A Hymn Before Battle, page 12
"Okay, here's the deal. We've been scheduled to lift day after tomorrow." There was a muttered and confused chorus. "Yeah, is that good or bad? Well, we'll be out of C-LOC, but we'll be even more imprisoned. However, battalion has indicated that we might get access to our equipment once we're on board ship. In the meantime I want you guys to bone up on all the ACS lore you can. We're not going to get much work with the equipment before we're engaged, so I want you guys to read the fuckin' book! I understand that there's only one per squad, so read aloud or share the reading. Read it in your spare time, read from it between deals! It's the only damn card we've got to play! So study like you never did in school. Williams," he pointed at a Second Platoon NCO, "maximum effective range of the M-403 suit grenade launcher?"
"Uh, a klick, sir?"
"Twelve hundred meters, close but no cigar, Sarn't. If you don't know it, I know your troops don't. Duncan, maximum effective range of the M-300 grav rifle?"
"Maximum effective range of the targeting system, sir."
"Explain."
"The grav rifle has the ability to leave Earth's orbit, sir. It will hit something as far away as you can aim."
"Right. Private Bittan, what is a Lamprey and how do you identify it?"
Bittan glanced at Sergeant Brecker and got a nod. "Umm, it's the lander portion of the B-Dec, the outer layer that surrounds the Command Dec. An' . . . if it looks like a skyscraper, but its flyin', it's a Lamprey, sir."
Captain Brandon laughed. "Good answer, troop . . ."
"Complement of four hundred normals, nominal, with one to two God Kings. Single random anti-ship weapon on its vertical axis. Normal space lift and drives . . ."
"Thanks, Bittan, that's the idea. You all need to get up to snuff on this stuff. Weapons, tactics, enemy equipment. Let's hope we get to use the equipment once we're on board, but in the meantime, study, study, study. We move to embarkation at 1030 hours day after tomorrow. That's all."
"Sir," said Schrenker, "are we gonna get to call our families?"
"No." Captain Brandon did not look happy to pass on that news. "We've been ordered locked down and that's the way it's gonna stay. Once we're on board we'll have the ability to send mail to our families, but not until we're in space."
There was a disgruntled mutter at that, but no more. "Yes, sir."
"All right men, get back to it. And?"
"Study," they chorused.
He waved and walked out as the company broke up into buzzing groups.
13
Ttckpt Province, Barwhon V
0205 GMT, June 27th, 2001 AD
"Man," growled Richards over the team net, "does it ever stop raining here?"
"Well," answered Mueller, subvocally, "if you consider this admittedly heavy mist to be rain, no."
"Can it," snapped Mosovich as he slithered over a fallen Griffin tree, "we don't know what's around."
Barwhon, like the Pacific Northwest, was a land of incessant mists and rain. And, as soldier after soldier has discovered, although Gortex deals well with rain, mist slices right to the bone. The constant cold and damp would have sapped the energy of a normal group of soldiers, would be a major handicap to the expeditionary force, but Mosovich and Ersin had chosen well. The team of special operations veterans had long before become totally inured to cold and wet; but that never stopped a soldier from bitching. The air currently had the texture of cold, wet velvet and the mist was slowly turning to rain. Their footfalls on the sodden purple humus were muffled; between the slightly reduced air pressure and the mist the sound barely carried to their own ears. Unfortunately, since they knew there was a Posleen outpost somewhere out there, it also meant they would be less likely to hear the Posleen.
They had been traveling for two days through the damp forest without incident and Mueller and Trapp had made up a game of naming the different kinds of trees. They were up to three hundred and eighty-five different species and almost all of them were larger than terrestrial rain-forest giants. The most common, nominated as a Griffin tree by Trapp, averaged over a hundred seventy-five meters high, more than three times as high as the tallest terrestrial rain-forest king. The "wood" was incredibly tough, as it had to be to support such a structure even under Barwhon's slightly reduced gravity, and degraded slowly under the influence of Barwhonian saprophytes and the ubiquitous beetles. Massive limbs, lianas and ferns snarled the forest floor and the triple canopy devoured the light.
