Mueller slid down the muddy slope and dropped to the ledge outside the cave, letting the muzzle of his rifle lead him in.
The cave that held what Papa O'Neal had referred to as "Cache Four" was on a nearly vertical, tree-covered slope. How the eldest O'Neal had gotten the dozens and dozens of large and heavy boxes into the cave was a mystery, one that on their previous trip Mueller and Mosovich had been careful to avoid questioning. But on that same trip they had also been attacked by a feral Posleen as they exited the cave. Thus Mueller's caution as he entered it.
The first change that he noted was that there was a heavy metal door in place; the cache had been open the last time they were there. All things considered, though, it was probably for the best, what with the occasional nuke round dropping in the pot.
The problem being that they needed what was on the other side of the door and there didn't seem to be any latches on this side.
That, on the other hand, seemed to indicate that someone or something was on the other side.
He was tired and the thoughts seemed to come slowly. He'd been using Provigil but all that really did was keep you awake; you still got "tired stupid." Now he turned the gun around and banged on the door with the butt.
"Anyone home?"
Cally sat up at the bang and the muffled voice on the other side. It sounded like a human, but it was possible it was just a very smart Posleen.
She picked up her Steyr and went to the door. "Who's there?"
"Cally?"
"Yeah, who's there?"
"Mueller! Open up."
She set the gun down and pulled the door back, composing her features as she did so.
Mueller just looked at her for a second then wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug.
"Jesus Christ! We were sure you were dead."
Cally wiped at the tears in her eyes as the rest descended the slope and slipped through door. She had to hug each in turn.
"Wendy, you made it!"
"Thanks to luck and some really weird shit," the girl replied, hugging back. "Papa?"
Cally just shook her head, wiping at the tears again and wondering at the frozen expression on the face of the unknown young woman who was last through the door.
Wendy turned and looked at her. "Shari . . ."
"Shari?" Cally asked. The woman in the doorway was about half the age of the woman who had come to visit their farm, and promptly fallen in love with her still older grandfather. But the face . . . "Shari?! Oh, God, Shari . . ."
"It's okay, dear," the woman replied, stone faced. "We all die somewhere."
"No, it's not okay!" Cally said, taking her hands. "We were . . . talking, just when the Posleen attacked. He, we, were really looking forward to you coming to live with us. I was, too. I . . . I'm so sorry!"
"I think I'm supposed to be comforting you," Shari said, starting to cry. "Not the other way around."
"We need to get the kids bedded down," Elgars said, stolidly. "We can talk about this later."
Cally showed them boxes with sleeping gear, both poncho liners and blankets, then started an electric space heater; the cave had been comfortable enough for her but the kids were obviously whipped. All of the children, even Billy, given reasonably dry clothes and a comfortable place to lie down, fell asleep almost before they were flat.
"How did you get here?" Cally asked.
"Walked," Mueller said, pulling off his boots with a groan. "The kids were about dead the last five miles; we had to carry them."
"There is plenty to tell," Wendy said. "But first, how did you get here and do you know what's going on?"
"When the attack got bad we moved to the bunker," Cally said slowly; it was obviously hard for her to tell the story. "We had Posleen moving up the valley and . . . things like flying saucers overhead. Then, when the lander came in sight, Papa told me to pull back. He was going follow right afterwards. Then there was a bright flash. I was in the doorway to the inner shelter and it sort of blew me in, I guess. I came to and the main passage had collapsed behind me. After I got my shit together I went out through the side passage; it had a cave-in on it, but I could wriggle through. The valley was . . . trashed. It had to be a nuke or something. The lander and Posleen were gone and the battle in the Gap seemed to have stopped, which I thought was pretty bad. I took a quick look around but everything was just . . . gone. Then I went to the bunker and found . . . Well, I could barely move the rubble but I found Papa's hand. It was cold." She stopped and shook her head.
"I will not bawl like a baby because my grandfather is d-dead," she half snarled, half sobbed. "Over five billion people on this miserable ball have died in the past years, I will not cry over one more!"
"Yes you will," Shari said, leaning forward and taking her in her arms. "You don't cry for him, you cry for yourself and that he is no longer there." Shari wiped her eyes on the top of the girl's head. "You cry for your loss."
