“Shut up and keep bailing,” said Reuben.
After the cops had had enough time to get well up the tunnel, Reuben left his position and moved back to one farther up than Cole’s. He was just turning to get in place when they heard the thuds. Lots of them. The mechs were in the tunnel.
“What did we decide our bullets were worth against those mechs?” called Cole.
“Get back here,” called Reuben. “No stopping now!” The rear guard only made sense if they could slow down the enemy. If it was all mechs, then Reuben and Cole would die for no purpose. The mechs were fast. But for a few moments, the curvature of the tunnel would protect them.
When they got to the end of the tunnel, they were met by National Guardsmen who obviously expected them. Thanks, Willis.
“Commander?” asked Reuben.
Twenty steps on, Reuben was greeted by a young captain. “You know what you’re doing?” Reuben asked.
“Two tours in Iraq,” said the captain. “I’ve been under fire and gave back.”
“You have any artillery?”
“Tanks are almost here.”
“Don’t do anything till they get here unless you got AT-4s or SMAWs.”
“AT-4s, sir. Never used them under fire, though,” said the captain. “Didn’t face many tanks when I was in Iraq, and the actual teams are raw.”
“Now the training pays off,” said Reuben. He pointed left and right. “They got armored walker things, mechanicals. Might be manned, might not. They can’t be hurt by small arms fire. Minimis and M-240s can get through the body armor on the soldiers, though.” He held up the pieces to show. “Don’t expose yourselves. The mechs shoot at uniforms.”
“Here they come,” said the captain, pulling him along toward cover.
Not that they could see anything. But the sound was deafening. How many mechs were down there?
As the mechs came toward the mouth of the tunnel, Reuben checked out their assets. Two AT-4s, one on each side of the roadway. The National Guard had placed themselves well. They might never have been under fire, but they weren’t untrained and their leader knew what he was doing.
Meanwhile, Cole was getting Willis and his men to move back farther, completely out of the way. They were useless now, an asset for later that needed to be protected. Cole obviously understood that even if everybody here at the tunnel mouth was killed, the New York cops still had to survive and tell what they’d seen. Cole had even given Willis the body-armor pieces he had scavenged.
Reuben needed to get rid of his own. “Can you spare a guy?” Reuben asked the captain. “These armor pieces need to get back to somebody who can study them and figure out who the hell made them and what we can do against them.”
In a moment he was handing the pieces to a young corporal. “Wait,” said Reuben. He dug the bloody thumb out of his pocket and handed it to the kid. “Don’t puke, just get this to the FBI for fingerprinting. Think of it as spent ammunition that needs ballistics done on it.”
The corporal gulped once, pocketed the thumb, and took off running, carrying the armor pieces.
The mechs were emerging from the tunnel now, still in shadow but clearly visible.
“Any time now,” Reuben said to the captain.
“Any points of vulnerability?”
“These ain’t death stars,” said Reuben. “Just hit square on the body. If you get lucky, they blow up real well. They’re full of ammunition.”
They got lucky.
The first two rockets hit. The two mechs blew up.
I have to tell Mingo what he needs to put in his next arsenal, thought Reuben.
The National Guardsmen were cheering. But the captain was yelling at them. “Keep firing, you boneheads, there could be a hundred of them!“ There were already four more visible.
“How many MT-4s you got?” asked Reuben.
“We’re National Guard stationed in Jersey,” said the captain, “what do you think?”