Hell's Faire

by John Ringo

  He shook his head and checked his radiation monitors, blanching as he did. The suits were more than capable of handling four hundred rems per hour, but it would kill any human stone dead. Or, hell, most cockroaches.

  The dust was starting to clear and the moon was breaking out to shine on the ground, but there was something odd about it. Under the moonlight, everything was gray, even under the enhancements of the suits that brought it to daytime ambient. It was bright, but still in shades of black and gray. But still, there was something . . .

  He toggled a switch and a patch of white light shone down from his suit on the stripped granite at his feet and he swore. He swiveled the light around, then walked away from his hole, looking at the ground and swore again.

  "General Horner, this is O'Neal."

  * * *

  "Glad to hear your voice, old friend," the general said. "How'd it go?"

  "We were underground," O'Neal replied. Horner could almost hear the shrug over the communicator. "General, about this bomb that just detonated. Where did you say it came from?"

  "Knoxville," Horner replied, puzzled. "Why?"

  "I mean, where was it developed?"

  "Oak Ridge," Horner said. "And the University of Tennessee. Why?"

  "That figures." There was a pause. "I just thought that you should know that Rabun County is now orange."

  "What?" Horner thought about that for a moment. "The soil in that area . . ."

  "No, General. The soil, the rocks, the fucking mountains. It's all orange. And not 'international distress' orange, boss. It's a redder orange than that."

  Horner's face turned up in a gigantic smile as he looked over at Dr. Castanuelo. The good doctor had just pulled a can of dip out of his back pocket and was reading over the shoulder of one of the techs. He had on a University of Tennessee ballcap and a UT Volunteers windbreaker. Both of them bright orange.

  "This is what you get for letting rednecks play with antimatter, boss," O'Neal said.

  Horner didn't bother to point out an accident of birthplace. There was no question in his mind that the guy who had just painted half of north Georgia in the colors of one of their bitterest football rivals was well described as a "high-tech redneck."

  "Dr. Castanuelo," he said sweetly, smiling from ear to ear, "could I have a moment of your time?"

  * * *

  Pruitt had gotten back to work pulling MetalStorm packs as soon as his vision returned. He had lights that he could use, including a big-ass spot that would have lit up the whole top like day. But all things considered he didn't want to be any more of a target than was strictly necessary.

  Fortunately the loading system the SheVa repair guys had installed was simplicity in itself and the crane on Nine had an autograppler that worked, unlike the POS he had used in training. All he had to do was snatch the packs out of the hatch, swing the crane and drop them in the appropriate racks. He was even ahead of the way the Storms were running through them.

  Finally he was done, and decided to take a good look around. The crane had a couple of good visual systems on it and slaves to the main monitors, so he started flipping through images.

  The best view seemed to be from monitor seven. It was mounted high enough that it had a better view even than the crane and it had thermal imaging so sometimes he could pick out details that way.

  In the distance he could see streams of Posleen still coming down the road from the Gap but they were more spread out and not moving nearly as fast. It looked as if there was a light at the end of the tunnel. OTOH, a few more area denial rounds couldn't hurt.

  He swept the monitor to the left and noted that he could just see where East Branch came down from the mountains and opened out. He could see the tracks from where the SheVa had come through the last time and sighed. You should only have to take one of these things over the mountains once in your life.

  "Over the mountains," he sung, swinging the monitor around, "take me across the sky . . ."

  There was a cluster of Posleen on the ridge above East Branch and something about them made him sweep back for another look. He dialed up the magnification but it wasn't until he hit the thermal imaging system that he was sure what he was seeing.

  "Colonel," he breathed after a moment. "You're going to want to take a look out of monitor seven."

  * * *

  Mitchell tapped the control and brought the monitor up on the main viewscreen. "What am I looking at, Pruitt?"

  "Check out the group on the ridge to the left." Pruitt sounded dead, as if someone had just ripped his soul out.

