A Hymn Before Battle lota-1

by John Ringo

  “We can still win this one, sir. I’m behind the lines with a half company of troops. We don’t have any weapons but we have antimatter out the ying-yang.” O’Neal was talking fast because he knew what he was about to suggest was not the way America played the game. But he also knew that if General Houseman thought about it he would see the truth of the battleplan.

  “We can move to the area of the encirclement and drop the megascrapers right on the Posleen. All it requires is taking out about thirty critical supports and these buildings will fall. We can drop them on the Posleen and at the same time clear the way for the MLR. Probably we could cut a swath to the primary line and break the cav out, but at the least we could protect the cav units until they can be withdrawn by sea.”

  “You want to blow up more of these buildings? The Darhel are already screaming about Qualtren and Qualtrev!”

  “Sir, with all due respect, two items, three really. One, the buildings are going to be lost anyway unless we go nuclear. Then it will be centuries before they can use the real estate. Two, it is not a political decision, it is an operational one. The Darhel have already agreed that we decide how to wage war. And, whereas I know that the United States Army prefers to limit collateral damage, sometimes it’s time to just get down and do the dance, sir, hang the consequences. Any friendlies in there are dead anyway.”

  “Give me a few minutes to consider it, Lieutenant. How long to get from your present location to there?”

  “About an hour, sir, the way I’m going to go.”

  “All right. I’ll be back in no more than five minutes. Would the support of the ACS units in the reserve be useful, critical, or unnecessary.”

  “I need weapons more than troops, sir. If you can get me weapons and detonators, I don’t need more than another fifty troops.”

  General Houseman felt energy moving back into him, the crushing depression of the defeat evaporating. Whether he went with the option or not, whether they won or not, the Posleen were going to end up knowing they had been kissed, or his name wasn’t Lucius Clay Houseman.

  Three minutes and forty seconds later General Houseman was back on the line.

  “I concur with your plan, Lieutenant. Your mission is to move with your unit into the area of the Dantren encirclement and to begin demolition of megascrapers in and around the encirclement with the primary purpose of reducing the pressure on the encircled units and secondary purpose of creating a window for the encircled units to withdraw to friendly lines.

  “You may use any method and any level of force up to and including the use of significant quantities of antimatter. You are specifically charged to break the encirclement at any cost. I will call for volunteers from the ACS units in the reserve and will detach thirty-six troops in nine combat shuttles to attempt to make up a forlorn hope resupply run. I cannot at this time offer more personnel or equipment support than that.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said O’Neal, his voice firm. “We’ll move out as soon as I wake my troops up and give a frag order.”

  “Good luck, son, good hunting.”

  “Gary Owen, sir.”

  “Why you damn wind dummy! Only cavalrymen get to say that!”

  “I can run faster than an M-1 and shoot an Apache out of the sky,” said the lieutenant, quietly. “I am not infantry or cavalry, neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red meat, sir.”

  “What are you then?” asked the general humorously.

  “I’m just the damn MI, sir.”

  “Well then, ‘Footsack, you damn MI.’ ”

  “Yes, sir. Out here. Michelle, platoon freq. Sergeant Green, start wakin’ ’em up.”

  “Ah, Jesus, sir. We just stopped!” the sergeant complained.

  “Sometimes you eat the bear, Sergeant, and sometimes…” He squeezed gritty eyes together and sipped stale suit water. They had been up since before dawn, fought a “murthering great battle,” been blown up by a catastrophic explosion, tunneled out of hell, swum the Stygian depths and now had to go on after a ten minute stop. Well, that was what technology was for. “Michelle, order all the AIDs to administer Provigil-C.”

  The drug was a combination of a Terran antinarcolepsy drug and a Galactic stimulant. The Terran drug prevented sleep from forming. However it was believed that the stresses of combat were such that more than an antinarcotic was necessary.

