Eden's War (A Distant Eden) (14 page)

Adrian kept the pressure up by example. Never once was he seen resting or standing still. Constant motion, constant attention to detail, continuous encouragement to those around him. Thirty-six hours of hard, fast labor, no sleep, and no time for meals was taking a heavy toll on everyone. Not only physical toll, but a mental toll. Stress was rampant from lack of sleep, lack of rest and the constant challenge of keeping moving because the enemy was gathering around them, an enemy superior in numbers and firepower. An enemy better trained and more rested. Everyone was near to dropping, but they not only pushed on, they pushed on at high speed.

The night gradually wore on, the moon slowly traversing the sky overhead, changing the shadow patterns as the defenses were put into place. Eventually the moon disappeared several hours before the sun began to brighten the eastern sky. Dawn crept forward, until suddenly the sun crested the flat horizon with its leading edge. In only a matter of minutes it cleared the horizon and Adrian could clearly see all of the work that had taken shape during the darkness. It was an impressive sight. Never before had he seen so many do so much with so little in such a short period of time. By the time the sun was twenty degrees above the horizon they were finished.

Adrian called out in a huge voice, one intended to be heard by every person on every roof. He called out an inarticulate satisfaction, a primal triumphant battle cry that soared through the hearts of everyone on the roofs. It was a genuine heartfelt satisfaction for their supreme efforts, their driving will to get this done. Tears sprang to many eyes, men’s and women’s. A heroic effort had taken place, one that would live long in their memories, stories that would be passed down the generations, fill the new history books to be written – if any of them survived the coming ordeal to tell it. And that ordeal would begin in a few short hours. The other two convoys were now in sight.

Chapter 20

A
drian ordered most of the militia and each firing team to stand down and sleep. He wanted them as rested as they could be when the battle started. Most dropped where they were, on roof tops or on the ground, and collapsed into deep troubled, desperately needed sleep. Everyone else kept working until each station was complete, ammunition at the ready, and ready to fire. Then one by one they went into the air-conditioned buildings and lay down wherever there was space to stretch out.

Adrian paced the roof, watching the three Chinese contingents, waiting for them to attack. Two hours went by with little sign of movement. Then, at precisely noon the trucks began to fan out. Race asked to be relieved to fight on the ground, and Adrian reluctantly agreed, then called for everyone else to be woken up immediately. Groggily the firing teams stood, many rubbing their eyes, then staring out at the Chinese before taking up their own positions. The men and women below were awakened as well, many of them were relief for the firing teams in case of injury or death.

It started with heavy sniper fire. The Chinese had optics, and had watched the mad scramble during the night and early morning hours. A four-sided steel box had been set up for Adrian and his radio team, two-inch steel plates tack-welded in place. The plate iron would stop everything the Chinese snipers could throw, as long as a bullet didn’t come through a view port. If one did it would ricochet relentlessly inside the steel box. As the sniper fire began, there was very little sound except the sharp pinging of bullets hitting steel plate. The sound of the gunshots slowly drifted in afterwards, faint from the distance.

Under the cover of sniper fire, the Chinese rolled their artillery into place. Eight from the north, four from the west, and three from the south. The artillery teams were well drilled. Each piece fired a test round, then rapidly adjusting their aim, the heavy pounding started in earnest. The fences on three sides took a deliberate beating, being blown up in large shreds from the explosive impacts. Ten minutes of continuous artillery fire and the fences were gone, but the pounding continued as the infantry troops began moving rapidly across the open ground. It was a simple, three-pronged attack, following the pattern that Frank had so clearly stated. Under cover of the artillery barrage, the infantry teams moved rapidly forward, easily covering the flat, exposed, unchallenged ground.

When the first infantry man crossed the three-thousand foot mark Adrian order the firing teams to hold for another five-hundred yards. They didn’t have to hold long. When the enemy reached the twenty-five hundred foot mark Adrian picked up the radio and said “Fire at will.”

Race and Frank lay behind one of the many barricades hastily built during the night. The artillery shelling of the fence line was a continuous roar of sound, blinding lights, and flying debris. They watched intently, waiting for the shelling to stop. When it finally did, they knew the Chinese soldiers would be coming within seconds. It was nerve-wracking.

They could not see beyond the haze of dirt and debris. Then from far out in the field, a huge flash of light momentarily penetrated through the dust cloud. Simultaneously a shockwave hit, making the ground jump. The pressure wave was fiercely intense. Then another, and a ragged series following the first two. Race was stunned by the concussion waves rolling across them. She tried shouting to Frank “Adrian said they were super-explosives but damn, I had no idea.” Frank pointed to his ear and shook his head to indicate he couldn’t hear. Race already knew he couldn’t, she hadn’t even heard herself.

They grinned at each other then returned to watching the perimeter. The shelling and the huge yellowish-white blooms of light from the roof-top launched explosives continued for another five minutes, seeming an eternity to them. The explosives stopped, then suddenly the artillery barrage stopped as well. With ears ringing, Race and Frank jumped up from their prone positions and ran to the fence line followed by their fire teams. Spreading out along the fence line, the defenders took cover in the still smoking craters left from the artillery barrage.

