The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
—Rudyard Kipling
"Recessional" (1897)
Mike sat in the sunshine on Fort Hill looking down over the interleaving ridges and marshes running north and south from Lake Cayuga to Lake Ontario that comprised the Montezuma Defense Zone.
The terrain had been perfect for the human defenders; with all the roads and bridges cut, the Posleen assaulting out of fallen Syracuse had been cold meat in the first days of the war. Whether slogging through the numerous marshes or rushing the slab-sided hills they had fallen by the hundreds of thousands. And human losses, while high, had been a bare fraction; it was believed that the Battle of Messner Hill had achieved over one thousand Posleen deaths for every human defender.
Therefore, the decision to retreat barely a month into the war had been a critical blow. It had been on the plains between Clyde and Rochester that the Ten Thousand was born and the ACS died. It was in the politically driven decision to defend every hamlet, to counterattack every hilltop, that six divisions of veteran soldiers had been turned into food for the alien invaders. In the process, over three thousand M-1 tanks and two thousand irreplaceable suits had been lost. It was on the Ontario Plain that the war was nearly lost.
But now it was all returned. The Posleen, once broken in the brick-dust ruins of Rochester U, had run. And the ACS and the Ten Thousand hammered them for it. The Ten Thousand needed no encouragement; from the lowest buck private to their commander, every single soldier believed in "keepin' up the skeer." And any time a Posleen force turned at bay they would call on the supporting artillery and ACS.
That last, however, had cost the ACS battalion dear. Every suit was precious and they had lost better than two dozen troopers or suits in the pursuit. Supposedly a few new ones were on the way. But when they arrived would be problematical.
Looking down over the sparkling marshes, though, Mike had to believe it was worth it. The Ontario Plain was the weakest point in the Eastern U.S. With it back in human hands not only was there defense in depth—unlike at the beginning of the war the plain was now being covered with line after line of trench works—but the strongest points were held by veteran soldiers that knew the Posleen, however fierce, were not invincible. Posleen could die and their crested heads made great decorations over a mantelpiece.
Mike didn't even raise his head at the sound of a helicopter behind him. That was the definitive sign of a secure area; any aircraft was vulnerable to God Kings' fire and helicopters were worse than planes. If a helicopter was buzzing around it meant that all was right with the world. He smiled and recrossed his feet on the headless God King propping them up. Life was good.
Jack stepped out of the OH-58 and shook his head. It looked like the orders he brought were none too soon. There were quite a few signs that both the 1st/555th and the Ten Thousand needed a break. But the crests that some of the Ten Thousand troopers had attached to their rucksacks was nothing compared to the head of a God King stuck on an upthrust sword. The dripping yellow trophy had stained the weapon, probably the God King's own boma blade, and pooled under the ACS commander.
But Mike didn't seem to notice that little fact or the smell, despite having his helmet off. He just kept looking to the east, towards Syracuse and the distant Atlantic. Towards the enemy that held the plains.
The general walked up behind his former aide with a glance at Mike's staff. The group of officers and NCOs kept a respectful distance, also looking to the east and conversing in low tones. Most of them were young, like the commander, and all had learned in a hard school. But Horner understood the difference, the reason they were not starting to act oddly; they didn't have the added weight of command.
From the very first contact with the Posleen, O'Neal had been in one position of command or another. Frequently, in the early days, these were thrust upon him unexpectedly. And unlike Horner he had not had the time before the war to come to terms with the weight of responsibility or the little tricks that commanders learned to manage the load. The result was his psychological management techniques took unexpected and, arguably, unwise directions.
No question, it was time for a break.
"Morning, Mike," said the general.
"You will note that it is Tuesday," the major said, standing up. "And while we are not in Syracuse that is not our fault; I was informed that to go further would be 'logistically insupportable.' Thanks for the armor support, by the way."
"It's okay," said Horner. "We got back Savannah. And, believe it or not, there are no problems anywhere in the Eastern U.S. As a matter of fact, the worst I have to worry about is a globe in Georgia that's not acting the way it should."
The ACS commander turned around and looked up at the much taller general. "So you're telling me we're going west."
