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Half an hour later Zimmer gave Major Gowler the honor of opening the attack.
From the Bradleys on the low hills to the south, beyond extreme range of the enemy tank guns, six TOW antitank missiles puffed out of their launchers. The projectiles were slow compared to a high-velocity round, but they could reach almost twice as far as the Abrams guns could fire accurately. Unlike a main gun shell, the missiles were guidable all the way in to their targets.
One of the Fredericksburger gunners was on the ball. Realizing what the six puffs meant, he elevated his main gun and began lobbing high-explosive shells in the general direction of the offending Bradleys. Precious seconds later, the other six tanks began to do the same. They also all launched their smoke grenades, obscuring themselves.
One of the TOW missiles lost its wire guidance and plunged into the ground. Three others missed, their firers confused by the smoke. Two slammed home.
One struck the enormously thick front glacis of its target, rocking the tank and ruining its paint job but otherwise affecting it not at all. One knifed into an Abrams turret at a downward angle and exploded, the superheated jet of molten copper plasma from its shaped charge slicing through the thinner armor like a blowtorch through a chocolate bunny. The crew died instantly as the tank’s ammunition cooked off, blowing the turret sky-high.
Now lacking targets for the smoke, the Bradleys began working their way carefully forward as five big brother Abrams advanced frontally northward. They took the best hull-down positions they could find. At between one and two thousand meters, they began a deliberate rolling fire at the smoke-enshrouded enemy, dimly seen through thermal sights.
From this angle, their discarding-sabot penetrators usually glanced off their targets’ glaces. Two of the enemy tanks lost their treads to the ripping depleted uranium bullets, and one more exploded as a skilled or lucky shot found a weak spot where its turret met the hull. But Richmond’s tanks had no intention of pressing the attack home from the south.
Less than five miles away to the west, the flanking forces had turned to attack as soon as the first shot was fired. Sixteen Richmond tanks in four platoons raced eastward. The southernmost two groups of four, Alice Zimmer’s tank in the lead, pounced on the westernmost enemy tank and supporting Strykers and tore them to bits in a hail of main gun fire. They then moved on down the line to the next position, a textbook roll-up.
The northernmost two platoons spread out and bulled straight up on either side of Jefferson Davis Highway, destroying every hostile vehicle or emplacement they encountered with ease. Homeland Security’s seven MRAPs followed close behind, filled to bursting with paramilitary troops and as many MPs as Colonel Muzik could scrape together and rearm.
The tanks turned to their right and made a fast cavalry sweep in a line up the heights, through the university campus, then spread out taking alert positions in the open spaces between the buildings. Their gun snouts probed ceaselessly, looking for a tank’s worst nightmare in urban terrain: antitank-rocket-armed infantry on the roofs.
“Muzik team, deploy on this commons! You Homies, dismount and start clearing these buildings, I want reports, people. Find the women, find the headquarters! I want prisoners! MPs, assemble on me.” The colonel stood on the top of the armored truck as his forces poured out the back ramps.
The Homeland Security squad leaders took charge and began clear-and-hold operations, while he looked around from his vantage point, searching for...something. A key place, something that looked like a nerve center, where he could get some answers about where their people were being held.
In the middle distance his eyes caught an anomaly. Head-tall coils of concertina wire, razor-sharp and designed specifically to impede personnel, ran along the corner of a red brick building. The rest was hidden behind a larger structure.
Something to keep people out...or in. That’s worth looking at. He jumped off the vehicle and waved at his score of eager troopers. “Follow me!” He jogged in the direction of the building.
At the intervening structure’s corner he called for a halt, then lay down and eased an eye around the bottom corner. He jerked his head back as a burst of gunfire stitched the wall, spattering chips of its concrete construction. “Machinegun nest on the roof, boys.” Muzik spoke into his radio. “Butler, you copy? Ease that truck northward a bit until you can see that red brick building. The one that looks like a dormitory, with the concertina wire around it. There’s a machinegun nest on the top of it somewhere. Drop some grenades on it, if you please. Stay away from the windows; our people might be inside.”