  "What's wrong?" the colonel asked, dialing up the magnification. "The ridge just above East Branch?"

  "Yes, sir," Pruitt replied. "Switch to IR."

  Mitchell did, then swore. "Those are . . . are they human figures?"

  * * *

  "Captain Chan, reload your guns," Mitchell said, coldly. "Prepare for close fire support. Reeves, back us off the hill. Pruitt, get your ass down to personnel entrance one."

  "Yes, sir." The driver checked his monitors and then spun the gun in place, pulling back down the hill. Suspecting what the next drive order would be he pulled all the way back and pushed the rear up the Savannah Church hill. He could see the crunchies arrayed on the hill panicking as the giant mass of metal backed towards them but he had other things to worry about. Like, how much longer he was going to be alive.

  "Romeo Eight-Six this is SheVa Nine," the colonel said on the division artillery net. "I need a brigade time on target box centered on UTM 29448 East, 39107 North. I want everything you've got."

  "Uh, roger SheVa," the controller called back. "That will take a few minutes to effect. And, that's not our priority of fire."

  "Do it," Mitchell said. "I don't care about your priority of fire, do it now."

  "SheVa Nine, this is Quebec Four-Seven." It was Captain LeBlanc's voice. "What in the hell are you doing?"

  "We're preparing to move forward to East Branch."

  There was a pause while the local commander assessed this statement. "SheVa, that wasn't the plan."

  "Plans change. There's a group of humans that are being used as a mobile feed lot for the Posleen. And we're going to get them."

  * * *

  Angela Dale had turned to look when the amazing series of flashes had occurred to the south. But since then she had dropped back into her own straitened world. It seemed they had been walking for days since the Posleen had captured her near Franklin. She had already lost track of her parents in the desperate retreat in front of the Posleen advance and she was pretty sure that, like everyone in the group who hadn't been able to keep up, they were dead. And probably eaten.

  She couldn't remember, didn't want to remember, how many had died. The group had been much larger to begin with. Sometimes people were added. Once the group had been broken up and occasionally a group of confused refugees would join them, including a bunch of Indowy with massive packs and bundles on their backs.

  She had spoken to the Indowy, a simple greeting she had been taught in school, and the little green aliens had apparently decided she was their best friend and huddled around her as far away from the Posleen, and other humans, as they could get. The leader spoke English, haltingly and with a strange accent, and he had told her that the Posleen had brought them from another world, apparently to do engineering for the invaders. They had built some bridges and then, when the centaurs were forced to retreat, they had been added to the group of humans, he used the Posleen term "thresh," as a mobile pantry. And so it was.

  For, most of the time, instead of adding refugees one of the escorting Posleen at some unseen command would reach into the group and drag people out. Then the knives would descend. The humans in the group had been offered the food from time to time but even with their stomachs pressing against their backbones, no one had taken the dripping gobbets of flesh that had until moments before been one of their group.

  Now, though, the Posleen seemed to have plenty of food; groups had come t
o the rear bearing masses of yellow flesh that could only be coming from the battle to the front.

  Mostly, she didn't notice anymore. She had retreated into a warm mental place where nothing could touch her. Someday she would be warm again, safe again. Someday she would be happy again and all of this would be over. She knew that it was unlikely that place would be this side of heaven, but she really didn't care anymore. She just walked where she was pointed to walk and sat where she was pointed to sit.

  So it took her a moment to notice that the artillery fire that covered the plains had stopped and that the fire from whatever had been laying down masses of red death had stopped as well. What went on in the battle didn't really matter. Nothing was going to save her short of death. And death was beginning to look pretty good. It was the being eaten that still seemed bad.

  But after a moment the mutters of the people around her, and the agitation of the Posleen, cut through her fog. She was afraid it meant they were going to choose another and she edged to make sure she was near the center of the group. But quickly it became apparent that something else was going on. And she looked to the north just in time to see, by the light of the fires in the valley and the gibbous moon that had appeared in the east, a mass of metal crest the distant ridge just as the artillery started to fall again.