"I want him back!" Cally shouted. "He wasn't supposed to die! I needed him!"
"I want him back, too," Shari said. "I do, too."
"The bastard just left me in the middle of a nuclear God-damned war," she said, sobbing.
"Well, that's one way to look at it," Mueller responded, stirring a pot of mushy, freeze-dried noodles and chicken.
"How?" Cally snapped.
"I always knew the old guy was tough and I was right; it took a nuke to take him out."
"Oh, Mueller," Cally said with a chuckling sob.
"We'll go down and check on the body," Wendy said, sitting up.
"Why?" Elgars replied. "The environment is incredibly hostile; going to recover a body that the Posleen have probably already eaten doesn't strike me as a good tactical action."
Shari turned on the captain with a snarl, but Mosovich leaned forward and laid a hand on her arm. "Captain, it's not good tactics but it is good in other ways. Most of the best units refuse to leave anyone behind, living or dead. It's a fifteen-minute walk. It will also permit us to get a good look at the valley. Recon is part of our job description."
Elgars frowned then nodded. "Okay, approved. If the security conditions permit. But somebody has to stay here to guard the fort and watch the children; we're not taking them with us."
"I'll do that," Shari said.
"I see you're carrying," Cally said, wiping her eyes and deliberately changing the subject from the loss of her grandfather. "And doing so like you know how. I guess you guys saw some action on the way?"
"The Sub-Urb is gone," Wendy said by way of reply. "We got out through an Indowy facility in the basement, in the agricultural section actually. It had some . . . weird facilities." She gestured at Shari.
"And part of the secret of my miraculous rebirth was explained," Elgars said dryly. "It was apparently that facility that 'rebuilt' me."
"And you, too?" Cally asked Shari.
"I got hit, bad, on the way out," Shari replied.
"Needle round right through her spine and mid-section," Wendy expanded. "Back to front. Very bloody."
"I woke up in a purple chamber," Shari continued. "Looking like this." She gestured at her body.
"You look . . . good," Cally said, starting to tear up again.
"What?"
"I was just thinking . . . how much Papa would like to see you like that," Cally said, regaining her composure.
"Oh, he liked me well enough the other way," Shari said with a shake of her head. "Amazingly enough."
"I never got it," Mueller said shaking his head in turn. "Oldest guy in the group and he gets the girl. Now there's, what?, four women in this here cave and I'm the one doing the cooking!"
"Oh, shut up you old fogie," Cally said with a laugh. "Where did you pick up these two parasites?" she asked Wendy.
"Near Coweta Hydrological," she said with a laugh. "I'd just fallen in a river. There I was in a sopping wet shirt, trying to hold my weapon out of the water; I looked like a 'Packed and Stacked' girl. Which Mueller, of course, was happy to agree with."
"We'd been tasked with reconnaissance of the Posleen movement," Mosovich said. "But they moved faster than we could and the routes north got cut. I was thinking that if we could get some stuff from here we could follow the Tennessee Divide across North Georgia and find one of the other passes that was holding out, then maybe get some transportation back to friendly territory."
"By the time we realized how hot the area was we were too close to go back," Wendy continued, making a motion like a mushroom cloud. "And the kids needed stuff to keep them alive in the weather; it's turning nasty out there."
"Well, there's plenty here," Cally replied. "Food, blankets, even rucksacks. As well as ammo and demo, but no guns."
"Guns we've got," Mosovich said. "We've even got about as much ammo as we can reasonably carry. Food and snivel-gear we're short on."
"So are we going to move out of here?" Cally asked.
"We probably need to," Jake replied with a nod. "There's an ACS unit holding down the Gap, your dad's by the way, but . . . I don't know how long they can hold and even if they do hold I don't see who there is to relieve them. There's an infantry unit all the way up by Dillsboro and a shot-up SheVa gun up there. But nothing short of there." He paused and shrugged his shoulders. "I think your dad's unit's not going to be much but a spoiling attack."
Cally nodded her head in thought but then shook it. "Dad I refuse to worry about. He has been in more 'impossible' situations than any other person in the world, I think, and he always comes out alive. Nobody else in his unit might, but he does. I guess he could die there, but I wouldn't bet . . . I was going to say I wouldn't bet the farm but if anyone wants four hundred acres of radioactive wasteland . . ."
