When the Devil Dances lota-3 Read online

  Ryan could hear the sergeant major swearing softly over the open circuit and something about it made the memory click. “Sergeant Major Mosovich? From Richmond?”

  There was silence over the circuit for a moment. “Yeah, that’s me. Why do you know about that, sir?”

  Ryan stroked his mustache. He had grown it as an affectation back when he thought he was a little too young to suddenly be a captain. Then, after a while, he noticed that people tended to avoid looking him in the eye. Oh, not the combat types, but around corps headquarters you didn’t run into many of them. But for the rest… they tended to look away. Some of them said he didn’t look like he was still in his twenties.

  But he kept the mustache.

  “I know Mr. Keene. Pretty well.” He’d studied under Keene’s tutelage in Chattanooga during the rebuild and they had become more than acquaintances; Keene was one of the ones who could look the young major in the eye. And Keene had some good stories about Richmond. Better than Ryan’s, which mostly ended “and then we ran away again” or “and then he died.”

  “Better than Barwhon, Sergeant Major,” Ryan added, realizing now, how he could get the NCO to work with him. If they worked together rather than at cross-purposes, which would just happen if Mosovich assumed he was dealing with an arm-chair commando, they could, maybe, get the LRRP team out.

  “Better than Barwhon but not as good as Occoquan,” the major added. “I had the Missouri on my side there.” Ryan paused again and clicked icons, reconfiguring data. “You now have everything I have the authority to release, Sergeant Major. I’m going to send a runner over to the corps commander with the request that he release the fast reaction forces, all but one batt. Some of these guys are probably asleep, so it will take waking them up. But in just a bit you’ll have the better part of two brigades of artillery at your beck and call.”

  * * *

  Mosovich smiled as his AID showed all the available artillery in the corps transferring to his control, but he suppressed his chuckle. “So that was you, sir. Yeah, I wish the Mo was in range. Or any of the railguns. But what we’ve got will have to do.”

  * * *

  Ryan pointed at the nearest senior NCO and towards the corps commander’s quarters. The headquarters was on a hillock in the middle of the Gap and had once housed the Rabun School. Now the dormitories were officers’ quarters and the headmaster’s home was the corps commander’s quarters. Generally, the commander did not prefer to be disturbed in the middle of the night, but one look at the major was enough to send the staff sergeant scampering. And he wasn’t going to return unless he had the release of the artillery.

  “I’ll see if I can scrounge up anything else. Can you think of anything?”

  “Just one, sir,” Mosovich added. “It might make sense to wake up Major Steverich in S-2. These guys are not acting like normal Posleen. Way too controlled, way too… something. They seem to be anticipating us in a way I don’t like one bit. Like they’re anticipating everything we do.”

  “Or reading the mail?” Ryan asked. “You’re secure, right?” He checked the notation on the communicator. “Right.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mosovich answered. “We’re using the laser system, I’m not even trusting ultra-wide band. But we’ve been losing sensors. That’s why we’re out here; because we’ve lost all our sensors on this side of the mountain. What have they been doing with them?”

  * * *

  Tulo’stenaloor looked over the shoulder of the God King and reined in his impatience. Goloswin had been almost impossible to find, and even harder to dig out of his comfortable rut on Doradan. From the point of view of the young hotheads that made up the majority of the Host, Kesentai like Goloswin were not much more than Kenstain. They may have fought well enough to get a few small possessions, a square of property and a factory or two. But then they quit, leaving the fighting to their betters. And they had odd… hobbies was not a Posleen word, but it fit.

  In the case of Goloswin the hobby was… devices. He seemed to understand the Alldn’t equipment better than its long dead Alldn’t and Posleen designers. He could improve, another human word, “tweak” came to mind, a tenar so that it was faster, smoother and the sensors interacted even better with the guns. His sensor suites were a thing of legend and many well-to-do Kessentai waited years for one of his systems to be built and eventually catch up with them.

  And one of them cost more in trade credits than a basic oolt, fully equipped.

  But the technician’s real love was new discoveries, new devices to tinker with, such as the sensor box floating in the stasis field.

  “These humans, so endlessly inventive.” The God King sighed. “Look. Not just a communicator, not just a relay and not just a sensor, but all three rolled into one. Crude in places; I think that some of these components undoubtedly came from something else. But quite, quite inventive.”

  “And now a defense device,” Tulo’stenaloor pointed out. “The last one that we tried to take down blew up when it was moved.” The loss of an oolt’os and a Kessentai who was supervising was not worth commenting on.

  “I need a sample of one of those,” Goloswin said. “I have an oolt’os who will probably be able to take one down successfully.”

  “After this little problem is rectified,” Tulo’stenaloor said. “They are dependent for untraceable communication on these things. I would like to remove that link if I could.”

  “Oh, it’s not untraceable,” Goloswin pointed out. He slid his talons through some glowing dots in the air and a new holofield opened and configured. It was a rough map of the region and Tulo’stenaloor realized that the “bright” areas were where the human sensors could see. And he realized immediately what he was looking at.