Adrian watched closely as two types of machines went into action. Half of them were compressed air firing tubes, loaded with high explosives wrapped in shrapnel and containing an altimeter firing device. There were several loud whooshing sounds as the air cannons hammered the explosive charge high into the air. These explosive rounds were made from very high explosives – the components used to trigger nuclear pits – and were far more powerful than anything that could be obtained anywhere else. The shrapnel was made from whatever scrap metal could be found and crammed into service; short pieces of chain and individual chain links, scrap iron cut into inch-long pieces.

The second type of machines were trebuchets. Simple to build, simple to operate, and with almost as much range as the air-powered tubes. They used the same ammunition. The explosives arced up high above the enemy soldiers, then cascaded downwards. When they were twenty feet above the ground they exploded sending huge shock waves, and shrapnel flying at supersonic speeds, into the waves of Chinese infantry. The first few shots were somewhat ragged, the teams had only been able to do mock practice at loading and firing, but they swiftly grew more profficient, raining down a lethal hell-fire on the enemy below.

Adrian, using the radio said, “Deploy lasers.”

He watched as the laser beams swept back and forth across the enemy lines, creating additional fear and distraction and most importantly of all – temporary blindness in many of the soldiers, buying the defenders time to reload the air cannons and trebuchets. The air cannons took time to recharge, but each could be fired at a rate of once every ninety-seconds. The trebuchets were a little faster, but not much.

The Chinese lines stalled for several minutes because of the brutal aerial assault, then slowly the leaders got the men moving again and they charged on ahead in spite of taking horrendous casualties, an event they had not expected in their wildest dreams. They had been told that the facility was defended by a small group of poorly trained ground troops; they had no idea what was hitting them, but it was worse than a living hell. Their discipline was the only thing that kept them moving forward. When they reached the outbuildings, Adrian ordered them to be exploded with the pre-placed explosives in and around them taking out more of the Chinese soldiers and leaving them with no cover.

The Chinese’s artillery stopped as their infantry closed in. Now the troop surge was in range of the rooftop machine guns and Adrian ordered them to open up. The front ranks had crossed under the shortest range of the contrived artillery on the roofs. Militia rushed to the fence line, finding artillery craters they could use for cover, laying down withering fire into the advancing infantry who had no cover to shelter behind. The Chinese were taking extremely heavy fire and were being cut down in large numbers. Only a few made it to the fence line, and those were killed quickly.

For a moment there was nothing to see but smoke and swirling dust. Then the heavy machine guns above them opened up, signaling the approach of the enemy infantry soldiers. Frank opened fire, shooting beyond where he could see. The rest of the militia followed his cue and began firing also.

The first thing Race saw was a falling soldier. He seemed to fall out of the dust, just appearing in view. He hit the ground like a loose sack of meat, dead before he fell. Then there were hundreds of soldiers, staggering forward. Some were firing, most were not. They staggered almost blindly forward, their senses shocked by the massive concussive forces they’d been hit by. Several were clawing at their eyes, blinded to differing extents by the lasers that had swept across their eyes.

The militia continued to fire, but now that they could see their targets they were taking deliberate aim. The Chinese kept coming, but they were no longer effective fighting men, they were moving forward blindly, without understanding. The militia cut them down by the hundreds and yet they still kept coming. Now the ones in the second wave had to stumble over the bodies of the men who had died in front of them, slowing them down in their forward movement. Between the roof-top machine guns and the ground fire, the Chinese were taking a terrible beating.

But their numbers were too much for the bullets to stop entirely and soon the Chinese were on top of them. Race shot a soldier in the face when he was only ten feet away, then another and still they kept coming. The lines engaged in hand to hand combat. Race had run her clip dry, and with no time to put another one in she was face to face with two men. Pulling her knife from the belt sheath she flew at them slashing and stabbing. Out of the periphery of her awareness she knew that Frank and the entire front line were in the same situation.

The militia gradually gained the upper hand. They were severely outnumbered by the Chinese, but the Chinese were shell shocked, moving almost in slow motion, disoriented by the devastating bombardment they’d somehow managed to survive. This gave the militia the edge. The Chinese onslaught slowed, then stopped altogether. Then suddenly they retreated, running away as fast as they could. The militia stood still momentarily, then quickly regaining their own wits they realized they’d fought forward, not just holding their ground but advancing. They retreated back to the fence line, loaded their weapons and began to take care of their wounded. Race noticed that her rifle was slung over her shoulder and she had her six gun in her hand. She did not remember making the switch. Huge concussive blasts resumed as the retreating Chinese once again crossed through the range of the flying explosives.

Adrian directed the ground battle from the roof top as the battle raged for twenty minutes. Using radio, he directed the different militia groups to attack or pull back as conditions on the ground warranted. Finally, what was left of the Chinese withdrew, turning their backs to the heavy small arms fire to run, continuing to be cut down as they ran. As they ran through the trebuchet and air tube range again more explosives were launched into them. By the time they were out of range, only a handful of Chinese soldiers remained.

At that moment the militia that had followed behind the south and west components attacked. They were there to keep the artillery from opening up again and aiming for the compound itself, something Adrian was sure was against their standing orders. But they were thousands of miles away from their dictators and could easily disobey those orders – it was obvious they weren’t going to take the facility the way they had planned, and they could not go home. They might decide that their only chance would be to flatten the compound’s buildings, along with the defenders, then pick through the rubble. They would know that they would still find much of the materials they sought underground.