“I suppose saying ‘va-va-va-voom!’ would be out of line?” Paul asked.
“Yes, it would,” the general snapped. “Okay, one hour. Be ready to move.”
“Sir, it’s going to take more time than that…” Mitchell said, quietly. “She’s got to move her TOC among other things.”
“It’s four Humvees parked in a yard,” the general said, equanimously. “I’ll give her a bit more than an hour. What I really should do is turn over the tracks to another battalion and let them perform the assault.”
“And what’s wrong with that, sir?” Mitchell asked.
“She’s the one that carried the lead battalion this far. Or, rather, she’s the one that ended up carrying it this far,” the general said with a sigh. “I’ve got more colonels relieved than still in command and the ones that are in command… I’m going to end up relieving most of them.”
“So she gets to carry the spear some more?” Mitchell said doubtfully. “It’s your division, General.”
“It’s my division if I can get to the Gap in time,” the general corrected. “And I intend to do that. Not only to keep the division, but because that’s my mission. Now, how are we going to get there?”
“As I said, sir,” Mitchell replied carefully. “After we assist your unit in clearing this valley, we’re going to have to go over the mountains.” He pointed to the west and shrugged. “That won’t be easy, but we’ll get it done. At that point, however, we’ll be out of contact for all practical purposes; the trail we leave won’t be traversable by most of your division. We’ll be especially cut off since we don’t have secure communications.”
“As to that.” The general opened up the sample case and extracted a small folder. “This is your Communications and Electronics Operating Instructions for communicating with my units. Actually, it’s only good for communicating with the division headquarters. I’ll try to get you a CEOI for Glennis’ battalion before you go into action. But in the meantime use this to maintain commo.”
“Sir,” the colonel said delicately. “We don’t know how far into our commo security the Posleen have dug…”
Simosin smiled thinly and shook his head. “This isn’t ‘our’ commo security, by which I mean it’s not from Ground Forces. I’ve carried that around since shortly after Fredericksburg. An officer in General’s Horner’s staff wrote the code but I ran the program on my own computer, one never connected to a network.” He tapped the briefcase again and chuckled grimly. “Most people just thought I was crazy, but I always knew there would be a day that it would come in handy.”
Mitchell looked at the sheets in his hand and shrugged. “So this is clean?”
“As clean as human technology can make it,” the general replied. “I want you ready to move in forty-five minutes. I think it will take Captain LeBlanc a little longer than an hour to get ready, but not much. I’ll signal you when the time comes.”
“We’ll be there,” Mitchell said.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” Pruitt said with a chuckle. “Once more unto the breach.”
Elgars raised her head at the racket of fire from the ridgeline. “Problems.”
“No shit,” Mueller replied, breaking into a run. The fire was coming from well off the line to the cache. “Who is that?”
“Cally,” Wendy said, trotting right behind him. “It has to be.”
“That’s not where the children are, though,” Shari said, her face strained. They had crossed the open area around the former farmstead and were up into the fallen timber behind. In the two passages through the area, and with the help of Sunday’s team, they had partially cleared a path. But it was tortuous and slow going.
“The big problem is that she’s way the fuck over there,” Mosovich said, gesturing to the west. “And that bomb is coming in any minute.”
They reached the ridgeline and Mosovich tried to get some idea where the firing was coming from. But it had died down and in the hills with the echoes he could get no sure direction.
“Shit. AID, get me Major O’Neal.” He looked at Elgars and shook his head. “We have to get that nuke stopped. Or at least slowed down.”
“No.”
Mosovich stared at the AID for a moment in shock. “Sir, we’re talking about Cally.” He looked around the outer cache and shook his head. “We can find her and retrieve her in no more than an hour or so.”
“Sergeant Major, have you taken a look at the operational situation on the eastern seaboard?” O’Neal asked.
“No, sir, I haven’t,” Mosovich replied angrily. “But we’re talking about Rabun Gap.”
“So am I, Sergeant Major. There’s now an incursion headed for Sylva. That has the division that is coming in to support us cut off. I don’t know how they got through the defenses up that way but with everything else going on I’m not surprised. There are incursions over the Blue Ridge in Virginia as well; Staunton is toast and so are the SheVas that were under construction around it. The Ten Thousand is getting pushed back into a pocket. We’re talking about a full-scale breakout in the Shenandoah. Horner should be using this nuke there, but he’s chosen to use it here. Care to consider why?”
“Because if you can hold out for another few hours, the SheVa will get here,” Mosovich said, expanding his tactical map. “But not if it’s got heavy opposition.”
“Bingo,” Mike replied. “If the SheVa can plug the gap, and it will do it by demolishing it and then parking if it has to, we can fly out to another hopeless battle. But we can’t do that if we don’t have this nuke, here and while we can still catch most of the Posleen before they deploy against the SheVa. Once it reaches Franklin it’s in range and it can scratch our backs all the way in. But we need this nuke, now, actually about an hour ago. So, no, I’m not going to stop it for another hour, or forty-five minutes, or even five minutes while you go look for one singular refugee civilian.”
“Who is your daughter,” Mosovich said, coldly.
“No shit Sherlock,” O’Neal replied, furiously. “I would very much like to care about what happens to my daughter, Sergeant Major, but I have a fucking world to save. And if that means that Cally dies, then Cally dies,” he finished.
His reply had been cold and furious, but Mosovich heard the anguish buried in it and lowered his head into his hands. “Yes, sir.”
“Get in the cache, Sergeant Major, close the door. Twenty minutes.”
“He’s just writing her off?” Shari asked. “He can’t do that!”
“He just did,” Mueller said, pushing the door closed.
“We can’t just sit out in this one, boss,” Stewart said.
“I know,” O’Neal replied, looking around at the remnants of the battalion. “So we dig.” He bent down and started pulling dirt up out of the side of the mountain. “Bury the resupply then dig as far as you can, and fill it in behind you. What the hell, keep digging until the rounds hit.”
In moments the entire battalion was busy burying itself in the earth.
“Billy, you have to take the Hiberzine,” Shari said softly.
“I won’t!” the boy said, backing up to the cache wall. “I’m not going to do that again!”