When the Devil Dances

CHAPTER 29 Newry Cantonment, PA, United States, Sol III 1843 EDT Saturday September 26, 2009 ad

“Sir, I’m looking at this directive and obviously missing something,” Captain Slight said. “There’s no timetable for the relieving force.”

The battalion staff and company commanders had gathered in the briefing room to see if there was some way to make the mission less of a nightmare. Instead, they were finding more and more things not to like about it.

“That’s because there’s not one yet,” Mike said with a grim smile. He leaned forward, steepling his fingers and grinned. “You’ve taken a look at the terrain, right?”

“Yep,” Duncan said. “A troop of Boy Scouts with a .22 should be able to bottle them up in there.”

“Normally I’d agree,” O’Neal replied. “But in this case, the Posleen are fighting smart. The point is that they will be at a really severe handicap; there’s not much room for them to maneuver in there and lots of places for dug-in forces and engineers to make their life miserable. But, by the same token, it’s the kind of terrain that will eat up assaulting forces.”

“So… what?” Captain Holder. “They’re just going to let us die on the vine?”

“They’ll push forces forward until they come into contact,” Mike said. “Then they’ll hunker down and start killing Posleen. If they kill all or most of them that are in the pocket, they’ll push forward. Until they do that…”

“We’re just going to be left to die on the vine,” Captain Slight said. “That sucks, sir.”

“Why do you think I lost my temper?” O’Neal said with another grim smile. “The British Airborne in Arnhem kept fighting for nine days when told they only had to hold out for three until relieved; and the relieving forces never did reach Arnhem.”

“The Germans did not, by and large, eat their captives, sir,” Captain Holder pointed out.

“I don’t know of a single instance,” Mike agreed. “On the other hand, this is the mission. Hold until relieved. I, personally, plan on stacking the deck as much in our favor as possible.” He pushed his AID forward and nodded at it.

“We are going to need all the shuttles we can get our hands on and all the ammunition, power packs and generators available. But the real problem is going to be that we won’t have any anti-lander support. Shelly, how many AM Lances are there that can be transported here within the next, say, six hours?”

“Four,” the AID reported. “They are scattered around Minneapolis for the support of Northern Plains Front. One of the shuttles that is lifting from Chicago could pick them up and bring them down. To get here in six hours would require ignoring some safety regulations, but it could be done.”

“So ordered,” Mike said. “What do we have in the way of shuttles, power packs and generators?”

“There are twenty-two Banshee Two shuttles,” Shelly said. “Sixteen will be here within three hours. If we wait for the AM Lances, there will be ample time for all twenty-two to arrive.”

“Duncan, start working on a load list,” Mike said. “You know what to do: Ensure that stuff is scattered across all the shuttles. Start preparing the load for each. That way when they get here we can just load them. Assume that we will lose shuttles on the way in and that we’ll be unloading them under fire.”

“I thought that we were going to get area denial support,” Captain Holder said.

“We are,” Mike answered. “Or we’re not going. That doesn’t mean we won’t be under fire both on the way in and after landing. It just means we won’t be wiped out immediately.”

“Anyway, Duncan, the AIDs can do most of it, but I want you to ensure that scrap of ‘intuition,’ ” he added with a grin.

“Gotcha,” the captain said with an abstracted expression. “We’ve only got a total of five generators and power packs, though. And if the power packs get hit…”

“Biiiig boom,” Stewart interjected.

“ ‘There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom, where was the earth-shattering kaboom?’ ” Gunny Pappas said with a chuckle.

“Don’t put anybody on those shuttles,” Mike said with a shrug. “I hate to have them be ‘noticeable,’ but we’ll have them fly separately. They can park in the mountains and after we’ve secured an LZ they can come in and unload. Then we dig the bastards in and hope for the best.”

“Like, ‘die quick so we don’t notice’?” Stewart quipped.

“Something like that,” Mike answered. “Duncan, what’s operations think we should do?”

“Our best bet for a defensible point is probably the current location of the Wall,” Duncan said, flipping up a hologram. “We can dig into its structure and be very hard to dig out. But getting to it is going to be slightly tricky.”

“We’re going to have three or four SheVas that can fire in support,” the operations officer answered. “That means a total of six to eight rounds of antimatter area suppression. And that means that the actual area we can totally suppress will be low; no more than four thousand meters on a side. We need to prevent direct lines of observation of the landing zone, therefore we’re going to have to land forward of our objective, up by Black’s Creek in what used to be Mountain City. That area is fairly open and flat and what is more important it’s a small ‘bowl’ in the mountains; you can’t observe it from the Valley or down on the plains. The only possible observers at that point should be Crispy Critters.

“There’s a large enough area that all the shuttles can land together. We take and secure that LZ, then call in the two shuttles with the AM power-packs. Once they are secured, we move up to the Wall and dig in. I’d suggest Charlie Company on the west and Bravo on the east, but that was based on flipping a coin, so feel free to change it around.”

He changed the hologram and zeroed in on the Wall structure. “The information we have is that the Posties are doing a number on the wall itself. So until we get there, I don’t think we’ll know what the actual situation is. But I think we should assume it will be mostly flattened.”

