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  "This gear creates a video game environment and the wargames are based on a number of video game archetypes," Mike continued. "If they would spend less time doing the work of their first sergeants and pushing hardcopy and more time in the VR environment they would do better in notional battles."

  "Well," said General Horner, "we, and by that I mean General Taylor and myself and to a lesser extent you, need to decide what that battle is going to be and how it is going to be fought. I am going to outline for you, in broad strokes, what the strategic and operational mission of the ACS should be and, over the next two weeks, you suggest how we should do it, in as much detail as possible given the time. Got it?"

  "Got it," answered Mike, leaning back in the chair. After a moment he leaned forward again. The comfortable armchair was a surefire way to put him to sleep. If he was going to keep from making an ass of himself in front of these officers, he was going to have to stay on his toes.

  "Okay." General Horner looked up at the ceiling as if drawing thoughts from the pooling cigar smoke. "We are required, by order, to do as much as humanly possible not to lose the cities to the Posleen. First we have to define what a city is. We have arbitrarily decided to defend only the city core, because, quite frankly, we don't see any way to defend into suburbs. Oh, we'll have some depth, and some outer defenders, besides the parasite forts I'll talk about in a minute, but basically we're just going to try to hold 'downtown,' the part with the skyscrapers that Posleen shy away from landing on anyway.

  "Outside the cities, near the beltway that is around most of them, now, we are going to construct modern fortresses. They won't be 'state-of-the-art' like the planetary defense centers, but they'll have some sort of curtain wall and moat system along with massive conventional firepower. We are going to give the fort commanders pretty wide leeway on how they want to arm their walls. The idea of these forts, and the central city fortifications, is to catch the Posleen between two fires. We call the outer forts 'coral forts' because they are like a spreading coral.

  "The cities and the coral forts will have enough supplies to hold out for five years, if necessary. Each of them will also be just out of line of sight of a planetary defense center; that was already in the PDC plans, so we don't have to worry overmuch about them being directly assaulted by landers or command ships. If landers or command ships take to the air less than en masse, the planetary defense centers should be able to sweep them out of the sky.

  "If the situation becomes completely untenable for a city's forces, they may attempt to flee to refuge. For the purely coastal cities, we are coming up with plans to evacuate them by sea."

  "How, sir?" Mike interrupted. If he had one weakness it was sleep. Without regular doses his brain turned to mush. It had pretty much gone south sometime around the landing in D.C. He was currently well beyond playing guessing games. He took another hit of the nicotine hoping it would clear some cobwebs.

  "Partially by subs. We're reactivating a bunch of the nuclear launch boats, boomers, that haven't been scrapped. We're ripping out all the weaponry and upgrading the environmental systems. We figure we can pack nearly a battalion into the missile section alone, more in the torpedo rooms, and so on. We're substituting the nuclear kettle with power crystals to appease the environmentalists."

  "Like there's going to be an environment left," snorted General Taylor. He walked over to a sideboard and poured a measure of scotch. "Anyone care to join me in a snort?"

  "I'll take a vodka, straight," said General Horner.

  "Bourbon on ice, sir, thank you, sir. Much ice, sir."

  "Don't be so uptight, Captain. We're all old soldiers here," said the High Commander.

  "Yes, sir," Mike answered with a wink. He would rather have asked for coffee, but when the High Commander offers drinks you don't refuse.

  General Horner snorted and went on. "The Navy is also reactivating all the battleships that haven't been turned into razor blades. Since there were a bunch of them that have become museums and since there were howls of protest over scrapping the last two of the Iowa class that weren't, it turns out we have eight."

  "I heard about that, sir," said Mike. "Can they stand up to Posleen weapons?"

  "Well, their belt—that is, the portion of their hull that is above the waterline, and most of their bridge armor—is twelve to fourteen inches of homogenous steel. That would normally be light to stand up to plasma cannons, but the steel that they are made of turned out to be surprisingly resistant. Also they're adding on some lightweight ceramet enhancements that increase their resistance to laser and plasma fire by about twenty-five percent. They'll be able to hold their own, even at short range, and think about the firepower! Each of those things has nine guns, either fourteen or sixteen-inchers."

