Roswell Fanatics

Justice 1-7 was the call sign of First Lieutenant Henry Apachito, the senior artilleryman in the small un it of 105mm howitzers assigned to Bryan's regiment. His opposite number in Max's regiment was First Lieutenant Jaime Gonzalez, who was deployed with his troops and tubes five miles farther west. Lieutenant Apachito had only been in the Army for three years, but he'd made rank fast...although that happens when you are taking a lot of casualties...resopnsibility comes quickly to even very junior personnel.

Normally the 105mm howitzer had excellent accuracy. Once sighted in it could put two shells within 20 meters of one another from a range of 10 kilometers....but not today. Today they were firing beehive rounds, ...105mm Antipersonnel rounds, and that changed things considerably. The beehive round was developed to satisfy a need identified in the Korean War when US troops were overwhelmed by human wave attacks. The M546 APERS-T was originally made to be fired from tank main guns and immediately after leaving the barrel a small charge would separate the sections of the shell releasing 8000 flechettes....small darts, that would continue on for about a half kilometer like a monstrously large shotgun, shredding everything in their path. But the tanks mounting 105mm guns had gradually left the inventory...replaced by smoothbore 120mm tubes... and the rounds had all gone to the 105mm howitzer batteries. They too could use the rounds for direct fire, although if modern infantry got THAT close to the unprotected towed 105mm artillery troops, they were already in deep trouble. This fire mission, however, was not at that short a range.
By changing the fusing on the shell it was possible to lob it over the heads of enemy troops, timing the opening of the shell to occur when the round was still three or four hundred meters above their heads, sending a rain of death down on the exposed troops. The flechettes wouldn't penetrate tanks or infantry fighting vehicles...at least those that had closed their hatches, but troops in the open or unarmored vehicles such as trucks or humvees were also effectively shredded by the fleshettes which had been found to be very effective against Skins infantry. The flechettes would tear through their husks and even a wound which to a human would have only been an ugly gash would usually be fatal to a Skin. The problem was the accuracy.
Plotting ballistics is not inherently difficult, but there are variables that can't be controlled, chiefly the wind and the movement of enemy targets, but also their altitude. For the antipersonnel rounds this was doubly difficult. Not only did they need to be fired with all the care and precision of a rgular high explosive round, but their fusing had to be just right...and the fuses weren't all that accurate. And the round that was supposed to open up 300 meters above the target...that would put down a lethal pattern over an area the size of a football field would...if it instead opened at 600 meters, put down an almost as lethal pattern covering four times the area. That's why you weren't supposed to use it if their were friendly troops anywhere in the area...much less danger close.
And Max was a friendly troop, he'd personally saved one of Lieutenant Apachitos friends...and Navaho tribemember...after a run in two years ago with a Skins Hunter-Killer outfit. Lieutenant Apachito didn't like firing this close to any friendly...much less Max Evans. He was running his calculations twice and getting Jaime Gonzalez to check his computations over the radio before each salvo, but even if he made no mistake he knew that sooner or later Colonel Evans would take a hit. He was just hoping the man would e shielded when it happened.
The Lieutenant listened carefully to the readback from the gunner and then gave the order..."Fire for effect...twelve rounds APERS-T"

The antipersonnel rounds had a distinctive sound as the 8000 flechettes flew through the air...that's why the US military called them beehive rounds. Zata called instantly for his column to disperse and go northward and for his armor to button their hatches. By scattering they'd lessen the effectiveness of the fire on the unarmored troops and vehicles and by keeping movin g they would hamper the accuracy of the gunners. He ordered his scouts to look for the artillery spotter...there was almost certainly one around somewhere...mosr likely safely out of range of the artillery to the north. He watched the armored RV start to close again on his command car...almost cursing out loud. He had no desire to be summoned out of his armored command car to talk to the governor when the sky was falling, but it would probably have to be done.

