“We’ve got supply issues, boss.” Duncan was in the line now, something that he had avoided for nearly five years. But with no resupply coming in, and no indirect fire support except the Reapers, and no way or reason to maneuver the battalion, he didn’t have much else to do. And every round counted.
“Bullets we have aplenty…” Stewart said. “Power…”
Two troopers, a rifle troop that had had his grav-gun hit by a lucky HVM shot and a one-legged support troop, wearing a bulbous suit of armor that made him look like the Michelin Man, were crawling along a shallow trench from position to position, feeding power to the suits from the surviving antimatter power packs. The problem was not the power being drained by the suits, they were stationary and the trickle of power for their environment systems was no sort of drain, but from the rounds they were firing.
The bullets were accelerated to a small percentage of the speed of light before they left the barrel of the rifles. This gave them a tremendous, really an overkill, punch at the end, which explained why a three-millimeter-wide, four-millimeter-long teardrop was causing explosions the size of artillery shells.
But that took power, lots of it. The bullets were fired in a stream, much faster than any conventional machine gun, with multiple rounds in the barrel at any one time. And power was power. To cause the effect of a hundred kilos of TNT required that much power be put into pushing them down the barrel.
The power was supposed to come from the rounds themselves. “Standard” rounds had a droplet of antimatter at the base, sufficient to power the round and even bleed a little over to the suits. But the humans didn’t have the technology to create the ultra-miniature containment system necessary. So since the blockade of Earth had shut off the flow of Galactic Technology, and as “standard” rounds become few and far between, the suits had fallen back on “emergency” procedures, using the power in their suits to drive their guns.
And that was a major power drain.
Mike watched for a moment as one of the suits topped up, and then he followed the crawling tech suit as it made its way laboriously to the next position. Even as the tech moved, the previous suit’s power levels dropped noticeably. And the antimatter pack it was dragging showed yellow.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Mike said, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice.
“We’re already sniping the God Kings,” Duncan replied.
The normals that made up the bulk of the Posleen assault were of subhuman intelligence, but the God King leaders made up for it. With the battalion nearly invisible in their holes, it was hard for the normals to even find a target. But whenever a God King saw the streams of silver it naturally tracked back to the starting point and targeted it. Whenever a God King engaged a target, all the normals around him, bonded and unbonded, tended to aim at the same target. And when those storms of projectiles came in, suits, or at least the extended weapons systems, died.
To reduce the problem, they had sent the scout suits — which used a lower velocity projectile that was nearly undetectable in a battle — up the slopes on either side to target the leaders in the horde.
The problem with that was that spotting God Kings who were off their tenar was hard. They had crests, but if they didn’t lift the crests, which laid down against the long Posleen neck, they were almost indistinguishable from their troops.
On the other hand, God Kings tended to raise their crests under stress.
“We’re selecting for smart God Kings, you know,” Mike said. “We have been for years.”
“I suppose we have,” Duncan replied.
“If this is what we get for it, I think it was a bad idea,” Stewart said, then yelled.
“You okay?” Mike checked his monitors. Stewart’s weapon was rated as destroyed.
“Well, I thought I’d seen it all,” Stewart replied, slowly. “You know, it’s really spectacular when a Posleen round goes in the barrel as one of ours is going out.”
“You okay?”
“Well, my hand’s still there.” The command suits did not have extensors so the commanders and staff were firing their rifles by holding them up out of their holes.
“We’ve got about four more hours of power,” Duncan said, getting the discussion back on track. The guns were firing almost on their own; killing Posleen was an easy multi-task for everyone in the battalion at this point.
“There’s a local cache,” Mike said, quietly. “It’s even got a battalion load of standard rounds in it. And an antimatter pack.”
“There is?” Duncan said. “It’s not on the maps.”
“That’s because it’s off the books.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And OH.” Mike grimaced, unseen, inside his suit. “The problem, of course, is getting to it.”
“Where is it?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Near Rabun Gap, GA, United States of America, Sol III
0518 EDT Monday September 28, 2009 AD
Mueller slid down the muddy slope and dropped to the ledge outside the cave, letting the muzzle of his rifle lead him in.
The cave that held what Papa O’Neal had referred to as “Cache Four” was on a nearly vertical, tree-covered slope. How the eldest O’Neal had gotten the dozens and dozens of large and heavy boxes into the cave was a mystery, one that on their previous trip Mueller and Mosovich had been careful to avoid questioning. But on that same trip they had also been attacked by a feral Posleen as they exited the cave. Thus Mueller’s caution as he entered it.
The first change that he noted was that there was a heavy metal door in place; the cache had been open the last time they were there. All things considered, though, it was probably for the best, what with the occasional nuke round dropping in the pot.
The problem being that they needed what was on the other side of the door and there didn’t seem to be any latches on this side.
That, on the other hand, seemed to indicate that someone or something was on the other side.
He was tired and the thoughts seemed to come slowly. He’d been using Provigil but all that really did was keep you awake; you still got “tired stupid.” Now he turned the gun around and banged on the door with the butt.
“Anyone home?”
Cally sat up at the bang and the muffled voice on the other side. It sounded like a human, but it was possible it was just a very smart Posleen.
She picked up her Steyr and went to the door. “Who’s there?”
“Cally?”
“Yeah, who’s there?”
“Mueller! Open up.”
She set the gun down and pulled the door back, composing her features as she did so.
Mueller just looked at her for a second then wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug.
“Jesus Christ! We were sure you were dead.”
Cally wiped at the tears in her eyes as the rest descended the slope and slipped through door. She had to hug each in turn.
“Wendy, you made it!”
“Thanks to luck and some really weird shit,” the girl replied, hugging back. “Papa?”
Cally just shook her head, wiping at the tears again and wondering at the frozen expression on the face of the unknown young woman who was last through the door.