by John Ringo
When the lights came back on it was to reveal the last of the group exiting a perfectly cleaned room. The only thing suspicious about it was that most living rooms do not look like a factory clean room. The body bag had already disappeared into the maw of the evidence van. Once both groups loaded up the two vans pulled out without, as far as Papa O’Neal could determine, a single word being exchanged. One of the white-suits had donned mufti and drove the rent-a-car. From the time the point man entered the living room, less than an hour had elapsed. The only face they saw was the white-suit and he was wearing dark sunglasses and a beard.
“Damn,” whispered Cally. “Who were those masked men?”
“I dunno,” answered Papa O’Neal with a broad smile. “But they sure knew what they were doing.” Fellow professionals were so hard to find.
CHAPTER 55
The Pentagon, VA, United States of America, Sol III
0424 EDT October 11th, 2004 ad
Jack Horner stared at the map-screen and wondered what in hell he was supposed to do. The roads out of the Arlington pocket were jammed with refugees. Turning the corps around had thrown the whole evacuation plan into a cocked hat and it had yet to recover. Although the interstates had been cleared of stalled vehicles, the side roads had become so gridlocked that virtually no one could get on the major arteries.
Most of the evacuees had panicked when the Tenth Corps had been destroyed. They did not understand that it would take the Posleen hours and hours to move around the Occoquan Reservoir and that Ninth Corps was in the way. Quantico — which had become the graveyard of the corps it once hosted — was a bare thirty minutes from Arlington. Faced with a nonmoving traffic jam, many had turned off their cars and started walking.
These vehicles now created a nearly impassable obstacle to movement. Many of those on foot had made it to the interstates where they were being picked up with buses. But many were wandering aimlessly northward on back roads, imagining that the Posleen were right behind them. These lost souls would eventually find their way to the Potomac bridges and safety. But many would be caught on the wrong side. Too many. The current guess was hundreds of thousands.
Normally, in exercises, he would be sending in flying armored columns about now. Their purpose would be to slow up and misdirect the Posleen while military police backed by light armor would be rounding up, and in some cases driving, the refugees.
Unfortunately that would have been the task of either the Tenth Corps, which was no more, or Ninth Corps, which was fading fast.
Part of Eighth Corps, the One Hundred Fifth Infantry Division, had arrived in northern D.C., but they were scattered hither and yon. It would take them a while — quite a while if recent history was anything to judge by — to get all the armored vehicles off the lowboys and the units assembled. And the idea of flying columns with those troops was a joke. Three months before he had sent an entire MP brigade from Fort Bragg to Fort Dix to put down a mutiny by the same unit. They were just as likely to run back to New Jersey as throw themselves between the Posleen and civilians.
And then there were the landings. Over fourteen B-Decs had exited hyperspace in the last twenty-four hours. Four had been totally destroyed by the remaining fighters and frigates. But that had been at the cost of three frigates.
The PDCs were still in their cleft fork. Designed to stop the landings, they were unable to perform that function, instead being held back to stop liftoffs on the part of the landers. Despite that, Europe had lost twelve of their total of twenty Planetary Defense Centers. China had lost eight, America four.
But the landings were occurring everywhere. There had even been one in Phoenix, for Christ’s sake. With more Posleen coming in from God-knew-where, he could not totally strip any area of its local defenders. But he needed to get troops from somewhere.
He knew that the maps and graphs were not reality, but they were all he had to work with. The chart of Ninth Corps strength was dropping like a waterfall as more and more Posleen charged into the gap between Lake Jackson and the Occoquan. The icon of the Second of the Five-Fifty-Fifth was nearly to the staging point behind Lake Jackson, but even a flank attack would hardly stop the Posleen at this point. Hell, it might just point them to the way around. So far they hadn’t tried that.
There was only one mobile unit left at Indiantown Gap, the closest base to Arlington that hadn’t been emptied. Harrisburg had a brigade of the Twenty-Eighth Mech to defend the area. So. Time to dump out the tacklebox. And call a few people out of hiding.
* * *
The gentle rocking of the five-ton truck as it negotiated the stop-and-go traffic of the interstate was at first maddening and then lulling. But Michael O’Neal was heading to the sound of distant musketry as fast as he could.
Every time a unit stopped for a rest or the truck he was riding on broke down he hitched a ride with another unit. Usually the Fleet uniform alone would guarantee a ride. Once he had traded on his name. Once it had been necessary to get a higher chain of command involved. But it was slow going. He wasn’t worried that the Posleen would go away; they were going to be around for weeks at least. But he was worried about the company being thrown into battle with Nightingale in command. It was his nightmare come true.
So he was nearly asleep when the AID chirped.
“Incoming call from General Horner.”
Mike sighed and didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Accept.”
“Mike?”
“General.”
There was a pause. “We tried.”
“I know.”
Another pause. “We’ve got a situation…”
“Refugees.”
“Yeah,” the general sighed.
Mike flicked his eyes open. At this point the AID could practically read his mind and a hologram of the battlezone suddenly appeared in the troop compartment. The soldiers who were awake stirred uneasily. Suddenly, without a word of command from the Fleet Strike officer, a hologram of the battle over the eastern United States was floating in the darkened interior of the truck. The lights from the next truck in the convoy partially washed it out. But then the AID polarized that area and created a shadow zone.
