When the Devil Dances lota-3 Page 16

  However, his political skills had stood him in good stead in the following war of blame-calling and finger-pointing. Certain prominent generals had gone down in flames, the President at the center of the controversy had, of course, died, but a few others, both deserving and undeserving of blame, had managed to survive. In Bernard’s case he had even prospered, pointing out that the general that ordered his relief was shortly thereafter soundly defeated by the Posleen. The fact that General Simosin was also the victim of a very deliberate and subtle hacking of his control net was missed in the debate. Indeed, the fact that the battle took place at the time and in the way that it did being at least partially the fault of General Bernard and his single rash and stupid order was missed in the debate. Thus he was reinstated and even, eventually, promoted. However, everyone who was “in the know” was aware that as a field commander he was incompetent at best and dangerous at worst. Thus his posting to the relatively low priority Rabun Gap Defense Zone. This was not a guy you were going to trust at Chattanooga or Roanoke or Harrisburg.

  General Bernard was also aware of this thin ice. And thus he did not immediately hop to the defense of his artillery commander. “One of the things we are here to decide is how much support they need. And I released the FPF batteries.”

  “We probably won’t need final protective fire right away, sir,” Colonel Jorgensen said. “They seem to be expending most of their attention on these lurps. But if they follow them all the way back to the lines, assuming they make it, then we might have problems.”

  “The indications so far are that this group is sitting on its hands,” Colonel McDonald pointed out. The corps intelligence officer was well aware that those were, technically, “his” lurps out there. What was even more important was that if he lost them it was unlikely he’d get a new set with the same capabilities any time soon. He had some “home grown” teams, but they didn’t have the experience or the equipment of the long-service Special Operations types that had been transferred to Fleet Strike. Which would mean local patrols with standard equipment. Including regular radios. And since the Posleen seemed to be learning to track in on radios pretty quick, that would mean teams with not much in the way of communications ability.

  So for a variety of reasons, not excepting the milk of human kindness and the interests of one soldier looking out for another, he didn’t intend to let these two jerks hang Mosovich out on a limb.

  “We have plenty of movement in the sensor areas,” McDonald noted. “They’re getting ready to move out of the sensor coverage. But even if they do we can get good fire on the approaching forces. It’s only ammo; bullets not bodies, remember?”

  “It’s only ammo to you, George,” Colonel Jorgensen said. “But it’s my boys and girls feeding the guns. It’s my cost for replacing tubes. I’ve got to explain the trunion damage and, for that matter, the ammunition expenditure. And we’ve got a globe sitting out there, planning who knows what. What happens when they come swarming at the wall? Where do we get the ammunition then?”

  “Colonel, I’ve seen your ammo dumps,” Major Ryan said. “You’ve got enough ammo on hand for five days of continuous fire, especially with all the units we lost to Tenth Army. Five… days. Trust me, those defenses will not last five days if the Posleen come at us in force. Five hours will be about right. So you’ve got plenty of ammo on hand in that case.”

  “I think we’ll give a better accounting of ourselves than that,” Bernard said. The wear and tear on the artillery would just mean he got new tubes sooner and this damned major would undoubtedly make some sort of a report of his “fighting spirit.” “But we do have a sufficiency on hand. Fire them up, Red. Take every call for fire, fire on every sensor target. Major Ryan has been on this from both ends; let him handle the interface and you give him all the support he asks for.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Ryan said. “I have been on their end and I do know what it’s like.” He paused for a moment. “And I’ll admit this is way beyond my level, but I think you need to call Army and ask for your arty back, sir. I’ll double that through COE if you like. Those Posties aren’t acting right.”

  “I concur on that analysis, sir,” Colonel McDonald said. “Just watching them on the sensors you can see they are staying way more coordinated. Look at this group over by Seed. Or the one that has been pinning down Low Gap Bridge and the 441 Bridge. Usually when you get shooting the Posties swarm towards the fighting. These guys are sitting the fighting out, holding key terrain. That, sir, in my professional estimation is a nightmare.”

  General Bernard paused and rubbed his almost totally bald head. That was a horse of a different color. He’d protested having the artillery pulled away when it occurred. If he called Army now and complained about nebulous reports of a Posleen globe force that was acting “funny” then nothing happened it could be the final nail in his professional coffin. The Army still had institutional memory all the way back to the Civil War of officers who were too quick to take counsel of their fears.

  “Colonel, I want a full intelligence analysis,” he answered. “Get a good count, or a good estimate. Detail all the ways they have been acting strangely and what the possible increase in combat effectiveness is from that. If it looks like a significantly increased threat, I’ll take that to Army. I’ll take it to CONARC if I have to. But I need more than ‘these Posties are acting funny.’ ”

  “I wish we had a Mike Force,” McDonald said softly. “I hate just leaving the lurps to their own devices.”

