Mike switched onto the Charlie net as it became jammed with screaming and cursing. He attempted to contact the Charlie Company CO, Captain Vero, since the platoon's AIDs could be instructed to filter outgoing transmissions but the commander was stepping all over the net by shouting and cursing as loudly as his troopers. When Mike switched to the battalion command net, the RTO was overwhelmed with calls from Alpha, Weapons, Support and even Headquarters' company commanders requesting orders or guidance. Alpha's ground floor platoon, Third Herd was in danger of being overwhelmed as well. Mike heard Captain Wright request permission to move them to upper floors and be immediately denied by the RTO; it was obvious that he had not consulted Lieutenant Colonel Youngman.

  Lieutenant Colonel Youngman and Major Norton were, meanwhile, conferring on the staff net. Major Norton's AID had been ordered to hold all incoming calls. This was a technique that worked with RTOs but only worked with the very literal AIDs after they had been "broken in." With an RTO, if he thought the call was really important, he'd pass it on. That was how you knew you had a good RTO. But an inexperienced AID was like a bad RTO. It took every order literally and had no sense of discretion. Until Major Norton countermanded the setting, if in the heat of battle he remembered, the company commanders could not contact their remaining link to the battalion commander when they were blocked by his RTO.

  Captain Wright withdrew 3rd platoon without orders and placed them ready to resume their positions. Captain Vero finally calmed down and started to get those of his troops that he could withdrawn. About half of the Charlie platoon and most of Alpha had been withdrawn when the first Posleen Report came in. However, the lasers were left behind. The colonel and the S-3 were not even aware of the situation; they were totally cut off from communication outside their little world.

  "Enemy in view" came the call on all command nets, the priority stepping on all other communications. Instantly every commander switched to feeds from the scouts.

  Behind the flood of Indowy, like a hawk eating a snake, was an equally solid if more disciplined flood of leprous yellow centaurs. The front rank was trotting to keep up with the running Indowy, wielding their long palmate blades in either hand. They would hack down an Indowy and run to catch the next as the following rank lifted the body and passed it to the outside. Along the way the corpse would be gutted and dismembered until the rendered portions were stacked neatly against a wall. The force was a gigantic moving abattoir with the occasional snack nibbled along the way.

  Behind this first block of about twelve thousand Posleen the remainder were broken into three streams. The center stream continued to follow the front group as backup, while the outside streams poured into the megascrapers.

  The leaders, the God Kings, were clearly evident. They rode in their open saucer-shaped vehicles about two meters across with lasers or HVM launchers mounted on powered gimbals. According to orders the scout/snipers, one member of each three-man scout team, lifted their M-209 sniper rifles and, as a group, fired a low-velocity sniper round at a designated God King. Like a single string-cut marionette, ten God Kings fell. The whole mass checked for a split second and then responded.

  The low-velocity rounds of the snipers left no more signature than a high-velocity rifle bullet; there should have been nothing to betray the position of the scouts. But previously unsuspected targeting systems automatically swiveled the vehicle-mounted weapons of the remaining God Kings and, as they locked on target, a storm of lasers and hypervelocity missiles swept back up range. In addition the subjects of the deceased reacted with hyperaggression, flailing the target points designated by the leader's fire with a sleet of needle and rocket fire. In a series of eye-blinking detonations and searing laser strikes the locations of the scout teams were swept away in the storm of fire. Huge holes were blasted deep into the building under the concentrated fire of twenty vehicle-mounted weapons and twelve thousand hand weapons, and if the force-screens had any positive effect it was unappreciable. The scout platoon disappeared in an unnoticeable haze of blood.

  There was a sound of retching on the staff circuit and Captain Vero was muttering "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee," over and over on the command net. Other than that the nets were silent for a moment as the Posleen swept on unchecked. Their coordination suffered however; fewer of the Indowy bodies made it to the side and some of the front forces began trickling away into the buildings.

