by John Ringo
Delta was the personal shotgun of the regimental commander and since it had more range and power than the 155s was normally used for counterbattery.
The problem was the guy running the Hedren side of the maneuver was smart. He had the Hedren shooting and moving very fast. And, worse, their damned antiartillery system kept shooting down the human fire before it could hit.
"Twenty-four," Lieutenant Howard said, frowning. "But the Hedren artillery is well in range of—"
"It's in range," Benford said, looking at the screen. "But when we fire at it we have to fire at high angle. That gives the antiartillery system more time to engage. The next counterbattery use the RAP rounds. Warhead cluster munitions. That way they'll also have about a bazillion targets. Let's see if they like them apples. And see if Log has any more they can get up to us."
"Section, fifteen rounds, contact, on command."
"Two Gun, up!" Keren replied. One and Four came up nearly as fast.
"Fire at will!"
"Oh fuck!" the major shouted. "Those fucking bastards!"
"Wasn't that where your mortars used to be?" the Opposition Forces colonel said, smiling slightly.
"They hit me before my last round was out! Who told them where I was? Where's the fucking Himmit?"
"Well, they also just took out my primary artillery," the colonel said. "Nuked the fuck out of it with cluster munitions, cheating bastards. They took some casualties but I think this action is just about over."
"Battalion, Bravo," Mullins said as the tracks rolled onto the hilltop. "Objective has been secured. Orders?"
"One Dragon Six says dig in, consolidate and prepare for counterattack," an RTO replied.
"Roger," Mullins said as the BFT chimed.
"Exercise Terminated. Exercise Terminated. Blue Force, twenty percent casualties, all objectives completed. Red force, seventy percent casualties, no objectives completed."
"And that is what they call balling the ace," Mullins said, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. "Cutter's gonna owe me several beers. Oh, hell, I'll take it out in paperwork. Wonder if everybody else is having this much fun?"
Chapter Twenty
"The ship is primarily crewed by Marro," Mosovich said, bringing up a hologram of the snakelike enemy. "Call 'em Snakes. Standard weapons are flechette shotguns for the majority of the enlisted and rail subguns for the officers and senior NCOs. They're ship's crew so they'll have some training in security but Himmit indicate that weapons for the enlisted are locked down unless they are preparing for boarders."
"That would be us," Mueller said.
"Correct," Mosovich replied. "But we are supposed to be hitting them by surprise and fast. If we hit them fast enough, they're not going to get many guns distributed. And they're Navy, they're not going to be highly trained in them. Himmit concur on that."
"The Himmit don't have to fight them," Mueller said.
The briefing was taking place before the whole SRS group and the mentats. It had been carefully explained to the latter that Mosovich and Mueller went way back and Mueller was always the devil's advocate.
"Another race we may encounter is the Kotha," Mosovich said, bringing up a hologram of the massive cephalopods. "They're leaders of the Hedren forces and may be in officer positions."
"Ugly," Mueller said.
"And they can use all those tentacles to wield weapons," Mosovich noted. "Keep an eye out for these guys; they're reputed to be very bad news."
"The main threat is going to be the Porkies," Mosovich said, bringing up a slide of the Glandri. Who did look, a bit, like porcupines. "They're primarily trained as populace controllers but they're also the Imeg's body guards. We'll know we're close to the Imeg when we hit them. Their primary weapon is a neural scrambler. At low power it's a very painful stunner. At high power it tears up neural pathways and has an effect like nerve gas. Our armor has had a layer of metal fibers added that might mitigate the effect. But don't bet on it. Getting hit with one of those things is purely gonna suck.
"Three shuttles. Each will carry one third of each team, the command team will be distributed and the adepts will be distributed. Lock on to this zone, breach with firepaste. Clear the compartment and head out.
"The ship is about three hundred meters long and just chock full of compartments. The Himmit's best guess on where the Imeg is going to be hanging out is here . . ." he said, pointing to a spot on the hologram. "It's a portion of officers' country that sometimes is converted to carry a squadron commander. That will be the primary target for Alpha Team."
"Got it," Major Kanaga, the Alpha Team leader said. His team name, Moustache, dated to when he'd been a very junior officer and attempted, unsuccessfully, to grow one. The huge bulge of Redman in his cheek, however, was his real trademark. And he still couldn't grow a mustache.
"Charlie Team's mission is to secure the mentats that will be accompanying," Mosovich continued. "They have some capacity to defend themselves but they are primarily going to be defending us from the Imeg and that's probably going to be occupying all their time. Do not hesitate. Kill anything that gets near them."
"Clear," the Charlie Team leader said. Major Sheldon "Boxcar" Hildyard was tall and lanky with bright red hair. Also fast as a thief in combat.
"Bravo Team will move behind Charlie in support," Mosovich said. "You're our reserve and back-cover."
"Clear," the Bravo Team leader replied. Major Reuben "Ugly" Kimple got his tall and blond looks from both his maternal and fraternal grandmothers. He got his bulk from his maternal grandfather. Where he'd gotten his movie-star gorgeous face was a mystery all the family was still trying to answer.
