Overlord (61 page)

“What are you waiting for, Major?” Jack said to a stunned Krell as the German officer saw the Grays for the first time. He quickly snapped out of his trance and then grabbed the radio and the map.

“Victor Seven, Victor Seven, we need you at…” He looked at the premarked map for his grid designated points. “Coordinates 27-89. Fire for effect!”

The line of buried 155 Howitzers of the 82nd Airborne fired all twenty of their large guns at once. The heavy shells arced into the sky and came down directly on top of the slow-moving Grays as they attempted to get away from the small-arms fire from the entrenched infantry to their sides and rear. The ground around the twenty survivors erupted in a hell storm of shrapnel as the Grays were engulfed with fire and death. When the wind blew the smoke away there was nothing left but a large hole in the ground.

The Paladins were taking their toll. The remaining two scout ships had succumbed to the twin rail guns’ rapid rate of fire. The two vehicles lay in pieces as the radios were crackling to life with the sound of targeting requests coming in.

Several of the attacking enemy broke free as they started becoming more coordinated in finding their own targets. Laser cannon erupted and several of the expensive Paladins exploded deep in their revetments.

Calls from calm but determined groups of Airborne began to get more frequent as the enemy started stitching the frozen world with far more accurate fire. Men started to break cover, running from one protected position to the other.

Jack looked at the Frenchman and nodded that it was time. In the din caused by the loud discharge of the rail guns and artillery, Farbeaux made the call to the orbiting British Sea Harriers.

“Eagle flight, Sentinel. I repeat, Sentinel,” he said matter-of-factly into his headset.

The American Airborne troops wanted to cheer out loud as the British air arm made its dramatic appearance in the skies over Camp Alamo. Missile after missile struck the saucers from above as they attacked the maneuvering tanks and Paladins, not realizing they were being hunted from the air they thought they had under control.

The enemy recovered quickly as even the first of the downed craft began healing faster than the defense was led to believe they could. The damaged craft slowly spun up into the air. It was like a shooting gallery where the little ducks kept getting up. Collins didn’t know how long his forces could hold out against such technology.

Mayday calls began streaming in as the Sea Harriers were starting to succumb to the rapid-fire lasers of the enemy. Smoking ruins marked the grave sites of the Royal Navy aviators as they rode their antiquated birds into the ground. Vapor trails and missiles along with cannon fire filled the blue sky as dogfights broke out and then quickly ended for the Harriers as their Sidewinders and AMRAAM missiles had little effect against the advanced technology of the Grays.

The enemy had quickly regained control of the skies around Camp Alamo and was now free to stalk and kill the fast-maneuvering Panzers and the men they were there to protect.

General Collins ordered both the 82nd and the 101st to use their TOW missiles and then break for the fall back positions code-named DiMaggio.

Henri Farbeaux called into his radio as Will helped lieutenant Tram and a young airman start to gather their gear.

“All units, DiMaggio. I repeat, DiMaggio!”

The defense had now retreated to only a mile from Poseidon’s Nest.

*   *   *

Everett secured the weapons next to the arms locker in the assault team’s ready room, where his men hurriedly started dressing in the layered plastic suits that would protect them in the hard environment of space. Carl followed suit. He started with the blue long johns and that was covered by an ultrathin layer of chest armor made from Kevlar and other dense carbon fibers. Then the suit itself: the nylon-based clothing was not much different from the atmospheric suits the shuttle astronauts wore, but were far more lightweight in nature. He placed the oversized boots on and then zipped them up, but left the combat gloves dangling by hooks from his wrists. He checked his thirty-man team and saw that they had completed their dressing in far less time. He checked them one at a time.

Carl then ran to the forward bulkhead to check the status screen of his area of responsibility and saw that all of his personnel were accounted for. Along with the assault element, his weapons specialists would wait until the giant battleship gained the unrestricted confines of space before arming the fifteen nuclear devices supplied by the Israeli government.

