Blood of War by Larry Bond & Jim DeFelice

Author:Larry Bond & Jim DeFelice [Bond, Larry & DeFelice, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Tom Doherty Associates book
Published: 2013-04-05T21:07:09+00:00

38

North of Malipo, China

Zeus sat with his legs curled against a rock to keep himself steady. He had his head in the control unit—it seemed almost to swallow it, the screen extending around the sides of his face.

The Chinese Type 96 tank appeared, climbing up the road a half mile away.

It was easy—he didn’t hesitate, he didn’t agonize, he simply zeroed the cursor and fired.

The missile popped from the launcher, almost stumbling into the air. Then the main stage caught and it was gone in a rush.

Zeus was back to himself, back to fighting—it was so clear and simple now, just fight. Kill the enemy. He didn’t have to worry about people lying to him or trying to use him; didn’t think about love or even hate, for that matter: he just fought.

And he was good at it.

“Missile! Missile!” he called, as if he were back at Fort Benning, in the last exercise, pounding away at pretend targets instead of the real thing here.

One of the Vietnamese soldiers stepped over—Zeus helped him load the launcher as the ground rumbled with a secondary explosion.

He’d hit the second tank in the column, reasoning that it was the one that would cause a bottleneck—it was close to a rock formation, making it hard to squeeze around. Now he aimed at the first tank, which seemed completely oblivious to the attack. He continued on his viewscreen as if it were part of a training exercise—no, an asset in an arcade game, stumbling forward.

“Firing,” said Zeus as the missile popped from its tube. Again, a slight hesitation was followed by a rush of exhaust. The rocket shot upward, a blur vanishing into the darkness. Then the night flashed, a white circle of heat and melting metal appeared on the far side of the mine as the warhead pummeled its way into the top of the Chinese main battle tank, striking between the two open hatchways and instantly killing the crew.

A third tank appeared on the far right, coming up from the side of the road. Zeus got the launcher loaded as the tank stopped, either confused about what was going on or trying to help its companions. He lifted the viewer, steadied and fired. The tank began to move as the missile left the tube, but it was too late; the Javelin had no trouble adjusting, tucking downward directly behind the 125 mm gun.

A machine gun began firing. Two more tanks appeared, rounding up the hill and drawing parallel to the last one Zeus had destroyed.

“Missile, give me another,” said Zeus. The two soldiers were crouched next to him, each with a Javelin in his hand. As Zeus turned to get one loaded, one of the tanks fired its main gun. The shell flew overhead, well into the distance, landing somewhere in the rocks and jungle so far off that Zeus couldn’t even feel the ground shake with its thud. The tank’s muzzle and turret glowed hot in his screen as he pulled the weapon back onto his shoulder.

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