AUTHOR'S NOTES: Sorry to leave it on a cliffhanger, but it was getting too long otherwise. "Behold the might of the hammer" is a line from Hammerfall's "Hero's Return." If Nora's not a Hammerfall fan, then the universe makes no sense. Karelia also quotes "Gettysburg," because why not.
La Crosse
Wisconsin, United States of Canada
3 May 2001
Sentinel Six coasted to a halt at the interchange of Highway 53 and Interstate 90, where the 1st Armored Division's 37th Armored Regiment, 2nd Battalion had its headquarters. Military policemen directed Karelia Bighorn-Vlata's tank through the interchange, which was choked with people trying to escape La Crosse. The Abrams pulled up next to the command post, underneath the interchange. Karelia pulled herself out of the turret, turned, and kept her pistol trained on Roman Torchwick, who was pushed out by the loader and gunner. Once Torchwick was deposited not so gently on the ground, Karelia helped Sky Lark out of the turret and jumped down next to him.
Colonel Evan Ridinghood walked out of the command post, four APCs joined by a camouflage net. "Afternoon, Karelia. Who's this?" He pointed at Torchwick.
"Afternoon, Colonel. He's an air pirate who got himself shot down—Roman Torchwick." She thumbed at Sky. "This guy's okay. He's out of Beacon. Lieutenant Sky Lark."
Ridinghood nodded to Sky, then helped a burly MP pull Torchwick to his feet. "Torchwick, huh? I heard of you. You're going in for all day, son."
"Oh noes," Torchwick said with mock gravity, "I can't believe you caught me! You've shown me the error of my ways!" This did not amuse the MP, who began dragging him towards a waiting HMMWV. "Easy, there. That's a tailored flight suit."
"You want to ride with him, Lieutenant?" Ridinghood asked Sky. "I don't advise staying here. There's a world of hurt coming."
Despite himself, Sky answered, "If it's all the same to you, sir, I'll stay. It will be interesting to see things from eye level." In reality, he wanted nothing more than to shove Torchwick to one side and ride to wherever they were taking the pirate. His pride as a fighter pilot, however, compelled him to stay: he was not going to allow these groundpounders to see him run.
"Suit yourself, Lieutenant. I'll put you with my forward air control team." He motioned towards the CP. Sky saluted and walked in that direction.
Ridinghood turned to Karelia. "Take Team Sentinel and put them on the east approach to the bridge. Division wants you guys on French Island." He referred to the island that split the Mississippi into two branches just west of the city of La Crosse.
"Wonderful. My back is going to be to the river. What asshole thought of that idea?"
"Me," Ridinghood snapped at her. "I don't want to do it, Karelia, but there's no way we're getting the refugees off in time."
"Why don't we just blow the bridges on the other side of the island?"
Ridinghood shook his head. "Don't have the stuff to knock down bridges that big, and the mayor nixed it, if you can believe it. These people have gotten complacent, and now they're terrified. We can't bring up any reinforcements because of that." He pointed to the interchange above them. "Traffic's backed up for miles. If the GRIMM get in there…"
Karelia sighed. "Let me guess. Not one step back for Team Sentinel."
"Not one step back for the whole fucking 1st Armored. Might not be so bad, though. The boys at Beacon are calling in the big guns. We got B-52s inbound."
"Well, hell, sir," Karelia smiled. "Might be an easy day."
"Yeah, well, the jetters are cutting it close. The leading edge of the Boarbatusks will be here in seven minutes, and the B-52s won't enter the AO unless the fighters have cleared it. And so far, they haven't."
"Tell them to call in more fighters!" Karelia yelled, forgetting rank for a minute. "Gad, it's bad enough the Air Force and Navy gets all the money, and now they can't do their fucking job?"
"Sky down, big chief," Ridinghood warned. "They have called in more." He was cut off by the roar of jet engines as Cardinal Flight engaged their afterburners and headed west.
"That's three airplanes," Karelia observed dryly.
"Yep. That's the 'more.' Well, we've still got the Barrier SAMs if we need them." He patted her shoulder. "Sentinel needs to be on that bridge, Captain."
Killbox Alpha
South of Winona, Minnesota Dead Zone, United States of Canada
3 May 2001
Jaune Arc spared a glance at his fuel gauge, wished he hadn't, and took the lead, Pyrrha on his right, Ren on his right, a burning Beowulf in his wake. Nora was still climbing to join them. "Juniper, this is Jaune!" he puffed out. Dogfighting dried out the mouth and worked up quite the sweat. "We're going in. We cover Nora. Nora, it's up to you!"
"Roger that!"
