"John G. Hemry - Stark's War 3 - Stark's Crusade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemry John G)

Vic Reynolds nodded and keyed her own response. “I think so. You’re right. They’d be
under cover and protected from immediate detection and attack.”

“Sure they would. I’ll swing a couple of my hogs that way. Milheim, I’d appreciate some of
your boys and girls coming along.”

“Roger,” Milheim acknowledged. “I’m sending the two nearest platoons to link up with
your armor.”

Stark leaned back, nodding in approval as he watched the commands fly across the tactical
display and units on the landing field begin the move in response. He hesitated, then glanced at
Reynolds. “So did I just do something stupid? Get all nervous and jerk around the troops on
the field for nothing?”

“No. Ethan, you may or may not be right about a reaction force being hidden there, but it
makes sense. And thinking about that is exactly what you should be doing from back here.
You know what it’s like in combat. Too much going on too fast. I think the troops out there
appreciate your thinking about things they don’t have time to focus on.”

“Maybe—” Stark began, whatever else he might have said choked off as alarms pulsed on
the display.

Two armored cars shot onto the landing field, erupting from a depression near the known
warehouse locations, spitting light-caliber shells as they came. Behind the armored cars, a
couple of platoons of infantry came dashing out, firing rapidly. Instead of surprising a widely
dispersed force, though, they ran head-on into the scratch force Lamont and Milheim had just
assembled.

The light rounds from one of the armored cars glanced uselessly off the carapace of one of
Lamont’s tanks, which swung its turret and spat a single round at the attacking vehicle. The
heavy shell decapitated the armored car, striking just beneath its weapon mount and blowing
the entire top of the vehicle into a long, high parabola extended by the low lunar gravity.

The first armored car’s gun mount was still tumbling in languid flight against the bright
stars above when the nearest squad of Milheim’s infantry targeted its companion. At close
range, the infantry weapons punched through the light armor of the enemy vehicle, riddling it
with penetrations. The armored car staggered under the barrage, then ceased firing, its gun
mount locked in place, before grounding and sliding to a prolonged halt, atmosphere venting
from a dozen holes. A single surviving crew member spilled out, arms upraised in surrender.

The surprised enemy ground troops targeted Lamont’s tanks. Not a great choice, Stark
thought, but the only chance they’ve got is to take out that armor fast. Not that they’ll be able to do
that with Milheim’s infantry hitting them. A single enemy antiarmor round detonated just short
of its target as the tank’s point defenses scored a just-in-time hit. Then the enemy antiarmor
teams started dropping as Milheim’s soldiers hit them with a blizzard of fire. Belatedly, the
enemy infantry tried to shift targets to hit the other ground fighters, but then the tanks began
flaying them with their own secondary armament. A brief scattering of fire from the enemy
forces tapered off into nothing, then the enemy began broadcasting surrender messages as
individual soldiers stood, dropping their weapons and raising their hands.