by John Ringo
The pain-racked march was a drawn-out nightmare, in which the monsters were always just behind you and you knew that at any moment they would touch you and then you would die. But this was no nightmare; this was a stark reality as the sun set behind her in a blaze of red and she dropped into the shadows of Salem Hill to the accompaniment of dying screams.
The passing matron waved for one of the tending fire fighters as Shari began to collapse into hysterics. The EMT came over, readying a dose of Hiberzine.
"No," said one of the other paramedics. She grabbed Shari by her shoulders and forced her to look up. "You have to keep together," she snapped. "We need you; we need all the mothers. You're Shari Reilly, right?"
Shari nodded her head, still unable to stop the sobs. The girls started crying softly in response as Billy just sat and rocked, looking into the deepening twilight.
"You came in from Central Park?"
"Uh-huh," Shari sobbed, unable to catch her breath.
"All you have to do is hang on until they call your name, okay? It's a lot easier than walking from Target to the interstate. We got a call on you. Let me see your daughter's feet."
As the paramedic tended to Susie, Shari slowly got herself under a little better control.
"You're going through a normal reaction," said the medic, soothingly. "You've had a shock, Jesus, we all have! But yours was worse. You go through a reaction period. You held out until you were here, which is better than most. You held it together getting out of the . . . the . . ."
"Out of hell," said Billy.
Shari squeezed her son to her. "Are you gonna be okay, baby?"
"I . . . I . . ."
"It's okay, baby, we're safe."
"No, we're not, Mom. Don't lie."
"Son," said the medic firmly, "the engineers are building the best damn shelter they can to protect you, and the rest of us are going to try to make sure there's nothing to draw the Posleen in. We're gonna do our level best to save you, I promise you that."
"Is it gonna work?" asked Shari, catching her breath in a pause between crying spells.
"I won't promise anything," said the paramedic honestly. "But it's a better chance than without it."
"Excuse me," said a woman, looming out of the darkness, "somebody said you were up at Spotsylvania Mall." The woman's voice caught for a moment. "Did you happen to see a man driving," she paused, "driving a hunter green Suburban . . ."
"My husband was a tall man . . ."
"Did you see . . ."
The women rose around her, closing in with desperate questions, but the paramedic rose over her like an enraged lioness. "Look, people, I know you're wondering about your . . . your families, your husbands, but this lady's been through enough already . . ."
"No," said Shari, with a quavering voice, "I have to say it, I have to. . . . There was nobody behind me, nobody at all. I'm sorry . . ." She started crying again, quietly. "There wasn't anything I could do. I, I, just had to walk away, you see? I had to save my babies, I had to walk and keep walking . . . There was this little girl . . . she wouldn't come with me and I was carrying my babies . . . I couldn't, I couldn't . . ."
"Shhh," the medic cried into her hair, "it's all right, it is. There's nothing to do . . ."
"We had to walk," laughed Billy. "We just walked and walked and never ever looked back. You can't look back, you just have to walk and walk . . ." He began to scream.
The paramedic leaned over and pressed an injector against his neck. In a moment he was out cold.
"What was that?" Shari snarled, struggling to her feet.
"Shh, just Hiberzine. He'll sleep quiet. Unfortunately, when he wakes up to him it'll be just a moment from now. So before anyone gives him the antidote, make sure they know he's not tracking very well. We've put quite a few out." The lost wives had faded back into the darkness and another paramedic brought over blankets and soup.
"I put you in the drawing," he said. "The engineers are about to start loading."
"I wonder how they're doing at the interstate?" said the female paramedic.
* * *
The chassis of a gas truck, caught on the overpass as the Posleen pounded into view, was silhouetted by the fires of thousands of gallons of kerosene, diesel and gasoline. A fire truck kept up a steady stream of mixed flammables as its counterpart stood at a comfortable distance across Plank Road awaiting its turn to fire. The giant flamethrower had demonstrated truly awesome range from time to time as the Posleen tried to bypass the incendiary barrier. The gushing fuel spouted out at tremendous force and ignited only as it touched the other burning fuel. Occasionally openings would occur. When the Posleen tried to charge through, the fire fighters would get them good and soaked then drift a line of fuel to the nearest patch of flame. The explosion of fire would immolate the group and the massacre would continue. Behind the two fire trucks was a line of fuel trucks, well dispersed, and a spare pair of pumper cars having their seals replaced.
