“I did say ‘the mother of all nuclear strikes,’ right?” O’Neal said with a lopsided grin. “How about one hundred and ten megatons.”
“Holy shit!” Mosovich gasped. “Nothing is going to stand up to that!”
“It’s going to be spread out,” the major said. “Individual areas will get something around a two-megaton blast. It will be airburst. That cache will more than hold. But you have to be in it, and so does my daughter.”
“Yes, sir,” Elgars said. “We left Cally holding the fort. We should get back.” She straightened her back and gave him a snappy salute.
O’Neal nodded at her and then slowly raised his hand in return. “We’ll see you when we see you, folks. Good luck.”
“Wendy,” Tommy said and stopped.
“It’s okay,” she answered, reaching up to stroke the face of the armor. It was a simple, blank facet, not a face, but somehow it felt right to be touching it.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, flexing her jaw. “And I don’t care what they say, you’re coming back to me. Do you understand that? We’ve got a wedding to attend.”
“I understand,” he said, the voice echoing hollowly from the suit. “I’ll be there.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“If you don’t show up,” she said, wiping at his face again. “I’ll cap you with your own Glock.” She tapped the front of the armor for emphasis then started back down the trail to the valley.
“Nice girl. I can see why you want to get married.”
Tommy hadn’t noticed the major come up behind him. Now he turned and looked down at the shorter figure.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. He paused then raised his hands, palms up. “I really love her. High school heartthrob. The whole bit.”
“I understand. I met Sharon in college and when I realized she saw anything in me… I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”
“She’s… dead, sir?” he asked, cautiously.
“Very. She was outside her ship working on a stuck clamp when a B-Dec came out of hyper. The ship attempted to launch from the system she was working on. The missiles, the clamp, the ship and my wife all disappeared in a cloud of radiation and light. That would be just about the same time you were burying yourself under Fredericksburg, by the way.” He paused then tapped Tommy on the back. “That’s why I told you to get what you can while you can get it, son. There’s no guarantee she’s always going to be there for you. And no guarantee that you’re going to be there for her.”
“Will she be okay?” Sunday asked. “That’s… it’s a big fucking weapon they’re firing, pardon my French, sir.”
“That safe the gear was in will stand up to just about anything,” O’Neal replied. “She’ll be fine. They close the door, take their Hiberzine and go to sleep until somebody comes to dig them out. You’ve been there and done that, right?”
“Yes,” Tommy said. “And what about us?”
“I thought you lived for killing Posleen,” O’Neal said with a snort. “Good news, it’s a target-rich environment.”
“I live for killing Posleen,” Tommy replied. “I can’t kill them if I’m dead.”
“Well, we’re rearmed. And powered up. And the Reapers have more rounds. So we’ll go back and do what we always do; hold on until relieved.”
“For how long?” Tommy asked, quietly.
“How long indeed. Let’s just say I hope that goddamned SheVa gun puts the pedal to the metal.”
Cally snuggled the rifle into her shoulder and took a breath.
The weapon was a Steyr AUG II, a 7.62x59 version of the venerable AUG Bullpup. The weapon had been fielded as a replacement just before the first major landings and a few had turned up with special operations troops in the United States just before the Posleen landings stopped all normal commerce. Her father had managed to snag one for her through connections and she was glad he did. The weapon was smaller and shorter than most of the 7.62 weapons out there and it was easier for her to handle with her lighter build. And the built-in buffer reduced the recoil to something along the lines of a 9mm carbine. So she was pretty accurate with it. Especially with a 3-9x variable-power scope. The problem was she didn’t have a target.
She knew from talking to her dad and granddad that the most important thing to take out in a Posleen company was the God King. The God King had all the sensors so once you got him, the company was down to Mark One Eyeball. Also, after the initial, violent, reaction to the death of their God, the normals tended to get really disorganized and a bunch of them would just wander off to become ferals. So the God King had to be the first target.
The other side of that story was that Posleen were tough; if you hit one in an artery they just shunted to secondary systems and kept going. To kill one, quickly, required either hitting the heart or the brain.
The problem was that this God King had apparently learned the concept of Posleen shields and he was surrounded by his normals. So there wasn’t, ever, a close shot at the heart. And their heads, which held their brains just like humans, were on the end of long, mobile necks. So targeting a head was tough as hell.
Unfortunately, that seemed to be the only viable target. So she let the breath out slowly and stroked her trigger.
Cholosta’an was watching his sensors nervously. The sensors indicated that there was an electronic device somewhere on the ridge above him. That might just mean one of the randomly scattered sensors that permitted the humans to keep track of Posleen movement. And, if so, it was no bother; there weren’t many humans around to react.
But it also might mean a human or humans that had active electronics, like a radio or night-vision systems.
Unfortunately, the sensors couldn’t quite pin down the location; it was just beyond their sensory range. He kept glancing up the hill, though, trying to spot any target. Thus he wasn’t at all surprised when his sensors screamed a warning of an incoming round just as the oolt’os to his left grunted from the impact of a round on his neck.
The target was clear on the sensors now, an armed human with a chemical rifle. He swung his plasma gun onto the vector and fired, knowing that the rest of the oolt would follow his lead.
Cally flattened herself into the narrow crack in the rock and muttered curses under her breath. She had heard about the way that Posleen reacted to being fired on but hearing about it and being the target of it were two different things.
But she had thought the shot out carefully and the rocks around here were solid. Of course, they were now smoking and cracked from stray rounds. Fortunately, most of the fire was off target, down and to her left. She didn’t know what had kept the Posleen from being their normal accurate selves, but whatever it was, it had saved her ass. And for that she was thankful.
Not so thankful as to fire from this position again, though. As the fire slackened she shimmied backwards, concealed by the ghillie cloak she had donned before firing, and scooted around one of the rocks out of direct line of the Posleen fire.
Time to go find another point.
Cholosta’an sent one of the oolt’os up the hill to see if there was any sign of the sniper but before the normal was half way up the hill there was another shot and another one of his oolt was hit, dropping to the ground this time with a round straight through the heart.