***
Four men held Jill down as the Professor stood over her. He ripped her camo pants off, then her underwear, and she lay naked on the thin mattress. His eyes raped her before he ever made a move. Then he reached for his belt.
Instead of exposing himself, he slid the length of leather from around his waist and doubled it. He snapped it against his leg a couple of times, then struck at her flesh. Skin ripped and bled as the belt whistled and stung, over and over, bruising and cutting...
Distant gunfire jolted Jill awake. Her heart hammered in her chest as she struck out with her blade at shadows. Calm returned as she examined herself in the dim light, finding nothing amiss. Relieved, she rolled to her feet and looked out the barred window. Only a few armed men ran around the campus like confused cockroaches.
She identified tank fire, outgoing and incoming, and a mixture of other weapons as she listened. Booted footfalls in the corridor brought her over to the door, to wait behind it, knife in hand. She quickly sliced her forearm with its razor edge, coating the blade. The cut would heal rapidly and any stab would pass the virus, making death unlikely. Though some of these guys deserve it for sure. Not my call. Infect them all, let God sort ‘em out.
The gunfire shifted direction, and sounded closer. No sound came from the corridor for long minutes. She wished she’d risked eating the food, now. Her stomach twisted in empty knots.
Then the lock rattled. Jill stepped back behind the door and braced herself for a fight.
It swung open slowly and an emaciated hand pushed it all the way back. “Hello?” came a hesitant female voice.
“Zyra?”
Zyra stepped quickly inside and shut the door again. The two women almost hugged, but at the last moment Jill held Zyra at arm’s length. “You don’t want to do that. I’m covered in poop.”
“Oh, why did they do that to you?”
Jill laughed and explained.
***
Muzik’s double squad watched as the MRAP rolled slowly across the commons, about four hundred yards from the brick building. Butler, in the open turret on the top, found the angle he wanted and started firing bursts of three to five 40mm grenades.
The machine gun, alerted to the danger, opened fire on the vehicle, spraying it with bullets while the grenades floated lazily overhead. They took almost three full seconds in their high lobbing arcs, and even then Butler had to observe their bursts, to walk them in to the target.
He jerked in the harness and slumped as the enemy’s 7.62 rounds punched through his body, but the machinegunner’s own fate was already en route. A moment later a string of explosions blew the emplacement from its perch.
Muzik reached for the radio again. “Lockerbie, you there? I need that MRAP to breach this wire.”
“Sir, Butler’s down.”
“I know that, Lockerbie, that’s why I called you. I need you to drive that truck over here and crush all of this wire you can, make me a breach! Come on, soldier, drive!”
“I’m not a soldier sir, I’m an airman,” Muzik heard her mumble under her breath. He chuckled to himself as he saw the MRAP turn and accelerate ponderously toward them. It was doing at least thirty miles per hour as it careened around the corner and lined up on the long side of the wire obstacle. Lockerbie drove the heavy vehicle straight down the line, crushing and dragging the wire, leaving large gaps in the barrier.
When Muzik saw the openings he yelled “Charge!” and ran for the nearest door, firing Needleshock at the opening. His men spread out behind him, shooting back as four or five guns opened up from the windows. Several men fell hit, groaning, but most made it to the cover of the wall, where the enemy could not get an angle to shoot.
Colonel Muzik planted a flying kick in the middle of the steel door – and bounced off. “Shit!” He scrambled into cover close to the wall. “Pop some grenades in there!” he yelled. His men crawled along the lower edge of the building, where they couldn’t be easily shot. One hand and arm tried to angle a rifle out between the bars and Muzik shot it. The rifle fell out the window and the arm withdrew as its owner fell back inside.
Still, they were pinned down outside, and it wouldn’t be long before they thought to get back on the roof and fire down on his troops. And Lockerbie had driven the MRAP around the corner and was working the wire on the other side of the building in an overabundance of enthusiasm. He looked around frantically for something to use to get into the building.
What the hell is that? From his position on the ground he could see an old AT-4 leaning against the dumpster. Apparently someone left it behind in the confusion. Muzik tried to signal his men but they didn’t understand, so he rolled to his feet and yelled, “Cover me!” He ran and dove for the weapon.
