Yellow Eyes lota-8

by John Ringo

  Using the communication device on his tenar, he ordered his God Kings to fall back as well. There would be no stopping this rout until the normals had exhausted themselves, and that would not happen for hours. No sense in wasting his few intelligent and well armed followers on what was, for now, a hopeless endeavor.

  Tomorrow. We’ll try again tomorrow.

  To the north, Preiss made a call back to his TOC, at Chiriqui Grande. The troops were landing in mass now, trucks rolling from the landing craft one after another. The S-4, his logistics officer, was organizing the regimental trucks to begin moving the troops forward tonight. By morning, so he was told, the regimental artillery, a battery of 105 millimeter guns, would be in position to support all the way to Hill 2213 and a few kilometers past.

  Someone, that old woman Herrera had mentioned, so Preiss supposed, was still holding the pass, it seemed. The steadily streaming refugees confirmed this. Preiss could only be impressed. He pictured in his mind some tough ancient crone, bent over and walking with the aid of a cane. She must be one tough old bird, to be hanging on this long, with scrapings and cast offs. I hope we can get there by tomorrow.

  In the dark tropical night Digna passed off control of the mortars to her two groups of sentinels on either side of the pass. She’d have given her newly reborn virginity in a heartbeat for some of the light amplifying or thermal sights the gringos had in such abundance. But, though the Norteamericanos had been fairly generous to Panama, most of what had been gifted had gone to the regulars, not little bands of militia like hers. In her illicit trading she had almost, but not quite, managed to secure a brace of the larger night vision devices for her battery.

  I should have met those black market bastards’ price, she fumed silently.

  A freight train racket rattled by overhead, followed by a hollow pop. The pop was followed in turn by a fluting sound as the casing of a mortar illumination round slid off of a shell and rotated down to the ground. A few seconds later it impacted with an audible thud. At about the same time the illumination shell’s parachute deployed and the flare lit upon a scene of utter frightfulness, massed ranks of Posleen moving into an assault position. They filled the landscape as far as the eye, aided by aerial flare, could see.

  A plaintive voice came from her radio. “Mamita, there’s a sea of them out there, just forming up in rectangles and going to sleep on their feet. Can’t I please use some HE on them?”

  Digna thought about that. Does it make a bit of difference if we kill some now? Does it matter if we cost them some sleep or make them move a bit? Somehow, I think not. Better things to use the shells on. Better times to use them. Like tomorrow, at first light, just before they move into the attack.

  Into her radio she answered, firmly, “No. We’ll hit them in the morning. Just use the illumination rounds — and use them sparingly — to keep track of where they are for the mortars. At an hour before first light” — she had never quite gotten around to explaining the concept of Beginning of Morning Navigable Twilight to her girls and boys so “an hour before first light” would have to do — “we’ll hit them where they’re assembled. It ought to buy us some more time and kill a fairly large number of the swine.”

  “Si, Abuela,” the young man on the other end answered. “I’m sending coordinates to Edilze as I identify them.”

  “Good man, Grandson. Your abuela is proud of you. Let me know if they begin to stir.”

  “Mamita, it’s time,” the boy announced, handing a cup of steaming coffee to Digna as she sat abruptly upright. She looked around, guiltily, before fixing her eyes on her great-grandson’s dim face. Nothing untoward. Good. At least I didn’t make any noise. Either that, or the boy’s too polite to let me know he knows. Damn these hormones, anyway.

  She took the coffee, sipped at it, then rubbed some of the caked crud from her eyes. She looked around at her surroundings. Still darker than three feet up a well digger’s ass at midnight. Also good.

  Digna consulted her watch, an incongruous dainty, gold thing; a gift from her husband on their fiftieth anniversary. She’d been dreaming of her wedding night when the boy had roused her…

  No time for that now.

  “Radio,” she ordered, and the boy passed over the handset.

  “Edilze, this is Abuela, over.”

  “Here, Abuela,” the radio came back, instantly. Yes, Edilze is one of the good ones.

  “Ammunition status, over?” Digna asked.

