They were beginning to hit the fringe of the small city. Houses and buildings had been thickening as they approached and most of the open fields had been replaced with houses and light industrial buildings or facilities for the support of the local corps. There was a smattering of trees around the buildings but much of the area was still open fields or roads.
“Quebec Eight-Six, this is India Three-Niner.”
LeBlanc keyed her microphone and glanced up the hill where a scout team of Bradleys had taken position; a small suburb occupied most of the hill and she guessed from the map that it had a view of the town of Franklin itself. Which was why she’d sent the Brads up there.
“Go.”
“You probably want to come eyeball this, Major.”
She looked up at the hill and shrugged her shoulders. They were probably right.
LeBlanc slid off the front of the tank and walked up through the backyard of the house to where two of the Charlie Company troopers were hunkered by a picket fence. The house was apparently deserted; the back door was torn from its frame and tossed into the yard and a brief view of the interior showed the sort of mess the Posleen normally left in their first pass through an area. As she passed the back patio she trod on a teddy bear, still fairly fresh despite the rains. She looked down at what had caused her ankle to turn and then walked on; after ten years of battle the pathetic tale told by the doll was an old and worn one.
“Morning, ma’am,” the senior trooper, a specialist, said, handing her his thermal imaging scope. “Take a look at the town.”
“Horse-dicks,” she muttered after a glance through the scope. “Don’t these guys know they’re beat?” The town was swarming with Posleen and more seemed to be pouring in from the east and south. Furthermore, many of them were working on some sort of underground structure near the center of the town. It looked very much like they were “digging in.”
“Apparently not, ma’am,” the scout answered with a chuckle, taking the scope back. “What are we going to do this time?”
“My guess is blow up the town with the SheVa,” she said after a moment’s thought.
“What’s that thing they’re building, ma’am?” the junior trooper asked.
“At a guess it’s a command bunker of some sort,” LeBlanc answered. “No, I take it back,” she said, thinking like an S-2 instead of a battalion commander. “Most of the Posleen infrastructure is underground. I’d say that’s either a factory or a food processor. Maybe both.”
“Like they’re getting ready to move in?”
“Or they’re trying to establish a logistics point,” the major replied. “Whatever it is, it’s about to receive a ten-kiloton retirement present.”
Orostan looked over at the Kenellai that was running the resupply effort. “How is the work progressing?”
“The tunnels will be completed soon, oolt’ondai. After that perhaps twelve hours to complete the basic factory.”
“Too long,” he growled, looking around at the massed oolt’os and Kessentai. “We’ll be out of ammunition and thresh by then.”
“It can progress no faster, oolt’ondai. But I will see what I can do.”
“Oolt’ondai, the SheVa approaches.” The operations officer gestured to the north. “And the forces with it. The force at Windy Gap…”
“Is gone, I know,” the warleader growled. “Well, they cannot attack us the same way. Send two oolt’ondar out to engage the tracks around it and have the others spread out on this ridge; we will not allow it to reach its firing point.”
“As you command, oolt’ondai.”
The warleader looked to the north then keyed his communicator, waiting as it hunted for the distinct address of Tulo’stenaloor.
“Orostan, here,” he said when it pinged acceptance.
“Orostan, how goes there?” Tulo’stenaloor asked.
“Like the Sky Demons were driving the war,” the oolt’ondai said with a flap of his crest. “When I arrange forces to attack the SheVa from the side, it comes in on their flank. When I arrange them in front of it, it turns to the side. For something so large it is being infernally hard to pin down.”
“Will it reach Franklin?” the estanaar replied.
The warleader thought for a moment then rippled his skin in a sigh. “Perhaps, estanaar. Perhaps. It is… difficult to stop. No… I will stop it before it reaches Franklin. But I don’t know at what cost.”
“The cost is no matter,” Tulo’stenaloor said after a moment. “If you have to take it in a tenaral charge of the last of your forces, stop it. We will have the Gap back shortly. Then I can pour forces through. But you must stop it; we cannot take the Gap in the face of nuclear fire.”
“I shall, estanaar,” Orostan said. “I’ll stop it.”
“Do so,” Tulo’stenaloor replied. “And then, we will own this world. Good luck.”
“I will stop you,” Orostan growled. “By the bones of the Alld’nt I will stop you.”
“No can do,” Pruitt said, shaking his head.
“Why?” Mitchell asked, glancing at the map.
“The other shot, the hill was pretty steep; there was a real target. This one, the hill is a long, winding slope on our side. Not a steep one, either. I can’t put a round in unless I’ve got something like a bluff in the immediate area.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of Posleen,” Mitchell said, pointing at the map. “And they’re not just going to sit on their hands.”
“I know, sir,” the specialist replied. “But we don’t have a shot. If we were on the south side we would, but I don’t think you want to swing around to there, do you?”
“Not with the force structure in the area,” the colonel replied. “Suggestions?”
“Hmm,” Pruitt looked at his display and made some adjustments then did some measuring. “If we back up to our last FP…”
“Minimum distances of four thousand meters,” the colonel said with a glance at the map. “We can make it, barely. What about drift?”
“That… will be a problem,” the gunner admitted. “In general the winds aloft are from northwest to southeast. Who knows, we might have to fire twice!”
“We’ll be firing practically straight up; if the damned round comes back on us we won’t be firing ever again!”
“Quebec Eight-Six, pull your advanced units back. We’re going to have to back all the way up to damned near our starting point. Please detach a sub-unit to cover us.”
LeBlanc thought about the combination for a moment and shivered despite the heat pouring up from the interior of the tank.
“Am I to assume that your answer to this problem involves something that is danger close at four thousand meters.”
“Roger, over.”
“Even at our starting point, if we don’t cross the river we’ll be less than four thousand meters from the target, over.”
“Roger. Recommend we back up and hunker down.”
“This ain’t gonna be good.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You know the problem with the SheVa gun?” Utori said. “No damned finesse.”
“What do you mean?” Bazzett replied, cutting open an MRE as the track lurched from side to side. If they were going to be stopped for a few minutes, might as well eat.
The battalion had rapidly backed up, retreating over ground they had captured at cost. Only a single Abrams had been left behind, hull down in a revetment, with all its electronics shut down and turned away from the blast. All of the troops had been pulled into their vehicles as well; if a Posleen force came through they were probably toast.