by John Ringo
Thus, Corporal Finnegan and Private Chin wove their way through the trees as quietly as the suits would permit. This took time in the short run, and delayed any information their two-man recon team might uncover. On the other hand, dead troopers relayed no information at all, beyond the sheer fact of their deaths, recorded in blinking black on their squad leader’s heads-up display.
“This is bullshit, Corporal, purest bullshit,” observed Chin, never the least outspoken of the squad’s privates, possibly because, out of his suit, he was the shortest of the lot.
“You’re bitching just for the sake of bitching. Shut up, Private,” answered Finnegan succinctly.
Chin was not, however, considered the loudest mouth of the squad without reason. He continued his bitching, more quietly but nonstop, right up until popping his head over a ridge overlooking a small, river-fed valley below.
“Stupid fucking bullshit, is what it is. Why I ever joined this outfit — ”
“Chin? What’s wrong, Chin?” asked Finnegan.
For a worrisome moment, the private said nothing. When he did it was simply to say, in stunned surprise, “Corporal, you need to see this.”
Railing softly about pain in the ass rankers, Finnegan bounded over, weaving around the trees, until he stood beside the private, his head sticking just over the rise.
“Oh, shit,” the corporal said quietly.
In the valley below, thousands upon thousands of them, so thick that Finnegan couldn’t even see the ground, the Posleen host was rising to its feet, the tenar-riding God Kings pointing and gesturing to the pair of ACS troopers.
Even as the first railgun rounds began to chew the ground and trees around them, Finnegan ordered, “RUNNN!”
Remedios, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama
Connors went instantly white, no mean feat given the amount of sunbathing he had done in the months before the Posleen landed. He didn’t have to inform Suarez what Finnegan and Chin had found. The suit’s communicator squawked loudly enough for the colonel to hear for himself.
“Posleen… zillions of ’em… in the valley at Objective Robin… we’re running… they’re pursuing… shit! Chin’s down.”
Another voice: “It ain’t just Finnegan, Boss. We got us about forty thousand of the bastards at Objective Tiger.”
Another voice: “Can’t run, Cap’n Connors. We’re pinned. I can’t tell you how many. More’n… aiiiii!”
Another voice… another voice… another voice.
Connors looked up at Suarez, standing in the hatch of his track. You’re the chief, Colonel. What the fuck are we gonna do?
In response Suarez held up his radio’s microphone; nothing but static and occasional broken up syllables.
“I can rebroadcast,” Connors offered.
“Can you fit inside the track so I can show you on the map?” Suarez asked.
“Not necessary, sir,” answered Connors as his AID enhanced suit again projected a map between them. “All my people can see the same image.”
“They can all see it? Nice. Okay, Captain, we’ve got no normal commo so everything is going to go from me, through your suit, to your people and then to mine. This is what I want.”
Suarez’s finger began to trace out a circle into which his half scattered battalions would fall and hold… or in which they would die. If asked, Suarez would have bet on “die.”
“Oh, God, I don’t want to die!” was Cortez’s first voiced thought as he saw the wave of centaurs cresting the high ground to the north. It was fortunate that his radio, like everyone else’s, couldn’t send or receive. The only thing holding the 1st Division’s cohesion together at all was the fact that none of his subordinates could hear their commander.
A nearby light tank company, Cortez’s personal escort, turned into the coming storm, flailing away with machine guns and canister. For an all too brief moment it looked like they might hold. And then railgun fire began to chew through the thin Chinese-built armor. By ones and twos the tanks began to brew up as their crews were cut to ribbons and railgun fleshettes set alight their on-board ammunition and fuel.
“Turn around! Turn around!” Cortez shrieked at his driver.
The driver obeyed, pivot steering the Type-63 one hundred and eighty degrees to the south, then gunning the engine to race away, trailing a cloud of thick, nasty diesel smoke behind.
Cortez’s eyes remained fixed to the north where the Posleen wave lapped over a mixed column of trucks and artillery. The gunners, he saw, were struggling to free their guns and fire even as the wave swept over them and cut them down.
A medical unit, two thirds female as Cortez could well see, was the next to go under. The men of the unit attempted to make a stand to cover the retreat of the women. Without machine guns, or even more than a few rifles, the men went under quickly. The Posleen then pursued the women, chopping the poor screaming wretches down from behind and then stopping to butcher their bodies and feast before continuing the pursuit.
Cortez felt nothing at that, despite having used his position more than once to bed some of the women of that unit. They had been, after all, just office and peasant girls, not women of class and breeding; not anyone who mattered.
