“All right, Lieutenant Diaz, I understand. Tell the ship I want priority along the enemy-held ground west of the Rio San Pablo. Then, on my command, I want to switch to east of the Rio San Pedro.”
Suarez stopped to think for a moment. Something was nagging at him. Something important… something…
“Mierda!” he exclaimed aloud. “Diaz, does the ship carry a shell that can clear the bridges along the Rio San Pedro without endangering the bridge?”
It was a long moment before Diaz answered. When he did, it was to say, “Miss Daisy says she has improved conventional munitions that can kill the Posleen without endangering the bridge, sir.”
Miss Daisy? Never mind. “Good, good,” Suarez said with more good cheer than he felt. “Diaz, you can see, which is more than I can say. Keep me posted and commence firing as soon as possible.”
Under Binastarion’s eye his sons and their oolt’os formed and massed for what he expected to be the final breakthrough into the rear of the threshkreen’s perimeter. The river to his front, while promising to be a costly obstacle to cross, was not so deep his normals could not cross it unaided, though he was sure a few would find deep spots in which they would drown. No matter; their bodies will make a ford for the ones that follow. For the rest, a few minutes helpless under fire and then we’re among them.
An odd shape, cruising high to the west, caught the God King’s eye.
“What is that damned thing flying up there?” Binastarion demanded of his Artificial Sentience.
That machine was connected to the God King’s tenar and, thus, to the entire Net. Yet, infuriatingly, it answered, “There is nothing flying overhead, lord.”
“Bucket of misdesigned circuitry, I can see it. There is something up there.”
“Nonetheless, lord,” the Sentience answered with the normal indifference of a machine, “there is nothing up there which registers. Therefore, there is nothing up there.”
The God King was about to curse his electronic assistant again, when the AS announced. “Incoming projectiles, lord. They will land on the oolt massed below. I suggest you take cover.”
Before Binastarion could answer, whether to thank or to curse, three shells landed, one short but two right on one of his oolt’os. That oolt simply… dissolved with panicked normals running shrieking in all directions. Binastarion’s tenar shuddered with the shock wave. His internal organs rippled in a way he had never before experienced.
“Demon shit,” the chief snarled, sotto voce, as he wrestled his tenar back to face his massed people.
Even as he grunted those words another three explosions erupted, with one shell landing among the ruins of the previously targeted oolt and two others smearing the one just to the north of that one.
In salvos of three rounds, never more than four or five heartbeats apart, the fire walked among his people like some half-divine, half-mad demon. Tenar were tumbled, their riders crushed and shredded. Splintered teeth and bones of normals joined hot metal shell fragments to pierce and rend.
True, sometimes a shell landed between oolt, doing no harm with its blast. Even in those cases, however, the odd piece of shrapnel might sail hundreds of meters to fall with deadly effect upon some unfortunate normal. The smell of Posleen blood thus released was enough to unsettle the half-sentients and make their bolting that much more likely whenever a salvo did land near.
Binastarion’s communicator buzzed frantically with calls from his sons and subordinates. Each asking for instructions. Do we attack? Do we retreat? If we stay here we’ll be massacred.
“Where is that damned fire coming from?” he demanded of his AS. “I have read of the threshkreen’s artillery, but this is just too much of it. Where is it coming from?”
The Artificial Sentience did not answer immediately. Searching the Net, Binastarion supposed.
“The ship is back, lord,” the AS said when it finally answered. “It can throw as much of this artillery as would a ten of tens of the heaviest sort used by the thresh who fight on the ground.”
Even while digesting that unwelcome news, the fire continued to walk among the host of Binastarion, striking down lowborn and high with random, vicious fury.
It was with an equal fury that Binastarion ordered his subordinates to assemble on his tenar once they had their people under cover.
As he had been each time he had seen the salvos from the Des Moines, Diaz was awed by the fury of the guns. He said a silent prayer to God that, so far, none of the shells had fallen among the defenders.
When he judged the enemy was sufficiently damaged and disorganized by the fire he keyed his radio and spoke to Suarez.
“Sir, I think it is about as good as it is going to get in the west. Shall I pull out to the east and direct the ship’s fires to assist the breakout?”
Suarez spoke back, “Yes, son, do that. And God bless you and that ship.”
There was no more difficult operation in all of the military art than a withdrawal while in contact with the enemy. To do so over a broad front, with troops already badly disorganized by combat would have been impossible but for three facts: that the fires of the gringo ship had even more badly disorganized the Posleen, that most of Suarez’s regimental artillery — three batteries of Russian-built self propelled guns — was intact, and that Suarez had control of most of a company of ACS.
“Can your boys do it; cover our withdrawal while we force our way east?” Suarez asked Connors.
“I think we ought to free up your units in the west first, sir,” Connors advised.
“Can you get me some contact with that glider overhead?” Connors asked.
“No, sir,” the AID answered. “I am continuing to try.”
Trying to time things carefully, Connors and his men had stormed into the Posleen positions, such as they were, butchering the stunned-senseless aliens where they stood, before pulling out again and moving as fast as the suits’ legs would carry them eastward. A regular mechanized unit could not have done so.
B Company, Connors in the lead, reached the rear area of the west-facing Panamanian units even as Suarez, using the suits the MI had attached to his sub-units, pulled the east-facing elements of the 1st Mech Division out of the line and got them on the road.
“How about with the ship, what was it? The Des Moines?”
“Yes, sir, the USS Des Moines, CA-134. And no, sir, the ship’s AID is refusing all communication with any Artificial Intelligence Devices. I am not sure why. It won’t explain, simply shunts me into a continuous loop when I try. It’s not supposed to be able to do that,” Connors’ AID added snippily.
“Crap!” Connors exclaimed. “We’ll just have to trust the kid up above to know what he’s doing.”
“Lieutenant Diaz seems trustworthy, sir.”
“Yeah… well…”
Connors’ reserved statement was interrupted by a deluge of heavy shell fire striking ground to the east. The Panamanians in the rear of the line ducked, sensibly, as the air was torn with the roar of the blasts and the whine of the fragments, whizzing overhead.
“Okay, okay… the kid knows what he’s doing,” Connors admitted. “We can’t direct the fire… so we’re going to have to take advantage of where it falls on it own.”
“Suboptimal, Captain,” the AID agreed. “But best under the circumstances, yes.”