The warning alarms were silenced from the outside but the red blinking call to stations was still active throughout the ship. Everett turned and ordered his men to strap in to the Velcro-secured stations where the team would ride the initial flight into space, braced by nylon and canvas straps. He made sure all were secured, starting with the ingress team who would be the first to enter the assault craft. He examined his men as they were lined up against the forward bulkhead like tin soldiers. He made sure each was holding their helmets and they would stay that way until ordered by the ship’s crew to don the expensive acrylic 360° vision visors for takeoff.

When he was finished he turned and ran for the automatic bulkhead doors that remained open until the ship’s captain called for all doors and hatches to be closed a minute before launch. His feet were sticking to the deck as his boots were designed with microfiber Velcro that adhered to the same hook-style fabric that clung to the soles of his boots like a cocklebur to a sock. The admiral ran through the companionway until he reached the large launch tubes that were the home to the two assault craft that would be used to take his men to their assignments. The six-man crew of each was going through their final checklists and the Air Force pilots were doing it rapidly. The great warship started to shudder as the alien power plant was brought online for the first time.

Every man in visual range stopped as their hair came up as static electricity coursed through them from the decks and bullheads. A swirling sense of dizziness struck every one of the four thousand crewmen and all to a man or woman wondered if that was a normal thing—and no one really knew the answer.

The shuttle bay was wedged into the girder system of the main decking superstructure and looked out of place. It was nothing more than two separate pressure chambers that were not part of the original Martian design. As Carl crossed the connecting ramp he saw that if he missed a handhold he would tumble more than a thousand feet down to the cave’s bottom that was fast being evacuated far below. He ran across the connecting bridge and saw Jenks struggling with the main engine bell of one of the shuttles. A large chuck of ice from above was wedged into the housing as he started kicking at it. Carl wondered if the crazed bastard knew that he was actually dangling a quarter mile above an abyss. As he started to say something the chunk of ice fell free and Jenks turned and ran for the safety of the girders that held his two shuttles secured. Everett reached out and grabbed the master chief by the arm and pulled him through to safety.

“What in the hell are you doing?” Carl screamed over the powerful noises coming from three hundred feet aft as the six main engines came to life. The ion-based technology was the reason for the electrical discharge that had coursed through the vessel.

“That goddamn vibration from the battle above is knocking ice from the tunnel down onto everything. I warned the damned limeys about it. I told them they have to erect shielding, but the pansy-asses think they know everything!”

“Well, don’t you think once this thing starts rising with all of those thrusters out there it will melt anything that isn’t steel and composite material, you old goat?”

Jenks stopped and the looked as if he were considering the monumental thought that Carl just passed on. He unzipped his shoulder pocket on his coverall and popped the stub of a cigar into his mouth, then shook his head.

“No, I didn’t think of that,” he said as an angered admiral pulled him back into the companionway. He resisted and then told Carl to be on his way, that he was going to ride the rocket from his place in the number one shuttle. He said he felt safer there.

“Okay, you stupid bastard.” Everett held out his hand. “I’ll see you up there!”

The two men quickly shook hands and then Jenks smiled and tossed his cigar out through the extensive steel girders that made up the ship’s superstructure.

“Watch your ass, Toad, my boy.” He vanished into the raised doorway of shuttle number one. As the door closed Everett saw that someone had painted a name across the shuttle’s heat-reduction tiles:
Virginia.
Carl shook his head, realizing that the master chief was still carrying a torch for the assistant director of Department 5656 from their time together in Brazil.

“Hey, I know I’m only excess baggage on this little cruise, but don’t you think you better get back to your station?”

Carl looked at the next shuttle station where Jason Ryan was hanging out of the doorway like a small monkey.

“I ordered you to the command bridge with Captain Lienanov where you might be useful, you little pain in the ass!”

“Borrrring,” Ryan said as he acted the insulted commander.

“You better hope this ship blows up and we’re all killed, because … because—”

“Go get ’em, Admiral.” Ryan quickly ducked back into assault shuttle number two.

