“Someone who doesn’t want you looking at them, Corporal,” Mike said.
“Well, I can’t throw it faster, General,” the corporal pointed out. “The damned things break too much as it is.”
“Allow me,” Mike said, leaning under the massive trooper’s arm and tossing another down the corridor. This one, however, skittered all over the place. Two shots were fired and the closest they got was rolling it faster.
“Just needed a little English, trooper,” Mike said, considering the take. “Seven men. All wounded.”
“In heavily prepared positions,” Shelly pointed out. “Those are overpressure bunkers. You can’t even blast them to death. Well, you might be able to but it would be tough.”
“And they have a cross-fire set up,” Cuelho said unhappily. “No way around them, either.”
“And there’s more energy readings farther in,” Harkless said.
“I can see all that, gentlemen,” Mike said, somewhat testily. “It doesn’t mean we can’t get through.”
He considered for a moment, then sighed.
“Harkless, are you old enough to remember a game called ‘dwarf-tossing’?”
“Time to buy some more time,” Maise said. “Buckley, cut me into the ACS frequency.”
“We’re all going to die,” the buckley replied. “What’s the point. Trust me, I know ACS. You’re going to get slaughtered.”
“Then best we try to talk them out of it,” Maise said. “Just get me the ACS commander.”
“You got it?” Mike asked, kneeling by the opening.
“I’ve pretty much figured my career is toast,” Harkless said. “Getting the Federation’s greatest hero killed in a minor little skirmish isn’t going to make things any worse.”
“Uh…” Lieutenant Cuelho said.
“Hey, ACS commander.”
“Stand-by,” Mike said. “Who’s this?”
“The sacrificial rear guard. Wanna know how this whole thing started?”
“Well, in the beginning was the Word,” Mike said.
“Very funny. We took down a Darhel mega-corp and a metat, one like your daughter, who had gone crazy and thought he was the Evil Overlord or something.”
“That would tend to piss off some very powerful people,” Mike said.
“And do you know how those people responded? They sent assassins after our families.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mike said. “If you surrender I will guarantee the safety of your families. Or, yeah, I’ll start killing Darhel myself.”
“Too late. They killed my wife and daughter.”
It was pretty hard to pick up people’s emotions through ACS but Mike had been around it a long time. That sort of hit home with the platoon.
“Mine were killed by the Posleen,” Mike said, omitting the fact that, in fact, his daughter Cally had been killed by a nuke he himself had ordered. “Know what I was doing six months ago?”
“Wandering around in the Blight doing dick all?”
“My division dropped on a world where the Posleen were well on their way to recovering from ornadar and had ten ships ready for lift-off,” Mike said. “Ten ships isn’t much, but we’ve only cleared five percent of the Blight. And you can’t really call it cleared. Every planet there are some Posleen. Every planet they’re working on the same thing: Building ships to start conquering the universe again. So when you can explain how rebelling against the Darhel is going to keep Earth from being overrun by ravenous, carnivorous extraterrestrial centaurs I’ll be happy to join your cause. Are you going to supply more ACS suits? Orbital satellites? Fleet ships?”
He waited a moment for a reply, then nodded inside his suit.
“Thought not,” Mike said. “So, we gonna do this thing? Or are you going to surrender?”
“Sorry, no, General,” the rear-guard commander said. “To be clear, we don’t hold what happened before on you or Fleet Strike. Fleet on the other hand…”
“Don’t get me started,” Mike said. “And to be equally clear, I’d much rather have you fighting for me than fighting against you. You’re… quite good.”
“Pretty fucked up situation.”
“Standard for every day since Jack Horner called me at work,” Mike said. “It has been… an honor doing battle with you.”
“Likewise. Well, time to die.”
“Does appear so,” Mike said. “Shelly, cut the connection. Sergeant Harkless?”
“This is crazy, sir,” Harkless said, grabbing the smaller armor by its lift-points.
“The situation or the method?” Mike asked.
“Both.”
“Remember to bounce me,” Mike said. “Maximum difficulty of targeting.”
“What about your targeting, sir?” Cuelho said, gulping.
“Sir…” Sergeant Harkless said, reprovingly.
“I think what Sergeant Harkless is trying to say is that… I’ve got it, Lieutenant,” Mike said, chuckling. “I’ve done tight targeting while being bounced about before.”
“I just mean… Entry is what privates are for, sir.”
“I’ve got it, Lieutenant,” Mike said. “Corporal Doyle, some cover fire if you will.”
“Right you are, sir,” Doyle said. “Hutch, double up.”
“This is crazy,” the specialist said.
“A moment, though,” Mike said, his fingers moving in the air. “It’s always a tough choice at a moment like this…”
“Sir?” Cuelho said.
“Goth? Industrial? Heavy metal…?” Mike said. “There’s an argument for ‘Brickhouse’ to tell you the truth. It’s got a beat and you can dance to it. Great for skiing… Ah. Sergeant Harkless. ‘Citadel’ or ‘Honor’?”
“Oooo,” Hutchinson interjected. “Tough choice, sir. ‘Citadel’s got a great entry beat but I always find that ‘Honor’…”
“He wasn’t asking you, Hutch,” Doyle growled.
“Sorry, sir,” the specialist said.
“I think I’m a bit older than you are, sir,” Harkless said, chuckling. “I usually go with ‘Smoke on the Water’ or ‘Highway to Hell.’ ”
“What in the hell is that?” Cuelho asked, thoroughly confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Lieutenants,” Mike said, sighing. “You let them wear shoes… ‘Honor’ it is.” He made a couple of more motions, then grasped his grav-rifle and toggled off the safety. “Now if you will please, Sergeant,” he said somewhat loudly.
Kyle Davis hadn’t suffered quite as badly as most of the rear-guard: He’d only had a foot blown off. On the other hand, somebody had to slow the ACS down so the rest of the group could get to minimum safe distance. Which was… pretty far all things considered.
But because he and a few others hadn’t been more or less blown to shit, they were holding the forward portion of the defenses.
“Davis.”
“Go, Maise.”
“What the hell is taking them so long?”
“Dunno. Not going to knock it.”
“Fire some suicide bars down there to remind them we’re in here.”
“Fuck you.”
Whoever had designed the defenses knew what they were doing. All of the firing points they’d used had been good but this one was the cat’s pajamas. There was only one way into the area and it was a narrow corridor that debouched into an open area about fifteen meters across. It looked like it had doors opening to other portions of the sector but only the inner one worked. Between the false doors were hidden firing points for five shooters. All of the points would close down for explosions and the armoring was proof against even grav-gun fire.