"Um, speaking of which," Mueller said. "We've got AIDs. Do . . . You could talk to him if you want."
"That's an interesting idea," Cally said. "But I don't want to joggle his elbow." Even in the concrete reinforced cave the slam of distant explosions could be more felt than heard. "Just . . . let him know that I'm alive."
"Major O'Neal?"
Mike's arm was actually getting tired. It was mostly supported by the armor, but just holding it over his head for this long was getting hard. And not only was power going down like a waterfall, even the ammunition supply was starting to take a hit. The teardrops rounds were tiny and, unlike the power packs, most of the resupply had survived. But the battle had already expended over sixty million rounds; suits had had to reload onboard ammunition at least once, in one case twice. But that didn't mean the Posleen were running out of bodies.
"Yes," he asked tiredly. "What horrible news or emergency is it now?"
"Not horrible at all, sir, more mixed. Cally O'Neal is alive. She is in contact with Sergeant Major Mosovich from Fleet Strike Long Range Recon and they and some other refugees are in a shelter near your father's farm."
"And Dad?" Mike asked, suspecting why the news was mixed.
"Your father is presumed dead, sir," the AID said tonelessly.
Mike wrinkled his head at the tone and the wording. "Presumed?"
"Yes, sir, he was last seen in a bunker near the explosion of a lander."
Again, that toneless reply. Mike had noted that AIDs got all toneless when he hit a security baulk, at which point they became non-communication devices with remarkable alacrity.
Mike thought about a couple of things he'd like to say but skipped them all. "How many able bodies at that shelter? And is there any ground transportation?" was what he asked.
"Five adults and no, everything was destroyed by the blast."
"Hmm . . ." He looked at the power graph and shook his head. "Give me General Horner."
"Jack, it's Mike."
The major and the general went back farther than either of them cared to remember, but the casual familiarity was a sign of insult, not respect; Mike O'Neal had not yet forgiven the general for sending him on what was looking more and more like a forlorn hope.
"Yes, Major?" Jack Horner was a tall spare, man with cold blue eyes that belied his apparent age. He keyed the AID to throw up a hologram of the battle around Rabun Gap and shook his head; the image showed a solid tide of red going out of sight.
"We've got a little problem," Mike said.
"I can see that."
"Oh, it's not the Posleen, per se. After trying a few fancy tricks, they're coming at us in the same old way and we're stopping them in the same old way. We're taking casualties, but mostly to weapons-systems. No, the problem is we've got about three hours' worth of power left."
"What?"
"I blame it on Gunny Thompson," Mike said lightly.
It took Jack a moment to remember who Mike was talking about. Gunny Thompson had been on the design team for the ACS weapons system, along with a recently recalled web designer named Michael O'Neal and General Jack Horner.
"Why Gunny Thompson, who the last time I heard was on Barwhon?"
"Well," Mike said with a sigh. "He wanted a ray gun and the best I could do with the technology that was offered was a grav-gun that shot fast enough it looked like a ray gun. The problem of course being that that meant it was a power-hog."
"Your guns are being used that much?" Jack asked. Even in the hottest battles the Posleen could only take an hour or so of being turned into offal; then they retreated.
"No artillery to slow them down, Jack," Mike responded. "They're just piling themselves up, literally. And they're not really going forward, just piling. It's . . . it's insane, even for the Posleen."
"Maybe not," Horner replied. "Maybe . . ."
"Maybe they know we have a power problem?" Mike asked. "Is there something you're not telling me?"
"Well, I got an intelligence report recently that suggested the Posleen might, I say again might be able to penetrate the AID network."
"So . . . they're listening to this conversation?" Mike said. "That explains the ambush."
"What ambush?"
"When we landed the Posleen seemed to be laying for us, but they concentrated their fire on the support shuttles. That's when most of our spare power went away."
"Another datum," Jack replied, running his hands through his hair. It had been white, then, after rejuvenation, black again. Now it was turning white at the temples. And he was still a physical age of about twenty. Command was hell.
