by John Ringo
Morgen entered with Daisy and immediately footpadded over and began stropping McNair's legs. The skipper bent over and picked the cat up, asking, "Who let you in here, Furball?"
Davis said, "I'll take the cat, Skip—" and stopped cold. He, too, had a hard time believing the vision before his eyes. Father Dwyer was the only man present not surprised. But, then again, he was the ship's confessor.
McNair followed Davis' stunned gaze completely around and . . .
Daisy held a finger to her lips. Shhhhh. One warm hand, made of honest to God girlflesh, reached up and softly stroked his cheek. Her eyes sought his out, asking the question desperately, Do you like what you see, Captain? Did I do right? Seeing the skipper's shock, Daisy decided to press the issue. She tilted her head, parted her lips, and raised one foot behind her as she melted into her captain.
Even before the probing tongue McNair was conscious of the encircling arms. Even before that, he felt the pressure of two perfect breasts. It was the breasts, actually, pressing his chest but felt all through his body, that first grabbed his mind; grabbed it, and turned it completely to mush.
Unconscious of the crew of the CIC, McNair's hands began to act on autopilot, one beginning to reach up to cup a breast, the other down to give this incredible woman's ass a more than friendly squeeze.
And then Father Dwyer gave a small "Harumph," and McNair backed off. Moving his arms from her back to her shoulders and holding her firmly, McNair stared in wonder and bewilderment at the woman. Looking into Daisy's eyes for answers as desperately as she had looked into his own, the captain's mouth began to form "How?" when Daisy shushed him with a finger. Then a little electronically projected voice whispered into the ear of the very thoroughly kissed McNair, and no other, "I've had ten thousand men inside me, Captain, and I am still a virgin. Even so, when next I lay down on your bed, Captain, my love, it won't be as a hologram."
Sante Fe, Veraguas Province, Republic of Panama
There was no way to have face to face contact and still be heard over the rushing roar of twenty-four guns and ninety-six multiple rocket launchers firing continuously from all around. Snyder had his commanders and staff doff ACS helmets for a moment, if only to read their faces and gauge their morale after their long sleep. Perhaps, too, he wanted them to see his own, to realize that while he had gone almost mad while waiting, the key word was "almost."
He had intended to give his final orders that way, helmets off. After so long a confinement, if there was anything Snyder wanted less than to wear his helmet he couldn't think what it was. But the noise, the never ending, mind deadening Kakakaboomoomoom, made it impossible. Therefore, reluctantly, Snyder ordered his commanders and key staff back into full armor.
"It's really simple," the commander of the First of the O-Eighth said, using a marking laser integral to the right index finger of his command suit to mark out the battlefield as his AID projected a hologram onto the ground.
"The Panamanian artillery is not going to blast us a completely empty hole. Their job is to stun, disrupt, and open up little tactical gaps we can use. That's key, people; there will be Posleen down there when we come out of this valley and off these mountains. Some of them may, and probably will, still be in shape to fight. Even saying that, though, the locals are throwing eighty-thousand rockets and I-don't-know-exactly how much cannon fire down on their old San Pedro Line. There are going to be places where the Posties have been scoured off the surface of the Earth. And there are going to be places where they're ready to rock and roll."
"Recon?" Snyder waited to make sure he had the Scout Platoon leader's complete attention. "You're leading the way. Your job is to find the places where the horsies are strong and to identify the weak points. Don't get wrapped up in a fire fight. Find the spots, go low, and move on. You understand?"
The Scout Platoon leader nodded, answering, "Roger, sir."
"B Company," Snyder said, looking at Connors. "Your job is to clean up just enough of the Posleen strong points remaining after the artillery prep that Alpha and the Twentieth Mechanized Infantry—less one battalion that is staying here to defend the artillery—can pass easy to the east side of the river. When you've got a path cleared, you will hold the shoulders of it and pass Alpha and the mech along it. Once they are past, you will move on, seal the gap you created behind you, dig in facing mostly west—but be prepared to be attacked from any direction—and hang on for dear life."
Though it was difficult, Connors tried to tear his thoughts away from Marielena and their baby. Yes, she had sent him an e-mail with the news, which e-mail he had opened first thing after awakening. The second thing he had done was register a standard Galactic will naming his new offspring and the child's mother as his heirs. Thirdly, he had sent Marielena another e-mail that said, simply, "If I come out of this, the first thing we do is get married, right?"
He hadn't gotten an answer on that as of yet. Well, the day was early and likely to prove long.
"Fuck later, Connors. Pay attention, Goddammit. A man who won't fuck won't fight but a man who is thinking about fucking too much won't fight either. And he's likely to get killed."
Softly, Scott answered, "I wasn't thinking about fucking, sir . . . well, not exactly. Sorry. But I am going to be a daddy in about eight and a half months."
Never slow, Snyder responded, "And a man who is thinking about being a daddy is altogether too likely to get his ass lunched."
