"How many caches like this do you have?" Mosovich asked, shaking his head. "This is . . . Jesus, just the thought of the cost makes my teeth ache."
"Oh, it took a few years to set them all up," Papa O'Neal said with a laugh, sending a stream of tobacco juice to the floor. "And I did it bit by bit, so the cost wasn't all that bad. Also . . . there's some government programs now to do this sort of thing. At least that's what they're really about if you read the fine print: The BATF would shit if Congress had come right out and said as much. And recently, well . . ." He grinned and shook his head. "Let's just say that my son has done pretty well financially in this war."
Mosovich had to admit that was probably the case. The Fleet used something similar to prize rules, a combination of Galactic laws and human application. Since the ACS was generally the lead assault element, they got the maximum financial benefit of all the captured Posleen weaponry, ships and stores that generally were lying around in a retreat. He also noted that Papa O'Neal had neatly sidestepped the question of how many similar caches there were.
"And he's a great source of surplus," Mueller said, kicking a grav-gun ammo case.
"Uh, yeah," Papa O'Neal said with another grin. "They go through a lot of grav-gun ammo." He duckwalked back to the entrance and gestured down the hill where the farm and the pocket valley beyond were faintly visible. The main valley of the Gap was still shrouded by a shoulder of the hill, but Black Mountain was in clear view—it dominated the southern horizon—and a corner of the wall was faintly visible. "This spot makes a fair lookout, but of course there's no back door. I don't like going to ground when there's no back door."
"Yeah, I been treed by the Posleen a couple of times," Mosovich said, glancing down the bluff. It was climbable, with difficulty. "I don't care for it."
As he stepped back Elgars gasped and shook her head. "Now that was a bad one," she said with an uneasy chuckle.
"What was a bad one?" Mueller asked, ducking through to crowd the ledge.
"You ever get flashbacks, Sergeant?" she asked.
"Occasionally," Mueller admitted. "Not all that often."
"Well, I get flashbacks of stuff I've never done," Elgars said with a grim chuckle. "And you know, I've never been to Barwhon, but I've come to hate that cold-assed rainy planet."
"It is that," Mosovich said. "I've only been once and I have no desire to return."
"I understand that it has a high species diversity," Papa O'Neal said with a chuckle, reaching up to climb up the bluff. "Every really nasty place I've ever been—Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Congo, Biafra—had the same damned description."
"It does that," Mueller agreed. "It has about a billion different species of biting beetles, all the size of your finger joint. And forty million species of vines that get in your way. And sixty million species of really tall trees that screen out the light."
"And lots and lots of Posleen," Mosovich said with a laugh. "Well, it used to."
"I had this sudden really clear image of a Posleen village, a few pyramids and some other stuff. I was looking through a scope, right eye in the scope, left scanning outside. I know that in just a second a Posleen's gonna come through a door and I have to engage it. Then there were some explosions and, sure enough, a Postie comes right in view. Ah take it out, and some others, then there's a God King and it's all okay, Ah'm in the zone, servicing the targets. Ah've got an IR blanket on and the signature's covered so Ah'm safe, counterfire is not an issue. The gun's big, probably a Barrett, and I have to reposition a couple of times cause Ah'm on this really big branch or something. Then the tree I'm shooting in starts shuddering and Ah look down and there's this line of shot-marks walking up the tree and then it goes white."
"Are you jerking my chain?" Mosovich asked quietly.
"No," Elgars answered. "Why?"
He looked at Mueller, who was standing there, white faced, and thought about simply answering. Finally he shook his head.
"Not here, not now," he said. "Later. Maybe. I have to think about this."
"It's not the only memory where I die," Elgars said with a shrug. "There's another one where I'm running and I've got a burned hand, it hurts anyway, and I'm carrying something and then the ground's coming up at me and I die. And another where I'm up to my waist in water, firing a gun, a light machine gun, offhand. And I die. And another where I blow up and die."
"You die a lot," Mueller commented looking at her oddly.
"Yep," Elgars answered. "Game over, man. Happens to me all the time. Practically every night. It really sucks. Hard to get much confidence going when you die all the time."
"The shrinks didn't tell me about that," Mosovich said.
"That's because by the time the flashbacks started, I'd figured out to stop talking to the shrinks," the captain said with a shrug.
"I have dreams where I die," Papa O'Neal said, spitting over the side. "But it's usually an explosion, usually a nuke. I have that one recurrently. By the way, this is a weird fucking conversation and I need a beer for one of those." He reached up and grasped the tree trunk, hauling himself back up the bluff. "Time to wander down and see if Cally has burned the pig." He turned to give Mosovich a hand then turned back as there was a crackling in the brush.
The Posleen normal had apparently been screened by a holly thicket. Now it charged down the hillside, spear held at shoulder height.
Mosovich had just started to haul himself up and was in no position to respond, but that didn't really matter.
Papa O'Neal didn't bother going for the assault rifle on his back. Instead, his hand dropped to the holstered pistol, coming back up in a smooth motion as the Posleen closed to within feet of him.
The Desert Eagle tracked to just above the protuberance of the double shoulder. Bone over the shoulder, and the shoulder itself, tended to armor the front of a Posleen. But just above and below were open areas; the higher open area, corresponding to the clavical region in a human, also contained a nerve and blood-flow complex.
Papa O'Neal triggered one round and then pirouetted aside, blocking the now limply held spear with the barrel of the gun. The Posleen continued on for a few steps then slid down the hill and off the bluff.
"Heads up," O'Neal called calmly. Then he dropped out the magazine and replaced it with a spare, carefully reloading the original magazine as the Posleen bounced down the hill and off a cliff.
Mueller shook his head and wiped at his face, where a splash of yellow marked the demise of the normal. "God, it's nice dealing with professionals," he chuckled.
Elgars shook her head in wonder. "I don't care if it is difficult to use. That Posleen had a hole I could fit my hand in going all the way through it. I need to get one of those pistols."
"They are nice," Mueller agreed, grabbing the trunk. "On the other hand, they are loud."
* * *
"We heard you up on the hill," Cally said as the foursome hove into view of the barbeque pits. "I'm surprised you didn't skin it out and bring back a haunch."
"Slid down the hill," Papa O'Neal said with a grin. "Damned bad luck if you ask me. Where'd everybody go?"
"Most of the kids are taking a nap," the thirteen-year-old said, poking at the hickory fire. She had pulled her hair back and put on a full-length apron to work on the fire. Between that and the smudge of ash on her hands and face she looked like some medieval serving wench. "Wendy and Shari are technically inside getting side dishes ready. But I told them there was plenty of time and I suspect they're racked out, too. Any other trouble?"