by John Ringo
"Fall back!" he called, glancing at his readouts. Graphs and charts meant nothing to him now, as indicator after indicator went from green to red. "Fall back on the Reapers!"
* * *
Sunday was firing from the hip, flipping out magazines one handed and reloading as each expended mag dropped from his rifle. But nothing seemed to help. The remaining suits were running from the oncoming tide of yellow bodies and no firepower in the world was going to stop them.
"Reapers, prepare for short-ranged volley fire," he called as the Posleen passed the line of holes that had once been filled with ACS troopers. He didn't even bother to try to figure out who was left. It was him and his troopers and that was more or less that.
"Gots to die someplace," he muttered, glad he'd had one last time with Wendy. He flipped another magazine in as Stewart slithered over the side of the hole followed by the major.
"Fall back on the Reapers!" O'Neal called again, flipping around and starting to lay down fire.
"Ammo! I'm out!" One of the Marauder suits scrambled into the supply cache, tearing open boxes, and then cursed. "Reaper ammo!"
"Reapers, open fire!" Tommy called as the front of the Posleen assault came within thirty meters.
The four Reaper suits were each mounted with four flechette cannons, and the hail of metal slivers opened a huge rent in the Posleen mass, even checking it for a moment. But the pressure from the rear pushed the front ranks forward against the tide of fire and the down side to the horrendous amount of fire the cannons could put out was that they ran dry fast.
"Clocking!" McEvoy called. "I'm clocking out!"
"Gotcha," the Marauder said, popping open the ammunition container and opening the Reapers' reload bin. "Ammo coming up!" he said, tipping the container up and dumping the contents into the bin.
"Feed me!" another Reaper called, laying down a wall of fire to the north.
But as the Reapers went through bin after bin, and the remaining suits, most of them commanders, laid down their fire, the ammunition ran lower and lower and the wall of Posleen closed in on the surrounded hole.
"I'm cold!" McEvoy called, then looked around at the person behind him. "Hi, Major."
"Pick up a rock!" O'Neal snarled as his magazine dropped into the hole.
"Boxes are empty!"
"I'm out!" Sunday called as his last magazine dropped free. He reversed his rifle and swung it into the first Posleen to the hole. The heavy duty stock smashed at the impact, leaving him holding only the iridium barrel. Which he then used to smash the next skull in line.
"Fuck this," O'Neal muttered. "FUCK THIS! I am not going to die in a stinking HOLE!"
"FUCKERS!" Sunday shouted, as the major climbed back out of the hole, slashing and blasting at the centaurs. "Get back here, Major!"
Sunday smashed two more of the centaurs before the first boma blade caught him on the shoulder. He hardly noticed it but then another descended and then another and he could feel himself tiring, trying to slash and crush in all directions, but it was no use, the Reapers were backed up to the rear of the position, trying to beat the Posleen back with their fists and Stewart and McEvoy were down under a tide of bodies and the major was gone and . . .
The sky lit in fire. For just a moment he could see the pupils of the Posleen's yellow eyes tighten down to a pinpoint and the reflection of the Lightbulb of God in their irises. And he hit the ground just in time.
He dug his hands into the ground and focused all his effort onto holding on as, again, the hammerblows descended on his back, lifting him up and slamming him down over and over again. He felt himself lifted up and slammed against the wall of the fighting position and his arm cracked backwards, painfully. He could feel that it was broken, but the suit integrity held. If it hadn't, the fire would have surely killed him. He waited and waited, for a moment, for an eternity, but finally the last echoes of the fire died away and he could look around.
For a time, it seemed like hours, none of his systems could determine anything in his surroundings. But then the sensors slowly came back on-line and he could get some sense of what was around him. Telemetry from suits was coming back first and there wasn't much. A suit here. A suit there.
He looked for the karat that indicated his commander, but it was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
Unlike Sunday, Mike had been out of the hole in the Posleen mass when the SheVa antimatter went off and there wasn't much he could do. So for the second time in his life he ended up in the path of a nuclear explosion. This time, at least, he had a moment's warning and instead of trying to grab dirt, which was probably futile, he hopped upward and tucked into a ball wondering where he'd land.