"Yessir. Sorry, sir.
"Okay, now—since you were in the never-never land of prospective daddydom—tell me back your orders."
Connors did.
"Okay, so you were paying attention with at least half an ear. Alpha Company . . ."
The steady drum fire of the artillery was almost as bad in the command bunker as it was out in the open. Dust, driven by the sound, leaked down through the spaces left in the dirt-covered logs causing operations and communications personnel to cough and sneeze.
"Your women are starting to become tired, Coronel Mirandova." The Russian's eyes were red from the dust . . . and the smoke of the flaming rockets being launched all around.
"I know that, Alexandrov," Digna answered. "That's why I waited on the music. But you're right; the time is now." Digna looked at one of her regiment's attachments, a PSYOP—or Psychological Operations—sort. "Hit it, Sergeant!"
Outside, louder even than the rockets, there came a sound of cold speakers being warmed by a sudden surge of juice.
Down in the rocket pits, half choking from the rocket's exhaust, the crews heard the static and stopped for a moment before being tongue-lashed back to work by their sergeants. They stopped again when they heard the music, drums first, followed by a fuller band. And then Pat Benatar's unique voice, in English, which few of them understood, though they understood the song well enough:
This bloody road remains a mystery
The sudden darkness fills the air.
What are we waitin' for?
Won't anybody help us?
What are we waitin' for?
They understood that, enough of them. Sergeants didn't need to berate them back into the drill. The women of Digna's command went on their own, a touch faster than they had been.
We can't afford to be innocent.
Stand up and face the enemy.
It's a do or die situation.
We will be invincible . . ."
Except that on that last line, several thousand women, many of them with children hidden in bunkers not all that far to the rear, raised their right hands in fists and sang, louder than the speakers:
"SEREMOS INVINCIBLES!"
Nata Kill Zone
He had seen orna'adar not once, but many times. He had seen the mushroom clouds of the major weapons, antimatter and nuclear both. He had seen planets kinetically bombarded from space and ships splintered in the same medium.
Binastarion had seen much devastation. He had never seen or felt a more personal and complete devastation than that engulfing his clan.
There seemed to be a pattern to the barrage. At one end, at the western edge, it was a solid wall of fire that never seemed to let up. Between that, and the farthest point of Posleen penetration to the east, another wall, this one a moving wall, played back and forth. Those were obvious. What was less obvious was the pattern inside. Shell fire pounded one area for a while, then moved on to another. Some areas took it worse than others. And in some areas it never let up at all.
Frustrated, enraged, Binastarion pounded the controls of his tenar. He couldn't even get forward far enough to try to direct his People out. Leaderless, trapped in that hellish maelstrom, they cried out to him.
Worst of all were the cries of those who burned. After a short time of the explosive fire, the threshkreen seemed to switch over about half their guns to firing what his AS identified as a type of phosphorus. This hit the ground and cast flaming, white-smoking chunks in all directions. The People touched by the flame, normals mostly though junior Kessentai were also hit, shrieked and begged and cried pitiably for aid that could not be given. Even Binastarion, himself, had no clue about how to douse the fire that scorned water.
Amazingly, a lone figure struggled and staggered out from the threshkreen made hell. Binastarion swooped low to look, to help if possible. The poor thing's face was burned beyond recognition. Entrails dragged along the ground behind it, picking up their due of dirt and vegetation. The creature trembled uncontrollably. It took a second look before Binastarion recognized the remnants of the crest that said this shambling obscenity was even a Kessentai.
Binastarion raised his railgun to put the poor God King out of its misery. "We are a hard and a harsh people," he wailed, "but we are not a cruel species. This . . . this is disgusting . . . cruel . . . obscene. Demons, I hate humans." A single shot put the disemboweled, burnt and bloody creature out of its misery.
"That isn't the worst of it, Binastarion," his AS said. "I have calculated the sheer volume of phosphorus the threshkreen are using. It is enough to burn up all the oxygen in the area under fire to a considerable height. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem, in itself. The hot air would rise and pull in fresh. But there is a temperature inversion building. Cold air above will trap warm air without oxygen below. Our People are going to suffocate. And there isn't anything we can do."
Interlude
Guanamarioch moved as quickly and quietly as the slippery, muddy jungle trail would permit. His AS told him that there was a moon tonight. If so, the God King could not tell; the jungle overhead was too thick to allow anything so weak as mere moonlight to penetrate.
Posleen night vision was excellent. Even so, it required at least some light. There could have been light, too, except that over the past several nights any normal or cosslain who had carried a light had suddenly sprouted one of the nasty threshkreen arrows. He'd lost seven normals and a cosslain that way. Better to go it in the dark, by feel.
Step . . . slip . . . catch your balance by a vine . . . step . . . slip . . . catch your—
"Yeooow!"