Max knew it had been dumb luck that they'd gotten the infantry fighting vehicle. It must have had a hatch open, and a flechette triggered secondary explosions from the ordnance carried within. But the plan seemed to be working...the Sjins were going northward. As the round exploded above him he shielded briefly as he was caught in the edge of a swarm of flechettes. A half dozen pinged down in the vicinity of the observation post, and he worried about his FAV being disabled...but the vehicle apparently hadn't been hit. He corrected the artillery fire...marching it north as the Skins deployed in that direction. It was unfortunate that by dispersing it lowered the effectiveness of the shelling but it couldn't be helped. 'Round one to the good guys,' he thought as he turned to look at the picture of her. Probabl...y near three humdred skins died in that opening salvo...but somehow it didn't make the pain he felt when he looked at the picture any less. But they had more beehive rounds.....
"Justice 1-7....new coordinates for a fire mission," Max checked his maps for the coordinates of the funny RV that was maneuvering toward the IFV with all the comm antennas, a dead giveaway for a command vehicle, "Coordinates AA-one-seven by L decimal four" Chances are both were armored, but it would at least rattle their cages a little.......

The Minuteman II had sat in the silo for almost fifty years, built for a war that had never happened and whatever happened today never WOULD happen since humankind would either be extinct or they would find a way to patch up old differences to unify against a greater enemy.

As the keys were turned simultaneously at the two launch stations a current was sent through squibs into sodium azide gas generators...not unlike a larger version of the charges that triggered airbags in civilian automobiles and the 150 ton door was pushed back from the silo opening

The first stage engine had been built by Morton Thiokol at Air Force Plant 78 27 miles west of Brigham City Utah almost fifty years ago, and for the last ten years it had no maintenance whatever. The number one igniter had...somewhere over the decades..developed a fault and when the ignition sequence energized the circuit to initiate the launch the igniter misfired. It didn't matter.

Built to the specifications of the Strategic Air Command an organization that believed in redundant everything,,,the failure of the number one igniter was not even noticeable as igniters two three and four triggered a mixture of ammonium perchlorate and finely divided aluminum prill in the base of the engine. The triggering charge ignited the cast solid propellant almost immediately.

The silo erupted in a blast of flame and smoke, and the first missile]lifted ponderously into the sky. As it rolled and headed downrange on a tail of fire, it drowned out even the sound of the artillery shelling.

Colonel Stewart was watching the meter of the site anenomometer carefully. The lull before the storm was quickly coming to an end with the approaching gust front. Even before the keys were tured at the second missile launch facility, the gusts were approaching fifteen knots, and as the gas generators shoved back the massive door covering the silo, the wind continued to build. As he heard the ignition of the first stage engine the winds suddenly went to almost 25 knots...far greater than they could trust the jury-rigged guidance system to compensate for. But once you initiate launch of a solid fueled rocket there is literally no turning back...no kill switch...no fuel that can be turned off. Like the Congreve rockets whose red glare had illuminated the flag flying over Fort Sumter, the engine would fire until it ran out of fuel or was destroyed. It was no longer in control of anyone on the ground.

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. It had been twenty three years since the thiokol engine had last been inspected by the non destructive testing lab at the Ogden Air Logistics Center and in that time age had taken its toll on the first stage motor. A crack had occurred in the fuel...one that would have disqualified it from use had it been known. Because cracks lead to uneven burning of the fuel and, especially immediately after launch, to asymmetric thrust. The asymmetric thrust meant that the missile would tend to curve immediately after lift off, at least until the fuel had burned inward a meter or so from the nozzle. Had there been no crack...or had the curve been away from the wind, the missile would have crashed in those first few seconds as the winds sought to topple it. Perhaps it was fate...perhaps luck...perhaps the intervention of a God that Max still wasn't sure he believed in....but the asymmetric thrust largely counteracted the howling gale...and the second missile staggered into the sky.

Within a few tens of seconds it was well above the storm, it's inertial navigation system putting it on course for its target.

Zata watched the RV approach close along side...at least he would not have far to go to enter it...putting himself at risk from the fallng darts the humans called flechettes. But to his surprise, it was Tafor who exited the RV...from the drivers door, and ran hurriedly to the command Infantry Fighting Vehicle. He had scarcely made his way through the rear door before a rain of flechettes started outside. Zata hit the button to close the rear trapdoor as Tafor sprawled exhauste on the floor.

"What is happening..?" asked Tafor, breathing heavily from his exertion.

"I should think that would be obvious, Governor,....we are under attack."

"The roof of my vehicle...it was not armored well...a rain of steel sliced through...killling my driver..Ibarely made it here...," siad Tafor between panting breaths.

