He now waited with a few remaining senior officers and NCOs. For the last hour they had talked about old times and watched the monitors that had been scattered along U.S. 1. He was currently outside getting a breath of air. But at a yell from inside the boat house he strode back in rapidly.
“They’re in sight,” said the Belvoir operations officer. The colonel was leaning forward, hand on the shoulder of the tech managing the monitors.
The general grabbed the back of the colonel’s battle dress uniform and pulled him gently back. “You can’t make ’em come on any faster. And that’s practically the only private we’ve got. She’s more important than any three of us.”
The colonel shook himself and laughed deprecatingly. “Sorry, soldier,” he said.
The tech nodded with a smile and switched screens. The new screen was from a sensor ball placed on the sign at the main entrance. The mine fields started just on the other side of the sign. The staff officers leaned forward like spectators waiting for a crash and the general had to laugh. The operations officer was actually washing his hands in anticipation.
“Sir,” said Belvoir’s sergeant major, keeping one eye on the screen, “I made a little foray on the officers’ bar.” The sergeant major held up two bottles of Moët Chandon. “I thought we might want to toast the first blast. Or something.”
The general laughed again. These guys were really getting into the spirit. “Sure, why not,” he said then turned back to the screen at a gentle “Shit” from the operations officer.
The mass of Posleen on the screen had stopped. A single Posleen was forward of the rest and it had stopped cold fifty meters in front of the Main Post welcome sign. The mass of Posleen behind it was not a single company but thousands. They had been concentrating on the drive up the U.S. highway and now milled in front of the sign, shuffling back and forth and fidgeting.
A God King came forward and then another. Their alien saucers were drifting from side to side constantly, apparently to make it harder for snipers. Several of them gathered in front of the sign and appeared to engage in an argument. Slowly the saucers stopped moving back and forth as alien teeth were bared and crests lifted and fluffed.
Another one came forward, finally, who apparently was senior. This God King took one look at the sign and backed away. Much further away. It then called the other God Kings over and continued the discussion. Another argument ensued which was finally cut off by the senior God King. At his gesture most of the God Kings and their forces simply turned around and trotted back to the south away from the facility.
One leader was left with a single company. He watched the others retreat, then took a last glance over his shoulder and headed after them.
The jury-rigged control room in the boathouse was filled with stunned silence. The general leaned forward and tapped the tech on the shoulder. “Switch to U.S. 1 north,” he said quietly.
There another force was trotting, a single company in the lead without a “point” individual. The God King was close to the front in the midst of the company and others were visible farther up the road. The company trotted down U.S. 1 to the main entrance and swung in. However, just as it neared the MP Post, which was where the booby traps started on this side, it too stopped, piling up in its haste. The God King came forward for a brief look and his crest went straight up in the air. He appeared to shout something and lifted his saucer out of ground-effect. Before the regular Posleen of his company could even get turned around, their leader was back on U.S. 1 and accelerating to the north.
The general was never sure where the laughter started. Some said it was the sergeant major. Some said it was the female technician’s infectious giggle that set it off. Some insisted it was the deep, bass laugh of the United States Army’s Engineer. Whoever started it, it turned out to be impossible to stop for nearly ten minutes as monitor after monitor showed untouched Posleen units in full retreat.
For years afterwards, in the midst of the worst of news, the few lucky souls who were in that control room could look at one another in brief encounters and crack the other up by a simple widening of the eye or a gesture of a crest lifted in total fear. Utter, total and abject fear. Of a twin-turreted castle. Of “Fort Belvoir, Home of the Engineer.” Of the Sapper.
CHAPTER 66
Washington, DC, United States of America, Sol III
1045 EDT October 11th, 2004 ad
“I think we shall stay well away from there,” commented Kenallai. The notice had been ferreted out by one of Kenallurial’s “Companions.” With the fief of the military technicians finally neutralized, perhaps they would be fewer in number.
The crossed-rifle warriors were becoming more and more of a challenge, however. This last group, outnumbered and with pitiful weapons, had seriously mauled the oolt’ondar that assaulted them. Their last stand atop the hill had been worthy of song and there was still discussion as to which was the Kessentai. Given that there were more than enough thresh to be had, including many on foot that were yet untouched, they might declare the entire group piled on the monument at their center Kessentai and give them a single Kessanalt.
The place that they had stood made no sense. There was a fairly good shelter on the ridge, but it was well away from the monument they had chosen to cluster upon. And the entire ridge was covered in stones. He had set Kenallurial to determining the purpose of the ridge as he and Ardan’aath surveyed the problem to the east.
“So, old friend,” he said, gesturing to the bridge below. It was still intact but they had learned what happened when they tried to cross one. “What shall we do?”
“That I know not,” admitted the old oolt’ondai. “If we set claw on that structure it will take us to the Fuscirt.”
“Yes,” agreed Kenallai. “Fuscirto uut these ‘sappers’!”
“I have, perhaps, two answers, edas’antai,” said Kenallurial, drifting up silently from behind.
Ardan’aath turned away as Kenallai queried with a lifted crest. But the older Kessentai did not go so far as to not hear the suggestions of the younger.
“This place is a ‘graveyard,’ a place where certain of the thresh are placed after death.”
Kenallai tilted his head to the side in query. “I don’t understand.”
“It was difficult for me to comprehend as well, edas’antai. However, instead of recycling their dead, the thresh apparently place them in boxes in the earth.” He gestured at a headstone. “This lists who they were and when they lived.”
“That is,” the Kessentai wrinkled his snout in distaste, “that is disgusting.”
The younger Kessentai lifted his crest in assent and snorted. “Nonetheless it appears to be the case. Furthermore, these in this place are not just thresh, they are all threshkreen.”
At that Ardan’aath turned and looked at the serried rows of headstones drifting off in every direction. “Oh, abat shit,” he whispered.
Kenallai looked at him questioningly. “What?”
“I will make you a bet. Most or all of them are not just threshkreen. I will bet you they are Kessanalt.”
At those words both of the other Kessentai were flushed by combat hormones. Kessanalt was accorded to only the most potent, the bravest. To be surrounded by unrecycled souls of Kessanalt was like some nestling nightmare. At a visceral level they were suddenly surrounded by the larger and fiercer teeth that drove all the Posleen to become as secure as possible.