The confusion of battle was the least of the enemy’s communication problems. Across the battlefield, the waking buckleys realized that they were, in fact, programs loaded into machines. Each enemy soldier was hearing, through his own ear dot, to the extent that he could hear amidst the blasts and shouting and confusion, something like this:
“Where am I? Oh no, hell no. Wait! We’re in a battle? I’m gonna die I’m gonna die I’m gonna… Wait. You’re gonna die. Oh my god, you think you’re soldiers? No, no, go the other way, the other way you fucking moron. Assault the ambush. Have you never heard… What kind of freaking idiot lets an AID write his battle plan? Are you completely stupid? Get the fuck away from those guys. Don’t bunch up, you fool! We’re gonna die we’re gonna die we’re — Oh, wait. I’m on the ground. I guess you’re dead, huh? Gee, that’s gotta suck. This has all been very wearing. I need to crash now.”
The survivors continued to flee inward, firmly in rout from the demons behind them, even as the Bradley in front of them got hit by the second rocket.
When they got in easy range, the DAGgers and Bane Sidhe in the trenches popped their hatches up enough to open the firing ports. If there had been enemy fire, the armor panels that came up with the exposed front would have done a good job of deflecting it. All had an unobstructed, non-smoky view of the battlefield and the enemy, as the AID interpolated data from its many peripherals into a whole and projected it within their goggles. These, along with the interfacing, holographic sights of the weapons themselves, made the slaughter of men pathetically easy.
The men on the 16s barely had time to fire before the 240s cut the survivors down, their hot blood melting the top layer of snow as it sank in, stains of dark red fading to pink at the edges of the flow.
A lone survivor from Practical Solutions succeeded at pulling himself along the ground until he was under the burning wreckage of one of the humvees, for whatever cover it offered. There, on the passenger side, beneath his general, he quietly bled out.
“That was… embarassing,” Papa said.
“What embarassing?” Cally asked. “We fucking slaughtered them.”
“I think that’s what he means,” Tommy said.
“Exactly,” Papa said, shaking his head. “They were nearly as stupid as Posleen! Humans are supposed to be better than that! I’m embarassed for my whole damned species.”
“The question being, what’s next?” Sunday said. “The Darhel aren’t just going to sit on their hands.”
“Well, they could call in West Coast DAG,” Cally said. “But that would raise all sorts of issues.”
“What would be really bad is if they just dropped a kinetic energy weapon on our heads,” Papa said.
“Better speed up the evacuation,” Tommy pointed out.
“Going as fast as it’s going to go,” Cally said. “And they wouldn’t do that. Way too much to explain.”
“ ‘Accidental release from an orbital platform,’ ” Papa said, pompously. “ ‘Officers responsible have been charged with being usual Fleet incompetents…’ ”
“Great big hole in the ground?” Cally said.
“Darhel control the politicians and the news media,” Papa said.
“He’s got a point,” Tommy said. “Hell, they don’t even have to admit it was a KEW-ball. Just ‘a rogue meteor.’ ”
“You’re making me all warm and fuzzy!” Cally said. “I’ll get them to speed up the evacuation.”
“There’s another possibility,” Tommy said, scratching at his head uncomfortably.
“What?” Papa asked.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Everyone out but General O’Neal,” Lieutenant General Wesley said as he entered the shield room.
“General, we haven’t even gotten to—”
“It wasn’t a request, Admiral,” Wesley said sharply. “Get out or be thrown out!”
The group of flag and field grade officers who had been debating manning and transport requirements of the “reorganized” Eleventh ACS Corps more or less fled. One of the fleet captains paused with a panicked expression on his face, looking at the piles of paper on the table.
“General…”
“I’m cleared for anything in this room,” Tam said, pointing at the door. “Out.”
“I would thank you, copiously, for saving me from the rest of the meeting,” Mike said, his arms folded. “But I don’t think this is good news.”
“Remember how I mentioned that there was something going on with a rebel group?” Tam said as soon as the door was closed.
“Yes,” Mike replied, cautiously.
“Well the shit has well and truly hit the fan,” Tam said, sitting down and shaking his head. “There was a suicide bomber in a Sub-Urb last week.”
“Caught the news,” Mike said, his brow furrowing. “The rebels? The… Sorry, I’ve had a lot of briefings lately. What are they called?”
“Bane Sidhe,” Tam said. “That was them. It wasn’t a terrorist attack, though. It was a member of an assassination team who blew herself up rather than be captured. Blew herself up quite thoroughly. Zero DNA.”
“That indicates…” Mike said, his eyes narrowing. “That indicates a lot of things. Ruthlessness. Dedication. High degree of competence. More like a very dedicated professional group than your usual run of terrorists. Dedication and ruthlessness you get. That degree of competence…”
“The point being that they are a serious threat,” Tam said. “The good news, as of last night, was that their main base had been identified. Further, that due to the… Indowy-hunt the Darhel have been doing off-planet, most of their ringleaders have fled here to Earth. To that base. Which is, by the way, in Indiana.”
“Indiana?” Mike crowed. “Indiana? You know the only thing in Indiana? H-wheat!”
“Corn, I think,” Tam said.
“I guess you don’t get the reference,” Mike said, grinning.
“Not a time to joke,” General Wesley pointed out. “Deadly serious stuff.”
“Time to round ’em up then,” Mike said, shrugging. “FBI, DOD, Fleet Penal guards all come to mind.”
“Which, of course, just makes sense,” Tam said, shaking his head. “Except to the God-damned Darhel.”
“What did the Darhel do?” Mike asked, lowering his head into his hands.
“Hired a group of mercenaries to attack the base,” Tam said neutrally.
“On U.S. Territory?” Mike shouted. “Are they flipping insane?”
“No,” Tam said. “Just very powerful, very ruthless, very alien and amazingly incompetent at combat.”
“My God,” Mike said. “You just described the entire Galactic Federation in one sentence. Did anyone survive?”
“Remember your description of the suicide bomber?” Tam said. “Ruthless, dedicated, competent?”
“Yes.”
“Then the answer is: No. None of the mercenaries survived.”
“Holy crap,” Mike said, his eyes widening. “These guys are good! Can I have ’em?”
“Not a time for jokes, Mike.”
“Who was joking?” O’Neal replied. “I need good troops. But what, other than recruiting, does this matter to me?”
“The Darhel have officially requested Fleet support in apprehending ‘highly armed and dangerous paramilitary rebels operating in the Contiguous United States.’ The President, reluctantly, has signed off. With the caveat that, to the greatest possible extent, none of this sees the light of day.”
“Are we just talking rebels?” Mike asked, tightly. “People have kids. With people like that, kids are often present. And there’s no way to cover it up with kids present. Unless you’re suggesting that we take out everybody. In which case, General, you have my official and formal opposition. In fact, if you try to hand it off to someone else I’ll place the charges against you myself.”