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He glanced down the hill and shook his head. Give the bastards credit for tenacity. He had called for fire on his backtrail again and he was fairly sure that the lead, at least, of the brigade force was getting shredded by the artillery. There had been a number of unreduced houses on the hill and, but by the time the artillery was done they might as well have been destroyed by the Posleen.
Now, though, it was time to go. He pulled a small device out of the side of Nichols' rucksack, pulled a pin, set a dial and tossed it on the ground. He was both lightening his load and putting a "sensor" in place; the effect of the device would be practically nothing compared to the artillery. Then he threw the Barrett over his shoulder and started out along the saddle. The path was actually about ten feet wide, but it fell off a couple of hundred feet to the east and west so in a way it felt narrow as a string. On the far side an old path continued up the ridge and there were occasional very old trail blazes, the faded orange paint pale against the grey of the tree-bark.
He scrambled up through the mountain laurel and rhododendron, grabbing at the granite and schist that were jutting up now through the thin soil, and climbed as fast as his quivering legs could carry him. The alternative didn't bear thinking on.
About forty five seconds after he dropped it, the plastic oblong quivered, turned over and—with a slight "huff" of expelled air—threw out three fishing lines, complete with treble hooks. Then, with an almost u
* * *
Orostan flapped his crest in agitation and glanced at the portable tenaral again. The humans had not cut back to either side, so they could only be continuing up the hill. The oolt'ondai had split his force around the artillery fire—it was clear that it was not being observed—and thus had avoided significant casualties there. But it would be necessary to cross a narrow lip of land to reach the crest of this hill and that would entail tremendous loss.
"This is not going to be pretty," Cholosta'an said.
"Tell me to eat, nestling, why don't you," the oolt'ondai snapped back. "Sorry, but that is obvious. Nonetheless, if we are going to run this abatlurp to ground, we must close with it."
"Well," the younger Kessentai said, with a slight flap of his crest, "we could just sit here and starve them out." He looked over at the oolt'ondai and hissed at the expression on his crocodilian face. "But I guess not."
The oolt'ondai appeared not to hear as he took a series of breaths. "Fuscirto uut!" he cried. "Forward!"
* * *
Jake dropped into a small "cave" between two large granite boulders and breathed deep. The position was just about perfect and, coincidentally, about as far as his legs were going to take him. The two "boulders"—both the size of a large truck—were actually outcrops that had been worn away until one dropped onto the other. In between was a small, rather dry gap about head height on the west side that narrowed to barely knee height on the east. Located slightly below the true military crest of the mountain and to the west of the mountain's summit, it looked over the last nearly vertical climb, which was on the east side of the mountain, and down to the saddle the Posleen would have to cross. Not only would the Posleen have to cross the saddle, struggle up the trail and then cross the actual summit, in full view most of the time, the position was darn near impregnable to anything but their heavy weapons—a concrete bunker might be a slight improvement, but not much—and had a back way out. Of course, the "back way" led to a four hundred foot high vertical cliff, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
The wind-swept mountain had once, clearly, been a popular hangout. There was still a vague outline of some old lean-tos and two fire pits. It was well covered in gnarled trees, white pine and oak with a scattering of maple, their twisted trunks and branches leaning primarily to the south. The reason for their twisting was clear; what had been a light breeze down on the flats was a blowing gale on the heights and the wind whipped the leaves around him in a fury.
There were several large boulders and outcrops, but most of the mountain was covered in loam and brush. The exception was by the cliff, where the loam came to an abrupt end about four meters from the edge. The first few meters of the cliff were broken, with a fair-sized cave on one side, a fair number of wind-twisted white pine and several ledges. However, beyond the ledges the cliff fell away sheer for over four hundred feet to the tree-covered base of the mountain. The trees swept out for almost a kilometer from there before hitting the begi
Jake flipped down the bipod on the Barrett, flipped up the ladder sight and pushed an old Jack Daniel's bottle out of the way. The range to the saddle, actually to the upper edge of it where the trail was clear of obstructions, was just at eight hundred meters. Judging distance like that, downhill in the mountains, was usually tough. But Jake's AID just laid a hologram on the hill and marked various points with range markers.
What the AID could not judge quite so well was the wind. At that distance the bullet would tend to drift rather strongly, perhaps as much as six inches given the wind and its direction.
Fortunately, Posleen were big targets.
The sergeant major rolled Nichols' rucksack off his back and rummaged around in it. He'd lightened it up on the way up the hill by some judicious disposal of devices, but it was the first "down-time" he'd had all day and all he'd had to eat since the previous night was a handful of hickory nuts he'd picked up on Ochamp Mountain.
Mosovich pulled out four one-hundred-round boxes of .50 caliber BMG, a bag of peanut hard candy, two packs of Red Man, three packs of some sort of apparently homemade jerky, and three MREs. Apparently Nichols wasn't big on "pogie-bait." No Fritos, no Pringles, no soynuts, trailmix or cor
"Damn, no hot sauce. What kind of a soldier goes out on a mission without hot sauce?" He could stomach the Army's version of "Italian food" if it had enough hot sauce in it. Otherwise it was just south of fried salamander—which wasn't half bad really—in his personal view of military food. Somewhere way down from fried grasshopper and just above kimchee. After a few moments' thought he pulled out one of the pieces of jerky and sniffed at it. His brow rose and he took a bite.
"Where in the hell did Nichols get venison jerky?" he asked no one. "And how come he was holding out?" After a moment's thought and another bite he answered the second question for himself. "I'm go
The sergeant major leaned on the pack and listened to the artillery in the distance. As he did he realized that the position also gave the first clear view he'd had of Clarkesville. The town was darn near fourteen klicks off, but it was as close as the team had gotten and the day was clear.
Mosovich pulled out his binoculars as he masticated the jerky. The stuff had the consistency of shoe leather, but it tasted heavenly. Bit light on the spicing, but perfection exists only in the mind of Allah.
"Lessee," he murmured around the jerky. "There's 441 . . . And there's Demorest. Probably." The town was noticeable mostly for the cleared areas; there weren't many buildings standing.