  "Well," said Lieutenant Colonel Youngman on the staff net, stepping on whoever was retching, "I stand corrected. The threat analysis was understated. Major Norton?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Get over to Saltren/Saltrev. Begin preparing fallback positions. I suspect we are not going to be in these positions for long. Ah, Lieutenant Eamons?" Unnoticed by the battalion commander, his AID switched him to the proper frequency.

  "Yes, sir? Lieutenant Colonel Youngman?" the lieutenant was panting.

  "Yes. I need you to set up cratering charges on Sisalav immediately."

  "I already did, sir and we're mining the buildings now," said the engineer officer in a sharp tone.

  "Good initiative. It may save our butts. After that pull back to Saltren and start putting in all the concertina and mines you can lay your hands on."

  "Yes, sir." Thank god he didn't ask what kinds of mines. Like O'Neal thinks I can't read a demolition program.

  "Captain Brandon."

  "Lieutenant Colonel Youngman?" asked the company commander with a note of surprise.

  "Yes. Prepare to cover the battalion's withdrawal to Saltren and Saltrev. I intend to take the Posleen in a running ambush. Your unit is to dispose itself along the boulevard on both buildings and slow their advance. Then extract through the buildings and cross the avenues away from Sisalav."

  "Yes, sir. Sir, with all due respect, where the hell have you been? And where is Major Norton?"

  "We're both at the Forward TOC. Or we were, Major Norton is headed to Saltren to prepare the secondary positions."

  "Do you know that 1st of Charlie and Alpha 3rd were both overrun by the Indowy?" asked the company commander. The tone was one of fatigue and near despair.

  "What?" asked the startled battalion commander.

  "We haven't been able to reach you for the last fifteen minutes. There is no one on the ground floors and we've lost three lasers so far. We are totally open on the ground on Qualtren."

  "Hold one." The colonel left the net for a moment. "My RTO says he couldn't get through to me either because he kept getting stepped on by Major Norton and myself." The officer cursed quietly for a moment. "I hate these fucking suits," he ended.

  "Too late, sir. You need to contact Vero and Wright, ASAP. They've got some serious problems."

  "Too right. Uh, suit, connect me with all the company commanders. Are we live? Alpha Six, Charlie Six, Bravo Six. Stand by to engage the enemy. The building is being mined by the engineering platoon, you are authorized to provide assets as available. If necessary and on my command we will begin a fighting retreat to the same relative positions on the Sal Line. Bravo is to cover the retreat. Attempt to retake the heavy weapons positions as assets are available. There's no time for questions just hit 'em low and hit 'em hard, that's what we're here for, Falcon Six, out."

  * * *

  "Tom, this is Mike."

  "Yeah, Mike."

  Lieutenant O'Neal was four stories lower and deep in the structure. He was mainly using support corridors; they were higher and wider and that way he avoided the majority of the fleeing Indowy. There were still hundreds of them underfoot blocking the intersections and group areas. All of them were trying to leave simultaneously having ignored orders to do it before and hampering the combat operations. Mike stopped, temporarily stymied by a blocked stairwell and stared speculatively at a large tank of liquid connected to a fractional distiller.

  "How's it coming?" he asked.

  "We've finished the roads and the building is about twenty-five percent done. The colonel authorized the mining," finished the officer. There was a hint of smugness in his voice.

  Mike had missed that call in his monitoring; he was surprised at the announcement. "He authorized Jericho?"

  "Well, I told him we were mining the building."

  "But not how?"

  "He said use your initiative."

  Mike laughed at the irony. "That's a first. Okay, we might be covered." He was to regret the choice of words.

  Mike's experienced and helpful AID, Michelle, flashed a complex schematic of the engineering platoon's progress in a virtual hologram floating at eye height. The completed areas were in green, the areas that should be completed by the time the Posleen arrived were in yellow and the areas that would not be completed were in red. Mike touched an area near Charlie in Qualtren.

  "Concentrate over here, if you please, kind sir."

  "Why certainly, bon homme, and with that I bid you au revoir."

