“Which battle was it, sir?” Cuelho said, a touch eagerly. The chance to hear someone as legendary as General O’Neal reminisce about a battle didn’t come often.
“Harkless,” Mike said. “Rebel force. Light weapons. In what could be for all practical purposes a space-ship even if it’s underground. The attacking force—”
“Is in armor!” Harkless said and then began laughing so hard he’d have fallen out of his seat if it wasn’t for the straps. “Oh, God, sir! You’re killing me!”
“I need to get my helmet configured!” Mike said. “It needs to have these sort of wing things coming out of the bottom! Hey, Shelly, any way you can make this armor black?”
“ ‘Dom! Dom! Dom! I’m a dom, I’m a dom,’ ” Harkless started singing.
“That’s sick!” Mike said.
“You know those are the words, sir,” the sergeant said, grinning. “Hey, are you going to torture your daughter, who you don’t know is your daughter, for information? In a very slightly pornographic manner?”
“Not unless Michelle happens to be on the planet,” Mike said. “Which she’s not. And I don’t think I’d try: She’s got this whole…” He stopped and shook his head. “Let’s just say that you don’t mess with the little green guy.”
“Sir…” Cuelho said, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“General,” the pilot called. “LZ in thirty.”
“I’ll explain later,” Mike said, putting on his helmet. He made some whooshing sounds. “Just not the same.”
“Well, sir,” Harkless said as soon as he had his settled. “In part it’s because you’re thinking of the wrong movie.”
“Oh?” Mike asked, picking up his rifle and checking it. Yup, thar’s bullets in it. He tucked it into a tactical carry and hit the release on the straps.
“What you really need is a great biiig black helmet.”
“Sergeant Harkless, you are sooo going to pay for that.”
Then he started humming.
“Dum! Dum! Dum-tee-dum, dum-tee-dum.”
“Sir,” Harkless said, his armor jiggling. “I’d like to be able to hit what I’m shooting at?”
“All the remaining dependents are headed for the back door,” Tommy said. “There’s… a bit of a crush.”
“Don’t let anyone get hurt in the stampede,” Cally replied in a monotone. “ACS just set down. They’ve spotted our top-side eyes and have taken them out with wonderful precision,” she added bitterly. “All we’re getting is flashes of an ACS suit and then… snow.”
“Hey, we’re…” Tommy stopped and shook his head. “They are good.”
“Where’s your head on this, Mr. Sunday?” Cally asked, spinning around in her chair. “Seriously. This has got to be fucking with you.”
“Other than the stakes, would I rather be on the other side?” Tommy asked. “Oh, hell, yeah. Wouldn’t you? Do I miss ACS? Yes. Do I think we have a chance in hell of stopping them? Depends on how good the commander is.”
“The LT doesn’t have any experience,” Cally said. “The platoon sergeant was the commander of the 501st ACS regiment during the war. That was when it was down to about a battalion, but he started as an LT in the 501st.”
“Then I’d say we’re screwed,” Tommy said, shrugging. “But all we have to do is slow them down enough that the Indowy and dependents can make it to the shuttles. That we should be able to do.”
“Our lives, our fortunes,” Cally said. “At least we don’t have to give up our sacred honor.”
“I hate elevator shafts,” Mike said, looking at the hole where a barn used to be.
The bodies from the mercenary force were still scattered amongst the snow. If it bothered the general it wasn’t obvious.
“We can just drop on grav, sir,” Sergeant Harkless said dubiously.
The platoon was spread out in a perimeter just in case there was a way for the enemy to pop up behind them. Of course, any weapon capable of defeating ACS gave off some energy trace. On the other hand, so did ACS. So while they could spot the enemy, the reverse was also true.
“And get picked off in a shooting gallery,” Mike said. He’d long before learned not to bother shaking his head in armor. He pulled out an AM grenade. The grenade was about the size of a small protein bar and shaped somewhat like one. Given that it could be dialed up to near kiloton range of output, the term “suicide bar” had come into vogue since the war. “What do you think?” he said, holding it up.
“Never use finesse when force will do, sir,” Harkless replied.
“Where have I heard that before, Sergeant?” the LT asked.
“What the hell was that?” Cally asked at the deep throom! that had boomed through the station.
“Suicide bar,” Tommy said. “Set to about a half-ton release.”
“I guess they’re not being subtle,” Cally said.
“Never use finesse when force will do,” Tommy said.
“That sounds like a quote,” Cally said, frowning.
“It is,” Tommy replied. “Your father’s.”
“Clear,” SPC “Shark” Waters said, spotting three sensors, two visual and a subspace sensor, and taking them down. “Area is secure.”
Waters had been born in Waynesville, West Virginia after the war. So he’d never lived in Urbs. But that didn’t mean he’d never visited them. Urbs tended to run a bit more to the wild side and as Kipling put it: Single men in barracks don’t turn into plaster saints.
But he’d never seen an Urb like this one. Painting Galplas, which was the primary material used in them, was difficult. In fact, it was pretty much impossible. So the walls came in four shades of institutional ick.
Not these. They’d been painted, somehow, into a riot of colors. There were also Galplas benches lining the walls, which were not standard for Urbs.
“Something different about this place,” Sergeant Jon Akers said.
“Go figure,” Shark replied. “ ‘Sir, we have secured the entry of the rebel base!’ Hey, at least we’re not in white armor.”
“You know what always happens to those guys, right?” Akers said. “I’ve got a moving energy source.”
“Sensor bot,” Shark replied, firing through one of the Galplas walls, which dissolved in a white flash, and removing the sensor. “ ‘Look, sir! Droids!’ ”
“Follow the bouncing ball,” Akers said as a movement arrow appeared. “And keep the references to yourself.”
“You know,” Mike said, looking around the atrium. “For a place that’s apparently deserted it doesn’t feel deserted.”
“Know what you mean, General,” First Sergeant Harkless said. “Got that puckering feeling.”
“Teams aren’t encountering any resistance, sir,” Lieutenant Cuelho said.
“Noted, LT,” Mike said, looking at the building schematic.
The “secret base” was, indeed, a Sub-Urb. At least it had all the signs of being one. And not a standard one by any stretch of the imagination. As the teams moved cautiously forward they were building a map, not only of their own positions but the areas immediately surrounding them from sensor systems on the suit. But that was all they had. He still didn’t know what he was really dealing with and that was making him unhappy.
This atrium was an example. The ceiling was much higher than standard with a “view” of the sky. Also larger than standard with walls that had been Sohon modded to various pastels. If Mike had any question about the rebels’ access to GalTech it was disabused when he saw the “painting.”