Tommy determined that with clamps the three suits could carry all three of the antimatter packs (about the size of a large suitcase, mostly due to the armoring) and a couple of ammunition packs each. The unarmored humans could probably carry one ammo pack apiece for a total of twenty. He decided to make it eighteen standard packs and two of the Reaper packs, both flechettes.
In addition there was one oversized box that indicated a weapon. He looked at it and smiled inside his suit.
“W… AID?” he said.
“Yes, Tommy?” the AID answered in Wendy’s voice.
“Can you… delete some of the information about this cache? Or modify the information about what we’re going to carry?”
“I can,” the AID answered. “But I’ve already uploaded the data.”
Tommy frowned and worked his face in the gel. “Okay, correct your inventory of what we’re carrying. I don’t want this item on the inventory. Substitute a case of Reaper ammunition.”
“Very well, Tommy,” the AID replied sweetly. “Care to tell me why?”
“Because I don’t want the Posleen to know that we’re carrying it back,” he grinned, ferally. “And make sure that the other AIDs don’t show it.”
“I’ll try,” the AID said.
“McEvoy, I’ve got a special job for you,” Sunday said…
“Okay,” the lieutenant finally said, “McEvoy, you and Pickersgill move the packs to the top of the hill. Just clamp them together in a chain and haul them up.”
He turned to the refugee group as the two troopers got to work and raised his hands. “I need each of the adults to carry a pack.”
“We can do that,” Elgars replied. “Where?”
“It’s going to be a bit of a hump,” Sunday admitted. “We need to get them across the valley and up the side of Lookout Mountain.” He generated a map and put a pinpoint on the spot.
“I take it you’re not talking about the one in Tennessee,” Shari said sharply.
“No, it’s a pretty common name for mountains,” Tommy replied, equanimably. “You’re uncomfortable leaving the kids?”
“Very,” Shari said. “I didn’t pull them out of a madhouse then drag them across the mountains just to have them killed by some passing Posleen.”
“Shari, they’d have to get through me,” Cally said. “I’m strong, but not strong enough to carry one of those boxes. So I’ll be staying.” She reached down and tapped Billy on the shoulder and grinned. “And Billy will be here to protect me.”
The boy shook his head and grinned back. He had developed a severe speech blockage right after the first Posleen landing way back in Fredericksburg. Lately, it had started to clear up. But he still didn’t talk if he didn’t have to.
“I’m glad that you’ll be here, but…”
“Shari,” Wendy interrupted. “I was there the whole time, too. I don’t want anything to happen to the kids, either. But if I had the choice of leaving you or leaving Cally…”
“You’d leave Cally,” Shari said. “I understand that. But I don’t think Cally is enough. What if the Posleen do come. I want Mueller or Mosovich to stay.”
“Ma’am, I understand,” Tommy said. “But we need to get this stuff to the battalion. And we need to do it as soon as possible.” He stepped aside as the line of gray boxes started snaking out of the cave, dropping a load of wet soil onto the ledge outside the entrance. “And we need all that we can get; there are a sh… a bunch of Posleen to kill.” He paused and waved his hands around wildly. “If we don’t stop them, it doesn’t matter what cave you hide in, they’ll still come…”
“Hiding was good enough in Fredericksburg,” Shari said.
“Only because the ACS came along and dragged us out,” Wendy corrected. “The same unit, come to think of it, that’s in the Gap.”
“And if that don’t beat all for coincidence,” Mueller said with a grin. “Shari… we can’t stay. And you’re not going to be a hell of an addition to having Cally here. We need you to carry boxes and quit fighting it.”
She sighed and looked at the children. They had started to move around and she and Wendy had gotten them fed. But even with children’s usual ability to bounce back they weren’t going to be up to another trip real soon.
“Okay, I’ll quit complaining,” she said, looking at Tommy. “But if one hair on their heads is harmed…”
“It won’t be,” Cally said, quietly. “I’ll make sure of that Shari. I promise.”
“I’ve had lots of promises in my life.” The woman sighed again. “I know you’ll try. That’s not the same thing as succeeding.”
“And victory doesn’t always mean you survive,” Cally said with a shrug. “I’ll get it done.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rabun Gap, GA, United States of America, Sol III
1453 EDT Monday September 28, 2009 AD
Gunny Pappas slid into the fighting position and looked around. The front of the position was partially dug away where a lucky HVM round had taken out the trooper who had dug the pit. The trooper’s armor was somewhere to the rear, piled into a hole with the rest of the luckless troopers who had died this day.
Pappas didn’t think he’d make it to the pit.
“Battalion, mass fire.”
The Posleen were still pouring through the narrow gap but at a slower pace and the battalion had reduced fire to conserve ammunition and power. But now every rifle on the line opened up with a full weight of fire, filling the narrow pass with lines of silver.
The Posleen had already built a wall of their dead, towering man high in places, over which they struggled to get to grips with the awful suits. They had also been nibbling at it from behind, dragging out functioning weapons and tearing out bits of flesh to deliver to the waiting forces as rations. Now they quit in those efforts as it became obvious something was happening and every Posleen in reach began scrambling over the mound, trying to drive forward to the line of suits.
The ACS was having none of it. The lines of silver picked out the God Kings and then swept from side to side across their assigned sectors, wiping the line from the top of the mound and adding to it as the dismembered bodies of the aliens scattered to lie amongst their brethren.
As the assault faltered again, Pappas heard the second command.
“Mobile personnel, retreat and regroup.”
Pappas slid another magazine in his weapon and continued fire as the green dots of the retreating group moved backward on the tactical schematic. They moved fast, leaping out of their holes and running in quick, low leaps to the rear. But despite that, and despite the fire of the fifteen troopers still remaining on the line, he saw one suit go red. Then two, five. That was the last, though, as the remainder of the battalion made it around the curve of the mountain and disappeared off his screen.
The Posleen had not been idle. The forces backed up behind the wall of flesh, at the first cries that the suits were retreating, redoubled their efforts to close with the battalion, scrambling over the mound and through the lower patches.