He swiveled around, and he dared to look up over the lip of terrain. Two of the hovertanks burned nicely. One had a thin oily fume spiraling into the night sky. Two hits, but he’d only fired one missile.
The other one must be Romo’s Javelin. Good shooting, Tonto.
Now another heavy machine gun opened up from the ground. There came more bright flashes of light and more hammering strikes against enemy armor.
The remaining five hovertanks opened up again, silencing this machine gun as well. Hovertanks scored two against the partisans. Marine recon tally was two against the hovertanks. It sucked to be a partisan.
Paul waited. Romo must have waited as well. Either that or the Chinese had already killed his blood brother. Paul could have called on the radio to check, but he was sure the Chinese would have a locator to pinpoint their positions then.
Five hovertanks now approached the blown snowmobile.
“Screw this,” Paul muttered. He sighted his last Javelin, and he fired. Another Javelin from the right appeared.
That’s all Paul had time to see. He crawled away again. Now he had nothing but a sidearm. The M-16 was on the snowmobile. He realized as he crawled that Romo must have waited each time for him to fire. Give the enemy two missiles at once to worry about—that was battle wise.
Paul heard an explosion. Scratch one more hovertank, he hoped. He waited for the second explosion, but it never came.
Finally, from his new location, Paul stopped and eased up to look. Another hovertank burned. Good. That left four. Those four—
The hovertanks whined with loud engine revs. They zoomed away across the snow, floating away from the wrecked snowmobile and toward the American rear areas. Perhaps they wanted to hunt easier game.
Paul grinned tightly. Maybe the hovertank commander figured this was too costly, fighting invisible Americans who kept taking out his vehicles. The enemy commander couldn’t know they were out of Javelins. All the Chinese commander knew was that three of his hovers burned from “partisan” attacks.
Paul watched the hovertanks float away. After a time, he stood, and he saw others stand, four men. He used the night visor to see them. Make that one man and three women in thick parkas. They carried hunting rifles and shotguns, and they advanced on the burning hovertanks. He saw Romo stand next and wave to him.
The partisans killed the Chinese who survived the burning vehicles. They were a hard-eyed group, taking the rest of the Javelins for themselves, as well as Paul’s M-16. He let them. A helo was on the way to pick Romo and him up. His blood brother had survived, thank God.
When he approached them, the partisans didn’t speak much to Paul or Romo. They had lost three older men, who had been firing captured Chinese machine guns at the hovertanks. Their looks accused him, as if to say, “Why can’t you defeat these invaders? Why are you leaving it to us to do your dirty work?”
It was a good question, even if it was unspoken. Paul thought about it during the ride back to SOCOM HQ, Army Group Washington.
This was a bitch of a war.
Are we winning or losing? And when will we know?
Paul shrugged as he sat at the door of the helo. The snowy ground rushed past one hundred feet below. Someone would tell him when America had won. Until then, he’d keep fighting. What else could he do?
LAKEWOOD, COLORADO
Corporal Jake Higgins threw up his hood. It was bitterly cold this morning in the trench. He slapped his gloved hands together, rubbing them. When he was finished with the exercise, he used his teeth and pulled off the right glove. Using his finger, he tapped a computer scroll.
It was a tech gift from their neighboring Mexico Home Army battalion. Really, the battalion was down to a platoon in strength after the bitter weeks of defending Greater Denver. The Home Army Mexicans were a tough group, excellent soldiers.
The scroll was linked to an armored video camera at the top of the trench. It beat using a periscope, which is what they had been using until this nifty little device.
Jake scanned the blasted cityscape. Only a few skeletal buildings remained. Mostly, he saw was snowy rubble and frozen body-parts of Chinese and Americans alike. Artillery shells had turned over the terrain a thousand different times these past weeks.
He recalled the first week of battle. What a difference. Only a few of those Militiamen still lived. He wore Chinese