The blast-front picked him up and lofted him south and upward. He felt a brief glance off of something very hard; it bruised him despite the undergel and hard-driven inertial compensators. But after that there was, as such, nothing but air.
His sensors were still off-line but he eventually sensed that the blast-front was reducing and he tracked out into what would have been a free-fall position if he was, in fact, free-falling. He got some control over the inertials and used it to stabilize his flight. But since his externals were still reading over a thousand degrees centigrade, getting any coherent data on his location was quite impossible.
Finally the immense power of the nuclear explosion began to dissipate and the return wave came in, catching him and tossing him back, but not as far.
In all he was airborne, or nuke-borne as the case might be, for less than fifteen seconds. It only felt like an eternity. And then he saw open air.
He looked down and broke out in hysterical laughter. He was in a perfect delta track, two thousand feet up and headed down for the ruins of his old high school. Which was swarming with still-live Posleen.
"I always wanted to come back and make a big entrance . . ."
* * *
"Sunday."
"Major?"
Sunday scanned the map but the icon of the commander was nowhere in sight. Stewart and Duncan were both heavily injured and no other officers were alive. Even with an arm so dislocated and broken the suit could do nothing but numb it he was as good as it got. But he had less than a platoon left so it wasn't a particularly heavy burden of command.
"Yeah. I'm alive. For my sins. I'm heading out of Clayton now. I've contacted the SheVa; it's prepared to deliver on-call fire from now until the local Posleen overrun it or somebody comes to save both our asses. You look like you're clear."
"Yes, sir. No Posleen in view."
"They're reconsolidating by Clayton. I'm calling for fire. But it shouldn't affect your position. Hunker down and hold what you got. You look to be clean for the near future."
"Yes, sir."
"O'Neal, out."
* * *
"SheVa Nine?"
"Go, Major."
"One area denial round, UTM North 386187 East 280579."
"Roger. Ah, what's your position, over."
Mike looked down at the ground; he was encased up to his armpits in rock and earth.
"Secure. Please fire the round."
"Shot, over."
"Shot, out."
There was a pause. "Splash over."
"Splash out."
Mike smiled as the nuclear fireball consumed his old stomping grounds.
"I never really liked Clayton anyway."
He waited until the majority of the dust had dissipated then looked around for more targets.
"The problem with nukes is finding a good position to be a spotter," he mused. He dialed up his magnification and shook his head. "SheVa, can you reach UTM North 385846 East 278994. I would swear they're reassembling over by Tiger."
"Ah, negative ACS. Still out of our range. And we're . . . sort of stuck. Again. The crunchies are on the way, though. As soon as they figure out how to get through the radiation they'll be in support."
"555 commander, we can reach that target point. And we'll be there sooner."
The voice was German-accented English and in the background a song was playing, just too faintly for Mike to pick out. As Mike watched a streak of fire like a meteor descended from the heavens and a nuclear fireball, followed by a mushroom cloud, erupted over Tiger.
In the distance he could see beams of light leaping into the sky and more beams, and streaks of fire, coming down. He looked around and the same could be seen in every direction into the distance.
"American Defense Command, hold what you got," another voice entered the net. Presumably all the nets. "This is Vice Admiral Huber, Commander Task Force 77. Heavy fire incoming. Stand by."
In the distance a wave of fire seemed to leap from the ground as fireball after fireball erupted into the sky. It was clear that kinetic energy weapons were taking out every single Posleen ship and settlement for as far as the eye could see. And undoubtedly beyond. Around the whole globe.
Mike looked up and half shook his head as a line of shuttlecraft, seeming half air and half matter, dropped out of the sky. Troopers began spouting from the sides, dropping on pillars of fire then assembling at impossible speed. Their suits, like the ships, seemed only half there, as if one with the land and sky. And on his sensors they didn't appear at all. The air was filled with music and he shook his head and laughed hysterically again as the strains of "Ride of the Valkyries" poured through the air.
