Gust Front

But the time for stylish destruction was coming to an end. The Posleen were getting close enough that they could overwhelm the battalion with their massed fire. They were still steering away from the curtain barrage to the north, but it was time to teach them that there were worse things than artillery.

He skipped to the left and hopped over a crossing trooper as he considered the timing. With human troops it was usually better to withhold your heaviest fire until they were within two hundred meters. At that point, human troops felt that no matter how much fire there was, they still had a chance of overru

With Posleen, this magic distance was still unclear. Simulations refused to recognize it, instead opting for an almost suicidal determination on the part of Posleen forces. But he had seen them break and run, even up close. So. When to start the real massacre?

He decided to let the music choose. They had started out the battle with Led Zeppelin's «Immigrant Song» pounding in the background. The tune had become something of an instant tradition for the American ACS units after Diess. That had segued to the Rolling Stones' «Paint it Black» and that was good. But not quite what he was looking for. Something . . . more. When the next song started, he smiled ferally.

«Lieutenant Rogers,» he whispered over the comm, trotting sideways towards his predesignated position.

«Sir,» responded the camouflaged acting-company commander.

«Prepare for enfilading fire on my mark.»

«Roger, sir.»

Mike tapped a series of Virtual icons floating in the air in front of his face. The AIDs accepted the commands, considered the current conditions and prepared movement orders for all the individuals in the battalion.

«Execute,» he whispered as the first bars of Black Sabbath's «The Mob Rules» began to boom out through the battalion's suit speakers.

* * *

Kenallai exalted as the mass of the Host approached the beast. Despite the beast's awesome fire and the writhing, difficult to strike heads, the host had passed through the worst of the fire. In moments they would take the beast and drive on to the prizes to the east. They were close enough that nothing could stop the Host now. Some of the dragon's heads had already fallen, their fire stopped. The rest would fall soon enough. However, as the Host closed to perfect range, everything changed.

Before the eyes of the front rank of the Posleen the creature dissolved into an oolt'ondar of metal-clad thresh. The thresh were visible for only a moment, however, for as fast as they appeared they disappeared into holes dug by special charges. A moment later their guns poked out of the holes and the only thing visible was the guns and the scattered few bodies of metal thresh.

Even as they were greeted by this horrid sight, worse horrors fell upon them.

* * *

«Bravo Company, fire,» said the officer, quietly.

The three companies of the battalion formed a box. Each of the suits could keep up a continuous stream of fire for over thirty minutes with onboard munitions. When a unit of ACS was faced with a unit of Posleen the usual method of engagement was face-to-face. By waving the fire of the individuals back and forth, the Posleen were, more or less, washed away with fire hoses.

However, the current situation was perfect for enfilading fire. By firing the grav-guns straight forward at knee-height each individual suit-trooper created a «beam» of destruction. If a Posleen touched one of the beams, they died. And the fire of the three companies was interlaced.

When the beams of fire from Bravo Company reached out, they slaughtered Posleen by the thousands, driving all the way through the mass of the host. The terrain was nearly flat and there was nowhere for the centaurs to hide. Driving towards the Monument, towards the submerged suits of the majority of the battalion, meant crossing the beams of fire from Bravo. Turning and driving towards Bravo meant crossing not only the fire of the battalion, but that deadly curtain of steel rain which was still falling.

Then the companies started pa

* * *

It hadn't been the direct fire of the horrid weapons of the threshkreen that had struck him down. If it had he would have died instantly. The terrible weapons of the threshkreen rended oolt'os and Kessentai alike in a single burst. When one struck it was as if they were hit with a missile, their bodies exploding outward. To be tapped with even a glancing blow was fatal.

No, it had not been the terrible weapons of the thresh, but a weapon of the host that had laid him low. When one of those terrible beams had struck the power-pack of his bodyguard's railgun, the resulting explosion had broken his back and buried Kenallai under rendered Po'oslena'ar. Now he caught glimpses of the terrible rendering going on on either side.

His personal oolt and the Kessentai of his oolt'ondar were scattered in death around him. There lay brave Alltandai, swift and fell. Behind him lay Kenallurial and Ardan'aath. Before him lay only death.

The battlemaster turned his head from side to side, looking at the piles. Finally it was too hard to hold up and the broad head settled to the ground. It was as well. The host was doomed. The thresh would destroy them somewhere. Somewhen. Better that he not be there to see it. Strange that it was getting dark.

Dimly, he heard the sounds of the other, older, nestlings out in the dark, screaming as they fed. But here beneath his mound of treasured dead he was surely safe. Tonight they would feed on another.

Might they always feed on another.

* * *

The mounding centaurs began to form a wall and the windrow finally obscured the view for the battalion.

«Up and at 'em!» Mike snapped, suiting actions to words as he stood up out of his hole. He marked the next point for the battalion to move to on the dispositions map. «Move to the Seventeenth Street phase-line with rolling fire,» he continued. «Duncan, we need a rolling barrage.»

The line of the battalion was slightly broken up by the windrow of bodies, but the Posleen force was no longer a threat. The survivors had fled into the pocket and very little fire came the way of the battalion as it advanced. Nonetheless they kept up regular fire, picking out any individuals or groups that looked to cause trouble.

The worth of the suits was finally being proven as they followed the fire. Although the barrage would eventually devastate the Posleen force, the fire that the battalion was taking was enough to wipe out a conventional infantry force or even tanks. But the suits shed all but the fiercest flame. In some cases the fire from the Posleen force was so great it was like walking into a rainstorm, but it had as much effect. Only the three-millimeter railguns could penetrate the suits, if a round hit perfectly, and the rest of the 1mm and shotgun rounds were no problem. The occasional HVM that fired out of the mass or the fire of a God King's plasma ca

Mike pushed the battalion forward until they were on a line with the end of the Reflecting Pool and dug-in one last time. There, with any conceivable Posleen assault broken up by the topography of the monument area and with the Posleen forces pushed into a relatively small area, the final phase of the artillery battle could get underway.

The three companies locked their forces into grazing fire across the paths out of the pocket and Mike called for the final fire plan.

* * *