  “You’re in the sensor net?” he breathed.

  “Oh, yes,” Goloswin agreed. “Trivial exercise, quite trivial. The nice part is this.” He highlighted a field and four purple icons sprang to life on a ridgeline. “There are your pests. Now go take care of them and get me a sample of the new sensors. I look forward to examining this ‘boobytrap.’ And the next human you talk to, please ask it what a ‘booby’ is before you eat it.”

  * * *

  Mosovich looked at the map and got a sick feeling in his stomach. The fact was that, no matter how much artillery fire they got, they were in a box. There were only three places where crossing the Talullah River would be a reasonable proposition. As Mueller had pointed out, if they had SCUBA gear they could have crossed any of the lakes at any point. But without the gear they would be four obvious targets, out on the flat nowhere and open to fire from any passing patrol. And the crossing would not be quick. Even if they could “drownproof” Sister Mary and drag her across on a float. But otherwise it was a matter of choosing the bridges; crossing the streams would be nearly impossible and — between having to rig ropes to keep from being swept away and making their way across — sure to take too long as well.

  However… these Posleen were acting like humans. They seemed to be thinking about the possible actions of their quarry and reacting in a reasonable manner. Which meant that they would be expecting the team to either cross the bridges or the lakes heading more or less directly towards the lines. They might or might not know that the latter would be virtually impossible.

  If they could break through the lines to the west, then break contact, two very big ifs, they could make their way towards the lines around Tray Mountain. That was a wilderness area and the roads were few and far between, making it much better from their perspective.

  But getting there would be a long damned walk with, apparently, damned little support. The artillery, though, what there was of it, would be able to cover them the whole way. The important point would be to make sure they didn’t get spotted by where the artillery was firing.

  He chuckled silently. This was almost as bad as fighting humans.

  * * *

  “There is a reason that fighting humans is so hard,” Orostan mused. “They apparently
have been warring amongst themselves, and surviving at it, for their entire history. Their legion of dirty tricks comes from those millennia of experience. We Posleen, on the other hand, have either fought those with no experience of war, or fought the ornaldath. And the ornaldath has always lasted for such a short period of time, and been so chaotic, that little can be learned.”

  “With humans, every day is ornaldath,” Cholosta’an muttered bitterly. “They… cheat.”

  “Yes,” Orostan admitted in an amused tone. “But it is not ornaldath. They do not use the greatest weapons, much. Tulo’stenaloor’s… ‘intelligence’ people have learned that they have a great reluctance to use those that are not chemical, those that use fusion and antimatter for their propellants. So it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, ornaldath. Except when you corner them. And then, sometimes, they use those weapons. Rarely.”

  “They are not cornered now?” Cholosta’an asked. “They are only a bit of one continent. The ones that are to the north have no materials to fight with and other than this remnant it is all tribes scattered in the mountains. Except for this remnant, they are broken. Isn’t that the point of gathering this host?”

  “Don’t count the humans out until the last one is dead and you have hacked its body to bits and eaten it,” the oolt’ondai cautioned. “Many of them got off the planet before we landed and those ‘scattered tribes’ are still strong enough to be a challenge in many areas. We have taken the bulk of the planet for our lands, and the bulk of the human population for our feed, but their fleet rebuilds and rebuilds seemingly endlessly. And these humans, these ‘trapped abat’ are no joke. Every day they find new ways to confound us.”

  As if on cue the sky began to scream.

  * * *

  “Splash out,” Mosovich said, listening to the firecracker rattle of ICM landing in the distance. The team had moved down the mountainside, using every bit of concealment, until it was within two hundred yards of Oakey Mountain Road. The biggest worry were the God Kings scattered among the normals. It was hard, in the heavy foliage, to spot the occasional passing saucer, but whenever one came in view the team went to ground and held their breath in anticipation. But, so far, so good.

  Now, with the firing behind them, if the Posleen stayed true to their current form they should hurry towards the bridge in anticipation of the team’s movements.

  And that did appear to be happening. The normals in view, almost immediately after the artillery began to land, began to stream to the north. With any luck in a few more minutes there would be enough of a reduction the team could consider trying the road.

  They were on a ridgeline perpendicular to the road, bedded down in a thick stand of white pine saplings. At the point they would be crossing the road it went through a small saddle and there was a hilltop on the far side. There had been a house or small farm to the right of the saddle in bygone days, but now all there was, was another weed-covered field and the overgrown right-of-way. The open area was small, as well, no more than fifty meters including the torn up grassy track that had been Oakey Mountain Road.

  On the far side of the hill that was their objective the ground fell off down a steep slope to the Soque River. Although that would normally be a tough crossing, the area was densely grown and there was small chance the horselike Posleen could keep up with the team in there. They would have to cross Highway 197, but unless the Posleen were patrolling everywhere, any movement over there should be slight. And, again, the ground should be overgrown enough to permit them to slip past any patrols.

  From the crossing of the Soque they would swing west of Batesville. If they weren’t spotted on their crossing, corps would maintain harassing fire on the Posleen in regular spots near the Talullah. With luck, it would be some time before the Posleen commander discovered that they had slipped out of the trap. By that time they should be well outside the main search area.

