“Deese leettle pig went to market,” she whispered, targeting the Posleen sentry most likely to engage the diversion force first. Her task was to slow the pursuit without lowering the effectiveness of the diversion and without revealing her position. The nursery rhymes, set to a reggae beat, were a mnemonic to remember the order of fire. She had eleven rounds before reload and every round was plotted. “You know deese leettle piggy stayed home,” the first guard’s backup, “deese leettle piggy had roast beef,” a superior normal bent over its 3mm, “an deese leettle piggy had none,” its companion. The Posleen never seemed to be alone; they always moved in groups of two or more. “An deese leettle piggy went… ” a Posleen crouched by the entrance to one of the now-completed pyramids near the nestling pens. About then she expected the God Kings to start making their appearance. She figured on taking out at least two of the seven to ten before reloading.
“Game,” the demo team was pulling back.
“Set,” as Trapp reached contact position. She was glad it was him and not her. The quick little bastard was a master, whatever his technical ranking.
“Match,” she whispered taking up slack on the trigger.
“Initiate,” growled Master Sergeant Tung.
She had barely seen Mueller and Ersin as they moved around the compound. Now their handiwork was evident. The two half-formed bunkers at the causeway were devoured in actinic silver fire as the C-9 atomic catalyst explosive did its job. Simultaneously the further line of bunkers was devoured in flames. Jets of plasma gouted from the palace on top of the farthest pyramid as a small antimatter charge detonated. Posleen began to pour from the huts like hornets from a hive as Ellsworthy serviced her targets and explosions continued to rock the compound.
One little piggy did indeed go to market and one went home. With each shot the fifty caliber slammed into her shoulder like the kick of a horse, nearly unseating her from her perch in the tree. But when the two-ounce rounds punched through the Posleen’s centauroid chests the horse-sized creatures were hurled sideways, plate-sized exit holes and fountains of yellow ichor marking their end. Just as she reloaded, right on time, the first God King rushed into view, harness half slung. The leader caste was as easy meat as the rest and went up to the great smorgasbord in the sky, flattened across the deceased guard at its door.
While the master sniper serviced her targets, Trapp had another job. As the Posleen sentry nearest the nestling pens turned to look at the violent silver flashes, an unnoticed black shadow detached itself from the ground. Not trusting the power of the silenced 9mm rounds against something with the mass of a small horse, Trapp put seven rounds into the sentry’s chest and three into its head in four seconds. The Posleen’s head exploded like a yellow melon and it joined its brethren in repose. Trapp cautiously tracked it to the ground then moved west to cover the left flank of the entry team.
Richards moved directly into the compound and set up an M-60 light machine gun just beyond the pens as Master Sergeant Tung moved to the left with a medium laser. This left Mosovich and Martine to secure the objective.
One problem with the Tchpth was that the team had no translation devices. Human-adapted AIDs had not been available before they left and the Himmit had been exceedingly reluctant to give up any of theirs. Thus Mosovich was forced to try pidgin Tchpth on the prisoners who looked for all the world to him like blue Alaskan King crabs. Martine had, so to speak, drawn the short straw and he had three sacks to fill up with nestling Posleen.
Jake raced to the fence of the Tchpth compound and aspirated “TcKpth! !Klik! Tit! Tit!” which the Himmit had solemnly assured him meant “Friends here to help, move back, move back.”
He was certain it would never work, but the instant the first word left his mouth, the remaining Tchpth jerked to the far side of the pen. He placed a sheet charge against the plastic slats and darted around the corner. The C-4 flashed white and a section of fence three feet across simply vanished. “Ikdee! Ikdee!” he shouted, gesturing for them to follow and ran for the jungle. He looked back and saw that none of them had moved. Each and every one remained in the pen. Cursing everything Galactic he ran back.
In the meantime Staff Sergeant Martine had his own extraterrestrial problems. He had had the foresight to wear gloves, since the carnivorous Posleen had teeth like razors even as nestlings, but standard issue leather work gloves were never meant to deal with carnivore jaws and raptor talons. When he bent over the fence and reached in for the first specimen, as he had seen the God King reach in months before, he immediately discovered that there was a knack to grabbing nestlings.
Like a snake, or a pissed-off cat, they were best grasped behind the neck. The blast of Mosovich’s charge drowned Martino’s bellow of pain and rage as the nestling snapped its tooth-filled maw onto his hand and whipped up to sink all six talons into his arm. But his imprecations could be heard clearly over the beginning sounds of battle in the distance.
“F-f-f-f-co-co-cocksucker!” he managed to say in an intense stage whisper. He pounded the tenacious whelp against the fence several times until he could stun it enough to lever its saurian jaws apart and detach its talons.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he cursed as he stuffed the unconscious pullet into the sack. He surveyed the remaining throng while shaking the blood from his hand. They in turn watched him. They obviously hoped he was supper. He thrust his hand in again and this time managed to snag the floppy skin on the back of one of the nestlings’ elongated necks. It let out a shriek and twisted in his grip, but he thrust the cat-sized extraterrestrial willy-nilly into the second sack.
Mueller and Ersin had laid a series of trip-wire and command-detonated mines along the path the Posleen would take in pursuit and their flashes served to maintain the distraction, but one God King, at least, noticed the commotion by the pens and began to rally a counter attack. That notion was effectively quashed by a .50 caliber high velocity round, but the normals of that God King, and the others whose bonds had been released, were in a hyper-aggressive mood with the death of their masters. A group of them moved toward the disturbance at the pens and it was time to rock and roll.
Richards opened the ball with direct fire from his M-60. The 7.62mm rounds tumbled Posleen to the ground, but the senseless carnivores totally ignored their losses and charged towards the source of the drifting tracers, few of them firing in return. Trapp and Ellsworthy added the weight of their fire, but until Tung added the power of his man-pack laser the tide was unstoppable. The combination managed to stop the first wave but the battle on the south side had drawn the attention of the main body away from the distraction, effectively negating its purpose.
Mosovich gave up coaxing the crabs when the firing started. He leapt into the pen, through a forest of pincers, to the far side and began kicking them out through the opening. The Tchpth first turned towards their former homes, but seeing the raging battle to the north, they scattered southward towards the jungle, chittering in fear. By tracking back and forth waving his weapon, which had better uses at the moment in his opinion, he managed to drive them in the right general direction. He heard silvery laughter on the team net and looked up towards the trees.
“Fuck you, Ellsworthy,” he snarled.
She laughed again, preparing to meet the second wave. “Sorry, honey, but you look like a crab farmer with his flock.” Her laughter broke off in a flurry of directed fire at the trees and a gurgle. He saw a black shape detach itself from a branch and fall thirty meters to bone crushing stillness.