Wendy snorted and hugged her to her. “No, she’s not. None of us are.”
Elgars was sweeping back and forth around the fallen bunker but after a moment she came back shaking her head. “I find track of Cally. No other.” Her voice sounded odd. Low pitched and sing-song.
Mosovich looked at her side-long but Wendy just shrugged. “Annie, you’re channeling again.” Ever since they had met, the Six Hundred captain occasionally would seem to manifest personalities of other people. In the very few cases where the personalities were obvious, and known, they were dead people. It especially seemed to occur when she used a new skill, such as tracking.
The captain looked up at the sky and sniffed. “Yes.” She sniffed again, deeply then looked toward the road. “Take cover. Someone come.”
As Mosovich faded backward into the shadow of the ruined house his AID chirped again. “Sergeant Major, incoming message from Lieutenant Thomas Sunday, Fleet Strike ACS.”
“Well, we have the pass,” Tulo’stenaloor muttered. He had moved forward from the protected bunkers and factories around Clarkesville and now watched the streams of oolt’ondar moving up to the pass. “It only took two hundred thousand oolt’os and uncountable Kessentai. And we only have it because they gave it to us. And the ground is torn to ribbons, which will require repair before we can push through effectively. But we have the pass.”
“But they will be back,” Goloswin said. “They intend to fill it with fire again.”
The Kessentai was that oddest of individuals among the Posleen; a known warrior who had quit the strife, settled down and been bitten by the bug of a hobby. In Goloswin’s case the bug was tinkering. There was nothing that he loved more than getting a piece of equipment, human, Indowy, Posleen or Aldenata, and taking it apart to figure out how it worked.
Tulo’stenaloor had tracked him down on a planet a dozen systems away and lured him to Earth with the promise of puzzles to drive him mad. As it had turned out, every puzzle that had been thrown at him, from dissecting human sensor systems to breaking into the ultra-secure AID net, had been apparent nestling play.
However, he was still having a fine time. All this and the promise of riches beyond measure in addition; what could be better?
“Yes, but they will have trouble doing that,” Tulo’stenaloor said.
“Will you pursue?” the technician asked carefully. He was well aware that his understanding of the new methods of the estanaar were spotty. Most Posleen oolt’ondar would latch on and chase the humans to their deaths. Like the Tinkerer, Tulo’stenaloor had found a new way to do business. But in the case of Tulo’stenaloor, that business was gathering the finest minds he could and then hammering the humans into so much thresh.
“No,” Tulo’stenaloor said after a moment. “The route they took is difficult enough for them; trying to pursue them with oolt’os would be nearly impossible. We’ll just have to let them go. But I will see what I can do about this resupply mission. What news on their efforts to arrange for… fire-support?” It was a human term that he had readily adopted.
“Their General Horner is no longer using his AIDs and the AID network is beginning to attempt to counter my infiltration. But at last word the only hope was still the SheVa gun they call ‘Bun-Bun.’ It is under repair and is being upgraded near Sylva.”
“Then something must be done about that infernal contraption.” The warleader sighed. He touched a control on his tenar and waited until it picked the signature of Orostan out of the mass of other Kessentai. “Orostan?”
The senior oolt’ondar looked down at the town of Franklin and the gathering lake to the west with distaste. He recalled the first major check to their advance when over a hundred thousand of the host had been trapped in the collapse of the Sub-Urb. Now they were being pushed back to it, and it looked no better than on the way through. Very little in the way of loot, hardly any decent land that had not been torn to shreds. Basically nothing but a useless dot on one of the human’s “maps.” Such a useless place to fight and die over.
“Estanaar?” he replied. He had hitched his star to Tulo’stenaloor all the way back at the Great Gathering. Most of his fellow oolt’ondar thought him mad; Tulo’stenaloor had been badly defeated on Aradan Five and his “New Way” was heretical in the extreme. But Orostan had been picking out all the information he could about these humans and it was apparent that the usual method of the host, of the Path, to charge ahead trying to use mass to overcome the enemy, was a quick route to suicide. Tulo’stenaloor’s attempt to use human tactics against them had been at least partially successful. Would have been successful had the damned suits not taken the pass and the demon shit SheVa gun not fought so hard in the retreat. All the highly trained pilots of tenaral and oolt’pos had been destroyed by the gun or mischance, and most of the elite oolt’ondar had been lost in the assault, leaving them with nothing but to fall back on “charge and die.”
Not for the first time, but for the first time so clearly, he felt a wave of depression. Such a waste, such an incredible waste. Fine Kessentai, young Posleen that he had trained with his own talons, nothing but thresh to be gathered and distributed to the host. There had to be a better way than this.
“The suits are preparing to pull out of the Gap,” the warleader said. “Unfortunately, they have a distressingly good plan for doing so; they intend to leave a sacrificial rear guard.”
“That’s unusual for the suits,” Orostan said. He had not fought the armored combat suits of the humans, but he had studied all that he could of them. And they rarely sacrificed even one suit, much less a detachment.
“Agreed, but they intend to return. They are awaiting the SheVa gun getting to the vicinity of Franklin, where it will be in range to reach the Gap. If it gets there, all will be over. We might as well throw the Staff.”
“I understand,” he replied. He did understand. But understanding and knowing what to do about it was two different things. “I’m getting reports from the front. The SheVa has been significantly enhanced. We couldn’t stop it on the way in; I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop it on the way back.”
“I have somewhat more data,” Tulo’stenaloor said. “It has been armored and heavy weapons added to it. But it is only armored on the front.”
“Ah,” Orostan snorted. “Not on the sides?”
“Only for plasma fire on the sides, and only under certain conditions. If you… ambush it…” the warleader used the human term; the Posleen had no equivalent.
“I will do what I can, estanaar,” the oolt’ondar replied. “I will do what I can.” He looked to the northeast and was just in time to watch the first fireball. The image was seared on his retina for a moment; the flash of white directly above the main concentration of forces that were lining up to take the road through Rocky Knob Gap.
He closed his eyes against the glare as his pupils and internal filters automatically darkened against the damaging light. “Well,” he muttered, pulling his crest down against his neck in anger. “Now we know which way they are coming.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Near Persimmon, GA, United States of America, Sol III
1324 EDT Monday September 28, 2009 AD