“That’s a big structure to flatten,” Holder said.

“The report said they were using heavy kinetic bombardment and anti-ship cannons,” Mike pointed out. “They can pick apart a monitor with those; wiping out the Wall won’t be a problem.”

“That means C-Decs,” Duncan pointed out. “Lampreys can’t get their space weapon to bear on a ground target.”

“There was report of both C-Decs and Lampreys,” Stewart said. “ ‘A large number.’ There was also mention of a surviving SheVa engaging them. There’s a Fleet Lurp team on the ground to the west. They’re snooping forward, but we’ll probably be to the LZ before they arrive…”

Elgars looked up from her cards and frowned. “What was that?”

Billy looked up from where he was kicking her ass at War and shrugged. He looked at the door, but obviously couldn’t hear anything over the sound from the other children.

It was just past dinner time and the kids were still complaining vociferously about the quality of the food. It only took one trip to the O’Neal farm to spoil them. But just at the moment she wished they would quiet down. However, the next rumble from outside the room was loud enough to cut through to Shari.

“Children! Silence!” she called. She had to repeat it three times before Shakeela finally stopped talking, but when she did she looked over at Elgars and frowned. “Is that screaming?”

“Some,” the captain said, getting to her feet and moving to the door. As she reached it Wendy opened it from the other side.

“We’ve got a situation on our hands,” she said breathlessly. “It’s another Posleen rumor.”

“Rumor or fact?” Shari said nervously.

“Right now it’s a riot, so I’m not sure,” the younger woman answered with a shrug. “I was on my way up when I hit the crowd. But there’s no alarm so I’d say a rumor.”

“How do we know which?” Elgars asked.

Wendy shrugged and went to the communications terminal. “Call Harmon; he’s up towards the entrance. He’ll have heard.”

She tapped in the code for the range and started to talk as Dave’s face came on the screen, but he immediately started into his message. “Hi, this is Dave Harmon with Harmony Ranges. I’m not in right now…”

“Well, that didn’t work,” Wendy said with a frown. “On the other hand…”

“What?” Elgars asked.

“Well, that’s only the second time I’ve ever gotten his answering machine,” Wendy admitted. “Okay, Captain, I’d suggest you and I head up towards A Sector. We’ll see if we can find security for a change; of course they’re never available when you want them.”

“And what do we do if it really is the Posleen?” Shari asked. “If they’re already in the Urb?”

“Then we go to the designated defense points,” Wendy said. “I hope they’re not in the Urb, though, because if they came in the main entrances, without a warning, they’ve got the Armory…”

“Considering the condition of your rifle that might not matter,” Elgars said, heading for the door. “And neither of us is packed.”

“We’ll head for the range,” Wendy said. “Shari, lock it down; at the least we have a riot on our hands.”

“Okay,” she said, standing by the door. “Be careful.”

“How about ‘be back’?” Wendy said. “Here goes nothing.”

Wendy started to take the main route to Sector A, but the primary passages were choked with underground dwellers. The situation wasn’t actually a riot, yet. But the groups were all milling around like cattle that smell smoke but are unsure of which way the fire would come. It wouldn’t take much of a spark to start them stampeding.

Wendy shook her head and started off down a tertiary corridor then through a series of turns that quickly left Elgars totally confused.

“I thought I was getting used to this place,” the captain admitted. “But if it wasn’t for the signs I’d have no idea where you were going or how.”

“It takes a native,” Wendy admitted, opening a door that was marked “No Admittance.” “Preferably a native that has emergency access privileges.”

The corridor that they had entered was apparently a maintenance access for the innumerable pumps and pipes that moved the Urb’s water and sewage. There was a large pump on the left-hand side throbbing and gurgling and a half a dozen gray pipes over a meter in diameter running into and out of it.

Wendy led the way to a ladder that ran from a lower level upward to the next. “Time to climb.”

The ladder stretched upwards at least five levels and Wendy quickly ascended with Elgars following. It was clear that whatever other problems she might have had, the girl could climb.

“Where are we?” Elgars asked.

“Just between the juncture of A and D sectors,” Wendy answered moving to the end of a corridor identical to the first. “If memory serves, this should open out into a secondary corridor and that should connect to the main route to the range.” She stopped as she was about to open the hatch and first put her hand on the door and then laid her ear against it. “Do you hear something?”

“Feel it, more like,” Elgars said. The floor seemed to be shuddering at irregular intervals.”

“That’s… new,” Wendy said, popping the portal.

The corridor they stepped into was empty, but for the first time there were screams in the distance and then, close, the sound of a gun, probably a shotgun, discharging.

“Okay, that’s bad,” Wendy said. She looked up and down the corridor unsure which way to go. “Left is to the range,” she muttered. That was also the direction of the greatest noise.

As they stood there, the decision was reached for them. A mob appeared at the right end of the corridor and a group of them sprinted down the other direction. On the left, at almost the same time, a large figure in a wheelchair appeared, wheeling in the opposite direction for all his might.

