Invasion: Colorado (26 page)

“The same to you, sir,” the captain said, with his face aimed elsewhere.

Stan strode to the CP door. It was heavy, and a MP eased it open. Stan sprinted up the stairs, taking them three at a time. The blast door was closed. Stan shoved it open and closed it behind him.

The stars blazed tonight and the moon looked huge in the sky. Snow covered the Behemoth Tank Park and covered the anti-radar netting hiding each giant vehicle.

Stan kept sprinting. He didn’t know how much time was left. The seventeen big vehicles rumbled with sound. The engines were massive. They needed to be to move the three hundred tons of reinforced steel.

Stan’s tank was like the others. It was fifteen meters by six by four and mounted 260cm of armor. It had nine auto-cannons, seven auto-machine guns and an onboard radar and AI to track enemy missiles and shells. Given enough flight time, the Behemoth could knock down incoming missiles and most shells aimed at it. Whatever came close had to survive forty beehives launchers. Those fired tungsten flechettes, a spray of shotgun-like metal that often knocked down or deflected an enemy projectile enough to skew its impact against the heavy armor. It was the super-thick armor and the sheer mass of beehives that was supposed to make the Behemoth more than a big, expensive target.

Stan climbed outer rungs to the commander’s hatch up top. He knocked on the steel portal. A second later, it popped open, and Jose looked at him. The man wore his lucky scarf around his neck.

“I was wondering when you’d show up for the fun,” Jose said.

Stan’s mouth was too dry to reply. The run combined with worry had winded him. Stan squeezed through the hatch, closing it, keeping in the compartment’s warm air. Soft green light lit the compartment.

He opened channels with the CP captain as he settled into his commander’s chair.

The images had begun to reappear. The U.S. Air Force had switched to high-flying stealth drones to provide real-time intelligence.

Stan watched spellbound on his commander’s screen. If those drones reached I-70—

“Slick bastards,” Jose muttered from his location. “Thought you could trick us, huh? But we know you’re there.”

“What’s that behind them?” the captain asked someone in the CP.

Stan noticed it on his screen. Yes, farther back appeared new blips, hundreds of them.

“Looks like the Heron bombers, sir,” the CP sergeant said. “They’re using the big boys tonight.”

The Chinese were doing it right, Stan realized. Hit hard at the start. The siege of Greater Denver was barely five days old. Already, the enemy knocked at the city gates. Soon, the leading Chinese formations would be inside the city.

I-70 was like the Trans-Siberian Railroad during the Russian-Japanese War of 1905. Then, the Japanese fought the Russians in Korea and Manchuria. A single line track had connected European Russia to their army in the East. In same places, the line hadn’t even connected. Meaning the Russians had to load and unload railcars. It had been a tenuous supply thread. If the Chinese could destroy enough bridges and tunnel entrances here in the Rockies, I-70 would turn into something worse than the 1905 Trans-Siberian Railroad.

“The leading drones are in range, sir,” the Gunner said. He was a new man named Greg Zane, twenty-four years old.

“Get the cannon ready,” Stan said. He spoke similar words to the other tank commanders.

All over the Tank Park, huge cannon barrels ripped open the anti-radar netting. Turrets swiveled as targeting computers began to analyze the situation.

The rail-gun or force cannon was the heart of the Behemoth system. Unlike conventional tanks, the X1 Behemoth X1 didn’t use gunpowder shells. That was so out of date and frankly, old-fashioned. The rail-gun had two magnetized rods lining the inner cannon. The projectile or “shell” completed the circuit between the two rods. The direction of the current expelled the round, firing the shell and then breaking the circuit. It gave the shell incredible speed, one of its greatest powers.

Like an M1 tank’s sabot round it used pure kinetic energy, the same kind of energy that sent a bullet smashing through a man’s body. An M16 rifle fired a bullet at the muzzle velocity of 930 meters per second. The Behemoth’s cannon fired its round at 3,500 meters per second, over three times as fast. That was approximately Mach 10 at sea level.

The rail-gun had much greater range, less bullet drop, faster time on target and less wind drift than a gunpowder shell. In other words, it bypassed the usual limitations of conventional firearms. In fact, the rounds flew so fast, they ionized the air around them.

