When the Devil Dances

“This is gonna suuuck!” Reeves shouted, bending down and putting his fingers in his ears as the gun finally leveled on the C-Dec.

* * *

The first plasma round entered the gun system low, punching through a road-wheel and the compartment wall of the engine room. Plasma rounds transferred enormous amounts of energy, but like bullets that shatter when they hit a wall, they didn’t have a lot of “penetration.” In this case, the plasma vented into the engine room, raising the temperature notably, but otherwise doing no damage. The second round did much the same, hitting slightly to the side and taking out a section of track. The SheVa was now effectively immobilized, but maneuvering hadn’t been an issue anyway.

The third plasma bolt hit the upper deck of the engine system and boiled twenty feet of steel into the air. The fourth missed entirely.

Then it was Bun-Bun’s turn.

* * *

“TARGET!”

“FIRE!”

“ON THE WAY!”

* * *

By the time Pruitt was finished with the “on” the round had already struck the C-Dec, centerline vertically and just off center to the right.

The round penetrated the outer layer of armor and the portions of it that had not already been converted to plasma and gaseous uranium proceeded to crash through the interior and break apart.

This was the point where most rounds would have detonated their antimatter charge. However, as Kitteket had pointed out, the rounds had a minimum arming distance of six hundred meters. What happened instead is that about halfway through the ship, the containment vessel shattered. The result, from the outside, was very like an antimatter explosion, but in reality it was a very fast flash-fire.

* * *

“Hooowah!” Pruitt yelled in relief. No huge explosions, just lots of plasma gouting out of all the ports. Some of it washed over the SheVa, but it was not much more than a wall of flame by the time it got there; Bun-Bun could shrug it off. “The Rabbit strikes again!”

“Captain Chan, you with us?” Mitchell called.

“Oh, yeah,” the MetalStorm commander answered. “Did you guys fire yet?”

“Sir,” Kittekut said, “the force in the pass is getting cut up. I’ve lost contact with Major Anderson, but all but one of the transmitters from the tracks has cut out and the last word I got was that there were still Posleen in the pass. Some of the militia scouts say they see columns of smoke and what look like secondary explosions in the area.”

“Oh,” Colonel Mitchell said. “Keep trying to raise them. And try to get ahold of the force on the Asheville side; maybe they can clear it.”

“Yes, sir. A few of the militia scouts are headed over to see what they can do.”

“Good,” Mitchell said, not adding for what it’s worth. “Anybody seen Indy? Or know what the damage report is?”

“We’re dead in the water is the answer, sir,” the warrant officer replied, coming up through the engineering hatch. Her face was covered in soot, but she appeared uninjured. “We’ve got full track severance on the right side and probably some major damage to the drive train; there’s a huge hole in the side of the gun where a drive wheel used to be. I think we might have taken a hit on one of the firing support struts as well. But it looks like we kept all the motors this time.”

“Oh,” Major Mitchell said again. “This is such a good time.”

“So, what you’re saying,” Pruitt said with a manic grin, “is that we’re dead in the water, we’re surrounded and the only combat forces around, the guys who would normally be holding off the million or so Posleen coming up the valley at us, are getting wiped out trying to clear the Posleen in the pass?”

“Pretty much sums it up,” Major Mitchell said with a nod.

“By Jove, I think he’s got it,” Kitteket agreed.

“Nice recap there, Torg,” Reeves said.

“Just trying to be clear, here,” Pruitt answered. “Why do the words ‘we’re fucked’ resonate through my head?”

* * *

Sergeant Buckley considered his situation carefully as he looked to the front. Now that things were a bit less chaotic it was obvious that there wasn’t a lot of fire coming from the overpass. He counted maybe three missile launchers, a pair of heavy plasma guns and some, not many, railguns. There didn’t seem to be any shotguns at all.

Which meant that the pass was held by one of the Posleen “heavy” companies. That meant experienced God Kings and veteran troops.

Better and better.