It was as advanced as radio to an aborigine and just as alien. As superficially sophisticated as the soldiers were, the technology was still stunning.
The AID sketched out probable movement rates for the scattered evacuees in Arlington. Then the time for the Posleen to reach them, assuming that the Ninth Corps lasted as long as anticipated. Then it sketched in the best possible movement time for the MI battalion. The three washes of color clearly missed proper intersection.
“We’ll be too late,” Mike said quietly. Everyone expected the cavalry, yellow flags flying, to come rushing in at the last moment. Well, this time the cavalry was just too far away and scattered to the winds. After all his careful preparations, it was coming down to too little, too late.
“I’m ordering the movement anyway. I’ve got a gut that the worst point is going to be around the Fourteenth Street bridge.”
“Yeah,” Mike nodded, “makes sense. It’s almost the last one in the line going east, it’s a chokepoint and everybody knows where it is.” The bridge was overlooked by Arlington Cemetery and led directly to the Lincoln Memorial.
“Yeah. I’m expecting that once the refugees are in contact, that will be where the biggest backup is. And the Third Infantry is planning on holding the south side as long as they can.”
“Let me guess.”
“Yeah, the CO more or less said that the Posleen could have Arlington Heights over his dead body.”
“And he meant it literally.” The Old Guard was fanatical about Arlington. Much more so than about any passing President or minor monuments. However, the unit was primarily ceremonial and had virtually no heavy weapons. “Well, I suppose one more stupid symbolic action won’t hurt any more than all the others.”
“He’s our President, Captain O’Neal,” the general said quietly. The rebuke was clear but
Mike could tell the general’s heart wasn’t in it.
“Your President,” Mike said just as quietly. “We renounce our citizenship when we join the Fleet. Remember? Sir?”
The statement was greeted by silence.
“Have you told the battalion they’re moving, yet?” Mike asked, changing the subject.
“No, I’m going to call Major Givens right after we get done.”
“I need to be there, General.” Mike flicked the hologram away with a wave of his hand and puffed out a breath of air. The fog from his breath was misty white in the light from the following truck.
“Well, I don’t see how, Captain.”
“Helicopter.”
“Are you nuts! The Posleen’ll destroy it before you’re halfway to Indiantown Gap! Hell, look at the ambush of Second batt!”
“Fluke,” snapped Mike, pulling up the map again. This time he took command of the display, tapping on vectors and assigning threat levels. “Shelly, cross-link this to General Horner.”
At those words, heard throughout the compartment, the troops realized who the Fleet captain had been arguing with. Their heads ducked as if he were going to be hit by lightning at any moment. Mike paid them no mind.
“We’re almost to Winchester. Have a bird meet me there. Blackhawk, Kiowa, I don’t care. We’ll stay low by slipping through the gap at Harper’s Ferry. I’ll intercept the unit somewhere on Interstate 83.”
There was silence on the other end as Horner studied the schematic. The hologram had the plotted positions of Posleen and probable fields of fire. If an aircraft stayed below one hundred feet, all the lines ended well short of the route he had sketched in. “You’re assuming two things that are not true. One: that the Posleen will not take off. If a lander lifts it throws this whole thing away. Two: That there are no more landers coming in. We’ve had three landings in the past hour.”
“And if one is coming in, or lifts, the schematic changes. Shelly will keep it continually updated. That’s what she’s for. We land if we have to until the threat is past.”
“I don’t like this, Mike. I feel it is an unnecessary risk of a vital asset.”
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat. He considered Horner an alternate father but he was never really sure what the general felt. That was about as good a compliment as any son could want. “Were you talking about me, or the helicopter?” he joked. “Never mind. I’m not vital, sir. But I do think that it would be a good idea if I was in on this operation.”
Again there was a long silence on the line. “I’ll get you the helicopter. I agree we probably don’t have much time.”
CHAPTER 56
Brentsville, VA, United States of America, Sol III
0446 EDT October 11th, 2004 ad
“L-T,” Keren hissed.
Lieutenant Leper lurched awake, AIW in hand. Keren grabbed the barrel and pointed it upward and away.
The lieutenant shook his head a few times, then peered blearily at Keren. “What time is it?” The inside of the Bradley was pitch black.
“Four thirty, L-T. The ACS just got in. They’re assembling up behind us. The colonel, he’d like to talk to you. I told him you was sleepin’…”
Leper snorted. Knowing Keren he’d done more than just tell the colonel. “It’s okay. I was just back when we lost Three Track.”
“Yeah. Like you said, L-T, we’re fine until we’re on charge zero.” Keren shuddered. Mortar platoons aren’t ever supposed to see the enemy. Those that do rarely survive the experience.
The lieutenant lurched upward and automatically checked his AIW. He jacked a grenade into the chamber, checked that both the rifle and grenade launcher were on safe and scrambled across the scattered gear and sleeping bodies to the troop hatch.
