Although the physical strain was lower than a standard training run, it was fairly equivalent to a “long slow distance run.” A well-trained unit in peak shape could generally sustain the pace for two to three hours. This gave the ACS an approximately sixty-mile range using the same technique, the difference being that a unit doing a “long slow distance run” usually did it in PT uniform, whereas the ACS did the same thing in battle armor.
This time the movement was a relatively short distance. The battalion, less Bravo Company, was in a four-column formation, running down Seventh Street in Downtown D.C. to the beat of Heart’s “Crazy on You.” All Duncan had to worry about was coordinating two corps’ worth of artillery while doing it.
“Status.” The voice on the other end was cold and distant. Mighty Mite was obviously in his prebattle trance.
“Up.” It was not that the run was taking away air. This was barely breaking a sweat. But that was all the Old Man needed to know. It was all he wanted to know.
“How much?”
Well, usually. “Three battalions of One-Five-Five and scattered mortars.”
There was no answer and Duncan realized that the Man was gone. It was just as well. The tubes were there, but he was still slamming out the plan, his fingers flying across a virtual map. Each of the units that had responded positively was available for fire as an icon along one side of the map. Dragging an icon onto the target point called up a dialogue asking for fire type and quantity. After the first the others called on the same locations took the first as a default. It was a simple method of developing a fire plan, but the complex plan the Old Man had laid out called for several separate fire plans with contingencies. Setting it up was taking time but he kept slamming it out. To the sound of the drums.
“Gunny.”
“Yes, sir.” The NCO angled across the formation as they passed the MCI building. He accelerated ahead, driving the pace and elongating his stride to get to the front. He pushed it up to nearly fifty miles an hour down the nearly empty street. An advance party of real runners had moved ahead to seal the Mall end, preventing a general retreat up the route. But he had to get to the Mall ahead of the battalion. He needed to have a heart-to-heart with a couple of units. Sergeant First Class Clarke had done wonders getting the cluster fuck on the Mall organized, but that was just organization. Some of the units were willing to stand and fight. But most were running again. He was zeroing in on a few that were critical to the plan. If he couldn’t get them to stand and deliver the Old Man might as well throw in the towel.
“Status.” The captain was at level four again. It wasn’t like anybody had to protect him or keep him from tripping over the curb, he reacted faster in a trance than when he was “here.” But it was mildly unsettling to hear a voice with no more emotion than a new AID.
“Coming along. They don’t want to deploy forward.”
“Push it. Get some units to the Watergate. Any units. Stat.”
Pappas swallowed the sigh. “Yes, sir.” There was no point arguing; he knew the plan and the requirements. But doing the plan was something else. He put one foot down on the hood of a Mercedes and soared off it, pushing the speed up even further. If he was going to get somebody to the Gate, he had to step on it. It was going to take direct, personal attention. The fucking Mall was a mess. The Posleen were organized and ready to roll. It was gonna be a slaughter.
Ardan’aath snarled. “This puny bridge is creating a total hash of our units! The entire host is pushing forward without any control! It will take forever to sort out.” He drifted his tenar to the side, watching his junior Kessentai trying to reform the oolt’ondar. His own oolt’os were somewhere in the mess as well, but they would find him. Most had been with him through worlds. They would find him in Hell.
“Well, at least we have a bridge,” said Kenallurial, blowing a snort.
Kenallai raised his crest to forestall fresh argument. “We are exposed here,” he said, just as a wave of explosions tracked across the oolt to the south. The blasts were small, the charges weak. But it killed several oolt’os outright and others were rendered as a loss.
The exuberant young commander waved off the blasts. “The fire is coming from near that structure,” he said, gesturing to the distant obelisk behind him. “It is random. The thresh cannot hi—” His chest exploded in yellow as a .50-caliber bullet punched through his neural path and out through his chest.
The head of the young Kessentai flew upwards and yellow blood spurted from his mouth and nostrils. He slumped onto his tenar controls and his talons scrabbled at them as he appeared to be trying to say something. The crocodilian mouth appeared to shape the first syllables of the name of his lord, father and master, then he slid out of the cradle and to the torn ground, his fiery eyes going cold and glazed.
The sensors on a half dozen tenars screamed and weapons automatically swiveled towards the source of the fire. The weapons vomited a mixture of coherent light, relativistic missiles and concentrated plasma. A corner of the Monument was gouged out as the fire continued into the spot where someone had had the temerity to assassinate a God King. In a moment it was joined by the fire of dozens and then hundreds of Posleen normals, following the aiming points of their gods.
Of all that host, only one did not fire. Kenallai sat upon his unmoving tenar, staring down at the body of his eson’antai. As the fire slacked off the oolt’os came forward to start the rendering, but he held up his hand.
Finally, finally, he understood the thresh and it made him fear. Suddenly he was forced to wonder if there was not a better way than to make such a one into an evening’s meal. Not even a special meal, but simply one bit mixed into the ration chain. Was there not something to such a one as this brilliant Kessentai? Something that lasted beyond the moment the thrice-Fistnal threshkreen put a bit of metal through him? Was there not something that lived on?
And he finally understood something else. Sometime, somewhere, someone in the Host had felt as he had. Had felt this for an eson’antai, for a beloved comrade, for a beloved enemy. And had fought for a change. For a bit of tradition that lifted out of the continuous cycle of conquest and orna’adar. For something higher.
He had never felt that calling. But he understood it now. Understood it at last.
He reached down to his feet and snapped loose a staff. There was only one per Kessentai, in keeping with tradition. Some cast them away as scoutmasters. Most had cast them at one time or another. Three had been cast on the long ride to this hellish spot. But never by him. He had never understood the need. Now he did. Finally. He finally understood his son, who had cast his at the blasted heath of the first conquest on this blasted planet. This thrice-damned, never to be mentioned, horrid, horrid little planet.
And he finally understood the thresh. And feared. For they felt this way for every single death. To the threshkreen, all the gathered thresh, all the wasted thresh, all the thresh on the hoof were Kessanalt. Each and every one. And every single threshkreen felt the anger he did now. It was terrifying to suddenly realize how thoroughly they had erred in landing on this white and blue ball.