  “Sixty-two rounds illumination; six hundred thirty-seven rounds high explosive.”

  “Firing status, over?”

  “I’ve preplanned thirty-three targets plus almost continuous illumination until the sun rises,” the granddaughter answered. “Three of the targets are the center of the pass and two hundred meters north and south of it.”

  “Good, wait, over. Group one, group two, Abuela, over.”

  “Here, Mamita,” “Aqui, Abuela,” came the answers.

  “Rouse your people, then stand by to adjust fires. Abuela, out.”

  Digna stood and looked left and right. There was movement there, to both sides, as her people roused themselves from slumber and resumed their defensive positions. She passed the word by runner to either side to stand to and be ready.

  When she was certain her people were as ready as they would be she rekeyed the radio microphone and ordered, “Edilze, Abuela. Commence firing.”

  Preiss jerked awake as the still jungle air was rent by repeated explosions. He’d had no idea that there was a mortar position nearby when he’d ordered his driver to pull over the night before. Now there could be no doubt of it as the muzzle flash of multiple firing mortars lit the area like a strobe light.

  “What the fuck? Rodriguez,” he ordered his driver, “go over to that gun position and find out what’s happening.”

  The driver “yessirred” and took off at a lope, rifle carried loosely in his left hand.

  Preiss then called the truck column by radio and asked their position. Under his flashlight, he saw on the map that they were no more than three kilometers behind him.

  “Wake their asses up and get them moving,” he ordered. “Now. I’ll meet them on the road.”

  He called for his S-2, or Intelligence Officer. “Where are the scouts?”

  “Boss, they’re about two kilometers short of the summit. I held them up after sundown, rather then send them into a firefight with mixed Posleen and friendlies.”

  Preiss chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment.

  “I’m not sure you did right, but I’m not sure you did wrong. In any case, get ’em moving again. What’s their ETA at the pass?”

  “Three hours… maybe four,” the S-2 returned. “The jungle’s a bitch up that way.”

  “Push them,” Preiss insisted.

  “Roger.”

  The driver, Rodriguez, returned. Breathlessly he said, “Sir, there’s eight heavy mortars there in a large pasture. Woman in charge — handsome woman, sir, you oughta see — says they’re doing a ‘countapddepp.’ Sir, what’s a ‘countapddepp’?”

  Preiss mentally translated — “counter-preparation” — and answered, “A damned smart move, sometimes.”

  * * *

  Slintogan’s Artificial Sentience beeped, then announced, “Incoming fires.”

  “Who? Wha’?”

  “Lord, I have twenty-seven… no, thirty-six… no, forty-two… no… Lord, I have a demon-shit-pot full of shells coming in at high angle. Impact in… five… four… three… two… one. Impact.”

  Overhead one of the dirty threshkreen artificial stars burst into flame, illuminating the scene nearly as brightly as day, but with an evil yellow light that moved and, as it did, made the shadows creep across the landscape. Simultaneously, seven, then fourteen, then twenty-one explosions blossomed in and around one of his larger gatherings of normals.

  The normals, awakened in such a horrid manner, began to bleat and scream, searching frantically about them for the source of the dan
ger. Not finding one, a few began to fight amongst themselves. That oolt began to break up, the efforts of its one God King to keep his charges in good order turning futile fast.

  That God King called his chief, Slintogan, pleading for assistance in controlling his herd. Even as the senior Kessentai was forming an answer, the threshkreen fires shifted suddenly onto a different group as a second “star shell” burst into light overhead. The God King in command of that oolt not only had more warning but was made of sterner stuff as well. He blasted down any of his normals who so much as looked ready to bolt. This kept the mass of the aliens in formation right until one 120mm shell landed directly on the God King’s tenar. This not only blasted the Kessentai into yellow mist and bits no more than hand sized, it also caused the containment field of the tenar’s power source to collapse. The oolt didn’t break under that semi-nuclear blast; it was incinerated.

  With only the briefest delay, the threshkreen fires shifted yet again to hammer a third band. This one, like the first, began to come apart and nothing its leader could do would stem the flood to the rear.

