Einstein Must Die! (Fate of Nations Book 1) (43 page)

She was halfway up the hill, and the British had scrambled to orient their focus at her now. Dozens of rifle shots rang out, and many of them were good shots. Her forward armor was pelted with a rain of British bullets. While the sound of the hits set Savannah’s nerves on edge, they did no real damage, bouncing harmlessly off the thick steel and leaving minute nicks as the only evidence of their impact.

Beowulf was closing on the hill’s crest now, and Madelaine clearly saw the terror in the British faces. She was struck by how young they seemed, but the sympathy lasted only milliseconds. These were foreign invaders in her country, and they had brought the death from the clouds that had destroyed their home. The white eyes she saw, wide with fear, fed a hunger for revenge.

She reallocated a dozen mental processes to the shredders, assigning each to serve as independent fire control. The process of identifying an enemy combatant and sending a chaingun round through him was a fairly trivial task, and she wanted to maintain overall focus on the battle as a whole.

The hill flattened out quickly at the top, and she realized she should probably decelerate to clear the crest gracefully. And yet it didn’t seem the day for subtlety.

She knew Tesla and Savannah were safely secured, so she maintained her top speed and gave the chainguns permission to fire at will.

As one, the forward shredders sprang up from recessed ports and opened fire. She was eighty feet away from the half-finished British trenches now, and the guns had no trouble lining up kill shots at the close range.

The British faces flashed in her consciousness as each shredder chose its target and fired. Some were angry, red-faced and screaming at their compatriots, and others were grim and determined to finish whatever task they were busy with. Most were scared, mouths agape and eyes wide as a near-mythical creature roared toward them. But all of them met the end of their lives the same way: with one of Beowulf’s chaingun rounds tearing through their chest or forehead.

Her guns fired continuously, the guns swiveling smoothly, seeking out their next victim. To the stunned horror of the men beside them, twenty-seven British soldiers had already fallen, not knowing exactly what the thing was that had killed them.

She reached the slope’s peak then and added a last bit of power to her treads. Like a runaway train, she roared over the hill’s crest. A dozen Redcoats were waist-deep in a hastily dug trench, and instinctively ducked as she bore down on them.

As the ground leveled out below her, Beowulf went airborne, arcing just over the entrenched men’s heads like a massive steel comet screaming above them.

For the dozen Redcoats, the sun went dark as she passed overhead. While her approach and the deaths of their friends had been stunning, the sudden darkness was truly terrible, as such a thing simply didn’t happen on the field of battle.

She cleared the trench and slammed back to earth with a pounding that sent a shock wave through the hilltop. As she landed, her left tread tore through a pile of nine supply crates, streaming rifle bullets in all directions like a burst piñata.

Her momentum carried her forward, a mountain of steel beginning to decelerate, and she ran directly over six men struggling with a large cannon. They screamed as her treads loomed over them, then went silent as she crushed their bodies into the ground. The cannon collapsed, its wheels shattering under the weight. The cast-iron barrel survived, but deformed as it was pressed completely into the soft ground, only its aiming sights remaining visible in the low grass.

She decelerated and slowed to a stop near the center of the hilltop.

She’d made it to the top of Bunker Hill. She took a tenth of a second to appreciate the historical moment, then returned to work. Now on top of the flat-topped hill, surrounded by the enemy, her shredders had full 360-degree access and she smiled inside, delighted by the target-rich environment.

The chainguns opened fire en masse, sending rounds in all directions around her. She was the center of a circle of death, with her rounds tracing out the spokes. Bullets tore into Redcoat flesh, and men screamed and died in staggering numbers.

The British had been solidly taken aback by her arrival, but now began to regain their wits. Lieutenants and captains shouted desperate orders, gesturing wildly and pointing at Beowulf.

British rifle fire rained against her steel skin again, but the effect was trivial. Soon the riflemen realized they were firing out of fear and instinct, and not making any progress in stopping the monster among them. They fell back, seeking trenches to hide in, until bigger guns could be brought to bear.

