“B Companeeee… AT ’EM.”
Instantly, long actinic lines lanced out from the skirmish lines of second and third platoons, while weapons and third kicked it into high gear and raced for the far military crest. The Posleen surrounding the remnants of the Chilean mountain troops were scythed down, tenar-riding God Kings falling first before the fires lowered onto the staggering mass of struggling normals.
“Captain, First Platoon. Boss, there isn’t shit here. No horsies close at all, though there’s a long column of the fuckers that starts a couple of clicks away. They’re not moving much. Even the tenar are grounded with the God Kings huddling with the normals. I don’t get it.”
At about that time, the weapons platoon leader came on line with the shout, “Shit! Action rear! Fuckfuckfuck! Pot that bastard, Smitty!”
“Oh, yeah,” Prithasinthas said aloud, and with vast relief, as his tenar entered the tunnel and he felt the wind drop to nothing. Ahead of him, three to four abreast, the host moved forward en masse with only a gap every few hundred meters for the tenar of the Kessentai, gliding only a few inches above the odd metal parallel tracks on the tunnel’s floor. It would have been dark, too dark even for the People’s enhanced vision to see by, if those tenar had not shone bright forward lights to illuminate the way.
“There’s firing above, Prithasinthas.” The AS’s volume was toned down enough to keep it from echoing off the walls and upsetting the normals.
“I knew that, AS.”
“No, not the firing that was. This is something different, something consistent with the metal threshkreen that have been reported in other places. I think there might be a bit less than one hundred and fifty of them.”
“Demon shit!” Prithasinthas had heard of the metal threshkreen and had liked nothing about what he’d heard.
“They don’t know we’re down here, lord,” the AS added suggestively. “The Net would assign much wealth to the Kessentai who took out an entire oolt of them.”
“AID,” demanded a furious Connors, “why didn’t you tell me about the goddamned tunnel?”
“You never asked,” it answered primly. “It’s the job of you colloidal intelligences to ask.”
Connors tried furiously to think. No time to think… just react! “Shit, piss and corruption! First Platoon, hold what you’ve got. Weapons, orient west. Second Platoon, break contact and reinforce weapons. I’m with second. Third, try to free up the Chileans.”
It’ll have to do.
Connors raced to the rear, to link up with his weapons platoon. When he reached the west side military crest he threw himself down into the snow. The AID, using the suit’s sensors, mapped out what was in front of the captain.
The Posleen were pouring out of the side of the mountain at what seemed to be a rate of about one thousand per minute. Already, over a thousand, accompanied by the God Kings riding tenar, were up and charging toward the summit of the pass. Jesus! How many can be in there?
Though he hadn’t asked, the AID supplied the information. “There are anywhere from five to nine thousand of the enemy remaining in the tunnel, Captain.”
Connors was more than pleased to see one of the Posleen tenar, touched by a plasma bolt, disintegrate with a tremendous explosion. It gave him an idea.
“Weapons, send me a plasma gunner.”
The weapons platoon leader ordered, “Rivers, fall in on the company commander.”
While the gunner was racing up, Connors asked his AID, “Can you tell me when I am over the tunnel? Can you direct me there?”
“Twenty-seven meters due south, Captain.”
The plasma gunner arrived and Connors half dragged him to where he thought the tunnel was. “Mark it for us, AID.” The tunnel’s route was painted onto the captain’s and gunner’s eyes.
“Okay, Rivers. You can’t fire down to make a hole; you’d blast our legs off. I’m going to use my grav gun to make a breach and then I want you to fire into it. Got that?”
“Yessir,” Rivers answered in a Midwest accent. Immediately Connors pointed his grav gun down and fired a long burst. At this range and that velocity the stream of teardrop-shaped projectiles quickly opened up a hole about a foot across. The hole smoked like a vent from Hell. Connors thought he could hear Posleen screaming in agony below.
“Fire, Rivers!” The gunner put the muzzle of his plasma cannon to the hole and sent a bolt into it. This time Connors was sure he heard Posleen screams. “Again… again… again.” Rivers tossed bolt after bolt downward until he thought he might be overheating his cannon.
“Cease fire, Rivers,” Connors ordered. “Cease fire before you…”
The ground erupted in a long, linear blast that tossed both the captain and the plasma gunner skyward. Flame erupted from both ends of the tunnel, flash melting snow and rock indiscriminately for hundreds of meters past each opening.
“Ooohhh… SHIT!”
“I believe the plasma must have set off the power source for a tenar, Captain,” the AID announced calmly as it, Connors and the suit flew through the air. “It might have set off several more.”
Gaining control of the suit was tricky, under the circumstances. Connors managed, if only barely, to bring it back down feet first and come to a landing to one side of the trench dug by the blast.
“Man, what a ride,” he said, with wonder in his voice.
The wonder was only half at the wild ride. More importantly, Connors realized that, for the first time since receiving his “Dear Scott” letter, he actually felt good.
Lindemann, his shoulder bandaged now, managed to make the trek on foot up to the pass. When he got there, he found Connors sitting disconsolately on a rock not far from the base of Mount Anconcagua. The half frozen flag of Chile — a square blue field with a single white star in one corner, white bar over red making up the field — fluttered stiffly in the breeze.
Around the base of the flag, still holding their weapons at the ready, nineteen or twenty Chilean mountain infantry lay frozen stiff on the snow. Lindemann looked around. Without the holographic snow displayed by the suits earlier it was easy to see the hundreds upon hundreds of frozen bodies, alien and human both, littering the landscape.
“How many?” Lindemann asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Unseen inside his suit, Connors licked his lips before answering. He could have taken the helmet off, but his face was wet. Not only didn’t he want anyone to see that, he didn’t want the tears to freeze solid on that face.
“There were three hundred and twenty-two still alive when we killed the last of the Posleen,” he answered. “A lot of them were hurt already. We did what we could. But it wasn’t enough. The regiment that was here has… AID, how many?”
“There are one hundred and five of the Chilean soldiers still alive, Captain.”
“One hundred and five, sir. That’s all. I’m sorry, sir.”
Lindemann said nothing. His eyes searched around for the Christ of the Andes, a colossal statue famous around the world. He didn’t find it. Whether it had been knocked down by Posleen fire or human didn’t much matter, he supposed. The days of turning the other cheek were over anyway, after all.
“We pull out tomorrow,” Connors announced. “Back to the sub that brought us here and then back to Panama. I doubt we’ll be returning.”
“What about the other Posleen?” Lindemann asked. “The ones following these?”