"Damn if this isn't working, Chief," said Colonel Robertson with an amazed smile. The stupid aliens were hell-bent on forcing the passage and getting turned into Posleen Toasties in the process.
"Yes, sir, Colonel. Those holes your boys put in help too." She gestured to the large craters blown into the median, requiring the Posleen to go out of their way by nearly a kilometer on either side. Explosions and shots in both directions showed where skirmishing was occurring on the flanks. The Posleen had not yet pressed in either direction nor did they appear to be interested in pursuing it. When they did the defense would have to fall back.
"It's amazing. They don't seem to have consolidated, yet," the colonel informed her. "They're just coming in piecemeal and we're blowing them away all over the place. We blew the Jeff Davis bridge, but they're pressing up from the south on the Jeff Davis and Tidewater Trail. We're going to be untenable here before the juice runs out."
"Okay, well, we'll pull back when you call it," said the fire chief, wiping at a bit of soot on her cheek. The smell of burning Posleen was like nothing else on earth. The closest she could come was burning rubber and that was about as close as alligator to chicken. The smoke was almost enough to call for breath-packs and who knew what toxins it might contain.
"It won't be soon," he commented with a grim smile as another group tried to charge the fire. The fire fighters had almost made a game of it, opening pockets to allow the enemy to charge forward then cutting off their retreat before filling the hole and incinerating them. Even the God Kings seemed unable to find the source of the fuel as the flames climbed high into the night.
"You probably ought to turn this one over to your second," Colonel Robertson noted. "I'd like you to take a safety look at the fuel-air explosive. It would be a bitch if it prematurely detonated, but we have to fill the building in advance."
"You got it, Colonel. Where are you going to be?"
"Oh, I have an appointment at the armory. Something about preparing a reception."
The old fire fighter smiled. "Well, lay in the punch and I suppose they will come."
"Right down William Street."
"Yup. Welcome to Historic Fredericksburg."
* * *
"I think they'll spread out a little from William Street," said Little Tommy, turning away up Princess Anne Street. "Probably as far as Fauquier or Hawk before they blow the Big One."
They walked along Princess Anne in the dusk, crunching the shattered glass from display windows underfoot as the rattle of gunfire sounded in the distance. The quaint shops had taken a big hit from the sonic booms of the landing.
"I was wondering . . ." he said diffidently. "Do you want to take a chance on the bunker? Now that they're going to do that?"
"I'm over sixteen," Wendy pointed out, "and not a mother." The last was somewhat sharp, almost bitter.
"Ahem. Well, there might be more room; they might take, you know, others. Shit, I wish I had a hole to hide in."
"You wouldn't hide if they gave you the chance, would you?"
Tommy thought about it. "No; no, I probably wouldn't. Not until I . . . did some good. And by then it would be too late."
"What is it with all of this?" she asked, gesturing at the body armor and bags. "I mean, I know kids that are in Junior Militia who are less well prepared."
"Yeah, well, my dad's one real regret in life is that he took a scholarship to Clemson to play football instead of West Point to play army. Then he went pro and that ended any chance of going in the military. Instead, he became an armchair soldier. You know, CNN junky, shooting pistols instead of playing golf, playing paintball all weekend. The whole Posleen thing was the greatest thing that ever happened to him; he was finally going to get to be a soldier. He even tried to enlist, but he was outside the range since he wasn't prior service. And then there's the knees . . .
"Anyway, he decided early on, way before we Knew, that I was going to be the next Hannibal . . ."
"Who?" asked Wendy, coughing as a particularly strong swirl of smoke from the interstate wafted down the street.
" . . . the next Robert E. Lee," Tommy translated.
"Oh."
"I've been training to be a soldier since most kids were learning to play T-ball. My dad made a big thing about giving me my first pistol when I was eight. I'd asked for a new computer."