Jaune said a quick prayer, and accelerated at the Nevermore. It looked just as malevolent as the one Ruby Flight had fought on their first mission, and even at this range, he could see hatches iris open and turrets raise into place. The Nevermore opened fire, and Jaune twisted and turned, knowing that every tracer he spotted was only every fifth shell, and he couldn't see the others. Another quick check of how many missiles he had left—one AMRAAM and his cannon—and he fired the AMRAAM. Pyrrha fired a second later. Both hit the front of the Nevermore, but if they did much damage, Jaune couldn't tell. Ren, who had more missiles, did more damage, and Jaune saw two turrets turn to slag.
Then he was skimming over the Nevermore. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw turrets spinning to engage him, Pyrrha and Ren, but the Nevermore's brain was not used to engaging this many targets. He opened fire with his cannon for moral effect, then they were past. "C'mon, Nora!" he called out.
Nora arrived a second later. Jaune's plan had worked: the turrets did not notice the A-10 until it was too late. She put the nose down and braced as she was thrown forward by the recoil of the heavy GAU-8. Thirty millimeter shells marched the length of the Nevermore and she was rewarded with the huge GRIMM visibly rocking with the hits. "Behold the might of the hammer, motherfucker!" Nora crowed, and as she came away from the Nevermore, she craned her head backwards. The Nevermore was smoking, still flying, but wounded. "One more pass," she said aloud.
"Nora! Break right!" Ren shouted.
Nora slammed the stick right, but then something hit the A-10 with a tremendous blow. The stick was torn out of her hands, her helmet slammed into the canopy, and alarms went off. The Warthog staggered, then stalled, then went into a flat spin.
The Beowulf that had hit her with a missile didn't care. It still had another missile left, and it locked onto the spinning A-10. Ren pulled the J-10 into a turn so tight that the airframe audibly groaned under the strain, but he was out of position. Still, he tried.
"Sun, Fox Two!" Sun Wukong's Ching Kuo dived out of the sun. The Beowulf vanished a split-second before it fired. "Nora, you're in a flat spin! Bail out! Bail out!" he yelled.
Nora couldn't reply even if she wanted to. The centrifugal force was pressing her to the side of the cockpit. She fought against gravity, grabbed the stick, and rammed it into the instrument panel, holding it there with every ounce of strength she possessed. The A-10's nose dropped, air flowed over the wings again, and the Gs eased as she got control back.
She still had to pull out. Nora got herself back into position, and now pulled the stick back into her lap. The A-10's engines strained, and she saw the forests of Minnesota come up to meet her. "Not yet," Nora breathed, "not yet; I'm too damn cute to die!" She felt the Warthog hit the trees, then she was free, back in open air. As she climbed, more alarms went off, then she felt the starboard engine die.
"Nora, Ren! Are you all right?"
"Yeah." Nora saw her hands were shaking badly. The aircraft wasn't handling well. "Lost an engine." She saw Ren's J-10 come up alongside. "How bad?"
"Your nose is shredded, and you've got tail damage."
Nora had noticed that. Reluctantly, she reached forward and hit a red button. Every remaining piece of ordnance on the A-10 dropped away. "Witch Lead, Nora. I'm Winchester and RTB."
"Roger, Nora. Understood. Ren, say state."
"Three actives, full guns." He still had three missiles left.
"Witch, Pyrrha. I'm Winchester. I'll escort her back. Still have some guns left," she lied. Pyrrha's F-16 came in alongside Nora's A-10. "I'll cover her, Ren."
Ren hated to leave Nora, but knew he had to. He put a hand on his canopy for a moment, saw it returned, and climbed back into the fight.
La Crosse
Wisconsin, United States of Canada
3 May 2001
Karelia Bighorn-Vlata looked through her binoculars. There were no GRIMM visible yet, but it couldn't be much longer. She leaned back to look at the sky. There were distant rumbles of explosions, and she could see smoke rising from the horizon, beyond the cliffs that dominated the Minnesota side of the river. Smoke trails crisscrossed the sky, and they were getting closer. To the north, she saw another, far denser smoke cloud still rising. At least we don't have to worry about the train, she thought. That would've stung.
She had her tanks arrayed on the bridge and the streets surrounding it. Her team knew that retreat was highly unlikely, but behind them there were people still streaming across the bridge. They had abandoned their cars and were on foot. Sentinel had to hold, at least for awhile. Behind her tanks were her infantry, armed with Javelin antitank missiles, and her Bradleys, their TOW launchers raised.
Some brave soul in a OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopter was hovering where the highway descended from the cliffs. "Sentinel Six, White Wolf Five One. Spot report. GRIMM in sight, distance ten miles." She saw the Kiowa raise up, turn, and retreat back into the woods, where it resumed its scanning, the masthead sight the only thing that was exposed over the cliffs. Behind Team Sentinel, there were a dozen AH-64 Apaches, looking like malevolent wasps, armed to the teeth with Hydra rockets and Hellfire missiles. The problem was, the Apaches would be in trouble against the Death Stalkers, who were designed to engage much faster targets. This is where combined arms would come in—the Air Force would engage the Death Stalkers to free up the Apaches to engage the Goliaths and Boarbatusks—but the Air Force was busy.
