Angles of Attack Read Free Page B

hundred knots when things get dicey.
    “Tailpipe One, Hammer One. We’re cleaning the rest of them off that plateau. Be advised there’s a group of twenty coming your way from two-seven-zero degrees. We don’t have enough ordnance left on the racks to take them all on before they’re on top of you.”
    “Hammer One, copy,” I send back. “Keep clear of that area for orbital delivery.”
    “Copy that,” Hammer flight’s leader replies.
    I switch back to the fleet tactical channel and contact the Regulus .
    “TacOps, Tailpipe One. Priority fire mission. Request immediate kinetic strike on the following TRP.” I upload the data for the target reference point passed on to me by Hammer flight, a ravine three kilometers to our northwest. Pissed-off Lankies can cover three klicks pretty damn fast, and I’d rather not see twenty of them show up on the runway in a few minutes, drop ships overhead or not.
    “Tailpipe One, Regulus . Copy target data. Package on the way in seven-zero seconds.”
    I send a “KINETIC STRIKE” warning to all the NAC troops nearby and run over to where Dmitry is hunched over his control deck. He looks up at me as I skid to a stop.
    “Tell your guys we’re dropping kinetic munitions in a few minutes, three kilometers that way.” I indicate the direction of the target zone with my hand. You don’t realize how much of an advantage integrated data networks are until you have to coordinate a combined-arms melee with a group of people whose computers can’t talk to yours. Voice and hand signals are slow and cost precious time when ten kilotons’ worth of impact energy is descending into your neighborhood at twenty times the speed of sound.
    Dmitry nods and talks on his comms again, presumably to let the SRA marines know that the Hand of God is about to touch down three klicks away. Kinetic strikes are almost as impressive as low-yield nukes, and having one occur nearby without warning can be a bit startling, to put it mildly.
    Nearby, a squad of NAC Spaceborne Infantry bring down a pair of Lanky stragglers with a barrage of MARS rockets, assisted by a squad of SRA marines with their own rocket launchers. Theirs load from the front, ours from the back, but they both serve the same purpose and achieve the same results. One Lanky goes down, hit by several armor-piercing explosive warheads and dozens of rifle rounds. The other soaks up the hits and keeps coming, right into the defensive fire put out by the two squads. I take the M-80 from my shoulder, let the computer take aim for me, and fire both barrels at the approaching Lanky just as it bears down on the mixed squad of human troops. I’m still fifty meters away and in relative safety, but some of the other troopers are not so lucky. The Lanky flings them aside with a huge, spindly arm, and they get tossed through the air like debris in a hurricane. I open the breech of my rifle, pluck two more rounds from my harness, and reload the chambers. By the time I’ve raised the weapon again, the cumulative fire from the surrounding troopers has brought the Lanky to its knees. It wails its earsplitting cry as rifle rounds and rockets pelt it from all sides. Then it crashes onto the rubble-strewn ground, finally succumbing to the dozens of super-dense penetrators we shot through its hide. They are so large, so thick-skinned, so incredibly hard to kill that whenever we bring one down, it feels like we’ve felled a god.
    The kinetic warheads from the Avenger announce their arrival with an unearthly ripping sound overhead. Then the first warhead strikes the ground three kilometers away, at the entrance of the ravine. There’s a blinding flash in the distance, and a few seconds later, an earth-shattering bang shakes the ground so violently that I have to regain my footing, and Dmitry’s control deck leaps off its makeshift pedestal and clatters to the ground. A plume of dust and rock shoots into the blue sky. Then a second round hits, and a third,