  "Roger, out."

  Mike took one more look at the schematic and flicked it off with a gesture. With the colonel now on board his "go-to-hell-plan," even if the battle went straight to hell, the battalion's sector would still be secured. "Good luck, Tom."

  * * *

  "Captain Brandon," Mike said, triggering a burst into a structural member on the second floor of Qualtren.

  "Lieutenant O'Neal?"

  "Yes, sir. I suspect we'll start the fallback shortly after contact. I would like your assistance in an expansion of the commander's plan. All your guys have to do is fall back on the routes I download to them and destroy a few structures on their way out."

  When he reached the ground floor he headed for an ammunition cache. As he scooted he was studying the schematic as the engineers frantically laid charges and larger and larger areas turned green.

  "What's the plan?"

  "It's called Jericho, sir." Mike took a few moments to explain.

  "That's a hell of an expansion, lieutenant. It'll give us a breather, but . . ."

  "Sir, it'll give us more than a breather, it'll secure this whole sector. Then we can move into support of 7th Cav." When he reached the ammo dump he started loading a grav sled with an M-323 machine gun and ammunition boxes. "Frankly it is what we should have done instead of sending out the mobile forces to get wiped out."

  "Mike, this isn't one of your computer games. Just keeping the company from bolting will be hard enough."

  "Sir, when we fall back the personnel will lose their sense of direction. I've been lost in a unit before; you'd take directions from the devil himself. This extracts them without exposing them to fire and secures the sector. What more could anyone ask?"

  "Uh, limiting collateral damage?" asked the commander rhetorically. "Okay, okay, we'll do it. Make sure the information is available immediately when we fall back."

  "The company's AIDs already have the plan. All it took was your okay."

  "Good luck, Lieutenant."

  "Vaya con Dios, Captain, go with God." He paused for a moment to let the channel clear. "Michelle, get me Captain Wright." Then picked up a loaded grav sled and headed back up the ramp, watching the schematic as he went.

  * * *

  From panic, pride, and terror,

  Revenge that knows no rein,

  Light haste and lawless error,

  Protect us yet again.

  Cloak Thou our undeserving,

  Make firm the shuddering breath,

  In silence and unswerving

  To taste Thy lesser death!

  —Kipling

  27

  Andata Province, Diess IV

  2208 GMT May 18th, 2002 AD

  "Knock, knock, mind if I join you?" Lieutenant O'Neal used the local circuit. He knew there were troops from Charlie company in the next room, but he didn't know who they were. The AID could tell him, but he'd been too busy to ask. Besides, there were few troopers in Charlie company that he knew personally. And given how keyed up everyone was, letting them know he was coming before barging through the door seemed like a good idea.

  "Come ahead," said Sergeant John Reese, looking over his shoulder. Through the double doors came a squat figure towing a grav sled loaded with weapons and ammunition. Among them was another M-300 and a tripod-mounted HVM. Reese recognized him as Lieutenant O'Neal; the silhouette was distinctive. Apparently the lieutenant believed in being prepared. "Can I help you, sir?" Reese jerked his head at the ammo bearer, Private Pat McPherson to go help with the load.

  "Thanks. I figured I'd join the party if you don't mind." Mike's suit flashed a heads-up-display of the names and ranks by the suited figures in the room. It was a heavy weapons team with the heavy weapons squad leader. Their own M-300 heavy grav gun was set up and bins of ammunition were ganged together ready to go. All three of the team were crouched against the outside wall, their force-screens covering the probable axis of approach. The descending F-1's sunset glow had turned a weird violet that mottled the suits like purple haze.

  "Hell no, sir. Every little bit helps," said the assistant gunner, Spec-Four Sal Bennett.

  "Was that by any chance a short joke, Specialist?" Mike asked with mock sternness.

  "Oh, hell, sir. That wasn't what I meant!"

  "I know, I know, just a little levity, right? Little levity, get it?"

  The squad laughed as Mike started tossing thirty-kilo ammo bins against the wall.

