by John Ringo
* * *
Ersin watched as the private hammered in the last iron stake topped with a golden silhouette of two busty females in a reclined position and shook his head.
“Yah know, boss,” said Mueller, “somebody’s bound to have a cow about this.”
* * *
“And the defenses at Libby Hill are as complete as was planned for this battle,” continued the High Commander. “Later on we’ll build concrete bunkers and such, but the Twelfth Corps is going to have it as good as it gets on such short notice. And we’re bringing in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Corps from the Carolinas. Richmond is going to be a graveyard of Posleen,” he stated definitively.
“What about their data security?” asked the secretary of defense.
“There was a cyberpunk team in Richmond on an unrelated mission,” answered the High Commander. “They checked the Twelfth Corps’s IVIS and FireTac systems. Both were infected by a virus that apparently noted the detection and performed an autodestruct.
“They’re picking apart the remnants right now and scratching their heads like everyone else. But as far as NSA, the Cybers and CONARC’s own Data Security department can determine, Twelfth Corps is fully mission capable, including all automated systems. On the other hand, they’ve also zeroed every weapon in the Corps on particular targets and are only awaiting the Posleen to open fire. They really don’t need FireTac or IVIS.”
“So you’re saying that this battle should go as planned?” asked the secretary, sarcastically.
“I did not plan the previous engagement,” said the High Commander.
“No, General,” said the President. “I planned that engagement, as I made plain on national television. What can we do about Ninth Corps?”
The general shook his head again. “We can pull out some of the supply personnel, but not many. I mean, there’s a reason for every person who is that far forward. We don’t have a terrain obstacle to interpose between Posleen and our support as we did with Tenth, so our downside is actually higher.
“If… when, the Posleen break through the defenses, they’ll be able to engage the support elements, including artillery and supply units, that they weren’t able to assault at the Dale City defense. Casualty estimates on this battle are double or triple the Tenth Corps battle.”
“And there’s nothing we can do?” asked the secretary, incredulously.
“First Army has committed all of the Tenth Corps units that are reasonably cohesive to reinforce Ninth along with Tenth’s Corps and division artillery, which was mainly behind the Occoquan. He was sending the Eighth and Eleventh Corps in to reinforce them, but he was countermanded by CONARC.”
“Why?” demanded the secretary.
“If Ninth can hold with all six divisions, two corps of artillery, and fixed, prepared positions, we’ll send them in to reinforce. If it can’t, and I do not expect it to, it is futile to throw away another sixty thousand troops. Besides,” he concluded, “First Army is strung from here to Boston. We’re parceling them along the Potomac at crossings. We might have to use them to extract the refugees.”
“What about the ACS battalion?” asked the President.
“They are on their way. They should be there about three hours after the battle is joined. At that point the plan is to send them around Lake Jackson and hit the Posleen in the flank.”
The overloaded tractor-trailers carrying the Third Battalion Five-Fifty-Fifth Mobile Infantry Regiment had left the secure Interstate 81 hours before. The laboring trucks packed with half-ton suits had crossed the outer Blue Ridge before descending into the Virginia horse country. This was no-man’s-land. Even the police had evacuated with the last civilians, heading to the Blue Ridge and safety.
To the troops, packed like sardines in the trucks, it had been a nightmarish ride. Although they each had hundreds of hours in their suits, lying on their backs under, in some cases, a dozen suits while swaying from side to side for hours in a tractor-trailer had been a shattering experience. There were several cases of troopers panicking; in one case the spasmodic gyrations of the panicked troop tore open the side of the truck, spilling two squads of ACS troopers out on the interstate to the general detriment of any vehicle that hit them. Between panic and motion nausea, the unit was in poor shape when the convoy ran into a Posleen ambush outside of Warrenton, VA.
The Posleen were not even skirmishers. The God King had gotten his fill of fighting humans when he lost almost his entire oolt to the guns of the North Carolina. Having lost all interest in engaging artillery he struck out in the direction of least resistance. He was one of the rare Posleen that was not spoiling for a fight.
Along the way he lost a few more oolt’os to random armed humans. They mostly fired at long range and from cover, but were remarkably accurate and persistent. And the oolt learned quickly not to bother with the residences. The few that did not explode in his face yielded only scraps of food and occasional bits of light treasure. Many had been cleared of anything of value. The God King and his forces followed U.S. 17 northward through the rolling hills of Spotsylvania, Stafford and Fauquier counties, past country farms, mostly deserted, and occasional clusters of houses. Nowhere did he encounter significant storehouses, but on the other hand he also did not encounter significant resistance; he felt it was a fair trade.
At the junction of 17 and 15/29 the group encountered a large abandoned vehicle. The cargo area revealed a vast storage of multiple types of foodstuffs. The side of the vehicle sported a picture of a food beast he had already encountered. The beast yielded a flat and tasteless food. The similarity in taste to the threshkreen caused some of the Kessentai to speculate that these might be the threshkreen’s nestlings. The disparate sizes and conformation argued against it. But the Posleen had seen stranger methods of reproduction.
