A Hymn Before Battle, page 22
Stewart still had him fixed with the basilisk stare. Now he finally spoke.
"We could cut you in."
The offer did not offend Pappas, it was fully expected and he had hoped for it to drive the point home. Also, he could tell that Stewart was offering it pro forma, without any expectation that it would be accepted.
"No, I don't think so. You see, I already know the big, big secret."
"Yeah," whispered Stewart, for the first time looking down to the wad in his hand. He slowly pulled the rubber bands off and fanned the bills out. Then he stacked them again and riffled them just under his nose, smelling them. He fanned them out one more time and without a word, or change in expression, tossed them into the fire. One of the squad, it was unclear who, gave a small gasp.
"Money can never be important enough, can it?" asked Stewart.
"No, but that's not the whole secret, either," answered Pappas. Then he watched as the squad, one by one, some with a visible struggle, but most, strangely, with hardly a sigh, tossed the money in the fire.
"Okay," said Pappas tiredly, "get some sleep. An' I hope you never learn what the rest is." Then he got up and ghosted into the night.
* * *
Now Pappas wished he had terminated their asses. Somewhere in the immediate area of the McDonalds the squad was loose and, if history served, getting in some sort of trouble. He spotted Ampele being led around a corner by a nice-looking, if slightly plump, young lady and ran him down.
"Where's Stewart?" he asked, pulling Ampele back around the corner.
"Wha . . . ? I don't know, sir. I was just talking to Rikki here. He was over by the bathrooms with his squad just a minute ago." He started to step back inside the restaurant, then seemed to pull back as if connected to a bunjee cord. The young lady's hand was out of sight behind his bulk and Pappas was tempted to shout "Hand Check!" just to see their expressions.
"Miss," Pappas said gently, "if you'd just excuse us for a moment?"
Her hand reluctantly drifted back into sight and the sergeant dragged Ampele firmly away by one thick bicep.
"Focus. Worry about the wahines when we get to Indiantown Gap." He walked into the restaurant and caught a glimpse of a second squad member ducking through the employees' door. He caught the door before it could close then stopped, looked around and turned towards the bathrooms.
"Gunny, Wilson went that way," Ampele pointed out, rather superfluously.
"Yeah, and this is Stewart we're dealing with. The only thing I'm wondering is if it's a double bluff." He yanked open the Men's room door, or tried to at least. Something had it stuck fast.
"Stewart! Open this damn door or face the consequences!" he snarled, dragging at the door with all his might. "Hwone! Htwo!" There was the sound of something being forcibly removed from the door and it opened just in time. Nine members of second squad were crowded into the not terribly large bathroom. One and all they were looking at him as if he had gone insane.
"What's wrong, Gunny?" asked Stewart, stepping back from the urinal so that the next squad member could move up. "That door does stick something awful for a Mickey Dee's, doesn't it?"
"Okay, where is she?" asked Pappas, meeting him stare for stare. The bathroom smelled like most, a little cleaner with a smell of dilute urine and other matters best left unnoticed. But underlying them all was a faint whiff of cheap perfume.
"Where's who, Sergeant?"
"The other half of the pair. The one you didn't sic on Ampele." At the reference the broad platoon leader looked chagrined; again the sergeant had proven he was two jumps ahead.
"I have not a clue what you are talking about Sergeant," said Stewart, an absolute picture of innocence. "There are no women in this bathroom," he continued gesturing around at the braced squad, "and you came in the only door." He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as if wondering at the sergeant's strange aberrations.
"Ampele, stay here. Stewart," he said, sinking a meaty hand into the slight PFC's shoulder, "we need to have another little chat." Pappas dragged him out of the bathroom and then outside into the autumn mists.
"If I have told you oncet," said Pappas mildly as he slammed the private into the outside wall of the burger joint, "I have told you twicet," he continued, driving the brim of his campaign hat into the bridge of Stewart's nose and his finger into the private's breastbone, "do not fuck with me. I think you may be officer material, but you're more likely to end up in Leavenworth. The stupid bitch is above the third acoustic tile from the left starting from the urinal, undoubtedly scared out of her life. There was a smell of perfume and a scattering of bits from the tile you were trying to hide behind the squad.
