Hell's Faire

by John Ringo

  "It won't be," Cally said, quietly. "I'll make sure of that Shari. I promise."

  "I've had lots of promises in my life." The woman sighed again. "I know you'll try. That's not the same thing as succeeding."

  "And victory doesn't always mean you survive," Cally said with a shrug. "I'll get it done."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Here's health to you and to our Corps

  Which we are proud to serve;

  In many a strife we've fought for life

  And never lost our nerve;

  If the Army and the Navy

  Ever look on Heaven's scenes;

  They will find the streets are guarded by

  UNITED STATES MARINES.

  —Marine Hymn

  Rabun Gap, GA, United States of America, Sol III

  1453 EDT Monday September 28, 2009 AD

  Gunny Pappas slid into the fighting position and looked around. The front of the position was partially dug away where a lucky HVM round had taken out the trooper who had dug the pit. The trooper's armor was somewhere to the rear, piled into a hole with the rest of the luckless troopers who had died this day.

  Pappas didn't think he'd make it to the pit.

  "Battalion, mass fire."

  The Posleen were still pouring through the narrow gap but at a slower pace and the battalion had reduced fire to conserve ammunition and power. But now every rifle on the line opened up with a full weight of fire, filling the narrow pass with lines of silver.

  The Posleen had already built a wall of their dead, towering man high in places, over which they struggled to get to grips with the awful suits. They had also been nibbling at it from behind, dragging out functioning weapons and tearing out bits of flesh to deliver to the waiting forces as rations. Now they quit in those efforts as it became obvious something was happening and every Posleen in reach began scrambling over the mound, trying to drive forward to the line of suits.

  The ACS was having none of it. The lines of silver picked out the God Kings and then swept from side to side across their assigned sectors, wiping the line from the top of the mound and adding to it as the dismembered bodies of the aliens scattered to lie amongst their brethren.

  As the assault faltered again, Pappas heard the second command.

  "Mobile personnel, retreat and regroup."

  Pappas slid another magazine in his weapon and continued fire as the green dots of the retreating group moved backward on the tactical schematic. They moved fast, leaping out of their holes and running in quick, low leaps to the rear. But despite that, and despite the fire of the fifteen troopers still remaining on the line, he saw one suit go red. Then two, five. That was the last, though, as the remainder of the battalion made it around the curve of the mountain and disappeared off his screen.

  The Posleen had not been idle. The forces backed up behind the wall of flesh, at the first cries that the suits were retreating, redoubled their efforts to close with the battalion, scrambling over the mound and through the lower patches.

  They were met with fire but not enough. Despite the interlocking fires of the remaining suits, some of the Posleen drove forward, then more and more.

  "Hmm, da dum," Pappas muttered, pulling another magazine out and slipping it into the well as the empty dropped out. "If the Army and the Navy, ever look on heaven's scene . . ." The Posleen were pushing forward hard; a solid block of them were across the wall of bodies. Most of them had dispensed with shotguns and railguns and missile launchers and were dragging out their boma blades even as the fire of the remaining suits piled up windrows of bodies. But each windrow was closer and closer. Fifty meters, thirty, ten, five.

  "If the Army and the Navy ever look on Heaven's scene," he half hummed, half sang as the first normal reached his hole. He blew it apart with a blast of silver fire, but there was another and then another behind it, all around, and his magazine dropped out. " . . . they will find the streets are guarded, by United States Marines."

  * * *

  Tommy had managed to get Wendy aside for a moment as the two Reapers assembled the boxes on the top of the hill. It had required, among other things, climbing around the shoulder of the ridge. But with the preparations to carry the gear over to Black Rock Mountain well underway, he could take a moment of private time.

  He ended up carrying Wendy the last few meters as the side of the mountain got vertical; with ample power he could apply his full anti-grav system and simply fly around the precipice.

