The round was based on a standard 155 millimeter round. But instead of explosive it carried more dangerous weapons: a camera and a radio.
As the round left the distant artillery gun, a shroud fell away and the camera was uncased. Using an internal gyroscope it compensated the sensor mount against the spin of the round and kept the camera pointed at the indicated target, which in this case was the ground.
The camera was only a sophisticated visual light system; transmitting systems such as millimeter wave radar were engaged by every God King and lander in sight. But the visual light system was able to pick out the shapes of Posleen and Posleen devices from the background clutter, sending the data back to the intelligence center in narrowly directed, short, encrypted bursts.
Despite the short, directed transmissions, the Posleen were able to detect and destroy the rounds most of the time in flight and they did so in this case, catching the round as it passed over Lake Burton, but leaving all its non-transmitting brethren, who only carried high explosives and lethal shrapnel, alive.
Ryan shook his head in bafflement. None of the humans could understand why the Posleen were so damned effective at destroying anything that maneuvered or transmitted, but left "ordinary" artillery alone. He checked the FireFinder radar, which actively worked with the gun targeting systems to ensure accuracy, and, sure enough, the rest of the rounds went on their way to the target.
The picture that had come back from the round was interesting enough. The artillery had reached over fourteen thousand feet in its parabolic arc, and the "visual footprint" had stretched from Dahlonega to Lake Hartwell. There were red traces of Posleen throughout the area, but the majority of them were concentrated around Clarkesville and Lynch Mountain. In other areas the centaurs were scattered. Clarkesville was still obscured because of the angle of flight of the round and the resolution on the Posleen around Lynch Mountain wasn't all that great.
"Get the intel guys to massage this as much as they can," Ryan said, scrolling his view around the snapshot of the battle and zooming in on the area around Mosovich. "In the next volleys I want you to have them set the sensor rounds so that they don't go active until they are a few seconds out. That way we may not have as wide a field of view, but we'll at least be able to see what we're hitting. Or not hitting. It's pretty clear that the Posleen are beyond our current fire point."
"Should I adjust fire, sir?" the lieutenant at the artillery control station asked.
"No," Ryan answered. "When Mosovich wants it, he'll call for it." Ryan pulled up a topographic map of the area, zoomed the resolution and then laid on recent overhead. After scratching his chin for a second he grunted. "But take everything that's not tasked and put it right . . . there," he continued, pointing to the saddle with a feral grin. "It's the only place there's a path the Posleen could use."
"Do you think that the sergeant major is up on the mountain?" the lieutenant asked, scanning his own system for a trace of the NCO. "I don't see him anywhere."
"Oh, he's there, somewhere," Ryan answered. "What I don't know, is where in the hell he thinks he's going."
CHAPTER 13
Rochester, NY, United States, Sol III
1925 EDT Monday September 14, 2009 ad
Major John Mansfield crouched low, hiding in the shadows of the roof of the trailer. He could hear the crunch of gravel as his target approached and this time there would be no way to escape. He'd been tracking him for the last four days and tonight would be the time of reckoning. Preparing to spring he pulled his legs under him and clutched the sheaf of paperwork attached to a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other; being adjutant for the Ten Thousand was no picnic.
As the official personnel officer for eleven thousand eight hundred and forty-three soldiers, officer and enlisted, all of whom were about as safe as Bengal Tigers, his was not always the funniest job. But the worst part was trying to pin the colonel down long enough to do his paperwork.
It had become something of a game. Cutprice would set up an obstacle course, human and often physical, between himself and his adjutant. Mansfield would try to pass it to get the colonel to take his paperwork in hand. Once a human being put something, anything, in the colonel's hand, he was very conscientious about completing it. But forget putting it in an "In" box.
But this time Mansfield had him dead to rights. The colonel had become a little too complacent, a little too regular in his schedule. And Mansfield had used all the tricks. A dummy was occupying his bed so no one would know he was stalking the night. No one had seen him crossing the compound so none of the troops would give him away this time. And a female trooper who really needed the colonel to sign a waiver so she could be promoted out of zone, a waiver that had been approved by her company commander, the sergeant major and the adjutant, had spent the evening plying the colonel with Bushmills. With any luck his defenses would be low enough that Mansfield would surprise him for once.
He crouched lower and leaned to the side, peering around the sign announcing that this simple single-wide trailer was the residence of the commander of the Ten Thousand. He glimpsed a shadow and consulted his watch. Yes, it was precisely the time the colonel should be showing up. He readied the pen and prepared to spring as a voice spoke over his shoulder.
"You lookin' for me, Mansfield?"
Major Mansfield stood up and looked at the figure that was now standing on the stoop of the porch. Now that it was in the light it was clear that the figure was both shorter and darker than the colonel. And wore the wrong rank.
"Sergeant Major Wacleva, I am, frankly, shocked that you would stoop so low as to assist this juvenile delinquent over my shoulder in his avoidance of duty!"
"Ah, don't take it personal, Major," the young looking sergeant major responded in a gravelly voice. "It is the age-old dichotomy of the warrior and the beancounter!"
"Since when did you get cleared for words like 'dichotomy'?" the adjutant asked with a laugh.
"Since the colonel spent half the night getting plastered with Brockdorf," Wacleva responded sourly. He pulled out a pack of Pall Malls and tapped out a cancer stick.
"Yeah," Cutprice said with a laugh. "Did you know she was a philosophy major before she enlisted?"
"Yes, I do, Colonel," Mansfield answered testily, finally turning around to look at the officer. "Which is why she's one of the very few people I know who can read the Posleen mind. And did you know she needed your signature to get her promotion to E-6?"
"Why the hell do you think I'm standing on a roof in the freezing cold?" Cutprice asked. He took the pen out of the S-1's hand. "Which one is it?"
"Oh, no, you're not getting away that easily," Mansfield answered. "Among other things there's a real strange one in here. I think we might need to send a squad down to North Carolina to spring one of our officers."
"Who's in North Carolina?" Cutprice asked, stepping lightly off the roof and landing on sprung knees. "Goddamn it's nice to be young again."
"No shit," the major responded, landing next to him. "I think the last time I could be assured of doing that and not killing myself was in '73."
"With all due respect, sirs, yer both wimps," the sergeant major growled. "Try being old before '73. I couldn't do that when I was datin' yer mothers."
Cutprice chuckled and reached for the sheaf of papers. "Gimme the 3420, I promise I'll do the rest."
Mansfield and the sergeant major followed the colonel into the trailer and Mansfield extracted a sheet of paper from the pile as the sergeant major went to the sideboard. "One 3420, complete and ready to sign," Mansfield said.
"Hmm." The colonel read it carefully. The game went both ways; Mansfield had twice inserted orders transferring himself to a command slot so the colonel was now careful to read the documents he signed. "This looks kosher," he said, scrawling a signature.