O’Neal’s mind felt like a whirring machine and he neither acknowledged the humorous greeting nor misunderstood it. “I’ve been fighting my way up I-81, Major, just like the Eleventh Division.”
“Good to have you back. Where are you?”
“In a Kiowa headed up I-70. I’m planning on meeting you in Baltimore.”
“Well, you’ll probably get there before we do.”
“Yes, sir. But not long before you do.”
“I estimate that it will take us nearly twelve hours to get there through the traffic, Captain. Sergeant Clarke is calling for trucks right now.”
“Trucks, sir?” said O’Neal in a bad Hispanic accent. “We don’ need no stinkin’ trucks.”
The command track lurched to a halt and the following MP Humvee drove up to the man standing by the side of the road. The vehicle commander dismounted and saluted the boyish-looking colonel. “Colonel Cutprice?” he asked. The BDU uniform had only rank insignia, no nametag, no United States Ground Force identifier.
“Yes,” answered the colonel, shortly. He had spent two weeks going through rejuv processes and he was still sore as hell. And cooling his heels with the rest of the officer “heroes” while they watched “The Jig and The Kraut” screw things to hell had been worse. In all honesty it did not seem to be Taylor and Horner’s fault things had come apart so badly. They had inherited most of the problems and had been working to remedy them. But the vision of those fine boys being slaughtered through bad strategy and lack of training had been hard to take. It was goddamn Korea all over again. And Kasserine. And Bull Run. And the Somme for that matter. The goddamn Perfumed Princes just never ever seemed to learn.
“The general would like to speak to you,” said the MP, leading the way to the back of the track and opening the door.
Horner was sitting in front of a video communicator smiling like a tiger. The colonel the smile was directed at was not enjoying the call.
“Colonel, when you receive orders from those units they will take priority over any other orders below the level of this command. Is that clear?”
“Sir…” the colonel started to respond.
“Goddamnit I asked if that was clear!” Horner shouted, finally losing his normally placid temper. “If I do not get a straight answer I will have an MP unit over there so fast it will make your head swim! I have a half a dozen colonels loading ammunition and driving trucks! Do you want to join them?”
“No, sir, but…”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes, sir,” said the recalcitrant colonel. “I’ll pass on those orders.”
“Good, now get off my monitor,” snarled the harassed general. He swung around and pinned Cutprice with a glare.
The colonel, however, had been glared at by the best of them, and it washed off him like dew. He stood at attention and looked six inches over the general’s head. “Colonel Cutprice, reporting as ordered.”
Horner looked at him for a moment and spun around again. He rummaged in a desk and came out with a small medal. “Take this,” he said, tossing it to the colonel. “Wear it.”
The device in question was a blue field with a rifle on it. Around the field was a wreath and it was surmounted by two stars. The Combat Infantryman’s Badge signified that the holder had been in infantry combat; actual firefights where people were trying to kill you and you were doing your best to “do-unto-them” first. The stars signified that the combat had occurred over the course of three wars. There were very few people breathing entitled to wear one.
“Stand at ease, damnit,” snapped the general. “I heard you weren’t even wearing a goddamn nametag. So I acquired that for you. Do you feel like you need anything else?”
“No sir,” said Cutprice quietly. He shifted his feet shoulder width apart and looked at the general, as the command allowed. The door behind him opened and closed again and someone came up beside him and came to attention as well.
“Sergeant Major Wacleva, reporting as ordered, sir,” said the soldier. Cutprice gave the individual a quick glance. He was a short, skinny young man with sergeant major’s stripes on his collar. Given his apparent age he had to be a rejuv and he looked faintly familiar.
“At ease, rest even, both of you,” said Horner shaking his head. “I think you’ve met.”
“Have we?” asked Cutprice.
The sergeant major just smiled, extracted a pack of Pall Malls and tapped one out. With a flick of a lighter the room was filled with the pungent odor of unfiltered cigarette. “Yeah,” he answered in a surprisingly deep voice. It was almost gravelly, which was unusual for a rejuvenated individual. “We did meet. Briefly.” He blew a smoke ring. And coughed.
“Oh, shit!” said Cutprice with a laugh. “You’re trying for new lungs already?”
Horner just shook his head. “I want you two to get the rest of your respective groups together and get down to the Washington Mall. Most of the units that survived Lake Jackson and the rout are there. I want you to see if any of them are fit to fight. I’ve got an ACS unit on the way and an intact division assembling. I’m worried about the Posleen capturing a bridgehead. If they do, it will be fight or die time.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wacleva. “We let ’em get over the Potomac and it’s gonna screw us.”
Horner nodded. “The big problem will be that we probably won’t be able to dislodge them before the main landings. That means all the production and control that is in this area will be lost. There’s actually not that much that was vital in the area between the James and Potomac. Not that we’re not going to take it back. But losing the area north of the Potomac this soon will kneecap us.
“So, go get your band of brothers,” he continued with a faint, real, smile, “and get down to the Mall. Find some that have a spine left and get them organized. Get ready to use them, too. ’Cause I got a bad feeling about the Potomac.”
He smiled again. “Fortunately, besides your ‘band of brothers’ there’s another card up my sleeve.”
In the dawning light O’Neal waited on the Crosby Road overpass of I-695, the Baltimore Loop. The smell of jet fuel from the departed Kiowa still filled the air when the first of the apparitions came in sight.
The armored combat suits were delivered and stored in large Galactic-supplied storage containers. The silvery “Morgues” looked like oversized shipping containers and held forty suits. They came equipped with a Federation Class Two fusion plant or antimatter generator for recharging.
The Morgues were designed for the suits to be readily accessed, each suit stored in an interior pod, the double row of pods aligned down both sides of the large container. When the troopers suited up they went into the container, tossed their uniforms in the provided laundry bin and loaded up in the pods. The struggle of naked bodies in the narrow corridor normally led to a certain amount of playful grab-ass, but it was an efficient process. The suits exited through portals in the sides of the container.
The Fleet Strike Armored Combat Suits included a full suite of inertial compensators and drivers. Given enough power, the suits could and did “fly” under the combination of compensator and drivers. The process, however, was power-intensive. A normal combat suit could only sustain about ten minutes of flight, a command suit twenty to thirty, compared to three days of use before having to recharge if conditions were perfect.
However, as stated, the Morgues had their own onboard power source. And they were designed for high-intensity charging.