  The senior Posleen communicator beeped twice. “Slintogan, we can’t just sit here and take this. The normals are going feral.”

  Slintogan considered simply abandoning the field to the threshkreen, pulling back out of range of their cowardly weapons as yet another oolt began to disintegrate.

  No, this is not the way of the People. We attack!

  * * *

  The air was split with a cacophony of competing sounds: the roars and snarls of the Posleen, creeping ever closer, the screams of the human defenders as the Posleen fire sought and found them out, the splitting of branches and trees as railgun and plasma fire struck, and the steady drumming of overheated machine guns sweeping the deadly ground north of the pass with fire.

  The attack showed no signs of abating. The Posleen crawled over their own wounded and dead to get at the humans, dying as they did so. Still, more came to replace the fallen and to re-lay the already thick carpet of broken, bleeding bodies on either side of, and within, the pass.

  A radio call came from Edilze, back with the mortars, her voice breaking with sadness. “Abuela, I’m nearly out of ammunition for the mortars.”

  That call was death, Digna knew. Her men and boys — and, yes, girls — had only held on so far with the support of the heavy mortars firing steadily from the rear. Without that, they would not last five minutes against a full charge.

  Grabbing a packable radio from the back of his Hummer and weaving his left arm through one of the straps, Preiss turned away from the vehicle just as the first of his companies — truck mounted — reached him. He held up a fist for the trucks to hold up along the road. Then he looked to where the sound of mortar fire, heavy all morning, was beginning to abate. Muttering a curse he began to force his way through the thick jungle growth toward the clearing his driver had told him of. There he observed a short, dark woman pointing at a mortar, its overheated barrel steaming in the wet air. The woman’s long, midnight black hair hung down limply behind her.

  “Numero dos… fuego.”

  The woman seemed to be silently counting off the seconds until continuing, “Numero tres… fuego.”

  Yes, this was a bad sign, especially when fighting against the Posleen. Preiss swept his eyes over the scene, taking in the small piles of mortar ammunition remaining and matching them against the rather large piles of waste from used ammunition, opened boxes and cast-off, tarred cardboard cylinders.

  Yep, they’re fucked.

  Preiss detached the microphone from a rectangular ring on the radio’s backpack, pressing the push-to-talk button as it reached his mouth.

  “This is Six. I need ten tons worth of 120mm mortar ammunition at…” He consulted his map, and gave off the six digit grid of the nearest point along the road to the clearing. “I’ll meet the trucks there.”

  “Be a couple of hours, Six,” the S-4 answered. “The road’s become a crawling nightmare of a jam, with our trucks and the refugees all mixed in. The only way I can get you that ammunition is to take it from our own guns.”

  “Fuck!” Preiss exclaimed, though not into the radio. Then, again keying the mike, he said, “Do the best you can. And keep me posted.”

  “There is some good news, Six. The regimental battery is almost ready to fire on the crest and a bit beyond. They’re breaking down the ammunition now.”

  “How do you know?” Preiss asked.

  “I’m with them now, about fifteen klicks north of you,” the S-4 answered.

  “Roger. Let me know the minute the guns are ready to fire.”

  “Wilco, Six.” I will comply.

  Seeing there was nothing to be done for the Panamanian mortars beyond whatever encouragement seeing a gringo officer nearby might provide — damned little, Preiss was sure — he turned back towards his vehicle.

  When he reached the Hummer a half dozen officers and a first sergeant were standing by. They saluted as their commander announced, “Mad Dog Alpha, sir, ready for duty.”

  Preiss thought for perhaps half a second and ordered, “Back to your vehicles. Blow your horns like speeding drunks. I’ll lead. We’re going to charge like lunatics until we reach the last possible dismount point. Then we’re going straight into the attack to clear and hold that pass. Any questions?”

  A couple of the men gulped. One paled a bit. The first sergeant just bent over slightly and spat tobacco juice on the ground.