  * * *

  "Pedal to the metal, Reeves!" Mitchell shouted. The driver had gunned down Church Hill and back up the far ridge at maximum possible drive because this was the worst moment of all. For just a moment the vulnerable underside of the armored gun system was exposed to fire and if the Posleen poured fire into it they were dead. That was where the drive systems and reactors were. Much fire in that area would leave them stopped on the hill, a sitting target for at least fifty thousand Posleen.

  But the combination of the artillery fire and the speed and surprise of the assault seemed to work. Fire started almost immediately, but by then they were accelerating down the far side.

  "Kilzer! Water curtain, Now!"

  "Uh . . ." Paul looked over and shrugged. "I guess I forgot to mention: we're out. We've only got five minutes and we used it up before."

  "Shit," Mitchell cursed. "Chan!" But the command was unnecessary as every MetalStorm opened fire as if for dear life. And it was.

  The valley was still filled with Posleen and even those that were in close combat with the human defenders on the ridges turned to fire at the giant tank as it tore down the slope and up the road towards Savannah. A storm of fire licked out towards it but SheVa Nine was giving as good as it got.

  Again the ribbons of red fire lashed out at the Posleen, jumping from remaining concentration to concentration. The artillery box had opened up a zone of more or less open space and into that space the SheVa rocketed, belching fire in every direction.

  "Mitchell!" General Simosin seemed a little upset. "What in the hell are you doing?"

  "You wanted a breakout, General," Mitchell said as rounds caromed through the interior of the SheVa. "You've got a breakout."

  "You dumb son of a . . ."

  "There's a group of humans by East Branch," Mitchell said. "We're going there and ain't nothin' gonna stop us."

  * * *

  Arkady Simosin looked at the radio for a moment and then shrugged. "We'll be right behind you."

  He turned to the driver of the Bradley he was currently occupying and gestured. "Son, if you don't catch that SheVa before it's halfway across the valley I'll have you shot."

  "Yes, sir!" the driver said, kicking the armored fighting vehicle into gear. "Not a problem," he added with a feral grin as the track commander cycled his guns. The Bradley was one of the scout systems equipped with double 7.62 Gatling guns; and it was getting ready to do some harvesting.

  Simosin brushed his RTO aside and keyed the division command frequency as the Brad lurched into gear. There was garbled conversation coming from half a dozen commanders but he overrode them.

  "All units, assault NOW, NOW, NOW. Follow the SheVa. Forget plans, forget frag orders. The order is FOLLOW THE SHEVA."

  * * *

  "Move it!" LeBlanc snarled as she climbed the steps of the tank. And it was a long goddamned way up for a female who was just five feet tall. Really, she should be in a Brad or a Humvee. More radios and fewer distractions. On the other hand, if she wanted to command her unit she had to survive.

  "But what are we doing?" the commander of Bravo Company called. The idiot was just standing by the Abrams looking around in confusion.

  "We're going to Savannah!" LeBlanc said, plugging into the vehicle intercom system. She was about to order the driver forward but he had already closed his hatch and started the tank forward. It moved with the smooth oiliness that was the hallmark of the Abrams series and it seemed that nothing could stop it. Of course, one plasma gun that hit just right would do just fine. There had been improvements in the armor of the Abrams series over the course of the war, but they could still be taken out with plasma or HVM fire. If it hit right.

  "Get back to your unit and get it moving!" she screamed at the company commander then keyed the battalion command frequency. "All units, general breakout! Follow the SheVa!" She looked out of the TC hatch as the tank accelerated up the hillside and shook her head. The 147th was a cock-up outfit. That was for sure and for certain. But in the last day or two something had happened, a new spirit had infected them. They might be cock-ups, but they had led the charge from Balsam Pass to here, where other units had failed. And they seemed to have caught the spirit of winning against the Posleen, instead of just taking it on the chin.