Through the amethyst mire the team moved like ghosts. The insectoid animal life would stop as they passed, analyze them in their animal fashion, then get on with the serious business of survival. The team could have been the only sentients on the planet until Trapp suddenly froze and held up a clenched left fist.
The team slowly sank down into the bog on their haunches as Trapp extended his hand twice, then held up two fingers. He made the sign for random movement and enemy. Just out of sight a dozen Posleen were doing something not in the hand signal lexicon. Considering that the team was there to figure out what the Posleen did on a day-to-day basis, that wasn't very surprising.
Mosovich crept forward and slid his head slowly around the liana shielding Trapp from view. An even dozen Posleen, normals from what he had learned of their anatomy, were slowly moving across the clearing, picking feathery leaves and purple berries.
The aliens were Arabian-horse-sized centauroids. Long arms ending in four-digit talons, three "fingers" and a broad, clawed thumb, protruded from a complex double shoulder. The legs, ending in elongated talons, were longer than a horse's, and sprung on a reverse double knee that seemed arachnoid. The design of the knees caused them to move with an oddly sinuous bouncing gate, like oversized jumping spiders. Their long necks were topped with a blunt crocodilian snout. The necks of the squad wove a complex pavane, sauroid mouths opening and closing in a constant low atonal hiss that was almost a chant. The neck movement was hypnotic and sinister, speaking to the lizard brain of fanged hunters in the dark.
Ten of the Posleen were in a line, with two more following. Each of them wore a harness to which was attached their primary weapon. Four carried 1mm railguns, long gray rifles that looked misshapen to humans, six carried shotguns with bulbous ammunition storage; one of the trailers toted a hypervelocity missile launcher and the other sported a 3mm railgun. The missile launcher was a small weapon, not much more than a yard long, but the bulbous rear housing carried six missiles with onboard grav-drives that could accelerate them to a large fraction of the speed of light in less than twenty meters. The damage when one hit a solid object was catastrophic.
Occasionally one of the pickers would take a sample back to the trailers and give it to the one with the HVM. It, in turn, would slip the sample into a complex construction carried over one shoulder. There were no significant vocalizations until a beetle the size of a rabbit was startled out of cover by the skirmish line.
The skirmisher that startled it let out an odd warbling cry and darted in pursuit. When the Posleen caught the unfortunate hemipteroid it popped the beetle into its maw. The trailer with the 3mm let out a high-pitched bellow, whipped up its 3mm and butt stroked the skirmisher on the back of the head. The beetle popped out relatively unscathed and tried to crawl away, but the chastened Posleen picked it up and handed it to the technician.
Mosovich tapped Trapp on the arm and pointed for him to stay in place. He motioned for Ersin and, after a moment's hesitation almost too faint to notice, Mueller. Master Sergeant Tung, in the meantime, had gotten the team cautiously dispersed. Mosovich suddenly realized that Ellsworthy had disappeared, which was just fine by him. It meant that if it dropped in the pot, the wrath of God would suddenly descend on the Posleen.
With a silence that Mosovich found completely acceptable, Mueller moved into a position to overlook the Posleen and began filming them with a microcam. Ersin just looked, getting a feel for the enemy. As they watched, another small beetle was driven up and the Posleen went through the same little skit of attempted consumption. Despite being on a recently conquered planet, the Posleen did not have any security out; the Posleen with the 3mm seemed to be more of a subleader than security. They would have been remarkably easy to ambush.
After his two intel NCOs had gotten a good look, Mosovich motioned them backwards. He signed for Trapp to lead the team wide around the foragers to the left and pulled back. The team pulled out, and swung wide. Ellsworthy appeared as silently as she had disappeared, pulling a small piece of rotting vegetation off of her ghilly suit as she reentered the perimeter. She held it at arm's length by two sculptured fingernails for inspection then tossed it aside with a grimace. Mueller snorted quietly and shook his head as Tung rolled his eyes toward the heavens. After the little by-play she hefted her "Tennessee 5-0" .50 caliber sniper rifle and silently moved out. The ease with which she handled the massive weapon belied its thirty-pound weight.