Everett cursed and then had to laugh as he ran back across the connecting bridge to the relative safety of the pressure hull. The second officer called over the loudspeaker from the sixteen-story bridge high above.

“Defensive force has fallen back to the DiMaggio line, enemy penetration is imminent. All personnel secure for launch sequence. Security detail standby on the main deck to repel borders until final countdown begins. All hands, man your launch stations.”

“Repel borders?” Carl said to himself over the noise surrounding the ship as her ion engines were at station keeping.

“All hands standby, commence charging boosters.”

Everett knew that was the last resort as the electrical connection was made to all one hundred and twenty dry chemical booster rockets attached to the
Lee
’s outer hull, along the massive girders that made up her main deck.

“Oh, shit,” he cursed. The rumble and clanging of steel restraint started in earnest as the full weight of the battleship came down on the remaining support structures keeping the
Lee
upright. Everett realized that gravity was starting to take effect on the 125,000-ton structure.

“All hands, final warning: secure all decks for launch in ten minutes. Defensive command reports Gray penetration of safety zone is under way. Defensive line DiMaggio has been compromised.”

“Damn it, Jack, get the hell out of there!” Carl spat out the words just as he reached his launch station on the uppermost deck, which was the most exposed area of the
Lee
. As Everett strapped himself in next to his men, he could see clearly outside as men hustled from her decks. He and his men would have the best view as the colossal battleship rocketed into the sky.

*   *   *

On the upper command bridge, Commodore Freemantle looked over at his new aide, a man who had virtually no training on bridge operations but might come in handy if he lost immediate communication with his command technicians monitoring and operating all the shipboard functions thirty feet below. Freemantle strapped himself in the upright position and braced with a steel station so he could remain standing at all times during launch and battle.

He examined the Royal Navy seamen below and was pleased with the calm approach they had during the most stressful event of their young lives. They called out shipboard status of all thirty-two decks. Freemantle knew that the HMS
Garrison Lee
was launching light, meaning to say the ship was carrying a minimum of food, water, and other necessities needed for an extended stay in space. Freemantle and the planners had figured the great battleship could only last less than an hour from launch to assault. Their job was to give the Americans time to reach the power refurbishment saucer.

“Rather exciting, isn’t it, Captain Lienanov?”

Lienanov stood next to the Englishman, in awe of what he was seeing through the large plates of thick, triple-paned glass that made up the bridge windows. Black Hawk and Gazelle helicopters buzzed like small bugs in and out of view above the
Lee
’s wide decks.

“Strap yourself in, Captain.” Freemantle saw that the Russian was frozen in wonder at the events he was now a part of.

“‘Exciting’ wasn’t the word my limited English would have chosen, Commodore.” Lienanov sat in his plastic chair and pulled the triple harness over his head and snapped it into place.

Next to him Freemantle laughed heartily as the pressure of the past four years bled away as the moment approached. His number one, feet sticking to the material-covered decking, stood rigid next to Freemantle and held out a flimsy.

“Flash message from the States, sir.” The first officer held firm to the railing lining the upper battle bridge.

“Read it please, Number One.” The commodore watched the activity outside the large windows. He reached over and made sure his helmet was nearby and then faced his first officer.

“‘The hope of the world rides with you, good luck,’ signed, the prime minister.”

“Rather nice of the old boy. Now enter the message into the ship’s log, Mr. Jennings, and take your station.”

“There is one more, sir, a warning from NASA. The United States Space Command and the European Space Agency have long-range telemetry showing the invasion fleet is now moving away from the dark side of the moon. Course is plotted and confirmed; they’re on their way here. Estimated time of arrival is twenty-five minutes.”

“Bloody cheeky bastards, aren’t they? Not waiting and hiding. Well, let’s give them what for, shall we?”

“Yes, sir!” the first officer answered. He momentarily stood at attention, then quickly moved away to his launch station.