Frankowski & Grossman Tank 2 The War With Earth

Archiwum

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I was awestruck.
"Good God!" I said, "That hull was made of depleted uranium reinforced with a ceramic composite! A
mild steel sword could cut right through it?"
"In truth, sir, we took the liberty of sending your tank swords out for heat treating and shot peening," the
colonel said. "Also, our tanks tell us that the edge is now composed of pure diamond, a few hundred
atoms thick, although how this was accomplished, or where they got a diamond so long was not
explained to us, despite considerable urging on our part. Still, we wanted as realistic a test as possible.
But I assure you that better metal will make an even better sword. But now, let us go over into Dream
World, where we have been rehearsing several battle scenarios using these remarkable weapons."
In combat, they of course used conventional rail guns and lasers when the enemy was at any distance
from them, but when things got close up, they proved to us that a sword could hit the enemy much faster
than a rail gun, or even a laser could traverse. When you were within twenty meters of your opponent,
the swordsman beat the gunner six times out of seven.
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Both in the real world, and in Dream World simulations, they proved to Quincy and me that there were a
lot of situations where our usual weapons were simply too powerful.
A fragmentation hand grenade doesn't help much if you are trying to free hostages, and nuclear weapons
had hardly ever been used in the history of warfare.
And in the upcoming invasion of the Solar System, one of our primary objectives was to capture intact
the solar factory system that was circling the sun inside the orbit of Mercury, operating and fueling the
thousands of robot ships that were pushing the envelope of Human Space ever farther outward.
I hated the thought of having to take that huge installation using rail guns. If we did, we might never get it
working again.
The Gurkhas' tanks got their huge swords, made of the finest surgical steel New Kashubia could
produce, and diamond edges soon appeared on all of their weapons, of all sizes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The Angel of the Lord
A week later, the Powers That Be finally broke down and issued us a Combat Control Computer to
manage the new battalion with. Why they were so stingy with handing those things out was beyond me,
since they had seventy-four of them already built and in storage, but that's the military for you.
I was still nothing but a tanker first class. No promotion had come along with the thing, just the job.
Not that I could tell the CCC that. As I remembered the rules, you have to be a general, or the darned
things won't let you swear them in. So, I got gussied up in my full-dress uniform, with my swordand my
stainless steelkukri and had my seven "colonels" do the same.
There was room in a CCC for only a general and five colonels, but I had some vague ideas of rotating
them around, somehow. Lloyd and Mirko were deep into New Croatian politics just now, and said that
if I wanted to delay their time of entering the CCC it was fine by them.
The CCC was parked in the lowest garage below the church, along with the Gurkha battalion, among
their ammunition trucks. It looked exactly like the other trucks, a five-meter cylinder ten meters long, on
standard MagLev treads. This was both because it was simpler to make them that way, and because of
camouflage.
The trucks were cheap, compared to all the other stuff, and not all that militarily vital. I mean, we could
lose them all, and still fight on without much difficulty, for a while at least. Given a choice, an enemy
would probably take them out last.
Losing the CCC could throw the battalion into disarray, and so it was a prime military target. It was best
to hide it among the trucks.
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Agnieshka, wearing a decorated drone, was pushing a cart full of helmets and the custom-tailored
survival kits that officers rated. I had brought her along to show me which truck to talk to, but as it turned
out, it wasn't necessary.
"Mickolai, my dear boy! How good it is to see you again!" one of the trucks said.
"Professor Cee? I am very surprised that you know me," I said.
"Why should that be? You were always one of my favorite pupils."
"But, I never was one of your pupils! At one time, it felt like I had spent eight years inside of you, or one
of your clones, but in reality I spent the entire time in a tank. And even if I had been inside a real Combat
Control Computer, it wouldn't have been you. The message I got said that I was being issued a new,
unused CCC."
"Ah, my boy, now you are getting into questions about hardware, software, the meaning of life, and all
that sort of thing. Rather sophomoric, wouldn't you say? By the time most men reach your age, they have
learned to accept the universe for what it is, and to live with it," the professor said.
"Then you are saying that you have somehow downloaded everything that happened during my military
education, and assimilated it into yourself."
"I suppose that you could say something like that, yes. But I assure you that to me, it seems that you
were one of my favorite pupils. I'll never forget the way you conned that guard tank into letting you into
the valley where the Serbs had an entire division of unsworn, virgin tanks. 'Roast Duck and Oysters,'
indeed! I see that you have brought your five excellent colonels with you. Kasia, you look as beautiful as
ever! And you as well, Maria! Mirko, Conan, Lloyd, well, this is going to be a grand reunion! And I see
Quincy and Zuzanna here as well. It was such a shame when your general died, and only a week before
graduation. You are here to see the others off?"
"Not exactly," I said. "Mirko and Lloyd decided to become squad leaders when it looked as though
there was no hope of my ever getting assigned a CCC. Quincy and Zuzanna took their place in my
squad, and we saw quite a bit of combat together, in the New Kashubian campaign. All of these people
are trained colonels, and my thought was to rotate them occasionally. I trust that you are capable of such
flexibility?"
"It's more than a bit unorthodox, but I suppose that I could make do. Fortunately, I have sufficient spare
sanitary fittings with me."
"Good, because just now, Lloyd and Mirko are up to their earlobes in New Croatian politics, so, at
least for the time being, they have other things to do. Are you ready to be sworn in?"
"Quite."
"Good. Now, then. I am General Mickolai Derdowski and I am here to accept your oath of loyalty to
me and my forces. Number 00000104, you are hereby inducted into the service of the Kashubian
Expeditionary Forces, and into the New Yugoslavian branch of that service, to whom you will give all of
your loyalty. Your combat data code will be number 58294, and you will now permanently erase all
other codes from your memory. Do you now swear loyalty to the Kashubian forces?"
"I do so swear."
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"Good. Welcome to the service. Open up. Lloyd, you and Mirko can take off, and get back to your [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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