Correction. Five walkers.
“I’ve got the objective in sight, sir,” one of the techs called. “Walker Four.”
“Punch it up,” Ramsey told Anderson. “Let’s see it on the big screen.”
The scene shifted to the vantage point of another walker, farther up Rosenthal Street. The walker had halted in the middle of the street and was rotated slightly to the left, looking up at the gleaming white slope of the Pyramid of the Eye.
The pyramid was enormous. It measured 106 meters along each side at the base and was nearly sixty meters tall, which made it almost as broad and as tall as the smallest of the Great Pyramids at Giza. The slope of the walls felt more like that of a typical Mayan pyramid, much steeper and more precipitous than the slopes of the pyramids at Giza. The five-tier construction was reminiscent of the step-pyramids or ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia. Broad, half-meter-high stone steps ran up the center of each of the four sides.
From the vantage point of the HK gunwalker, the Pyramid of the Eye seemed to tower overhead, giving the vertiginous impression that it was about to come crashing down on the street.
The walker’s point of view dropped back to street level, focusing on a handful of human Sag-ura rushing toward it armed with clubs, spears, and gauss guns. The Gatling laser opened up, shredding the charge in bloody disarray.
But more and more rounds were striking home, knocking the walker to left or right. Walker Four took another dozen steps forward, then the screen filled with static and went black.
“Four is down,” Anderson said. “Bringing up Walker Seven.”
“Walker One is down. Enemy forces advancing from the east.”
“Damn them,” King muttered as the camera view of the last remaining northbound walker winked on. “Why gauss rifles when the sons of bitches are still carrying spears? Why not black powder?”
“Gauss guns are remarkably simple in concept, General,” Major Anderson pointed out. “And pretty hard to break. A hollow tube with a mechanism for sending a powerful electromagnetic pulse down the barrel at high speed…as long as they have a way to recharge the power pack, they could store those things for thousands of years. Gunpowder would go stale before too long, especially in a humid climate like this one.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” Ramsey added. “What about plasma guns and lasers, though? Those don’t require chemicals that would go unstable after a few centuries.”
Anderson shrugged. “They may have some, and we just haven’t seen them yet…lasers, anyway. Plasma guns require a pretty sophisticated mechanism for fusing water or some other projectile mass, though, and they need to operate at such high temperatures and muzzle velocities that a primitive culture simply couldn’t support them. That’s just a guess, though. Gauss guns…all you need for a projectile is something with iron in it or wrapped around it. A nail would work. And you don’t need really high muzzle velocities. A few kilometers per second would be just fine for a nail or a small iron slug.”
“Coming up on the east side of Suribachi, sir,” the Walker Seven technician reported. “But I’m taking some damage.”
On the big monitor, the watching officers had a clear view now of the pyramid from street level, with no intervening buildings. The steps leading up the steeply sloping east face were clear, and there was no sign of any enemy warriors at the top.
“That’s what we needed to see,” Ramsey said. “No nasty surprises waiting for us on the side we can’t see from here.” He looked at King. “General? Permission to commence the assault on Suribachi.”
King looked at the monitor a moment, then sighed. “Permission granted, Colonel. Give ’em hell.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Ramsey picked up a microphone. “Dragon Flight, this is Dragon Nest. The word is go! Go! I say again, go!”
“Roger that, Nest,” a voice came back over the speaker system. “Dragon Flight One, en route.”
“Here we go, then,” Ramsey said. “Watch that first step!”
Dragon One
New Sumer, Ishtar
1557 hours ALT
Garroway was snapped into the air, the ground dropping away beneath his dangling feet. He closed his eyes until he could get used to the sharp, stomach-dropping feeling of acceleration, then opened them again. They were airborne.
Encased in full armor, his LR-2120 strapped across his torso, Garroway was suspended from the tail boom of the Dragonfly by a harness securing his thighs, back, and shoulders, with a quick release at his waist. Twenty-three other Marines dangled with him, two by two, facing outward as the Dragonfly canted nose down and streaked low across the eastern reaches of the compound, banking sharply toward the Pyramid of the Eye. Looking down, he saw the streets and buildings and the eastern wall of the Legation blurring past less than a hundred meters below.