When the Devil Dances

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.”

He and Kitteket, who seemed to be acting as his shadow, followed the warrant officer around the SheVa to the front where a group of officers were wrangling over the situation. The SheVa was in a crack with both of the treads only partially on the ground — they were mostly supported by rock on both sides of the gully — and with a high mound of earth directly in front of the treads. It was this friable mixture of rock and loam, well mixed with the water from the stream, that was preventing the tank from getting a good grip. With a car the answer would be to pile branches under the treads. With a SheVa gun, that wouldn’t work.

Ryan didn’t approach the group of officers, but walked over in front of the gun, stooping to pick up the occasional bit of debris then stopping and pulling out his entrenching tool. He dug into the stream bank until he hit rock, then chopped at it until he had a sample; at that the sample was small. Last, he walked to the far side of the gun and got a good look at that side.

By the time he did approach the group they had stopped talking and were watching him.

He approached and, not knowing if he had date of rank on the major in the group, saluted. “Ryan, Army Corps of Engineers.”

“Mitchell, SheVa Corps.”

“If I may ask, who is the genius who jammed the shit out of this thing?” Ryan asked with a laugh. “Because it is, pardon the pun, caught in a crack.”

“My driver,” Mitchell said with a shrug. “Not his fault,” he added, gesturing at the lander in the valley. “We were a little busy at the time.”

“I noticed,” Ryan said with another grin. “And I’d guess it was your gunner that decided that Chestnut Mountain needed a swimming pool.”

“That would be him,” Mitchell said with a nod. “And while I was wishing for an engineer, I was really wishing for one that had a heavy engineering battalion behind him. As it is…”

“Oh, we can get you out,” Ryan said. “I’ve thought of three or four ways. I don’t think that the Meemies would like the best one though.”

“What would that be, Major?” Captain Chan asked. “Vickie Chan, I’m commander of the MetalStorms.”

“Well, I think we could more or less jam one of your guns under each tread and drive the SheVa out over them…”

“You were correct,” she said, “I don’t like it…”

“… The SheVa has an integral crane for doing some of its maintenance. I’ve used them before for engineering purposes and we can use it to decouple your guns first. Probably it wouldn’t cripple your system; the Abrams chassis is a remarkable piece of engineering.”

“I really don’t like that idea,” Chan said unhappily.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “At least one of you fired earlier, are any of you loaded? I assume your reload teams aren’t right behind you.”

“Both our reload teams are over by Dillsboro by now,” Major Mitchell said.

“Well then, the alternative is that we use one of the loaded systems to punch holes in the rockwall,” Ryan said. “Carefully. Then we load them with explosives and blow up the rock. That will open up a cavity for you to move out. We’ll do the same in front, blasting off this overburden; there’s solid rock under it almost at the level of your tracks. Getting out then is easy. We can blow out the walls further down, using the same techniques, to ensure you don’t get stuck again.”

“Hold on,” Indy said. “You want to set off explosives in rock that is in contact with our tracks?”

“There will be some impact waves,” Ryan said. “But nothing that will affect the tracks or the gun.”

“You want a MetalStorm to fire into rock that’s in contact with the SheVa?” Mitchell asked.

“They can fire on single shot,” Kitteket interjected. “We’re not suggesting that they open fire full out.”

“It will make a forty millimeter hole,” Ryan pointed out. “Admittedly one that’s quite hot and filled with uranium dust, but beggars can’t be choosers. We’ll then pack it and seal it and blow the rock down.”

“You do intend to blow up rock that is in contact with my tracks!” Indy said.

“Warrant, I’ve been blowing up everything in sight for the last five years,” Ryan said wearily. “I’ve blown up bridges and buildings and I don’t know how many sidings. I blew up the Lincoln Memorial. Don’t tell me I can’t blow in a little embankment without hurting your precious tracks.”

“But we’re not talking driving away in the next fifteen minutes,” Major Mitchell said. “Either way.”

“Fifteen, no,” Ryan replied. “For the assisted maneuvering method… forty minutes to an hour. For the other it will depend on whether we can find some secondary explosives. My men and I have a few hundred pounds of C-4, and that would do the job, but we will need it for other missions; I can’t in good conscience use it all to extract one stuck tank.”