"They are called flechettes in the human language. They are delivered by artillery. Apparently we are under attack by regular human Army forces."

"That is impossible. They only have a few regiments left...and out intelligence service says they are in New Mexico and South Dakota.."

After all these years Zata had still not gotten used to politicians who were incapable of believing the evidence of their own eyes....at least when that conflicted with their political desires. He shook his head, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of his vice.

"Well it would appear that the intelligence service is in error, Governor. Someone is certainly firing an artillery barrage at us."

"What can we do?"

"Precisely what I have done...disperse our troops to minimize casualties and head northward to encircle and destroy the artillery units there. Even if the humans have all of their remaining troops arrayed against us, we probably will have the ability to defeat them...I doubt they could deploy more than two or three regiments."

"But the factory....the Dictator will be coming to see that we are on schedue...."

"War permits no schedule, Governor,...and this is war. It is many things...it is brutal and terrible and glorious...but it is never predictable...and this one has gone on too long. I counselled you about the dangers of this place, as I counselled your predecessor...."

"....and I told no one of your cowardice, Zata, because of your record of success. But it is imperative that the humans not be allowed to ruin our schedule...perhaps that is their very reason for being here...even knowing they will soon die...they perhaps have decided to stop us from building the factory to eke out a few more months."

The word 'cowardice' burned in his ears, and Zata nearly missed the rest of the sentence...but suddenly its import struck him....

'"What do you mean....knowing they will soon die,....," asked Zata coldly,

"The reconnaissance satellites...," said Tafor, "....somehow the humans hacked them...several weeks ago."

"So this intelligence service you have such confidence in let them take the satellites from us...and not tell us? And send us out here with false reassurances that the human forces were elsewhere?"

"It didn't matter...it still doesn't. Our troops vastly outnumber theirs, and theirs will be dying within months..."

"Look out the window, you fool. It matters...it always matters. Those of our troops without armored vehicles...they are dying. We have already lost hundreds...we may lose several thousand before we can get them sufficiently dispersed to render the humans' artillery fire ineffective."

"But that may be their plan...to stop our construction...."

"No...not if they knew they were going to die regardless...that is not their way. They would come after us...come after our leadership....try to take as many of us with them as possible, not attack us here...in the middle of nowhere..."

As he said those words, alarm bells started going off in Zata's head. 'Why ARE they here...here in the middle of nowhere? Why are they picking a fight that they know they will be unable to win, even with surprise on their side......?'

Suddenly from the west there was a sound so loud it shook the armored vehicle like a rattling continuous explosion. Then he saw it...perhaps 15 or 20 kilometers distant....hurling itself into the sky riding a tail of fire.

"What is it?" screamed Tafor watching it climb.

"A missile...."

"But that is impossible...there are no missiles left...they have no warheads...we have them all..."

As the second missile rattled the sky as it clawed its way above the gathering storm clouds Zata shook his head.

"This was never about the factory...it was about those two missiles. This was about the humans attacking...bringing the war to us..."

"But they have no warheads....

"Who do you think MADE the warheads?"

"But we control those facilities...."

Zata shook his head in disgust. "Have you learned nothing from these people? Their first nuclear reactor was built in an athletic court...under the bleachers of an athletic stadium in one of their largest cities, with no one knowing they did it at the time. You have no idea what these people are capable of...if given the time and the cause."

"We must capture those who did this...mindrape them to find out what they have done....warn our people the missiles are coming...."

"Agreed....," said Zata....but then the conversation was drowned out by the rattling as dozens of flechettes rained down on the roof of the Command IFV.

"Sir," said the radio operator, "..that last barrage took out our satellite communication antenna, We cannot talk to headquarters, only our own units on the tactical frequencies."

"Then instruct them, that we turn west at all possible speed. We attack two old silos...kill the defenders if you must..but we need all of the scientists and engineers we can get alive. We need information. We need to know what we are fighting."

"This is a catastrophe," said Tafor. "The delay this will cause will set us back months....and if they somehow managed to create warheads that might destroy the wormhole ports....we might lose Antar before we can pacify this world and develop its resources..and what will the dictator say?"

Zata shook his head in irritation, the fool still did not comprehend. The history of these people was one of constant conflict. It was almost as if they'd spent their entire past preparing for war....not just with technology...but with their very culture.

