When the Devil Dances

Chan had been talking with Glenn and finally she shook her head.

“Okay,” she said. “I have an alternative. Worse or better I’m not sure. We can easily fit two or even three of our guns under the treads, especially if we use a little of your explosives to blow out some of the overburden in front.”

“That’s true,” Ryan said. “I didn’t think that you wanted to sacrifice all of your units.”

“The thing weighs seven thousand tons, admittedly,” Chang said. “But all of that won’t be on the tracks at first. And if it is, only for a little while. If we roll it up slow and roll it down slow, you’re right, they might just survive. And if they don’t…”

“We never have to fire one again,” Glenn said with a sigh. “Could you drive it fast? And maybe bounce it a little?”

* * *

Pruitt engaged the crane and started lifting the first MetalStorm away from its chassis as the first explosion sounded from the front of the SheVa. The crane was mounted on the upper deck of the gun, nearly two hundred feet over the tank at its feet, and the MetalStorm turret swayed back and forth wildly as it came out of its mounts. As Pruitt waited for the oscillation to subside, he keyed his throat mike.

“Hey, Warrant, you still got that welding set handy?” he asked thoughtfully.

“Don’t even think about it, Pruitt,” the warrant officer called. “Besides, a weld would never hold.”

“It just seems a shame. I mean, it’s the whole turret, isn’t it? Weld it on, hook up the controls, hell, not even controls, just power…”

“Don’t make me come up there and hurt you,” Indy said with a laugh.

“I’m serious!” he protested. “It could work! Maybe seat it or something…”

“Put it in the suggestion program,” Indy said. “And leave me alone!”

Pruitt looked down at the now stable gun mount and realized he had no idea where to put it. The Meemies were on a slope; if he just set it down to the side, the area would both get “filled up” rather quickly and the guns might fall over and roll downhill. There had been enough disasters for one day.

He looked around and noticed that there was a “lip” and fence, a safety measure as much as anything, running around the top of the SheVa.

His face lit with an evil grin as he engaged the crane. “It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness,” he muttered.

* * *

“There’s probably some sort of regulation against this,” Chan muttered. “I know that my bosses aren’t going to be happy with me.”

“Well, they’ll be happier than if your driver hadn’t thought to back it in,” Mitchell pointed out. “Seriously, I don’t want to lose your tracks; we need the firepower.”

“We’re going to lose some, that’s for sure,” Chan said grimly. Then she brightened. “On the other hand, we’re going to lose some.”

“And this is a good thing?” Mitchell asked.

“Firing them is pure hell; there’s just nothing good about it,” the captain answered. “Any rush involved in all that tungsten going downrange is totally absorbed by the pain inflicted while it’s going on and the utter terror that the whole thing is just going to blow the hell up.”

“Well,” Major Mitchell said after a moment. “I’ll make sure I don’t get a transfer to Meemies.”

“When you guys shot one of the landers, we came up from firing to find every tree around us down,” she said calmly. “And we didn’t notice when it happened.”

“That’s pretty bad,” he said.

“The second time I was in one that fired, I wet myself,” she continued.

“Not the first time?” he asked.

“No, the first time I was knocked unconscious,” she admitted.

“That’s pretty bad,” he said again.

“The flechette missions aren’t too bad,” she said. “Those just make you think you’re a steel pinata. It’s the anti-lander packs that really take some getting used to.”

“Have you gotten used to them yet?” he asked, feeling very masochistic.

“Not yet,” she admitted.

“And how long have you been doing this?”

“I’ve been commander of this unit for three years,” she answered simply.

“Hmm…”

“Two months, seventeen days and…” she glanced at her watch, ”… twenty hours.”

“You really don’t like these things, do you?”

“Come to think of it, I don’t know why I protested in the first place,” she admitted. “Could you run over them a few more times?”

* * *

“Major, we’re ready to try this out,” Pruitt said over the radio. “All the Meemies have had their packs pulled and the chassis are positioned.”

“Okay,” Mitchell called back. He was at the back hatch, conferring with Indy. He looked to the front where Chan was waving at him. “Pruitt, where are the MetalStorm packs?”

“On the top deck,” the gunner said. “There wasn’t anywhere else reasonably flat to put them down. I chained ’em down; they’re not going anywhere.”

“Uh, huh,” Mitchell said, giving Indy a nod. She rolled her eyes and made a very rude gesture. “Miss Indy says that we’re not going to hook them up.”

“I understand that, sir,” the gunner replied with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth tone. “It was simply the safest place to put them. Each of those weapons systems is a significant investment.”