The officers rallied quickly, organizing the cannon crews. They’d brought six cannons up the hill with them, but Beowulf had already crushed one of them. Screaming firing orders, the officers urged their crews to line shots on the tank.

Finally, the first crew maneuvered their heavy cannon into position and loaded it.
BOOM
! The shot was deafening, but welcome to the British ears.

The shot struck Madelaine broadside, impacting heavily against her right tread assembly. Inside, Tesla and Savannah brought their hands to their ears, ringing from the sound of the brutal impact.

The tread itself was missed, but inside it, the array of support machinery was hit hard. Each of her treads ran along a long line of steel wheels, held in place by suspension joists and connectors. The sixty-pound shot was blasted from its cannon at 1,400 feet per second. It slammed into one of her tread support wheels, instantly snapping the axle of the wheel and badly twisting it out of alignment.

A moment later another cannon fired at her, striking the same side and area. Two more support wheels were wrenched out of position.

Madelaine had no sensors for such parts of herself. She only knew she’d been struck hard from that direction. She spun her treads, turning to face the assault, but the movement of the tread finished the job the cannons had begun. A terrible sound of grating metal shrieked as she turned, and three steel guide wheels ground against their neighbors, before snapping loose completely and falling to the ground.

Like a boxer’s missing teeth smile, her right tread showed two gaps, one twice as wide as the other. When her tread ran over the empty space, it sagged down, showing undesired slack in the tread.

Madelaine did notice the decrease in efficiency from her right tread, and reported it.

“My right tread got hurt,” she said. “You’re right, Nikola, those cannons are nasty.”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Three more cannons fired from the other direction, all striking brutal hits along her left armor. They all struck above the tread, smashing into her mid-side and destroying three of her cameras. Two chainguns were ripped from their mounts and bounced off her side, landing on the ground in two mangled piles.

The cannonballs carried a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. When they impacted her armor, the thick steel deformed inward, absorbing the force.

The three impacts pummeled her side, leaving three deep depressions and rocking her to the side. Inside, Savannah screamed from the sudden clamor and explosion of force.

Tesla felt his heart beating hard now, like a jackhammer in his chest. His body wanted to flee, or to help, but there was nothing to do yet. He reached out to Savannah and took her hand. She grabbed at it and squeezed hard, welcoming the warm touch.

Madelaine recovered, accelerating to present a moving target. She had a large blind spot now on her left side, and that unnerved her. She gave full priority to the cannon crews, and her shredders ignored all other targets. The first crew to hit her was also the first to die.

As the six men re-primed and reloaded their cannon, she reached out, shattering their skulls with precise hits. Almost at once the six men fell, headless. All around the cannon, six pools of blood soaked into the ground from the grievous wounds.

The nearest lieutenant yelled for nearby riflemen to step forward and finish loading the cannon, but they hesitated, staring at the horrific scene.

BOOM
!

Another cannon fired, smashing into her right tread again. The shot tore into her support system, ripping three support joists into pieces. Along with the previous damage, the loss of the joists was severe. The woven steel tread sagged in several places, and part of the assembly lurched harshly as she moved.

With rising concern, Madelaine realized she could barely control her right tread now. She sought out the offending cannon crew and saw them hidden behind a thick wooden barricade made of recently cut trees, the logs stacked horizontally on top of each other. The black cannon barrel protruded out forward through a small hole.

Her shredders instinctively tore into the shield, but the wood was thick. Her bullets chewed into the stacked logs, gouging thick splinters from them, but went no further.

The cannon was hauled back, out of sight, to be reloaded.

BOOM
!

From her other side, a shot crashed against her, higher than before. In stunned horror Tesla saw one of the view ports crumple in, deformed by the force. Several small cracks around the misshapen view port now let in sunlight.

Madelaine remained focused on the stubborn wooden barricade. She swung around to face it, distressed by the awful grating sounds coming from her right tread. It took far too much power to coax that tread into action, and she knew it could fail at any time.

