Weapons of choice

"Is that going to hurt our men?" asked Halsey.

"It'll dissipate before it reaches them," said Kolhammer.

"This is better than ladies' day at the country fucking fair," Halsey said to Ray Spruance.

"It's only half the game, Bill."

"Yeah, but what a great fucking half."

The whine of the giant hovercraft's turbofans was enormous, easily drowning out the snarl of the Sea Comanche gunships riding shotgun on the assault force. The sea state was benign, making for an effortless rush across the South China Sea toward the mouth of Manila Bay.

Colonel Jones could see clearly from the small cabin of the LCAC. The fallen island bastion of Corregidor stood foursquare in the center of the bay's entrance. It was easily distinguished from the black backdrop of the island because it was ablaze. Six subnuclear plasma-yield warheads had speared deep into the concrete carapace of the fortress and detonated, atomizing vast tonnages of concrete and steel, along with the thousands of human beings living within.

"Damn, I'll bet Krakatoa didn't look half as impressive as that," yelled the chief petty officer, who was driving the boat.

They were still a long way out, but the conflagration seemed to fill the sky with a golden guttering light.

"Chief Stavros," Jones cried out amiably, "I don't think I'll take that bet."

A small supernova of fire and light blossomed from deep within the inferno. Jump jets screamed overhead, dashing in toward the coast to attack the half a dozen Japanese ships in the harbor. Jones was dimly aware of the small crew working furiously to keep them on the correct heading without the benefit of continual GPS update. They shouted course headings and detailed corrections at each other a few times every minute. At least the ride was smooth, a long gliding lope across the water.

"Five minutes until we breach the entrance, Chief," shouted a young sailor.

"Thanks, Dolly. Better get buttoned up, Colonel," Stavros bellowed over the cacophony. "Good luck, sir."

Jones clapped Stavros on the back, thanked him for the lift, and hurried down to the vehicle deck where his command LAV awaited him. There was no respite from the uproar of the turbofans and engines. Although it would appear as an armored behemoth to anyone who stood in its way, the LCAC itself wasn't a combat vessel. Its task was to drop off two platoons from A Company in a half squadron of light armored vehicles.

As Jones hustled down a corridor toward the vehicle deck, he quickly checked the flexipad that was Velcroed to his forearm. The other boats were all still in position, lying astern of his own. He strapped on his powered helmet, fitted the combat goggles, and jacked into the battalion tac net. His visual field instantly filled up with cascading streams of data. After thousands of hours of training and years of combat experience, it was a completely natural environment for him. He noted the disposition of his units, their progress toward the beach, and the condition of the enemy's defenses without conscious thought. Small windows fed vision from the FLIR pods of the Comanche gunships. Others carried top-down footage, relayed from surveillance drones, of the dozen or so targeted sites within Manila. They were already burning fiercely, just like Corregidor. Secondary explosions erupted regularly as fuel and ammunition stocks cooked off.

Jones wondered how many people had already died.

"Colonel, sir?"

Jones pulled up just short of the vehicle deck.

"What's up, Sar'nt?"

Cocooned within layers of monobonded filament armor, goggles, helmet, and tac set, Gunny Harrison would have been unrecognizable to most people. But he and Jones had fought together for many years, and even if he hadn't spoken, Jones would have known him immediately.

"It's the colonel sir, the observer."

"Maloney."

"Yeah. He's not playing well with the other children."

For about the tenth time Julia Duffy checked the tabs on the ballistic gel pockets in her body armor. Her feet tapped rapidly on the nonslip floor of the LAV, and she kept raising her hand to her mouth in a nervous reflex. She wanted to chew her fingernails, but her heavy black gloves got in the way. She swore under her breath again.

"Y'all okay, Ms. Duffy?"

The name tag on giant trooper's body armor identified him as BUKOWSKI. From the shoulder-slung gun rig, she knew he was a heavy-weapon carrier. He certainly was big enough, she mused. Even with his helmet off, he still had to crouch over in the confines of the LAV.

"I tapped out my Prozac," she said. "I'm just a little jumpy, that's all."

"I got some Zoloft gum, if you'd like a stick," said Bukowski.

"Would I!"

Julia would have leapt out of her seat, if it weren't for the webbing which held her in place. Bukowski fished a stick of gum out of a pocket and stretched across the width of the vehicle to pass it to her.

"Thank you, Specialist," she said with real gratitude.

"Is that gum? Do you think I could have some?"