  "Michelle, give me an RGB representation of Indowy, Posleen and humans in the nine-block sector."

  The AID flashed a three-D representation of the nine megascrapers, then began drawing in Posleen, human and Indowy concentrations in red, green and blue. The green was a solid core in the corners of Qualtren and Qualtrev with scattered others behind. The projected locations of Indowy were a heavy concentration in Saltren and Saltrev and blue flowing downward like an hourglass in Qualtren and Qualtrev; time was running out for the inhabitants of the megascrapers. On Sisalav Boulevard there was a solid band of color flowing out of sensor range, but just out of view, around the Daltren/Daltrev jog, the solid blue band abruptly became red.

  "They're almost in sight," said Mike, taking a sip of water as he crouched behind the spurious shelter of the wall and set up the HVM to fire automatically.

  "Orders are to wait for a signal from Captain Vero before we open fire. What are you looking at?"

  "Michelle, slug hologram to squad view," said Mike as he finished readying the missile launcher. It was set to track his fire and add its own weight offset ten meters. He started to set up the M-300 on the opposite side of the squad's position. It would be set to do the same thing. Thus he would be controlling not only his own light grav gun but two other heavy weapons. It was not a hard technique to train for or to set up. But the battalion, of course, had not prepared for it.

  "Huh," Sergeant Reese said after a moment, "I didn't know they could do that."

  "Yours can't, not in any detail. Command suits have extra processing and data collection ability." There was a moment of silence, then Mike said in a flat tone, "There they are."

  The words came as a surprise and Sergeant Reese popped his head up from hologram and peered down the darkening canyon. "AID," he said, "Mag six, enhance and stabilize." The view leapt forward and brightened.

  The way the stabilization system worked, the world moving at a different rate than reality, always made him a little queasy. What Reese saw in his view-screen just made him sick. He broke out in a cold sweat and goose pimples as his sphincter tightened. He wanted badly to piss and his mouth was dry. When Pat started to vomit he was forced to join in. This caused a complete loss of control.

  The Posleen had regained control of the front rank and the remorseless abattoir was in full swing. To either side they could see the late-moving Indowy pouring out of the megascrapers, trying to avoid the oncoming horde. It was easier to empathize with these Indowy, having watched movement within and among the megascrapers during their setup. The peaceful little boggles that the Posleen were slaughtering had become like neighbors and seeing them slaughtered was a terror.

  They always told you it was okay to be afraid, but surely they didn't mean this stark terror, this abject fear. The briefings had been clear. Although the suits were proof against many things, the Posleen palmate blades had mono-molecular edges; they could chop apart a suit like a housewife with a chicken. All Reese could think of as the Posleen advanced remorselessly on the fleeing Indowy was that those knives were headed for him and the whole world seemed to be filled with flashing steel.

  He couldn't understand it. He was one of the brave, the fearless Airborne. For five years he had jumped out of planes over fifty times, enduring the occasional injury, without the first qualm. He enjoyed the thrill that terrified others. He'd laughed, inside, at the guys who were white-faced and shaking, who closed their eyes and headed for the sound of the open door. He loved the sight of the chutes opening out the door, the earth, plane and sky tossed in a chaotic kaleidoscope for those first brief moments after you stepped out. The chute opening was almost a letdown and the landing no hassle, except when something broke. But no fear, ever. Now, he feared. He feared the Posleen and wondered why those white-faced troopers put up with this over and over again.

  The cold-blooded rendering of the defenseless Indowy was almost more than Reese could take; with their tiny stature and love of bright colors they seemed almost like children to him. As the Posleen closed the distance he found himself pulling his M-232 tighter into his shoulder and rubbing the breech. "Come on. Come on." As his eyes flicked to his ammunition level readouts he did not notice the tears running down his cheeks or the stink of an overloaded environmental system. His fear slowly began to be replaced with anger, a white hot rage at the evil yellow dog-men coming towards them. "Come on, you bastards."