Von Neumann’s War полностью

“Floor it!” Cady yelled, pushing his foot down over the private’s and shoving the accelerator of the truck all the way down.

“The sappers!”

“They’re dead!” Shane yelled. “And so are we if we don’t make it out of this damned thing!”

“Probes,” Cady said, looking over his shoulder. There was no “driving” the truck; it was on rails. All you had to do was push the accelerator or the brake. The private had taken a look over his shoulder and made the decision not to try to use the brake.

Shane looked back and he could see one of them. But it seemed to be caught in the water rather than flying or… assimilating. As he watched it was slammed against the wall of the railbed and began to come apart like a child’s toy. He got a brief glimpse of the interior, which was just so much metal bits. He also could see bodies being washed on the wave, which was still down in the railbed. Of course, so were they. And the bodies were being torn apart just like the probe. Some of them were civilians from the clothing, but others were in uniform. The sappers hadn’t made it out.

The water got closer and closer despite the fact that the truck was hurtling along at well over a hundred miles per hour. But just as it seemed the water would catch up — it was less than thirty meters behind — they entered the broad crossover cavern and it spread out through the cavern, receding in the background as they started to climb up the slope to light and air.

They rocketed out of the mouth of the tunnel doing nearly a hundred and twenty and as soon as they were out Cady took his foot off the pedal.

“I’m getting damned tired of running away from these things,” the master sergeant said, angrily.

“Then figure out a way to fight back,” Shane said.

The C-130 lifted from London just as the probes began to spread across the English Channel. The giant cargo plane was filled with shell-shocked and wounded soldiers and civilians packed in as tight as they could fit. Gries and Cady made their way to the back of the plane, taking stock of the people on board and gathering intel from their stories. As they made it to the back of the plane Shane noticed in the dim lighting of the cabin a lieutenant colonel in flight gear with a bloody stick poking out of his left shoulder. The man looked like he had seen better days. Shane saluted him.

“Major Shane Gries, sir. This is Master Sergeant Cady.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Ridley.” Ridley half saluted the major and the master sergeant. “This Belgian fellow here is Flight-Lieutenant Rene Lejeune.”

“Sir, if you don’t mind my saying, you look as though you could use some medical attention.” Gries nodded to the stick.

“Well, they promised to take that damned thing out in London, but I guess it’s been in there for more than a day now so it can wait till we get to the States,” the lieutenant colonel said dryly.

“What happened to you, sir?” Gries asked.

Ret Ball: We have yet to hear any word from Europe. We can only pray that the NATO troops there are holding their own. Next caller, Frank from Albuquerque, you’re on the Truth Nationwide.

Caller: Hi, Ret! The media is only coming across on local stations and over Internet broadcasts! My satellite dish gets no signal and my cable company only has the local channels active. I don’t think the infrastructure is there any longer to get the news from around the world. Are we being pushed back to the pretechnology era?

Ret Ball: That is a really good question, Frank. Are we? What is the intent of this alien threat? Aha, Megiddo is on line two. Go ahead Megiddo, old friend, you are on the Truth Nationwide.

Caller: Hello, Ret. I’ve been listening to all of the military channels with my spectrum analysis equipment and I can tell you that the units that were deployed have stopped transmitting.

Ret Ball: How could you know that, Megiddo? The forces were deployed in Europe.