A man would have turned and died then, to protect the women. Cortez simply urged his driver to move faster.
* * *
Julio Diaz cursed that his glider could not move any faster. On only his second actual combat mission Diaz already had begun to feel like a war-weary veteran. One thing was different about this mission from the previous day’s; his radio worked perfectly.
And everyone else’s was in electronic bedlam; those, anyway, that Diaz could not see stretched out, butchered and lifeless, below. They were hard to see, too, because Panama’s normally emerald grass was tinted red across half a kilometer to either side of the Inter-American highway.
This was awful beyond words, even awful beyond thought; fifteen or twenty thousand of his countrymen, and women, massacred, rendered and eaten. Clusters of Posleen, some of them numbering in the thousands, walked among the dead, hewing a head here, splitting a femur there. Crossing himself, Julio thanked the Almighty, above, that the aliens continued to ignore him.
God did not or would not save him from everything. Despite having an empty stomach from once again, embarrassingly, having to vomit during his launch, Diaz needed to puke again. Only the fact that he was above the smell of slaughter saved him from that.
Still cruising while slowly sinking, without units to spot for, Diaz didn’t even think to call for support from the cruiser that had blessedly answered him the day before. Sure, he could have killed Posleen, and that might have satisfied his urge for revenge. But revenge was a thin soup, faced with the enormity of the slaughter.
Despite the barren feeling of hopelessness, Diaz continued to fly westward. When he returned to base, if he returned, his father would need to know the extent of the disaster.
To his right the sun was sinking. Even as it sank, Cortez’s hopes began to rise. His tank was amphibious. With any luck he would soon reach the sea and could set out on that, safely towards home.
With all the fearful paranoia of a hunted fox, Cortez had guided his tank and crew from the scenes of slaughter. Several times, when the pounding of alien claws on the earth had warned him of an approaching horde, he had ordered his tank into low ground, dense Kunai grass or copses of thick standing trees. His luck had held. While groups of refugees and even the occasional fragment of a cohesive unit had fallen all around him, the aliens had never noticed or, if noticing, cared enough to actually seek him out. He supposed they must have had enough to eat.
While opening his own bag of gringo-supplied combat rations, Cortez began to contemplate the future. He was facing a court-martial, he knew. Last time he had deserted a command, in 1989, he had been fortunate that his government had followed its army into extinction quickly. This time he could not hope for such a boon. His government and army would survive this debacle long enough for hi
m to see the inside of a courtroom and the pockmarked wall before the firing squad. His uncle, the president, would clearly toss him to the wolves.
Worse, his driver, loader and gunner would be the star witnesses at his court-martial. They had the defense of superior orders, at least. He had only his own will to live, no matter what.
Can I count on Uncle Guillermo to quash any charges? Only two possibilities: either the country and the government falls, in which case there’ll be nothing to quash, or they somehow manage to establish a defensive line, in which case there will.
Okay, let’s assume there is still a country. It was Uncle’s order that sent my division to the west. They’ll be howling for his blood… so he’ll give them mine. And these three crewman will testify against me. They have to go. But I need them for now to get me out of here, so they cannot go just yet.
Once we’re at sea, then, I can dispose of them… but how to do it? Shoot them? Tough to do and the driver, in particular might escape. Sink the tank? Also hard to do and, what’s more, I don’t want to get sucked down with it.
Aha! I know. When we get close to land I’ll get out, as if to wave for help, then drop a couple of grenades into the turret. Grenades leave little trace even if they should somehow recover the tank.
My story? Let’s see. I had gotten out of the tank just as we approached land to get a better view. After all, the land has become unsafe and I had to watch out for the crew’s welfare. Suddenly — “I don’t know how” — the tank caught fire and blew up. I was thrown overboard. My life vest must have kept me afloat. When I awakened the tank was gone. I drifted for a while, then when I got close enough to land I swam for it.
Okay… that’s plausible and there’ll be no one left to contradict my story. Uncle can press the charges and then have them dropped for lack of evidence.
* * *
The setting sun cast its fiery light directly into Diaz’s eyes. He couldn’t see a thing ahead of him. He knew there was no sense in pressing on, yet felt he had to. The Estado Major, the general staff, had to learn the full extent of the disaster.
Diaz continued on, pulling to the right occasionally to catch and spiral higher in one of the mountain-directed updrafts. Sometimes, during those altitude gaining spirals, he could see yet more of the refuse of the massacre. He forced himself to look, despite the nausea it induced.