“Oh, shit,” Wendy breathed. “Oh… merde.” She felt faint for just a moment and a taste of iron was in her mouth; she really didn’t like the way things were going.

“Hi, Wendy,” Harmon said, sliding to a stop as the panicked refugees poured by. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Did you know I’d come up the tunnel?” she asked and shook her head.

“Well, I didn’t figure you’d used the escalators,” he admitted. “It was this one or ladder seventeen-B and if you used that one you’d be dead by now, so I figured I’d come over here.”

“Oh, shit, Dave,” she said, looking into the maintenance room. The idea of lowering Harmon down that ladder was not appealing.

“Let’s step inside, shall we?” he asked, rolling past her. “And close the door.”

“What happened?” she asked, sealing the memory plastic portal. She wished it was a blast door.

“Dunno,” Harmon said. “I ran across a security goon; they said that the computer was refusing to recognize the Posleen or declare a system-wide emergency. So other than calling people and telling them to get out, there was nothing to do. And they didn’t get the word from the corps at all; the Posleen were just on the Urb before anyone knew anything was wrong. I was at my quarters; I couldn’t even make it to the range.” He reached into his carry bag and pulled out a short barrel pump shotgun. “Of course, nothing says I didn’t have a backup.”

“But it’s like Rochester,” Wendy whispered. “If they’re on the entrances there’s nothing we can do.”

“I was wondering about that,” Harmon said. “There’s more than just personnel entrances; the grain elevators have a completely separate area. If you go down to H level through Hydroponics and into the elevators you’ll come out about five miles from Pendergrass Mountain in an industrial park. Posleen can’t be everywhere; once you make it up in the mountains…”

“That… might work,” Wendy said, some of the shock coming off of her. “How in the hell are we going to get you down to H Sector, though?”

Harmon laughed and shook his head. “You’re not. I am going to take the ladder down to D and then head for the cafeteria. But that’s as far as I’m going.”

“Dave…”

“Shut up, will you?” he asked. “We need to move and I need your help. I can climb down the ladder myself, but I need somebody to get the chair down.”

“Can do,” Wendy said. “But what about… ?”

“Wendy, if you can make it out of here, especially with the kids, it will be a miracle,” he said. “You will not make it out dragging a… guy in a wheelchair. Too many ladders, too many small passages that are not exactly ‘handicap friendly.’ Understood?”

“Understood,” Wendy answered.

Getting him down the ladder was easier than it appeared. Wendy found a length of tie-down strap and lowered the wheelchair almost the entire way, then Elgars climbed down and held onto it while Wendy climbed down and repeated the operation. Harmon, as he had said, was able to descend the ladder using only his arms. Maneuvering him into the chair at the bottom was tricky, but even that was accomplished with little trouble.

The corridors had actually thinned out as people gravitated to anywhere they considered safe. They wheeled the former police officer to the cafeteria, which was already filling up with people. As anticipated, many of them had managed to find a weapon “somewhere.” Wendy wheeled him into the echoing hall and settled him behind a hasty barricade.

“I still don’t like it,” she said. She looked around and noted that most of the people in the room were older or infirm. On the other hand, most of them also looked like they were ready to handle anything hostile that came through the door.

“If it’s a small incursion and anybody else turns up with a weapon we might make it,” he said with a shrug. “And as long as you guys keep out of the way, we’ll see each other later.”

Elgars walked over and kissed him on the forehead then rubbed his stubble. “Aim low,” she muttered. “They might be riding shetland ponies.”

Harmon laughed and nodded. “I will. Get out of here.”

One of the other defenders came over, a big old man with silver hair and hands that still had the calluses of a guy who had worked for a living. He was carrying a shortened pump shotgun similar to Harmon’s and two mugs of steaming liquid. “Coffee, Dave?”

“Damn, where’d you get that, Pops?” Harmon asked with a laugh. “And I see that you are carrying a weapon, in clear violation of Sub-Urb regulation,” he added in a stern tone.

“Oh, this?” the old man said, holding up the well-tended shotgun. “I just noticed it lying there in the corridor on my way over here. Undoubtedly it was dropped in panic by some miscreant. Probably at the thought of how angry Security would be if they caught him with it; I’m sure that he was shaking in his — or her, come to think of it — boots.” He reached into his cavernous smock and pulled out a handful of twelve-gauge cartridges. “You fixed for ammo?”

Dave just laughed and shook his head. “Take off, ladies. I’ll be fine.”

Wendy gave him a last pat on the shoulder and walked out into the corridor.

“What we need,” Wendy said, “is a plan.”

Elgars looked thoughtful for a moment. “ ‘Kill them all; God will surely know his own.’ ”

“Where did you hear that?” Wendy asked.

“I have no idea, but when you said ‘plan’ it just popped in my head,” Elgars sighed. “We need weapons. Those are in my room.”

“Yeah, and we need to get the kids to Hydroponics,” Wendy added. “You go for the guns, I’ll go for the kids. We’ll meet at the entrance to Hydro. Bring all the ammo you can carry.”

“Oh, yes,” Elgars said. “That part I can guarantee.”