"Now, get your squad back out in line to eat, get her down and on her way, without any fucking around, and report to me when you're done, is that clear?"
"As crystal, Gunny." The hint of smugness enraged Pappas and a suddenly realized solution came as a bolt from the blue. He smiled evilly. At that sight a hint of wariness crept into the private's eyes.
"From now on I am off duty," Pappas said and smiled inwardly at the sudden confusion Stewart revealed. "If anything goes wrong," he continued, "it is your responsibility," a rock-hard forefinger drove into a breastbone again. "I am totally hands off, got it? When you fuck up," finger, "I am taking a stripe. You're a PFC, so you've got two to lose. When they fuck up, you," finger, "are losing a stripe. You are in charge of all activities as of when we reach the hotel, I'll announce it on the bus when we leave. That should keep you out of trouble. Is that clear?"
"Clear, Gunny," Stewart agreed, his face turning gray.
"Me and Ampele we're going to relax the rest of the trip 'cause you have all the responsibility. If anything goes wrong, public drunkenness, public lewdness, irate fathers, shopkeepers ripped off, vomiting in public, it is your," finger in the chest, "ass. All night and all day tomorrow. I intend to sleep like a baby. Is that absolutely, perfectly, crystal clear?"
"Yes, Gunny."
"Good." The NCO smiled broadly, his white teeth bright against his wide brown face. "Have a nice day."
And the rest of the trip was a picnic.
26
Andata Province, Diess IV
2059 GMT May 18th, 2002 AD
Lieutenant O'Neal stripped the box magazine from his M-200 grav rifle and stared unseeing at the thousands of teardrop-shaped pellets within. Then he reinserted the magazine and did the same with his grav pistol.
"Would you please quit doing that?" asked Lieutenant Eamons. Both of them waited by windows on the northwest corner of Qualtren. The angle was even greater than the FSO indicated and they had a clear view of the 1.145 miles to the next intersection. There the Naltrev megascraper cut back and blocked the view. Naltrev and its sister megascraper Naltren held the battalion scout platoon and the upper part of O'Neal's vision systems were slaved to the view from the scout platoon leader's.
"Where are your people, Tom?" Mike asked.
"Downstairs."
"Are they tasked?" O'Neal continued to watch the view from the scout leader. It was unsettling because of the flicker of a personal area force-screen—the PAF set up in the anticipated direction of attack—and because Lieutenant Smith had a nasty tendency to occasionally toss his head like a horse throwing a fly. The movement would swing the viewpoint right and up. I doubt he even notices that he's doing it, thought Mike, stripping out the magazine and reinserting it, but I wish he'd quit.
"Would you please quit doing that, Mike! And why do you want to know? No, they're sitting around with their thumbs up their butts."
"Quit what?" Mike asked, his attention focused like a medical laser on the view from his helmet. "Start having them emplace cratering charges across Anosimo and Sisalav at the Sal Line and then start placing C-9 charges at the locations I'll slave to their AIDs."
"Whoa, Mike. You're a nice guy and outrank me by a whole grade, but the hell if I'll piss my career away for you. The colonel will have my bar if I do that." The lieutenant tried to shake his head and stopped when he had to force it against the biotic gel filling the helmet.
The Jell-O-like material completely filled the helmet and the interior of the suit. It was responsible for more than a third of the cost of the armor and the only major part that was not, at bottom, O'Neal's concept.
Putting on the helmet of a combat suit was something like putting your head in a bucket full of jam. However, the material completely cushioned the wearer against the most extreme shocks and had a series of other important functions. It read the user's movement intentions through their own neural net and drove the suit accordingly. It recycled waste into potable water, edible food and breathable air. And it had enough medical technology and ability to keep its "ProtoPlasmic Intelligence System" alive as long as they did not take a direct hit to the heart, brain or upper spine.