Throughout the rest of the day they continued to bump into rummaging Posleen with greater and greater frequency. Their objective was an "upland" area where a Tchpth colony city had formerly resided, but as they neared the objective the density of Posleen had increased to the point that Mosovich pulled them back as darkness fell and called a council of war.
At the stop Ellsworthy finally demonstrated where she had been hiding each time by slinging her thirty-pound rifle, slipping on fingerless, spiked "tiger" gloves and swarming thirty meters up a Griffin tree. The movement was so fast and silent that it was surreal, like something from a horror movie, the petite marine moving more like a spider than a human. The highly trained and physically fit special operations NCOs watched the action and, with the exception of Trapp, knew that there was no way they could replicate it. Trapp just nodded his head, noting a few things about the eccentric little marine falling into place. In the velvet darkness above, her ghilly suit blended her into invisibility.
"Okay," Mosovich subvocalized over the team net as the other NCOs sat down to munch MREs, "we're running into more and more Posleen. We might be able to sneak through them, but we will probably run afoul of at least one party. I am accepting input, junior first. Martine."
"P-p-p-pull back. Iss-iss-iss a recon, na a raid."
"Mueller?"
"This is our first penetration. Let's hold back and observe the parties for a while then pull out to the second area. This area is getting established; it only got overrun about five weeks ago. Maybe a more established area will have fewer skirmishers."
"Trapp?"
The SEAL just nodded his head.
"Does anybody want to go deeper?"
"Ah' always lahk it deeper, Sergeant Major," whispered Ellsworthy from her perch.
There was muted laughter as Mosovich shook his head. "Ersin, dammit, I told you she'd be trouble!"
"Me? It was your idea!" the intel sergeant protested.
"Yeah, but I still told you she'd be trouble."
"That's mah middle name, Sarn't Major. And speakin' a trouble, there's some Posleen headed this way right now." She bent over her scope. "Another of them rat packs, about fifteen."
"Okay, fall back to pickup. Trapp, take it slow and cautious. Martine, signal for pickup two days from now, site A."
"R-r-r . . . You know."
14
Habersham County, GA Sol III
2025 December 24th, 2001 AD
By mutual agreement Mike and Sharon had decided not to move from their house in the Piedmont. The kids had gotten used to regular visits with his father up in Towns county and Sharon had her job as an engineer. Despite the recent call-ups the majority of the conscription would not begin for another year when the equipment construction really got on line. Mike was in a position to pull a few strings and they had that to talk over. The drive home gave him time to put his thoughts in order; it was going to be an odd week.
Pulling into the driveway of the old farmhouse he stopped and looked across the field at the sunset. One of the recent reports generated by some Beltway Bandit, one of the numerous consulting firms on Washington's Beltway that provided specialized studies for the United States government, dealt with climatological changes. Mike knew just enough climatology to doubt that anyone could accurately predict what the climatological changes might be when the activities of the enemy were still unknown, but the least that was sure to happen was some kinetic or nuclear bombardment. How much the weather changed depended on the severity of the bombardment.
If there was a minimal spatial bombardment there would be a minimal drop in worldwide temperature. The converse was of course true. A minimal bombardment, sixty to seventy weapons scattered across Earth's surface, targeted solely on the projected Planetary Defense Centers, would have the approximate climatological effect of the Mount Pinatubo eruption. That had caused a global temperature drop of nearly a degree and some spectacular sunsets, but otherwise weather was hardly changed.
However, as the number of weapons increased so did the relative severity. Two hundred kinetic energy weapons in the five to ten kiloton range would have the equivalent effect of the Mount Krakatoa explosion, which had plunged the world into a mini-ice age, causing year round frosts in the late eighteen hundreds. At over four hundred weapons it was projected that a real ice age would ensue, especially as the rate of carbon dioxide emission was projected to drop to nearly nothing over the next twelve years.
