The other parameters were that it be able to fire from two degrees below horizontal to ninety seven degrees above with a swiveling turret and that the system be fully mobile. It was this combination that had caused all the design teams to almost give up in despair. That was, until the good old boys (and girls) from the Shenandoah went ahead and admitted that the parameters just meant it needed to be bigger than anyone was willing to admit, even privately.

The monstrosity that was finally constructed defied belief. The transporter base was nearly a hundred meters long with two fifty-meter-wide treads on either side supported by four-story-high road wheels. The "gun" was mounted on shock absorbers the size of small submarines and constructed using some of the same techniques. The swivel turret was two stories thick, constructed of multiple pieces "welded" together by an explosive welding technique, and nearly fifty meters across. The upper deck was six-inch steel plate, not for any armoring purpose, but because when the gun fired anything else would buckle.

When the design was mostly done the power source was obvious; there wasn't enough diesel in the entire United States to support the projected requirements for the guns. On the other hand, Canada's supplies of pitchblende were plentiful and above the weather-line that the Posleen preferred. Therefore, nuclear was the only way to go. However, putting a large "reactor control crew" onboard seemed silly. Finally, they "borrowed" a South African design for a simple, practically foolproof nuclear vessel called a "pebble-bed helium" reactor. The system used layered "pebbles" that automatically mitigated the reaction and helium—which could not pick up, and thus release, radiation—as the temperature transfer medium. Even if the coolant system became totally open, that is if it started venting helium to the air, no radiation would be released and the reactor would not "melt-down." Of course, if the reactor took a direct hit there would be "hot" uranium scattered all over the ground but other than that, no problem; the system was absolute proof against "China Syndrome."

The control center and living quarters were actually located underneath the behemoth and were the size of a small trailer. It wasn't that it took a large crew; the system could actually be run by one person. It just made more sense that way. The designers looked at the physical requirements for the three-man crew and finally settled on a small, highly armored command center. But the monstrosity had so much power and space to spare that they added to the design until they had a small living quarters that would permit the crew to live independent of the surroundings.

The designers also included a rather interesting evac vehicle.

So when the crews of SheVas Forty-Two and Twenty-Three got the word that a lander was on the way, they dropped their cards, dropped their Gameboys and slid smoothly into action.

"This is Forty-Two, General," said Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Wagoner. Forty-Two was a brand new SheVa, the newest until there was a "Forty-Three." And Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Wagoner was a brand new SheVa commander. He had just been transferred, over his howling objections, from command of an armored battalion and was having trouble adjusting to being a tank commander, by any other word, again. But he was pretty sure he could remember how to crank a track, by God. "We're on it."

"Okay, boys, blow the camouflage; it's time to lay some tube."

* * *

Duncan felt a rumbling in the seat of his pants and configured his view to "swing" westward. The remains of West Rochester were shuddering as if the town had been hit by a minor but persistent earthquake and he could see boulders being kicked loose from the hill he was sitting on. When the viewpoint finally swung to the west it became obvious what had caused the effect.

Behind him, about four miles to the rear on the south side of the canal, an oddly shaped hill was shuddering apart. As the greenish foam fell away the enormous shape of a SheVa gun was revealed.

The thing was just ugly. There was no other word to describe it. The bastardized cannon required something like a crane cantilever to keep it from bending and the massive construction of the whole system didn't permit anything on the order of beauty. Like a steam shovel for a giant open-pit mine or a deep ocean drilling platform, the only things prior to the SheVa to be built on its scale, it was pure function.

The scale of the guns was hard to grasp until you realized that the tiny ants running alongside weren't even people, they were trucks.

He shook his head as the thing first waggled from side to side to warn all the little "crunchies" that it was preparing to maneuver and then accelerated up the side of a small moraine, smashing a factory to bits on the way.

"Fucking show-off," Duncan muttered, turning back to the east.

* * *

"Forty-two," called the commander of SheVa Twenty-Three, "be aware that we have two more lift emanations including a C-Dec."

"Got that," said Colonel Wagoner. His intent was to use the moraine as cover until they could get a good hull-down shot at the Lamprey. The problem with SheVa guns was that "hull-down" generally required something like a small river valley; the moraine was as good as he was going to get.

But when the other two lifted, they would be in a position to rake Forty-Two's position from the north. The question was whether to engage them as they came in view or after the leading Lamprey.

"Sergeant Darden," he called to the driver. "Swing us around to the south side of the moraine with the gun about forty degrees to the angle of the slope. We'll take the current Lamprey as it bears then continue around the slope to engage the others." He switched to the SheVa frequency and glanced at the battlefield schematic. "Twenty-Three, prepare to move out. As we engage the first Lamprey, engage the first of the trailers. The we'll gang up on number three."

"Got it, sir," called the other gun. "Time to show these ACS pussies what 'heavy metal' really means."

* * *

Duncan just sighed as the ground really started to shake. The secondary screen showed another hill—this one much less artistic; it had buildings sticking out of it—coming apart as the second SheVa went into action, its cantilevered gun pointing to the east.

It suddenly occurred to Duncan that the gun was not pointing particularly high in the sky. He looked at the gun, looked towards the probable target and had just enough time to say: "Oh, shit," before the weapon fired.

* * *

The rounds for the SheVa guns used the equivalent of a battleship 16" gun "max charge." The bullet, however, was a sabot round, a depleted uranium "arrow" surrounded by a thermoplastic "shoe." The bullet, therefore, was very light compared to the standard 16" gun "round." And instead of a rifled barrel, which permitted a round to stabilize in flight by spin, but also retarded the speed of the round, it was a smoothbore. The barrel was also extended to nearly three times the length of a standard sixteen-inch barrel, thus permitting more of the energy from the charge to be imparted to the bullet.

Since round speed is a function of energy imparted versus round weight and barrel drag, the round left the barrel at speeds normally obtainable only by spacecraft.

The plastic "shoe" fell off within half a mile and what was left was an eight-inch-thick, six-foot-long, pointed uranium bar with tungsten "fins" on the back. The fins stabilized its flight. And fly it did crossing the twenty kilometers to the target, trailing a line of silver fire, in just under two seconds. However, such speed and power do not come without some minor secondary effects.

Duncan dug plasteel fingers in the bedrock as the hurricane of wind hit. The sonic boom, which shattered windows and even walls in the hospital down the hill, was almost an afterthought to the wind. It was the wind, driven to tornado speed, which tore at buildings and people throughout Rochester, ripping off roofs, toppling walls, turning trucks on their sides and pitching troops around like bowling pins.