  When the powerful and persistent Galactic stimulant started coursing through their veins, the troops started to move. Some of them popped their visors to wipe gritty eyes and sniff uncanned air, but they were mildly surprised to find that the storeroom they had occupied was black as night. The AIDs had automatically been enhancing ambient light or using the ultraviolet suit lights for so long the troops had lost all sense of light or dark outside their private environments. The few troops who had sustained noncritical injuries, including the luckless trooper with only one hand and Private Slattery, now forever immortalized in combat suit statistics, were visited by the medic, more for human reassurance than because he could do anything the suits could not do.

  Meanwhile Mike gathered the NCOs around and sketched out an initial order of movement. The engineers suddenly became critical to the success of the mission. Withal they could move nearly as fast as the infantry they supported, their armor was so bulged with storage they looked like walking grapes. Most of the storage was detonators and triggering devices. When it came down to it, there were lots of things that one could convince to explode, if one had a detonator and, although there were a number of ways to convince a detonator to explode, the best ways involved being far away at the time. So, rather than load up on explosives and light on detonators, they went the other way. They did carry twenty kilos of C-9, reduced somewhat from the tunneling, but it was a minor chunk of their storage.

  The armor was circled with storage compartments, each designed precisely for explosives storage. The store points had blow-out panels and two of them had blown out on one of the engineers during the explosion under Qualtren; it gave him a lopsided look. Now they opened the compartments and started distributing their packages of good cheer. Every troop took fifty detonators and triggering devices. The triggering devices were fairly intelligent receivers that could be set to detonate by time or on receipt of a signal. In addition, the platoon redistributed their own C-9 so that each of them had at least a half kilo; that would be enough for their purposes.

  The trickiest part was that they needed to move on the surface to the encirclement. There was not enough time to use the water mains. If they went that way the units would be dead and digested by the time they reached the area. Mike had a plan and he would have to overcome vocal and severe objections when he told them about it. His stock, however, had gone up since the first bound in the tunnels and especially when he led them to relative safety. Now they had to go back into the fire, but like troopers immemorial they faced that each as he needed to and got up and danced.

  31

  Ft. Indiantown Gap, PA Sol III

  0243 August 5th, 2002 ad

  “Sergeant,” said Pappas patiently, “I have had a long goddamn day. And I am not in the best fuckin’ mood to handle bullshit. I have got a platoon spread to hell and gone and I need somewhere to put them up. I need transportation and quarters. What I don’t need is bullshit from you.”

  He was actually glad to see that the company was maintaining a Charge of Quarters. The NCO in question was half out of uniform, had obviously been asleep when Adams found him and was being a pain in the ass, but it was still good to find. Now if he could only get the CQ to enter some vague condition of reality.

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant,” said the overweight NCO, mulishly. He waved the copy of their orders that Pappas had handed him. “This is not sufficient authority for me to allow your troops into the barracks. For all I know they might be forged.” He looked at the gathered squads standing in the darkness.

  The discussion was being held under the pool of radiance from a yellow bug light on the porch of a trailer, on
e of many in the area. Each of the trailers held a platoon. They were gathered into five trailers to a company. There were, in turn, five company areas gathered in a battalion area with a battalion headquarters at one end and trailers for senior NCOs at the other. The battalions were separated from each other by a street on one side and a parade ground on the other. The lack of lighting turned the whole mass into just another maze of buildings.

  Pappas turned purple and started to throttle the stupid jerk but stopped himself with difficulty. “You do realize, I hope,” he said with a dangerously quiet voice, “that you are dealing with your new first sergeant?” The naked threat dropped to the floor like an anvil.

  “Well,” said the NCO in a priggish voice, “we’ll just have to see what First Sergeant Morales says about that.”

  Pappas looked momentarily nonplussed. “You have another E-8 in the company?” he asked. It was not the information he had been given, but none of the conditions at Indiantown Gap matched any briefing he had received.

  “Well,” said the CQ with a slightly flustered expression, “Sergeant Morales is a Sergeant First Class,” he admitted. “But he is the first sergeant of this company,” he ended confidently.