He lifted himself out of the ground as a shuttle approached and an armored figure dropped to the orange-tinted ground. He waited until it approached and then saluted the figure with the double star-bursts of a Fleet Strike major general on its shoulders.
"General," Mike said, dropping the salute as it was returned.
"Colonel," the general replied, taking off his helmet. The face was hard, Teutonic and very familiar.
"Oh, shit," Mike said with a half laugh. "God damn, Steuben, it's radioactive as hell out here. Put your damned helmet back on if you would be so good, General, sir."
" 'Sorry we took so long, we had a spot of bother on the way,' " the general said, then wrapped the smaller suit in his arms.
Epilogue
"Sir, General Steuben's here."
Mike leaned against the rock looking out at the valley that had once been his home. He had seen the refugees and recon troopers extracted from the hole they had been huddling in and then turned his back and left. That hole had been designed for the express purpose of keeping his daughter alive. And when she needed it, she hadn't been there.
"Colonel O'Neal," the general said, touching his arm. "We're about to lift. We're needed in Europe."
"Yes, sir," Mike replied, turning and holding out his hand. "Thank you for your help, sir."
"You had the situation well in hand, as always." The suit turned and looked down across the valley and hills. In every direction there was nothing but an orange nothingness; the very soil had been stripped from the rocks. "I . . . heard about your choice."
"Yes, sir." His voice was cold and distant.
"It was . . . the right choice, Colonel. I . . . don't know that I could have made it, but it was the right choice."
"It would have been the right choice. But the timing . . . the Posleen couldn't have forced their way through to the Cumberland." Mike stopped. "They couldn't have from the beginning. Not with you on the way. You would have arrived before then."
"But to Asheville?" the general asked quietly. "Four million civilians, Colonel. To overrun the SheVa? To wipe out another division of troops? Or two or four or five? And you could not know. It was clear that everything that was known to the Earth forces was known to the Posleen. I don't know what they would have done if they had known. Perhaps there was nothing they could do. But this one, Tulo'stenaloor, he was too smart. Who knows what he might have done?"
"True," Mike sighed. "But . . . oh, God . . ." He slumped down to the ground and curled into a ball. "My daughter!"
The general looked at him for a moment and then sighed. "I think . . . Europe will wait. At least for me."
He reached down and lifted the suit to its feet, taking the colonel by his shoulder and turning him towards the waiting shuttle. "I think, you and I, we will go get very drunk. And cry for the death of a world."
* * *
"This is absolutely unacceptable!" the Tir shouted then stopped, panting.
I wonder if I could drive him into lintatai? Monsignor O'Reilly thought. No, no reason to change the plan.
"How is it unacceptable, my good Tir?" the Jesuit said aloud. "Surely this is a day of rejoicing." In fact, through the doors to the conference room much rejoicing could clearly be heard; O'Reilly thought he was probably the only person in the entire complex who was actually working. On the other hand, while getting the Posleen off their backs was a good thing, to the Bane Sidhe it was just one step in a more complex war.
"Those forces were not to leave Irmansul uncovered!" the Tir said, firmly but back in control. "There will be . . . consequences."
"A Fleet issue, I would think," O'Reilly said. "As has been reiterated many times before, the Fleet does not belong to the United States, or even Earth, but to the Federation. Any . . . irregularities in unit dispositions is surely a Federation . . . irregularity." The monsignor smiled thinly then made a complicated hand gesture. "I would consider taking it up with your pet admirals, Tir. The United States government has all it can do to handle the sudden cessation of hostilities."
"So you say," the Tir hissed. "A Fleet matter. Obviously the Fleet needs to be brought to heel."
O'Reilly smiled darkly and shook his head. These Darhel were so easy. What the hell had taken the Bane Sidhe this long to trip them up? "That is, surely, your prerogative, Tir. But for now, there's a victory celebration and I'm missing it."
