The laser vehicles kept pouring fire, and then he lost the eighth tank.
Should I retreat? No. It’s be too late for that. All I can do is charge in a zigzag. “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” he muttered to himself.
This was a regiment, though, not a brigade, and it wasn’t light but had the heaviest super-tanks ever built. Were the Behemoths already obsolete?
“Stan—I mean Colonel,” Jose said.
Stan looked over at his friend.
“The Chinese have stopped firing at us.”
“Do you know—” Before Stan could finish his question, he stared at McGraw on his third screen.
“I’ve sent ballistic missiles at them, Colonel.”
“What?” Stan asked.
“Didn’t you hear me earlier?”
Stan was too dazed to remember. He’d lost eight Behemoths and only destroyed two enemy laser tanks. This was terrible. Now he knew what it felt like to be a T-66 versus a Behemoth.
“Advance now,” McGraw was saying. “Get closer while they’re focused on the ballistic missiles. I fired the missiles to come in bunches. I want to keep the MC ABMs busy in order to buy you time to get closer.”
“Yes sir, General,” Stan said. He got on the microphone and shouted the orders to the others. He wanted to be Mr. Calm, but he couldn’t do it now. He was too full of adrenaline.
He watched the three screens. The enemy knocked down the ballistic missiles one right after the other. Doing so kept the Chinese lasers and SAM sites busy, though. It brought the surviving Behemoths another kilometer closer.
The enemy had seven MC ABMs left. Actually, it only had five left that could fire. According to his screen, two were pulling out.
“We’re one kilometer closer,” Stan said. “Let’s pour it on now, gentlemen. Let’s kill these invaders and finish the fight.”
The force cannon surged once more. Penetrators flew at Mach 10. The range was still too much for perfect accuracy. It was close enough, however, that the penetrators began to hit with greater frequency, perhaps one shot in ten.
That was more than enough. One after another, the MC ABMs blew up and burned spectacularly. One in particular flew up into the air. Six hundred tons blew fifty feet high before smashing down to the ground. Stan would never know it, but that one had been MC ABM #3.
Commander Bao would never again have to worry about his ulcer. He had been turned into pulped flesh, boiled blood and pulverized bones, disappearing from life and history, a red smear on a hill in Aurora, Colorado.
BEIJING, PRC
Two East Lightning operatives marched Guardian Inspector Shun Li toward Xiao’s office in the Police Ministry. They were about to turn into the selected corridor. Before they could, a large old military man with rows of gaudy medals on his chest limped in front of them, coming out of that corridor. An escort walked with the officer.
Shun Li stopped in surprise. One of the operatives behind her didn’t notice in time and bumped against her, propelling her against the old man.
The old military officer caught her, and he peered down into her face, breathing a foul odor.
“Excuse me, please,” Shun Li said.
The old man shoved her away so several of his medals tinkled against each other. He turned, scowling at his escort.
“This way, Marshal,” the escort said in a subservient tone.
As she straightened her uniform, Shun Li had time to notice several things. The escort took the highly decorated marshal down a hall that would lead to the underground garage. The implication was that this Marshal of China hadn’t come through the front doors, but through a hidden route. Shun Li watched them, and she realized that she recognized the man’s limp from TV footage. That was Marshal Gang, the leader of the PAA First Front in California. He had taken over after Marshal Nung had perished against American commandos.
“We must hurry,” one of the operatives told her.
Shun Li didn’t think so. Hurrying to Xiao’s office now would likely be disastrous for her.
“A moment, please,” she said. “My shoe is untied.” She knelt and pulled apart the shoestrings. “There’s grain in my shoe.” She pulled off the shoe and then her sock, pulling it inside out and shaking it, pretending to watch bits of dust or gravel fall.
Her toenails were orange painted. She’d forgotten about that. She tried to hide that from the operatives. East Lightning Guardian Inspectors shouldn’t paint their toenails. Shun Li had begun doing that after several intimate meetings with Tang, the original Lion Guardsman who had invaded