"Nope," said the Continental Army Commander. "You're not going anywhere. Except back to Buffalo for at least a week of R&R."
Mike frowned. "Harrisburg?"
"The assault got beaten off. And we managed to slip in a resupply of critical parts so they're back in full form."
"Roanoke?"
"The 22nd Cavalry retook the forward positions. And the Posleen look like they're licking their wounds. Actually, they'd better be 'cause General Abrahamson boxed 'em in and pounded them into scraps. He couldn't get a good count, but it looked like over two million lost there. Better than Richmond."
"Chattanooga?"
"Hasn't been a probe in a couple of months."
O'Neal tugged at the collar of his armor and worked his neck around nervously. "California?"
"There hasn't been any activity in weeks," Horner sighed. "Mike, you need to take a break. You're propping your feet on dead Posleen and screaming 'eat me' at my corps commanders."
"You heard about that, huh?" the major asked without chagrin. "He deserved it, though. We'd been ready to move out for two hours when his first unit showed up."
"Probably," Horner admitted. "But you still need a break. There's not enough time for you to go see Cally, though. Is that okay?"
"Yeah," said the ACS commander looking around as if awakening from sleep. "I just . . . I don't know what to do, Jack!"
Horner snorted. "Keep your battalion on standby, but one day recall is fine. I'll go tell Duncan; he can handle the details. Go back to Buffalo. Get some dress greens, flash the medal around, get your tubes cleaned. You're a widower, not an ascetic."
"That's cold, Jack," O'Neal said with a touch of anger.
"And that is something you haven't figured out, yet," the general responded. "War is cold. You have to be colder."
"Yeah," Mike said, wiping his gauntlet over his face and glancing at the head of the God King with distaste. "Maybe a couple of beers are in order."
"Two weeks," Horner said. "After that there's that globe landing in Georgia I want you to go check out. I had the local corps commander put a Fleet LRRP team on it, but they don't appear to be moving. So take a couple of weeks. Besides, we're getting ahead of the game on SheVas and I sent SheVa Nine down there to backstop Fourteen. If two SheVas can't handle it, what's the point of sending the ACS, right?"
"Okay," O'Neal said. "I got the picture." He took one last look at the marshes and hills to the east. "All in all, though, I think I'd rather be in Georgia."
"I need you functional, Mike. This war has cost us too many good soldiers already."
Mike nodded and scratched at one of the newer gouges on his suit. The nannites would eventually clean it up, but the repairs left visible traces like scars, slightly off-color. The sign that a suit had seen wear.
"Did you really tell that SheVa colonel to run me over?" he asked.
"Who?" Horner said with a frown. "Me? Whatever gave you that idea?"
" 'Twas a terrible cruel thing to do," Mike grumped. "I got half a dozen ports clogged."
"Face it, Mighty Mite," Horner said, slapping the suit lightly on the shoulder. "You needed a good shellacking. It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it."
Mueller crouched on the slope above Bridge Creek Road and regarded the bridge sourly.
The rest of the team was gathered around, belly down on an outcrop of schist that gave a fairly covered view of the dam and the bridge at the same time. In spring or summer the slope of mixed white pine and hardwoods would have obscured the view of the dam and vice versa. But this late in the fall the only thing protecting the team from view was camouflage and stillness. Which meant that crossing the bridge was going to be tricky.
Coming out of the dam the river curved around the slope they were on, slightly to the east, then straightened back out in an "s." The bridge was a strikethrough in the middle of the "s," slightly out of sight from the dam. On the north side of the road, the side they overlooked, was a low field of white pine that came within twenty meters of the road and ran right up to the water's edge. The road's right-of-way hadn't been bushed since before the invasion from the looks of things and was thick with weeds and brambles. The cover down on the flat was going to be much better than anywhere on the slope.
On "their" side of the river was a power substation that appeared to be still functioning. At least, the road up to it had been recently regraded and the fence metal looked to be in good repair. If it wasn't in use, the Posleen probably would have salvaged it long since.
From long years of experience, Mueller was fairly sure which way Mosovich would hop, but he had to be sure.
