Sheila Indy,” she said. “Engineer for SheVa Nine.”

“Major William Ryan,” the engineer replied. “I’m a combat engineering specialist attached to Ninety-Third Corps. Right now I’m in charge of this motley crew. Until recently we were trying to make things hard for the Posleen.”

“And what are you doing now?” Indy asked.

“We’re looking for a ride; a rain of boulders seems to have destroyed our Humvee.”

The warrant officer laughed and looked at him with interest. “Did you say combat engineers, Major?”

“Yep,” he answered. “And it looks like you need some earth moved.”

“That we do,” the warrant said. “Could you come with me, sir?”

He popped the straps on his ruck and gestured at the mixed group of soldiers. “Rest; I think we’ll be working in the near future.”