  “I’ve heard about Mosovich before,” Ryan said, tugging at his forelock. “He’s not a guy to go down easy.”

  * * *

  “I’m really getting too old for this shit,” Mosovich growled as they darted across the road.

  “Not that again,” Mueller gasped. He’d given up trying to support one end of the Barrett and was carrying it on his own, along with his own weapons, equipment and ammunition, leaving the heavy ammunition pack to Nichols. Making it down the steep slope to the road had been… interesting. “You just got a rejuv; you’re under warranty for another century.”

  “ ‘It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage,’ ” Jake answered. This field was thankfully untorn and he led the team across it at a lope towards the woodline. “I’m just getting really tired of trying to make it to woodlines before somebody starts shooting at me.”

  “Try flying on the outside of a saucer into the middle of a Posleen swarm,” Nichols gasped, sweat pouring down his face.

  “Well, it looks like we cheated death again,” Mueller answered, as they made it into the woods. This area, however, was a fairly open decidous slope, leaf covered but with little undergrowth. They were open to being spotted until they made it halfway up the hill where there was a large thicket of rhododendron. The slope was reasonably gentle and Nichols took the Barrett back.

  “Thanks, man,” Nichols said in an embarrassed tone. “This is the first time in my life somebody’s had to hump some of my gear.”

  Mueller just nodded. He and Nichols were of similar build, heavy, stocky bodies with a lot of muscle on a heavy-boned frame. But he overtopped Nichols by almost eight inches. “Don’t sweat it,” Mueller said and looked over his shoulder. “Oh, shit.”

  To the southeast there was a small valley that was surmounted by another saddle slightly higher than the one they had just crossed. It was out of sight of the one the humans had used and the road ran through it, bent to the left to pass down the valley then up through “their” saddle.

  Another Posleen force was coming over the far hill, but this was no patrol. At its head was a God King saucer and although it was clear the humans hadn’t been spotted yet, the saucer was headed straight for “their” hill.

  They had left a laser retransmitter on the far hill, but there was no time for Sister Mary to hunt for it with an antenna. “Fire Control,” Mosovich snapped into his UWB transmitter. “Fire concentration Juliet Four. Say again, Juliet Four. Now. Now. Now.” The ultra-wide band system was
difficult to detect, difficult to find and difficult to jam. That didn’t mean the Posleen couldn’t do all three, just that short transmissions were, generally, safe. However, if they had to depend on it the Posleen would eventually localize and destroy them.

  But the operative word was “eventually.” Right here and right now it was the only way to call for fire. And if they didn’t get some metal on target, and jack quick, that was all they would have wrote for Mama Mosovich’s son.

  The God King was a good four hundred meters away and there was only one. The sensors of the saucers had been shown to be able to “see” humans at that range, but could not “discriminate” them if they were not firing. If the Posleen company had been headed down the hill the team would simply have dropped and hoped they weren’t spotted. But it was clear from the movement of the force that it knew where the humans were and was headed over there to wipe them out.

  Given that fact, there was only one thing to do; get the God King and hope they survived. The problem was that once they opened fire, despite their flash-suppressed weapons, if the God King was still up the sensors would point right to their position. So the God King had to be taken out, first, and the God King had to be taken out with the first shot.

  Nichols flipped out the bipod of the Barrett and dropped to his stomach. He was heaving from the exertions of the last few hours, but he figured he could catch his breath for one decent shot. That was why they taught the technique at sniper school and he was starting to hyperventilate even as he was dropping. His heart was racing so it was a good thing the shot was only a few measly hundred yards; if it was over a thousand, and he had made shots like that, the shot had to be taken between heartbeats.

  He took four more deep breaths, let the last one out in a long blow and leaned into the rifle.

  * * *

  Orostan shook his head as the data-link from Oldoman’s tenar went dead. “Not even maneuvering; what a stupid abat.”

  The majority of his force was headed down Oakey Mountain road towards the last reported position of the human team. A few oolt had been left behind in case the humans slipped by, but the better part of six thousand Posleen were on the road with Orostan and his picked Kessentai near the front. At the front, however, were a few more of the more “expendable” oolt.

  Who were trying to run through a rain of steel. The majority of the artillery available to Mosovich had not been pointed at the Rabun Lake area. The fire down there was from one battery of 155, trying to draw the attention of the Posleen off of the real moves of the team. The rest of the artillery, nearly two brigades, had been prelaid for support along their actual line of march. Some of it was set on the actual target that he had called for fire on, while the other tubes were set to fire on additional possible target points.