  "Now that was exciting," she said as they landed on a relatively flat patch. It was a narrow ledge, mostly granite with some moss and twisted saplings growing out of the rocks. Under the rising moon it was an inhospitable and airy place that seemed to speak of sylphs and elementals, a place where lichen struggled to grab a gray foothold.

  "So, Superman, what's the big secret?"

  "Not a secret, really," he said, taking off his helmet so he could see her with his own eyes. "It's just . . . we don't have much more time." He paused and looked to the south. There was a strong, cold breeze from the north and their aerie was exposed to it, but he still could hear occasional sounds from the Gap where the Posleen hordes were pouring through. "When we go back . . . there's not going to be much we can really do. Just . . . dig in and hold on. And there's not anything really coming that's going to get here . . ."

  "So you're saying that when you go, you're not coming back?" Wendy asked pushing her hair back behind her ear. The wind was hitting the ledge and being deflected upwards. The zephyrs yanked her blond hair back out from where she had futilely tucked it and streamed it out and upwards.

  "I . . . I think so, sweet." Tommy toggled on a white light and looked her in the eye. Her eyes were a deep, magnetic blue. It had been so long he'd almost forgotten how blue. "It's been bad before. And there was always the chance of catching a round. But this time . . ."

  "So you brought me here to tell me you're going to leave me?" she asked, quietly, stroking his face again. The suit undergel took care of all personal hygiene needs, including depilation. His chin was normally rough with a beard; he had to shave twice a day. But under the care of the suit it was as smooth as a baby's.

  "Maybe, a little," he answered. "And . . . you know we're in a rush. We don't have much time. But . . ."

  "Tommy?" she said, pulling her shirt over her head and starting to undo her bra. "Shut up and get that goddamned armor off."

  * * *

  Mosovich tried not to smile as the lieutenant and his "lady" joined them on the hilltop; if he'd had the opportunity he probably would have taken it as well.

  "Well, Lieutenant, nice to see you back," Mueller said with a chuckle.

  Tommy had the grace to look a bit shamefaced but Wendy just smiled languidly. "I guess it's time to port and carry, huh? I hope we can rig it so it doesn't hit my bruises."

  Mueller coughed as Shari chuckled wickedly. "That sounds like a self-inflicted wound to me."

  "Oh, it took two," Wendy said with a wink.

  "If we're ready to leave," Sunday said, looking at the boxes, then at McEvoy. "Time to load up."

  He lifted one of the boxes onto the side of the Reaper's suit and locked it in place with a gravity clamp, then added one to the other side. It took a moment to figure out but he finally found a place to add a third, and that seemed about the maximum that would fit. He did the same with Pickersgill then had them load him up with one of the power packs, an ammo box and the weapons box, now covered in cloth. Finally the three suits were ready, looking very much like some odd species of worm that preferred to camouflage itself in boxes.

  With difficulty Tommy and the Reapers helped the unarmored group to each load up a box. The cases were heavy, running nearly a hundred and fifty pounds, and didn't have carrying straps. But by strapping them onto empty rucksack frames they finally got them on their backs. They were terribly unwieldy, but marginally portable.

  "Let's go," Elgars said, leaning forward to try to get the box balanced.

  "Take care of
the kids," Shari said, shifting the weight to try to get it comfortable. But, really, there was no way to do that; she could feel the straps cutting into her back, and her legs already felt wobbly.

  "I will," Cally said, looking over at Wendy and Tommy. "You guys take care, okay?"

  "We will," Mosovich said. "Keep your head down."

  "Will do."

  Sunday looked around at the group, then at Elgars. "Captain, if you're ready."

  "Cally, get back to the cache," Elgars said. "Let's move out."

  With that she took a step down the trail, placing her feet carefully. One slip with these damned boxes on their backs and they'd end up in a broken pile of bones.

  "I remember filling this out on my list of future employment," Mosovich said, shifting the weight again and trying to move his AIW into a better position.

  "What's that?" Mueller asked. Of all the group he was the one who seemed the least bothered by the weight.

