Gust Front

Survivors of the brigade in this, the hardest hit sector, were moving around performing all the usual after-battle chores. Ammunition parties were coming up from the trucks at the base of the wall and technicians were moving down the wall repairing or replacing manjacks. All of the soldiers staggered about like drunks, but the progress was steady.

The general walked over to stand by the cavalry officer, who had moved to the wall and now stood quietly looking out over the valley beyond. As far as the eye could see there was a carpet of dead Posleen and smashed saucers. The general leaned over and looked down. Sure enough, there was the ramp of Posleen dead he had been told about. The mass of centaurs ran for at least a hundred yards here near the Fourteenth Street gates. How many bodies were in that pile alone was impossible to calculate. Most of them had been pounded into paste by their fellows in a vain effort to surmount the fateful obstacles envisioned by John Keene.

« 'They just came at us in the same old way,' « he quoted quietly. The morning was quiet, with the exception of the distant boom of artillery targeting concentrations of the shattered enemy.

«Hmm,» murmured Colonel Abrahamson in slight demurral. «The third wave was a little different. They were finally starting to use some sense, or there were more God Kings using sense than in the other attacks. They hit us while we were still headed out to them.»

«That was when you lost your track?» asked the general.

«Yeah. Got a little hairy there for a bit.» They had slowed the Posleen by calling for a full artillery concentration on his own position. He would go to his grave remembering the sound of One-Five-Five shrapnel pinging off his tank like steel rain while the vehicle took hit after hit from hypervelocity missiles. Why none of the missiles had penetrated the main crew compartment would remain a mystery. But he had lost his driver, six other tanks and a dozen troopers in the counterambush. The remaining Posleen had still chased them back to the Wall. That wave nearly overran the defenses, when a half million blood-mad Posleen crowded into the killing zone, taking the hammer of the guns on the chance that some of them could surmount the Wall or the obstacles along the sides. The final straw was when nearly two hundred God Kings had sailed over the Wall all along its length.

Snipers from the skyscrapers had shot through the flying roadways above the defenses or from the far side of the James while the defenders hammered the assaulting saucers. The casualties had been fierce as plasma ca

But in the end even that was not enough. The human defenders soaked up the charging God Kings, taking the casualties and dishing them out, supporting the fire from across the river. And the God Kings had died, one by one and in bunches. As had the forlorn normals in the pocket. And in the end the survivors stumbling out of that hell of death were less than one battalion. A paltry few hundreds of the half million that had entered the valley of death.

Keeton was of two minds how to respond. He almost sallied the Seventy-Fifth Armored to drive into them one more time and lure some back. On the other hand, the defenses were in sorry shape and the Posleen seemed to be headed back north.

Better to chase them in good time, with prepared units. For all he believed in Bedford Forrest's aphorism about «keepin' up the skeer,» he also knew that facing the enemy in prepared positions was one thing; chasing them back up I-95 and U.S. 1 was another. The Eleventh MI was nearly on site. Let them go out in the open and play tag with the Posleen. That was what combat suits were designed for. He would husband his forces instead. It looked like being a long war.

«They're still trying to flank us,» said Colonel Abrahamson, apparently reading his mind. «They still might.»

«Maybe,» agreed the general. «They've still got the numbers for it. And I'll worry about that if it looks like they're coming back in a serious way. And then I'll send somebody out to poke them in the snout.»

«Somebody else, I hope,» the colonel said, dryly.

«Somebody else,» the general agreed.

«Good,» said the exhausted officer. «It's about time somebody else had some fun.»

>CHAPTER 61

Rabun County, GA, United States of America, Sol III

0612 EDT October 11th, 2004 ad

«Gee, isn't this fun?» snorted Papa O'Neal.

The Te

«That was how you knew,» said «Raphael» quietly, watching the sensors.

«Yeah. You guys made a signature like a rocket.» Papa O'Neal chuckled.

«Hmm.» The special action team leader nodded. «My fellows are confused by your granddaughter. They don't know what to make of her.»

«Well,» said O'Neal, dryly, «it's more what she makes of them.»

* * *

«You ever use one of these?» Cally asked the black-masked commando, gesturing at the General Electric mini-gun. Since she would be handling the demo, putting one of the commandos on the 7.62mm Gatling freed Grandpa up to handle overall actions.

At his negative head shake she touched a control. «That arms it,» she said as the barrel advanced with a whine. «Butterfly triggers just like a Ma-Deuce, but the safety is on the side.» She pointed to the appropriate button then released it. «Other than that it works just like a hose. Fires eight thousand rounds a minute. Looks sort of like a laser going downrange. Just walk the fire onto the enemy.» She stood on tiptoes to look out the slot of the bunker but declined to fire. The Posleen weren't in sight yet and they still might just go away.

The commando nodded and stepped forward. He carefully put the safety back on and advanced the barrels again. A single round flew out and dropped into an open blue plastic fifty-five–gallon drum.

«Keeps you from getting awash in brass,» said Cally, gesturing to the huge box of ammunition under the weapon. «It'll only catch 'em on a narrow traverse, but it helps.»

The commando nodded again and looked out the slit.

Cally tapped her foot a few times and rotated her shoulders to relieve the chafing of the armor. It was a lot more comfortable when it was dry. «You sure don't talk much.»

The mask turned towards her and brown eyes regarded blue. He cleared his throat. «We kin talk,» was all he said.

The accent was faint, but completely different from the team leader's. Cally nodded and put that and a few other facts together. «Can I ask you one thing?» she asked.

He nodded.

«Can I see your left hand?»

The head of the commando tilted slightly to the side but then he pulled the thin black Nomex glove off his hand. He held it up for a brief inspection, rotating it so that she could get a good look and then waggling his fingers. He obviously thought it a silly question. He put the glove back on.

Cally glanced at the hand and smiled. When he was done with his little pantomime she looked him straight in the eye and made the Sign of the Cross.

As the commando's eyes flew wide she smiled again, turned and left the bunker without a word.

* * *

«Oh, this is truly good!» snarled Monsignor O'Reilly, reading the missive on his Palm Pilot.