  Which was why she realized she didn't have to kick her useless company commanders in the ass. On either side, rising out of their holes like an unstoppable tide, the men of the 147th were rising. And running forward, screaming.

  The Posleen were turning and running before the mass of the SheVa, and the troops of the 147th were going to get some.

  * * *

  "What a bloody mess," Mitchell muttered, looking in the monitors. He hadn't really expected support but he was by God getting it.

  The troops of the division, in some cases it seemed without orders, had climbed out of the defensive positions they had occupied for the past several hours and were charging forward. Most of them weren't in vehicles so they were falling far behind the SheVa, but they were drawing fire away from it. And getting slaughtered themselves.

  It didn't seem to matter, though. Mitchell saw one Bradley crest the ridge and drive right into a concentration of Posleen, running several of them over. For a moment the troops inside raved at the aliens with their mounted weaponry then the troop door opened and they poured out, taking positions around the fighting vehicle and pouring fire into the Posleen.

  The aliens, used to throwing themselves onto human defenses, were reacting with shock and apparent fear. It must have seemed to them that the rabbits were attacking the wolves and it was happening everywhere.

  The valley was an absolute madhouse. Groups of humans were running down the valley, some of them on the flats and others on the steep ridges along the sides, while a stream of armored fighting vehicles and tanks poured through the Gap. Other vehicles, tanks, Bradleys, Humvees and even some trucks, were coming over the ridges where they were negotiable and charging forward, sometimes stopping to pick up infantry but always moving forward.

  The artillery had gotten totally confused and rounds seemed to be falling almost at random, some of them into the human troops. But even that didn't seem to be slowing them down.

  "Are we all insane?" Mitchell asked, flipping back to monitor forward. He looked at the rippling waves of Posleen and the heavy fire coming from them and smiled maniacally. "Yep."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

  Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

  Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

  Or lesser breeds without the Law—

  Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

  Lest we
forget—lest we forget!

  —Rudyard Kipling

  "Recessional"

  Green's Creek, NC, United States of America, Sol III

  2238 EDT Monday September 28, 2009 AD

  Paul Kilzer grinned as he tapped the controls for the close-in defense systems and a ripple of fire tore out from the SheVa. Reeves had apparently been anticipating this because he had driven right into a mass of Posleen and the millions of ball-bearings tore through the group like a mechanical thresher.

  "It's good to be the king." Kilzer chuckled as the SheVa's tracks ground the aliens. "I think I remember something about 'use their guts for track grease'?"

  "Patton," Pruitt said over the intercom. " 'Why I almost feel sorry for those poor Kraut bastards.' I've often wondered what he would have done with the Posleen."

  "Seen how many of them he could make die," Mitchell growled

  * * *

  LeBlanc stared at the CEOI for a second and then shook her head. "Alpha, this is battalion, what's your situation?"

  She waited a moment then keyed the radio again as the Abrams hit the bottom of the slope and pitched her around like a marionette. "Bravo!" she coughed. "Charlie! Anybody this net, dammit!"

  "This is . . . oh, hell, this is Captain Hutchinson's RTO, ma'am," the radio operator for the Alpha company commander panted. "The company just . . . got up and started charging after the SheVa, ma'am! The captain's trying to get them stopped."

  "Stopped, hell!" she shouted. "All stations this net, you will move forward and aggressively engage the Posleen! Support the SheVa! Move forward! Any company commander who doesn't keep up with his company is going to be relieved. And the last company to Savannah is on extra duty for a month. Don't stop them, push them."

  She flipped frequencies and snarled as the tank dropped into a streambed and shook her around again. "This is no way to run a railroad," she muttered. "Scouts!" she snapped, keying the mike.

  "Alpha Six-Seven, over." She remembered that the Scout Platoon commander was a graduate of VMI, a regular of sorts. And apparently he could keep up with the damned CEOI even in the middle of a battle. Although that would be easy if he was still sitting back at Church Hill.