John Ringo - Into the Looking Glass

“Miller!” Bill said, half afraid, half furious.

“SEAL Team Five,” Miller said, stonily. “Sound off.”

“Six.” “Four.” “Seven.” “Five.” “Eight.” “Nine.” “Three. Here, weapons inop.”

“Two?” Miller said. “Two?”

“Two’s gone.” Bill recognized the voice this time as Sanson. He sounded… cold.

“SEAL Team Five,” Miller said. “Prepare to assault gateway on my signal. Three, go ground tactical.”

Bill manipulated the security settings on his radio as he prepared to stand up. The settings could be reset so that the commanders could speak to subordinates without being overheard. It was on the same frequency but anyone without the proper setting would only get a hissing in their ears. His suit and Miller’s were dialed in on the security setting.

“Miller?” Bill said. “Is this a good idea?”

“Tactically?” the SEAL answered. “Yes.”

“I mean, doesn’t the military sort of frown on chiefs, even command master chiefs, not listening to majors?”

“Yes,” Bill said, tersely. “It’s called disobedience of a direct order from a lawful superior under combat conditions. It means I won’t be getting a pension. On the other hand, I will be boarded by the United States Government, at no expense to myself, at a pleasant place called Leavenworth. Get the fucking box in the gate, Doctor. Leave the rest for me to worry about.”

“SEAL Team Five,” Miller said, his voice cold and professional as he reset to general communications settings. “Let’s roll.”

Bill started to stand up, then rolled over instead and lowered his feet over the slight bluff at the top of the ridge. The slope of the ridge down to the hollow was covered in light scrub — had apparently been cleared off a few years before — which broke under the weight of the mecha. But going downhill was, if anything, harder than going uphill in the suits. He more or less slid on his butt, half out of control, down the slope to where it flattened out. He felt rather than saw some plasma detonations, but they weren’t close to him so he ignored them. There was no way, as out of control as he was, that he could return fire, anyway. He was having enough trouble just hanging on to his weapon.

Finally the out-of-control slide stopped and he hefted his weapon, levering himself to his feet and getting ready to run to the gate. Then he paused. Face it, it was the job of the SEALs to clear the way. He was just there to set the ardune. Let them go first.

He looked around and found it surprisingly hard to spot them; the suits had a radiator on their back, just below the americium battery pack, but other than that spot they didn’t radiate heat. It was another benefit of the suits and if he survived he planned on adding it to his after-action field-test report.

There was no more plasma fire coming at them and as the SEALs slid forward, swinging their weapons from side to side, and scanning for threats, he followed, concentrating on the gate.

It was visible even in infrared, emitting a slightly higher temperature than the background. The planet on the far side must have been warmer and with a slight overpressure because whisps of what looked like fog in the thermal imagery were drifting up and out of the gateway. He quickly ran the fifty meters to the gate and set his Gatling gun on the ground, turning and fumbling to open up the container that held the ardune, just as one of the suits exploded in plasma fire.

“General Thrathptttt,” the runner was panting but he straightened and bowed to the commander of the combined Mreee N!T!Ch! assault force. “A group of human infantry has infiltrated to the gate area. They pushed off the forces on the ridge to the east. They are attempting to seize the gate.”

General Thrathptttt spat a curse and looked at his map. The detail was poor, it had been found in one of the human stores in the small town they had taken, but it was clear what was happening. The humans had used their heavy forces as diversions and then sent in an infiltration force to seize the gate, cutting off his reinforcements. He’d left light forces on the ridge, banking on pickets to tell him if there was an attack from that direction. If there was, the forces near the gate should have been able to reinforce the ridge, easily. But the humans were tricky, worthy opponents. He was pleased.

“We can let the reinforcements handle it,” one of his aides said. He had been updating the map and now put a marker on it for an unknown force at the gate.

“No,” Thrathptttt said. He fingered his eyepatch in thought. It was a long time since the Mreee had faced worthy opponents and he remembered what had happened, then. But the humans were not as much to be feared as the Masters.

“Have runners sent to Mraown company and S!L!K! company. Have Mraown come over this ridge on them. Take the ridge and provide covering fire. Let the N!T!Ch! go up the road and recapture the gate.”

“That will weaken our defenses along the road to Waaaarcrick,” the aide protested.

“And the humans will drive through them, eventually,” the general said, looking at the map and fingering his patch again. “Which will leave Mraown in position to catch them in the flank as they pass. We can push reinforcements from Flefffpt up the hill as well when they come through. Have Mraown and S!L!K! retake the gate area. The rest will be easy.”

“Son of a bitch,” Miller snarled. He didn’t know if this was forces retreating from the mech attacks or units sent back to reinforce the gate. But he did know that they were bloody well screwed. The ridgeline to the west had just spotted itself with what were apparently Mreee and he could see a whole passel, company, maybe battalion, strength, of Nitch running up the road into the hollow.

“SEALs, form perimeter around the doc,” Miller snapped. “Engage targets of opportunity. Keep fire off the doc.”

That was pretty difficult, however. The Nitch had eight legs and two “arms” which they used to carry slightly larger versions of the “raygun” the Mreee had been armed with. They apparently had trouble moving among the trees — their feet spanned nearly three meters across — but they could skitter along the road, fast. And they were stable enough to fire at the same time. Which these were doing. They were still a couple of hundred yards away and most of the fire was going overhead, but it was still brutal.

And the Mreee on the ridgeline could pour fire into them, just as they and the 101st had poured it into the scattered bodies of Mreee and Nitch in the hollow. Admittedly, they seemed to have some trouble spotting the SEALs and their fire was pretty inaccurate. But as each SEAL fired, tracers from their weapons revealed their location. The fire had already taken out one of the suits and would soon start pounding the rest.

“Major, we need heavy fire-support here,” Miller said on the battalion frequency. He had assumed the prone position and was now sending carefully aimed bursts into the Nitch charging up the road; he considered them the worst of the two threats.

“We’re on it,” the battalion commander replied. “This is why I said hold up.”

Miller didn’t bother to point out that if the major had started the assault earlier, the bomb would already be in the gate.

“Yes, sir,” was all he said. “All the fire support you can provide would be appreciated.”

“Alpha, Bravo, concentrate on the spiders,” the major said on the battalion frequency, disdaining callsigns. “Charlie, engage the cats on the ridge. Maximum firepower; keep ’em off the SEALs.”

“This must have been how Shughart felt,” Russell muttered on the SEAL freq as Miller switched back.