  If. With luck.

  In a remarkably short time the masses of Posleen that had been in the area were gone. The road was empty and still in the pre-dawn night.

  “Time to move out,” Mosovich whispered. Steep slope again. Time to slide.

  * * *

  “Well, at least it is falling on others,” Cholosta’an observed. The tenar’s sensors were set to replicate the activity on the far side of the mountain.

  The town of Seed had often been described as not much more than a stop sign; it really it wasn’t even that. The “main” road was Oakey Mountain, a two lane winding bit of nothingness going from nowhere to nowhere in the hills. And there wasn’t even a stop sign on it, let alone a convenience store. The other road was Gap Road, a macadam track going over the mountains to Lake Seed.

  And it was less now. Where before there had been a few houses now there were only weedy fields, scrub and the occasional shallow crater that indicated a home with a “Scorched Earth” home defense system.

  Currently the fields were covered with the oolt’ondar of Orostan and the many additional newcomer oolt attached to it. This force had been primarily responsible for patrolling Low Gap Road. Orostan had ordered in road construction materials and the track over the mountains was in the process of being graded for the first time since the initial invasion. But most of his force was now consolidated at Seed in case the humans broke in another direction. As opposed to the forces over by the lake that were closing in, presumably closing in, on the human team. And it was clear that these latter were getting hammered.

  “Yes,” Orostan said. “And Lardola is being conservative. Most of the loss has been among the new forces. And especially among those marked as the least favorable.”

  “I’m glad I wasn’t marked as ‘unfavorable,’ ” the younger Kessentai commented sourly.

  “No, you weren’t,” the oolt’ondai agreed. “Or you’d probably be in there getting turned into thresh.” His communicator chimed and he touched one of the glowing dots, receiving the call.

  “Orostan, this is Tulo. The humans appear to have tricked us; they are attempting to break to the west. Again, they are preparing to cross the road on the western side. The patrols over there have scattered and headed for the firing. Cut the humans off if you can get there in time, pursue them if not.” A holo map blossomed over the older Kessentai’s tenar showing the relative position of the human team and the Posleen force.

  “Understood,” the oolt’ondai said. “I will do that immediately.”

  “And,” the distant commander added with a hiss of humor, “I take it I don’t have to suggest that you use caution.”

  “Agreed,” the oolt’ondai answered.

  “I will take my oolt immediately, Oolt’ondai,” Cholosta’an said, starting to swing his tenar to the north.

  “Softly, Kessentai,” Orostan said, flapping his crest in negation. “I did mention that you were not considered entirely expendable, right?” The oolt’ondai ran his finger down the readouts until he grunted in satisfaction. “Oldoman,” he said into his communicator. There was a moment’s pause, which evoked a snarl, but the communicator finally lit.

  “What?” came a harsh answer.

  “The humans have been seen trying to make it across the road. Go north and cut them off; I will follow with the rest of the force.”

  “I go!” came the reply. “Enough of this waiting in the dark!”

  “An expendable one?” Cholosta’an asked.

  “Eminently,” Orostan agreed. “His oolt’os are on their last legs from hunger, not because he does not have the credits to afford it, but because he expects them to find food on their own. Terrible equipment, not a decent gene line in the group. Damned few usable skills and all replaceable. He’s not worth the air he and his oolt breathe.” For a group called ‘The People of the Ships’ it was the ultimate insult.

  “And will we follow with the rest of the force?”

  “Oh, definitely,” Orostan said, sending orders to his key subcommanders. “But carefully and slowly, the least worthy scouts out to the front. It is
not worth losing a thousand oolt’os to catch one small group of humans, no matter how dangerous.”

  * * *

  “I don’t see that it’s worth this expenditure to cover one group of lurps,” the corps artillery commander complained.

  It was inevitable that everyone would want to get their two cents in just as soon as they woke up. And with the corps commander fulminating in the pre-dawn hours the word had quickly woken his staff. Who had descended in full fury on one lonely major.

  Who didn’t have an ounce of back-up.

  “I don’t see that it’s worth the expenditure to keep you fed, Colonel.” Major Ryan was tired and getting just a bit cranky. And trying to follow the battle around Seed while surrounded by chateau generals was getting on his nerves.

  “Enough of that,” General Bernard said. He was a big, florid commander who filled his BDU uniform like a bass drum. This also described the occasional military genius in history, but unfortunately that particular description, “military genius,” did not extend to General Bernard. He had been the Virginia National Guard commander prior to the invasion, what is called the Adjutant General. Upon the Federalization of all forces he had retained command of the 29th Infantry Division up until the debacle that was generally called the Battle of Spottsylvania County. During the first landing individual units of the division had fought bravely and occasionally brilliantly. But the general had been shown to be completely out of his depth and when he ordered his division artillery, against standing orders, to initiate contact with the Posleen, it had contributed, markedly, to the ensuing massacres of the 9th and 10th Corps.