However, the cargo vehicle had many other types of food, many of them oddly spiced and prepared. Some of the material, sporting a picture of a white avian, tasted remarkably like nestling.
Other than the storehouses of the thresh it was the finest booty taken so far. Obviously, the cargo vehicles were to be captured whenever possible. They had found three more on the way north. Only one contained more foodstuffs but the others had useful mixed supplies.
Thus, when the four vehicles hove into view, the oolt’os followed their carefully conveyed and simple orders to open fire on the motive portion of the lead vehicle.
When the tractor-trailer containing Alpha Company and part of the battalion staff jackknifed, the heavy and refractory suits tumbled through the light sidewalls of the trailer like buckshot through paper. The troopers were thrown through the air and tumbled along the ground for multiple meters. The trailing trucks slammed on their brakes and, as soon as they slowed to a survivable speed, the truckers dove out and took shelter in the roadside ditch.
Most of the troops tucked themselves into balls as they flew through the air, the inertia of the thousand-pound suits carrying them hundreds of feet in an uncontrolled tumble. Since the Posleen company was more or less in line with the inertia of the vehicle, several of the troopers and the battalion intelligence officer were carried into its midst.
The GalTech Armored Infantry Design Team had been composed of knowledgeable and careful individuals. They were people who had either experienced or extensively studied a variety of calamities. To a man, or in one case, woman, they were pessimists where combat was concerned; Murphy was an old and dear friend that they kept always at the forefront of their brains.
In addition, the conditions that the company was in were remarkably similar to an insertion technique briefly considered during the initial phases of development. Thus, when these particular conditions arose, a series of planned and legacy software reactions occurred.
Inertial compensators did not slow the suits, but rather served to remediate the effect on the users. The apparent roll was significantly reduced, while the visual conditions were matched to the apparent inertial effects. Thus, instead of feeling li
ke bowling balls, the luckless troopers found themselves wrestling with molasses. But the reduction allowed them to see what was coming and, at least partially, prepare.
Three of the troops tumbled into the midst of the Posleen were from Alpha weapons: Grim Reaper suits. Realizing that they might need close-range support on the way, the platoon leader had switched out all four weapons points for flechette cannons.
Composed of twelve-barreled light flechette guns, each flechette cannon could spew forty thousand lethal steel slivers a minute. Of course, like all Grim Reaper systems, they could also run through the onboard munitions in less than six minutes of combat. Grim Reapers always preferred to be close to their ammo sources.
Two of the weapons troops, through a combination of luck and gymnastics, ended up on their feet and practically side by side in the midst of the Posleen. Most of the Posleen lining their backtrack were dead, or well on their way, but the final group that cushioned their stop was struggling to their feet even as the Reapers opened fire.
Dropping all four cannons to horizontal, the two suit troops went back-to-back and began to spin in place, throwing out a horizontal steel rain of destruction. The steel razors shredded any Posleen in their path, the yellow centaurs tearing apart under the fatal onslaught of the hypervelocity flechettes.
Unfortunately, there was no way for two troops to cover the entire circuit. Posleen on every side hurled themselves on the explosive dervishes in their midst, monomolecular blades rising and falling in awful cadence. In moments the luckless Grim Reapers were taken apart like lobsters.
However, their sacrifice was not in vain. The violence of their entry into the Posleen force had thrown it off balance just a moment too long. The moment’s breathing space was enough time for many of the troopers of the ambushed ACS to regain their feet and their wits.
Before the Posleen could regain the upper hand, fast-thinking troopers whipped their grav-guns to level and opened fire.
A hurricane of silver lightning crashed into the remaining Posleen. The God King had lost most of the oolt at Market Crossing. When the tsunami of fire crashed into it the remainder was washed away in seconds; the few scattered defensive rounds of the Posleen disappeared into nothingness.
The faithless and luckless God King attempted to escape the tidal wave of relativistic fire, but was picked out of the sky by a cone of fire from dozens of troops. The detonation of the energy matrix was muted by the kinetic explosions of thousands of rounds intersecting on the point in space once occupied by the vanished saucer. Of the God King, naught was left but a whiff of putrescence on the wind.
Lieutenant Colonel Calvin Bishop pulled himself up out of the wrecked cab of the third truck and sat on the mangled door. His AID was already cataloging the damage and he grimaced at the digests. The battalion was mostly intact — the losses were actually minimal — but the ambush on top of the devastating ride over the Blue Ridge had combined into nightmare.
He was in the middle of nowhere, thirty miles from the battle and already four hours behind schedule. He wasn’t sure his lone battalion could exactly turn the tide, but if they made it to the Ninth Corps’s line in time they might be able to extract the corps. It had become something of an instant tradition among the ACS.
He took a brief moment to contemplate the situation and began to snap orders to his company commanders. They had a battle to catch.
CHAPTER 53
Alexandria, VA, United States of America, Sol III
2246 EDT October 10th, 2004 ad
Monsignor O’Reilly carefully considered the items to carry with him. With the Posleen rapidly approaching his small house in Arlington, he was rather certain that he would be on foot for the majority of the next several days.
