Part 18 (2/2)

Ike rammed all the way down to Malibu on Highway 101, burning as he went, but encountering no resistance.

Ben had pushed his people south on 170 down to the Ventura Freeway, and none of his people had fired ashot. But they had put everything behind them to the torch.

Cecil had turned his column and was now halted, standing on the edge of what appeared to be a deserted Glendale, wondering what in the h.e.l.l was going on.

Georgi had pushed over to the center of Pasadena, and there the Russian had halted his advance, sensing a trap not far ahead. ”Get Ben on the radio,” he ordered. ”Get all commanders on the horn.”

The commanders on network, Therm asked, ”What the h.e.l.l is going on, Ben?”

”For whatever reason, they've pulled back.

Everybody just hold what you've got. West, are you ready to commence sh.e.l.ling?”

”Sitting on go, Ben.”

”Start dropping them in while we a.s.sess this situation. But I think they pulled back to band together.”

”That's ten-four, Ben,” the mercenary replied.

”Seven and Eight Battalions are trickling in, getting in place to our rear.”

”Give the punks a great big incendiary kiss, West.”

”Will do, Ben,” the mercenary said with a laugh.

From miles away, the 8-inch howitzers and the 155's began laying down a killing field of fire. With each gun capable of a round a minute, the earth began to tremble with rolling thunder. Buildings exploded and flames leaped into the air.

”All right, people,” Ben ordered. ”Let's take some more ground. Corrie, order all the tanks and mortar crews to start sh.e.l.ling.”

On a line stretching east from Malibu to the Orange Freeway, Rebel gunners began opening up. Everything with any range at all was put into service, the sh.e.l.ls and rockets pounding the earth until the trembling resembled a never-ending earthquake.

Ike had advanced to just west of Topanga Beach, and had still not encountered any resistance. He pulled up and ordered his people to hold up and burn the town.

Ben had vowed he would not commit troops until the area in front of each unit was pounded into fiery mush.

The Rebels began encountering resistance as they advanced, but the relentless artillery barrage was driving the street punks back. The smoke from hundreds of fires had brought visibility down to zero in some areas. The Rebels put on gas masks to help in combating the choking and blinding smoke. The street punks had forgotten that little item.

”All units forward two blocks,” Ben ordered, and Corrie relayed the orders.

The Rebels moved out, walking behind tanks and APC'S, mopping up what was left of the gangs in the battered and burning sectors. Those street punks who had been a.s.signed the suburbs beganpulling back, cursing Ben Raines as they retreated. In the city, the creepies had no place to go. They dug in deeper and waited for the artillery they knew would be coming as soon as General Ike McGowan got into position.

The Rebels' policy was to sh.e.l.l several blocks, using incendiaries, and then stand down and watch it burn. When the flames had subsided to the point where they could advance, they would move forward, establish a new position, and resume their sh.e.l.ling of another sector.

It was slow work. But doing it this way greatly reduced the number of Rebel dead or wounded. And it was frustrating to the enemy, because the Rebels presented few targets. The street punks might catch a glimpse, through the smoke and fire and dust, of a running Rebel as he or she darted from cover to cover, but even that was rare, and the punks rarely scored a hit on a Rebel in that situation.

At the end of the third day of the a.s.sault against southern California, Ike had moved into sh.e.l.ling range of west Los Angeles. Ike was using what long-range artillery he had, and using it effectively, standing back miles from the target and dropping them in.

The street punks were being slowly pushed back, but in the city proper, the creepies had no place to go; they could do nothing except die. It was going to take weeks, possibly even months, for the Rebels to win the battle this way, but the one thing the Rebels had was time.

”G.o.dd.a.m.n Ben Raines!” one of the Judges, the leaders of the Night People, cursed after days and nights of relentless sh.e.l.ling. The smoke from the hundreds of fires, most of them burning out of control, was thick and choking.

The d.a.m.n Rebels seemed to be everywhere at once.