All that did not make troopers any happier about donning the helmet. One third of all washouts in the first month of training were from troops who could not handle first putting on the helmet, then holding their breath as the underlayer humped and rippled creating pockets for breathing and vision. The wait until the suit was in position could feel like an eternity.
The underlayer also acted as an ersatz sensory deprivation device, another negative that led to occasional mishaps. The weapons and equipment of the units had to be specially modified all around. With no feedback from contacts, the suits had a tendency to destroy anything they touched.
Since there was no way to actually see through the underlayer, the helmet was totally opaque. What the user saw was a high-quality representation cast by tiny laser diodes that threaded out of the helmet wall. Instead of turning his head, when a trooper made a movement to look from side to side the viewpoint shifted. It was somewhat like controlling a point of view with a joystick. Again, it took getting used to. There was no feeling of motion, so it could induce motion sickness, and a trooper could suddenly find himself looking backwards by overdriving the viewpoint controls. Similar leads tapped the mastoid bone for sound conduction.
For comfort, the suit would let the users move their heads side to side, but only slowly. However, since the diodes could do all sorts of neat tricks with vision, the peripheral vision was actually superior to normal and far and near sighting were enhanced. That was before any special requests like "heads up" displays, weaponry displays, distant viewing, split screen viewing or sixty-seven other abilities.
"Lieutenant Colonel Youngman is currently busy and he won't notice unless we detonate them. When we detonate them, you will be a hero for taking the initiative because it will be the only thing that saves the right flank of the Corp from being rolled up."
"Is it that bad?" asked the engineer, wondering how much his friend's moroseness was justified. Although he would have preferred to lay out a full reception for the Posleen, the firepower of the battalion was massive.
"Tom, we're about to be corncobbed and there ain't a fuckin' thing I can do about it. After this day the name Youngman will be right up there with Custer, except George Armstrong had a brilliant career before he pissed it away. Now get rigging the charges. Make the cratering charges big ones. I want them to tear the faces right off the megascrapers; they've got forty minutes max."
"Fuck it," said the officer with an attempted shrug. "You're right, nobody will notice unless we have to blow 'em. You want both Boulevards mined? What about 7th Cav?"
"Yeah, if Cav falls back they'll want the cover," he paused. "There's the gust front."
"Huh?" asked the lieutenant, looking out the window toward where the enemy could be expected to appear.
"A bunch, a real shit pot full of Indowy are headed this way," said Mike, slaved to the distant view of the scout leader. "Get your guys to work, Tom. Now!"
Lieutenant Eamons gave his friend an unseen nod of farewell and casually blasted a hole in the wall with his M-200. Stepping into thin air, his command suit floated him, gentle as a feather, the ten stories to ground level. With the fusion bottles of the megascrapers to draw on there was no lack of energy and it was the quickest and most fun way down. Because it was "untactical" it was forbidden by the battalion but the unit was going to open up the minute they saw the Posleen, so what was one more hole? It made as much sense as not having his people prepare hard defenses because they would "reveal the MLR." Like the whole battalion opening up on them wouldn't reveal the MLR to the Posleen? Mike was right, they were going to get corncobbed.
Tom looked around as he drifted down, again marveling at the mixture of alien and familiar. Take New York City, please! Simplify the glass facades. Choose one style, similar to the twin towers. Make it .914 miles high and 1.145 miles square. The deep, dim canyons were similar to those found in any major Terran city, but deeper, darker. As he grounded he was reminded of the other differences. The gravity was slightly lower and the sunlight had a greenish tinge like fluorescent lighting. It was also brighter, bright as an acetylene torch when it shone on the hard packed clay that replaced asphalt; the grav drives needed no special surface for support. And no plants, not even a blade of grass or the green of a window box. He entered a cavernous portal in the ground floor, one of several for vehicle entry and exit, and began bounding down the long, echoing corridor. "AID, give me a route to my platoon's assembly area and connect me to the platoon sergeant." It was time to do some work.