"Yeah," said Wendy, in a questioning tone. "I thought you were a computer geek, not a gun geek."
"Gun geek, that's rich," he said bitterly. "I am a computer geek, actually a computer super-geek. I'm nationally ranked number eleven at Death Valley and the smart money was on me going into the top five next week. I've been coding practically since I could write. I live for computers. Knowing that, Dad requires that I give equal time to this kind of training. I have to put in exactly as much time on the range or in the field as I do on a computer.
"I was the youngest member of the Junior Militia and basically quit after two years because I was so far ahead of the rest of those slow-assed bozos. I can run well enough to go out for track, but it was track or computer time. And, hell, football? Lifting weights is considered 'military training' so I can press well over my body weight and Dad wanted me to try out for the squad. It was the one time I basically told him to stuff it. If I was a jock it would cut into either range time or computer time and I knew which one my dad would choose."
He shrugged philosophically. "So, here I am, the most dangerous kid in school, and an outcast computer geek. Go figure."
"Well," said Wendy carefully as they stopped by Goolrick's drugstore on the corner of George Street, "I guess you've come to your moment."
"My dad's moment, you mean. He's out there, somewhere, holed up, waiting for the Posleen to come into view and just living for it. Mom and Sally will go into the hole and I'll 'give 'em as good as I get,' " he quoted in a false baritone.
"Fucking bastard," he spat, bitterly. "The bitch of it is, I'm sitting here figuring angles of fire as well as any infantry lieutenant, and as if it's going to do any good." He shrugged and looked around, still figuring the angles.
"What about Alesia's Antiques?" he asked, gesturing across the street with his chin. "It's got a good shot across the courtyard behind it. We might even move into the Bank Museum. That would give us first and second positions. We might even survive three minutes," he finished with a laugh.
"I've been thinking about Alesia's," she answered speculatively. "You know when you asked if I wished I was going in the Bunker?"
* * *
"Jesus," said Tommy, as the rebar went through the brick wall next to an antique safe, "it really is here. How did you know about this?"
"Well, your love is computers and the military. Mine is local history and research."
He poked his head through the small hole and into the musty tunnel beyond, shining a Maglite around. "It's about five, five and a half feet high. Brick arch, dry earth floor. Amazing. What were these things for?"
"Nobody's sure. There's no written records about them, but they date to the Eighteenth century at least. The best guess is that they were used to bring cargo up from the docks. The streets back then were dirt and they got awful boggy in the rain. The romantic story is that they were for transporting contraband. Smuggled silk and untaxed tea, stuff like that. The really stupid story is that they were created by the slaves as escape routes. No way. They might have been used as hiding places for the Underground Railroad, but they were not created by it; they're from an earlier period."
He turned and looked at her in the dimness of the antique shop's basement. "I guess I'm not the only one surprising people today."
"I usually get complimented on my intelligence just before I get dumped," she said, frowning.
He swallowed a lump of his own resentment. "Maybe you were hanging out with the wrong guys."
"Yeah," she answered, "maybe I was. Look," she continued, pulling out the Glock, "this isn't going to do me much good against the Posties. You got anything heavier in there?" She gestured at the duffel.
"Yeah, good point. The only problem is these are a little more complicated." He unzipped the duffel and started emptying it. He had set aside his armor and backpack to move the heavy sideboard blocking the tunnel wall and now gestured at the backpack. "Open that up and start laying the stuff out. We'll need to divvy it up."
In a few minutes the two bags were emptied out on the floor and their contents neatly arranged. It made an impressive arsenal.
"We're not going to get to use a third of this stuff, but I believe in being truly prepared."
"I can see that," she said, picking up one of the assault rifles that had been stowed in the duffel bag. "What's this one?"
"That's a Galil .308. It's a good anti-Posleen weapon. Do you want to try it?"
"Okay, it looks less complicated than that one." The other weapon appeared to have more than one rifle on it.
"It is. This one is my baby." He hefted the rifle. "It's an Advanced Infantry Weapon, a 7.62 rifle with a twenty-millimeter grenade launcher underneath. Thirty-round magazine for the rifle and five rounds for the grenade launcher. Laser designator. Definitely the thing."
