When the Devil Dances

by John Ringo

  But even the four-legged thresh of these hills made trails like that from time to time. Another patrol could have scattered them, driving them away from the road by their presence. It could even have been wild oolt'os; there were some of those in these death haunted hills.

  Rocket science indeed. Finally, cautiously, the normal moved towards the trails, searching and scenting for any clue. The trails came off of the road, crossed the field with some evidence of scattering or bedding, then went up into the hill beyond. He cautiously paralleled one of the trails. There was a scent of oil, a bite of gun-smell, that combination of propellants, metal and cleaners. But that could have come from anything. It could be in his nose from their own weapons. Finally he paused.

  The field was covered in thorn and grass, a simple triangle between the trees along the river, a road that paralleled it and the main road they were patrolling. The parallel road, a washed-out track now after the first onslaught cleared these hills, was also torn in the passage of whatever had made the trails. And in the mud on the far side, under the short cliff that terminated the field beyond, was a clear and unmistakable boot print.

  The normal didn't know it was a bootprint. But he now knew what his God had meant by "sign of threshkreen" for he had seen this before as well. And when he saw it, he lifted his railgun in the air and fired.

  * * *

  "Oh, bloody hell," Nichols said quietly.

  "Somebody spotted the path," Mueller added unnecessarily. "Jake?"

  "Sister, call for fire on that field, call for scatterable mines on our trail, too. Let's didee-mao, people."

  * * *

  Cholosta'an scratched up behind the head of the superior normal as he drew his blade. It bothered him to gather this one. The normal was, without a doubt, the best of his oolt'os, but he was wounded sore and the path of duty was obvious. Cholosta'an scratched the chosslain and told him how good he had been to find the trail of the threshkreen as he laid the monomolecular blade against the normal's throat.

  "Wait," Orostan said quietly. "Is that the one that found the trail?"

  "Yes, Oolt'ondai," the younger Kessentai answered. "It . . . bothers me to gather him. I have none better. But the way is clear."

  "Leave him. We will provide him with food. With enough food and rest he may grow well."

  "Even if he survives he will be crippled," Cholosta'an protested feebly. The idea was attractive, but the oolt'os would be nothing but a weight on his balance sheet.

  "If you will not support him, I will," Orostan said. "Keep the genes. Keep the material. Put him to the work of a Kenstain, that which he can do. We need such as he. And you have other things to do."

  "As you bid, Oolt'ondai," Cholosta'an said, sheathing the blade. He gave the oolt'os some of his own rations, a singular honor, and stood up. "Well, you suggested I give up half my oolt and that is, more or less, what has occurred."

  "Not exactly as I had intended," Orostan said. "But not without some good. We now have these damned threshkreen, this Lurp team, localized. We can put all our patrols on a few roads and narrow the area down even more. Once we have them in a tiny box we will find and destroy them if it takes the entire host to do it."

  "Good," Cholosta'an said savagely. "When we do I want to eat their hearts."

  Orostan hissed in humor. "I am no human lover, but they do have some good expressions. They refer to that as 'payback.' "

  CHAPTER 10

  Near Seed, GA, United States, Sol III

  0623 EDT Sunday September 14, 2009 ad

  Mosovich cursed bitterly. "I'm getting too old for this shit."

  "Yeah," Mueller whispered. "Tell me about it."

  Oakey Mountain Road was a tiny thread paralleling the Rabun/Habersham county line. The line itself followed the ridges that the team was using to avoid detection, but the road, not all that far away at most points, was generally obscured by the thick forests of the hills. This was their first clear glimpse, paused on the mountains above Lake Seed, and it was horrifying; the narrow trail was crawling with Posleen.

  "That's a couple of brigades' worth, Jake," Mueller whispered.

  "Yeah, and if they're there, they're going to be on Low Gap Road . . . They're boxing us."

  "Jake, Posleen don't do that," Mueller protested, ignoring the evidence of his own eyes.

  "Yeah, well, these Posleen do," Mosovich answered. "Sister Mary, are we secure?"

  "Yep," she answered. "There's a box over on the other side of Lake Rabun and I've put in a couple of new ones. We're solid laser back to corps."