  Pappas simply looked at the sergeant for a moment. Then he put his hand over his eyes. What did they do, dump a loony bin in here or something? he thought. He leaned into the NCO’s face then turned to the side. “I want you to look right here,” he snarled, pointing at his upper arm. “I want you to count these rockers! How many do you count?”

  “Three,” whispered the NCO, all confidence fled.

  “And how many does Morales have?”

  “Two.”

  “Do you know what that means, you fuckin’ pissant?” snarled Pappas, turning and putting his face right in that of the other NCO.

  The sergeant’s mouth turned into a wide rubbery frown and his eyes started to tear up.

  Pappas’ eyes widened. “Are you starting to cry?” he asked, incredulously.

  A tear started to roll down the CQ’s face and he gave a sob.

  Pappas stepped back and looked heavenward. “God in heaven, why me?” he asked. “Where the fuck is the SDNCO?” he snapped.

  “I don’t know what that is,” said the chubby sergeant.

  “How the hell could a sergeant not know what the battalion Staff Duty NCO is?” asked Pappas. Then a thought struck him. “How long have you been a sergeant?” he asked.

  “A month.” The sergeant continued to snuffle, but the tears had stopped.

  Pappas shook his head and continued the interrogation. “Is this the first unit you’ve been in?”

  The sergeant nodded mutely.

  “And how long have you been here?”

  “Since April.”

  “April! You’ve been in the fuckin’ Fleet six months and you made sergeant?!”

  “Special circumstances, Top,” said a voice from the darkness. A tall soldier stepped into the puddle of yellow light.

  “You’d better stay out of this, Lewis,” hissed the CQ. “Or you know what’ll happen.”

  “Shut up,” said Pappas conversationally. “If I want any more shit out of you I’ll squeeze your head ’til it pops.” He examined the soldier in the yellow light. His gray silks were neat and trim and he had a fresh haircut. He wore the rank of a specialist, but there was clear indication that another rank, probably the chevrons of a sergeant, had been in place recently.

  “What special circumstances?” he asked. He glanced at the roly-poly NCO. “I mean… ?” He gestured at the example.

  “The company is a little short on NCOs right now,” the specialist answered wryly. “Shit, the only thing we’re not short on is trouble.”

  “I’ve got a load of new troops for the company,” said Pappas, turning his attention fully away from the useless CQ. “I need quarters.”

  “You can’t bring them in here,” said the CQ, nastily.

  Pappas finally lost it. He reached out with one hand and picked the overweight sergeant up by his collar. Without looking he slammed him into the door of the trailer then pulled him up until they were eye to eye. “I will tell you this one more time,” he said icily. “If I hear one more word out of you that is not an answer to a direct question, I will personally frag your ass. Do-you-under-stand-me?”

  The quivering NCO began blubbering but nodded his head in agreement. When Pappas let go of him he collapsed into a heap.

  “I can take you to someone who can help,” said Lewis, calmly. “It’s not far.”

  Pappas regarded him thoughtfully for a moment then nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Lewis gestured with his chin at the quivering sergeant by the door. “Um, we might want to take him along.” He paused and considered what he was going to say carefully. “Let’s just say that there are people we don’t want him calling,” he concluded.

  Pappas nodded at the logic. It was obvious that the situation in the company was substandard; surprising this Sergeant First Class Morales might be for the best. He did not even look around. “Adams. Handle it.”

  As he led the platoon off into the maze of trailers he shook his head in disgust. “Lewis, or whatever your name is,” he said calmly, “maybe you could explain what the fuck is going on around here?” Does anybody in the Fleet have a clue? he wondered.

  32

  Andata Province, Diess IV

  0714 GMT May 19th, 2002 ad

  “First thing we do,” said Mike on the platoon push, “we kill all the lawyers. But shortly after that, we gotta power-up.”

