Part 32: First Day on the Bridge

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Coffee...and read the news

A little after sunup, I was drinking coffee and reviewing news blogs.

A particular item caught my eye. I stopped scanning and read it thoroughly.

According to the Blog ….

“Abdul Haadi Sadek was a holy warrior. He was a fanatical devotee of the one true religion. The Prophet, bless his holy name, said that he would receive 72 virgins in heaven if he killed non-believers. Furthermore he was instructed to kill and be killed for the one true God. Lastly he was told to terrorize non-believers. At least that was what his preacher had told him. Abdul and his buddies couldn’t read.”

“Abdul and his stalwart companions Mahuroos Awan, Ihaab Masood, Saeed Younes and Asrif Islam intended to do just that. They intended to kill infidels and break their stuff. They had an old 82mm Pakistani Mortar. They’d been trained in it’s use. They knew what to do…and they were ready.”

“The Martyrs of the one true religion were going to take out the Bifrost Bridge. The Blasphemous name was reason enough to destroy it. Abdul had no idea why an elevated, rainbow colored bridge would have such a name but it did. Abdul didn’t read nor did he go to movies. He’d been told by his preacher that the bridge was an affront to God. That was good enough for Abdul, it must be true. He and his band of brothers were going to blow it up…with mortar fire.”

“Abdul had been trained by the best, and he had innate talent. He was a psychopath, as were many of his cult. He and his brothers parked their truck near a school. If the Texans returned fire the school would be endangered. Surely the Texans would think of the children and not fire back ?”

“ In no time they were ready. It took very little time to untarp the weapon. The old mortar was said to be capable of 30 rounds a minute. That should be enough to destroy the suspended highway. It wouldn’t take long to fire all their ammunition and drive away. It would be all over before anyone had time to react. Two of the band would use AK’s to shoot anyone who got too near.”

“They did that. They weren’t exceptionally skilled but managed to fire one round after another at a fairly good rate. The overhead highway was less than three klicks away. It was a HUGE target. How could they miss?”

“The Bifrost Bridge is the worlds largest man made structure by far, nothing else is even close. It’s still growing. It is also the most technologically advanced, more so than anyone other than a Heimdall knew or would believe.”

“It has been said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic”

“The bridge might as well have been Magic.”

“Everything about the bridge is overkill and is multiply redundant. The slow moving mortar rounds were detected by multi-frequency, scanning LIDAR immediately after they were fired. The Bifrost IFF instantly identified them as hostile. Gjallarhorn HEL beams locked onto the targets and vaporized all the rounds quickly. One after the other faster than they had been fired, as soon as the last ones reached sufficient height above the mortar tube, they vanished. Such was the intensity of the beam, such was the tightness of the focus…that the mortar rounds flashed directly to plasma. Nothing, not the tiniest sliver of metal, drifted to the ground.”

“That was that…except for the clean up. Even before the mortar rounds had been disposed of, coil guns had launched a flight of Counter Battery Killer Bees (CBKB). The Bee canisters passed the incoming mortar rounds in flight. Almost before the last mortar left the tube canisters had burst overhead and a swarm of robot killer bees were englobing the launch vehicle. Abdul and his buddies were caught red handed. They were literally videoed in the act. A Heimdall in a control node reviewed the situation briefly, put down his coffee… and sent an execute signal.

“The killer bees did that. They executed the holy warriors. Each of the idiot psychos felt the impact of many bees…briefly…then the bees bored into their bodies…and exploded.”

“No survivors. Oddly enough no one claimed the vehicle nor it’s contents. The bandit gang had just donated a truck and an antique mortar to a local school. It should be worth something, perhaps as scrap metal.”

To Be Continued
The Next Episode is
Part 33: First Day on the Bridge…
The Last episode was
Part 31 : PreTrip…
the first episode was
Part 1 : Winter Storm

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I'm

@everittdmickey
.
I write
SPECULATIVE FICTION
I have other books on Amazon.
Sometimes I also comment on the news

Sometimes it's hard to tell fiction from the news.