"Upon securing the Imeg mentat we won't screw around with finding a different way out," Mosovich said. "Bravo will follow the trail of bodies and blown hatches. Alpha will cover the rear. Ingress and egress will be trained with at least two routes in and out and multiple side-options. Clear?"
"Clear," the team leaders chorused.
"Mentat Chan?"
"We are taking fourteen adepts," Chan said. "Two masters, myself and Indowy Master Shaina, nine class six adepts and three class five. During the preparatory phase they will work to support and improve the Des Moines' cloak. We believe that this will permit us to close to within no more than five thousand meters of the Hedren cruiser before we are detected. Eight of those adepts are human. Five will remain on the Des Moines to shut down the cruiser and its defenses. Three, including myself, will accompany the strike team. The six Indowy adepts will remain on the Des Moines. They will ensure that the Des Moines remains combat functional through the entire engagement and give support to the assault adepts as well as preventing broadcast by the Imeg or the ship. Assuming that between the adepts on the cruiser, myself and the two sixth level that will accompany me, we can prevent the Imeg from interfering, we believe we can prevent the cruiser from escaping or even firing its weapons. If we cannot, things will get interesting. I would make a note."
"Go," Mosovich said.
"The purpose of this mission is for us to gain an understanding of the methods of our enemies," Chan said. "We may determine, quite early, that fourteen adepts including two masters cannot successfully hide a ship from Imeg and or cannot successfully secure them. We adepts simply do not know the abilities of the Imeg. In the event this is the case, the mission should be aborted."
"For anything involving Sohon, you're calling the shots Mentat Chan," Mosovich said. "If you say abort, we abort. On the basis that we won't, I'll continue. Upon securing the Imeg adept we will move to the shuttles and egress from the ship. Upon our rendezvous with the Des Moines, the cruiser will be destroyed."
"What if they grab our shuttles?" Mueller asked. "Or blow them?"
"Chance we're going to have to take," Mosovich said. "We're short bodies as it is. And more bodies means more shuttles."
"Rig 'em," Mueller said.
"We can do that," Ugly said. The Bravo team leader grinned ferally. "Plenty of ways to make them not
want to touch them. Stuff we can turn off on the way back."
"Works," Mosovich said. "Questions."
"We've got pics of the Kotha and the Snakes and the Porkies," Moustache said, rolling a ball of Redman in his cheek. "What's an Imeg look like?"
"The Himmit don't know," Mentat Chan said. "They have no images of one. Because the Himmit do not or cannot use Sohon, they cannot approach an Imeg without being detected. They assume that some of their lost scouts did so but that is an assumption. We are going to be the first beings outside the Hedren Tyranny to see one. From Himmit accounts, even the Kotha rarely if ever see one in the flesh. They are very secretive. Equally, no one knows what the Hedren look like. But let us first examine the Imeg before we consider facing their masters."
"We board the Des Moines tomorrow," Mosovich said. "We'll hash out the details and routes there and work on our situational awareness. The Des Moines doesn't have the same configuration but we can work with it in VR. Start getting it on."
"Mentat Chan," Captain McNair said as he greeted the party at the boarding tube. "Welcome, again, to the Des Moines."
"Captain," the mentat said, bowing slightly. "I believe I should ask for permission to board."
"Y'all come ahead," Daisy Mae said, grinning. "We ain't particular round here."
"That means permission for your party to come aboard is granted," Captain McNair said, rolling his eyes. "Mentat Shaina, I see you."
"Captain McNair, I see you," the Indowy said, nodding his head. "Entity Daisy Mae, I see you," he added, actually adding a slight bow. As he bowed he saw a small carnivore, brown and furry, stropping the legs of the entity called "Daisy." Shaina filed that information away for future analysis.
"Y'all's set up in a section of the officers' quarters," Daisy said. "Put in some appliances for makin' y'all's food and a supply for about a week. All the room there was. Y'all need anything, you just announce it. I can ignore things if you don't want me to see but seein' as I am the ship, any time you talk to me I'll hear it."
"The point to this is that you should require minimum interaction with the human crew," Captain McNair pointed out.
"My thanks, Entity Mae, Captain McNair," the mentat said, nodding his head again.
"I'll lead y'all to your quarters," Daisy said. "Pretty sure you know the way but it's fittin'."
"I cccoulllddd llleaddd thththemmm, Dddaisssy," said the small carnivore.
Fascinating, though Shaina.
"Daisy Mae is an interesting entity," Mentat Chan said as the captain led the way to his quarters. He'd been installed in the captain's cabin. There was, in addition, a small captain's day cabin near the bridge which McNair would use for the trip.
"She's a handful," McNair admitted, while thinking, Actually, she's at least two handfuls. "But it makes running the ship easier that's for sure."