  "Sherpa," the sergeant major said with a laugh. "I always wanted to tote somebody else's luggage over hill and dale."

  "You know, there's got to be a better way to run a war," Mueller said.

  * * *

  Dr. Miguel "Mickey" Castanuelo was a fanatic.

  Miguel A. Castanuelo had first seen the United States from the bow of a pitching, overloaded boat. And if there was anything more lovely than that faint shred of land of the horizon, it was the Coast Guard cutter that had appeared just as it seemed the leaky boat was finally going to sink.

  The boat was one of the last "official" refugee boats from Castro's Cuba; within a month all transport would be forbidden. Miguel's father, Jose Castanuelo, was a medical doctor who was the victim of one of the favorite post-revolution games: catch the Batistist.

  Dr. Jose Castanuelo had not been involved in the Batista government. But when a colleague fingered him as a Batistist, he knew it was only a matter of time until he would be incarcerated in a "reeducation camp." Instead, he took his family out on a rickety boat towards freedom.

  However, a degree of doctoral medicine in Cuba was nothing more than an interesting piece of paper in the United States. Jose never let that stop him, though. He found a sponsoring family in Atlanta, Georgia, and moved his family there. Then he and his wife, who was from a prominent family and had never before known a day of real work in her life, found jobs in a restaurant. He went to night school at Georgia State University and then Emory while his children, though donations from the parish, attended first Christ the King Elementary School and then Pope Pius X High School.

  In time, Jose graduated from Emory (cum laude) in a pre-med track and entered medical school. After the first year his professors determined that what they had in their midst was not a student, but a very knowledgeable colleague who was stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare. The rest of med school was remarkably smooth. He attained his (second) doctor of medicine degree, stayed at Emory and eventually became a full professor. His wife, in the meantime, had opened a prominent and successful Cuban restaurant. Their combined income had finally caught back up to what they had lost nearly ten years before.

  Miguel Castanuelo, in the meantime, had become totally Americanized. The Hispanic community in Atlanta in the 1960s and '70s was infinitesimal and his father had no intention of raising his child as a "separate but equal" citizen. Miguel quickly became Mickey, using Spanish rarely at home and never in public. He played American football and was indistinguishable from the Chads and Tommies and Blakes around him, until an announcer had to try to pronounce his last name. But his senior year at St. Pius, it had become a game. Whenever the announcer at some away game stumbled, the entire Pius side would resound: "Cast-a-new-Way!-lo!"

  He had decided that on graduation he would enter the Army, much to the dismay of his parents. But Mickey had become more than Americanized, he was a fervent patriot. He knew that everything in life that really mattered was represented by that Coast Guard cutter that had risked stormy seas to save him and his family, by the sponsorship families who had welcomed them with open arms and the society that had let his father have that all-too-rare second chance. He felt that he had to give something back. And if that meant a tour in the Army before he went to college, so be it.

  However, in his junior year of high school, a father of one of his classmates made a presentation to the physics class. The father was a senior officer in the United States Navy, stationed at the eminently land-locked Georgia Institute of Technology. What the father discussed was the opportunities open to bright young men (and women) who would be willing to give a few years to the U.S. Navy. The Navy was always desperate for anyone who could pass the rigorous academic challenges involved in nuclear power generation. And Georgia Tech had one of the premier schools in that subject. The Navy would pay for the education of eligible men (and women) who were willing to give six years of their life to the Navy.

  Miguel practically broke an arm signing up.

  He was easily accepted at Georgia Tech since his SAT score had been 1527 and his GPA was 3.98 (he'd gotten a B in Latin one year) and graduated in four years with a BS in Nuclear Power Generation. He then went to the Navy's nuclear power school "where we'll really teach you about generation" and then into service with the active fleet, working in nuclear "boomers," where he developed his long-term love of elaborate practical jokes.

  Unfortunately, after one tour of duty he was beached with a previously undetected heart murmur. Unsure what to do with himself, he went back to Georgia Tech and got the rest of a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. From there he went to the Department of Energy, but at Tech the second time his focus had changed from generation technology to weapons tech.

