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Mike grunted as a three-millimeter round passed entirely through his left leg, and flipped a round off-hand at the aggressive Posleen. It avoided his fire by diving for cover behind the secondary controls. Mike took out the last standard Posleen and bounced left while drawing his pistol. He did a gunslinger's toss, switching pistol and sword, still hoping to keep the noise and energetics down. He was not sure if there was a point; the hypersonic "crack" of the railgun rounds must have been heard throughout the building.
Suddenly the Posleen popped back up several feet from where he had gone to cover and three-millimeter railgun rounds caromed off Mike's heavier cuirass, smashing him backwards. Mike spun on his left foot, the impact of the rounds turning him around in a controlled spin, and released the blade. The three foot, monomolecular blade whistled through the air and into the chest of the Posleen with the sound of an air lock closing. The Posleen stuttered for a moment, dropped the railgun and settled to all four knees, coughing yellow blood.
Mike yanked the knife out, kicked the rifle aside and took off the Posleen's head to make sure. He checked the room but all the Posleen were down and his entry team had already spread out. The only thing left to do was set out on his vector.
Mike's self-appointed mission was to secure the outer flank of the sweep. He suspected that if there were an organized counterattack it would be from this direction and he preferred to handle it himself.
He started off with a limp, but his suit's biomechanical repair processes were already underway. The armor's auto-doc administered a local stun and jetted the area with quick-heal, antibiotics and oxygen. The i
As he got a better grasp on the size of the complex, O'Neal ordered the platoon to move to the cooling room, relieving Sergeant Brecker to begin a sweep. Three more times he ran into Posleen, but never more than one at a time and none of them with heavy weapons. The normals would fight gamely but with ultimate futility, their one-millimeter rounds from railguns and shotguns bouncing off of the suits with the sound of raindrops on a tin roof. There had been only one other enhanced normal and he had been finished off by Sergeants Wiznowski and Duncan. There were no casualties.
By the end of the sweep Mike was becoming exhausted by the strain of hours of combat. He stumbled back to the coolant room, where the engineers were happily plugging troopers into the power circuits. He joined the line and finally collapsed into one of the undersized Indowy chairs.
"What's the status, Sergeant Green?" he rasped. Why the hell he was so whipped under Provigil-C he had no idea. He had participated in the field trials and they were harder and longer than the tribulations so far. During the trials he had participated in seventy-two hours of virtual-reality combat and was fresh as a daisy at the end. It was like the Provigil part was entirely missing. They would have been better off taking a simple amphetamine.
"Only three more from the entry team to power-up." The sergeant's speech was slurred with fatigue also. "We found a store of energy gems and everyone's got at least one. We're twelve minutes behind schedule, even the updated one. No casualties in the entry team or elsewhere, and we picked up all the Posleen weapons. But, sir, the troops are scared and tired as hell, Wake-the-Deads or no. We have to rest sometime."
"This is the last break, Sergeant," O'Neal stated. His eyes started to close and he took a deep breath. That damn Wake-the-Dead was supposed to be good for ten hours! he thought. "We've got a mission to complete. When the last troop is recharged we're moving out."
"Sir, I think you should talk to higher about that. These troops are gone. I mean look at 'em," he gestured around at the suits collapsed against the walls. "You want to take these guys into battle? They need at least an hour's sleep. When you asked back under the building if we should rest there or later you implied there would be a later."
"There aren't a few hours, Sergeant, and there isn't any time to argue. Get the men moving."
"I don't think they can, sir."
"You mean you don't think they will."
"Yes, sir."
"Any suggestions?"
"No, sir, I don't know what to do about it."
"Will you go on?"
"I . . . yes, sir, I will, but I'm a career NCO. I'll charge hell with a bucket of water, just 'cause it's orders. These troops have just seen their whole battalion destroyed and their morale is shot. I don't think they will. I think they're beyond motivation."
"O, ye of little faith. Platoon push. Troops, listen up, here's the deal. Show schematic . . ." Michelle flashed the schematic on all the visors except the entry team members still hot-footing it back to the coolant control room.
"This is a map of the area," said Mike, highlighting some of the landmarks the troops might recognize. "You see that pocket of blue? Michelle, highlight—that's the remainder of the NATO armored forces and they're surrounded. We are going to relieve them." There was an audible groan of disbelief.
"They don't have a lot of time, so we have to get there fast. The way we are going to do that is unconventional. Did you notice up top that these buildings are close together? And all the roofs are at the same level? Well, they're all identical and close enough together for a trooper in armor to jump from one roof to the other. And that is just what we're going to do.
"We are going to go up to the roof and double-time from here to the pocket, jumping the gaps as we come to them. Then we are going to mine all the damn buildings around it and drop them right on the Posleen. Along the way I have been promised resupply of weapons and ammo," he continued into a sullen silence, "and we are going to make that rendezvous. It is as simple as that. Am I understood?" Sergeant Wiznowski, the last back, was sitting down to power-up as Mike's power-levels topped off. Silence.
"I said, Am I understood?"
"Yeah." "Sure." "Yes, sir."
Mike looked around at the gathered suits. The slumped postures clearly bespoke fatigue and resentment. "I asked if I was understood?"
"Yes, sir," the platoon responded tiredly.
"I'm sorry, my AID must be acting up," he said, twisting one finger against the side of his helmet, as if cleaning out an ear. Michelle helpfully transmitted a squeaking sound effect. "I can't HE-ar you."
"Yessir!" The general tone was angry for a change, which beat tired or mulish from Mike's point of view. Now to redirect the anger.
"Up until this moment we have been taking it in the ass," he stated. "I do not care for that, no offense to any of our sexually open-minded politicians. And whatever your orientation, I don't think anyone in this room cares for taking it in the ass either.
"Now, I personally promise you something," he said, his voice dropping to a malevolent whisper, "and in case you haven't noticed, I may be an asshole, but I get things done. And I keep my promises.
"This is what I promise, nothing more. We are going to stick this operation up the Posleen's ass, sideways. I guaran-fuckin'-tee that. I don't guarantee that any of us will be around to see it. That is not part of the bargain," he hissed.
"So, to do that, we are going to get up on our damn feet and go out and dance with the devil. We may lead, or we may follow. But we are go