"I think I was actually referring to her entire being," Chan said. "The reality of it approaches, if you do not mind my saying so, the metaphysical. She is more than just an AI that took on the appearance of a minor actress and her being infuses the ship far more than the nannite systems can account for. In a way, it seems more that the ship infuses her."
"Ships have souls," McNair said as he opened the hatch to the cabin. "All good ships and certainly any that have been used for long enough. Daisy doesn't talk about it much, but the AI she used to be got . . . changed by being hooked into the Des Moines. The original one that is. I hope that making this new one hasn't . . . killed something."
"I do not think it did," Chan said looking at the small cabin.
"Sorry it's not larger," the captain said, shrugging. "But, you know there's only so much room on a ship."
"I was actually thinking how wasteful it was of space," Chan replied. "Humans who are not Indowy raised are simply used to so much room. I will probably share this with my students."
"Well, we've got bunking for them, too," McNair said, looking at the cabin. He always found it mildly claustrophobic.
"No, this is sufficient for all of us," Chan said. "I'm sure that someone has been discommoded by our presence. Since we will be comfortable sharing this room, it is better to let them have their space back."
"I'll leave you to get settled in, then," the CO said. "We're breaking dock right away. We're on tight time to make the intercept."
"Indeed," Chan said. "Haste is an unfortunate necessity."
"Hot bunking," Mueller said grumpily.
"It's a warship," Mosovich replied. "We're going to need to start work-ups as soon as the mentats are ready. I'm not sure they're up to keeping up with us."
"That's going to be fun," Mueller said, grinning.
"Y'all don't do a whole bunch of physical training, do you?" Mosovich said, frowning, as the junior mentat bent over and threw up.
They had started, he thought, with the easy stuff. There was a route in the Des Moines that was pretty close to the route they were going to have to take to get to the place they thought the Imeg might be. So with all the blast doors open they had hoofed it from the notional entry point to the target compartment, working on coverage and general movement.
The SRS team was loaded for bear with leopard-suit space gear, heavy body armor, cloaks and full load-out. The mentats, after Chan's assurance that they could prevent injury from random shrapnel and bullets, were just wearing cloaked leopard-suits.
About halfway to the compartment, Mosovich had had to slow down to let the mentats catch their wind. By the time they got there, two of the junior mentats were pretty much useless. And even Chan wasn't looking all that hot.
"We do, yes," Chan said, breathing heavily. "But it is . . . spiritual based and . . . very low impact." He paused and took a deep breath. "Not very aerobic come to . . . think of it."
"Reality is we're probably going to have to be stopping to burn doors," Mosovich said, not even breathing hard despite wearing better than a hundred pounds of armor, ammo and battle-rattle. He figured that, all things considered, they were more or less going to have to think in terms of clearing the whole ship. He was not going to run out of ammo. "So you'll get a chance to catch your breath, then. But I bet you're not much use Sohon wise at the moment."
"No, we are not," Chan admitted. "And, yes, we must get in better shape. Fortunately, there are excercises we can perform to enhance our advancement in that regard. By the time we reach the target we will be prepared. You have my word."
"Uh, huh," Mosovich said. "Hope you're right. 'Cause it's gonna be all our asses if you're not."
"Cutting paste."
The hangar bay was the only place large enough to hold the training facility. Even with VR gear it helped to have a mock-up of an assault area. A series of light walls had been installed indicating the bulkheads of the area they believed the Imeg to be quartering. Heavier doors had been carried along to simulate the hatches they'd have to breach. In some cases they were planning on burning through the bulkheads but most of the time the hatches were a better bet.
Payback, the Alpha Demo specialist, pulled out a length of what looked like silver rope and put a man-sized oval of it on the hatch. The cutting paste was self sticking so he just laid in a detonator and rolled to the side of the door, holding up the activator.
"It may be possible, depending upon many factors, that we will be able to override the hatch controls," Chan noted on the command frequency. His left hand was gripping the back of the harness of Master Sergeant Field, the Charlie second stick NCOIC who was called, for reasons that even a mentat could not comprehend, Lieutenant Penis. Each of the mentats had a designated SRS lead. It was anticipated that they were going to have to concentrate on controlling the Imeg and couldn't be expected to also figure out where to go. So they just held on and went.
Sergeant First Class Arden Dugmore and Sergeant Charles Basmanoff, Dumbo and Friday respectively, were covering his back. Behind them two more sticks managed the lower level mentats.
"Better to train as if you can't," Mosovich said as Payback fired
the charge. The high-energy paste cut through the plasteel as if it were so much paper and as the door began to sag a breaching charge went off, blasting it into the compartment. The Alpha first stick, Recto, Mangler and Sugar Plum, burst through the smoke and cleared the compartment in a buzz of flechettes.
"Clear," Master Sergeant "Recto" Owen said in a laconic voice. "Unknown alien entity, tentatively identified as an Imeg, in the room. Entity is active."
"Take-down team," Mustache whispered.
The two and three stick charged through the door and there was a buzz of static on the radio.
"Imeg immobilized. Bagging and tagging."