With that the Jesuit rapped on the table with his knuckles, stood up and went out to find a bottle of Bushmills. Surely the Father Church would permit him one night of celebration.
And tomorrow it would be back to the wars.
Of course, some people hadn't stopped.
* * *
Tulo'stenaloor blazed a trail through deep woods, showing his oolt'os how to hack open a path. He didn't know why he bothered; the humans had taken control of the orbitals. Any ship that attempted to lift out was being destroyed. All that he could do was run and hide like an abat. It was humiliating.
He snarled as the oolt'os in the lead stopped, then reached for his rifle. Ahead in a clearing there was a single Indowy standing alone.
"Stop," Tulo'stenaloor said, waving at the oolt'os to lower their weapons. The green ones were never a threat. But what one was doing here, at this time, was an interesting question.
He stepped forward and gestured at the little being, but the Indowy just waved.
"You are Tulo'stenaloor First order Battle Master of the Sten Po'oslena'ar?" the Indowy asked in Posleen.
"I am," Tulo'stenaloor replied, looking around. Suddenly the bushes in every direction spouted armed humans. They did nothing, though, just waited, their weapons bracketing his bodyguards. He waved at the oolt'os to lower their weapons. "Who are you?"
"I am the Indowy Aelool," the little one said with a broad and toothy, and very feral, smile. "And I would like to make you an offer you can't refuse."
* * *
"So what do we do now?" Elgars asked the placement officer.
The officer was short, overweight, balding and apparently harassed. And clearly in no mood for handling troops that had misplaced their units.
"For right now I'll assign you a BOQ room," the officer said. "And I'll put the two NCOs in the NCO's quarters. Then I'll send a memo up to DA asking them what in the hell to do with you. Until we find out, just stick around the area." He handed each of them a slip of paper and waved at the door.
"This seems . . . I dunno," Elgars said as they walked down the corridor. The Asheville Corps headquarters seemed to have completely lost its head. With the return of the Fleet, half the soldiers expected to be out-processed immediately and all the little routines
were gone. Suddenly, no one knew what the future would hold. In a way, it was better facing the Posleen.
"Abrupt," Mosovich said, holding the door open for her in a gesture that was chivalrous rather than rank based. "When you work odd jobs you get used to it. Every now and again you get a heap of thanks; usually you just get ignored. The difficulty of the mission or how well you did it rarely seems to have anything to do with the outcome."
"What now, boss?" Mueller said.
"Well, if the captain can be seen slumming with a couple of enlisted pukes, I suggest we find a bar and get really drunk," the sergeant major replied.
"Good idea," Elgars said, looking towards the gates of the compound. "Follow me!"
Mueller chuckled as they headed out, the two males having to work to match her stride. "You seem to be . . . more whole these days."
"I feel whole," Elgars replied with a smile. "I haven't had a personality pop up in a few days, everything feels . . . integrated. As if, for the first time since I awoke, I'm myself."
"And do you know who you are?" Mosovich asked carefully.
"Yep."
"Who?"
"Anne Elgars," she said in a definite tone. "Just Anne."
"Must come as a surprise in the morning, huh?" Mueller said with a laugh.
Mosovich shook his head and looked at the woman for a moment. Then sighed as if for the death of a friend.
"Yep, time for us to get stinkin' drunk, ma'am."
* * *
Colonel Garcia got out of the personnel elevator shaking his head like a doctor about to tell the family that little Timmy wasn't going to be coming home.
"There's not much we can do, Colonel," he said to Mitchell, looking around at the group. The whole SheVa crew, plus Kilzer and Major Chan, had gathered to hear the news.
"The engineering area is covered in pebbles," he continued. "It's as hot as I've ever seen. Then there's the battle damage. Given that most of the SheVas are going to be decommissioned, it will probably be left right here. We'll pull the MetalStorms off and anything else that is salvageable, decommission the main gun and then seal it up with a bunch of radiation warnings all over it. This whole area is hot enough it will probably be closed anyway."