As he watched the glow of the second missile fading slowly from view he was worried. Worried about Spartans at a place called Thermopylae, worried about Texans at a place called the Alamo, worried about a single Union artillery Lieutenant who loaded his four cannon with double charges of grapeshot and chain as he watched the approach of Pickett's charge and converted the churning mass of gray and blue in front of him into a sea of red, breaking the momentum of the charge and preserving the union.

'Why do I feel,' he asked himself, "..that it may already be too late?'
Perhaps he'd get some answers when they mindraped the personnel in the silos....the nearest was only 17 kilometers away.

As he saw the first missile rise in the east, Max knew at once that the Skins wouldn't continue on their northward course...nobody in this or any other world could have missed that missile firing, even in the midst of a rain of steel flechettes. He wondered fleetingly if the damn things might even work as he saw the second rise, but still didn't see how that was possible. How could they have worked out an agent to kill something with no animal model?

No, this was likely just one last hurrah for the aged Colonel Taylor, but it nonetheless served Max's purpose. He picked up the picture from beside him and stuffed it carefully into the cargo pocket of his battle dress uniform. Whatever else happend, he'd be able to kill all the Skins he could handle...and if there was really a hereafter, perhaps be with her soon.

The last coordinates he'd given Justice 1-7 had been to lead the Skins units as they proceeded northward. That placed the rain of flechettes far enough away that he could operate without cover for long enough to hit one of the Skins' tanks with a TOW missile and perhaps get the FAV reloaded for a second shot before they had time to turn back toward the silos. He quickly scrambled out of the observation post to the FAV and drove it several hundred meters to an area where he could just clear a small hill with the TOW while not allowing the FAV to be seen by the Skins who were now starting to turn back toward the valley.

Max saw the tank clearly in the sights and pushed the firing stud...the whoosh of the TOW missile all but lost in the noise of the continuing artillery salvo. He held the pipper on the target as the missile covered the 2 kilometers in a little over five seconds. It was an Improved TOW, and it went not for the heavily armored forward side of the tank, but rather for the top...the missile exploding above the tank and sending two explosively formed projectiles down at the relatively vulnerable top armor. The first hit on the reactive armor, the small explosion clearing the way for the penetrator to punch through the turret. Once inside the turret the penetrator pinged around the inside at a speed greater than sound, emulsifying the gunner even before a random richochet brought the penetrator into contact with the fuse of a 120mm main gun projectile. The ensuing explosion blew the turret rntirely away from the hull of the tank, leaving both as burning wreckage littering the battlefield.

'One down...one to go....'

Max quickly drove the FAV back to the observation post, being careful to mask his travel behind the terrain. The FAV moved swiftly...better even than the old jeep he'd had as a kid. He patted the photograph inside his jacket as he drove..."Just like old times, huh Liz?" he said aloud.

'Was there a hereafter?' he wondered?
If there was, would he find her?

He parked in back of the observation post and used his radio to again adjust the coordinates of fire.

The Skins were dying by the scores...but there were still thousands, and they were still coming. They had spread out from the road and were now coming across a broad front. 'Bad luck for them,' he thought, '..as he grabbed the trigger to the Claymore mine barrier. As the first vehicles of the wave of Skins vehicles got within 15 meters of the barrier he squeezed the detonator, and the valley went up in a wall of fire and flying shrapnel.

Instantly he was out the back of the observation post and back in the FAV, on his way to the observation post a mile further west and the second of the three lines of Claymores. If he hurried he'd have time to get there in time to reload the TOW and perhaps get a shot at the remaining tank. He wished he had a third for the command IFV, but it couldn't be helped.

It was the job of a leader to understand the big picture. As death rained from above, it was to be expected that there would be chaos among the poorly protected common soldiers and perhaps even an explosion or two in infantry fighting vehicles that had poorly prepared themselves for combat. But a four second streak of fire culminating in the explosion of one of his two tanks was not something attributable to artillery fire, Overseer Zata quickly gave the order,

"Continue to fan out and head to the west. be aware, there are enemy troops close by firing antiarmor weapons. Engage them with heavy machine gun re as soon as possible."

