“Fire pressure’s still up there,” O’Neal opined as the others dug themselves out of the ground again. “Sometimes if you pin them in place and don’t kill the first million or so they run out of bullets. But when you’re killing wave after wave the guys behind are always fresh and have full loads. We used that in… Christ… Harrisburg One, I think. Pinned the front-ranks down until they ran out of fire, moved forward and dug in again so the rear ranks could come forward a bit then did it all over again. Sort of. I think. It’s been a long time. But if we try that here, we’ll get flanked. That was when we were retaking the outer defenses and we were covered on a narrow front.”
“So obviously that is out,” Cutprice said sourly. “Any other ideas?”
Mike rolled on his back and looked at the sky. It was still overcast, but the light rain had faded. The sun was up in the east and it might just burn off sometime after noon. He thought about that and realized it was already after noon.
He rolled over to the side and fingered the dirt. The brick buildings of the area had been pounded to a fine red clay that reminded him of home. And underneath? He sniffed at the ground for a moment, looked down the hill towards the river with his head sideways as if measuring the angle then flicked the cigarette over the crest of the hill and put his helmet on.
Cutprice hit the ground again as the thermal signature attracted a storm of fire. “Are you just communing with nature or do you have a plan?”
Mike held up one finger in a “wait a minute” gesture then rolled back over. “I have a plan,” he intoned. “My mother would be proud; reading is finally going to save my ass.”
“Reading what?” Sunday asked.
“Keith Laumer short stories.”
Colonel Wagoner looked at the video in his heads-up-display in disbelief. “Pardon me, General. Would you mind repeating that?”
Horner was smiling. Which as practically everyone in the world knew at this point meant the fecal matter had really and truly hit the rotary air impeller. “You are to cross the Genesee River and go into direct support mode for the ACS and the Ten Thousand. They are pinned down on the ridge that parallels Mount Hope Avenue. Cross the river, climb the ridge and give them on call direct fire support.”
“General,” the colonel protested, thinking about all of the really bad aspects of that order, “you do realize that… well…”
He paused for a second to collect his thoughts. “Well, for one thing, the rounds aren’t exactly howitzer rounds, General. If they do hit something they’re going to make an atomic fireball about a quarter the size of the Hiroshima bomb; it’s going to be noticeable on seismometers from here to Tibet. Second, they go for a looong ways; there’s a couple of fortress cities out there. New York comes to mind. Last but not least, we’re not a tank for all we look like one. We don’t have any armor over our tracks or on the gun mantlet. In other words, we’re vulnerable to Posleen fire. And if we sustain a critical ammunition hit you’re going to have an explosion that makes the Shanghai Strike look like a firecracker and you’ll lose everyone in the pocket. And most of the forces on this side of the river.”
He waited for a moment as Horner appeared to be waiting for him to go on.
“Is that it?” Horner asked.
“Well, yes, sir.”
“Okay. You forgot that without infantry support the Posleen would be able to close in on either side and attack you from underneath. Which, all things considered, really is your most vulnerable direction. You don’t have anti-Posleen secondary weapons.”
“Yes, sir,” the colonel said. “You have a point there.”
“Also that unless the Ten Thousand pulls back, you’ll almost surely crush them in large numbers. And that moving you through the assaulting corps is not going to be what you would call easy.”
“No, sir, it won’t,” the colonel admitted.
“You also missed the more significant aspect of your possible demise,” the general continued inexorably. “If you sustain a critical ammunition hit, the resulting ground level explosion will be on the order of seventy kilotons. While this will, undoubtedly, kill Posleen for miles around, it will also create a very large crater. This crater, based upon the subsurface structure, will probably dam both the Genesee River and the Erie Canal. While the large area of marsh that will result will somewhat impede the Posleen, they will then have crossing points over both water structures. Just at the time when the local defense forces will probably be in full-scale rout to Buffalo.”
The colonel suddenly recalled the tiny and almost forgotten datum that Horner’s original education was engineering. “Ah. That’s… not a point I had considered, sir.”
“Colonel, listen very carefully,” Horner said with a broad smile, speaking as if to a child. “Move your vehicle over to the Genesee Valley. Cross the river. Engage the Posleen in direct fire mode in support of the ACS on the ridge. Fire your weapons low. As often as possible, engage concentrations on hilltops that you can impact; if there are occasional detonations of your antimatter munitions this is an unfortunate side effect for which neither of us can be held responsible. As you move up, the Ten Thousand will shift left to cover that flank. The ACS will provide you with close infantry support. Use the slope of the ground for hull down fire; it is, I am told, almost perfect for it. Try not to hit New York City. Is this understood?”
“Yes, sir,” the colonel said quietly. He was beginning to get the impression that this was not entirely the general’s idea. And that the general was not particularly happy with it.
“And Colonel Wagoner.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t get hit. Especially in your magazines.”
“I’ll try, sir. Sir? One question?”
“Yes?” Horner snapped.
“The Ten Thousand are getting out of my way. What about the ACS? What if we roll over one of them?”
Horner paused and for just a moment frowned slightly, a sign of amusement. “Colonel, have you ever watched the Coyote and Road Runner?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, if you run over an ACS, he’ll just have to dig himself out. There’s one over there painted like a green demon; you have my personal permission to show him why you call infantry ‘crunchies.’ ”
CHAPTER 8
Near Seed Lake, GA, United States, Sol III
1147 EDT Sunday September 13, 2009 ad
“Good cosslain,” Cholosta’an said, rubbing the superior normal on the back. The half oolt had returned from its first “patrol” on its own and from all appearances had made all the turns perfectly.
Many of the cosslain, the higher intelligence normals that were almost high moron level, could not have remembered all the turns in the complex patrol pattern they had been assigned. But the one good thing about his oolt was the cosslain, and this one sometimes seemed almost intelligent enough to handle God King duties. He couldn’t talk, but his hand gestures were occasionally almost eloquent.
“Did you see anything of note?” Cholosta’an asked, signaling the half oolt to begin their daily feeding.