There were so many things to choose from. His collection of books and manuscripts dating back to the twelfth century. His antiques and archaeological treasures gathered throughout the world. Complex electronics to decipher the secrets of ancient and modern times. On the other hand several of those would have to be thoroughly destroyed.
Finally, recognizing that the only true treasure to the cause resided in his cranium, he packed a bookbag with some socks, easy-to-prepare food and bottled water. He took a last look around the comfortable room, set the autodestruct sequence and walked out the front door. He didn’t bother to lock it.
He debated whether to walk or drive the half mile to VA 123. He finally decided to drive. The traffic might have cleared and, if it had not, every little bit of energy savings would help. He shouldered the bag and started towards his late-model Buick, but froze as a dark-tinted Suburban with its lights off appeared out of the darkness and pulled up in front of his house.
He thought for a moment if there was anything incriminating in the house or on his person. He quickly decided that there was not and just as quickly decided that it probably wouldn’t matter to his visitors. He braced himself for what would come next and barely flinched when the back door was flung back to reveal the Indowy Aelool and Paul des Jardins in the light from the interior.
“Get in,” snapped Paul, all trace of the dapper dilettante vanished.
O’Reilly considered the situation for a moment — it was a common trap — then hurried over to the SUV. “Just because it’s a tank doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to negotiate traffic.” The heavyset driver pulled away without a word and headed away from VA 123.
“We have made arrangements,” said the Indowy. “We will be picked up by a Himmit stealth ship along the Burke Run.”
“There’s another problem,” said des Jardins, gesturing towards the Indowy with his chin and turning to look out the window. The large bag at his feet could only hold weapons and O’Reilly smiled gently. You could take the boy out of DGSE but you could never take DGSE out of the boy. The hand inside the fine Saville Row suit undoubtedly cradled some lethal bit of French hardware.
“Indeed,” continued the little Indowy. “We intercepted a termination order originating from the Tir Dol Ron’s office.”
“Intercepted?” asked the Jesuit incredulously.
“The Bane Sidhe is very ancient and very well-represented among the Indowy,” stated the diminutive alien. His batlike face wrinkled in a complicated fashion. Scholar or no, the expression was far too complex for O’Reilly to decipher. It seemed one part satisfaction and three parts exasperation. “Our ineffectiveness at direct action stems from many of the same sources as the Darhel’s. And our response has ever mirrored theirs: Let humans do the dirty work.”
The former DGSE agent snorted. “To our discredit.”
“I am aware that the difference is often not one of execution but of goals,” admitted O’Reilly, wryly. “However, how does this termination order effect us? Is it for a member of the Société? Or of the Franklins?”
“No,” admitted the Indowy with another grimace. “The individual affected is unaware of the actions of the societies. However, the Bane Sidhe are in the individual’s debt. Furthermore, we believe that the individual may represent a strong destabilizing factor to the Darhel.”
“One individual is not worth risking the Société,” stated the Monsignor definitively.
“Not normally. However, this individual has repeatedly demonstrated traits that make him outside the norm. And the Bane Sidhe ask it. We have aided the Société much. This is nothing compared to what we have done for the Société!”
“What about you, Paul?”
“All of our Marion teams are in the Northeast right now. Otherwise we would be handling it.”
“So, you think it worth the risk. Where is it that you need help?” asked the Jesuit, warily.
“We need Team Conyers.”
The monsignor smiled thinly and tried not to let the surprise show on his face. He hoped like hell the Darhel did not have the Mother Church so thoroughly penetrated.
* * *
The robe-clad monk knelt in the dirt of the well-tended vineyard and carefully tasted a grape. His mouth worked as he sw
irled the juices around, gathering every last nuance. The harvest would have to be gathered soon or there might not be one. The grape lacked that last bit of sweetness, but the lack might be to the good. Surely the wine of such a bitter time should not be sweet. The gentle wind of the night was a boon to his soul. The night was still the same, even as the world had come apart around them. The sheltering night had not changed.
He rose to his feet with the grace of a dancer as one of the senior brothers approached. The senior brother gestured for him to follow and headed towards one of the outbuildings of the monastery without a word. The monk saw others being gathered and realized that there must have been a special calling. The senior brother turned aside as he entered the building.
The assistant abbot would retire to his cell and pray continuously until the team returned. He remembered his own days on the teams and feared that many would not be at the next vespers. A call from the Société was so often a death sentence. They were like the French Foreign Legion in a way; the only thing that mattered to the Société was the mission and damn the casualties. To the Benedictines, the importance was the ritual and the art. That is why, contrary to popular myth, the special troops of the Catholic Church were not Jesuits. Shao-Lin did not own the monopoly they thought.
The monk perused the briefing under red “battle-lights” as his black- and gray-clad brothers assembled the instruments of their arts. The mission was complex but not terribly so. The gravest question was time. And of course going in with no communications and limited intelligence.
The monks had special dispensation to speak during briefings. There were, however, no questions. They took up their equipment, changed their clothes and loaded into the darkened vans without a word.
* * *