  "Didn't the Iowa lose one in an accident?" asked Mike, rubbing his chin and thinking about having a battleship broadside at his beck and call.

  "Yes," said General Taylor. "But they are building a new breech at Granite City Steel in St. Louis. It'll be ready in about ten months."

  "However, for those cities which cannot be evacuated by sea," continued General Horner, "there must be some alternative means."

  "If you mean fighting their way out through the investing Posleen, sir," interrupted Mike, "I don't see any. Are we talking about light infantry, sir?" He hid a yawn and took a deep breath to drive some oxygen into his flagging brain.

  "Some, but with enough transport organic to the division to move the whole thing. Basically a motorized infantry regiment. Most will actually be mechanized infantry, Armor or Armored Cav. The tanks and AFVs will be positioned in forward revetments or ready to sally and the troops will be in bunkers. If they have to retreat or sally there will be trucks and other transports to move the entire force and any civilians who've stayed behind. In one sortie."

  "Okay, let me give you a situation and a city, sir," said O'Neal, rubbing his chin in thought, flogging his brain. "Let me see if I understand this plan. Let's talk about . . . Sacramento."

  "Good choice," said General Horner, leaning back.

  "Okay, sir." Mike tapped his AID. "Map menu." He tapped the icons on the hologram until he had the map he wanted and yawned again. "It looks like about a two-hour drive from Sacramento to Placerville, where, I would guess, the first of the mountain defenses would be placed. How am I so far?"

  "About right," said General Horner after a moment's thought.

  "Okay, sirs. That means about six to ten hours of battle to reach the first defense lines," Mike said, taking another pull on the cigar. He looked at the ceiling and flicked an ash.

  "About that," agreed Taylor from the bar.

  "Through a Posleen swarm," said Mike, still contemplating the ceiling.

  "Yes," the generals chorused.

  "Nope," said Mike, shaking his head definitively. "Sirs."

  "Really?" asked General Taylor, handing out the drinks.

  "Really, sir. Look at Diess or Barwhon. Remember that French armored division on Barwhon that got caught out of prepared positions during a movement?"

  "Right, Third Armored Cav," said General Taylor.

  "Troisieme Armore Chevalier," Mike corrected. "They lasted, what? thirty minutes?"

  "There had just been a landing, Mike," pointed out General Horner, "the Posleen numbers were at their maximum."

  "We have to assume an outside influence to force the evacuation, sir," O'Neal pointed out and took a sip of the bourbon. He raised an eyebrow at the quality of the sourmash. It had been in an unlabeled decanter, but it was a nice Kentucky distillery, probably an "estate" brand. Obviously being High Commander had a few perks even in these days of universal rationing.

  "Okay, I'll give you that," admitted the CONARC. "Now, assume MI support for the retreat and reconfigured roadways to maximize terrain cover. How much MI support would you want to evacuate the remains of a corps out of Sacramento?"

  "Oh. You're talking about covering three or four divisions?"

  "Yes, or five. I thi
nk Sacramento is detailed for five divisions."

  "Jesus, sir." Mike shook his head. "I don't think you could lead five of the current standing divisions to a whorehouse on a Sunday morning much less through five hours of battle with the Posleen in open field combat."

  General Horner looked at Taylor and raised an eyebrow. "You wanna take that one, General?"

  General Taylor smiled and shook his head. "We hope to get that under control, Captain."

  Mike snorted. "Better you than me, General. Which particular magic wand are you planning on waving?"

  "Mike," said Horner, warningly.

  "No," said General Taylor, holding up a hand. "He's right. Things on the ground are totally fucked-up. Every fucking report we get from the IGs says the same thing." He turned to the frowning and bleary-eyed captain. It was always hard to tell if O'Neal was pissed off or not, however, because the frown was plastered on his face at all times. "There's no magic wand. We're getting more and more rejuvs in the pipeline. As we get people into their positions, most of the major problems will correct themselves. When there are officers and NCOs available to lead and be held responsible the directives that are already in place will start to take effect.