Turning, he got the thing awkwardly onto his shoulder one-handed as his men fired at the occupied windows and tried to pop grenades through the bars. One failed to go through, fell outside and detonated, downing two of his men with Shock, but they looked like they would survive. But the covering fire worked. Muzik lined the antitank rocket up on the steel door and fired.
The door blew outward as most of the shaped-charge blast went through it into the hallway behind. Same song, second verse he told himself as he dropped the empty launcher and charged the door. This time there was nothing to stop him as he pulled the pins with his teeth and tossed two Shock grenades inside, then dropped to the ground. Bullets quested for his body until the explosives detonated, sending electric shrapnel everywhere. Seeing what he was doing, his men charged past him as he scrambled to his feet to follow.
Inside the cramped dormitory corridors his men and the enemy fought viciously, needles against bullets, with far too many women in the way. Some of the Associates barricaded themselves in rooms and made their prisoners into human shields, not realizing that Needleshock rounds would eliminate their barriers of flesh with little risk to anyone. The Shock grenades, spitting their taser-like charges and Eden Plague splinters, proved their worth.
Muzik didn’t even recognize Repeth at first when he ran across her in the dim interior corridor. He thought she was just some bloody madwoman covered in crap and waving a knife. In fact that’s not so far off. “Wow, Top, you stink,” was all he could think to say.
She smiled through the grime and bruises. “Nice to see you too, sir. One of Spooky’s old tricks. Make yourself as unattractive as possible.”
“Well, it’s working.” He paused. “You okay, then?”
Her face went blank as she nodded. “Yeah. I was only here a few hours. And...” She waved the bloody blade.
Muzik smiled appreciatively. “Well I hope for your sake Rick doesn’t smell you like this.”
Jill’s broken face fell. “Did anyone find him yet?”
“No, but don’t worry, he has to be around somewhere. We just kicked their teeth in.” He didn’t mention the worst possibility.
Just then Sergeant Grusky ran up, nodded at Repeth with wrinkled nose. “Sir, there’s a bunch of them forted up in the basement. No easy way to get them.”
Repeth and Muzik exchanged glances. Repeth asked, “Did they tell you about the Professor?”
“Yes, the Richmonders had quite the dossier on him.”
“Well, he’s big and smart, and he’s cruel. At first I couldn’t figure him out, being so clean and healthy-looking in the midst of all these Onesies. Then I realized...”
“Psycho?”
“Must be. One that survived the Plagues, or dodged them. And he’s way too smart to be trapped down there.”
Muzik nodded. “So he’s not. There’s a tunnel.”
“Has to be.”
The colonel turned to Grusky. “Sergeant, take charge here. Test the basement from time to time. Maybe they left someone to die in place. Just make sure no one comes out, and see what you can do for these women. Try to get our female troops to take charge of the...victims. Jill, let’s see if we can figure out where your Psycho went.”
—-
They caught up with some of the Associates trying to sneak out of town to the north, but the big blonde Psycho slipped away. After word of his flight got around, all resistance collapsed in Fredericksburg. They surrendered in droves, or melted out into the countryside to try to escape justice.
That night the leaders of the Richmond and Federal forces met in the antebellum banquet hall of Old Town’s Kenmore Inn. Amazingly, the owner had managed to maintain it relatively intact, and had hidden his wife and daughters deep in his wine cellars for the last two months. They managed to put out something resembling a feast for their rescuers.
The Governor of Virginia sent Lieutenant Governor Bilson to represent him, but his presence was eclipsed by Alice Zimmer’s ebullience at her swift and stunning victory. Her husband sat quietly drinking a beer, watching her with tolerant love, while the military officers listened to her toast her forces’ – and Muzik’s – skill, aggressiveness and discipline.
“She’s going to tie one on tonight,” Bilson whispered as he leaned over to Muzik. “She’s old-school that way. Probably why she never made her third star, but she’s Cavalry through and through. The Governor’s going to recommend she be reactivated and promoted, put her in charge of more operations like this.”
