Armored Tears Read Online Free PDF Page A

you can follow up for
support."
    "Roger,"
Singh said.
    Ahead
of them on her map display, Tara could see the low ridge that gave way to the
shallow valley that held the gate structure itself. If they could just get to
that ridge —and take it, if the UEN had placed defenses there— they
would finally be in position to deliver fire support to the Arcadian infantry
troops that were fighting take the gate compound. The infantry had been dropped
in, at great risk and with great daring, by using stealth air-transport craft.
Established doctrine said that it was an impossible maneuver; established laser
defenses would always be able to shoot down any aircraft, and no stealth was
enough to defeat the sort of sensors that a front-line anti-air laser fortress
mounted; stealth could hide from radars, and adaptive camouflage could fool
distant optical sensors, but, sooner or later, the big thermal sensors could
find anything that flew, no matter how stealthy it was. Usually sooner.
    Established
doctrine had been wrong. The Arcadians had managed to hack the security codes
for a UEN patrol fight and, for a few crucial minutes, had convinced the
sensors of the UEN laser emplacements that the inbound aircraft were UEN
planes. The pissers had tumbled on to the ruse soon enough, but not in time to
stop over a hundred Arcadian frame infantry from landing. Only the last
transport had been burned down by UEN lasers... but that had been the transport
carrying the heavy weapons. So now the framers were fighting a desperate
battle. And Tara's tank company was the only chance they had of getting
support.
    "Keep
moving," she said into the company push. "Those framers won't last
long without support."
    "What
happens if we don't shut down the gate?" asked Corporal Ishida, her
gunner.
    "What
happens?" Tara said. "The UEN wins. The push tens of thousands of
pisser troops through the gate and we lose our planet. All of the Defense Force
personnel that survive get sent to re-education camps. The UEN ships in a few
million more 'economic refugees,' confiscates everything we've built and micromanages
our people's lives until they're reduced 'economic refugee' status themselves.
That's what happens. So what we do is, we don't lose."
    "I
think we're past their missile pods," came a call from Lieutenant Feldman,
the 3rd Platoon leader.
    "I
think you're right," Tara replied. "Who has drones left? I doubt the
pissers are going to leave that ridge undefended, but whatever they have isn't
showing up from this distance."
    "None
left for us," said Johnny, her sensors operator.
    "I've
got one left," sent Sergeant Kemp, the tank commander of 1st platoon's
only other surviving tank.
    "I've
got four left in 3rd platoon," said Feldman.
    "Hold
a couple back, Feldman," Tara ordered, "and send out two. Kemp, you
send yours out, as well. We can't afford to charge in blind."
    The
drones launched and sped forward, little ducted-fan-tilt-rotor aircraft, less
than a meter long, each one loaded with an assortment of sensors. The sensors
operators were about to earn their keep.
    "Hostile
framers!" came the call from one of the 3rd Platoon's tanks. "We've
picked up camouflaged UEN framers in position in front of us. They've got
adaptive camouflage netting laid over 'em, but I'm picking up thermal and
electro-magnetic leakage from their power packs. I think they didn't shut down their
cooling systems."
    "Alright,
put the drones in a good search pattern; not too tight. Don't give away that
we've found them, but let's get some good targeting data," Tara ordered.
    Fucking
amateurs, Tara thought. As stars went, Luhman-16A   —colloquially called "Ravi,"
after a Hindu sun god—   was a
tiny "brown dwarf," not quite even a proper star. But as far as
Arcadia was concerned, the star was plenty hot, and close; a huge red-orange
ball of fire in the sky. Lying out under the looming rays of the local sun
would be brutal, so the UEN troopers had run their infantry combat frames'
cooling