shaped-charge grenade whooshed out. Beside him, Charlie and Lee’s rockets did the same thing. Other militiamen must have heard Jake’s instructions, because now all over the shell holes in no-man’s land, penal militiamen popped up and fired.
These weren’t guided missiles. These were aimed just like a rifle or a BB gun. Dozens of rockets flew at the Sigrids. Most of the missiles missed their targets, burning past to blow up harmlessly out of range of any enemy.
Charlie’s grenade hit, exploded and tore a tri-barrel into uselessness. Lee’s struck and launched the vehicle airborne enough to flip it so it landed on its rounded head. Jake’s destroyed a port, and the thing died. Three other HEAT grenades blasted the fourth Sigrid and obliterated it. That left one useable vehicle against the rest of the penal platoon.
“All together!” Jake shouted. His voice was loud like a PE coach. “We have to fire at it all together.”
Unfortunately, they were out of RPGs. All they had left were their regular M16s.
“Here we go,” Jake said. “One more time.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said.
Jake popped up. Charlie popped up and so did Lee. The three militiamen fired, hammering the armored hide with bullets. Then more militiamen did likewise: they were the last newbies left. Maybe the Sigrid had taken damage elsewhere. Who knew, who cared? The point today was that with all the bullets pinging off it, enough did enough damage that the drone trundled into a shell hole, tipped over and plunged in headfirst. Maybe they had shot out its camera lenses.
“Stop firing!” Jake roared.
As the sound of rifle fire died away, a feeling of awe worked over Jake, a chill of disbelief on the back of his neck. They’d done it. They had stopped the Sigrids or this small bunch anyway. Five lousy machines: were the Germans running out of them?
“Now what do we do?” Charlie asked.
Jake climbed out of the shell hole. The sound of combat came from farther down the line, but right now, their sector was quiet.
Water dripped from him and water soaked his clothes. It made his underwear ride up too high. Someone had to take over now that the lieutenant and his butt-boys had run off or died. It might as well be him. Lee was a corporal, but Jake had once been a sergeant.
“All right!” he shouted. “Let’s gather round, and follow me to the first trench. We need a plan if we’re going to make it back to our side.”
The others didn’t need any more urging. They hurried to him and he led them back to the overrun trench system.
-12-
The GD Armada
From
2040, July 11-16. Breakout. From Rochester, Zeller sent two corps heading for Buffalo sixty-five miles to the southwest. A weakened Twelfth Army sped east on Interstate 90 for Syracuse seventy-five miles away. New York City was 250 miles away from Rochester.
In Southern Ontario, Holk’s heavy assaults against US Fifth Army in the Niagara Peninsula retarded its disengagement and threatened the army’s entrapment within the peninsula.
To the east in New York State, the lead elements of the coastal US XI Airmobile Corps set up screening battalions in Syracuse as the others rushed for the city. Meanwhile, the first Canadian units in Manitoba entrained for the long, roundabout trip to New York. All along the north of First Front—from the northern edge of Lake Ontario to the Quebec border and then stretching across northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire—US Army Group New York and US Army Group New England strove to contain the GD Fromm Offensive.
The Americans sought to defend nearly everything of First Front, as they waited for the Canadian reinforcements. It was a matter of time. They had to stop the new GD blitz along New York Interstate 90 long enough for the Canadians to give them overwhelming numbers. Mansfeld, meanwhile, readied his masterstroke from the Atlantic Ocean.
The unsolvable crisis point for America had almost arrived.
In the darkness, Paul Kavanagh slid his motorcycle on gravel, taking it down in a controlled crash. He flipped out of the bike at the last second, twisting his ankle—his foot wrenched against the gear-shifter. He tumbled, weapons rolling off him and body armor compressing against his torso. His helmeted head slammed against a rock, and he lay there for a moment, stunned.
Since leaving Ontario Beach Park and Rochester, Paul and Romo had been involved in one long running and losing gun battle against the enemy.
Paul heard a dirt bike engine, and a tire crunching gravel. From seemingly far away a voice asked, “Amigo, what happened to you?”
While groaning and blinking, Paul sat up. The stars shone above. In the distance and lower down, a dark GD tank column used Interstate 90. Littered along the freeway were blasted M1 tanks, overturned Bradley fighting vehicles and holed Strykers. The US 9th Armored Battalion had made a stand a half hour ago. The brave soldiers had slowed the GD advance, but not for long enough. Paul had watched some of the battle from the air in a stealth helo. He’d seen the battalion die a bitter death.
Now he and Romo used dirt bikes. They’d landed several miles back, wrestling their machines out of the helo. They were close enough to the interstate now that they were going to crawl nearer and wash the tank column with a laser designator. It was the best way to defeat GD ECM, guiding US missiles straight onto target.
“Are you hurt?” Romo asked.
Paul felt along his helmet as if feeling his head. The skull didn’t throb, but his eyes felt wobbly. Digging into a pocket, he came up with some painkillers, swallowing two capsules. He didn’t have time to hurt, and he certainty hadn’t had time for sleep these past thirty-six hours.
“I’m fine,” Paul said.
“Is that why I hear a frog in your throat?” Romo asked, shutting off his bike and lying it down. “We don’t dare ride any closer.”
There was scrub here on the rolling hill. A dark farmhouse and barn stood lower down in the distance and to the side. There was a long driveway to a dirt road near the freeway.
Romo crouched low beside Paul, and he scratched his left cheek, digging in his fingernails, making scraping noises. “I fear your country doesn’t have enough to win this one. The Germans are slicing through everything command can throw at them. The Germans are going to take Syracuse. If they do…” Romo stopped scratching because he shook his head.
Paul knew what he meant. Syracuse was the key to the campaign. North and south, Interstate 81 went through Syracuse. It was the supply lifeline for Army Group New York to the north. From Lake Ontario to Cornwall near the Quebec border, the Army Group held back mass GD forces. Without the lifeline, Army Group New York would have to fall back. That would open up Army Group New England’s western flank. If Army Group New England collapsed…
America had to hold Syracuse. The US XI Airmobile Corps stationed on the Atlantic coast rushed to the city. Now, though, nothing guarded the Atlantic seaboard. If the German Dominion used its amphibious force in Cuba to rush to New Jersey, New York or the Connecticut cost…it wouldn’t face anything but for a few policemen in their squad cars.
Paul knew it looked bad for their side, awful in fact. But it had been that way in California, too. It had been that way in Texas, in Kansas, in Colorado…
“This can’t go on,” Paul said.