That particular datum called for the largest caveat in the entire report. The report tossed a bone to a theory that Earth was currently in the midst of an ice age and that the only thing holding it off was the current rate of CO2 emission; in essence that the current scheduled ice age was held at bay by "greenhouse effect." If the theory were true, and some climatologists were willing to admit it might be, ending the era of fossil fuels could coincidentally cause an ice age in and of itself.
If an ice age ensued from the war, win or lose, some of the most civilized regions of the world would become untenable. And the conditions projected for the war itself? Mike had seen the raw reports, the ones that so far had not leaked to the press. That knowledge and calling in a few favors owed him had created an awareness of a situation that no parent should ever have to face. With his mind on those thoughts he got out in the deepening twilight and walked into the kitchen of the holiday-festive house. There was a scent of the cedar Christmas tree cut from the family farm, and Sharon had been baking cookies.
"Hi, honey, I'm home!" The expression was trite, but the emotion behind it was heartfelt.
Sharon came into the room leading the youngest. Mike's heart lurched when he realized Michelle was almost too large for her pink footie pajamas.
For the past long months Mike had spent between sixty and eighty hours a week at GalInf headquarters in Fort Benning or hopping from one military base to another. As one of the few experts on the new infantry systems, every time there was a snag he had to go troubleshoot. In most cases there were honest difficulties with assimilating new technology but on several occasions he had run into the technophobia mentioned in regards to the new ACS commander.
Eight months with almost no contact with his family and darn near no social contacts at all had left him drained. It was time, however short, for a break.
"Merry Christmas, sweetie," he said to his daughter, opening his arms for a hug. "Do you have a hug for Daddy?"
"No!" She hugged her mother's leg and buried her face in its protective warmth.
"Why not?"
"Not Daddy."
"Am too!"
"Not!"
"Meanie! Pooh!" He blew on her hair and she giggled.
" 'Top!"
"Meanie! Pooh!"
Giggle. " 'Top!"
"Meanie! . . ."
"Pooh!" Giggle.
"Aggh! Got me! Hug?"
She wrapped her arms around him and, just for a moment, all was right with the world.
"Do you have the holiday off?" asked Sharon. End of moment.
"Actually I have the week and a bit. But there's bad news to go with the good."
"What?" There was another surprise here and she was getting tired of surprises. Coping as a single mother for the last eight months had not helped.
"I'm getting attached to the ACS unit deploying to Diess with the expeditionary force as an advisor," he said, standing up with the pink bundle of his daughter in his arms. "You sure are getting heavy!"
"You're going off planet?" Sharon asked, stunned.
"And how." Mike nodded, dreading the coming argument.
"When?"
"Next week. This is the pre-deployment leave."
"How come everyone else gets a couple of months' warning?" Sharon demanded.
"Probably because everyone else has a normal job," said Mike, reasonably.
"Well, dammit!"
"Honey," Mike gestured that he was still holding Michelle. "Can we save this for a bit?"
"Sure. Since you're home you can give Cally a bath."
"Okay. Did I miss supper?"
"Yes, and if you hadn't I'd have thrown it outside anyway."
"Honey."
"I know, but this is just a little bit hard to take, okay?" Sharon had tears in her eyes. "It's kind of hard being a single mom all the time, okay? And it's kind of hard knowing what's coming. And I've just about had as much as I can take. The projects are piling up and I feel like every time I take time off for the family I'm letting our side down!"
Mike stood silent. This was one of those times when no words would help.
"Why is Mommy crying?" asked Michelle
"Because Daddy has to go away for a while."
"Why?"
"Because it's Daddy's job."
"I don't want you to go away!"
"I know, sweetie pie, but I have to go."
"I don't want you to!" In sympathetic reaction Michelle started to cry.
Shit. "I didn't want to get into this, honey, but maybe we could go down to Florida for the week. Mom would love to see the kids, I'm sure."