It was black as pitch outside, the stars glittering in the clear sky. They added nothing, however, to the illumination. Leper could hear the chuckle of Kettle Run nearby. The run took a turn to the north as it approached the Occoquan reservoir, then looped back. The remnants of the company were assembled in the middle of the loop astride Brentsville Road.
He regretted not grabbing a pair of night-vision goggles. The power had been sundered to Manassas and the surrounding area, so the backscatter that was so difficult to avoid, that contributed at least an erg of illumination on the darkest night in the eastern United States, was entirely absent. He could barely see his hand in front of his face.
He took a step forward and his Kevlar ran into a metal wall.
Leper could vaguely make out a looming presence. “Lieutenant Leper?” the apparition asked.
“Yes,” said the lieutenant, rubbing his forehead where the Kevlar helmet had gouged him.
“Lieutenant Colonel Bishop, Fleet Strike.”
“Yes, sir,” said the tired lieutenant. Two hours sleep after all that they had been through was simply not enough.
“What’s the situation, Lieutenant?”
Leper tried to digest the question and had a sudden urge to scream at the fresh, technologically sophisticated officer. What’s the situation? The situation is we’re all fucked! The word from Ninth Corps was that they couldn’t hold out much longer. How anyone was going to retreat with the Posleen right at their heels was a good question. It was going to be ten times as bad as Occoquan. Then at least the Posleen had been scattered. In this case they would be massed and right up the corps’s backside.
And his units were on the wrong side of the Ninth Corps. Since they were guarding the south flank, if the corps broke the Posleen would be swarming in behind them. And that was just a matter of time. There was a pretty strong rumor that MP units had been stationed behind the line with orders to shoot deserters.
None of it would matter for much longer. When the levee broke, none of it would matter a hill of beans.
“We’re holding the south flank of the corps, sir.” Actually they were holding the south flank of Lake Jackson. Lake Jackson itself was anchoring the south flank of the corps. “The area has been quiet. We had one God King come this way with one of their companies, but we took care of it without significant casualties.”
There was less than a brigade in total holding the line. Most of them weren’t even infantry. Clerks and cooks and the officers’ band. Everything that was left of Tenth Corps less DivArty.
The casualties when the Posleen company hit had been less than a platoon’s worth. On the other hand, this was all that was left of a corps. There was some sort of calculation there that he didn’t want to think about. Would that platoon be the equivalent of a battalion to a corps? And if so, should they be considered the same as the loss of a battalion? “So far so good?” he finished.
“I understand that you were in the retreat from the interstate?” The question was asked without any emotional overtones, but Leper felt Keren bristling behind him.
“We were the rear guard. Sir,” the lieutenant said in an absolute monotone.
“What do you estimate the Posleen forces as?”
“Sir?”
“How many of them are there, Lieutenant?” the colonel asked with iron patience.
The exhausted officer goggled at him for a moment. “Is this a trick question?”
“No.” The blank of faceted plasteel was nearly invisible and even if it weren’t there was no way to see the officer’s expression. The question was nonsensical.
“Sir, there are more than the stars in the sky, more than the blades of grass, more than the trees in the forest. One good look is all it takes. They fill the world from horizon to horizon and every fucking one of them is trying to kill you!”
The armor was still and silent for a pause. “So, how did you survive?”
Leper blinked rapidly and thought about all the ones that didn’t. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I oughta be dead.” He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“We lost — oh, Christ. Forget losing the company and the Old Man to the artillery. We lost ’em like a river loses water! Sometimes I’d have fifty, sixty troop
s. The next thing you know, we’d just stop for a second to… to get a breather, to… to reconsolidate, hell, to find out who the hell was hanging on the vehicles. And then they’d come. And… and the next thing you knew we were back on the road, running as fast as we could. And we’d have maybe two squads. And that’d happen over and over.” His hand was over his eyes now and he shook his head continuously.
“I don’t know how many went through my hands, Colonel. I don’t know how many I lost along the road. I don’t know how many we passed. Some of them just gave up. Some of them were injured. Some of them were just tired of running. I don’t know their names!” The lieutenant drew himself up and tried to clear his eyes.
The colonel reached up and removed his helmet. The solid pyramid of plasteel came away with a sucking sound. A tap of a control and the suit began to glow a faint blue, just enough to give some vision.
“Have you been debriefed at all?” the senior officer asked in a gentle, surprised voice.
“No, sir,” Keren answered for the lieutenant when the officer just shook his head. “When we rolled into Ninth Corps territory they got rid of us like we had the plague. They just told us to come over here and get our shit together. And don’t walk on the grass.”
The colonel nodded his head at the answer. “Well, Lieutenant, I think you did just fine.” The tone was firm and believable. The colonel put his hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “Son, that was hell. I know. I’ve been in hell too.”
The lieutenant looked up at the officer and took a deep, shuddering breath.
“My company had a week-long firefight in Dak-To. We would lose a couple and then get a resupply then lose them as often as not. I never knew who the hell was in the holes. At the end of the whole thing the VC just melted back into the jungle. I had fifteen left in the company that started the battle, including me. I had worked my way through nearly two hundred troops in those weeks. I’d use them like pouring water in a well. I didn’t recognize any of those names. Nobody else in the company did either.”