The carnage was continuing within the ranks of the troops in the large trucks. Lacking armor they were being decimated. But by spreading out and increasing the speed of the route, he had made it more difficult for the limited number of human artillery tubes to concentrate their fire on Skins forces and they still held a decided superiority in numbers of troops. The cannon had to be 105mm, that was the only artillery that fired beehive rounds, and within four of five kilometers Zata knew his troops would be out of range of those weapons. His vehicles were moving over ground at over 50 kilometers per hour, so in only six or seven minutes they should be through the worst of it...or at least that's what Zata thought until his lead troops approached the Claymore barrier and the west was lit up by the firing of Claymore mines and the sight of flying shrapnel.

"Wh---what was that?" asked the Governor.

"That, your excellency, is a war....it may be these accursed humans only real talent...."

Two thousand three hundred miles away two Minuteman II first stages burned themselves out, and the second Aerojet-General M-56 engiines cut in boosting the velocity of the missiles to nearly 17,000 kilometers per hour. By the time the third stage finished firing nine minutes later the missile would be at the top of its flight arc nearly 11000 kilometers in altitude, traveling at over 24,000 kilometers per hour. But even now, the Atlantic Research pitch and spin motors were guidning the missile in accordance with input from its inertial navigation system. The missiles were designed for a circular area probable of 200 meters, Their accuracy on this occasion was slightly better than that. Had they proceeded to impact one missile would actually have hit the wormhole in Europe and likely destroyed it as a simple kinetic kill, even without a warhead. But due to the modifications to their warheads, neither would actually get to their target. Both warheads would explode five hundred meters above their targets into a thin cloud of brown dust that would settle thickly over the two wormholes before starting to drift in the winds. It would be weeks before any of the dust made its way back to the Western Hemispere.

Justice 1-7, AKA, First Lieutenant Henry Apachito, was not at fault for what happened next. The beehive rounds were originally designed to be used for direct fire…by tank main guns against infantry wave attacks. It hadn’t made a great deal of difference to that mission that the fuses had a 10% allowable error. They were designed to explode the casing of the shell releasing the flechettes a hundred meters or so after the shell left the barrel. Whether they released these flechettes at 90 meters or one hundred ten meters certainly wasn’t critical, and it’s frankly hard to engineer a timer that will withstand being accelerated from a standing start to over 540 meters per second inside a 2.5 meter long barrel.

It was a combination of factors, really. The five mile range to the Skins meant the bursting of the canister needed to be delayed for nine seconds, giving the actual tolerances for the timer anywhere from eight seconds to ten seconds. On this occasion, the shell was late opening…carrying the center of the flechettes almost 500 meters past the aim point. But 8000 flechettes don’t have the accuracy of one high explosive round. They interact with the canister when they open…sometimes interact with each other…and just by a straight probability distribution one can expect them to spread out.

Had the round been one of the first fired, it might not have made any difference. It would have passed over the bulk of the Skins troops, impacting on their southern edge. But because the troops had been proceeding west…and because the artillery was now to the northeast, a few hundreds of flechettes got well out in front of the Skins forces, and these rained down on the second observation post, where Max was struggling to fit the second TOW missile in the launcher on the FAV.

Max had the damn TOW package aligned finally, and finally locked it in to place. But as he reached to attach the electrical connections to the site he heard the whistle of flechettes in flight…and felt the left side of his chest explode.

The flechette had slowed noticeably since leaving the canister…but it was still traveling 15 meters per second….over 300 miles an hour…when it hit his back just below the shoulder blade. The flechette was only a half gram…but its small cropss section let it go smoothly through the battle dress uniform and the skin, before starting to twist and deform on the underlying musculature. The flechette was traveling sidewards by the time it slipped between the ribs and entered the chest cavity… emulsifying a tract of lung tissue nearly to the anterior chest cavity.

As the air shot out into the chest from the leaking lung, the lung itself collapsed. But worse than that, with every attempt at a breath, more air leaked into the chest cavity, further collapsing the lung. Max was starting to get a tension pneumothorax, and had he been a human being he would have likely been out of the fight for good.

But Max wasn’t human…or at least not entirely, and he used his telekinetic power to seal the hole made in his lung by the flechette, even as his healing power was working to restore the tissue. He forced the trapped air in his lung out the entry hole, then closed the wound behind. After several minutes, Max was breathing easier…not yet fully recovered, but getting there.

