Read Online Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology by Howard Tayler Dan Wells Mary Robinette Kowal Brandon Sanderson - Free Book Online Page B
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is getting better,” said my driver.
“Or our bomb-nullifier is getting worse,” I said, looking at the engineers. “The BSE-7 is what’s doing this, right? Whatever your little device is, it breaks the IEDs before they go off?”
“Correct,” said the lead engineer.
“But it’s not necessarily getting weaker,” said the second engineer.
“He might be calibrating his power output to a sustainable level,” said the lead engineer. “He doesn’t need to destroy them like he did with the first two, just stop them like he did with this one.”
I narrowed my eyes. “He?”
“It,” said the first engineer. “I misspoke.” He smiled, and the other engineer smiled, and I looked at my driver and I could tell he felt just as nervous as I did. I glanced at my gunner, perched in the turret and looking for trouble, and he gave me a thumbs-up. No Taliban in sight. I looked back at the engineers.
“So what happens on the next one?” I asked. “Is it calibrating its energy, or running out of it?”
“We won’t know until we get more data.”
“Another IED,” I said.
“Correct.”
“Which will either break, like these did, or blow up my JERRV.”
“Correct,” he said again. “But it’s up-armored, so you should be fine. None of these bombs we’ve examined has been big enough to kill you.”
I had a lot less faith in the armor than they did, and a lot more faith in the armor than in the BSE-7, but orders were orders, and when I radioed back to the firebase they agreed with the engineers. This test, and this device, were too crucial to give up halfway. I hung up the radio, shrugged my shoulders, and shook my driver’s hand. “Alpha Mike Foxtrot,” I said. “It’s been nice to know you.”
The fourth IED exploded.
It wasn’t a big explosion—it didn’t tear the JERRV in half, so the armor did its job—but it flipped us upside down off the side of the road. My gunner managed to duck down into the turret before the roll crushed him, and we were rattled and bruised but alive, and thanks to endless days of crash drills we managed to get all three of us out of the vehicle in just a few seconds. We came up just in time to see a wrinkly green three-year-old beating the living hell out of the engineers’ truck, and I want to be as clear as possible about this so there’s no misunderstanding: when I say the living hell, I mean the living, breathing, ever-loving hell. He was remarkably spry, that three-year-old, naked as can be and jumping around that truck like he was on springs, and everywhere he touched it the truck fell apart—not just fell apart, burst apart. Two quick leaps took him from the ground to the fender to the top of the grill, and the fender fell off before his toes even touched down on the hood. He reached out with one hand and grabbed the headlight, and somehow both headlights exploded—not just the one he touched, but both of them simultaneously, like New Year’s Eve firecrackers packed with chrome and broken glass. The latch on the hood failed suddenly, spectacularly, launching the little green something in the air while below him the now-exposed engine erupted in a modern dance exhibition of bursting caps and hoses, each cylinder and compartment blowing off more steam than they could possibly have been holding, pop pop pop one after another like gunshots. The windshield cracked as the green thing sailed over it, and all I could see inside were the two engineers digging through their packs like madmen, their faces white with fear.
My crew and I ran toward them, racing to help, and as I ran I raised my rifle to fire at the little green thing dancing madly on the roof. The trigger fell off in my hand, and then the stock, and then the entire gun seemed to field strip itself in a cascade of oily gunmetal. The bullets spat and jumped on the ground like popcorn, their charges exploding impossibly in the dry dirt of the Brambles. My driver reached the truck’s door and yanked on
“Or our bomb-nullifier is getting worse,” I said, looking at the engineers. “The BSE-7 is what’s doing this, right? Whatever your little device is, it breaks the IEDs before they go off?”
“Correct,” said the lead engineer.
“But it’s not necessarily getting weaker,” said the second engineer.
“He might be calibrating his power output to a sustainable level,” said the lead engineer. “He doesn’t need to destroy them like he did with the first two, just stop them like he did with this one.”
I narrowed my eyes. “He?”
“It,” said the first engineer. “I misspoke.” He smiled, and the other engineer smiled, and I looked at my driver and I could tell he felt just as nervous as I did. I glanced at my gunner, perched in the turret and looking for trouble, and he gave me a thumbs-up. No Taliban in sight. I looked back at the engineers.
“So what happens on the next one?” I asked. “Is it calibrating its energy, or running out of it?”
“We won’t know until we get more data.”
“Another IED,” I said.
“Correct.”
“Which will either break, like these did, or blow up my JERRV.”
“Correct,” he said again. “But it’s up-armored, so you should be fine. None of these bombs we’ve examined has been big enough to kill you.”
I had a lot less faith in the armor than they did, and a lot more faith in the armor than in the BSE-7, but orders were orders, and when I radioed back to the firebase they agreed with the engineers. This test, and this device, were too crucial to give up halfway. I hung up the radio, shrugged my shoulders, and shook my driver’s hand. “Alpha Mike Foxtrot,” I said. “It’s been nice to know you.”
The fourth IED exploded.
It wasn’t a big explosion—it didn’t tear the JERRV in half, so the armor did its job—but it flipped us upside down off the side of the road. My gunner managed to duck down into the turret before the roll crushed him, and we were rattled and bruised but alive, and thanks to endless days of crash drills we managed to get all three of us out of the vehicle in just a few seconds. We came up just in time to see a wrinkly green three-year-old beating the living hell out of the engineers’ truck, and I want to be as clear as possible about this so there’s no misunderstanding: when I say the living hell, I mean the living, breathing, ever-loving hell. He was remarkably spry, that three-year-old, naked as can be and jumping around that truck like he was on springs, and everywhere he touched it the truck fell apart—not just fell apart, burst apart. Two quick leaps took him from the ground to the fender to the top of the grill, and the fender fell off before his toes even touched down on the hood. He reached out with one hand and grabbed the headlight, and somehow both headlights exploded—not just the one he touched, but both of them simultaneously, like New Year’s Eve firecrackers packed with chrome and broken glass. The latch on the hood failed suddenly, spectacularly, launching the little green something in the air while below him the now-exposed engine erupted in a modern dance exhibition of bursting caps and hoses, each cylinder and compartment blowing off more steam than they could possibly have been holding, pop pop pop one after another like gunshots. The windshield cracked as the green thing sailed over it, and all I could see inside were the two engineers digging through their packs like madmen, their faces white with fear.
My crew and I ran toward them, racing to help, and as I ran I raised my rifle to fire at the little green thing dancing madly on the roof. The trigger fell off in my hand, and then the stock, and then the entire gun seemed to field strip itself in a cascade of oily gunmetal. The bullets spat and jumped on the ground like popcorn, their charges exploding impossibly in the dry dirt of the Brambles. My driver reached the truck’s door and yanked on
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