"Well?" he whispered.
Mosovich's camouflage-painted face was set and still for a moment, then he grimaced. There were two problems in the crossing. The first was the slope, which was not only open—it was steep as hell. Most civilians would have referred to it as a cliff, but it was really just a very steep, standard Appalachian, forested slope. The trees alone would reduce the difficulty in going down and it was cut by both the back-and-forth trails of deer and a couple of what looked like old logging roads. The team, with the exception of Nichols, had been spending enough time climbing up and down similar slopes that they were as good as any mountain troops, with the possible exception of the Gurkhas, in the world. So they would be able to negotiate it. But it was still steep as hell and that meant the possibility of somebody getting injured on the way down.
If they went straight down they would also be in view of the dam. For all his words about the Posleen not posting sentries he wasn't about to take an unnecessary risk. Just to their left, moreover, was a very shallow gully. If they moved around to that they would be out of sight of the dam, any Posleen coming from the east would have to look back over their shoulder to spot them and the ground was a tad less steep.
Once they were on the flat they could get into the trees by the stream and have fairly good concealment right up to the bridge. Crossing that would be tricky thing number two.
"Left. Take the slope fast. Go for the drainage ditch by the road then into the trees."
"Gotcha," Mueller said, swinging off the gray rock outcropping to get ready to go down the hill.
"Fast is a relative term," Nichols pointed out. "I ain't gonna win any hundred yard dashes with this heavy mother."
The sniper's rifle weighed thirty pounds and the ammunition for it was not exactly light. Although the snipers carried relatively few rounds, their "loadout"—the amount of material and equipment they carried—rounded out at over a hundred pounds. Nichols wasn't a slouch, but Godzilla couldn't dash with a hundred pounds on his back. Not very far.
"Mueller, take one end," Mosovich hissed. "I'll take the lead. When we hit the flat, trot, don't dash. But for God's sake, keep an eye out, don't trip and don't slow down." He crouched as well, looked both ways and nodded. "Let's go."
The safest and quietest way to go down the leaf-covered slope would have been to follow the deer paths step by cautious step. In places they might have been able to drop a level or two, moving onto the occasional outcrop or fallen tree so as to get down on the flats a bit quicker, but by and large it would have been a slow, serpentine, back-and-forth trail to the valley floor.
However, that serpentine trail would have meant being exposed for ten or fifteen minutes on the lightly wooded hill. Mosovich had considered and discarded that method, preferring to get to the flat, and some reasonable cover, as fast as possible. Which meant tobogganing.
The most deadly part of the descent was that each step was in danger of sliding on the leaves. But that slide could be used to the advantage of the team and Mosovich was more than willing to go for it. He sat down, planted both feet lightly and kicked off.
The sensation was similar to tobogganing on snow and just about as fast. It was also reasonably quiet, not that that would matter; if there was a Posleen close enough to hear their passage they would be spotted as well. The technique was different from sledding on snow in that it was easier to slow yourself and Mosovich was careful not to let it get out of control. Fortunately, there were not only trees to occasionally catch himself on but several natural breakpoints.
He reached the first of these, a broken section of what was probably once a logging road blasted into the slope and went flat to listen for a moment. The Posleen companies weren't quiet and there was a chance that if one was coming from the east they would hear it before it came in view. The same couldn't be said for the west, which was the more dangerous direction, but life was a gamble much of the time, especially for the LRRPs.
After a brief pause he started down again. This portion of the slope was, if anything, steeper and he had to catch at trees several times, banging himself painfully on the inner thigh on a small, concealed stump and catching a small beech sapling just before going over the steep bluff at the bottom. He paused again to listen, but there was nothing to hear except the soughing of wind in the trees and the faint hum from the power substation no more than twenty meters away. And ten meters down on the flat.
The ten-meter bluff was not quite ninety degrees. Once upon a time he would have turned around and carefully found his way down using hand- and footholds. But, once upon a time and far away in a land called Vietnam, a visiting Gurkha had first laughed himself sick then shown him the proper way to traverse such a slope. So, standing up, he leaned forward and started to run. The movement could best be described as a controlled fall, there was no stopping it until you reached the flat and could coast to a stop. Or keep running as the case might be.