  "Wake somebody up. I want a human being, not a machine. I think this mission is a bust and we're going to have to cut our way out."

  * * *

  The officer rubbed his eyes sleepily and took the proffered headset from the communications tech. "Major Ryan, FSDO. Who is this?"

  Ryan sometimes wondered if he wouldn't have made a greater contribution to the war effort in the Ten Thousand, a posting that came automatically with the tiny "Six Hundred" embroidered on the right chest of his BDU uniform. However, a brief but memorable "counseling session" with the Chief of Staff of the Army Corps of Engineers had convinced him that there were better places for him, and for the Army.

  The Ten Thousand generally depended on other units for their engineering support and their senior engineer was basically a liaison. Sergeant Leo, now suitably promoted to warrant rank, fulfilled the position perfectly. And it would be a dead end for a junior engineer who had realized he liked being an officer.

  Thus had started a series of usually high profile, and always critical, assignments. The first had been as junior aide to the Commander of the Corps of Engineers and almost all the others had involved positions equally challenging and career advancing. Even this last, a redesign of the Rabun Gap defenses, was a high profile job. He was, technically, just the Assistant Corps Engineer, but in reality he was directing not only the brigade of engineers but all the divisional engineers in a complete rebuild of the valley's defenses.

  The defenses for Rabun Gap were extremely heavy, make no mistake. The gap was a relative low point in the eastern ranges with a major road passing through it, so the United States had spared no expense in preparing for the Posleen onslaught. The primary physical defense was a curtain wall that stretched across a narrow point south of the former Mountain City like a slightly smaller Hoover Dam. The wall stretched, on an only slightly less massive scale, up both of the steep slopes on either side running along a line of ridges up to to the east and west. The "long wall" was being worked on constantly and would soon exceed the Great Wall of China as the single most massive human construction on Earth.

  However, beyond The Wall, and behind it for that matter, was a different story. Originally The Wall was intended to be the centerpiece of a defense structure that stretched down past Clayton and filled the entire Rabun Gap, which, technically, began behind the primary structure about two miles.

  Early landings and different priorities had meant that much of the preparations had not been carried through. None of the defenses in front of the wall remained; succeeding waves of attempted assaults had swept them all away and there had been no replacement. Furthermore, the defenses behind The Wall that were supposed to extend in depth for miles, had either never been completed or, in many cases, had been obliterated by the corps units as they jostled for space.

  On a tour that had finally included the relatively low-priority Rabun Gap region, the current commander of the Corps of Engineers had gotten one look at the defenses and nearly died of shock. Defenses three or four times this quality had been repeatedly gained and lost around Harrisburg and Roanoke so she knew damned well that these could be taken by a sufficiently determined Posleen assault.

  She first considered calling in John Keene. The civilian engineer was another special trouble-shooter that the COE kept in reserve. But not only was he deeply and inventively involved in rebuilding the Roanoke defenses, the local corps commander was General Bernard of 29th Infantry
infamy.

  It was by the order of General Bernard that the Posleen who had settled in to feast on the corpse of Fredericksburg in the first landing were induced, instead, to come swarming out and attack the forces gathering to their north and south. General Bernard, ignoring orders to the contrary, had ordered his division artillery to fire on a concentration of Posleen that had no apparent interest in continuing in a hostile manner. This had the effect, metaphorically, of poking a stick into a wasp nest, with similar results.

  John Keene had successfully designed and implemented an engineering defense plan for Richmond to the south, literally at the last minute. The plan was implemented in opposition to the one suggested by General Bernard and had to be rushed through due to the poor tactical judgement of the general.

  The corps to the north of Fredericksburg, however, through a combination of bad political decisions, poor training and an apparent computer hacking by renegade forces, was overrun almost to a man. This left only Engineer Officer Basic Course student Second Lieutenant William Ryan, fellow classmates and other engineer trainees pulled from Advanced Individual Training to harass and delay the Posleen. With a little help from the USS Missouri they had fought their way back to the Lincoln Memorial, where they basically got tired of running and held the basement until the ACS arrived to dig them out.

