“And we both know how far that will fly,” the woman said. “I know you would,” she said, more gently. “But we both know that the Darhel are going to pull us apart like a chicken. I’ve been there and most of my people know the story. We’re less than enthusiastic about surrendering. A clean death is preferable.”
“Always the problem of treating your prisoners badly,” Mike said sadly. “I hate to kill you, you’re very good.”
“We’d hate to die. But we’re not going to surrender. So why don’t you go tell the Darhel to piss up a tree?”
“Ain’t happening,” Mike said, his face grim. “I guess we’ll just have to do battle upon this morn. If it’s any consolation, you’re the best people I’ve ever faced. The downside from my perspective is simply that I’d rather have you fighting for me than be fighting against you. It is… an honor to do battle with you.”
There was a long pause.
“Thank you, General,” the woman said, her voice tight. “If we’re going to die in battle… I cannot imagine a better choice than in battle against you. So, General, I say: Cry HAVOC and let slip the dogs of war!”
Chapter Thirty
“You are clear,” the AID said.
“Are our people repositioned?” Cally asked.
“Yes,” Tommy replied. “Most of the Indowy are in the tunnel. They’re not far enough away to survive the blast, but they’re in the tunnels. The ship has mostly boarded the dependents. The stay-behind forces are in positions that even ACS will find hard to flank. We need to leave.”
“Like hell,” Cally said. “I’m not going to leave people to die and then run away like… an Indowy.”
“Thought you might say that,” Tommy replied, then shot her in the back of the neck with a Hiberzine dart.
“Carry Miss O’Neal to safety,” Tommy said, sitting down at the desk.
“You’re not staying?” George said, picking the slumped figure off the floor.
“Not if I can avoid it,” Tommy said. “AID, get me the stay-behind commander.”
“The enemy forces used the period of cease fire to reposition,” Shelly said. “Our forces aren’t encountering any resistance.”
“They have to be here somewhere,” Mike said.
He was still in the atrium. He’d considered moving forward with the forces but there was really no need. Despite Tam’s insistence, he could have run the whole thing from Fredericksburg.
He wished he had. No, that would have meant that the sniper would have gotten Lieutenant Cuelho. And despite the fact that the kill was naggling at him — the female commander had gotten to him — losing another man would have made him feel worse.
“Teams have searched all the upper levels,” Shelly said. “That leaves Foxtrot or Gamma. Both are heavy equipment areas with limited entry.”
“We can’t just blast our way through,” Mike said.
“No, sir.”
“Tell them to stop the general search,” Mike said, considering the placement of his teams. “First squad to Gamma entry, Third to Foxtrot, Second to Echo Forty-seven as reserve. Press forward until they hit resistance then… take open order, lie down and sit tight.”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Maise said.
Most of the stay-behind force was wounded. In general, the weapons that the ACS were using didn’t cause wounds. If a hypervelocity pellet of depleted uranium hit you going at relativistic speeds, it tended to kill any human not wearing ACS. A few of the troops had been injured, maimed or killed simply from a pellet hitting an obstacle near their positions.
Grav-guns were no joke.
But some of the injuries left walking wounded. Or, at least, wounded. Most of them weren’t walking very well.
“We’ve got it covered. Very well, sir. Take care. Give… Tell Pinky I love him if you would, sir.”
None of the rest of the rear-guard had children. All were volunteers.
“Maise, get the hell out,” Sergeant Mike Swaim said. The sergeant had lost the lower part of his leg when an ACS round had blown out a wall. It was covered by a hasty Galplas coating and the nerves into the area had been neutralized. Otherwise he’d have screamed in agony when he shifted it. “Your kid’s already lost the rest of his family.” He forebore to mention that he, in turn, had lost his to the Darhel assassins.
“Pinky will… handle it,” Maise said. “The kid’s more grown-up than most of us. Proof of which is that we’re stupid enough to stay behind and he’s leaving.”
“We got movement,” Gavin “Hollywood” Harrison said. He was called that because he’d gotten the full measure of the Sunday “pretty” genes from both his maternal grandfather and grandmother.
The livid scars on his face from a blast of plasma somewhat marred that. One eye was barely hanging in there.
“ACS power pack and grav-cannon signatures on corridor two.”
“I guess I should say something heroic,” Maise said, raising his voice. “But the only thing I can think of sounds stupid and trite: I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than here with you men, at this time, in this place.”
“Hell, yeah,” Swaim said. “And is it just me, or… was that lady right?”
“Yeah,” Harrison said. “Fighting the scum that we normally fight is just… embarassing. If you’re going to go down, the place to go is fighting somebody worth fighting.”
“Amen, brother,” Scott Bettis said. The Bane Sidhe had a big pack over an abdominal wound and was also missing a leg. If it bothered him it wasn’t apparent.
“Even though,” Harrison added, “the situation quite frankly sucks.”
“The Spartans called it ‘A glorious death,’ ” Bettis said. “To die in battle against an opponent that was your peer. To grapple with them to the last, for the pure glory of battling an equal foe. It’s rare that a warrior gets the chance.”
“I wonder if they feel the same way?” Harrison said.
“Well, this is bloody fucked,” Doyle said. “General, we’ve found the rebels…”
“Not much play there,” Mike said, looking at the schematic. They still didn’t have a full detail of the base but as far as they’d found there were only two ways into the area the Indowy had to be hiding. Both of them were corridors with so much heavy stuff surrounding them they couldn’t get in any other way. It was going to be straight up the middle or nothing.
“Thermopylae,” Harkless said.
“Yeah,” Mike said bitterly. “And except that we’re the ones in hoplite armor, we’re the Persians. And you know how that turned out.”
“I don’t see a choice but hey-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle,” Harkless said. “Sir.”
“Me neither,” Mike admitted. “We’re moving forward. With all the firepower that they’ve got covering the openings, we’re going to take casualties. The more shooters the better.”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Cuelho said.
“Shelly, have Third squad leave sensors at the Foxtrot opening. Have One-Alpha mark the secondary Gamma opening and have all teams move to the primary Gamma opening. Time to try to take the pass.”
Corporal Doyle stuck his arm out around the corner and tossed a sensor ball. He got a brief take from it and then there was an explosion.
He popped a camera around the corner and grunted at the large crater on the floor of the corridor.
“They shot the bloody ball,” Doyle muttered, incensed. “You don’t shoot a bloody sensor ball. Who shoots a bloody sensor ball?”