  “Right. No questions.” Priess pumped his right fist in the air, twice. “Let’s go then, motherfuckers!” he cheered.

  * * *

  Both of her flanking machine guns were down now, their crews overrun and butchered. Digna didn’t know whether they had been manned by her own, or by the many auxiliaries she had press ganged in Gualaca. On the other hand, did that really matter? They were all hers by now.

  She’d pulled her remaining troops into a shallow upside down “U.” Less than half remained now after the latest Posleen assault. From this “U” more machine guns continued to rake the pass.

  Not enough though. Never enough. They’re still coming through.

  We’re going to die, Digna thought, sadly. And I have failed.

  From behind her, Digna heard a cacophony of blaring car or truck horns. She wondered, briefly, whether Tomas Herrera had sent the trucks back to get her and her militia. If he had, he was going to get the sharp end of her tongue… if she lived… which she wouldn’t, trucks or no.

  A camouflage-clad body flopped into the hole next to her. Digna gaped at the strange apparition: a gringo, young-seeming, but with the collar eagle of a senior officer, a colonel, she thought.

  The gringo smiled warmly. “Colonel James Preiss, señorita,” the gringo confirmed. “Can you tell me where I can find the commander here? I understand she is an old woman.”

  Digna shook her head slowly, speechless. A sudden rise in the rate of fire to her flanks and front caused her to look up over her parapet until the gringo’s strong hand grasped her shoulder and pulled her back to cover. It was as well that he did because moments later artillery began falling to her front at a rate that suggested a bottomless pit of shells. Shell shards whirred overhead like a swarm of maniac mosquitoes on a four day bender.

  The gringo risked a quick glance over the parapet, ducked back down and spoke a few commands into the radio he carried on his back. The shells began walking away from the tip of Digna’s “U” and toward the pass. At the same time the rate of rifle and machine gun fire, coming mostly from the flanks, began to pick up.

  When Digna saw the gringo colonel lift his head again over the parapet and leave it there she joined him. Yes, there was danger of a stray or aimed Posleen round, but that was just part of the job.

  From her vantage point she saw, as she doubted the Posleen could see, shadowy figures moving, professionally, from tree to tree and rock to rock. The men, gringos of course, kept up a steady drumbeat of fire, some shooting from cover as others mov
ed. In the center, first hammered by gringo artillery then slashed from the flanks by gringo machine guns, the Posleen were reeling back toward the pass.

  She didn’t know what the words meant, but she plainly recognized the tone, when a single Norteamericano, from somewhere on the right, called out, “Mad Dog, muthafuckas. Mad Daawwwggg.”

  At least a hundred gringo voices joined in: “Woofwoofwoofwoofwoof… yipyipyipyipyip… ahhhrooooo!”

  Digna’s mouth opened, slackly, as she turned away to the north. Suddenly weak, she let her back slide down the dirt of the parapet, her untucked uniform shirt moving up and allowing dirt to gather on her back. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer to the God she believed had saved her and her people.

  Chuckling over the “Mad Dog” — spirited troops were such a joy to command! — Preiss asked again, “Can you direct me to your leader, miss?”

  Not quite understanding, Digna answered, “Somewhere in Panama City or eaten by now, señor.”

  “No, no,” Preiss corrected. “I mean your leader here.”

  “Oh,” she said, wearily. “That is me.”

  “You?” Preiss tried, and failed, to keep the incredulity from his voice.

  Digna nodded her red head a few times, then elaborated, “Lieutenant Digna Miranda, Panama Defense Forces, Chiriqui Militia. Me,” she concluded.

  Preiss, slightly embarrassed, looked once more over the parapet. The Posleen lay thick in bleeding, broken heaps. The limbs of some still moved and twitched, their owners mewling piteously. At least, they twitched and moaned until some soldier put a merciful round into them. Taking it all in, he whistled, knowing that by far the bulk of the destruction was due to this little red-haired Panamanian girl and not to his well equipped, superbly trained regular line infantry regiment.

  “Well, it’s over now, Lieutenant Miranda. We’ll take over from here. Your people are safe.”