But for now, she pushed herself forward, lining up her good left tread with the shielded cannon. She closed to within twenty feet when the crew looked back out and saw her approaching. She heard panicked yelling from behind the barricade, with some British hoping to fire before she reached them, and others arguing to flee.

Before they reached a consensus, she was upon them. Her massive tread rolled over the barricade, splintering the thick wood as one quick-witted soldier dove aside. She pushed on and crushed the cannon and the men into the ground, grinding them together in a bloody mess of flesh, iron, and wood. The sole survivor rolled to his feet and saw the carnage happen, as well as the end result as the tank continued rolling forward off of them. He turned, fell to his knees, and vomited onto the grass.

A British lieutenant had managed to strong-arm several replacements to step over their headless comrades and man the cannon. Reluctantly, they took up the tools needed to prepare the cannon for another shot.

As Madelaine rolled off the ruined barricade, she saw the men returning to the cannon behind her. Her treads felt heavy and sluggish, especially the right one, and she didn’t want to maneuver any more than necessary.

She willed two chainguns to focus on the new threat, but then realized she was running low on shredder ammo. She could kill the men replacing the previous crew, but there would be more men after them.
Better to disable the cannon
.

She instructed both rear guns to focus on the cannon’s right wheel. Together, the wooden spokes of the wheel supported the heavy cannon, but individually, they were thin enough to be chewed through by her fire.

The chainguns fired, sending a burst of eight rounds into the bottom spoke, splintering it through as the crew bolted away. The guns adjusted aim, and repeated the process on the next spoke. It too was sawed through by the rapid fire.

She continued, and two more spokes were eaten through. As she prepared to fire again, a great cracking sound told her the job was done.

The heavy iron barrel collapsed, falling to one side as the right wheel disintegrated. It was out of the battle.

That just leaves the three over—

BOOM! BOOM!

From within her blind spot, two cannon blasted at her again. One shot went low, into her left tread, further reducing its ability. The other shot was higher, against her upper tower. It missed the radar panel, but slammed mightily into her main gun turret, leaving a nine-inch depression in her armor, and throwing her passengers around again.

She tried to turn and get sight of the three remaining cannons. The gears that delivered power to her treads slipped, then caught, then slipped free again. The treads ground harshly, and she only managed to turn partially around before deciding to shut them down.

The incomplete turn was enough, though. She had eyes on the three cannons again. They were bunched close together, sharing crews and supplies.

She checked her shredder ammo level and knew she couldn’t get them all.

Time to try out the big gun then
. Her main turret turned slowly, swinging the massive barrel around. As it came to bear on the cannon crews, the British abruptly dropped what they carried and tried to run.

“Hold your ears,” she warned Tesla and Savannah. They jammed their fingers into their ears, eyes closed.

KA-BOOMMM!

The eleven-inch barrel exploded with a belch of golden fire. The 440-pound shell smashed into the grouped cannons like God’s own fist. A blinding geyser of dirt shot into the air as a deep crater was torn into Bunker Hill. The cannons and their crew were obliterated in a hazy cloud of sawdust, steel, and pink mist.

The entire hilltop froze, unbelieving, at the force of the shot. The remaining British blinked, taking in the damage and clearing their heads. As realization set in, and they saw they had no cannons left, the Redcoats broke and ran.

Rifles were tossed down, and they bolted down the hill, back toward Boston. She wanted to pursue them, but her treads were a mess, and she doubted her ability to make it down safely. She let them run.

But Madelaine had taken Bunker Hill from the British.

***

Lieutenant Terry cursed, rubbing his shoulder. The pain was building, coming in distracting waves. It was the last thing he needed, with the current situation.

He’d gotten his force across the bridge fairly well. The cavalry had been lost earlier, but he had nearly one hundred good men and even two cannons. A good force for taking a small outpost, perhaps, but useless against the ever-growing army occupying Boston.