«Agree,» said Captain Thompson, his ebony face somber. «The cities are going to get hit hard. The more prepared our own people are, the better. The Mideast is bristling with weapons and not really attractive and Africa will never get its shit together in time. Let 'em hang.»
Ersin's scarred Eurasian face creased in a grim smile. «Trust me, we do not want to be away from supports if the Posleen land early.»
Along with Mueller and Mosovich, Ersin was a survivor of humanity's first contact with the oncoming threat. The three were members of a joint service special operations force sent to recon the planet Barwhon. They had survived when the mission was changed from reconnaissance to snatch, had survived when the other five members did not. And along the way they had gathered an immense fund of information about the Posleen rear areas and how they organized themselves. One piece of information all three reinforced was that fighting the Posleen was not a pleasant proposition.
«When the Posleen land,» he continued, «we want to be somewhere we can go to ground behind defenses. Once they are down and deployed, I'll be happy to go mess around in their rear. Until then, I want a roof over my head and a wall around me.»
«Well,» continued Captain Thompson, «after Richmond we'll be finished with our outreach program. We're slated to come back here and act as command and control skeleton for the militias. Cadre.»
«What?» gasped both Gleason and Ersin. It was the first time that the cadre idea had been mentioned.
«Apparently the militia training program is working well, but they want professionals in place,» the captain explained with a shrug.
«I thought that was what the Guard was for!» Ersin snarled.
«Hey, Sergeant, these are the civilians you are supposed to protect!»
«Excuse me, sir, but I don't think I can do that if I'm dead! If I fight the Posleen again, I want it to be from fixed defenses!»
«Whatever your wants might be, Sergeant, those are our orders,» the captain answered with an iron clang to his voice.
«Our orders friggin' stink, sir. Oh, Jesus! We have just been royally corn-cobbed. Have Jake or Mueller heard this yet?»
«No. I didn't realize you would have such an extreme reaction,» said the captain with a tone of bemusement.
«On my word, sir, you haven't seen extreme reaction yet.»
* * *
«What pissant son of a bitch came up with this fuckin' cadre bullshit?» shouted the irate sergeant major.
This is not the sort of language normally heard between sergeant majors and four-star generals; however, the Ground Forces Chief of Staff had been more or less expecting the call. When his aide allowed that Sergeant Major Mosovich was on the phone and would like to have a brief word with the General, the General acceded, after making sure no one else would hear the conversation.
«Hello, Jake. Nice to hear from you. Yes, I'm fine, overworked but aren't we all.»
«Fuck that! Who? I will personally frag their ass! Is this some slimy regular-army plot to be done with SF for once and for all?!»
«Okay, Jake, that is just about enough,» General Taylor said, coldly. «It was my fucking plan.»
«What?!» If General Taylor thought the previous volume was extreme he now discovered a new meaning to the word.
«Okay, you've been teaching them. What chance do those people have if the Posleen land before the evacuation is complete?»
«So you're going to throw the goddamn SF away? Is that it?»
«No. I am going to use them up as carefully as possible. But they are going to be between Posleen and civilians. Where they damn well belong. Clear?»
«Clear. We are not armed, or trained for the mission. We have limited tactical mobility. We are trained to be behind-the-lines, hit-and-run fighters or cadre for that type of force but we will make our stands and be overrun to buy the civilians a few minutes that they will undoubtedly squander.» The sergeant major hissed the last words.
«Jake, how do you fight Posleen?» the general asked in a reasonable tone.
«What?»
«I thought the question was in English. How do you fight Posleen?» he repeated.
«My best idea is with artillery and fixed defenses,» the sergeant major replied.
«How about mortars and firebases?»
«And then what, sir? We'll be in scattered firebases, cut off and without support. And where are the firebases coming from?»
«Well, in the case of Atlanta, there are several major geographic positions to choose from. The mission will be to form firebases along evacuation routes and man them with indigenous nonmilitary personnel who have some limited training: American Strikers. The teams will form and train these militias and design and construct the fixed defenses from available local materials and using local assets. Now, in what way is this not in the SF tradition, Sergeant Major?»
«Shit.» There was a long pause. «We are not going to survive this, Jim. Among other things, our 'militias' will consist of old men and teenage women.»
«When the Posleen are down and their deployment is clear, when all civilians are effectively evacuated or hors d'combat, when the fuckin' job is damn well done, SF personnel may make their way to secure areas using any means available.»
«There won't be any means, Jim. None.»
«Sure there will, dammit. 'If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin.' «
« 'If you get caught, you ain't SF.' Understood. I still think this is a Guard function.»
«There's gonna be plenty of targets to go around.»
«My point was not lack of targets, sir.»
* * *
«Okay,» said Mueller, «we are fucked.»
«Sergeant Mueller,» said Warrant Officer First Class Andrews, «attitude will not help.»
Warrant Officer Andrews and Sergeant First Class Mueller did not get along well. Whether Mr. Andrews knew it or not, in this instance that was going to affect him more than Mueller. Most of the SF warrant officers were ninety-day wonders, junior SF NCOs or even non-SF NCOs who were sent through a warrant officer's course to become the second-in-command of a team. In the new Special Forces, essentially reborn since the oncoming Posleen threat, when a veteran NCO has a problem with a junior officer, the junior officer goes. That tradition had wavered in the last couple of decades. But in the face of adversity old habits die hard.
«I don't see the problem. We build a firebase and secure it. We have a massive amount of building materials to draw on. This is a basic Special Forces mission. What is your problem, Sergeant?»
«It's not his problem solely, sir,» interjected Sergeant Major Mosovich, rather harshly. «I made some of the same points to High Command. They had the same attitude. Maybe you just have to see the Posleen in action to realize that this plan is pretty much pissing in the wind.»
«Yeah,» remarked Ersin. «I wouldn't mind if it made any sense. But it doesn't.»
«Pardon me, perhaps it's being a junior officer,» started Andrews, meaning «maybe it is my being a little more intelligent than you old fogies,» «but we just establish a strong outpost and slow the Posleen advance with indirect fire.»
«Yes, sir. And then what?» asked Mosovich. Mueller was uncharacteristically quiet, perhaps realizing how close he was to losing his cool.
«Well, then we E and E out, I suppose. If we can't escape or evade, we go down as hard as possible. It's happened before and it will happen again. Bataan, for example.»
«All right, sir. Point one, the Posleen do not slow in the face of indirect or, for that matter, direct fire. They move as fast under fire as not under fire. If you kill enough they stop but only because they're dead. Point two, there will be virtually no way to E and E out. The Posleen will closely invest the strong point and then probably overrun it with mass attacks. If we could build large curtain walls, maybe it would work, but I don't think we have the time and we couldn't supply it for a multiyear siege.» He paused and mentally counted.