  “And we do that how, sir?” said Sergeant Green, immune by now to the vagaries of his abruptly imposed commander. It was bound to be harebrained, but on the other hand “it just might work!”

  “Set the suits to search for power supplies in general; we’ll scavenge as we go. As we move upwards keep an eye out for mobile equipment. They all use the same energy sources, they’re usually on the righthand side in a green painted compartment and they look like large green gems. When they’re fully powered up they glow brightly then fade as the power falls off. They’ll fit in that secondary power receptacle on the rear right of your suit. When we find them, they get distributed to those with the lowest power levels.

  “Also, look for very heavy machinery, like the stuff Captain Wright was trapped under. The power receptacles for those can be jury rigged to bleed off to the suits. The problem is that the suits will recharge with a heavier draw than all but the heaviest machinery. Now, give the pistols and their ammo to the scouts. Put them on point and we’ll move out.

  “If we can’t avoid a group of Posleen, charge ’em, concentrating on the ones with the heavy railguns. The light guns can’t penetrate our armor so don’t bother with them. After we take down the ones with the heavy weapons, we can finish off the rest like killing fish in a barrel. If we can, we want to completely avoid them, though, so move fast but quiet. Once we power-up, crank up your compensators, it’ll cut down on that elephantlike thumping. We gotta be swift, silent and deadly. Okay, that pretty much covers it. Scouts out, follow the bouncing ball.”

  The four remaining scouts caught the grav pistols tossed to them and moved out of the door to the room, following a heads-up projection of a green will-o’-the-wisp ball, bouncing ten feet in front of them. The ball would lead them on without their having to constantly refer to a map. It was dim enough to not impair their target line and, of course, invisible to the enemy since it was a projection in their helmets. Wiznowski stopped just before exiting the maintenance area beyond their sanctum and tossed a small sensor ball into the next room. Satisfied by the take from the sensor he motioned the first scout through the door. Moving out of the maintenance area the scouts spread out through the manufacturing section beyond. Gigantic looms rose on either side, metallic forests of industry.

  Mike tapped one trooper on the arm and gestured to a general-purpose lifter abandoned in the midst of a repair project. The trooper found a faintly glowing gem which he waved aro
und triumphantly. It was passed to a third squad trooper with an energy readout blinking in distress. When the gem had been drained by the power receptacle his energy reading was still blinking, albeit slower, and the gem was dark and cold. Mike gestured and the trooper tossed him the discharged gem. If they ever found an opportunity the gem could be recharged.

  Sergeant Green made a hand gesture at the looming machinery to either side but Mike shook his head and made a wide gesture indicating that it had to be much bigger. As they progressed towards the building core they twice stopped to let randomly looting groups of Posleen pass.

  Although the platoon was hardly silent in its movement, between the suit systems and Michelle’s tap on the security systems, they were able to detect the Posleen well in advance. When they neared the power plant, Mike called a halt. The scouts fell back as the platoon dropped into a perimeter. It was time for a council of war.

  “All right, I want some opinions,” Mike said on the platoon push. They were in a large open area, another storeroom, this time for some type of large parts. The shelving loomed three stories above them, and rank on rank of structures marched away into the distance. Mike tapped a command and all the enhancements changed to Posleen Normal. The light level dropped to nearly nothing. There was a distant illumination near one end of the warehouse, probably an office or entryway. Another command bypassed the ventilation system and adjusted the hearing to normal. The ring of suits around him was totally silent, the gray camouflage skins fading into the darkness making it nearly impossible to see them. There was a faint smell of organic solvents and ozone. There was no indication of any activity in the area but it never hurt to check with normal senses. He turned his sensor suite and ventilators back on and continued.

  “I won’t say that I’ll take the advice but I will listen to it,” he continued. “We are about five minutes away from this building’s power station. We can get all the power we want there, but there are Posleen there taking it apart. It is still fully functional for our purposes but to take it means we’ll have to fight and we may attract attention.