"So if they can listen in to the AID network, what in the hell are we going to do? I can't disconnect my AID, it runs my damned suit!"
"I'll think about it. Tell me what your answer to the power problem is in the meantime."
"There's a cache near here, one that's not on the network, come to think of it," Mike replied. "It's got ammunition and a power-pack, standard ammo with its own power."
"From when you were laying down caches?" Horner asked.
"Correct. Here's my question, are there any more heavy weapons available? Can the SheVa range?"
"Do you want a direct answer?" the general replied.
"Yes."
"I don't know. The SheVa is out of range and it will be for some hours yet. I don't know of anything else." Horner smiled broadly, a sure sign that he was angry about something. "What I normally would do is ask my AID, which gives me the impression our enemies might know more about our capability than we do."
"If we're penetrated," Mike replied.
"Yes." Horner looked around the temporary headquarters and suddenly realized the AID could see everything that he could. The human senior officers had come to depend upon the systems, which was suddenly starting to look like a bad dependency.
"So who's coming to relieve us?" Mike asked, bitterly. "I seem to remember you promising that the Ten Thousand would be on their way in a jiffy. But I notice they're still up in Virginia."
Horner smiled thinly. "I've got forces on the way. We've got penetrations all up and down the East Coast, Major. This is not the only emergency on my plate. I had to divert the Ten Thousand to handle a major incursion in the Shenandoah. I know that you think your battalion comes first, but when I've got a big thrust headed right for six SheVas that are almost finished construction and two Sub-Urbs I have to decide where to allocate my assets. And in this case, the Ten Thousand is allocated to hold between the Posleen and the Sub-Urbs, Major. There is one spot of bright news; I've been informed that a reconnaissance force has been detached from the Barwhon fleet. I don't know how large it is, or what its priorities will be, but we might get some support from them."
"So, what do you have on the way, General? For sure? Not pie in the sky 'reconnaissance forces' that are probably one frigate and a drone."
"You can read your AID, Major."
"You've got one loser division tasked. It couldn't even take Balsam Gap from the easy side. And a SheVa gun that's rated as minimum time to repair of five days. So would you like to tell me who's going to play cavalry? General?!"
"They'll be there," Horner ground out. "No more than twenty-four hours from when the SheVa is repaired. And that will be sometime tomorrow . . . today. Soon."
"Glad to hear that, General, but 'sometime tomorrow' is going to be way too late. Here's the deal. In about three hours I'm going to have to perform a break-out and leave this position."
"You can't do that, Major," Horner said furiously.
"I can and I will. In three hours we'll be down to throwing rocks. I've thrown rocks at the Posleen in my time, but never as a primary assault method. As far as my scouts can tell, there is no practical end to the Posleen forces. If we can recover the cache, a big if, and if you can find some fire support, a big if, we can retake the Gap. And with the materials we'll have we'll be able to hold for another, oh, twelve hours or so. At our current kill ratio we'll be able to kill approximately six million Posleen before we become combat ineffective and get overrun. Which I think would be enough even for you."
"If you can't recover the cache, because the Posleen pour over the position, or if you can't retake the pass, the whole eastern seaboard will be turned."
"Yep, so you'd better go find us some more fire support, hadn't you, General?"
"Major O'Neal has disconnected," the AID informed him.
Horner just nodded, smiling broadly. The headquarters had gotten remarkably quiet during the conversation, which had been fully audible, and now it kept quiet, since everyone knew exactly what that expression meant.
"Colonel Nix," Horner called.
"Yes, sir." The man was slight, bespectacled and balding since he still hadn't hit the age that had been specified for rejuvenation. His uniform was somewhat rumpled and he had a pen sticking out of the corner of one pocket while all his blouse pockets bulged with materials. Anyone looking at him would have pegged him immediately as a geek. And they would have been right except solely for the "degree" of geekiness. Colonel Nix wasn't just a geek, he was an ubergeek.
His official title was "Special Assistant to the CONARC for Information Security." He had been the first to determine that the Tenth Corps had been hacked, how it had occurred and what to do to correct it. Since then Horner had ensured he was always at arms reach and on more than one occasion Nix had either foiled additional hacking attacks or detected them before they became a threat. Horner's abilities stopped at being able to compose a document and he both trusted and liked his ubergeek.