  Which brought to the COE Commander's mind Lieutenant Ryan, now Major Ryan, who would be the perfect party to put in an operational position. Especially if the major was put in place with a very quiet word to the prickly Bernard that if he didn't give the major all the support he needed then get the hell out of the way, a certain court-martial board could be reconvened to "discuss" his failures in Virginia.

  Thus Major Ryan found himself explaining to administrative units that they could either move their facilites back from the wall or to the other side of it and he really didn't care which.

  And pulling Field Grade Staff Duty Officer.

  * * *

  Jake winced. He didn't know who this turkey was, but given that he was pulling staff duty in a nice dry headquarters it was pretty unlikely that he knew which end of a rifle a bullet came out of much less how vitally important getting fire to a cut off patrol was.

  "Major, this is Sergeant Major Jake Mosovich, Fleet Strike Recon. And we've got us a situation here."

  Ryan tugged at the lock of hair that always seemed to dangle on his forehead and tried to remember why the name sounded familiar. "Go ahead, Sergeant Major, you have my full and undivided attention."

  * * *

  Jake dialed up the magnification on the night vision system and sighed. "Sir, we are surrounded by Posleen. Our position is southeast of Lake Seed and the Posleen have apparently figured this out and are patrolling all the surrounding roads. Our objective was an overlook of Clarkesville, but at this point that is impossible. If we can cut our way out alive we'll be lucky. Are you with me, sir?"

  * * *

  Ryan shivered and remembered the mingled shame and relief when his own platoon was permitted to leave the Occoquan defense. He knew, only too well, how Mosovich was feeling at the moment. Or maybe not: in Ryan's case he had always had the option of retreating.

  He glanced at the artillery availability board and blanched. The sergeant major was not going to like what he was about to tell him; it was likely that he wouldn't believe it either.

  "Sergeant Major, I've got some really shitty news. The fighting up north has had CONARC calling for available artillery from all over. We've lost both additional heavy artillery regiments in the area, the additional special arty we were supposed to get was diverted to Chattanooga and Asheville and half our corps arty is gone. We don't have any of the heavy, special guns at all, except one SheVa and they don't have any useful ammunition. And you're out of range for anything else except one five-five. And half the one five-five is tasked to emergency protective fire. I can't get that released without the corps commander's permission."

  Ryan could hear the sergeant major swearing softly over the open circuit and something about it made the memory click. "Sergeant Major Mosovich? From Richmond?"

  There was silence over the circuit for a moment. "Yeah, that's me. Why do you know about that, sir?"

  Ryan stroked his mustache. He had grown it as an affectation back when he thought he was a little too young to suddenly be a captain. Then, after a while, he noticed that people tended to avoid looking him in the eye. Oh, not the combat types, but around corps headquarters you didn't run into many of them. But for the rest . . . they tended to look away. Some of them said he didn't look like he was still in his twenties.

  But he kept the mustache.

  "I know Mr. Keene. Pretty well." He'd studied under Keene's tutelage in Chattanooga during the rebuild and they had become more than acquaintances; Keene was one of the ones who could look the young major in the eye. And Keene had some good stories about Richmond. Better than Ryan's, which mostly ended "and then we ran away again" or "and then he died."

  "Better than Barwhon, Sergeant Major," Ryan added, realizing now, how he could get the NCO to work with him. If they worked together rather than at cross-purposes, which would just happen if Mosovich assumed he was dealing with an arm-chair commando, they could, maybe, get the LRRP team out.

  "Better than Barwhon but not as good as Occoquan," the major added. "I had the Missouri on my side there." Ryan paused again and clicked icons, reconfiguring data. "You now have everything I have the authority to release, Sergeant Major. I'm going to send a runner over to the corps commander with the request that he release the fast reaction forces, all but one batt. Some of these guys are probably asleep, so it will take waking them up. But in just a bit you'll have the better part of two brigades of artillery at your beck and call."

  * * *

  Mosovich smiled as his AID showed all the available artillery in the corps transferring to his control, but he suppressed his chuckle. "So that was you, sir. Yeah, I wish the Mo was in range. Or any of the railguns. But what we've got will have to do."