Muzik nodded soberly, sipping water. No doubt Allaine thought that was a good political move, to get one of his people near the President. Unlikely she would be taking any more orders from the Governor of Virginia if that happened, he thought. “I hope we don’t ever have to do an operation quite like this again. Sorry, sir, but I need to get back to my people.” He set down the glass and took his leave.
He’d gathered his battalion at the campus and they had settled in there. Abandoned dormitories – all except that one – provided beds and linens, and a determined search had turned up a lot of salvage. We’ll get by, he thought.
When he reached the group of buildings they were using, Master Sergeant Repeth opened his Humvee door and reported grimly. “No problems, sir. We’ve cleaned them all out. Those Associates were nothing but bullies. They weren’t real soldiers. You can’t get punks like that to sacrifice themselves for a cause.”
Muzik grunted and looked dully around at the light spilling out of the windows. His eyes were black pits, and Repeth realized that he had been awake for several days straight. “Sir, Captain LeBrun and I have this well in hand. You need to get some sleep.”
“Truer words never spoken.” He took three steps then stopped, turned back to her. “Any word on Rick?”
Jill’s face fell further, if that were possible. “We haven’t found him yet. Thanks for asking.”
“Damn. Don’t worry, he’ll turn up.”
She didn’t answer, just said, “Let’s get you fixed up, sir. Margie!”
The former professor of English Literature, already looking slimmer, younger and healthier, bustled happily over to Repeth. When she saw Colonel Muzik’s face she nearly drooled. “Oh, you poor man. Let me show you to a nice room. We have some all cleaned and ready. Oh, your arm! You poor dear...”
Another conquest without a shot fired, Repeth thought with what amusement she could muster. Watch out, Roger, or you may wake up with a plus-size cuddly companion. Probably do you some good to get your ashes hauled. Feeling slightly guilty for such salacious approbation, she shrugged, then her mind turned naturally back to her obsession.
Have to find Rick.
***
The next morning Repeth stopped in to visit a brother in arms. It’s the least I can do, for someone who almost gave his all.
Gunnery Sergeant Gunderson lay in his hospital bed, a nutrient drip in his arm, holding a year-old news magazine up in the air where he could read it. When he saw her standing there he shifted, tried to sit up.
“Stay there, Swede. I know you have a lot of healing to do yet.”
He looked down self-consciously at the blanket draped over a stiff cage that covered his mangled lower half. “Yeah. Ain’t much down there but they say I’ll have it all back eventually.” He forced a wan smile.
“Not many men have come back from the brink like that.”
“I don’t quit.” He licked his lips. “I hear you were the one who found me.”
“Almost too late.”
“But at least you looked. Thanks, Top.”
She shrugged. “I’d do it for any of my people.”
“Am I your people?” He put his head back, closed his eyes. “Just one big happy freakin’ family.” What slight enthusiasm he had displayed drained away.
Jill stared at him for a long time, puzzled. “I’d never have figured you for this attitude, though. I’m sorry I didn’t find you earlier, but no one could have saved your piece parts. Anyway, in a few months you’ll be fine, good as new.”
“You’re a bitch,” Swede said without heat.
Nonplussed, Jill crossed her arms. “So they say. What’s up your ass?”
“They’ve got this new nano stuff. They wanted volunteers. I had a chance to be a nanocommando but now I’ve got this damned Eden Plague.”
“You’d be a dead volunteer if you hadn’t.”
“I know that. Doesn’t make it better. Now I’m just going to be a good little boy. That’s how you like ‘em, right?” Bitter.
Jill shrugged again, ignoring the jab, the slam on Rick. “What’s done is done. Snap out of it, Marine. Besides, you can always try to make the switch, but think of what you’re giving up.”
“What? Make what switch?”
“I’m sure they could suppress the Eden Plague with enough antivirals to let the nanos take hold and cure you of it. You’d heal and get all that strength and speed but you wouldn’t be immortal anymore.”
“Screw immortality. It’s overrated.”
“You’d give up a thousand years of life to be strong and fast?”
“And be free of this guilt. Die young, stay pretty.”
“I’d say live long, stay pretty. And the guilt will fade as your psychology adjusts. It’s just your overactive conscience waking up.”