  "We've got the better part of a year to fix things. And most of the divisions, especially the really bad ones, will be fighting in fixed positions. So even if they crack in places it should be controllable. But we do have one trick left."

  "Mike," interjected Horner, "remember back when we were with GalTech we discussed who was going to be called up in what order?"

  "Sure," said Mike, thinking back. "Combat background personnel first. Start from the highest ranks and work down. Noncombat experienced last." He thought about it a bit more and smiled faintly. That was in the days before the Galactics' problems with supply became evident. When everything was going to be pure Tech as a salvation. When the plans were perfect and the future was rosy. "Good days," he added.

  "Well." General Taylor nodded, with an understanding smile. "That was the plan. But somewhere along the line the plan and the process went astray."

  "One of my 'computer geeks,' " said Horner, with a wry aside to General Taylor, "finally got a look at the algorithm the personnel department was using for the call-up. It was based on Officer and Enlisted Evaluation Reports."

  "Oh, shit," said Mike, with a chuckle. Although good soldiers generally came out fine on the Army's evaluations, the reports tended to miss the difference between a good leader and a "Lifer." The original plan had been to call up warriors as the first wave, setting a tone for the forces to follow. That had obviously not happened.

  "So," said General Taylor, "we've had the software rewritten . . ."

  "By my people," General Horner interjected.

  "Right," continued Taylor. "From now on combat experience will have a high multiplier along with medals for valor. We're calling it 'The Old Soldier' program."

  "Oh, hell," said Mike with a grim chuckle. "No modifier for age, right?" Most of the files that a program like that would spit out would have been formed in the caldrons of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Old soldiers indeed.

  "Right," said Horner. "The program has been in place for a couple of weeks getting the bugs out, but the really big call-up will be during the conference."

  There was an unexpected bark of laughter from Taylor. Both of the officers looked at him in puzzlement. Then Horner realized what he was thinking about and frowned in humor.

  "What?" said Mike. The fact that something had discomfited his former mentor was obvious even through his fatigue.

  "There were . . ." said General Horner, carefully.

  "A few bugs," completed Taylor with a laugh. "His computer super geeks forgot that there are certain persons who, shall we say, are unavailable for recall." The senior commander laughed again, uproariously. "Oh, Jesus, the look on his face!"

  Horner frowned. Hard. A sure sign he was about to burst out laughing. "The computer was searching for high-ranking officers who were still alive and had combat experience. We felt that if there were bugs, it would be better to make the mistake with senior officers than junior. The program had been deliberately set to ignore whether their experience was as the rank they 'retired' at."

  "Although in one case it wouldn't have mattered," pointed out Taylor helpfully.

  "I still don't get it," said Mike, looking from face to face.

  "Mike," said Horner, with a slight snort of his own. "You do realize that Commander in Chief is a rank, don't you?"

  "Oh," said Mike, then, "Oh!"

  "Yep," said Taylor, and howled in laughter, "it called up all the surviving Presidents who had either served during a time of combat at any rank or who were President during a time of war. It recalled them at the rank of four-star general, that being the highest available, and ordered them to report to Fort Myer immediately for inprocessing as same."

  "Oh, God," laughed Mike, "that's rich."

  "I got a couple of very irate calls from the Secret Service," Taylor laughed. "But what was even funnier were the direct calls. One of 'em even offered to come back as his 'original' rank."

  "Did you take him up on it?" asked Mike.

  "Nah. I was tempted. God knows Fleet needs every pilot it can get. But it would have been a political nightmare. I hope he was just joking."

  "Anyway," said Horner, severely, "right after this conference is the big kickoff. To make sure nothing goes too wrong on one end of the spectrum, we will, with great ceremony, recall every single winner of the Medal of Honor still at large."

