Finally Mosovich reached the position he had been looking for, where the stream made a sharp bend to the east and was intersected on the west by an old forestry road. In this case the road had been recently repaired, that is not much prior to the war, and was in fairly good condition. However, it only went "straight" for a short distance before angling south towards Ochamp mountain. It was across the highway, but beggars can't be choosers.
Mosovich carefully looked both ways, up and down 197, then heaved his dripping form up and began trotting. A trot was the best he could do, weighted down with the Barrett and nearly a hundred pounds of ammunition. But he made it across the road, continuing to trot up the forestry road and leaving as little trail as he could manage.
The road was grown up with a variety of weeds and scrub, so if he had to he could go to ground. But this time he was careful to move around the worst of the grasses, preferring to drift through the more resilient white pine and beech. The careful movement stood him in good stead because just as he was reaching the bend where he would have been safely out of sight, he heard the unmistakable clatter of Posleen headed up the road.
It only took a moment's thought for him to swing around, crouch down and swing up the ghillie cloak. He was better than seventy meters up the road, in light scrub and covered in a ghillie cloak. With humans there would have been no question that he was invisible, but these Posleen were starting to spook him.
The column of Posleen seemed like it would never end, a contiguous mass of alien centauroids. He automatically started a rough count, but when he went over four thousand he just gave up. This must be the brigade-sized force that had been menacing them at Seed. He wondered if it knew where they were, as it seemed to have on Oakey Mountain Road, but whatever prescience it had seemed to have deserted it and the last of the force passed quickly by.
He briefly wondered if he should have called for fire on the unit, but he wanted to put a bit more distance between them before he started playing artillery games again.
As soon as the last straggler had apparently passed he stood up in a half crouch and began backing slowly out of sight. As soon as the road was completely around the bend he turned and started trotting up the winding mountain trail. He clearly had a rendezvous to make.
Thirty chest-heaving minutes later he had climbed about five hundred feet and was on the top of Ochamp Mountain. The "mountain" wasn't much more than a hill, but it afforded a good view of the Soque valley and, again, had a well wooded backside that he could use to break pursuit.
As soon as he found an open area—another former homestead from the weedy flowers growing in the torn ground—he pulled out his binoculars and started scanning. Without too much trouble he found the brigade force, or at least a bit of it, continuing up the road towards Batesville. The problem was, they were practically on top of where the team should be, more or less.
Mueller scanned to the south and found another God King patrol, this time well away from the team's position. In fact, they were a just-possible sniper shot. With a scope they would have been dead easy, but using the ladder sight it was going to be tricky.
But if he missed the God King that would just make it better.
* * *
Lakom'set was beginning to wonder if following Tulo'stenaloor was the best decision he had ever made. So far the "Great War" had consisted of traveling up and down roads doing nothing. Given his preference he would be killing humans. But even being shot at by humans would be better than this endless wandering.
"This is boring, boring, boring," he said aloud. Naturally, his normals didn't respond. They could follow simple commands, but as conversationalists they left something to be desired.
Fortunately for him, just about then a .50 caliber round cracked by just over his shoulder and blew out the chest of the cosslain at his side.
"Maybe boring is good," he said as he whipped his tenar around in the direction of the sniper.
* * *
Mosovich ducked as the rocks around him were flailed by fire, then slid backwards on his belly. Clearly these Posleen were no longer taking his little pot-shots with any degree of humor.
Time to didee-mao.
* * *
Mueller didn't move as the shouting Posleen force headed to the south. Despite the fact that they passed less than fifty meters from the team's position in the stream, the God King sensors did not detect them. He suspected there was something to be learned from that, but what he wasn't sure.
It took nearly a half an hour for the whole to pass by. It was fortunate that the aliens hadn't taken longer. Both of the recon team members were on the verge of succumbing to hypothermia; if they didn't get out of the cold, running water soon they were going to drift off into the long sleep.
Their plan was simple. While Mosovich played rabbit and led the majority of the Posleen to the west, they were to head almost due north, passing through the human lines somewhere around the thinly held Lake Burton Line. The defenses in that section followed the trace of the Appalachian Trail and if the Posleen attacked or even took a section, they would be easy enough for light human forces to contain and push back. The roads into the sector had been demolished, walls thrown up in the lower sections and other than that the only activity was patrolling by infantry forces.
He glanced over at Nichols' still body and shook his head. The sniper didn't have to worry about hypothermia. The Galactic Hiberzine medication used a combination of drugs and nannites to slow human internal functions to close to zero and the nannites prevented, to the greatest degree, anything but gross mechanical damage to the body. So as long as they made sure some blood stayed in his system, he was "good," under virtually any conditions, for about three months. When administered the anti-drug, or after the nannites ran out of energy, the patient woke up with no memory of the time in between; to them it was as if no time had passed.
On the other hand, he wasn't light.
Mueller jerked his chin at the hills to the west. "We'll move out to a new hide," he whispered over chattering teeth. "Wait for nightfall then move out. Try not to make any tracks getting out of the water."
"Who gets the first carry?" she asked.
Mueller grimaced and looked at the river to be crossed. The water was rushing over hundreds of smooth, rounded, slimy rocks.
"The hell with carrying," the NCO said, grabbing the unconscious sniper by one wrist. "I'm gonna drag his ass."
* * *
A big hayfield on Lon Lyons Road had nearly nailed him as he was faced with the choice of crossing it, and probably getting spotted, or going around it and taking an extra ten minutes. He finally took the time and was glad when he spotted the Posleen patrol coming to the edge and looking at the open area askance. The God Kings had developed a healthy respect for human snipers and the open area probably looked like a good way to go to whatever gods the Posleen worshipped.
The patrol had taken long enough, waiting for another God King to join them, that he made it all the way across the road and into the heavy woods on the far side. In scrubby undergrowth he had no fear of the Posleen keeping up or even coming close. As he trotted through the woods, following deer trails when he could and breaking new trail when he couldn't, he had wondered which way he should go. He could turn to the south, towards Amy's Creek, and continue to "menace" Clarkesville, or he could continue more or less due west towards Unicoi Gap. After a moment's thought he decided on west; why throw away a perfectly good baseline for the Posleen to follow?
This position though, just to the east of 255 Alternate, was getting untenable so he slid down the hillside and started moving again. Crossing 255 would be a bear, but the map showed woods on both sides and most of the stuff around here was young and, therefore, thick white pine. It should be possible to move completely undetected on either side.