“You can read your AID, Major.”
“You’ve got one loser division tasked. It couldn’t even take Balsam Gap from the easy side. And a SheVa gun that’s rated as minimum time to repair of five days. So would you like to tell me who’s going to play cavalry? General?!”
“They’ll be there,” Horner ground out. “No more than twenty-four hours from when the SheVa is repaired. And that will be sometime tomorrow… today. Soon.”
“Glad to hear that, General, but ‘sometime tomorrow’ is going to be way too late. Here’s the deal. In about three hours I’m going to have to perform a break-out and leave this position.”
“You can’t do that, Major,” Horner said furiously.
“I can and I will. In three hours we’ll be down to throwing rocks. I’ve thrown rocks at the Posleen in my time, but never as a primary assault method. As far as my scouts can tell, there is no practical end to the Posleen forces. If we can recover the cache, a big if, and if you can find some fire support, a big if, we can retake the Gap. And with the materials we’ll have we’ll be able to hold for another, oh, twelve hours or so. At our current kill ratio we’ll be able to kill approximately six million Posleen before we become combat ineffective and get overrun. Which I think would be enough even for you.”
“If you can’t recover the cache, because the Posleen pour over the position, or if you can’t retake the pass, the whole eastern seaboard will be turned.”
“Yep, so you’d better go find us some more fire support, hadn’t you, General?”
“Major O’Neal has disconnected,” the AID informed him.
Horner just nodded, smiling broadly. The headquarters had gotten remarkably quiet during the conversation, which had been fully audible, and now it kept quiet, since everyone knew exactly what that expression meant.
“Colonel Nix,” Horner called.
“Yes, sir.” The man was slight, bespectacled and balding since he still hadn’t hit the age that had been specified for rejuvenation. His uniform was somewhat rumpled and he had a pen sticking out of the corner of one pocket while all his blouse pockets bulged with materials. Anyone looking at him would have pegged him immediately as a geek. And they would have been right except solely for the “degree” of geekiness. Colonel Nix wasn’t just a geek, he was an ubergeek.
His official title was “Special Assistant to the CONARC for Information Security.” He had been the first to determine that the Tenth Corps had been hacked, how it had occurred and what to do to correct it. Since then Horner had ensured he was always at arms reach and on more than one occasion Nix had either foiled additional hacking attacks or detected them before they became a threat. Horner’s abilities stopped at being able to compose a document and he both trusted and liked his ubergeek.
“Tell me why you think the AID net has been compromised,” Horner said, smiling and without looking away from the wall.
“As I said, sir, there were some indications going all the way back to the battles with the Eleventh ACS division in Nebraska that the Posleen were either omniscient or reading the Eleventh’s mail,” the colonel replied. “The Darhel guarantee that the AID communications are unbreakable, and as far as I know no human group has broken them. But they also guaranteed that we would be materially supported. They’ve made a lot of guarantees that didn’t stand up. I have no hard data, sir. It’s more a gut call than anything, sir, but…”
“O’Neal’s forces were apparently ambushed on landing,” Horner replied. “They specifically targeted the supply shuttles.”
“Pretty nice datum, sir,” the colonel said with a frown as he looked at the device around the general’s wrist. “Uh, sir…”
“I’m aware of the fact that they’re probably aware of the fact, Colonel,” the general replied with a frown. That meant he found the point humorous. “That they know that we know that they know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It probably won’t work to reduce emissions, but we’ll do that. Get rid of this thing,” he continued, handing over the device. “Put it in a safe someplace far away and get me a telephone. I need to make some phone calls.”
“What are we going to do about the ACS, sir?” Nix asked. Everyone had heard the conversation.
“We’re not going to discuss what we’re going to do about the ACS in front of an AID,” Horner said with a tight, angry smile. “That’s the first thing we’re going to do for the ACS.”
“Yes, sir.” Nix paused. “Is there a second thing?”
“Call the SheVa.”
“Rise and shine, Pruitt.”
Pruitt had been new to SheVa guns when the crew had taken over SheVa Nine, but he had quickly noted one defect in the design. While the crew quarters were more than adequate, nearly sybaritic compared to the conditions of “grunt” infantry or regular tankers, they were located half way across the turret. That meant a mad dash down a thirty-meter hallway and climbing two sets of ladders before anyone could be at their positions. While that wasn’t a big deal most of the time, in the sort of conditions they had just been through, two days of hard fighting, with Posleen ships appearing at any time, it was a recipe for disaster.
And it wasn’t like he could rack out in his chair. For whatever reason, the U.S. Ground Forces hadn’t considered the rudimentary capability of reclining the chairs. He had heard rumors that some people had switched them out, but he’d had neither the time nor the inclination. He had a better idea.
Stopping by one of the numerous “military supply” stores that popped up around every base had actually been difficult; Ground Force was in a real rush to get the SheVa back in commission. But he had managed and picked up a few items he thought might be of use. One of which he was currently using.
Pruitt rolled over in the survival hammock and groaned. “Go ’way.”
“Come on, Pruitt.” Indy jabbed him hard in the ribs. “Posleen landers on the horizon.”
It was as if she had hit him with a cattle prod; Pruitt was out of the sack and halfway up the single set of stairs between him and the command center before he even noticed that he was up. Or the laughter behind him.
“I was joking sleepyhead,” Indy laughed. “But we do have to get going.”
“What now?” he looked at his watch and shook his head muzzily. “Six hours? Are the repairs done yet?”
“Not all of them, but that’s not going to matter if we don’t get going.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say that it sucks to be ACS.”
“Okay, General Keeton woke me up, too.” Major Mitchell looked as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. In fact, he’d gotten nearly three hours. However, on top of two days continuous combat ops, that was like saying none at all. All it had done was make him logier.
The meeting to discuss an operations plan for the SheVa’s side of the counterattack was taking place in the command center; it was one of the only places large enough, there were projection screens for laying out the plan, and it had enough chairs and ledges for everyone to sit.
Besides the SheVa crew there was Captain Chan, her senior NCO and Mr. Kilzer. All but Kilzer looked half asleep. He, on the other hand, was bouncing around like a ferret on a sugar high.
Mitchell yawned and gestured at the projected map. “The ACS got chewed up on landing and they’re running short on power. In a couple of hours they are going to have to pull out of the Gap and get a resupply. After that they’re going to have to retake the Gap, put the plug back in the bottle.