Hell's Faire lota-4 Read online

  “Of hyperfullerene?” Jack asked, taking a deep breath.

  “No, we generally refer to it in terms of anti-hydrogen atomic mass rather than the…”

  “You have one hundred and forty kilos of antimatter sitting around on my planet????”

  “I thought it would come in handy,” the doctor said lamely.

  “Sure, for fueling Ninth Fleet!” Jack shouted. “Tell me about the radioactive effects of this bomb.”

  “Very hot, unfortunately,” the scientist sighed. “It’s one of the reasons it’s useless for an energy source. But very short-lived as well. In a day or two the area is down to high background and in a month it would require sophisticated sensors to tell it has been hit. But not the sort of thing you want running your car. Fortunately, it’s readily detectable.”

  “Sure, with a Geiger counter!” President Carson said.

  “Oh, no, there’s a visual chemical cue,” the professor said. “It was the suggestion of one of my grad students and it made sense. The truly ‘hot’ areas will be readily detectable visually and the cue will fade as the radiation does.”

  “But the entire system has not been tested,” Carson pointed out with the sort of quiet calm used when an emergency happens during brain surgery.

  “We fired a mockup with transmitters in duplicate Indowy containment fields,” the scientist said. “They all survived. If they survived, the containment works. And hyperfullerene has been tested against every kind of shock imaginable. Unfortunately, the problem is not it detonating prematurely but getting it to detonate at all.”

  “And it is armed,” Carson said, accusingly.

  “Well, yes, that follows.”

  “Positive action locks?” Jack asked.

  “Not yet,” Castanuelo admitted. In other words, the bomb could be detonated by anyone with rudimentary technical skills.

  “Guards? Electronic security? Vault safety?” the general asked furiously.

  “Well, we’ve got it in one of our mines,” the professor said with a shrug. “And I’ve got a couple of students watching it. Look, it was a crash project!”

  Jack glanced at his wrist where his AID used to be and then at his aide. “Jackson, get on the phone. I want an outside expert in here, one on antimatter, one on Indowy containment systems and one on guns and submunitions. I want a company of regular troops around wherever this thing is in no more than an hour and I want them replaced by special operations guard units by the end of the day.”

  He looked at the scientist and nodded. “Dr. Castanuelo, you’re right, we did need it. I’m pretty sure that that is going to keep your bacon out of the fire. As long as it works. If it doesn’t…”

  “Sir, if it doesn’t, I’ll never know it,” Castanuelo said. “If it, for example, detonates on launch, there won’t be a Knoxville left.”

  “And if the rest of your material sympathetically detonates, say goodbye to Tennessee!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rabun Gap, GA, United States of America, Sol III

  1522 EDT Monday September 28, 2009 AD

  Mike didn’t have to look at his readouts to see how bad off the battalion was. Most of the suits were laid out flat on the log-covered hillside. Part of that was fatigue — even with the suits, being in combat was murderously tiresome — but the greater part of it was experienced troopers trying to conserve every erg of power. Some of the suits were down to one percent power and when it dropped to zero the suit would pop open and “decant” the Protoplasmic Intelligence System out onto the cold, wet ground. Not a happy prospect.

  Together with the loss of Gunny Pappas, it was a pretty bleak and depressing situation.

  There were other problems. He still had nearly two companies of troops, but he had lost Captain Holder in the landing and Charlie Company was looking pretty ragged as a result. And he was short on officers except on staff, where they were doing less and less good. At this point he didn’t really need an intelligence officer. The Posleen were right there and there and there and… On the other hand, he also didn’t need an operations officer. The Posleen were going to come on in the same old way and they would fight them in the same old way. Hell, this battalion didn’t even need a commander.

  Stewart would probably be the best choice for a company commander. He was naturally charismatic, he had a good feel for tactical, and, hell, operational maneuver, and he didn’t have Duncan’s… problems.

  So why did he keep thinking he should put Duncan in command of Charlie Company?

  He took off his helmet and spit his dip out on the ground, looking around at the suits. The whole battalion was simply fragged. Half of the personnel had gone to sleep where they dropped, Provigil be damned. He wasn’t much better, which was why he was considering putting a combat-shocked officer in command of a company.

  Duncan, along with Stewart and Pappas, had been with him for years, since his first company command. But before that Duncan had also been on Diess and then was transferred to Barwhon. Something about the fighting on Barwhon had just… snapped him. He was fine calling in fire and coming up with really elegant ways to manage complicated battles, but put him in the line and he just… closed down.

  Duncan had a responsibility streak a mile wide, though. Putting him in charge of Charlie Company would do one of two things. It would either break him out of it or shut him down permanently.

  And, frankly, if he went down, that would leave Stewart in place to take over battalion command. Which just might save everyone’s butts.

  “Duncan,” he said finally. “I need you over here for a second.”

  * * *

  “This really sucks,” Shari said as she stumbled over another piece of debris.

  The suits had cleared a path up the road to the house, but there wasn’t much they could do in the valley; it was just too torn up.

  The Rabun Gap Valley had once been a rather pleasant place, its hillsides lined with trees and the valley itself filled with a mix of light industrial plants and cropland. But repeated nuclear-class explosions had changed all that.

