Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike Read Online Free PDF Page B

tampered with.  There is nothing they can
do to them.   He pushed the cover back over the remote detonation switch,
and left it in the hands of the Gods.
    *    
*     *
    “We’ve got one of the bombs, Dr. Yu,” said the
Marine Colonel that was leading the force that had stopped the port side Caca
battalion from getting their bomb to the support cable that was their target.
    Yu looked over the holo at the bomb behind the
Colonel, taking in the structure of the device.  Superficially, it looked much
like the devices she had seen in Admiral Chrone’s presentation.  She pulled up
the schematic of those devices, and compared them to the bomb that was now in
the center of the holo.
    “You need to spray the center of the device,
Colonel, making sure to hit the control box on top and through to the center,
where the quarkium device is actually located.”
    “What about the ends of the device?”
    “Do not allow any of the negative matter to
come in contact with anything past thirty centimeters of the centerline.  The
ends are antimatter weapons used to set off the quarkium reaction, which sets
off the subquark detonation.”
    “How much antimatter?”
    “Up to a kilogram at each end.  About eighty
megatons if it breaches containment.”
    “I guess I need to evacuate everyone but the
engineers and myself.”
    “You don’t have time for that, Colonel,” said
Lucille, concerned about her station and its safety more than a battalion’s
worth of men.  Which is awful, she thought.  But if that bomb goes
off as a subquarkian device, it will kill many more.  “Take the tank and
spray that device, in the manner I told you.”
    The officer stared back at her for a moment,
and she afraid he was going to order an evacuation anyway, wasting precious
time.  “Colonel, if I were there I would spray the device, without hesitation. 
Unfortunately, I am not there, because they needed someone who could talk to
several attack groups at one time.   But believe me, we don’t have the time.”
    “Right,” said the Colonel, turning to his
engineers and grasping one of the spray devices himself.  He spoke to the
engineering sergeant who was holding the other device, and they both aimed at
the center part of the device.   “On the count of three.  One.  Two.  Three.”
    Both men pulled the triggers on the sprayers
and sent streams from the nozzles that funneled the negative matter through
magnetic fields to the outside world.  The streams shot out, under high
pressure as the magnetic field in the tank squeezed.  It only took a couple of
seconds to send out kilograms of negative matter.  It hit the normal matter of the
device and cancelled both out.  The center of the bomb disappeared up to twenty
centimeters into the case, including the entire control mechanism.  The men
sprayed again, destroying more of the bomb.  A third spray ate over halfway
through the bomb, negating much of the material and sending metal vapor into
the air as much of the rest of the matter broke up under the assault.
    “I think that should do it, Colonel,” said Yu.
    “I’m on the spot, Ma’am, and I would prefer to
be safe,” said the officer.  He and the other man sprayed again, and once
again, until there was no more negative matter in the tank.
    That was a waste , thought the Director,
looking at the bomb that was more or less gone through its center.  We could
have used that material for wormholes.  But I can’t say I blame the men on the
spot.  Now we just need to get those other three bombs, and we’re good.
    *    
*     *
    The force that hit the bomb where the troops
had been pulled from the perimeter struck on five axes, from three sides on the
level of the bomb, as well as from above and below.  It would have taken a
division to hold all the approaches, and the above and below routes were
covered by mere platoons, not enough to seal off all avenues, especially when
the assault was launched in force down