  "Oh, man," said Mike, quietly. Although he wore the Medal himself, he was sure that most of the other winners were real heroes. Whenever he was in their company he felt like a piker. What he had not yet realized was that most of the Medal winners felt the same way about the other holders.

  "We're hoping that the infusion of 'heroes' will put some spine in the force," said Taylor, seemingly pulling a knife out of the air and cutting the end off of his own cigar. The knife, after a brief flurry that looked like a simple habit rather than showing off, disappeared as rapidly.

  "We're reactivating the 'Strike, Line, Guard' concept as well," the High Commander continued. "The plan of creating 'elite' Line forces that were mobile shock forces fell by the wayside along with a lot of other ideas." He lit the cigar with a silver lighter. The inscription "Who Dares Wins" was faintly visible along with a chased dagger and wings.

  Taylor took a drag on the cigar and let out a stream of blue smoke. "Right now, other than the Fleet Strike Forces and Special Operations, the only forces that show overall high readiness are some of the Cavalry regiments. We're going to start the Line concept around them. They will become mostly volunteer and will be moved to locations where they can be used to reinforce defense points and sally against Posleen columns. They're going to take a hell of a lot of casualties, but I expect there will always be volunteers.

  "So, most of the 'heroes' will end up in Line units," Horner pointed out. "But they're going to be bearing the brunt so it's the right place to put them."

  "Just remember," said Mike, rubbing his eyes, "some of these guys are not going to be tightly wrapped."

  "Speaking from experience, Mighty Mite?" asked Horner.

  "I've had my bad days, sir," Mike admitted, quietly. "Nights, usually."

  "You need a break, son," said Horner. He didn't tell him they already had something in mind.

  "I had one, remember, sir," said Mike, sourly. "I was on a Bond Tour."

  "That wasn't a break and you know it," said Horner. "And it wasn't my fault. I didn't have a shred of pull back then."

  Mike nodded and decided to change the subject. "Apropos of nothing, sir, where is the equipment for all these mechanized and mobile divisions coming from?"

  "Chrysler is back in the armor-making business, has been for nearly a year. They and GM have been producing like mad, son," said General Taylor. "They've not only stepped up their production rate beyond anything they expected, they've
converted two factories in western Pennsylvania and Utah for M-1 production and four for Bradley production. The Toyota plant in Kentucky is about to get into the business as well. Modern equipment we have out the ass. What we don't have is GalTech."

  "And even an Abrams can't stand up to Posleen for very long," continued General Horner.

  "Hmm. Any more rabbits in the hat?" asked Mike.

  "Like what?" asked Jack.

  "Like independent forts along the way?"

  "No," said the CONARC. "We've only got so much logistics to go around. Not to mention bodies. We have to concentrate on the cities, not long-ball chances like the evac. There might be some small outposts—we're looking at doing some stuff with militias—but by this time they will probably be swept away. That's where the mobile infantry comes into play." The fate of the defenders was obvious. But the general carefully did not comment on that.

  "And in the southwest," interjected General Taylor, flicking an ash from his stogie.

  "And in the southwest," agreed Horner, "which is going to be an Eleventh Mobile Infantry show. The other use for the MI will be as support during the initial retreat to the montane defenses and to ensure that the Posleen do not break through the Appalachian defenses especially. What we want you to do is go over the conventional battle plans being developed and set up the MI zones of responsibility.

  "Zones of responsibility will not be detailed to units smaller than a battalion," continued Horner. "The units you have to work with are the 508th , 509th and the 555th. The Eleventh will be used as a division to hold the 'underbelly.' "

  "Are we going to have all of those?" Although there were plans in the pipeline to supply all those regiments with suits, the schedule of supply had been pushed back and back. Pretty soon they were going to start taking losses and the new suits would be going to replace casualties.

  "We have to assume so," Horner stated. His grim smile belied the words. "I've set up an office with a couple of staff and all the necessary clearances. And of course you've got Michelle," said General Horner, gesturing at the captain's AID.