"Sentinel Six, roger that."
Her loader stuck his head out of the turret. "How's it looking?"
"Sammy, if the Air Force doesn't get its head out of its ass, we're going to need buckets to catch the lead."
Killbox Alpha
South of Winona, Minnesota Dead Zone, United States of Canada
3 May 2001
"Creamer, Witch. Make the next pass. Sun and Cardinal Flights, keep the Beowolves off," Goodwitch radioed.
"Roger," Cinder replied. There was no shirking this; the Nevermore arriving over Beacon would ruin everyone's plans—and in all honesty, Cinder had no intention of doing it anyway. Her blood was up, and she'd spent the battle with a death's head grin behind her oxygen mask. She might be Salem's instrument, she might have training in infiltration and silent killing, but at heart, Cinder Fall had always been a fighter pilot. This is what she lived for, more than Salem, more than anything: the hunt and the kill. She casually dispatched another Beowulf with a missile shot, and led Creamer flight against the Nevermore.
Like Juniper had, Cinder, Emerald and Mercury lofted their missiles into the Nevermore, then switched over to guns. Ruth brought up the rear as Cardin and Dove, down to their last missiles, covered her from any Beowolves or Ursai. Her Jaguar was equipped with two heavy cannon and four Sidewinders; it might be enough.
Yet the Nevermore, primitive brain it might have, had learned. It had analyzed the first attack, realized that the initial attacks would be decoys, and concentrated on the last aircraft in line. Heavy shells tracked on the Jaguar, and though Ruth spun the aircraft, three hit: one in the nose, one in the canopy, and one in the left engine. The windscreen caved in and starred, but held; the engine exploded and sent fragments spiraling into the other, and something in the nose started burning, filling the cockpit with smoke. "God's truth," Ruth grumbled, and hit the radio as she climbed away from the Nevermore's guns. "Witch, Ruth, I'm hit."
Goodwitch saw the smoking Jaguar. "Roger, Ruth. RTB. Sun Flight, stand by, you're up-"
"I'm not done yet!" Ruth shouted. She pulled a lever on the side of the instrument panel, which she could now barely see because of the smoke, and blew the canopy off. The slipstream instantly cleared the smoke. Her instrument panel was lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree, warning that the other engine was going to fail soon, but Ruth Lionheart would be well and truly damned before she left her first battle without a kill. She rolled the Jaguar and dived on the Nevermore from above, keeping her head below the windscreen so the near-supersonic slipstream didn't tear her head off. Of course, now she could barely see through the starred plexiglass, but to Ruth, that was a minor annoyance.
By pure accident, her attack worked. Sun was already leading Scarlet, Sage and Neptune in a missile attack, and the Nevermore was concentrated on that, its electronic brain having classified the Jaguar as destroyed. Too late, proximity sensors picked up the diving aircraft, but by that time, Ruth salvoed her Sidewinders. All four easily tracked on the burning Nevermore and hit. As the GRIMM shuddered, Ruth skimmed past it, barely avoided a collision, and put some shots into the Nevermore with her cannon for good measure. "Eat a dick!" she shouted as she went past. It wasn't the best battle cry, but it was the best she could come up with on short notice.
"Sun Flight, hold fire and break off!" Goodwitch ordered.
Sun, Scarlet and Neptune scattered a second before they would've fired. Sage, on the other hand, had already fired both his Sparrows and Sidewinders. "Cazzo!" he cursed, and pushed up the throttle. The F-104 easily broke the sound barrier, even as his missiles missed.
It didn't matter. The Nevermore seemed to hesitate in midair, then its right wing—already weakened by Nora and finished off by Ruth—broke and then tore free. The GRIMM went into a flat spin and pancaked into the forest, then exploded. "Got him!" Emerald couldn't help but call out.
"Roger that. Beacon, Witch. Splash one Nevermore. Still one left. ETA Winter?"
"Three minutes, Witch."
"Ruth here. I'm afraid that's it for me, chaps." Goodwitch looked in that direction, and she could see the Jaguar in a gentle climb. "Flameout. I'll try and keep her in the air as long as I can."
"Regency, relay to Beacon; scramble Jolly Greens." The AWACS acknowledged, and Goodwitch sealed Ruth Lionheart off in a section of her mind. There were still just under a dozen Beowolves left, plus a handful of Ursai—and the one Nevermore.
"Witch Lead, Blake. Squawk flash."
Goodwitch quickly repeated the message to everyone in Killbox Alpha. "Blake, Witch. We're sweet."
"Roger, Witch. Blake, Fox Three."
