“Tom, this is Mike.”
“Yeah, Mike.”
Lieutenant O’Neal was four stories lower and deep in the structure. He was mainly using support corridors; they were higher and wider and that way he avoided the majority of the fleeing Indowy. There were still hundreds of them underfoot blocking the intersections and group areas. All of them were trying to leave simultaneously having ignored orders to do it before and hampering the combat operations. Mike stopped, temporarily stymied by a blocked stairwell and stared speculatively at a large tank of liquid connected to a fractional distiller.
“How’s it coming?” he asked.
“We’ve finished the roads and the building is about twenty-five percent done. The colonel authorized the mining,” finished the officer. There was a hint of smugness in his voice.
Mike had missed that call in his monitoring; he was surprised at the announcement. “He authorized Jericho?”
“Well, I told him we were mining the building.”
“But not how?”
“He said use your initiative.”
Mike laughed at the irony. “That’s a first. Okay, we might be covered.” He was to regret the choice of words.
Mike’s experienced and helpful AID, Michelle, flashed a complex schematic of the engineering platoon’s progress in a virtual hologram floating at eye height. The completed areas were in green, the areas that should be completed by the time the Posleen arrived were in yellow and the areas that would not be completed were in red. Mike touched an area near Charlie in Qualtren.
“Concentrate over here, if you please, kind sir.”
“Why certainly, bon homme, and with that I bid you au revoir.”
“Roger, out.”
Mike took one more look at the schematic and flicked it off with a gesture. With the colonel now on board his “go-to-hell-plan,” even if the battle went straight to hell, the battalion’s sector would still be secured. “Good luck, Tom.”
“Captain Brandon,” Mike said, triggering a burst into a structural member on the second floor of Qualtren.
“Lieutenant O’Neal?”
“Yes, sir. I suspect we’ll start the fallback shortly after contact. I would like your assistance in an expansion of the commander’s plan. All your guys have to do is fall back on the routes I download to them and destroy a few structures on their way out.”
When he reached the ground floor he headed for an ammunition cache. As he scooted he was studying the schematic as the engineers frantically laid charges and larger and larger areas turned green.
“What’s the plan?”
“It’s called Jericho, sir.” Mike took a few moments to explain.
“That’s a hell of an expansion, lieutenant. It’ll give us a breather, but…”
“Sir, it’ll give us more than a breather, it’ll secure this whole sector. Then we can move into support of 7th Cav.” When he reached the ammo dump he started loading a grav sled with an M-323 machine gun and ammunition boxes. “Frankly it is what we should have done instead of sending out the mobile forces to get wiped out.”
“Mike, this isn’t one of your computer games. Just keeping the company from bolting will be hard enough.”
“Sir, when we fall back the personnel will lose their sense of direction. I’ve been lost in a unit before; you’d take directions from the devil himself. This extracts them without exposing them to fire and secures the sector. What more could anyone ask?”
“Uh, limiting collateral damage?” asked the commander rhetorically. “Okay, okay, we’ll do it. Make sure the information is available immediately when we fall back.”
“The company’s AIDs already have the plan. All it took was your okay.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant.”
“Vaya con Dios, Captain, go with God.” He paused for a moment to let the channel clear. “Michelle, get me Captain Wright.” Then picked up a loaded grav sled and headed back up the ramp, watching the schematic as he went.
27
Andata Province, Diess IV
2208 GMT May 18th, 2002 ad
“Knock, knock, mind if I join you?” Lieutenant O’Neal used the local circuit. He knew there were troops from Charlie company in the next room, but he didn’t know who they were. The AID could tell him, but he’d been too busy to ask. Besides, there were few troopers in Charlie company that he knew personally. And given how keyed up everyone was, letting them know he was coming before barging through the door seemed like a good idea.
“Come ahead,” said Sergeant John Reese, looking over his shoulder. Through the double doors came a squat figure towing a grav sled loaded with weapons and ammunition. Among them was another M-300 and a tripod-mounted HVM. Reese recognized him as Lieutenant O’Neal; the silhouette was distinctive. Apparently the lieutenant believed in being prepared. “Can I help you, sir?” Reese jerked his head at the ammo bearer, Private Pat McPherson to go help with the load.
“Thanks. I figured I’d join the party if you don’t mind.” Mike’s suit flashed a heads-up-display of the names and ranks by the suited figures in the room. It was a heavy weapons team with the heavy weapons squad leader. Their own M-300 heavy grav gun was set up and bins of ammunition were ganged together ready to go. All three of the team were crouched against the outside wall, their force-screens covering the probable axis of approach. The descending F-1’s sunset glow had turned a weird violet that mottled the suits like purple haze.
“Hell no, sir. Every little bit helps,” said the assistant gunner, Spec-Four Sal Bennett.
“Was that by any chance a short joke, Specialist?” Mike asked with mock sternness.
“Oh, hell, sir. That wasn’t what I meant!”
“I know, I know, just a little levity, right? Little levity, get it?”
The squad laughed as Mike started tossing thirty-kilo ammo bins against the wall.
“Michelle, give me an RGB representation of Indowy, Posleen and humans in the nine-block sector.”
The AID flashed a three-D representation of the nine megascrapers, then began drawing in Posleen, human and Indowy concentrations in red, green and blue. The green was a solid core in the corners of Qualtren and Qualtrev with scattered others behind. The projected locations of Indowy were a heavy concentration in Saltren and Saltrev and blue flowing downward like an hourglass in Qualtren and Qualtrev; time was running out for the inhabitants of the megascrapers. On Sisalav Boulevard there was a solid band of color flowing out of sensor range, but just out of view, around the Daltren/Daltrev jog, the solid blue band abruptly became red.
“They’re almost in sight,” said Mike, taking a sip of water as he crouched behind the spurious shelter of the wall and set up the HVM to fire automatically.
“Orders are to wait for a signal from Captain Vero before we open fire. What are you looking at?”