How Ben Raines managed that, with so few under his command-few, compared to the thousands who were, at least so far, unsuccessfully fighting him in southern California-was a bewilderment to the enemy. The street punks had sent people around to flank the Rebels from the east. They ran into Seven and Eight Battalions, dug in deep and heavily armed, and were thrown back time after time. Rebel snipers, or so it seemed to the punks, were everywhere, and their fire was deadly.

And when the Rebels moved out of a position, they left nothing behind them except burned-out foundations and ashes. There was no place for the enemy to hide or to launch an attack. At night, the Rebels sent up flares at the most unexpected of times, catching the punks as they tried to advance through the ashes, and cutting them down with heavy machine-gun fire.

A bug-out was a possibility, but one that offered little hope to those in the sprawling area. The mercenary, West, had moved his people closer to the city. He was now stretched out, in strategic areas, north to south alongHighway 57, with Seven and Eight Battalions moving with him, protecting his rear. It was a very, very thin line, and had the street punks possessed any military knowledge at all, they could have busted through at almost any point. Why they did not was something no Rebel commander could understand.

Perhaps it was because West and Seven and Eight Battalions never gave the punks a chance to rest.

The mercenary was savage in both his defense and his attack, burning and destroying as he went.

Bridges and overpa.s.ses were blown; block after seemingly endless block of long-deserted businesses and homes were burned or still burning. Mines had been laid, from the insidious pressure mines to the horribly devastating Claymores.

And the big guns of the Rebels boomed day and night.

Ben Raines had taken a terrible chance by spreading his forces so thin, but so far, it appeared to be working.

The street punks finally began to realize that while it might take the Rebels six months to smash through, destroying everything and everybody in their path, they would eventually do just that. Ben Raines was not going to come nose to nose with them comn yet. He was going to lay back and use his awesome artillery to pound them to pieces and then send troops in to mop up.

The street punks and the creepies also realized that while they had been terribly shortsighted as to their future, Ben Raines and the Rebels had carefully looked at the long-range picture. They had worked out their battle plans over years of actual combat, and the Rebels made few mistakes.

The booming of artillery never stopped. The cannon and mortars lashed out death and destruction twenty-four hours a day, the rolling thunder becoming a constant.

”I didn't think we could do it” Ben admitted.

”I was wrong.”

”Chisel that in stone,” Doctor Chase said. ”Because you might never hear it again. However,” he added, ”I must admit that we were all wrong.”

Few of the Rebels had believed that laying back and using artillery would have worked within such a ma.s.sive area as they were a.s.saulting. And while they were delighted that it was working, none could understand why those so loosely trapped were not making more of a fight of it.

”They could bust out anytime, at any place they choose,” Tina said, studying a huge wall map of the southern California area. ”Yet they don't. Why?”

”Maybe they don't know they can,” Therm finally said, after the others had looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

”Go on, Therm,” Ben urged. ”Elaborate, please.”

The ex-hippie (or perhaps hippie-turned-warrior comhoping-to-become-a-hippie-ag-once-th-c.r.a.p-will as comover) was fast becoming a respected commander of troops. He was more cautious than Ben, but he got the job done, and that was all that mattered in the final run.”For one thing” Therm said, ”they can't see us. Andwiththe constant hammering of artillery, they probably believe that their initial estimates of our strength were way off the mark. But there might be another reason.

They just don't know what to do.”

”Or a combination of both,” Buddy said, picking it up. ”They've never faced anything like the Rebels before. They've had their own way for so long, they just don't know what to do against such a large and well-organized army.”

Ben rose from where he'd been sitting on the edge of a scarred old desk and walked to a boarded-up window, to look toward west Los Angeles. He could see nothing but black smoke rising from the ruins of the burning city. Ike and his people had pushed east to Santa Monica Boulevard and his artillery was pounding the city mercilessly. West had moved in from the east and had put everything behind him to the torch, with the exception of a two-block area running north and south that was under the control of Seven and Eight Battalions. When West advanced a few more blocks, Seven and Eight would put their sector to the torch, then move out behind him. West was now in control of the John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

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