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5
Ft. McPherson, GA Sol III
1115 EDT March 18th, 2001 AD
As the buzzing mass of uniforms and their civilian cohorts stood up to exit the auditorium, General Horner waved Mike back into his chair. He waited until the babbling crowd cleared out of the large room and looked around. Several other team chiefs had pigeonholed members of their teams for hasty conferences and he gri
But now they had to learn, had to dust off that ludicrous scenario, and he was uncomfortably aware of the adage about an old dog. The science fiction nuts like the troglodyte he had called upon might be pie-in-the-sky dreamers, but they had at least thought about this type of emergency to some degree and were suddenly worth their weight in gold.
He only saw two team chiefs talking to military perso
When he was sure they had a comfortable privacy zone he turned to the former NCO. Mike had been flipping through the issued briefing papers. The clean white incandescent lights on the high ceiling glinted off the laminated pages' images, bringing out the TOP SECRET stamps liberally imprinted on the pages.
"Well?" The general gestured with his chin at the papers. "What do you think? I want to get a feel for your impressions before we meet the rest of the team."
"Off the top of my head?" asked Mike, examining the schematic of some type of vehicle.
"Yes."
"We're fucked." The former NCO slapped the notebook closed and met the general's humorless smile with a somber gaze. He looked slightly more upset than normal, which the general knew from past experience could mean nothing or everything.
"Would you care to be more specific?" Horner asked, smiling tightly and steepling his fingers.
Mike shifted sideways in his seat, the better to meet the general's eye, and tapped the briefing papers for emphasis. "According to this, we can expect five invasion waves spaced about six months apart with additional scattered landings before, during and after the main waves. The first full wave will arrive in about five years. Each wave will consist of between fifty and seventy large colonial combat globes, each of those comprised of about five or six hundred combat landing craft. Each of these landing craft will have the Posleen equivalent of a division of troops, although we are calling it a brigade. Am I right? Five or six hundred divisions?"
"Correct. Very short, maybe pocket, divisions. I prefer the brigade designation." Horner had opened his own briefing papers and was checking the numbers.
"But each globe will have approximately four million troops of all types. Correct?" Mike pursued.
"Correct."
"That means each wave will drop two hundred and forty million heavily armed alien soldiers." The accusation was quiet but fierce.
"Right."
"Five times. Each drop, apropos of nothing whatsoever, exceeds the last estimate I had of total perso
"Unfortunately." Horner gave Mike the benefit of another of his humorless smiles.
"Do you see a problem with this?" asked Mike quietly, his hands clenching and unclenching rhythmically.
"I'm waiting for you to get it off your chest," Horner admitted.
"Fair enough. Now, these . . . Posleen use companies of about four hundred. Each company has one `God King' leader-type in command with a vehicle-mounted heavy weapon." He paused and thought for a moment about the force structure. Something about it was nagging at him but he could not for the life of him bring it to the fore. Then he thought of it and smiled quirkily.
"What?" asked Horner, watching him closely.
"You know what this reminds me of?"
"What?"
"The force structure in Sun Tzu's day." He looked up and noticed the general's puzzled expression. "One heavy chariot to ten infantry," he prompted.
Jack thought about it for a moment and nodded. "So what does that tell us?"
" `When the enemy is strong, retreat, when the enemy is weak, attack.' "
"Yeah, and `devise strategems.' But as to the weapons to be used?"
"A Posleen company will have about eight heavy rocket launchers," Mike continued, looking back to the briefing papers. "As far as anyone can guess, they are capable of going through an Abrams the long way. Several more three millimeter Gauss guns that will probably do a soft kill on an Abrams and will definitely screw up a Bradley."
"They're unaimed," the general pointed out.
"With all due respect, no, sir, they're not," Mike disagreed. "The weapons are sightless, that does not mean that there is no aiming. For all we know the Posleen are naturals for shooting from the hip."
"Good point," Horner admitted. "But firing from the hip is only a short-range answer. Are we going somewhere with this?"
"Yes, and that's the point. If we get in close they'll screw us using any modern system." Mike cocked an eyebrow.
"I had actually gotten that far myself," Horner noted. He gifted Mike with another cold smile and folded his hands in his lap. He had tired of complaints, it was time for ideas.
O'Neal nodded and reopened the briefing packet. "To stop them will require infantry. We can degrade them with artillery; air is out; we might be able to come up with a wonder tank, but if it's too big the production end will kill us. But we have to have something that can take the fight to them, not just fight in fortifications, stop them in place and survive even when being swarmed, call for fire . . ."
"I had two thoughts," Jack added.
"Hmm," Mike was back looking at the design of the God King's vehicle, a saucer-shaped anti-gravity sled with a center-mounted heavy weapon. The pictured system mounted a multibarreled heavy laser.
"I was thinking that walkers would be the way to go," said the general, leaning slightly sideways to see if the former NCO was listening. The slight contemptuous snort was sign enough. "What?"
"See this?" Mike asked, pointing to the laser.
"Yes."
"Says here the God Kings mount heavy lasers, heavy Gauss guns or multiple repeating Hyper Velocity Missile launchers. Now, unless you're talking about enough walkers for target overload, I wouldn't want to be in anything that stands out like a walker." Mike gestured again at the picture. "Five or six of these things would eat a walker for lunch and there are between fourteen and twenty per `brigade.' Not to mention that it would be some walker to survive these Hyper Velocity Missiles. Last, but not least, I think that cav would consider the walkers their system."
"I'll worry about turf fights," the general corrected, "you worry about systems. So, what about killing them before they get the chance to kill us? We should be able to engage at long range and take out the God Kings."
"Sure, under the best of circumstances, Jack, but what happens to you when they finally close? Or you suddenly find yourself in their midst? Come on! You taught me that one. I won't ask if you remember the Grenada jump."
"Well, then, combat suits, which was my other idea, would be out, too," said the general with a grimace. Facing these forces with unarmored infantry would make a butcher's bill beyond belief.