  At his brief call for fire, the guns that were already set up simply pressed the firing button and went into reload. The other guns, those set on other Target Reference Points, were required to swing from their initial azimuth and elevation to reengage. But the system was fully automated for such a tiny adjustment and within fifteen seconds they had fired.

  The time of flight was nearly forty seconds, so the Posleen force was given time to flay their surroundings for upwards of a minute before the first rounds began to impact. And then, forty seconds later, fifteen more batteries rained down.

  After that it got bad.

  “Their artillery is killing us,” Cholosta’an muttered. “As usual.” The God King swept his tenar back and forth as they went down the road towards the distant thunder of artillery. The habit had stood him in good stead in the face of human snipers and, because he never assumed that there were none around, he had survived when many of his age-mates did not.

  “Hmmm,” Orostan said noncomittally. “It is killing some of us. But we have them definitely localized,” he added, tapping at the hologram in front of him. “They are transmitting now. Two bursts of communication have come from this hill. As soon as we crest the ridge they will be in view.”

  “Yes,” Cholosta’an noted. “But so will we, Oolt’ondai. And I note that you are not maneuvering.”

  “So I’m not,” Orostan said, flapping his crest in agitation at his own stupidity as the symbol for another Kessentai dropped off the hologram. “But they are quickly retreating up the hill. They should soon be out of sight and the artillery will abate. And we will soon be in position to pursue them closely; they will not be able to adjust their artillery then.”

  “Are we going to try to cut them off?” Cholosta’an wondered. “Where do you think they are going?”

  “I think we can directly pursue them,” Orostan commented. “The hill on this side is not heavily wooded. Once we get through this artillery we can charge the slope. Humans are slower than we are; we should be able to run them to ground.”

  “That sounds… easy, Oolt’ondai,” the younger Kessentai noted, suddenly remembering that Orostan had never actually faced humans. “But are you only going to send those who are expendable into the artillery? Or are you going to run through it?”

  Orostan paused momentarily in thought. “That’s not a bad question,” he admitted, looking at the three dimensional schematic. “I think, all things considered, that we’ll send the majority of the force through the notch, because that is the only route that will accept it. But you and I will swing to the east of the road, out of the main artillery fire.” He tapped the map, which gave a good view of the immediate area. “There is a hilltop here to the east. It’s still across the valley from the humans, but it will give us a view of their approximate position without going through the main fire.” He paused again as the next oolt entered the hammering artillery. The data-link of the Kessentai stayed up, but the condition marker of the unit indicated that it was, more or less, shattered with better than forty percent casualties. “And I’ll probably send a few more units around as well.”

  * * *

  “Sergeant Major, this is Major Ryan.”

  Mosovich didn’t reply; he knew the UWB was detectable, but he could listen just fine. As long as the Posties didn’t start jamming.

  “You’re leaving the edge of the sensor zone, so we won’t know where you are. But we’ve got a good read on the Posleen and there’s damn near five thousand of them on your tail. I’ve called for some obscurement and I’ll adjust fire to follow you up the hill, but you’d better scram. Good luck.”

  Mosovich glanced at the far saddle and nodded to himself. A salvo of variable time rounds was coming in at the moment and the air was filled with black puffballs. The beauty of the scene belied the shrapnel that he knew was flying downward from the red-cored explosions. A rank of Posleen was shattered under the line of fire even as he watched.

  But even as the line of Posleen went down another God King stumbled out of the fire and then another. It was definitely time to leave.

  Nichols peered through the scope and hammered out another round. The big rifle pushed his stocky body back at least four inches, but he quickly brought the weapon back into battery and started searching for another target. It had long been determined that the artillery messed with the sensors the God Kings used to find snipers so the shots were not as supercritical as the first had been. But every round helped and the team was laying down fire right alongside.

  Mosovich swore softly as he picked out another target in the gathering light. Their position was not as concealed as he would have liked. And, despite the artillery, some of the normals were surviving the gauntlet in the gap to spray the hillside with fire. None of it was aimed — they couldn’t see where the team was firing from — but as soon as the sun came up that happy circumstance would surely change.

  Mosovich, however, could see the normals fairly clearly. The Land Warrior system was proving its worth again, giving him the capability to easily direct and redirect fire on the targets in the gap, enhancing the team’s vision and permitting them to communicate clearly. Shoot, move and communicate was what war at all levels was about. But it
was especially critical at the level of the small team and the suits were a real boon.

  They weren’t perfect though. Advanced research on them had more or less been halted at the start of the war and even with the Galactic power systems they were fairly heavy. They also did not have GalTech clarity levels in low light; there was a particular problem with depth perception that seemed insoluble without the Galactic ability to make continuous micro-sensors.

  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.