Mike felt too drained to use the voice systems so he called up a virtual desktop. His first query reported the current overall battlefield. The schematic was far worse. There was now a second green line in contact with the Posleen mass. The primary defensive line the mobile units were supposed to hold the Posleen back from for twenty-four hours had been reached at twelve.
The mobile units, what was left of them, had been pushed to the sea and were encircled with their backs to it. Mike ran another query and watched as the perimeter withdrew, flickered and died. Eight hours. The same operational projection called for the primary defense line to break in eighteen to twenty-four.
Next he located the remainder of the 325th in reserve of the primary defensive line. The ACS unit had been the only mobile unit able to retreat fast enough to avoid being encircled. He did not bother to determine his new chain of command, he assumed that Major Pauley was no longer in command and that would make the new commander Major Norton. That was no improvement from his point of view. It looked on the map like the American unit had been grouped with, possibly under, the German unit.
The encircled perimeter of armor units consisted mainly of French, German and English units. The 17th Cav, farthest from the sea and with its right flank left vulnerable by the retreat of the 325th must have been rapidly eliminated. Shades of Little Bighorn. It didn't have to happen this way. The primary Posleen assault through the sector had been decisively crushed, literally, by the demolition of Qualtren and Qualtrev. With the reinforcement of the battalion, 7th Cav could have survived. If the oil had not detonated, shattering the battalion's morale and killing Colonel Youngman. It would have worked. . . . And it could work again, he thought. No weapons, but lots of explosives. We could break that encirclement. He started sketching out a battleplan.
"Michelle, see if you can get either General Houseman or General Bridges. I think we can pull this rabbit out of the hat, yet."
* * *
"Sir, First Lieutenant O'Neal, from the ACS unit is on the horn. He insists on talking to you."
Lucius Houseman was in no mood to talk to Lieutenant O'Neal at the moment. He could read maps just as well as the lieutenant and if he could not he had any number of staff officers ready to tell him what the morrow would bring. Once the mobile units trapped against the sea were finished off, the Posleen there would come after the primary defensive line in a serious way. It would be poorly defended without the support of the cavalry divisions destroyed by the retreat. He now had to agree with the lieutenant that the ACS unit had not been ready for combat, not that as a cavalryman he had ever had the liveliest faith in the damn airborne. But he also did not want to listen to O'Neal say "I told you so!" in any way shape or form.
He also had heard some rumor that the destruction of the battalion before the combat was even fully joined was because of some cockamamie plan on the part of the "expert" he had been saddled with. He considered for a full minute whether to take the call. His thinking, after twenty hours of watching his forces being destroyed piecemeal, was getting sluggish. He took a sip of tepid water from a canteen and considered his options. I guess that is what I get for splitting my forces in the face of the enemy. We could go nuclear, he thought, it would give us a breather, push them back for a space. Finally he nodded and the aide handed him the receiver.
"What do you want, O'Neal?" he snapped shortly.
"I can pull this out, sir."
"What?"
"We can still win this one, sir. I'm behind the lines with a half company of troops. We don't have any weapons but we have antimatter out the ying-yang." O'Neal was talking fast because he knew what he was about to suggest was not the way America played the game. But he also knew that if General Houseman thought about it he would see the truth of the battleplan.
"We can move to the area of the encirclement and drop the megascrapers right on the Posleen. All it requires is taking out about thirty critical supports and these buildings will fall. We can drop them on the Posleen and at the same time clear the way for the MLR. Probably we could cut a swath to the primary line and break the cav out, but at the least we could protect the cav units until they can be withdrawn by sea."
"You want to blow up more of these buildings? The Darhel are already screaming about Qualtren and Qualtrev!"
"Sir, with all due respect, two items, three really. One, the buildings are going to be lost anyway unless we go nuclear. Then it will be centuries before they can use the real estate. Two, it is not a political decision, it is an operational one. The Darhel have already agreed that we decide how to wage war. And, whereas I know that the United States Army prefers to limit collateral damage, sometimes it's time to just get down and do the dance, sir, hang the consequences. Any friendlies in there are dead anyway."
"Give me a few minutes to consider it, Lieutenant. How long to get from your present location to there?"
"About an hour, sir, the way I'm going to go."
"All right. I'll be back in no more than five minutes. Would the support of the ACS units in the reserve be useful, critical, or unnecessary."
"I need weapons more than troops, sir. If you can get me weapons and detonators, I don't need more than another fifty troops."
General Houseman felt energy moving back into him, the crushing depression of the defeat evaporating. Whether he went with the option or not, whether they won or not, the Posleen were going to end up knowing they had been kissed, or his name wasn't Lucius Clay Houseman.
Three minutes and forty seconds later General Houseman was back on the line.
"I concur with your plan, Lieutenant. Your mission is to move with your unit into the area of the Dantren encirclement and to begin demolition of megascrapers in and around the encirclement with the primary purpose of reducing the pressure on the encircled units and secondary purpose of creating a window for the encircled units to withdraw to friendly lines.
"You may use any method and any level of force up to and including the use of significant quantities of antimatter. You are specifically charged to break the encirclement at any cost. I will call for volunteers from the ACS units in the reserve and will detach thirty-six troops in nine combat shuttles to attempt to make up a forlorn hope resupply run. I cannot at this time offer more personnel or equipment support than that."
"Thank you, sir," said O'Neal, his voice firm. "We'll move out as soon as I wake my troops up and give a frag order."
"Good luck, son, good hunting."
"Gary Owen, sir."
"Why you damn wind dummy! Only cavalrymen get to say that!"
"I can run faster than an M-1 and shoot an Apache out of the sky," said the lieutenant, quietly. "I am not infantry or cavalry, neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red meat, sir."
"What are you then?" asked the general humorously.
"I'm just the damn MI, sir."
"Well then, `Footsack, you damn MI.' "
"Yes, sir. Out here. Michelle, platoon freq. Sergeant Green, start wakin' 'em up."
"Ah, Jesus, sir. We just stopped!" the sergeant complained.
"Sometimes you eat the bear, Sergeant, and sometimes . . ." He squeezed gritty eyes together and sipped stale suit water. They had been up since before dawn, fought a "murthering great battle," been blown up by a catastrophic explosion, tunneled out of hell, swum the Stygian depths and now had to go on after a ten minute stop. Well, that was what technology was for. "Michelle, order all the AIDs to administer Provigil-C."