Gust Front

CHAPTER 60

Fairfax, VA, United States of America, Sol III

0606 EDT October 11th, 2004 ad

Keren started awake and yanked the wheel to the left as the Suburban drove off the road.

«Sorry, man,» said the driver, shaking her head to wake up. He didn't even know the girl's first name; her nametag read «Elgars.» She was wearing a Thirty-Third ID patch, which put her miles away from her unit. How she had made it to Lake Jackson and then out of the rat-fuck when the Ninth Corps came apart was a mystery. He had picked her up when he saw her by the side of the road with a disassembled AIW, carefully oiling the parts. It was obvious she'd decided she had had enough ru

«Where the fuck are we?» asked Keren, his voice rasping. He'd had barely three hours of sleep in the last forty-eight. The division was supposed to be supplied the new antisleep drugs but, like a lot of things, that hadn't worked out. The platoon was subsisting on caffeine. And it was starting to fail.

«We just passed the Beltway,» said the female soldier in a husky contralto. «But we got a problem.»

«Yeah,» Keren agreed. «What else is new.»

Interstate 66 was the major thoroughfare through Fairfax County, Virginia, leading into the nation's capital. The Army had maintained a stranglehold on it for the movement of troops and material until the Posleen cut through the Lake Jackson defense. Since then, between panicked civilians who would not take «no» for answer, routed units from Ninth and Tenth Corps and desertions among the MPs tasked to maintain control, the interstate had become a solid grid of fleeing vehicles.

From where they were currently parked, the roadway gave a clear picture of the surrounding secondary roads. At first the press of vehicles indicated to Keren that taking the platoon off the interstate would be no better than pressing on. But then he changed his mind. The major thoroughfares were thoroughly blocked, but many of the neighborhood roads were open.

«The good news,» he whispered, «is that this is go

«Yep,» came the response on the frequency-clipping radio.

«Looks like we gotta take to the side streets,» he said, pulling out a DeLorme gazetteer. The multipage map of Virginia had repeatedly come in handy when the smaller scale tactical maps ran out. But now he needed even more detail.

«We're go

«Gotcha.»

«Okay, turn off and take out the fence. I'll follow, then Three Track then One Track. Stay together but put your foot in it. The damn horses can't be far behind.»

* * *

Kenallurial looked at the report and his crest stood straight up in stu

Ardan'aath looked over his shoulder and grunted. «Apparently, the Net recognizes your worth.» The senior Kessentai chuckled at the figure on his own monitor. «And mine as well.»

The area surrounding Fredericksburg had been designated as «secure» by the information Net and the distributed processors were begi

There was even trade and wagering based on future conquests. Ardan'aath owed quite a chunk of the area he had been bequeathed to the late Aarnadaha; a matter of a wager on offspring hatched during the voyage. The debt was now void. All debts were voided by death.

«And as we take more of these lands from the thresh,» said Kenallai, joining the conversation, «the amount will grow. At this rate we'll be the richest Kessentai in seven systems. You are going to need a castellaine soon.»

Kenallurial flared his nostrils in agreement. His previous service as a scoutmaster had granted him a bare minimum of range. A small farm, a bit of land for hunting and a minor factory. All of them were managed through a proxy castellaine. There had been no need for the expense of one of his own with such meager resources.

The results from the last three days' work was not a minor fortune but a major one. With the income from the miles of arable land, several industrial areas and four chemical processing plants he could retire. The choice was retire or refit. Ardan'aath, for example, had the most heavily armed oolt'os in the host. He had been involved in five conquests and his only interest was the Path. That being the case, he poured his riches into outfitting his oolt'ondar and eson'antais. The result was that he took fewer casualties and was able to take more land; paying for better refitting. His entire oolt was now armed with three-millimeter railguns and the oolt of his «subordinates» were nearly as heavily armed.

Kenallurial's plan had always been to retire from the Path so that he could start a long-term genetic modification program. But he had not expected it to be so soon.

«This is amazing,» he murmured, his mind awash in plans for the future. He had already begun collecting prize genetic samples from the smartest of the normals. His plan was to design a complete line of superior normals, standard Posleen nearly as intelligent and independent as God Kings. The line could fill in that fuzzy gap in labor caused by the shortage of Kenstain, the cowardly «castellaines» who were used to manage the absentee estates of the Kessentai battlemasters. The income from that prize would be enormous. Especially if his newly acquired skill in cybernetic repair transferred to even a fraction of the offspring.

The income would be enough to equip a dozen eson'antai, to go forth and conquer other worlds. And they would owe him for the equipment, as he had owed Kenallai. That debt was settled before the landing, so he was clear.

«And the greatest prize lies ahead!» Ardan'aath boomed. His crest fluffed once again, finally standing straight up in excitement.

«As long as it is not as bad as the 'prize' to the south,» said Kenallurial, gloomily. But quietly also.

Kenallai rattled his crest in response.

* * *

Colonel Abrahamson led the way up the dirt ramp. The jaunty yellow scarf around his throat was dark with soot and oil, stained with human and Posleen blood. He strode with determination, but the set of his shoulders spoke of overriding fatigue.

The trailing General Keeton paused for a moment, causing a backup in the gaggle that followed him, and stamped the soft earth. The ramp, and the rest of the wall of earth along the interior side of the Richmond floodwall, was loose and uncompacted, barely useable for foot traffic. The first serious flood would wash it away but it had served its purpose and served it well.

General Keeton shook his head at the thought of all this effort disappearing in the first hard rain and continued up the slope. At the top of the ramp he looked at the wall and shook his head again. It looked chewed. The top of the smoking concrete and rebar was missing chunks and wedges, some of them leading down to the uncompacted fill. The bodies of the Sixtieth Infantry Division dead and wounded had already been removed, but the dark staining of the soil and gouges of melted soil were eloquent testimony to the casualties the division had suffered. As were the flickering fuel fires and smoking armored vehicles along the support road.