“Not to blow my own horn,” Mitchell said. “But this is a very big and very expensive tank.”

“I know,” Ryan answered. “But there are a lot of bridges between here and Asheville.”

“I know,” Mitchell smiled thinly. “But I guarantee I can take them down faster than you can.”

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.”

“So is a gunner for a SheVa,” the major said, walking to the front of the gun. “On the other hand, so is the chassis for an Abrams and I’m about to use six of them like so many wood-chips. Keep that firmly in mind.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So how’s it going, Major?” Mitchell asked.

“Great,” Ryan said, climbing out through the treads of the SheVa. “This might actually work. And if it doesn’t, we can always blow it out.”

“So I understand,” Mitchell said sourly. “Okay, is everyone clear?”

“My team is up the hill,” Ryan said, pointing to where the engineers were clustered.

“My guys are breaking out the champagne,” Chan said, pointing to her formation.

“Okay,” Mitchell said. “Let’s get out of the way and see how it goes.”

They walked up the slope until they were at the level of the upper deck of the SheVa and Mitchell stopped to catch his breath. “Christ, did we actually drive over these slopes?”

“Yep,” Chan said. “I sort of figured that the only thing keeping you going was it was dark and it was hard to realize how stupid we were being, even with third generation night vision systems.”

“Well, think of it this way,” Ryan said, gesturing at the torn slope to the west. “You made some dandy ski slopes!”

Mitchell let out a belly laugh and keyed his throat mike. “Okay, Schmoo, try it nice and slow.”

Reeves carefully ran the motors up to ten percent and then engaged the transmission. The SheVa had originally been designed without the latter system, but it was added late in the game in recognition that sometimes “throwing it into gear” was the best way to handle a situation.

In this case the SheVa rocked up on its ersatz traction enhancers then rolled backwards. There was a massive metallic sound from the six Abrams chassis and the loud, sharp sprong of a fracturing torsion bar.

Captain Chan gave out a whimper and grabbed her helmet with both hands. “I just started thinking about what this loss report is going to look like.” Behind them the officers could hear the crews of the MetalStorm guns cheering. “My career is toast.”

Mitchell tried not to laugh as he turned to the side and keyed his mike. “Okay, Schmoo…” He paused for a moment and snorted before keying the mike again. “Gun it!”

“Are you sure, sir?” the driver asked.

“Oh, yeah,” the major replied. Behind him the driver could faintly hear cheering. “The nature of the mission dictates that whatever means necessary are used to get the SheVa out; that looks like it means gunning it. Whatever the cost in materials.”

“Yes, sir!” Reeves answered, turning the power to thirty percent. “Here we go!”

The treads of the SheVa began thrashing against the rear decks of the Abrams chassis, tossing them up and down to the screams of torn and abused metal. The gun rocked forward, partially up on the smaller tanks, then back down as treads and road-wheels began to spring off of the smaller vehicles.

“It looks like your tanks’ treads are humping mine,” Chan said unhappily. “I wish the crews would stop cheering; that’s not a very good testimony to my leadership.”

“I think it’s a great testimony,” Mitchell said as the SheVa rolled back down then acclerated forward and up. “They kept getting in them.”

With a final surge the SheVa pulled up out of its entrapment and, to the sound of tortured and stressed metal from the abused tanks, it pulled out of the gully and up onto reasonably solid ground.

“Now as long as we don’t have to dig ourselves out again,” Mitchell said grumpily, “or run into any more of those flying tanks, everything should be fine.”

“Well, I don’t think I have to worry about getting back in that tank again,” Chan said; the rear deck had crumpled on hers and the power pack was in pieces on the ground. “I guess we’re walking from here on out.”

“Only if you want to,” Mitchell said. “Your turrets are on our top deck; you can ride in those.”

“That’s an… interesting idea,” Chang said.

“You might have a little vertigo and motion sickness problem,” he admitted. “It’s high. And you can tag along as well, Major,” Mitchell continued, turning to Ryan. “Although I guarantee I can take a bridge down faster than you.”

“Sure,” Ryan said. “But can you do it from out of sight of the Posleen?”