The Tejano Conflict by Steve Perry Page B

across the water like a thrown stone.
    The soldiers on the other side of the stream began making a lot of noise as they realized their swimmer had been shot. They would be seeking cover, but that didn’t matter; from where they were, they weren’t a threat unless they knew her position, and they didn’t yet . . .
    The second swimmer came up, and his mistake was that he didn’t roll onto his back but stuck most of his face up.
    Kay was almost exactly on target, a couple of centimeters off. She fired again, and immediately rolled to her left, five quick revolutions. She crawled quickly forward, then angled farther to her left.
    Either they spotted the suppressed muzzle flash or backwalked it with spotting computer because her former position was raked with full-auto fire. The bullets chewed up the ground and bushes, but she was eight meters away and moving toward her second-choice location.
    She didn’t have to hit any more of them now, only make them keep their heads down and stop trying to build their bridge.
    As she crawled toward the cover of a tree, she glanced at the water.
    The second swimmer’s body floated downstream.
    Enemy troops were dug in.
    She toggled her com on. No worry about them knowing she was out here now.
    â€œOn-station,” she said. “Enemy advance delayed.”
    â€“ – – – – –
    â€œPark it behind that stone wall, right here,” Jo ordered.
    â€œSah.”
    A meter-and-a-half-high wall of natural rock surrounded one of the larger houses, a two-story monstrosity that had boarded-up windows and part of the roof on one end collapsed. Somebody had tacked a gray tarp over the sunken section of roof, and there was a small garden planted to the rear of the place, rows of assorted plants, some of which bore green and red fruits or vegetables.
    Stone wouldn’t stop big artillery, but there wasn’t going to be any big artillery, and it would keep small arms and machine-gun rounds at bay.
    Singh parked the cart.
    The other vehicles moved into their assigned locations, and within a minute, everybody had exited.
    The grenadiers scrambled to their positions, and the two mortar teams hurried to set up.
    Jo saw the enemy column approaching on the road from the other direction. They were moving fast but by now must know they were beaten. Jo saw several drones crisscrossing the sky over the enemy convoy, some of them theirs, some hers. As she watched, the drones fired at each other, and some shot at the vehicles below. Probably those were hers, but you never knew. Friendly fire—an oxymoron—was always a danger once the war went hot. Excited troops would sometimes shoot at anything that moved without worrying if it was their own.
    â€œMo?”
    â€œDialed in, Cap,” came the mortar-crew chief’s vox.
    The weapons had been preset to hit at a certain distance, and the flight time for the shells calculated in. In theory, as soon as the lead vehicle reached a predetermined spot, there would be an explosion waiting for it . . .
    As she watched, however, the dozen vehicles on the road below began to split. Several of the smaller ones veered off the road and began evasive maneuvers across the flat dirt, kicking up clouds of dust. The leading vehicles stopped.
    â€œRecalibrating,” the mortar CC said.
    That would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? That they would have just driven right into the hard rain . . .
    On com, Jo said: “Who is running our drones?”
    â€œWhy, that would be me,” Gramps came back.
    â€œI wouldn’t be upset if you stitched that lead APC some before it gets to those oak trees.”
    â€œYour wish is my command.”
    He was dozens of klicks away, but that didn’t matter; you could run a drone from halfway around the planet and then some—hardly any appreciable time lag at such short ranges.
    Jo watched one of the drones bank and zoom to follow