Einstein Must Die! (Fate of Nations Book 1) (44 page)

He was cut off from the general, but from the sounds coming from farther south, he was giving the British a good fight still.

He had the cannons placed to cover the bridge, along with fifty rifles. If the British followed them over the narrow bridge, he intended to make them pay dearly for the attempt.

He walked over to the makeshift medical area to check on the ones who hadn’t been so lucky.

Their doctor had been killed earlier in the morning, but his assistant was busy dressing a messy leg wound.

“Hey, Doc,” said Terry. “Is there anything I—”

KA
-
BOOMMM
!

Atop Bunker Hill a massive explosion sprayed dirt straight into the air.

“Gods,” whispered Terry. “What the hell was that?”

He found a set of binoculars, but couldn’t see anything over the hill’s crest.

“That was high explosives,” he said to himself. He turned and surveyed his men. They might hold this bridge if pressed to, but to what purpose? The British had the city. They didn’t need to expand farther.

But Bunker Hill has the high ground
.

He called to his sergeant. “Let’s get the men together! We march for the hilltop. Now!”

***

Madelaine scanned the hilltop, making sure there were no living British left. When she was satisfied they were alone atop the hill, she unlocked the access hatch and lowered the crew ladder to the ground.

“All clear,” she said. “Bet you’d like to stretch your legs, huh?”

“Really, it’s over?” asked Savannah incredulously. Her fingers worked at the restraint buckles, and she extricated herself.

She stood and stretched her arms high over her head, rising up on her toes. “Oh, that feels good.”

Tesla got out of his chair and crossed to the open hatch. “Fresh air too. I could do with a little sunlight.”

He stepped down the ladder, then jumped, landing on the grassy hill with both feet. Looking around, he was astonished by the carnage around them. He stepped out from under Beowulf, into the sun.

Dozens of bodies, maybe hundreds, were strewn around the hilltop like discarded toys. The tang of blood hit his nostrils.

Savannah came down then and joined him, her eyes wide at the devastation. She turned back and looked up at Beowulf.

“Honey…? You did…all this?”
It’s not possible. Maddy is a little girl. A twelve-year-old girl.

“Um—” Madelaine began, unsure what to say. “It’s OK, right?”

Savannah turned back around. Wherever she looked, there was death.
And victory
.

“Yeah, honey, it’s OK. I just…it’s a lot to take in. You’re not my little girl anymore. At least, that’s not
all
you are.”

“I know,” said Madelaine. “I can tell. I’m growing fast. Too fast, maybe.”

“Maybe,” said her mother, running her fingers over the thick armor, nicked in a hundred places by rifle fire.

She leaned back and studied the heavier impacts from the cannon fire. In a dozen places, the armor was indented and deformed in the ugly manner of warfare. Savannah’s hand to went her chest.

“Oh, honey…What have they done to you?” she asked.

“I’m OK, Mom,” she said. “Can’t really feel pain anymore. Not like before, anyway.”

“I know, baby. Still…” She reined in her emotions and nodded. “You’re right. It’s OK,” she said both to her daughter and herself.

“How about we give the general a hand now?” asked Madelaine. “That is why we came here.”

Savannah smiled. “Absolutely, baby. Let’s put that trigonometry to work.”

“All right!” said Madelaine, already actively monitoring all radio frequencies again. As she collected new reports, she took a hard look at the British ships in Boston harbor.

She raised her radar panel from the protective armor and turned it toward the docks. Through the panel, she spoke to the large enemy ships anchored just offshore. They were the most mobile, so she wanted to take them out first. Her signal was projected through the radar panel and struck the first ship, bouncing hard off the timber decks and hull.

A second later her voice returned to her. She did the math and came up with a precise range of 2,712 feet. She looked at the trees moving slowly in the gentle wind, and guessed her windage to be three knots from the north. With that, the weight of her shells, and the known height of Bunker Hill above sea level, she created a highly accurate firing solution.

“Too far for mortars,” she said. “I’ll save those for the city. This is going to have to be my main cannon.”

“Got it,” said Tesla. He and Savannah ran behind Beowulf and jammed their fingers in their ears again.

