John Ringo - When the Devil Dances

“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.