He was never able to determine where he had put his feet in these situations and it didn't really matter because a second after he started he'd dropped the ten meters, feet flying from one friable bit of quartz embedded clay to another, and was on the flat pounding towards the drainage ditch by the road. He flopped on his belly in the stagnant water in the ditch, extended a camera to cover both directions and popped up a directional antenna.
"You guys coming or what?"
It was exactly two minutes and thirty-five seconds from when he had kicked off of the ledge.
The rest of the team descended more circumspectly, but with Mosovich in place he had a view that would give advanced warning if a Posleen patrol was approaching. As long as the team could freeze in place their camouflage and the darkness would probably prevent their being spotted. As it turned out, there were no patrols in the time it took them to descend the hill and join him on the flat. A small patrol, no more than twenty, came by while they were making their way through the grove of white pine along the river. But they just crouched in the close packed trees—the area looked almost like a Christmas tree farm—until the Posleen passed, then the human patrol closed on the bridge.
The bridge was a simple, flat, concrete structure that just spanned the rushing waters. Checking both ways as if for traffic, Mosovich hopped over the near guardrail and started across the span with the rest of the team not far behind. On the far side, to the left, was another small field, the intersection of the main road and a washed-out side road that paralleled the river on the west side. The field was covered in brambles and small white pines, none of them more than knee-high, but it looked like some concealment to Brer Mosovich and he jumped the far guardrail and went to ground again.
As soon as the rest of the team was in place, and making sure again that there was no sign of Posleen, he trotted through the brambles to the side road. The nearest woodline was up a chest-high embankment and across another small, sloping, weed-covered field. Once they crossed that, no more than another seventy meters, they would be in the woods and out of sight; the woods on this side were much more "bushy" than on the far slope.
Jake jumped up the embankment and waited for Mueller and Nichols. After helping the sweating sniper haul the rifle up the embankment the team leader headed for the woodline.
Daffodils, some roses run wild and a shallow crater showed that this had once been a homestead. There was also a low, stone terrace to be negotiated. As Jake scrambled up that—reaching the deeper shadows under an enormous pinetree—he looked to the east and went flat on his stomach; a Posleen patrol had just come around the bend on the far side of the river.
The rest of the patrol saw him go down and followed suit, hoping for the darkness and their camouflage to conceal them. Sister Mary took a calculated risk and reached back to flip down her own ghillie net, which was kept in a bag at the top of the rucksack. It only took a few twitches to cover herself and a human could have walked within a few feet and never realized she was there.
The Land Warrior suits they all wore had a nice suite of "sensors," one of which was a fiber-optic periscope. Mosovich, and everyone else, used theirs now as they slowly extended them above grass height and looked back towards the bridge. The small diameter of the optics, even with the best processing in the world, did not give much detail in the extreme darkness, but some gross outlines were possible to make out. The Posleen patrol had come from the northeast, from the general direction of Tiger, and now they broke rhythm and ranks to cross the small structure.
As the patrol watched, the Posleen force, about two hundred in number, formed up on the near side of the bridge, no more than fifty meters away, turned up the far hill and trotted away.
Mosovich waited a moment for them to get out of sight then stood up carefully. "Now why the hell didn't they see our trail?" he wondered.
"I dunno," Mueller responded, picking up the barrel of the sniper rifle. The four trails were clear in the vision systems, with bent down grass and weeds pointing directly to their position. "I dunno," he repeated. "But let's get the hell out of Dodge."
"Concur," Mosovich said, heading towards the trees again at a moderate but steady pace. "No reason to look a gift horse in the mouth."
The Posleen normal had very few desires in life. Eat. Sleep. Reproduce. Satisfy the desires of its God. Kill anything that threatened it or its God.
Currently it was satisfying its God that had it bugged. The orders it had been given were right at the edge of its competence. Most of its limited intelligence was bent on keeping to the complicated patrol path that had been laid out for it. The rest was burdened with determining what "signs of the threshkreen" meant. It knew threshkreen; it had survived all three of the fights its God had been involved in. They mostly wore green and brown. They carried weapons not dissimilar to the People. They were generally tough and stringy.