The Behemoth rail-gun theoretically fired farther, faster and with greater penetrating power than any comparable conventional gun. Its range was also much greater than its targeting precision, meaning it was easily possible to fire a Behemoth round over one hundred miles.

Stan had used his Behemoths in California to help shoot down incoming missiles. This time, they would help defeat the Chinese air assault.

Stan picked up his receiver and clicked the switch several times. He shook it and finally the green light appeared. He spoke to the tank crews. Soon, he switched to the air-defense captain. “Our cannons are ready to go and linking with your fire-control.”

“It’s a good thing we practiced this before, sir,” the captain said. “With our SAMs and tac-lasers, and given the fact they’re going to shoot back fast at us, I think we should let them get as close as possible. The Behemoth’s range and rate of fire is our only chance to do this, sir.”

“Don’t fire until we see the whites of their eyes, is that it?” Stan asked.

“Sir?” the captain asked over the line.

“The phrase doesn’t ring a bell?”

“No, sir,” the CP captain said.

“Where did you go to school?” Stan asked.

“New York City, sir. The public school system.”

“And no one ever taught you about the Revolutionary War? Bunker Hill?”

“Some. I remember my teacher saying George Washington owned slaves.”

Stan rolled his eyes. Owning slaves was obviously bad, but you had to judge a man by his times. In Stan’s historical opinion, George Washington was the greatest American who ever lived. In large part due to him, the American Revolution hadn’t turned into a blood bath afterward for those who had won it. In the French, Russian and Cuban Revolutions, the victors had devoured each other, killing former friends in a power struggle. That didn’t happen in the American Revolution—it had been unique in world history.

As a former high school teacher, it angered Stan how students were normally fed these days; they weren’t taught real American history. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson—the list could go on of the great men who had forged this exceptional nation.

“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” Stan said. He kept his gaze on his screen. They had several minutes yet, and he didn’t want to watch in silence. Talking helped ease his nerves.

“That’s what the colonial soldiers told each other on Breed’s Hill in 1775. It was called the Battle of Bunker Hill, even though it was mainly fought on Breed’s Hill. The saying—‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes’—wasn’t original to the colonists. General James Wolfe said it to his British troops in the Plains of Abraham during the Battle for Quebec. Soldiers fought with flintlock smoothbores back then. They were single shot muskets with bayonets attached. You had to make your shot count. That’s the reason for the saying: wait to fire until the enemy is right there so you can’t miss. The British won the Battle of Bunker Hill, but they took heavy losses and learned the American colonists knew how to fight hard.”

“I understand your reference now,” the CP captain said. “Thank you, sir.”

And that’s why I have the nickname of the Professor. When will I learn to keep my big mouth shut?

FORWARD EDGE OF THE BATTLE AREA, COLORADO

Captain Ray Smith flew an F-22 Raptor. His wingman was beside him and a little to the left. On both their fighter jets, they used super-cruise power to stay supersonic. They came from Idaho Springs, which was west of Denver. They headed west over I-70. They burned fuel in order to engage a host of Goshawk drones.

“Permission to engage,” Smith heard over his headphones.

“You are clear to engage, weapons free,” an AWACS controller said.

Within his breathing gear, Captain Smith grinned tightly. That was a Reflex interceptor pilot asking. Good. They were hitting the enemy. Captain Smith knew the importance of this mission.

“Even if it kills you,” the briefing officer had said, “stop those drones from reaching I-70.”

“We’re getting short of fuel,” his wingman said over the radio.

“Yeah,” Smith said. It was a rocket-ride to battle. There was little time left and time was on the Chinese side.

BEHEMOTH TANK PARK, COLORADO

Stan judged ten miles as the optimum firing mark. He’d told his tank commanders that, and the CP captain.

“Thirty seconds,” Jose said.

“I don’t think they know about us,” the CP captain said over the open link. “They’re heading straight into your guns.”

“Captain,” Stan said. “I think you should leave this wave to us. Save your SAMs and tac-lasers. We’re going to need them for the bombers. And this way they don’t know you’re there yet.”

“You’re talking about almost two hundred drones,” the captain said. It was the number in their sector. There were other drones headed elsewhere along I-70.