"Tell me why you think the AID net has been compromised," Horner said, smiling and without looking away from the wall.
"As I said, sir, there were some indications going all the way back to the battles with the Eleventh ACS division in Nebraska that the Posleen were either omniscient or reading the Eleventh's mail," the colonel replied. "The Darhel guarantee that the AID communications are unbreakable, and as far as I know no human group has broken them. But they also guaranteed that we would be materially supported. They've made a lot of guarantees that didn't stand up. I have no hard data, sir. It's more a gut call than anything, sir, but . . ."
"O'Neal's forces were apparently ambushed on landing," Horner replied. "They specifically targeted the supply shuttles."
"Pretty nice datum, sir," the colonel said with a frown as he looked at the device around the general's wrist. "Uh, sir . . ."
"I'm aware of the fact that they're probably aware of the fact, Colonel," the general replied with a frown. That meant he found the point humorous. "That they know that we know that they know."
"Yes, sir."
"It probably won't work to reduce emissions, but we'll do that. Get rid of this thing," he continued, handing over the device. "Put it in a safe someplace far away and get me a telephone. I need to make some phone calls."'
"What are we going to do about the ACS, sir?" Nix asked. Everyone had heard the conversation.
"We're not going to discuss what we're going to do about the ACS in front of an AID," Horner said with a tight, angry smile. "That's the first thing we're going to do for the ACS."
"Yes, sir." Nix paused. "Is there a second thing?"
"Call the SheVa."
"Rise and shine, Pruitt."
Pruitt had been new to SheVa guns when the crew had taken over SheVa Nine, but he had quickly noted one defect in the design. While the crew quarters were more than adequate, nearly sybaritic compared to the conditions of "grunt" infantry or regular tankers, they were located half way across the turret. That meant a mad dash down a thirty-meter hallway and climbing two sets of ladders before anyone could be at their positions. While that wasn't a big deal most of the time, in the sort of conditions they had just been through, two days of hard fighting, with Posleen ships appearing at any time, it was a recipe for disaster.
And it wasn't like he could rack out in his chair. For whatever reason, the U.S. Ground Forces hadn't considered the rudimentary capability of reclining the chairs. He had heard rumors that some people had switched them out, but he'd had neither the time nor the inclination. He had a better idea.
Stopping by one of the numerous "military supply" stores that popped up around every base had actually been difficult; Ground Force was in a real rush to get the SheVa back in commission. But he had managed and picked up a few items he thought might be of use. One of which he was currently using.
Pruitt rolled over in the survival hammock and groaned. "Go 'way."
"Come on, Pruitt." Indy jabbed him hard in the ribs. "Posleen landers on the horizon."
It was as if she had hit him with a cattle prod; Pruitt was out of the sack and halfway up the single set of stairs between him and the command center before he even noticed that he was up. Or the laughter behind him.
"I was joking sleepyhead," Indy laughed. "But we do have to get going."
"What now?" he looked at his watch and shook his head muzzily. "Six hours? Are the repairs done yet?"
"Not all of them, but that's not going to matter if we don't get going."
"Why?"
"Let's just say that it sucks to be ACS."
"Okay, General Keeton woke me up, too." Major Mitchell looked as if he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. In fact, he'd gotten nearly three hours. However, on top of two days continuous combat ops, that was like saying none at all. All it had done was make him logier.
The meeting to discuss an operations plan for the SheVa's side of the counterattack was taking place in the command center; it was one of the only places large enough, there were projection screens for laying out the plan, and it had enough chairs and ledges for everyone to sit.
Besides the SheVa crew there was Captain Chan, her senior NCO and Mr. Kilzer. All but Kilzer looked half asleep. He, on the other hand, was bouncing around like a ferret on a sugar high.
Mitchell yawned and gestured at the projected map. "The ACS got chewed up on landing and they're running short on power. In a couple of hours they are going to have to pull out of the Gap and get a resupply. After that they're going to have to retake the Gap, put the plug back in the bottle.
"To retake the Gap, they need nukes. Guess who has the only nukes within five hundred miles?"
Reeves raised his hand. "Major, even if there weren't Posleen in the way . . ."
