When the Devil Dances

Ryan made sure that what he had mentally termed his “eight pack” — he hadn’t even figured out what most of their names were — had dismounted from the SheVa. The group had moved over by the bridge guards and he was pretty sure would soon be racked out; sleeping on the metal floor of a pitching SheVa was not particularly easy. Fairly certain that they were okay and he knew where they would be if he needed them, he started really inspecting the explosives laced on the bridge.

The bridge was a heavily constructed concrete and steel structure, rising on four pilings about a hundred feet off the river. The river was both deep and swift so it would be impassable to the Posleen once the bridge was down. And bridging it would be difficult for the Indowy; this obstacle would severely hamper the movement of the force. That presumed that the bridge would actually come down.

He wandered down a side road and under the bridge, looking up at the explosives laid on the pilings. After a moment he shook his head. He could see what the captain had attempted, the explosives were laid — as you often saw in movies — at the juncture of the bridge and the pilings. However, they were insufficient in quantity to separate the bridge at that point. The junctures were actually fairly strong and flexible; breaking a bridge at them was tough.

The pilings themselves, however, were round concrete “x”s, about four feet in cross section. If they had taken the explosives they had emplaced up above and simply wrapped the pilings in them, the bridge would come down for a treat. Relaying the explosives was going to take a while. Time they might not have.

But, if worse came to worse, they could always have Bun-Bun knock it down.

* * *

“Okay, Schmoo,” Major Mitchell called. “The nice people who are running the bridge have cleared out the town. I want you to cross the river to the east of the bridge then turn into the town and turn again up 107. Our reload team is out there someplace.”

“Got it, sir,” the private replied. “Say goodbye to Dillsboro.”

The driver gunned the SheVa, carefully lowering the front into the river. The stream, which at that point was about six feet deep with a ten-knot current, would have been impassable to most tanks. But the SheVa didn’t even notice; its rearmost treads had barely had time to enter the water before the front treads were climbing out on the far side.

There was a steep ridge on the far side. Before the attack it would have looked like a real obstacle, but after crossing Betty Gap it wasn’t even worth commenting on; Bun-Bun just went straight up, crushing a few houses, and down the other side. It was fortunate in one way that the famous “Home Defense Scorched Earth” policy had only held for the coastal plains; otherwise each of the houses would have been a potential anti-tank mine.

“Sir,” said Kitteket. “I’ve got a group that says they are our escorts. They have Dillsboro completely clear, but they’re having some trouble getting everyone out of Sylva.”

CHAPTER 37 Dillsboro, NC, United States, Sol III 1623 EDT Sunday September 27, 2009 ad

Ryan set the demolition team, augmented by his own people, to work rearranging the demolitions, then walked back over to Captain Anderson’s command post. When he arrived there he could tell something had gone wrong; the captain had a set look on his face and the collection of RTOs was almost silent instead of communicating and chattering as they had been when he came by the first time.

“What?” Ryan asked.

“The Posleen airmobiled again,” Anderson answered, looking off into the distance in thought. “A C-Dec force just took Balsam Gap. They landed on the Blue Ridge Parkway and assaulted the force that was holding it. They’re, the force, it’s gone.”

“Oh hell,” Ryan said, thinking about the map of the area. There were only three routes over the line of ridges between them and Asheville or Knoxville. U.S. 23 went over Balsam Gap and straight to Asheville. U.S. 19, which crossed 441 in Cherokee, more or less paralleled it, crossing the ridges at Soco Gap. And 441 crossed the ridges at Newfound Gap, then descended into the Cumberland Valley. The forces could head for 19, but that route, and 441, were narrower and thus slower. And pushing all the gathered groups through that single road would be, in his professional opinion, impossible. And there was no way for vehicles to “filter” out as they had from the Gap; the ridges in this region were so steep and high that there were no other roads crossing the mountains.

“What’s responding?” he asked.