  * * *

  Ryan pointed at the nearest senior NCO and towards the corps commander's quarters. The headquarters was on a hillock in the middle of the Gap and had once housed the Rabun School. Now the dormitories were officers' quarters and the headmaster's home was the corps commander's quarters. Generally, the commander did not prefer to be disturbed in the middle of the night, but one look at the major was enough to send the staff sergeant scampering. And he wasn't going to return unless he had the release of the artillery.

  "I'll see if I can scrounge up anything else. Can you think of anything?"

  "Just one, sir," Mosovich added. "It might make sense to wake up Major Steverich in S-2. These guys are not acting like normal Posleen. Way too controlled, way too . . . something. They seem to be anticipating us in a way I don't like one bit. Like they're anticipating everything we do."

  "Or reading the mail?" Ryan asked. "You're secure, right?" He checked the notation on the communicator. "Right."

  "Yes, sir," Mosovich answered. "We're using the laser system, I'm not even trusting ultra-wide band. But we've been losing sensors. That's why we're out here; because we've lost all our sensors on this side of the mountain. What have they been doing with them?"

  * * *

  Tulo'stenaloor looked over the shoulder of the God King and reined in his impatience. Goloswin had been almost impossible to find, and even harder to dig out of his comfortable rut on Doradan. From the point of view of the young hotheads that made up the majority of the Host, Kesentai like Goloswin were not much more than Kenstain. They may have fought well enough to get a few small possessions, a square of property and a factory or two. But then they quit, leaving the fighting to their betters. And they had odd . . . hobbies was not a Posleen word, but it fit.

  In the case of Goloswin the hobby was . . . devices. He seemed to understand the Alldn't equipment better than its long dead Alldn't and Posleen designers. He could improve, another human word, "tweak" came to mind
, a tenar so that it was faster, smoother and the sensors interacted even better with the guns. His sensor suites were a thing of legend and many well-to-do Kessentai waited years for one of his systems to be built and eventually catch up with them.

  And one of them cost more in trade credits than a basic oolt, fully equipped.

  But the technician's real love was new discoveries, new devices to tinker with, such as the sensor box floating in the stasis field.

  "These humans, so endlessly inventive." The God King sighed. "Look. Not just a communicator, not just a relay and not just a sensor, but all three rolled into one. Crude in places; I think that some of these components undoubtedly came from something else. But quite, quite inventive."

  "And now a defense device," Tulo'stenaloor pointed out. "The last one that we tried to take down blew up when it was moved." The loss of an oolt'os and a Kessentai who was supervising was not worth commenting on.

  "I need a sample of one of those," Goloswin said. "I have an oolt'os who will probably be able to take one down successfully."

  "After this little problem is rectified," Tulo'stenaloor said. "They are dependent for untraceable communication on these things. I would like to remove that link if I could."

  "Oh, it's not untraceable," Goloswin pointed out. He slid his talons through some glowing dots in the air and a new holofield opened and configured. It was a rough map of the region and Tulo'stenaloor realized that the "bright" areas were where the human sensors could see. And he realized immediately what he was looking at.

  "You're in the sensor net?" he breathed.

  "Oh, yes," Goloswin agreed. "Trivial exercise, quite trivial. The nice part is this." He highlighted a field and four purple icons sprang to life on a ridgeline. "There are your pests. Now go take care of them and get me a sample of the new sensors. I look forward to examining this 'boobytrap.' And the next human you talk to, please ask it what a 'booby' is before you eat it."

  * * *

  Mosovich looked at the map and got a sick feeling in his stomach. The fact was that, no matter how much artillery fire they got, they were in a box. There were only three places where crossing the Talullah River would be a reasonable proposition. As Mueller had pointed out, if they had SCUBA gear they could have crossed any of the lakes at any point. But without the gear they would be four obvious targets, out on the flat nowhere and open to fire from any passing patrol. And the crossing would not be quick. Even if they could "drownproof" Sister Mary and drag her across on a float. But otherwise it was a matter of choosing the bridges; crossing the streams would be nearly impossible and—between having to rig ropes to keep from being swept away and making their way across—sure to take too long as well.