"I'll take this one," she said, lifting the Galil. "Is it loaded?"
"No." He took it and went through the basic steps to arm, fire, reload and safe it. "Pull it into your shoulder and squeeze the trigger. This one has a laser designator, too, but it's low infrared so you can only see it through the scope."
He safed the weapon and handed it back. "It's empty. Point it at the far wall and squeeze the trigger while you look through the scope." He helped her get a good cheek-to-stock position. "See the dot?"
"Yeah, it's all over the place."
"Take a deep breath," he said, forced to notice the pleasant things it did to her anatomy even under body armor, "let it out and squeeze the trigger gently . . ." He almost continued with the standard line but snorted instead.
"Don't laugh at me!" she snapped, dropping the rifle to waist level. "I'm trying!"
"I know you are. I wasn't laughing at you," he said, snorting again. "I was trying not to continue the saying that goes with that."
"With what?" she asked, confused.
"Look, when you're teaching trigger control the way the saying usually goes is 'let your breath out and squeeze it gentle, like a tit,' okay? That was what I laughed about, I almost said it. Okay?"
"Okay," she said, mollified. "What a crude and stupid thing to say," she continued.
"I tried not to! You badgered me into saying it, okay?"
"Like you would know what squeezing a tit felt like!" She stopped and her hand flew across her mouth as she realized what she had blurted.
"Thanks," he smiled grimly, "thanks a lot. If you must know, I guarantee I know more about squeezing tits gently than you do."
"Oh, sure. I don't think you've gone with a girl since Kathy Smetzer in fifth grade!"
"Jesus, you really have been keeping up with my life, haven't you," he snarled.
"It's a small town," she answered,
lamely.
"Right. Well, for your general fund of information, my dad also had very . . . different ideas about summer camp . . ."
It took a moment for the gist of what he had said to sink in. "Oh, sure, a camp story."
"The camp I go to is a coed combat-training camp in Montana, run by the National Militia Association," he continued, firmly. "Although sex is not specifically encouraged, sex education, as in, 'this is how you do it, boys and girls' is taught. In detail. And there are no restrictions except those relating to consent. Okay?"
"You're kidding."
"You wish. Every year I get through the year's insults, slights and put-downs knowing that the big man on that campus is the best shot, the best at hand-to-hand or the most stealthy. And I generally come out somewhere close to the top. And all the girls are in great shape."
"You're not kidding."
"No."
"So," she snapped, returning to the crux of the argument, "do the girls at that camp say that, say 'gentle like a tit'?"
"Some do," he said, smiling warmly, obviously cueing on a happy memory, "but most say 'gentle like a dick.' "
CHAPTER 34
Fredericksburg, VA, United States of America, Sol III
0014 EDT October 10th, 2004 ad
Kenallai, Kessentai Oolt'ondai of the Gamalada Oolt' Po'os' felt that, after conquering five worlds, after so many years of battles that the lowly fiefs bestowed by the Net upon a Scoutmaster were in the final stages of orna'adar, he had seen it all.
"Aarnadaha lost how many oolt'os?" He snorted in surprise, drifting his tenar absently back and forth in the verge of U.S. 1. The crackle of distant riflery echoed from the north and there was a stink of burning on the light wind. The house across the street was a crater that looked as if a giant had scooped it out.
"He has only a single oolt left," related Ardan'aath, his closest Kessentai. They had been associates for many years and he trusted the old oolt'ondai's advice.
Kenallai's crest rose in defiance of this impossibility. "He landed with a full Oolt' Po'os, did he not?"
"Yes, oolt'ondai. And they landed on the richest booty in the region, the storehouses of these thresh. As it is we hold only a smattering of living quarters. The thresh gathered so far barely will meet our needs for the next day. Furthermore, many of the living quarters were destroyed, either before our oolt'os entered or as they entered. Many of them blew up in their muzzles. Little of the thresh permitted itself to be in-gathered and much of the thresh and booty that was left behind had been damaged or destroyed."