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But what they did, they did very well. Mosovich picked out another target, bringing the aiming bead onto the target and squeezing the trigger of the Advanced Infantry Weapon. The system used a series of sensors in the suit and the weapon to determine the accuracy of the shot and whether any inaccuracy was the fault of the weapon or the operator. If any inaccuracy was an environmental input, whether a temperature change in the barrel or a shift in the wind, the system automatically compensated on the next shot. If it was the fault of the operator it simply sulked in electronic silence. In this case it determined that the 7.62 round would miss its target point by less than three centimeters in the four hundred meters of flight. Since this was well within its margin of error, it made no adjustments.
Mosovich knew, intellectually, what was going on, but he wasn't really worried. The system had proven to be better "straight out of the box" than he had had any inkling would be possible and he had come to depend upon the accuracy of the system. It occasionally "threw" shots, but it enhanced his own already expert marksmanship to stellar levels. Especially in this half-light, half-dark.
Nonetheless, there were already several hundred Posleen forming up out of the artillery box and the system revealed a seemingly unending stream coming up the road from Seed. There was also a smaller group trying to probe around to their right. As soon as it came into view, he'd have to split his artillery and some of the God Kings were bound to get through.
All in all, it was an unpalatable situation.
"We're going to have to move out," he yelled. "Nichols, I need you to stay in place until we move up the slope. Then we'll take over potting the God Kings and you can move. I'll call for fire on that group coming around the hilltop from there. Clear?"
"Gotcha, smaj," the sniper said. In a different unit the person being left behind might consider that they were being sacrificed. But Nichols knew that if that was really Mosovich's intent, he would say "Nichols, I'm going to use you like a cheap pawn."
"Mueller, Sister, move it," Mosovich snapped, throwing himself to his feet and turning to scramble up the slope. "Time to didee."
CHAPTER 11
Near Seed, GA, United States, Sol III
0715 EDT Monday September 14, 2009 ad
Orostan snarled as artillery started to land on the hill. The thick deciduous and white pine secondary growth should have concealed their movements, but the fire had followed closely on another call from the human reco
"I am getting tired of these insufferable humans," the oolt'ondai snapped. The team was also slipping out of their sensor range, clearly escaping over the hilltop beyond even as the pincer movement appeared to be closing on them.
Cholosta'an flapped his crest with a great deal more resignation. "Artillery happens. I don't like it, but I have yet to find a battle where the humans don't use it."
"Well, these will not for much longer," the oolt'ondai replied, yanking a weapon up from around his feet.
The gun looked not dissimilar to the shotguns of Cholosta'an's oolt'os. However, when the oolt'ondai fired it was clearly different. For one thing, since the humans had dropped over the back side of the hill and were under cover from direct fire, he would not have been able to hit them. But the senior Kessentai did not seem to be trying to, rather firing into their general vicinity. Another change was that the round was clearly visible, traveling at relatively low speed to drop into the distant white pine and hardwood forest. The last difference was that there was no apparent effect except a slight flicker in the tenar's sensors.
"What was that?" Cholosta'an asked warily.
"A little present Tulo'stenaloor cooked up," Orostan said. "Now to see if it worked."
* * *
Nichols peered through the mountain laurels, trying to get a clear shot at the new Posleen force coming around the shoulder of the far ridge. The good news was that his position, hunkered down under two granite outcroppings and surrounded by mountain laurel, was both well concealed and protected from most fire. But the problem was that he would be firing through heavy vegetation. Although the .50 caliber rounds were unusually massive, they nonetheless tended to tumble and stray off course if they hit a branch. So it was critical to get a clear shot. And that didn't seem likely. But when he saw the distant God King lift a weapon and fire something at the hill, he thought he could almost take the shot.
Then his sniper scope went black.
"Sarge," he whispered into his radio. "What the hell just happened? My scope just went blank." There was no immediate reply and he noticed that there was no sound from his earbuds, not even the usual background hiss of the frequency carrier. "What the fuck?"
He turned around and slid down the hill towards where the team had assembled. He was taking rear-end Charlie again, but the position had been good so it was no big deal. But now, with his scope down, he was going to need some help. He hit the diagnostic button on the side as he slid but nothing lit up. It was as dead as a doornail.
The area under the white pines was still fairly dark here on the west side of the ridge and this early in the morning so he flipped down his helmet visor and nearly slammed into a tree in the utter darkness.
"Sergeant Major?!" he yelled.
Mosovich slapped the diagnostic box on his Land Warrior suit and looked up. "Sister Mary?"
"I got nothin', sergeant major," she whispered. None of the communications gear was functioning and even some of the medical devices were not responding.
"Dump anything that doesn't work," he said, slamming his helmet into a tree. "Shit!"
"We're golden, Jake," Mueller said easily. "We can do this."
"We can't call for fire!" the team leader snapped back as Nichols slid to a stop. The team was gathered on a reasonably flat spot that was probably another one of the ubiquitous logging roads from the 1920s and '30s. "Nichols, you down?"
"Everything, Sergeant Major," the sniper said, furiously starting to change out the batteries on the sniper scope.
"That probably won't help," Sister Mary said. "I already tried on the commo gear."
"Did you see anything unusual?" Mosovich asked.
"Yeah," Nichols said, looking at the scope and shaking his head. "That group that was coming around the side of the ridge. One of the God Kings fired something, it looked like a grenade. I thought I was done, but there wasn't an explosion, just my scope going dead."
"EMP," Sister Mary said. "Unbelievable."
"Yep," Mosovich replied. "Just fucking duckey."
"EM-what?" Nichols asked.
"EMP," Mueller answered, begi
"Yep," Mosovich said again. "Nichols, might as well shitcan that scope. And your helmet systems; keep the helmet, and all the other electronic gear. None of it's going to work now."
"How in the hell did they do that?" he asked, starting to dismount the scope. "And what is electro-magnetic Mfing pulse?"
"It's kind of like a big electro-magnet," Sister Mary answered, starting to dig all the commo out of her rucksack. "It scrambles electronics, completely shuts down anything with a microchip in it. Most military stuff used to be partially hardened, but I guess since the Posleen weren't using anything that generated EMPs they backed off on that."
"The suits were supposed to be," Mosovich said. "Same with the scopes. My guess is that it was just a mother of an EMP burst." He looked over at Nichols, who had nearly finished unbolting the scope. It was not designed to be removed in the field and acted like it. "Can you shoot that mother without a scope?"