But it had taken long minutes, and in that time the Skins were already at the second Claymore line, some of the advance troops already past it. He triggered the Claymores quickly and staggered back toward the FAV, using the terrain to shield him from the Skins fire as he drove to the third and last observation post.

He parked the FAV where its body was concealed by a small hill from the oncoming Skins troops.

‘I need to get that second tank,’ he thought, ‘…then start working on anything with a TOW missile.' But now he was within range of not only the First Brigade artillery, but the Second Brigade as well. He gave more fire orders, and beehive rounds and high explosive rained on the oncoming Skins troops. It wouldn’t be enough of course, but it was the only purpose he had left in his life. One way or another, the battle would soon be over for him.

Four miles to the east, there was a hurried meeting between Colonel Taylor and Major Young.

"Major Young, your troops have performed a miracle getting those two missiles off...especially the second one."

"Thank you sir, let's hope that they both make it to their targets...and that the agent works."

Taylor nodded his head gravely. He'd been worried about little else the last two years...ever since he committed to this project.

"I have to ask you to tell me frankly, Major, do you believe there is any realistic chance to get our people away from here? We cannot afford to have them captured by the Skins. Even if the missiles get there...the agent works...if my personnel were captured...mind-raped...the Skins might learn enough that they could take protective measures...or at least use the warheads they have taken from the other silos against us."

"Sir...my men have been going solid for twenty-four hours, and not much more than four hours rest a day for the three days before that. Your people are in no better shape...some of them worse. We aren't going to be able to outrun anyone...or outfight anyone I'm afraid."

"Can we assist in the fight at least?"

"None of our howitzers are set up...I have men setting two of them up now, but the Skins are almost at the minimum range for our guns...we won't be able to fire at them for very long. But one of your favorite researchers has an idea...it's a long shot, but it might work....if the infantry can hold those guys long enough for us to modify three or four shells."

"This whole thing has been a long shot, Major," said Taylor guessing who the man was referring to, "...why shouldn't we take a long shot now? But have your other men rig up high explosive projectiles to detonate if this plan doesn't work...to destroy the site and everyone it....we can't afford to have our people taken alive..."

"Yes sir."

In the command Bradley, things were not going particularly well between the governor and his Overseer.

"This is insanity....You have to have lost hundreds of troops..." screamed Governor Tafor.

"War is always madness, your Excellency. The soldiers know that...even if the politicians do not, for they are the ones who do most of the dying. It was not my choice to come to this toxic planet to engage with these barbarians...Yes, we have lost hundreds...probably about twelve hundred, and we'll likely lose a lot more in capturing those launch sites. There are now two separate artillery positions targeting us. But capture them we must....they did not go to this much effort to merely fire two missiles in the air for some religious celebration. Every instinct in my very bones tells me that we have been struck a dreadful blow, and the only hope of fending off complete disaster is to capture someone from that site who knows just what they have done...and hopefully before they kill themselves to prevent interrogation."

"But...the high explosive shells...they destroy even the armored vehicles....like this one."

"Yes...but the artillery fire is light...it is mostly the unarmored troops that are dying, poor fools. The odds of a shell hitting this command track are low, ....if that is what you are worried about, and they have no armor...so far only the artillery and one antiarmor missile. We must press our advantage now, and our advantage is our numbers and our speed..."

"Uh...perhaps just this vehicle should turn back....perhaps you could transfer to another vehicle and this one could take the regional Governor to safety. I am, after all, not a common soldier. I am too important politically to be risked."

Zata couldn't help but smile, despite his anger. "Unfortunately, your Excellency," he said with exaggerated politeness, “..my duties as Overseer require the use of the communications equipment in this vehicle. Perhaps his Excellency would like to cross to the armored vehicle on our right side. I could order the commander of that vehicle to take you to safety.”

Tafor looked out at the 200 meters between the two vehicles, and felt the armored vehicle rock with the force of the explosion of a 105mm high explosive round striking a half kilometer away. As he heard the tinkle of shrapnel falling against the roof of the vehicle he was in, and saw a humvee on their left flank overturn as it’s driver was killed by a shower of flechettes, he sat back in his seat with a look of terror on his face.



