“Good news then; you and your troops are in position to save the day.”
“Ah, great. Sir. Does this involve killing Posleen?”
“Possibly. But mostly it involves being pack mules. Your team has been using standard ammo, so you’re at the top of the power levels in the battalion. And you’re out of ammo. So I’m sending you to go pick up some. And some power.”
Tommy raised his hands palms upward. “They also serve who simply fetch ammo. Are they sending in resupply birds?”
“No, but, coincidentally, there’s a rather large cache of ACS materials nearby.”
“Ah.”
“One that’s off the books. So until we started discussing it the Posleen shouldn’t have known about it.”
Tommy worked his face inside the gel in lieu of shaking his head. “Off the books?”
“Well, I’d have preferred that nobody find out, but if it’s a choice of facing a court of inquiry for putting a cache at your family farm or having my battalion wiped out, I know which way I’ll hop.”
“Oh.”
“More good news. Sort of. Your girlfriend is at the farm with a mixed group of civilians and military personnel. You can enlist her as a pack mule.”
Tommy’s jaw worked inside the armor and he counted to ten. “You want me to bring Wendy up here!? What in the hell is she doing anywhere near this shit?”
“The same thing my daughter is, surviving,” O’Neal said with a smile in his voice.
“Your daughter?”
“She apparently survived the nuke that killed my father,” Mike answered and gestured to the northwest. “They’re about six miles that way. That’s where I grew up.”
“Oh, holy shit, sir. I’m…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mike said, waving a hand. “Let’s just say that we both have good reason to hold this position. And to survive doing so.” He paused for a moment then gestured helplessly. “But… even if we can retake the pass after we pull out, we’re probably not going to walk out. Or, hell, even be carried out…”
“They’re sending the SheVa, sir…”
“Yeah. One SheVa, about a million Posleen. I’m sorry, but, no offense, I wouldn’t even expect the Ten Thousand to make it. Much less one unsupported SheVa. The point is… when you see my daughter… Just tell her I love her. Okay?”
“Okay, sir.” Tommy started to reply then stopped at a raised hand.
“I’ve given your AID all the information it needs about the cache and the link-up point,” O’Neal continued. “We’re critically short on time so I want you to pull out right away, even before the rest of the battalion. Despite the time issue, you should take some R and R time when you meet up with the group. And your lady-friend.” O’Neal waved vaguely again then tapped the knee of the lieutenant’s suit. “Take what you can while you can get it, Tommy. There’s only so much that God gives us in life.” With that he rolled back out of the hole and crawled towards the battalion position.
“Boss, there’s a little problem here.” Sergeant Major Ernie Pappas still preferred the term “Gunny.” He’d retired as a Marine Gunnery Sergeant long before aliens were anything more than science fiction. But as one of the early rejuvs he had been either training or in the frontlines since the first landings. And he knew a screwed up tactical situation when he saw one.
“Sure is,” O’Neal replied. “Pulling out is going to be a stone cold bitch.”
The battalion was laying down a continuous curtain of fire but the Posleen seemed to be limitless. They had slowed down in their advance, and all the forces to the north had pulled out, but they still were in continuous contact. When the battalion pulled out, it had basically two choices. It could pull out fast, above ground, or it could dig backwards. But in neither case could it maintain fire. And some of the suits, despite refills, were reaching red zone on power again.
“We’re going to get chewed up when we exit,” he continued. “Shit happens.”
“We’re not just going to get chewed up,” the Gunny said. “We’re going to get hammered.”
“What if they pursue us?” Stewart asked. “I have to take their side, here.”
“We’ll go up Black Rock Mountain,” O’Neal said. “They’re going to find pursuit tough.”
“They’re hearing all of this, you know,” Duncan interjected.
“Yeah, but I don’t think their attacks can coordinate this fast,” Mike said. “Otherwise they’d be all over us. We’ve been hit hard, what, five or six times? If whoever was running the show over there could hit us hard now, he would.”
“Traffic control must be a beast,” Stewart pointed out. “So we should get while they’re limited?”
“Except we’re still going to get hammered,” Gunny Pappas said.
“You keep saying that, Gunny. I know.”
“We’ll get less hammered if somebody stays back to suppress them.”
O’Neal turned his body towards the veteran NCO. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“I can run a simulation, sir,” the Gunny replied formally. “We’re looking at nearly fifty percent casualties if we just pop out of the holes and run. We’re out of grenades, we’re out of mortars, we’re out of anything we can use to knock them back. We’re getting five to six God Kings on the line at a time, now. Unless they’re engaged they’ll hammer us even under holograms.”
“I know, Gunny, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to sacrifice some pawns to save the king,” O’Neal said quietly. “Or a knight. We’re all going out, as fast as we can. We only have to get around the corner of the ridge. Fifteen, twenty seconds tops in view.”
“With every Posleen in sight hammering us from the rear,” Duncan pointed out. “Which is our most lightly armored spot. Except on you.”
“Thanks,” Mike replied coldly.
“We’ve got a few troops that are… mobility challenged anyway,” Pappas said grimly. “Nagel and Towbridge both lost a leg. Others have been hit. Leave me behind with a group of the worst off. Lowest on power, shot up, the sick, lame and lazy. We’ll provide cover fire as you unass.”
“We can fall back by fire and maneuver…” Stewart said. “Except I’m not an idiot and I know the Posleen just walk right into it. Christ, Top!”
Mike looked at the ground as the other suits turned to look at him. Finally he spoke.
“Fifteen. That’s enough to suppress their fire as we retreat. I’ll dump a list.” He paused and switched over to a private frequency. “Top, I forgave you for First Washington a long time ago.”
“I know you did, boss,” the sergeant major replied gruffly. “You want to stay, but you know you can’t. The battalion will just… go away if you buy it. You need Duncan and Stewart to watch out for the details. I can hold the… I can hold for long enough.”
Mosovich led the way up the slope and over the hill. At this point, between the continuing rain and the heavy traffic into and out of the cache, there was a noticeable, and slippery, trail into the cave. The wet and the slope were not the only obstacles with which they had to contend; the hills were littered with fallen trees.
The area had suffered repeated multi-kiloton strikes and while none of them had been on the near side of the hill the ground shock and pressure wave had still dropped trees and caused small landslides.
They moved carefully, crawling over individual fallen trees, detouring around tangles from slides, the wet leaves slipping and slithering under their feet, until they reached a point just below the crest of the ridge. Then Mosovich halted the group and leopard crawled up to the ridgeline.