The God King pulled his hand away from some round creature that grew spikes in bands around it. The spikes came away from their attacker easily; they were barbed and lodged deep in the Kessentai's hand. Still cursing, with the other hand he drew a boma blade and hacked down and across. The spiked creature fell, dead apparently.
Curiously, Guano detected no thrashing at all. It must have died instantly. He replaced the blade in its sheath and began pulling the spikes out of his hand. Yeoow . . . yeoow . . . yeoow . . . Ouch! He sensed that the spikes were leaving residue behind. The wounds in his hand hurt terribly.
The God King moved on. Suddenly, before he felt it, he sensed a mass of the creatures standing ahead, as if ready to fight him. Again he drew his boma blade, edging forward. He hissed and snarled, grunting and whistling curses at this new enemy.
The blade waved. He felt the slightest resistance as it passed through the body of one of the enemy. The body began to topple, towards the God King. Hastily he backed up . . .
Right onto a pack of the vile, treacherous creatures that had apparently snuck in behind him. Guanamarioch received an assfull of spikes. "Yeoow!" he cursed as pain propelled him forward again . . .
Right into the embracing claws of his enemy. More spikes entered the young God King's tender flesh, right through the scales. He flailed around with his blade, severing the assassins where they stood. Their bodies fell on him.
Yes . . . more spikes.
Beaten down, punctured in a thousand places, the God King sank to earth still fighting. He was still trying his best to resist when pain, fatigue, and the hunger that had been his near constant companion the last several weeks, forced him from consciousness.
Ziramoth did not know what to make of the pile of freshly cut foliage with sharp defensive spikes all around. He was looking for his friend, Guanamarioch, whose oolt had set up a perimeter from which they guarded and within which they keened for the absence of their lord.
Then the pile moved . . . and groaned . . . and said, "I'll kill you all, you bastards!"
"Guano?"
"Zira? Is that you? Have the demons taken you to the afterlife as well?"
"Guano, you're not dead. Trust me in this."
"Yes I am, dead and in Hell. Trust me in this."
Ziramoth shook his head and began to gingerly pull away the pile under which he was pretty sure his friend lay. Sometimes, the pile shrieked as the plant trunks rolled about. When he was finished, Zira backed off and said, "You can stand up now, Guano."
Carefully, and perhaps reluctantly, the Kessentai stood. Zira whistled and shook his head slowly, and half in despair.
Guanamarioch, Junior Kessentai and flyer among the stars, had, at a rough estimate, some thirteen hundred black vegetable spikes buried in his skin. His eyes were shut from swelling where the spikes had irritated the flesh. He had the things in his nostrils. The folds of skin between his claws were laced with them. He even sported several that had worked their way through the bandages around his reproductive member to lodge in the sensitive meat below.
"I hate this fucking place," the God King sniffled.
Chapter 33
The hardest thing for a soldier is to retreat.
—Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington
Nata Kill Zone
"What can we save?" Binastarion asked his Artificial Sentience.
"Not much," the device answered. "There are a few hundred thousand of the People—some with their Kessentai, others without—stretched back to the first line we broke through. Some of the
normals in that kill zone are dribbling out, though they're in no shape to actually fight. A lot of the tenar-riding Kessentai, several thousand anyway, could get out before they suffocate if they abandon their ooltos now. The junior Kessentai, dismounted as they are, are going to die, burnt or blasted or asphyxiated."
The AS continued, "Then too, we still have a decent population in that area we took on first landing, the one the local thresh call 'Chiriqui.' If we could escape with one in four of the People we would have a chance, some chance anyway, of escaping this world before it and the clan are destroyed in orna'adar."
Binastarion buried his face and muzzle in his claws. There was something . . . some way . . . if he could just grasp hold of it. What was . . .
"Aha!" he shouted aloud. "Every tenar could take two. A few of the better could take three or even four. Pass to my subordinates that they are to extract dismounted Kessentai and cosslain before leaving but that they are to leave. They must abandon the normals to delay the enemy and die. We will assemble . . . show me a map, AS. Ah. Yes, there." Binastarion's claw touched a spot on the holographic map corresponding to the remains of the town of Santiago. "We will assemble there. Tell them they can have my blood, according to the Law, after we escape but that until then I remain in command."
"I will tell them, Binastarion."
San Pedro Line, Republic of Panama
The Posleen we
re mostly extinct along the axis of advance. Of those that lived, the bulk were masterless, trembling wrecks. B Company, in the lead of First of the O-Eighth, shot them down instantly and without compunction.
It became a little tougher once they reached the minefields on the western side of the river. The mines were not an issue; they'd been modified according to the plan of an otherwise obscure American mechanic and electronically blown even before the ACS started to cross. No, the problem came in when it was discovered that there were some still cohesive groups of Posleen on the other side of the river. It cost Connors half a dozen troopers to root these out from their holes. Rather, they'd had to be rooted out of the holes the Panamanians had dug earlier.
