The Zeppelin Jihad Read Online Free PDF Page A

it ’ s a trap! Switch to mercury rounds, shoot out a path through the minefield, and keep moving forward! ”
    The advance squads stiffened at Speer ’ s command, pulled the standard-round clips from their rifles and loaded red-tipped cartridges.
    “ Smoke grenades! ” he yelled. “ Conceal our advance ! ”
    Men pulled white canisters from their bandoliers and tossed them in an arc towards the building. They hissed as they hit the ground, spewing out thick white smoke.
    Speer ordered someone to launch a flare. It rocketed into the air before bursting.
    The smoke was starting to rise, obscuring the building. Speer and I, along with the squad we ’ d attached to, began moving towards the stranded men. Everyone that could began shooting into the windows to discourage anyone from firing on us. Mixed volleys of regular and explosive bullets punched into the building, the sharp ping of empty clips being ejected from SIO rifles punctuating the gunfight.
    The suppressing fire didn ’ t work, though. From one of the smoldering, bullet-shattered windows there was a terrifying BOOM , and a plume of smoke. I perceived more than saw something cut across three men before they fell to the ground, their upper bodies detached from the bloody stump of their lower halves.
    “ A cannon? ” I dumbly asked no one.
    Over the ringing in my ears, I heard Speer shout to his men that it was chain-shot. My mind grasped for the only time I ’ d ever heard of chain-shot — a guy I was dating droning on about some Aubrey/Maturin novel he was reading.
    For a second the smoke cleared. It was then I saw another large object being rolled into position at one of the windows: a Gatling gun.
    The 19th century ’ s version of a machine gun, it had six rotating barrels and fired each one in turn as fast as you could turn its crank. I hadn ’ t seen anything like it except in westerns.
    “ Speer! ” I shouted. “ They ’ ve got some kind of Gatling in there! ” I spoke quickly, trying to warn him. I didn ’ t have time to mention that its barrels looked larger than the .50 BMG I ’ d been allowed to shoot at Quantico.
    The Gatling opened up, shooting blindly into the concealing smoke. But it was brutally effective, punching through men where they stood. Even a grazing shot ripped an arm from one man.
    There was something else about these bullets — after a certain distance they exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions, cutting more men down as they dove for cover.
    “ They ’ re too strong! ” I screamed to Speer.
    As if in answer, I heard the cannon BOOM again, and more screaming from the wounded nearby.
    From above, rockets rained down. It took me a second to realize they were coming from our pocket zeppelins. These weren ’ t anything so sophisticated as heat-seekers or wire-guided missiles, probably just point-aim-shoot, but they did the job, blowing apart the room from where the cannon had been firing.
    “ We ’ ve got to get these men out of here, ” Speer said, standing up. His revolver was in hand, the golden cylinder in it. The cannon and Gatling fire had shot through the stockade behind us, taking chunks of the thick wood with it.
    Speer fired two mercury-tipped rounds into the most-damaged section of the fence, blowing open a hole large enough for two men to run through at a time. “ Collect the wounded and retreat through the breach! ”
    A breeze cleared the smoke for a moment, and I again saw the building relatively clearly. The zeppelins fired another volley, but the rockets were off-target, exploding in front of the building. The Gatling had been withdrawn from the window, and I almost convinced myself that the bad guys had run off.
    Then I saw the Gatling ’ s bullets ripping out of the building ’ s upper wall and roof, firing at our zeppelins. I could see sparks in the sky as the shrapnel rounds exploded.
    One of the small zeppelins came crashing down. It had taken a direct hit, its pilots already a red smear