Finally, with the last rays of the setting sun painting the waves of the Pacific, and with the last known forward position of the 6th Division behind him, he turned one hundred and eighty degree and began to glide back to the east, to the base at Rio Hato.
It was chance then, chance that the sun had set at that precise moment, chance that he was looking in that precise direction, chance that someone on the ground fired human weapons in precisely Diaz’s field of view.
Unmistakable. Someone down there is still fighting. I’ve got to help.
In order to help though, Diaz needed to see more, understand more. He began a slow, lazy three-sixty. As he did he caught more flashes of rifles, machine guns, and cannon. The flashes seemed to form a broad circle.
“Christ!” the boy exclaimed. “They’re still hanging on down there. I’ve got to help.”
Suarez, aided by the communications array of the ACS, had only just managed to form a half circle facing north when the first wave of Posleen hit. The Posleen may have been more surprised at the resistance than the humans had been at the grand scale ambush, since their advance guards stopped and then recoiled at the sudden and unexpected wave of fire that met them.
The Posleen, however stupid they were in the main, were also a species quick to form and quick to react. The human defenders had a few brief minutes of respite before a more serious attack was thrown in. This was not repulsed so easily; Suarez actually had to throw in Connors and his ACS company before the attack was contained.
After that the attack in the north petered out into minor probes and sniping while the bulk of the aliens split east and west to find the vulnerable flank they were sure had to be there. For Suarez and his boys it became a race against time to form a full perimeter before the enemy turned one or both flanks. Cooks and clerks found themselves in the firing line, along with medics hastily armed with the rifles of the fallen. Still, by nightfall a perimeter, more or less cohesive, had been formed.
I couldn’t have even done that without the gringos and their armored suits, Suarez thought.
For his part, Connors, resting for the moment with his back against Suarez’s track, thought, Thank God this colonel knew what the fuck he was doing. Another man and we’d have been dead and peeled like lobsters already.
Simultaneously, both men had much the same thought, which went something like, Not that it much matters. We’re hopelessly cut off out here, no chance of relief or support. We’ll live until the ammo runs low or the fuel runs out or the power dies in the suits and then we’ll die anyway. Tonight, maybe at the latest mid-day tomorrow, and it’ll all be over but the munching.
Even as he finished that shared thought, Connors suddenly sat upright. Clearly and distinctly, through his suits communicator, he heard a Spanish voice, “Any station, any station, this is Lima Two Seven.”
“Lima Two Seven this is Romeo Five Five. Who the fuck are you? What the fuck are you?”
Diaz nearly whooped with joy. “Romeo, I am a glider. If you look carefully you might be able to see me overhead. How can I help?”
The answering voice sounded resigned, “You got a couple of nukes, Lima? Because short of that, I doubt there is much you can do to help us.”
Julio thought for a moment, then answered, “No nukes, Romeo, but I might be able to get something nearly as good. Wait, over… Daisy? Daisy? This is Julio. I need your help, Dama.”
USS Des Moines
Dammit, it had hurt to have had to run away; it had shamed. Daisy had seen Sally back to the cover of the mixed Planetary Defense Base cum anti-lander batteries on the Isla del Rey before turning back to the west. Unfortunately, by the time she had gotten within lunging range at the enemy, there was no one to talk to. Thus, impotent and infuriated, she had steamed south of the isthmus — to and fro, east and west — looking and hoping for a target.
Thus it was that, unconcealed glee in her voice, Daisy announced to McNair, “I’ve got us a ripe one, Skipper.”
McNair, still smarting over the loss of Texas, didn’t hesitate. “Bring us around.” His finger pushed a button. “All hands, this is the captain. Battle stations.”
“Julio, we’re coming,” the ship said.
Remedios, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama
“It’s neither as good nor as easy as it sounds, sir,” Diaz cautioned over the radio. “I wish I could connect you directly with the ship, but I can’t. If I could, you could direct the fires. As is… well, sir, the ship can toss a huge amount of firepower, and it’s unbelievably accurate, but only along the gun-target line. Anywhere from one third to one half of the shells will be over or under and some of them will be way over or under. If you have troops over or under the target…”
Chingada, Suarez thought. Fat lot of good it does me to blast the aliens if the same fire blasts holes in my own perimeter. The Posleen will recover quicker.
Suarez thought furiously while looking at his map. The ship was going to fire from the Gulf of Montijo, from a position just north of Isla Cebaco. What Diaz had told him meant that he could get effective fire to his east and west, but could not use the ship’s guns to help him break contact north and south.
“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?”
I
t 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.”