But, by all reason, threshkreen either should be or should not be. This . . . being in potential, having been, but are not now, but might be again, this was rocket science to the poor normal.
However, as it passed over the bridge, ready to make its programmed turn, it paused. Around it the part oolt formed, looking for the threat that had prevented their temporary master from continuing on. No threat. No thresh, no threshkreen. Just the dark silence of the moonless night.
For the superior normal, however, there was a problem. The last time the God had spoken to him—he recalled it with a thrill of pleasure—the God had asked if he had seen anything not-normal. This, then, these . . . trails through the high grass and thorn bushes, this was not normal. By extension, it was possible that he should call for help if something was not normal. However, those were not his orders. His orders were to fire off one magazine if he saw "sign of threshkreen."
But . . . this could be the mysterious "sign." Running thresh made such trails; it was a good way to find the thresh for gathering. Threshkreen, though, tended to leave things on the trails themselves, so walking on them when gathering threshkreen was contraindicated.
But even the four-legged thresh of these hills made trails like that from time to time. Another patrol could have scattered them, driving them away from the road by their presence. It could even have been wild oolt'os; there were some of those in these death haunted hills.
Rocket science indeed. Finally, cautiously, the normal moved towards the trails, searching and scenting for any clue. The trails came off of the road, crossed the field with some evidence of scattering or bedding, then went up into the hill beyond. He cautiously paralleled one of the trails. There was a scent of oil, a bite of gun-smell, that combination of propellants, metal and cleaners. But that could have come from anything. It could be in his nose from their own weapons. Finally he paused.
The field was covered in thorn and grass, a simple triangle between the trees along the river, a road that paralleled it and the main road they were patrolling. The parallel road, a washed-out track now after the first onslaught cleared these hills, was also torn in the passage of whatever had made the trails. And in the mud on the far side, under the short cliff that terminated the field beyond, was a clear and unmistakable boot print.
The normal didn't know it was a bootprint. But he now knew what his God had meant by "sign of threshkreen" for he had seen this before as well. And when he saw it, he lifted his railgun in the air and fired.
"Oh, bloody hell," Nichols said quietly.
"Somebody spotted the path," Mueller added unnecessarily. "Jake?"
"Sister, call for fire on that field, call for scatterable mines on our trail, too. Let's didee-mao, people."
Cholosta'an scratched up behind the head of the superior normal as he drew his blade. It bothered him to gather this one. The normal was, without a doubt, the best of his oolt'os, but he was wounded sore and the path of duty was obvious. Cholosta'an scratched the chosslain and told him how good he had been to find the trail of the threshkreen as he laid the monomolecular blade against the normal's throat.
"Wait," Orostan said quietly. "Is that the one that found the trail?"
"Yes, Oolt'ondai," the younger Kessentai answered. "It . . . bothers me to gather him. I have none better. But the way is clear."
"Leave him. We will provide him with food. With enough food and rest he may grow well."
"Even if he survives he will be crippled," Cholosta'an protested feebly. The idea was attractive, but the oolt'os would be nothing but a weight on his balance sheet.
"If you will not support him, I will," Orostan said. "Keep the genes. Keep the material. Put him to the work of a Kenstain, that which he can do. We need such as he. And you have other things to do."
"As you bid, Oolt'ondai," Cholosta'an said, sheathing the blade. He gave the oolt'os some of his own rations, a singular honor, and stood up. "Well, you suggested I give up half my oolt and that is, more or less, what has occurred."
"Not exactly as I had intended," Orostan said. "But not without some good. We now have these damned threshkreen, this Lurp team, localized. We can put all our patrols on a few roads and narrow the area down even more. Once we have them in a tiny box we will find and destroy them if it takes the entire host to do it."
"Good," Cholosta'an said savagely. "When we do I want to eat their hearts."
Orostan hissed in humor. "I am no human lover, but they do have some good expressions. They refer to that as 'payback.' "