“Yes,” Stan said. “Leave these drones to us.”

“Yes sir, Colonel,” the captain said.

Stan squeezed his armrests. He didn’t like this. He didn’t want to give away the Behemoths. The enemy would have to realize what had happened. It would be too much to hope they wouldn’t. Some of the Chinese aircraft would likely survive. Probably, Chinese AWACS watched from far-off. But if they were going to give away where the Behemoths hid, they might as well get the full use out of it. They had to demolish this attack.

I can’t worry about the entire I-70, just my portion of it
.

Stan had a moment where he wondered what had happened to his son Jake. Was his boy a Chinese prisoner? Was he a guerilla in Texas? Or was Jake dead? A thunderous scowl twisted Stan’s features.

The seconds ticked away. The Chinese Goshawks and fighter drones bored in toward I-70. They were eleven miles from the Tank Park.

“Ten seconds,” Jose said.

Stan wiped sweat out of his eyes. The seconds passed with agonizing slowness. He watched his screen and hoped their AI was smart enough to switch air targets one right after the other. If it failed—

“Fire at will,” Stan said into his receiver.

There was a mighty surge of engine power. A loud noise filled his ears and the Behemoth shook as the first penetrator round left the force cannon. It flew at Mach 10, burning through the cold mountain air.

In seconds, the shell reached a lead Goshawk, a heavy ground assault drone. The penetrator meant to smash through tank steel ripped easily through the drone. The machine crumpled and disintegrated, raining metal parts onto the freezing snow below on the mountain.

Stan bent forward in his command chair. He watched the radar screen as another penetrator surged out of the cannon. The Behemoth engine revved and more power flowed to the rail-gun. Another penetrator surged out. Two point five seconds later, another shell headed for the Goshawks.

The force cannon had two tremendous powers. One, its shells could blast through any armor on the battlefield. Two, it fired much more quickly than any tank cannon known.

The seventeen Behemoth tanks mercilessly shredded the nearly two hundred drones headed their way. Thirty drones died every seven seconds. Some Behemoth’s missed and others didn’t fire as fast.

The slaughter was magnificent and awe-inspiring to all who witnessed it on the American side. A solid chunk of the Chinese plan to take out I-70 failed in a minute of rarefied destruction.

But the battle for I-70 wasn’t over. Drones fought in other areas and the Herons still bored in toward the ribbon supply line.

THIRD FRONT HQ, COLORADO

Marshal Liang stared at the big screen in disbelief. A drone went down in flames, crashing into the side of a mountain and igniting. Evergreens began to burn like torches, sending up columns of smoke.

“The Americans have something new,” he told General Ping.

Ping had been working on a computer tablet. “Sir,” he said, “I beg to differ.”

Liang tore his gaze from the big screen and glanced at calm General Ping. “What have you discovered?”

“The rate of enemy fire,” Ping said. “I submit the Americans have new rail-gun anti-air weapons, or they employed Behemoth tanks.”

“In the Rocky Mountains?” Liang asked.

“High Command wondered where the Behemoth tanks hid. Now we know: near their manufacturing plant. It makes sense that they would defend it strongly.”

Liang nodded. “The Chairman’s information is accurate then.”

“It would appear so, sir,” Ping said.

“Denver must be their heart of power. Yes. The Chairman is correct. We must wrest this plant from the Americans.”

“The Chairman is always correct, sir.”

Without glancing around, Liang realized that personnel listened to their conversation. Some of those personnel could be East Lightning plants. It was wise to remember that.

“Yes, the Chairman is brilliant in his analysis,” Liang said. “The Behemoths—we must call off the attack.”

“The bombers are nearing firing position and the rest of the Goshawks—”

“Pull back!” Liang said. What had the Chairman informed them of? There were several Behemoth regiments, perhaps as many as one hundred giant tanks with rail-guns. Liang stood, and he spoke in a loud voice, “Radio the bombers and tell the drone operators to immediately flee south. We must escape the other rail-guns.”

“Sir?” Ping asked.

Liang turned to him. “This is a trap. I don’t know how, but the Americans knew what I was planning or they analyzed my former behavior and correctly predicted my actions. We must save our bombers and whatever Goshawks we can. We must not uselessly throw away important air assets.”