“Okay, how about ‘It’s better to burn out than fade away.’”
“That’s a crock. But if you’re so hot for it, roll the dice, big man. It might kill you, but whatever.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm, fed up.
“Why do you have such contempt for me?”
She kicked his bed, rattling it. “Because even though you have your outstanding features, you’re still the stereotype for all the swinging dicks that I’ve ever known, beginning with my creepy stepbrother. Got to be a stud, super-macho. And you see me, you want me. If you can’t have me, you want me all the more. If you still can’t have me, you crave enough power or glory or money or status to prove how wrong I was to reject you.”
Gunderson’s mouth worked, as if chewing, then he turned his head away. Jill watched him in silence for a time. Finally he spoke. “You know what? I don’t have any counterargument to that, and I hate it.”
“Hate admitting the truth?”
“Exactly.”
“Welcome to Edenhood. But you know what that means?”
“What?”
“That deep down you actually are a good guy. It’s not the Eden Plague that makes you better. It’s your own conscience. The Plague just short-circuits most of those lies you tell yourself. Makes you face the truth you already know. Takes off the filters.”
“That sucks. I think I’d rather have my filters.”
“Takes a real man to be really honest. Only children can’t face reality. Only adolescent boys try to screw every woman they meet.”
“Who died and made you my shrink?” he spat.
Jill shrugged. “You can send me away any time.”
He stared at her for a long while. “You Edens aren’t anything like I thought.”
“Us Edens. And yes, you’re right about that. We aren’t.” She turned and left him there with nothing to do but think. I’m not sure what he needs but he’s not mine anyway. I can only do so much for people. After that, they have to do for themselves.
Saddle up, Jill. Best horses and all that.
***
Two weeks later US ground forces cautiously pushed in from the west to find no organized resistance. Their supplies and civil support troops were welcome, but the heavy combat forces had nothing much to do except spread out and help the medical teams enforce the inoculation protocol with desperate speed. It was a race with the coming Reaper Plague, to see who got there first. The alien probe could appear any day now.
They went farm to farm, house to house, seeking any signs of habitation. Once they found people, they had to persuade them to be immunized. Many times the people had to be forced, or even shot with Needleshock, to get them to comply. Even explaining that within just a few days the angel of death was coming to call didn’t suffice. After all the country – and the world – had been through, many just wanted to fort up and keep everyone outside.
But if they did that, they would die.
Jill Repeth and her MPs worked tirelessly bringing life to the people, always hoping to run across a sign of Rick Johnstone, or of the Professor. They questioned everyone they came across.
Of Rick, she found nothing but one frightened Fredericksburg slave who said he had helped out with the Professor’s computers, then had been “traded away.” Pressed about what that meant, the man could only babble about “shadow men” and “burn rooms.” He was remanded to the psych teams, and Jill kept looking.
They tracked the Professor and a few of his closest men northward into the death zone, where the only living things hid too well and too deep for the overworked search teams to dig out. Repeth pleaded to be allowed to go after him, but was overruled. Everyone was needed to get the vaccines to the people.
Almost she rebelled, considering desertion to go find Rick on her own. Or if that failed, to hunt down Professor Stone and demand some answers; but to do so would bend her sense of duty past the breaking point. Once, she’d deserted an unlawful regime for reasons she could live with, but this time it wouldn’t be justified.
Colonel Muzik promised that as soon as the Reaper Plague fell and had done its worst, he would let her pick a team and go. Until then, her first priority was to get the vaccines to the populace. Every inoculation meant one less to die. So she threw herself into that work like an ox in harness, attacking the task as if her individual efforts could significantly hasten its completion. Here and there she picked up a clue, or a hint, of where to look, and stored it away in memory.
Word of Fredericksburg’s fall spread to the edge of the death zones, and most of the newly-formed city-states capitulated as soon as General Alice Zimmer’s armored task forces showed up. She’d said that a helping hand and a tank company got much better results than a helping hand alone, and she was right. General Zimmer became the popular champion of the reconquest, but those in the know quietly spoke of a different hero, one who helped the people, eschewed the spotlight, and traveled deeper into her own darkness.
