“I do not like this O’Neal fellow,” Tulo’stenaloor said, reading the logs of the AID communications. “He thinks altogether too fast for my comfort.”
“Yes he does, estanaar,” the intelligence officer said uncomfortably.
“What?” the commander asked. He could tell that there was something the S-2 was not saying.
“I was exploring his record,” the officer replied, bringing up a file on the human commander. “He has an impressive history in defending many areas since the landings began on this planet. His unit has been more effective, for less casualties, than any of the other metal threshkreen, the ‘ACS.’ However, his fame among the humans dates from before the landings on this world.”
“Oh,” Tulo’stenaloor said, turning to look at the information the officer had brought up. “Where does it come from?”
“He was instrumental in the success of the humans on Aradan Five,” the intel officer said.
“Oh.” The warleader paused and carefully lowered his fluttering crest. “How was he ‘instrumental’?” he asked softly.
“It was…” the intelligence officer paused. “It was his unit of metal threshkreen which rose out of the sea in the boulevard. Furthermore, it was he, personally, that destroyed Az’al’endai by setting off a nuclear charge on the side of the oolt’ondai’s craft. By hand.”
“How is he not dead?” the estanaar hissed thinly.
“He was near the center of the blast that destroyed the oolt’poslenar,” the officer said with a flap of his crest. “It is believed that a plasma toroid formed around his suit and protected it. It blew him miles out to sea, but yet he lived.”
“Impossible!” Tulo’stenaloor said. “Not even metal threshkreen could withstand a weapon that gutted the ship of Az’al’endai!”
“Nonetheless,” the officer replied. “Records such as this rarely lie. The humans believe he is invincible, unkillable.”
“We will just have to disabuse them of that notion,” Tulo’stenaloor said, fingering a crest ornament. “Essthree, push a force of the local levies up the route that Gamataraal used and begin loading oolt Po’osol with oolt; we’ll fly them around and land them behind this force to continue the drive.”
“Yes, estanaar,” the operations officer said. “But I thought that you said that the greatest fault in this war was throwing in a hasty attack.”
“It’s all a balance,” Tulo’stenaloor answered. “If we succeed, it will clear the road quickly. If we fail, what have we lost but a few disposable units? Ensure, though, that the way is not led with scout units; their weapons won’t scratch metal threshkreen.”
“Yes, estanaar. It will be done.”
“And prepare an oolt’poslenar,” the warleader added. “We’ll just have to see who surrounds whom.”
“We lost Captain Holder,” Gunny Pappas noted. In the background there was the faint thump of a digging charge going off.
“I noticed,” Mike answered. “We lost a total of twenty-two. Frankly, we got hammered.”
“They were waiting for us,” Stewart said. “It’s the only thing that fits all the evidence. Not only for us, but they knew which shuttles had our fuel pods in them.”
“We’re okay on that, by the way,” Duncan said. “We’re cycling personnel through the chargers that we have. We recovered five pods including two from the first shuttle. And there are several beacons on the hills; we might still recover those. Using this shit ammo will drain the power fast if we have to maintain sustained fire.”
“We’ll either have enough or we won’t,” Mike noted. “There’s some possibilities in terms of resupply; we’ll see what happens. Stewart, start working on ways they could have known where and when; don’t fixate on one, explore all the possibilities.”
“All I can come up with right now is a mole of some sort,” Stewart admitted. “Nothing else makes much sense.”
“Like I said,” Mike repeated with a grin in his tone. “Don’t fixate; use that febrile mind for good. Pappas, we need the defenses finished quick; we can expect a thorough-going attack soon. I want slit trenches, bunkers and movement trenches. Continuous construction until we get hit and when we reconsolidate.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant major said. “We’re on rock; once we get dug into it we’re going to be hard to dig out.”
“That’s why I’ll expect a fast attack,” Mike said. “He’ll try to push us out while we’re digging in. So get out there now.”
“ ‘He’?” Stewart asked. “You holding back on your intel officer?”
“Always,” Mike said with an unseen grin. “But in this case it’s a surmise. This has all the marks of a real planned operation, one that has been planned for a while, for that matter. Look at those flying tanks and the close cooperation of the landers. There is one very smart God King out there who was smart enough to gather other smart Posleen. That’s our real enemy. See if you can dig into the Darhel intel files; sometimes they know one Posleen from another. I want to know who I’m facing. I want that very much indeed.”
“The hell with intel,” Pappas muttered. “I want some fire support.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Near Willits, NC, United States of America, Sol III
0318 EDT Monday September 28, 2009 AD
The blimp, nearly two hundred meters in length, had a giant container attached to the bottom of it. As soon as the skids on the container touched the ground the blimp released it and bounced into the air, heading back over the mountains. One Posleen in the wrong place would take it out in a second, but the nuclear fire from the SheVa had apparently cleared out the entire valley and as long as the blimps stayed low they were out of direct line of sight.
The rear of the container dropped open and by the glare of Klieg lights a line of heavy equipment and troops in black coveralls came pouring out. About half of the group headed for the SheVa as the rest began widening the landing zone.
At the head of the column was a figure riding an ATV. He rapidly crossed the distance to the SheVa crew and pulled the vehicle to a skidding stop.
“Maj… Lieutenant Colonel Robert Mitchell,” Mitchell said, saluting.
“Colonel William Garcia,” the colonel replied. He was wearing black coveralls like the rest of his unit, with a large patch on the shoulder, HC4, indicating that he was part of “Heavy Construction Brigade Four.” The colonel returned the salute snappily then reached into the bellows pocket of his coveralls and tossed Mitchell a small package. “Let me be the first to congratulate you on your promotion. Those are $6.50. You can pay me if you survive.”
“Thanks,” Mitchell said, looking at the package of lieutenant colonel’s silver leaves. “What now?”
“My crew is going to do a complete survey,” Garcia said, turning to Indy. “You’re the engineer?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “I have a preliminary survey,” she continued, holding out her PDA.