  The trees on the hillsides had not only been knocked down but in many cases thrown around, some of them out into the valley. Along with them were the remains of the corps that had died there, shattered hulks of tanks, howitzers flipped end for end and sticking out of the ground, bits and pieces of trucks, buildings and people scattered across the ground in a crazy quilt. Added to this were ripples of soil and craters thrown up by the explosions, some of which had happened low enough to dig into the ground to the bedrock.

  Through this nuclear nightmare the suits and the unarmored humans stumbled with their massive loads. The suits had it fairly easy; with unlimited power they could practically float over obstacles. The humans, though, had to struggle under, over and around them.

  “Don’t knock it,” Tommy said nervously, looking to the east. “I think we’d have had company before now if it wasn’t for all of this.”

  “The Posleen should be able to plow through this,” Mueller said then cursed as he fell when one leg plunged into a hole. The weight of the battlebox on his back pushed him face down in the ground and for a moment he couldn’t get the angle to straighten up. “Shit.”

  “No lying out, Master Sergeant,” Tommy said with a chuckle. He set down one of the boxes he was carrying and pulled the massive NCO out of the hole like a cork out of a bottle.

  “You know, Lieutenant, you could positively get on a guy’s nerves,” Mueller said with a rueful grin.

  “When we started across we came from down valley,” Sunday continued. “There’s a… pile, sort of ripple, of dirt and debris down the end of the valley. I looked at it from up on the hill and it looks like a lander must have just about been grounded when it blew up. Anyway, between that ridge and the fallen trees on all the slopes they’re going to have a hell of a time getting up here for a while.”

  “Hmm,” Mosovich said. “So unless they come from the west, the cache should be okay.”

  “Or
from the north,” Mueller said. “There’s a road up there, too.”

  “They’d have to be pretty lost,” Wendy chuckled. “That’s a lousy road.”

  “ ‘S’ truth,” Mosovich said. “And good news.” He let out a hiss as a ridge of soil slipped out from under his feet. He looked up at the mountain they were supposed to ascend — it was covered in fallen trees — and sighed. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

  * * *

  “Sergeant Major, thank you for helping us get this gear up here.”

  Mosovich had never met the famous Mike O’Neal and wasn’t particularly impressed with what he saw. The suit was… weird, with some sort of demon hologram on the front. And the major’s unit was sprawled across the back side of Black Mountain like they weren’t going to be going anywhere soon; most of the suits were flat on their backs. After humping all this shit up the hill, the sight of all the armored combat suits apparently crapped out was not particularly pleasing.

  “Yes, sir,” Mosovich replied correctly. “I’m not actually in command, Captain Elgars is.”

  “Sort of,” Elgars said, dumping the battlebox she had carried up the hill. “What’s the situation, Major?”

  “As soon as we can get the suits powered back up, we’ll be ready to move back into the Gap.” As he was speaking, a team of technician suits was connecting power leads to the antimatter generators. “Since this is standard ammo, as long as it holds out we shouldn’t have nearly as much need for power. And with the additional AM packs we’ll be able to fight for at least two days. Assuming we survive, of course.”

  The suit was a blank image, but something about the body posture bespoke irony.

  “I’m glad we could be of service, sir,” Mosovich commented, dryly.

  “I know it looks sort of stupid to have a company of ACS flaked out on a hill,” O’Neal said, removing his helmet. “But we had to carry some of the suits the last hundred meters. We were that out of power. If I thought I could have gone, I would have. But Sunday and his Reapers were the only ones with enough power left to get to the cache. Again, thank you for your help.”

  Mosovich watched as some of the suit gel slid off the major’s hair and arched out to drop into the open helmet. The officer was younger than he’d expected. He was a rejuv, of course, but something about him told Mosovich that he also was young, comparatively speaking. And tired.

  “You gotten any rest lately, sir?” the NCO said, gruffly.

  “That is what Provigil is for, Sergeant Major,” O’Neal answered with a frown as he looked out at the valley. “You know I grew up here, I suppose.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mosovich hesitated for a moment. “I… knew your father. We had friends in common. I went up to the farm.”

  “I understand his body was missing,” Mike said, reaching into an armored pouch and extracting a can of Skoal. “Dip?”

  “No, sir, thank you,” the sergeant major replied. “Yes. Cally said that she had found his body at the bunker. But when we got there it was gone.”

  “Well, at least Cally is okay,” Mike replied. “You need to get going. We’re going to rearm and fuel fast. And then we’re going to call in the mother of all nuclear strikes on this… situation. The inner cache is made out of plasteel armor and should hold out, but you may get buried. I’ll inform Fleet where you are so… when we retake this area you can get dug out.”

  “How bad can it be?” Elgars asked. “The outer cache took, what, two blasts already?”

  “I did say ‘the mother of all nuclear strikes,’ right?” O’Neal said with a lopsided grin. “How about one hundred and ten megatons.”

  “Holy shit!” Mosovich gasped. “Nothing is going to stand up to that!”

  “It’s going to be spread out,” the major said. “Individual areas will get something around a two-megaton blast. It will be airburst. That cache will more than hold. But you have to be in it, and so does my daughter.”