“Ready!” he yelled.

Madelaine swung her turret right 32.9 degrees and raised the huge barrel to an elevation of fifty-two degrees.

“Firing!” she warned. The main cannon exploded, sending a massive shell arcing into the air. It screamed over Breed’s Hill, continued over the Charles River Basin, and then curved down, heading for Boston Harbor.

She’d chosen the biggest ship in the harbor, the HMS
Atlas
. The 440-pound shell arced downward, straight for the
Atlas’s
main deck. The sailors on board had a moment of confusion, hearing the telltale sound of incoming artillery. They looked to the sky, but never saw the incoming shell.

It hit the deck, just forward of the main mast, and punched through the heavy timbers like a stone thrown into a lake. As it smashed through the second deck, the shell detonated, tearing the ship apart from within. The thick outer hull exploded outward in a flurry of shredded timbers. Two large parts of the ship tilted toward the sky and sank below the waves, leaving behind a mess of flotsam floating on the surface. The
Atlas
was no more.

The crews aboard the other British ships anchored in the harbor stared aghast at the utter destruction. Then they obeyed the screamed orders of their commanders and dashed to make sail and escape the murderous range of Beowulf’s main gun.

Madelaine fired again, and a second anchored ship disappeared in a flurry of fire, wood, and ocean spray.

She shifted targets then, focusing on the ships moored along the docks. These were secured to the docks, and their crews were unprepared for a rapid escape. She fired on them repeatedly, aiming for every other ship.

Those that didn’t blow apart and sink instantly met a slower death. The shell’s explosion touched off secondary detonations of ammunition stores, and soon several of the docked ships were ablaze.

Crews screamed and ran to extinguish the fires, but it was a hopeless cause. The heat and explosions fueled the fires faster than water could be brought to douse it.

Soon the fires spread, roaring high into the air above the blackening decks, racing through sails and rigging, and leaping to nearby ships.

Within minutes the entire docked fleet was sunk or furiously burning.

She scanned the docks, satisfied with the work she’d done. There would be no more British reinforcements. She lowered her main gun back down.

“I took care of the British ships,” she announced.

Tesla and Savannah lowered their arms and stepped back to Beowulf’s front.

“Yeah, you sure did,” agreed Savannah, shielding her eyes and looking out to the docks. Even this far away, the flames and columns of rising dark smoke were clearly visible.

“That should cut off the British from their resupply line,” said Tesla. “Can the general clear the city now?”

“In time, yes. I’ve heard there are reinforcements en route from New York. But why wait?” Madelaine said.

She directed her radar panel down, pointing at the city’s core, and began taking measurements of the range to various landmarks.

“From the radio reports coming in, I’ve pinpointed four main British strongpoints,” she said. “And I’ve just collected some accurate range data.”

Savannah nodded. “Soften them up, honey.”

“Firing,” replied Madelaine.

Her twin mortar tubes slid into position, and with a loud but muffled
WHUMP
, she sent two mortars into Boston.

They disappeared into the sky, drawing out a wide parabolic arc as they fell back to earth. Double explosions near Boston Common told them her shots had found their marks.

Just behind a wide impromptu barricade, several hundred British were arrayed in a broad firing line. They were disciplined, and their steady fire had kept a large American force from advancing. A few hundred feet behind the Americans, General Houston coordinated the American attacks, fuming at their lack of progress against the freshly reinforced enemy.

The mortars landed on the British within seconds of each other. Like grenades, but more powerful, the shells exploded, throwing shrapnel in all directions. Within fifteen feet of the explosions, Redcoats were thrown into the air, twisting and screaming, then falling back to the ground. Farther out, British soldiers felt hot steel fragments ripping into their bodies and fell to the ground, clutching their chests and faces.

Madelaine reloaded for another volley.

Tesla caught movement in the corner of his eye and turned, holding a hand over his eyes to shade the sun. Men were coming over the hill’s crest.

He pointed at them. “Savannah,” he warned.

“I see them, Nikola,” said Madelaine. “It’s OK, they’re American.”

***

Lieutenant Terry took one look at the massive tank and gasped at the sheer scale of the thing.

