* * *
Lieutenant Rogers swore fluently. This was the moment that Bravo had been placed for, but the reality exceeded the Old Man's expectations by an order of magnitude. He wasn't sure that the original orders, to wait until the enemy was within two hundred meters of the battalion before he opened fire, should be followed or not. He finally decided that they were still extant. It would just be a lot more exciting.
* * *
«Forward!» shouted Kenallai, firing his plasma cannon over the heads of his personal oolt. The ranks of his own forces had been swelled by the majority of Ardan'aath's oolt'os and the reinforced company was leading the charge.
The fire of the beast was a silver waterfall, tearing the host asunder, but the return fire of the host was as deadly. Already many of the heads had fallen to the ground and were lying quiescent. They were finally reaching the point where the mass fire of the host could have good effect and within moments the horrid creature would be another trophy to brag upon.
* * *
«Jesus Christ!» shouted Major Givens, stumbling backward under the hail of railgun rounds.
The God Kings were interspersed in the body of the Posleen forces, effectively hidden by the intervening normals. However, every now and again they would target a particular suit. When they did, thousands of normals would follow the lead of their gods. Even catching the edge of such a hurricane of destruction was enough to damage the suits, and the luckless individual at the center was usually toast as a storm of 3mm railgun rounds and hypervelocity missiles struck their suit.
The exception, thus far, had been Captain O'Neal. Twice he had been targeted by God Kings. In both cases he was able to evade the majority of the fire, including the initial fire of the God King, while still managing to crank out a stream of orders.
The diminutive suit seemed to be everywhere. Whenever the fire of the Posleen forces appeared sure to destroy a section of the line, he was in the thick of the fighting. He was moving the suits in a complex pavane designed to avoid the majority of the damage. Whenever a section became bogged down, he was sure to be there first, loosening up the movement, directing the fire, calling for support.
Givens realized he had been still for too long and began his next movement. Even the acting commander followed the baton of the little hobgoblin.
* * *
«Why aren't they digging in!» shouted Lieutenant Nightingale. She had set her helmet aside, but she continued to follow the course of the battle on a computer-generated hologram. «He's killing them! The sadistic little bastard!»
«Teri, you need to get a grip,» Pappas snapped over the communications circuit. «If he had them dig in, it would ruin the illusion. Right now, the Posleen believe they are fighting a dragon. As soon as he's sucked as many as possible into the kill-box, he'll go to ground. Until then, he's doing his job, as an officer, and accepting the casualties to further the mission.»
«That is insane!» she shouted. «He is butchering the battalion for . . . for nothing!»
Pappas sighed quietly and decided he had more important things to do than continue this pointless argument. «Lieutenant Nightingale, I think you need to find another job. There are realities about combat I don't think you will ever grasp.» He tapped a control on the suit for privacy. «AID, unless I have to, I don't want to talk to Lieutenant Nightingale again.»
«Very well, Gunny,» said the female contralto. There was a slight pause. «Does that mean I'll be seeing more of you?»
* * *
Mike skipped past a private from Charlie Company and pointed to the right. «The bouncing ball is that way, Private Vargas. Follow the bouncing ball.»
The suit followed the directions, sidling off to the right just as a cone of railgun fire tore through the space where it had paused.
«Nah, nah, nah, nah,» Mike called, broadcasting the taunt over both speakers and the battalion broadcast frequency. He stopped and directed the holographic dragon head he projected to stick its tongue out at the advancing Posleen mass. «Youuu caaan't touch meee!» he taunted again, the cry this time going out in Posleen. As the fire of the division twisted towards his location he popped out a string of grenades and sidestepped. «Nah, nah, nah, nah,» he taunted as the storm of fire swept by.
Gone were the fear and uncertainty. Gone were the question and doubt. The high of combat, the joy of battle had taken him and he was once again in his element. There were at least four ways to win the current scenario and do maximum damage to the Posleen. Each of them projected nearly identical casualties for the battalion. Given the choices, he had chosen the one with the maximum style. Even now with the casualty graph climbing and the whole mass of the Posleen force charging them. Whatever the outcome of the battle, they'd fought it «their way.»
But the time for stylish destruction was coming to an end. The Posleen were getting close enough that they could overwhelm the battalion with their massed fire. They were still steering away from the curtain barrage to the north, but it was time to teach them that there were worse things than artillery.
He skipped to the left and hopped over a crossing trooper as he considered the timing. With human troops it was usually better to withhold your heaviest fire until they were within two hundred meters. At that point, human troops felt that no matter how much fire there was, they still had a chance of overrunning the position. So they would come on in droves, through any sort of maelstrom. If your intent was to kill as many as possible, and his was just that, then waiting until they were that close was best.
With Posleen, this magic distance was still unclear. Simulations refused to recognize it, instead opting for an almost suicidal determination on the part of Posleen forces. But he had seen them break and run, even up close. So. When to start the real massacre?
He decided to let the music choose. They had started out the battle with Led Zeppelin's «Immigrant Song» pounding in the background. The tune had become something of an instant tradition for the American ACS units after Diess. That had segued to the Rolling Stones' «Paint it Black» and that was good. But not quite what he was looking for. Something . . . more. When the next song started, he smiled ferally.
«Lieutenant Rogers,» he whispered over the comm, trotting sideways towards his predesignated position.
«Sir,» responded the camouflaged acting-company commander.
«Prepare for enfilading fire on my mark.»
«Roger, sir.»
Mike tapped a series of Virtual icons floating in the air in front of his face. The AIDs accepted the commands, considered the current conditions and prepared movement orders for all the individuals in the battalion.
«Execute,» he whispered as the first bars of Black Sabbath's «The Mob Rules» began to boom out through the battalion's suit speakers.
* * *
Kenallai exalted as the mass of the Host approached the beast. Despite the beast's awesome fire and the writhing, difficult to strike heads, the host had passed through the worst of the fire. In moments they would take the beast and drive on to the prizes to the east. They were close enough that nothing could stop the Host now. Some of the dragon's heads had already fallen, their fire stopped. The rest would fall soon enough. However, as the Host closed to perfect range, everything changed.
Before the eyes of the front rank of the Posleen the creature dissolved into an oolt'ondar of metal-clad thresh. The thresh were visible for only a moment, however, for as fast as they appeared they disappeared into holes dug by special charges. A moment later their guns poked out of the holes and the only thing visible was the guns and the scattered few bodies of metal thresh.