  “Yes, sir,” Elgars said. “We left Cally holding the fort. We should get back.” She straightened her back and gave him a snappy salute.

  O’Neal nodded at her and then slowly raised his hand in return. “We’ll see you when we see you, folks. Good luck.”

  * * *

  “Wendy,” Tommy said and stopped.

  “It’s okay,” she answered, reaching up to stroke the face of the armor. It was a simple, blank facet, not a face, but somehow it felt right to be touching it.

  “I’ll be okay,” she said, flexing her jaw. “And I don’t care what they say, you’re coming back to me. Do you understand that? We’ve got a wedding to attend.”

  “I understand,” he said, the voice echoing hollowly from the suit. “I’ll be there.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “If you don’t show up,” she said, wiping at his face again. “I’ll cap you with your own Glock.” She tapped the front of the armor for emphasis then started back down the trail to the valley.

  “Nice girl. I can see why you want to get married.”

  Tommy hadn’t noticed the major come up behind him. Now he turned and looked down at the shorter figure.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied. He paused then raised his hands, palms up. “I really love her. High school heartthrob. The whole bit.”

  “I understand. I met Sharon in college and when I realized she saw anything in me… I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

  “She’s… dead, sir?” he asked, cautiously.

  “Very. She was outside her ship working on a stuck clamp when a B-Dec came out of hyper. The ship attempted to launch from the system she was working on. The missiles, the clamp, the ship and my wife all disappeared in a cloud of radiation and light. That would be just about the same time you were burying yourself under Fredericksburg, by the way.” He paused then tapped Tommy on the back. “That’s why I told you to get what you can while you can get it, son. There’s no guarantee she’s always going to be there for you. And no guarantee that you’re going to be there for her.”

  “Will she be okay?” Sunday asked. “That’s… it’s a big fucking weapon they’re firing, pardon my French, sir.”

  “That safe the gear was in will stand up to just about anything,” O’Neal replied. “She’ll be fine. They close the door, take their Hiberzine and go to sleep until somebody comes to dig them out. You’ve been there and done that, right?”

  “Yes,” Tommy said. “And what about us?”

  “I thought you lived for killing Posleen,” O’Neal said with a snort. “Good news, it’s a target-rich environment.”

  “I live for killing Posleen,” Tommy replied. “I can’t kill them if I’m dead.”

  “Well, we’re rearmed. And powered up. And the Reapers have more rounds. So we’ll go back and do what we always do; hold on until relieved.”

  “For how long?” Tommy asked, quietly.

  “How long indeed. Let’s just say I hope that goddamned SheVa gun puts the pedal to the metal.”

  * * *

  Cally snuggled the rifle into her shoulder and took a breath.

  The weapon was a Steyr AUG II, a 7.62x59 version of the venerable AUG Bullpup. The weapon had been fielded as a replacement just before the first major landings and a few had turned up with special operations troops in the United States just before the Posleen landings stopped all normal commerce. Her father had managed to snag one for her through connections and she was glad he did. The weapon was smaller and shorter than most of the 7.62 weapons out there and it was easier for her to handle with her lighter build. And the built-in buffer reduced the recoil to something along the lines of a 9mm carbine. So she was pretty accurate with it. Especially with a 3-9x variable-power scope. The problem was she didn’t have a target.

  She knew from talking to her dad and granddad that the most important thing to take out in a Posleen company was the God King. The God King had all the sensors so once you got him, the company was down to Mark One Eyeball. Also, after the initial, violent,
reaction to the death of their God, the normals tended to get really disorganized and a bunch of them would just wander off to become ferals. So the God King had to be the first target.

  The other side of that story was that Posleen were tough; if you hit one in an artery they just shunted to secondary systems and kept going. To kill one, quickly, required either hitting the heart or the brain.

  The problem was that this God King had apparently learned the concept of Posleen shields and he was surrounded by his normals. So there wasn’t, ever, a close shot at the heart. And their heads, which held their brains just like humans, were on the end of long, mobile necks. So targeting a head was tough as hell.

  Unfortunately, that seemed to be the only viable target. So she let the breath out slowly and stroked her trigger.

  * * *

  Cholosta’an was watching his sensors nervously. The sensors indicated that there was an electronic device somewhere on the ridge above him. That might just mean one of the randomly scattered sensors that permitted the humans to keep track of Posleen movement. And, if so, it was no bother; there weren’t many humans around to react.

  But it also might mean a human or humans that had active electronics, like a radio or night-vision systems.

  Unfortunately, the sensors couldn’t quite pin down the location; it was just beyond their sensory range. He kept glancing up the hill, though, trying to spot any target. Thus he wasn’t at all surprised when his sensors screamed a warning of an incoming round just as the oolt’os to his left grunted from the impact of a round on his neck.

  The target was clear on the sensors now, an armed human with a chemical rifle. He swung his plasma gun onto the vector and fired, knowing that the rest of the oolt would follow his lead.

  * * *

  Cally flattened herself into the narrow crack in the rock and muttered curses under her breath. She had heard about the way that Posleen reacted to being fired on but hearing about it and being the target of it were two different things.