  He ended up at Oak Ridge, which was no longer in the weapons building business but was involved in basic research. From Oak Ridge he moved to the University of Tennessee, to which he officially transferred his football allegiance when Georgia Tech started a business school. UT was pretty much right next door and had a long and fruitful revolving door policy with the government facility. He then spent a decade cycling from one facility to the other, with his theoretical research becoming more and more esoteric over time. Or so, at least, it seemed.

  When the news of the Posleen invasion had come, he thought he was going to be going back into a blue suit; the conditions of space-board battle were similar enough to subs that submariners were at a premium in the Fleet. Instead, he had stayed at the University and Oak Ridge because it was there he could make the greater contribution. Because the "theoretical" research he had been involved in at Oak Ridge was the manufacture, capture and management of antimatter.

  Mickey was just a tad on the "Green" side. He recognized that fossil fuels were both limited and an environmental nightmare. Not so much from the much overblown "greenhouse effect," which was clearly junk science, but from the extraction and distribution end. Not to mention traffic of which Knoxville, Tennessee, had more than its fair share. But he also was a realist and knew that to replace fossil fuels you had to have something equivalent or better. Petroleum, at its theoretical base, was a means of transporting energy. Hundreds of millions of years before, tiny marine algae (not dinosaurs) had gathered the energy of the sun and then died. They were overlaid with limestone and compressed, resulting in petroleum. It was relatively easy and cheap to extract and transport.

  From Mickey's perspective, the only viable answer was antimatter. It could be produced in remote locations using nuclear power and transported easily and cheaply. An amount of antimatter the size of a thumbnail sliver would power a car (or even a flying car, which would help out the traffic no end) for a reasonable lifetime. Of course, if the containment was destroyed the car would become a nuclear fireball. But that was just engineering.

  The real problem, which his colleagues were happy to point out, was making the antimatter in the first place. Until there was a way to make it in quantity, and control it, he was researching science fiction.

  With the coming of the Posleen, and the Indowy, and the Darhel, a
nd the Tchpth, it was apparent that his "wild ideas" were anything but science fiction. The Indowy could make antimatter like there was no tomorrow and microencapsulate it for safety. Suddenly, all the planet's problems, excepting only that it was about to be invaded by cannibalistic aliens, were solved.

  As it turned out, the Indowy technique for making antimatter was trivial; it was one of the few things that human theory could comprehend about the new technologies. And they could contain it. The latter was important. Antimatter that contacted "regular" matter converted all of its mass to energy. It was that energy release that made it so alluring. Best of all, it could be contained in very small amounts. That way if some of the encapsulation failed, there wouldn't be a massive nuclear fireball. Microencapsulating it, though, or even containing it, turned out to be tricky. The Indowy knew how, but nobody else did.

  But Mickey was a fanatic. Whatever it was he put his mind to, he threw himself at fully. The theory of manufacture was easy. And the Indowy could microencapsulate. It was only a matter of reverse engineering.

  Unfortunately, that was not the case. After studying Indowy techniques (to the extent that they would allow) for nearly a year, he came away a frustrated man. The Indowy defied the laws of probability and that was just not fair.

  All quantum mechanics, all chemistry, all metallurgy, comes down to probabilities. When two chemicals are mixed, there are several ways that they can recombine. But only one way is "probable." Therefore, almost all of the molecules combine in that way, with a scattered handful combining in others.

  Often the "alternate" combinations are more useful. But they are also hysterically unlikely. The Indowy got the alternate combinations every single time. It was like hitting Lotto not once, but Every. Single. Time. What a rip.

  It was the answer to all the problems. Not just microencapsulation but their armor, their drives, their energy and gravity technologies. All of them depended on hitting the Lotto, consistently and dependably. He didn't understand how they did it and they couldn't, apparently, explain it in terms that made sense. They just "prayed" and it happened.