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«Just make damn sure they're ready to pass us through the lines!» Ersin tapped his AID. «AID, get me Sergeant Mueller.»
«He is standing by, Master Sergeant Ersin.»
«Mueller?»
«Yeah, Ersin. I understand we got company.»
«How's it coming?»
«We're hooking up the blasting caps as fast as we can.»
«Well, you got hostiles at about a klick, klick and a half from the IP. Hurry.»
«Roger. We need to keep them from coming down U.S. 1, they're not as far along.»
«How the hell do we do that?» snapped Ersin.
«Do you know how to lead a pig?» asked Mueller.
«No.»
Mueller explained.
The master sergeant gave a feral smile in return and spared a glance out the back window. The Posleen were not to going to like their reception by Twelfth Corps.
* * *
«You sure about this, Sergeant?» asked the Bradley gu
«No, but it's the orders. Edwards,» he continued to the driver, «you be ready to put your foot in it as soon as you get the word.»
«Okee-dokee, Sarge,» said the driver of the Bradley. In sheer nervousness she gu
«Now, Irvine, you gotta . . .»
« . . . launch the rocket off-axis. I got it.»
«Hopefully, that way the lander won't fire right at us. When the Posleen turn this way, we'll lead them down 632.»
«What happens if they do take us out, right away, that is?»
«Four track will wait for the ground response and take it under fire. Not that we'll care,» he ended, parenthetically.
«I got family in Richmond,» responded the gu
«Right.» The vehicle commander looked through his repeater. The missile launcher was pointed into a tobacco field. With any luck the gu
Since their vehicle was nearly three thousand yards from the lander, the only Posleen weapons they had to worry about immediately were the automatic weapons on the God King saucers and the defensive fire of the lander itself. Not that either system was very survivable for a tin can on tracks like a Bradley.
If the plan worked, the Posleen would be exposed to sniping flank attacks by cavalry units scattered throughout the woods and fields and it would give the ambush sites more time to prepare. «Confirm, target identified. Fire.»
«Man,» whispered the gu
* * *
The United States Ground Forces were in the unusual situation of having incomplete battlefield intelligence. Knowledge of an enemy's abilities and intentions is better than half a battle won or lost. For years the pre-Posleen Army had worked on systems to insure that future commanders would have an almost Godlike view of the physical and electronic battlefield. Satellites would look down from their Olympian orbits while closer pilotless drones and deep-viewing reco
The coming of the Posleen had ended for all time the concept of «sundering the fog of war.»
The satellites were already gone. Most of them had been destroyed during the ponderous atmospheric entry of the Posleen battleglobes and the rest were picked off at leisure by the automated sky defense systems of the landers. The same defense system created a virtually impregnable information bubble around the Posleen forces. To find the Posleen, small units were forced to maneuver forward until they made contact. It was a return to the bad old days of information warfare; the days of skirmishers and scouting parties. The term «Dark Ages» was used frequently.
Given Posleen psychology, if they saw a target, it would be taken under fire. Once taken under fire, if there were any survivors the Posleen would give chase. If they gave chase they were bound to run into defenses, defenses which were still not prepared. The whole concept of the defense and the information war had been predicated on cavalry or infantry patrols making contact but not being seen.
Now those slowly probing patrols were converting to skirmishers. In most cases the results were poor. On the north edge of the Posleen bubble, in the Tenth Corps area of operations, a reco
Probing forward on U.S. 1, the two Humvees and two Bradleys would bound forward in echelons. First a Humvee would move, then a Bradley. When they were in place with troops deployed, the next echelon would dart forward, twenty-five-millimeter chain guns constantly questing for heat signatures.
As the Bradley of the second echelon was bounding forward, without warning a company of Posleen came out of a side road at a trot. Before the standing echelon could even call in the sighting, all four hundred normals opened fire at under five hundred meters.
The moving Bradley was the first to be hit, as a three-millimeter railgun tracked across the perso
The forward Humvee was gone seconds later, victim of massed fire from 1mm railguns and shotguns, and the rear echelon, taking fire from nearly a hundred 3mm railguns and HVM launchers, lasted only moments longer. The entire battle was over before the standing unit could send out a sighting report, before they could even move out of their positions.
The dense smoke and crack of HVMs from the skirmish, however, was not lost on the next echelon of scouts. The backup company a thousand meters behind the point went into a hasty defense and called in a sighting report. Their platoon of Abrams main battle tanks turned to the rear of a nearby strip mall. With a brief, almost u
* * *
Arkady Simosin watched the main IVIS display start to light up with Posleen sightings and knew they were doomed. The Fiftieth Infantry Division had just reached its defense points and started digging in. The slower Forty-First was not even completely in place. One look at the number of sightings, and the rapidly blunting blue arrows as cavalry forces were pushed back, told him that the Posleen were coming to di
«Corps Arty,» the officer started to say and stopped when he saw who the caller was. «Yes, sir.»
«I want you to target those sighting reports at will, just as if they were valid calls for fire,» he told the artillery officer abruptly.
«They're only guesses, General,» protested the colonel.
«Yeah, but by the time they fire on them, every single one of those roads will be packed with Posleen. Can the battleships range to here?»
The officer looked off-screen at another display. «Yes, sir. It can easily range to the interstate points, and all the way along the cav's front. Right now we only have the Missouri ; the Massachusetts is on the way. But they're not linked into the tac net; we have to give them vocal calls for fire.»