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* * *
Major Anderson wasn't sure what he was doing leading the charge; he was pretty sure that if General Keeton had heard he would have prevented it. But when he joined the Army it hadn't been to lay T-1 cables; it was just a fluke of the placement board that put him in Signals.
Now he had that chance that most officers only get to think about, that Patton had phrased as "the opportunity to lead a lot of men into a desperate battle." It would probably be the only chance he got and, furthermore, he was just about the only officer that most of the group knew. So this time, Signals got to lead the way.
The problem being that the last time he had looked at how to do something like this was in ROTC. He had ordered the tank unit to drive through the objective and then swing back through while the Bradleys, who were supposed to follow right behind, stopped on the objective and unloaded.
Now, however, it was apparent that part of the Blue Ridge overpass had stayed up. And some of the Posleen on the objective were still alive. As the first M-1 that went up could attest. For that matter, those Posleen who were alive were being shielded from the variable time fire by the overpass. Basically, the artillery was useless.
If he had thought there might be significant resistance he would have had the artillery fire smoke; the Posleen generally couldn't deal with obscurement rounds very well. But it had been assumed that a nuke would do the job. Bad assumption. And by the time they shifted types of fire, the assault would have succeeded or failed; when they passed the last curve and came under fire they had less than four hundred yards to go.
He made an instant decision; the tanks didn't have any real utility to the mission, it was only the Bradleys that mattered. Getting the infantry onto the objective was the mission.
"Armor team, stream smoke and drive through the objective. Infantry, unload and move forward by fire and maneuver."
He stooped down and stepped towards the troop door just as the hypervelocity missile impacted on the front slope of his Bradley.
* * *
Buckley rocked forward and back as the Bradley screamed to a stop then rolled to the rear as the troop door dropped open filling the interior with streaming red light from the setting sun.
"Come on, you apes! You wa
He jumped out of the troop door and stumbled to his knees as he tripped on the end. When he stood up and turned around he could see the rest of the squad frozen on the inside.
"Okay!" he yelled. "You're in the biggest fucking target around!"
He dove into the median and rolled into the ditch down its center. The good news was that now all the plasma bolts and railgun rounds were going overhead. The bad news was that it looked like he was pi
A moment later one of the privates from his squad followed him into the ditch, landing on him and knocking the breath out of the sergeant.
"You wa
The private rolled off to the side with an apology as a second member of the squad rolled into the ditch. However, right after that their Brad, which had just started to move again, ate an HVM.
Buckley shook his head to clear his ears and looked around. The tanks had apparently blown smoke and headed into the pass, but none of them had made it. There had been four. One was on fire, with its ammo cooking off, behind him in the median. The other three were scattered across the front, the closest to the objective less than a hundred meters from it. That one had suffered a catastrophic kill and the turret was fifty feet to the side, buried halfway into the mountainside.
There were two privates with him and that was it. He could hear somebody ahead and to the right firing at the Posleen in the Gap, but he couldn't see who it was. For that matter, the only thing he could see was an overpass that was apparently shielding the Posleen from overhead fire. Oh, and a C-Dec. Which was just lifting off from the left of the intersection.
Joy.
"But I'm not in a suit!" he growled.
* * *
Besonora tapped the younger Kessentai on the shoulder as the oolt'poslenar staggered into the air. "Try to stay low; we must find and destroy that gun or all is lost."
"I shall try, Oolt'ondai," the Kessentai answered. "But I have flown very little."
"Do the best you can."
The oolt'ondai left the command deck and laboriously headed for the outer levels. He was not one of those who cursed the Alldn't designed spiral gravity ramps that were the primary method of movement between areas; someday the Posleen would be able to modify and not just copy Alldn't equipment. Until then, they had to make do with the way it was.
One of the items that would change, if he had his way, would be the fact that things were scattered through the ship apparently at random. Thus, the perso
He greeted the Kessentai of the oolt and gave him his instructions. As soon as they landed he was to unload, pass around the oolt'poslenar and attack the gun to destroy its ability to fire, in other words, aim at the barrel.
Having done all that he could to prepare, he ordered the Kessentai to begin the laborious movement to the exit and started back to the command deck. As he did, alarms went off throughout the ship.
* * *
"Sir!" Pruitt said. "I've got anti-grav emanations."
"Sir," Kittekut interjected. "I just got word from one of the scouts; a C-Dec lifted off and is headed this way!"
"Where?" both Mitchell and Pruitt asked.
"He doesn't know right now sir," the specialist answered. "He says it's staying low and he lost it in the hills. He's up on Rocky Face and he said he just saw it for a second by Joe Mountain."
"I don't have a direction, sir," Pruitt said. "I'm up on penetrators. And I'm more or less on vector," he added, glancing at his map.
"Elevate the gun a bit," Mitchell said. "Captain Chan, are you listening?"
"I'm here," the MetalStorm commander replied.
"This may turn into a knife-fight," Mitchell said. "How well are you chained down?"
"Not well enough to fire," Captain Chan answered. "Even if we had power. Which we don't. As for secondary effects . . . we'll have to see."
"Do you want to exit your turrets?" Mitchell asked.
"No," the captain replied after a moment. "Better the devil you know."
"Sir, emanations are strong," Pruitt said. "I get the feeling they're close."
* * *
"The fire came from near here somewhere, Oolt'ondai," the pilot said. He gently tapped the controls so the ship wouldn't slam into the side of the mountain. "Should we unload the oolt?"
Besonora looked at the view from the outside; the side of the mountain was steep and covered in trees. To let them down would require backing up. However, the map showed an open area ahead; they could put them down there just as well.
"No, follow the road around this ridge and drop them here," he said, showing the Kessentai the map. "In the bend of this creek which is marked 'Scott.' "