“No…,” said Tafor. “I believe I will stay here….”

Carl Clausewitz referred to it as “the fog of war,” the ambiguity and lack of knowledge of exactly what was going on that nonetheless had to be managed in making decisions in any conflict. In this case it was almost the literal truth.

The miles of travel under bombardment from the artillery, and the damage done by two waves of Claymore mines had taken their toll of the Skins formation. Their armored troops were almost unscathed by the artillery and Claymores, and their one tank loss had been to Max’s first of two TOW missiles. But the large trucks heavily laden with troops and supplies had been ravaged by the explosions and shrapnel, and many of them burned with an acrid smoke that seemed to obscure all movement within the battlefield.

But despite the unpredictability of war, some things you can learn. Repairing his wound had delayed Max from firing the second line of Claymores, but it had taught him a lesson as well. The engineers had set the Claymores at the front of natural terrain obstacles…. a couple of creekbeds and in a small chokepoint where the gentle walls of the valley had steepened and forced the Skins forces to bunch up. The delay in firing the second line of Claymores had led to their being more effective, stopping the advance for long minutes…minutes that the four artillery pieces of Justice 1-7 and the four artillery pieces of Liberty 1-7 had used to rain shell after shell on the vehicles that were milling and bunching in confusion.

Max knew he was taking a calculated risk as he allowed the five scout vehicles to pass the last line of Claymores. They were only humvees, but two of them mounted TOW missiles of their own. Max could retreat little further, at four miles away from the silos, the Skins troops were perilously close to being within TOW range of the silos, it would take little more advance before Colonel Taylor’s poorly equipped troops would be under file, and Bryan’s troops were hours away from being able to join the fray.

As the forward wave of the Skins troops approached within feet of the hidden Claymores, the ground in front of them burst forth in fire and shrapnel and hundreds of Skins died. Zata swore in exasperation and anger. This was the sort of trap the scout vehicles were supposed to uncover and warn them about, and they had failed yet again. How many more such traps were between them and the silos? There was no way to know. Yet if he slowed their advance, his troops would continue to feel the rain of artillery from both sites….and Zata was almost certain they would soon be out of range of at least the easternmost artillery pieces. It was obvious, the humans had little artillery…and soon that would be halved when they moved westward. Finally he made his decision….

“Spread out south to north along the valley…keep your spacing, but keep up your speed. Scouts…slow to the speed of the rest of the column and look more carefully for mines. We cannot afford more such surprises.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable order, given how little he actually knew concerning the forces deployed against him, but it would slow the scout vehicles just enough….enough for Max to catch them.

The FAV moved speedily up behind the five westbound humvees of the scout platoon, Max going first for the nearest of the humvees mounting a TOW missile. Humvees are unarmored….not that it would have mattered. The Browning machine gun had four fifty caliber armor piercing incendiary rounds for each tracer round, and as he pulled the trigger it seemed like a laser of light went out to the humvee, and it exploded instantly. The second humvee…also with a TOW on its roof, went up almost as fast. But it is an axiom in the military that tracer rounds work both ways, and the remaining two scout humvees turned rapidly to face him.

The humvee gunner only had an M-60 in a roof mount, but he could fire it while the vehicle was in motion. His stream of tracers reached out, barely missing Max’s FAV. Max quickly drove behind cover, doing his best to keep out of sight of both of the scout vehicles. He parked the FAV in bushes at the base of the hill, and waited for the approach of the vehicles. As the first humvess crested the hill he held his fire, confident they wouldn’t see him in his concealment…and it apparently worked, the first vehicle had turned away from him…giving him a broadside aspect, just as the second and third vehicles crested the hill.

Instantly the lance of fire blazed out, taking out the last two humvee to appear from a frontal aspect, then Max quickly brought the sights to bear on the humvee that had been caught broadside. The driver had cranked the wheel over hard to try to decrease his target size…it didn’t work quite as he’d expected. The vehicle flipped. Max pumped dozens of rounds into the overturned vehicle before it caught fire and exploded. He returned quickly to the small bunker in the observation post and adjusted fire. Talking the high explosive rounds from Liberty 1-7 once more onto the Skins convoy which seemed to be dispersing north south. Max hesitated to use any more of their limited beehive rounds with the enemy so dispersed…they had less than two dozen left.