by John Ringo
He tucked his butt lower as a round skittered off the pavement and whistled by overhead. Frankly, it was lots better then than now.
One of the two privates had gotten a little too high and was toasted by a plasma gun for his mistake. The other one had frozen halfway and was now belly down and shivering in the median. Buckley wasn't sure why he was still going. It might have been sheer stubbornness; these Posleen had started to really piss him off. Or it might have been that he knew if they didn't clear the pass, they were going to get royally corn-cobbed anyway.
He snuggled even closer to the ground as the first artillery shell plunged out of the sky. If all went well, his approach would be covered by the fire.
On the other hand, if the gunners or FDC screwed up, it was just as likely to land on him.
It didn't, though; it hit on top of the overpass. He waited impatiently as the RTO walked it down off the overpass and onto the ground. Falling as it was now, the majority of the fragmentation from the round should be thrown under the overpass and onto the Posleen. It didn't mean it stopped them, but it should keep their heads down a bit, making it a tad easier for him to move. As he moved out, a round from the next gun came screaming in.
The ditch he was crawling in, which had really shallowed out for a while, had started to deepen. Enough that he felt he could raise up just a tad and move a little faster.
He got partially up on his elbows and knees. Not a high crawl, not enough cover for that. But not a low crawl either. Call it a really fucked up medium crawl. He started to shimmy forward, spread out like a crab, when there was a racket from the Posleen lines and all of a sudden his butt felt like it was on fire.
Dropping onto his stomach again he felt behind him and swore as his hand came away wet. Either he had the worst case of hemorrhoids in the world or some Posleen son of a bitch had just shot him in the ass.
* * *
Thomas shook his head at the poor brave son of a bitch down in that ditch. It was pretty clear in the thermal imaging scope that he'd just got shot in the ass—there was a noticeable blood splatter giving off residual heat—but he was still crawling forward. Another one was down on his stomach, not dead by the temperature, probably just too scared to move. And there was another bright white, headless body in the ditch. That one was so hot, and obviously dead, that it must have eaten a plasma round. Other than that, it looked like most of them had been killed in the first few moments.
He swung his scope around to the Posleen position and shook his head. All the fire from their plasma guns had left noticeable trails on the road and heated up the air under the bridge. And every time an artillery shell hit, the flare of light from it shut down the scope for just an instant. But he could still pick the horses out; they were slightly cooler than humans, but much warmer than the increasing chill of the evening and the cold ground under the overpass. And there weren't many of them, fourteen it looked like, maybe fifteen; there was one who was down on the bottom of the trench not moving.
Now to figure out which ones were the God Kings.
He noticed a haze around the head of one for a moment and switched off the thermal scan for visible light. In the green haze he could just barely see that that one had a crest; it must have lifted it for just a moment and created that thermal halo around its head.
He nodded to himself and switched back to thermal. Taking a breath he flipped the Barrett off of "safe," placed his finger on the trigger and began to gently squeeze.
* * *
Sergeant Buckley ducked as Posleen fire began to rave out of the trench, but it didn't seem to be directed at his position. Risking a quick look, it was clear they were firing everything they had at the ridge behind him and to his left.
Taking another risk, he got up on his hands and knees and shimmied towards a chunk of concrete that would make for good cover. It was probably a piece of the south span that had been blasted free by the nuke, but it looked like heaven and a womb to Buckley; he might even be able to sit up behind it.
He rolled into the shelter of the chunk as the fire died down and considered his position. He was within tweny yards of the Posleen trench, but the fire that had come out of it was from more guns than he had thought were there. And the artillery wasn't taking them out, only keeping their heads down. A bit.
It seemed like there was somebody else out there, maybe a sniper up on the ridge. If he had survived the counter-fire. That would be nice, it would be good to feel that he wasn't completely alone.
He rolled over to the south side of the chunk and thought about his options. There was another chunk, this one most definitely a piece of the bridge with a big hunk of steel sticking out, about five meters closer to the bridge. And it was lying against the center pylons. If he could make it to the cover of that chunk, he could work his way to where he would be on the flank of the Posleen, in a position to rake their trench from end to end. And with the way the south portion had fallen, he would be in "good rubble."
Good rubble was a special term for infantry. Rubble was the infantry's friend; armor couldn't negotiate it, it shed most artillery and Posleen hated it. Good rubble was rubble like the bridge, fallen and twisted with holes a person could worm into for protection and concealment. The south span looked like great rubble.
There were two problems with making it to that rubble, though.
The first was the artillery. The rounds were falling dead on target—they actually seemed to be digging holes in the concrete of the road—but they were also falling just a few meters from the route he would have to take to reach shelter. If he had a radio, he would have them switch to smoke. But he didn't and the RTO was way too far behind him to yell to. Even if yelling wouldn't give away his position, which it would.
He had heard that it was possible to move within a yard or two of artillery like this, if it was falling "away" from you, which this was. There was a solid "thump" of concussion from each shell, but what killed you with artillery was the shrapnel. Most of that was being thrown towards the Posleen positions. Technically, very little of it should be coming back towards where he was going to be crossing.