Mike continued to watch the thickening spray of Indowy refugees on Sisalav Boulevard. Cutting the view to one quarter of his visor, he saw them in real-time entering the battalion's sector. He heard "Hold fire" calls on the company nets he was monitoring and smiled; the little Indowy could hardly have looked less like the enemy. The hairy little bipeds were on foot, covered in a layer of yellowish dust from the roads and fleeing unencumbered. They seemed not to have the human urge to maintain possessions.
"AID, where's their transportation?" asked Mike, puzzled. There were none of the cars, trucks or even manhandled carts that would be expected with a similar group of humans.
"They have no need for it, so virtually no Indowy have transports. Few of them leave the megascrapers in their entire lives; indeed, few leave a single area, a floor or a sector. A few never leave a series of rooms. All they need is in the building, their quarters, food workshops and baths."
"Where are they going? Do they know?"
"No, there is no support for refugees. If they are nonproductive they are of no consequence. Some will find menial positions, a few with special skills may find employment, but the vast majority will eventually die of exposure or starvation."
Mike shivered in his plastic womb; the more he learned about Galactic ethos, the less he liked.
"Show me a schematic of primary water and sewer pipes connecting to Qualtren and Qualtrev with diameter and access notations." It bothered him that the plan was so one dimensional. A few of the upper stories were being used but the vast subbasements and sewers were being ignored. In WWII the Russians and Germans both used sewers to good effect. At least the entire Posleen mass would not be able to fire at them if they were underground. He studied the schematic and frowned in puzzlement.
"Michelle, those supply systems—I don't care how minimalist the Indowy are, there are not enough and large enough water supply lines or sewage disposal lines. What gives?"
"Most water and sewage are recycled in the megascraper."
"Hmm." The water pipes were still big enough to move around in. "Michelle, instruct all AIDs to begin a plot for every individual and small unit to the nearest water pipe access. Prepare a retreat plan to Saltrev/Saltren via underground connections and update a defense plan. Continuously update Kobe and Jericho on the basis of engineering platoon advancements. Prepare to coordinate demolition plan with Alpha and Bravo companies. And we'll have to find a way to shut down the flow." Expect victory, plan for defeat.
The flood of Indowy was starting to choke the boulevard, their gray-green bodies pressed together, packing the wide road from side to side. He could see more flooding out of Waltren from the point of view of the scout platoon leader, those tributaries adding to the flood. The street was as packed as Wall Street at lunch time, as packed as a papal mass with the lemminglike flood of Indowy. Their sturdy little bodies were being smashed against the unyielding metal faces of the buildings, crushing the young, old and weak alike underfoot. Lesser streams wound into and through Naltren and Naltrev, across the avenue and into Qualtrev/Qualtren, every individual contributing to both the pressure and the panic.
As the major force of Indowy refugees reached Qualtren/Qualtrev, the back pressure and the turn combined to drive thousands of the small humanoids into the northwest quadrant of Qualtren's lower floors. There they encountered 1st platoon of Charlie company and the effect was shattering.
Individually the Indowy had the manners and aggressiveness of a rabbit but in that vast panicked horde they acted like stampeding buffalo. When the wave front hit 1st platoon the Indowy entering the many ground floor openings at first went around the armored humans arrayed within. Then, as the pressure mounted, they started jostling the soldiers and climbing on and over them. As the weight mounted of first a handful, then a dozen then hundreds of panicked extraterrestrials, the suited troopers were toppled and began to thrash under the stampede. As they thrashed and kicked, trying to clear them away, the servo-assisted armor smashed and splattered the inoffensive little creatures painting their green ichor across the pastel walls. The ichor only added to the problem, making the floor slippery with body fluids.
The Charlie company commander and first sergeant rushed to the scene in a futile attempt to regain the platoon position but they, in turn, were swept under by the flood. Two of the battalion's terawatt lasers were in the mass, set to fire "right into the throats" of the Posleen, and they were lost as well. Thus, before the battle was joined, the crucial platoon and company commander of the battalion's defense along with thirty percent of its heavy firepower was neutralized. All without one Posleen in sight.