Goodwitch looked for the familiar sight of the Tomcat, but did not see it. She did see smoke trails on the horizon, and knew: Blake had fired Phoenix missiles. The huge missiles curved through the sky, then dived into the Nevermore at Mach 3. Both hit, and the GRIMM rocked. Its turrets swiveled in vain, trying to find the target.
"Witch Lead, Ruby. We're here. Sorry it took so long."
Goodwitch smiled. "Ruby, say state."
"Ruby has two heat, Yang has four actives, Weiss one active, and Blake has two actives. All of us have guns."
"Killbox Alpha elements, Witch. Who has the most left?"
There was silence on the channel as everyone checked whatever was left. "Neptune here. I have six actives."
Goodwitch nodded to herself. Neptune now had the best chance of bringing down the Nevermore. "All Killbox Alpha elements: cover Neptune."
Whatever controlled the GRIMM—or perhaps it was the GRIMM themselves—had deduced their opponents' plan. The remaining smaller aerial GRIMM clustered around the Nevermore to protect it. Below, the Goliaths, Death Stalkers and Boarbatusks continued their inexorable march, turning south on the overgrown highway towards La Crosse and the Mississippi River, now only ten miles away.
"This is Neptune; making my run, west to east." Neptune stood the Hornet on its wing and came in at the rear of the Nevermore. The GRIMM turned and swarmed towards him, but Sun and Creamer Flights were ready on his right side, while Ruby Flight took up position on his right. Sage Ayana firewalled his throttle and shot past at twice the speed of sound: flat out speed was the F-104's forte, and nothing could touch it. He was acting as a decoy, too fast for the Nevermore's turrets to track, but enough to make the huge GRIMM notice.
Neptune was not particularly religious, but he crossed himself anyway, opened the throttle, and closed the distance. The AMRAAMs were already locked on, but he wanted to make sure they hit. He was seized with the sudden impulse to radio Weiss and demand a kiss if he survived this, but the wild notion was past in a second.
Neptune Vasillas' world narrowed to the rear, flattened engines of the Nevermore. He ignored everything else, even as tracers from the GRIMM skipped across this wings. The Hornet shuddered with a hit and one of his wingtip missile rails disappeared, along with the Sidewinder. A Beowulf dived at him from above, was destroyed by Cinder, and Neptune flew through the smoke, hearing fragments rattle across the fuselage.
Then he had the shot he wanted. "Neptune, Fox Three." He squeezed the trigger six times. All six AMRAAMs left the rails and tracked on the Nevermore. He climbed hard, going to afterburner and hoping no one was in his way.
Everyone in Killbox Alpha held their breath.
All six hit. The Nevermore pitched up and down, as if someone had kicked it, then explosions rippled along the central spine. The GRIMM suddenly went up in a tremendous explosion, both wings folding over the center, and the burning remains fell into the forest. Goodwitch let out a breath in relieft. "Regency, Winter from Witch: splash two Nevermore."
"Witch, Winter." Goodwitch recognized Winter Schnee's voice. "Aerial GRIMM remaining?"
"About half a dozen, total."
"Good enough. We're coming in."
La Crosse
Wisconsin, United States of Canada
3 May 2001
"Holy shit," Karelia breathed. The western horizon was a mass of flames and smoke. The cliffs had blocked the Nevermore until the moment it crashed, but even through her helmet, she had heard it coming like the angel of death. A F-15 and a F-16 shot over the cliffs and rocketed over head, and Karelia couldn't resist punching the air. "That's the style, boys!" she yelled after them. "That's the style!"
White Wolf Five One spoiled the moment. "Sentinel Six, White Wolf Five One, spot report, GRIMM now five miles. Should break cover in two minutes."
"Okay, now we're in it." Karelia keyed her mike. "Sentinel Six to Sentinel elements. Occupy firing positions and stand by to engage."
"Bravo Two Five, air raid warning, north." Karelia turned in that direction, and felt her mouth go dry as two Beowolves streaked out of the cliffs and headed across the river. Both suddenly exploded, and a moment later another F-15 came into view. It turned and came over Team Sentinel's positions, rocking its wings. Karelia waved, wondering when the USAF had started painting its fighters with yellow noses. "Bravo Two Five, cancel that."
In the wake of the F-15's passing, it was suddenly quiet. Karelia raised her helmet just a little, and in the distance, she could just barely hear trees being crushed and branches snapping. The turret on her Abrams turned slightly to face northwest. But now there was a new sound, coming from the east, a dim roar. She turned in her hatch, raised her binoculars, and could not stifle a gasp as contrails came into view. Then multiplied.
"Cap, you okay?"
"Oh my God," Karelia breathed.
"Cap?"
She dropped down into the turret and shut her hatch. "Here comes the rain, boys."