Technically. Very little.
The second problem, assuming that the artillery didn't get him, was that there was no cover or concealment between his current position and the next block. None. It was flat, level ground, stripped of any vegetation that might once have been there, directly in sight of the Posleen position and less than twenty meters away.
He could try to run it. Just get up and dart across. The problem with that was that Posleen tended to react much better to something like that than humans; it would be the equivalent of trying to dodge past a professional skeet shooter. They were sticking their heads up, bobbing up and down, even with the artillery. He'd have the chance of a snowball in hell of making it across.
The only other alternative was to try to sneak past.
The lighting was . . . confused. There was the sudden flair of the artillery, the moon scudding in and out among the clouds, but other than that not much. A few fires that had probably been started by the artillery gave a bit of flickering light, but none of them were nearby.
Posleen had good night vision, but not perfect. And they were taking fire from the ridge; their attention would be centered there.
All in all, it was worth a shot. But best to prepare.
He reached into his butt-pack and pulled out something he hadn't used in a long time.
CHAPTER 41
Cheer! An' we'll never march to victory.
Cheer! An' we'll never hear the cannon roar!
The Large Birds 'o Prey
They will carry us away,
An' you'll never see your soldiers anymore!
—Rudyard Kipling
"Birds of Prey" March
Near Balsam Gap, NC, United States, Sol III
2025 EDT Sunday September 27, 2009 ad
Thomas rolled over a log and started to crawl back up to the top of the ridge. He'd heard about the Posleen reactio
n to snipers, but that was the first time he'd experienced it. He'd also heard that they didn't react if other people were firing or if artillery was falling. Well, artillery was falling so he was pretty whipped how they had spotted him.
It didn't really matter. He had been pushed back by the recoil of the Barrett so most of the fire had gone over his head. He'd been hit in the face by a splinter, but that was just going to add another scar. No big deal.
He carefully nudged the rifle back over the edge and lifted himself to where he could look down into the target-zone again.
The one soldier had gotten up to the beginnings of the rubble pile from the bridge and was sitting up with his back to the Posleen doing . . . something. Thomas zoomed in and switched to light intensifier, but he still couldn't figure out what was going on. The guy seemed to be mixing something in his hand.
Figuring it wasn't worth worrying about, the Cherokee lined up another shot. One down, fourteen to go. Forget about the God Kings, just take 'em out one by one.
He lined up the first target just as the sky behind him lit up like God's Own Flashbulb.
* * *
Buckley used his knife to shave some of the rock-hard camouflage paint into his cupped palm. The stick of issue paint that he had been carrying since who knows when had dried to the consistency of coal. That was annoying, especially since he figured his only chance of making it was if he coated every inch of skin so nothing showed. If nothing was reflecting, he might be able to inch his way across the gap. Especially if he timed the start for the next shot from the sniper. While they were concentrating on the ridge, he could crawl out and, hopefully, if he moved slow enough, not set off their internal alarms.
If he just could get this camouflage paint mixed with a drop of bug-juice, that would permit him to camo up and maybe make it across alive. It was worth a shot. Of course, a distraction would help, but nothing else came to mind.
For just a moment, the light was so bright he could see through his hands, except where the camouflage paint was resting in the palm of the left one. He shut his eyes, but it didn't matter, the after-image was burned into his retina. He knew he was going to be effectively blind for at least five or ten minutes, but that didn't matter either. All that mattered was that so were the Posleen.
He dropped the tube of paint and the dust in his hands and snatched up his rifle. Grabbing the corner of the concrete block he heaved himself to his feet and darted across the opening between the two bits of rubble.
He expected at any moment to hear the crackle of a railgun or the brief belch of a plasma gun before turning into a carbon statue. But they never came. Instead, a moment after his foot told him he had reached the concrete block, his nose told him that it had reached the piece of steel sticking out of it.
Stifling a scream, Buckley fell behind the concealing concrete, clutching his bleeding nose and waiting for his vision to return.
* * *
"I'm beginning to agree with you, Pruitt," Colonel Mitchell snarled. "It's times like these that I wish we had some decent armor and direct fire weapons."
"Well, we have a direct fire weapon, sir . . ." the gunner said.
"One that wasn't a national disaster every time we fired it, son," the colonel replied. It had taken the militia scouts a few minutes to reset their radios, but it looked like the back of the Posleen advance was well and truly broken. It had been at a terrible cost, though.
Both Dillsboro and Sylva, even the bits that hadn't been destroyed by the passing SheVa, were gone. God only knew what damage had been done to the bridge, the bridge that Eastern had specifically wanted to stay up. They'd targeted the closest nuke so that the full "ground zero" effect would not encompass the bridge, but that didn't mean it was still tank-worthy. It would take someone like Major Ryan to certify it before they could push much over it.
On the other hand.
"Whenever the guys from the other side do get through, it will just be mopping up," Pruitt said.
"Mopping up Posleen is manpower intensive, Pruitt," Warrant Indy said. "Major Anderson was just going to 'mop up' a few Posleen after a nuke strike."