"There are an estimated one point two million . . ."
The normally taciturn driver gulped and nodded his head. "Yes, sir, but even if there weren't we couldn't drive that far in, what?"
"We have to be to Franklin in . . ." He glanced at his watch. "Six and a half hours."
"Im-possible," Pruitt snapped. "It took us . . . what . . . ? Nearly a day to get from Franklin to here." After a moment he appended: "Sir."
"Nonetheless . . ." Mitchell gave a thin smile to the group in the command center. "Has anyone ever heard the traditional punishment for a good job?"
"Fine, sir," Indy said. "The difficult we do immediately. Thanks to Mr. Kilzer," she nodded at the designer who gave her a short, choppy nod back, " . . . and the brigade we're nearly repaired and significantly rearmed. But the impossible takes time. We have to get across either the Rocky Knob Gap or Betty—God help us if it's Betty—to get to the fighting. And we can't exactly zip up and down those slopes."
"Well, I understand you have some experience at skiing them," the designer said with a grin.
"Puh-leeze," Pruitt snapped. "You weren't there or you wouldn't laugh. And, sir, there is the minor matter of one point two million Posleen."
"We still have full nuclear release," Major Mitchell said solemnly. "And we've been given extra reloads."
"Fine, we can hit concentrations that are not in contact with human forces, sir," Pruitt said reasonably. "What about the ones that are?" He gestured at the map where a line of blue and red met halfway to Rocky Knob Gap. "We can't exactly nuke those Posleen."
"No, but we can assault them," Kilzer interrupted.
"Oh, yeah, now there's a good idea!"
"No, seriously. That was the point of the upgrade. You have more frontal armor, now, than an M-1A4; from the front you're practically invulnerable to plasma cannon fire and will even shrug off most HVM hits . . ."
" 'Practically'?" Indy interrupted. " 'Most'?"
"In addition there's the squirt-gun," the designer continued. "That should give you at least ten percent more likelihood of survival . . ."
" 'Practically'?" Pruitt said, goggle-eyed.
"Oh, quit being a baby," Paul said. "You're the most heavily armored thing on earth; act that way!"
Mitchell grabbed Pruitt's collar as he lunged out of the chair but the civilian apparently had no idea what he had said. "Mr. Kilzer, we've just wracked up more kills on this retreat than any SheVa in-toto, much less in a single engagement. So if one of us is 'being a baby' it is probably for good reason."
"I'm not saying going in there with guns blazing," Paul argued. "Although . . ."
"No," Indy snapped.
"Okay, okay, but what we'll do is provide fire support to the division already in contact, neutralize the forces moving through Rocky Knob Gap and then move forward in bounds with the division. If we get shot up too badly to move, they've got most of the brigade forming in ground mobile units and they'll come up behind you to repair."
"And Rocky Knob?"
"I was doing some mapping while you were asleep," the civilian said, bring up a three-D schematic of the mountains in the area. "You can't cross Rocky Knob; we need the road for movement of the support and combat forces . . ."
"We refer to them all as 'crunchies,' " Pruitt interjected.
"Heh, heh. Okay, we need the road for the crunchies. You'll have to cross Betty Gap again."
"No," Reeves said, standing up. "I'll quit first. I'll desert!"
"It won't be like the last time," Paul said. "I've got a few ideas that will help and I'll iron them out on the way."
"I'm not going up there," Pruitt said. "I'm not going SheVa skiing again."
"I'll work it out," Paul said, sharply. "I'm good at figuring out answers to problems. I do that, you shoot Posleen ships. Or maybe you figure out the answers and we switch; I'm a pretty good gunner when it comes to it. And we can't use Rocky Knob."
"Any other ideas how we're going to get to Franklin in time?" Mitchell looked around the room at the glum faces then shook his head. "I'll get with General Keeton so we can coordinate with the crunchies down the road. Are there any other comments, questions or concerns?"
"Just one," Pruitt said, suspiciously. "I think Mr. Kilzer has a pronoun problem. He keeps saying 'we.' "
"Oh, I'm going with you," Paul said. "All these systems are totally experimental. If anything goes wrong I want to be here to fix it."
"Oh, hell."