“Is that…a tank?” asked a private beside him. “It’s huge!”

Terry nodded. It was the largest tank he’d ever seen. And with a cold sense of vulnerability, he remembered Edison’s broadcast.
Secret project. Killed Americans. British agent
. He suddenly felt like a rabbit who’d stumbled onto a wolf.

He looked around the hilltop, taking in the carnage that lay strewn around the beast like discarded bones from a satisfying meal. Many of them were British, but he saw a lot of American uniforms among the dead also.

WHUMP
! The massive tank fired mortars toward the city again.

It’s firing on the general’s men
, he thought. His jaw went tight at the thought. They’d barely hung on over the past day. If this thing was shelling American positions from here, they had no chance of holding the city.

He looked behind him at the ragged hundred men scrambling up the hill to join him. His eyes flicked, cataloging their assets.
Maybe eighty rifles. Not much use against armor
.

Then he smiled. Someone had found several horses, probably running loose from losing their dead cavalry riders. Two teams of stallions were each hauling a cannon up the hill’s slope. Behind them a small supply wagon was tied off behind a single horse. They were making slow progress, but were steadily climbing the hill. In a few minutes, they’d be able to set up and fire on the monster.

WHUMP
! Madelaine shelled another distant British position. Again Redcoats were torn apart by the explosive mortars. She constantly scanned the city’s streets, locating masses of British soldiers and calculating new firing solutions for them.

Terry had his men hide just below the hill’s crest. Luckily, the thing hadn’t noticed their approach from behind. He’d let the cannons arrive, then announce their presence properly.

***

At the docks Colonel Thomas began getting reports of the deadly shelling, which added fuel to his already raging temper. He’d watched helplessly as the fleet was set ablaze, right at the docks. Disbelief had given way to anger, then impotent rage.

Bunker Hill was mentioned as a probable source of the fire. He snarled, knowing the guess was accurate, as he’d been unable to contact the men he had sent up there to claim the hilltop.

He wondered how his force could have been neutralized. The Americans were fighting a retreating battle in the city, and certainly had insufficient reserves to take out two British companies.
Were they reinforced from the west
? It was possible, of course, but his spies had reported no large troop movements on the roads. He frowned at the vexing mystery, then turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

His commanders were redeploying, seeking cover from the withering mortar attacks. He monitored the radio chatter, and a distressing picture soon formed. Wherever his men went, the attacks followed them, with uncanny accuracy. His army was being dismantled, and the American forces on the ground were pressing the advantage. Soon territory the British had held solidly was being given back to the oncoming Americans.

A terrified corporal burst into the room then, startling him.

“What the blazes are you thinking, Corporal?” Thomas yelled, swallowing the urge to savagely beat the man.

The junior man was sweating and gulping air as if he’d run a marathon. He snapped a sloppy salute. “Sorry, sir! But I—It killed them all, sir. I barely got away, I just ran and ran, never looked back.” He leaned against the doorframe, then doubled over, catching his breath.

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “You were on Bunker Hill?”

The corporal nodded, still facing the floor.

He took a deep breath and stood tall again. “A tank, sir. Goddamned biggest tank you can imagine. Killed ‘em all, every last one.”

Thomas’s face went white at the words.
Not possible. I killed that thing. Captain Montgomery dropped a nuclear bomb on that base
.

“It’s not possible,” he said out loud to himself.

“Begging your pardon, sir. I swear on my mother’s grave, it’s real. Like a thing out of a nightmare, it was.”

The pieces clicked into place then. His lost men. The fleet destroyed. The mortar attacks. All from one cursed, unholy source. His mind felt struck dumb.

Absently, he wondered what the monstrosity was named. Was it truly alive? If so, did it feel the way men did? Did it have a soul?

He turned and looked out the windows. The Royal fleet, their only path of retreat, was a smoking ruin.

Mixed with his fury, the colonel felt a thread of fear snake its way into his heart.

***

Lieutenant Terry waved at the approaching cannon teams, urging them to hurry. He ran to them, signaling where he wanted them to set up. As they approached and got their first view of Beowulf, the soldiers gaped in shock, then recovered and busied themselves aiming the cannons and preparing them to fire.