"Time to find a better way," Captain Chan chimed in. "I've got a great view up here, but I'm about ready to get back to fighting. We need to figure out how to get these turrets in action."
"Maybe after the repair batt gets here," Indy said. "If they ever get here."
"Let's just hope they get here before the remaining Posleen do," Reeves pointed out.
"What Posleen?" Mitchell chuckled. "I doubt there are four hundred alive between here and Savannah. I, personally, am going to go take a nap. Wake me up if anything happens."
* * *
Thomas held his hand up in front of him and squinted. Yep, he could sort of see it, time to get back to work.
The nuke had trashed his sight. He didn't know if it was the EMP or the light overload, but the sight was flickering like a bad TV. Which meant he had to do the rest with iron sights. Okay, he'd grown up with iron sights. He could do it. If he could see at all.
The moon was coming up, but it wasn't going to shine under the bridge. And the Posleen weren't making any light. What he needed was a flare down there or something. If he could just see to shoot.
Finally he decided to just try putting one in the area to see what happened. The worst that could happen is they'd tag him on the return fire.
* * *
This time Buckley heard the crack from the ridge before the Posleen opened fire. Their fire was also much less directed; they seemed to be firing in every direction. He hunkered down for a moment then used the disturbance to move again.
His vision wasn't really back; he still had much of his field of view blocked out by a negative image of his hands. He'd heard about "knowing something like the back of your hands," but he seemed to have the inside of his hands superimposed over everything.
But he could sort of see and he sort of knew where he was going so it was sort of time to move. He squatted down and duck-walked to the end of the chunk of granite and then paused. When he stuck his head out he would probably be looking at Posleen from less than ten feet away.
The question as usual was fast or slow. Finally he decided on fast. Pulling a grenade out of its pouch he pulled the pin and took a breath.
"Once the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend," he whispered and leaned out.
* * *
Thomas pushed himself back up the hill and wiped at his mouth. That time a plasma round had impacted just to the side and a big chunk of oak had hit him square in the lips. He would be spitting teeth for weeks.
As he leaned into the rifle, though, a grenade went off under the bridge. In the brief light from the explosion he could see three forms right in his target line. He squeezed off a round then ducked back awaiting the return fire, but the Posleen seemed to have a different aim. Pushing forward again and getting a good brace he started to hunt for more targets.
* * *
Joe waited for the expected flurry of fire to subside then leaned around the concrete pylon and hammered off all five grenades in his AIW as fast as he could pull the trigger. The Posleen were firing before he even pulled back, but over the racket of the railguns—all the plasma gunners seemed to be gone—he could hear a Barrett punching out round after round. Pulling another grenade from his harness he tossed it in the general direction of the trench as he reloaded. One more burst should do it.
He jacked the first grenade into place and leaned around the concrete obstacle just as the HVM round hit it.
* * *
Thomas closed his eyes at the explosion, but it was too late; his vision was gone again. Blinking through the tears, though, he could see that the Posleen were gone too. He wasn't too sure what had just gone off under the bridge, but the north span had collapsed as well and was now lying canted to the west side so he didn't have a shot at all. It looked like the whatever it was had blown down the west, center pylon. Just smashed it in half. There might be Poslee
n under there, but it didn't really matter; the road was so blocked it would need a heavy engineering unit to clear it.
There was no sign of that last soldier and no fire from the Posleen. So he decided it was time to limp his ass down there. He got to his feet, but his knee buckled immediately. "That's what comes of being old and fat and wore out," he muttered.
He sat down on a tree and shook his head. Let somebody else take the pass. He'd just sit here till his leg felt like moving.
Epilogue
Cally fit the last package in the rucksack and prepared to exit the cave. Cache Four was designed to provide all the materials necessary for just such an escape and, after crying her eyes out and then sleeping, she had carefully prepared for a long journey. The route seemed to be up through the Coweeta area then cut across to Highway 64, assuming it was clear, then west to the defenses around Chattanooga.
Now it was time to leave but she hesitated. Despite finding Papa O'Neal's body, she was still having a hard time believing he was gone. Or that that life was over. She just wanted one more argument, one more morning. And once she left the cave it would be an acceptance that there was no more farm, no more Papa O'Neal.
Finally, she set the pack down and pulled out a book. There was enough food and water for her to sit here for a year and the cave was both secluded and secure.
She'd think about leaving tomorrow.
* * *
The Himmit watching her from the top of the cave gave an internal shrug of puzzlement. She had been well on the way to leaving and now had paused. This made no sense to the Himmit. But that was why humans were so endlessly fascinating; they did things for no apparent reason.
He settled in for a long wait. But Himmits were good at that. And this was going to make a fine story someday.
* * *
Mosovich paused as Mueller raised a closed fist and settled on his heels. Then the master sergeant cocked his head quizzically and Jake could hear the sound as well. There was a large stream just ahead, part of the Coweeta Hydrological lab area, and the rush of the waters overwhelmed most other noises. But, faintly, he could hear what sounded like female laughter.