Annihilation by B. V. Larson

Author:B. V. Larson [Larson, B. V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781482653458
Amazon: 1482653451
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2013-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

-21-

The first report back from Captain Gaines and his recon group came in less than an hour after we’d reached the beach. I’d decided not to sit around and was making headway up to Tango’s ridges. We were moving slowly, expecting an ambush at every twist in the land.

I felt we could afford the time. The three battalions at the bottom of the sea offshore weren’t drowning yet; they had another forty hours of air and supplies. Major Sloan and I decided they would do best by staying in position. If they could hit the island defenders from the front, while we were rolling up their flanks, we could destroy them in detail. Their trap would become our trap.

All these fancy ideas faded when Gaines called in and made his report.

“Colonel Riggs, we have problems,” he said.

“I can see by your locator you’re pretty far up the ridge, Gaines. Are you under fire?”

“No, sir. That’s the problem. I’m going from gun nest to gun nest. They’re all empty. The enemy has clearly been repositioning.”

I cursed quietly. “Where the hell are they?”

“Unknown, sir. They have plenty of those automated gun turrets, wherever they are. We’ve counted twenty-two empty gun sites.”

I was stunned. “You ran into twenty-two gun emplacements just while climbing the next ridge of the island? How many do they have at their stronghold?”

“I’m not sure they have a stronghold, sir.”

“Trust me, they do. Their tactics are clear. They saw us hitting their flank and reacted by sending out worker machines to withdraw their defensive systems from this side of the island. That means they’re building up a concentration, probably at the center of the T.”

“That makes sense, Colonel, but I can’t confirm any of it. I haven’t met up with a single active defensive system yet.”

“All right, keep going until you do. Riggs out.”

I turned to the mass of men trudging up the hillside all around me. “Sloan!” I roared. “Get them moving. There’s nothing to stop us for the next few miles. Let’s pick up the pace.”

Shouted orders rippled through the units. Soon, every knee joint was whining and rasping as armored legs moved faster. We stopped crawling over the land looking for an ambush at every turn and began trotting.

The power-suit batteries were in pretty good shape at this point. We’d designed the generators to be able to keep up with a light drain and still retain a full charge. A man could trot along for hours in them and never move the needle on his battery levels. But firing his weapon or flying would begin the inevitable drain.

Along the way uphill, I contacted the commanders of the battalions that were still sitting off the coast. I ordered them to ready themselves to advance onto the shores. Sloan trotted up next to me as I made these arrangements.

“I’ve done a little math, sir,” he said. “The Macros are very predictable, even for machines.”

“Tell me what you’ve figured out, Major,” I said encouragingly. Sloan was naturally laid-back—some may even say a lazy officer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.