John Ringo - When the Devil Dances

“Probably,” Orostan snarled. “And there was only one.”

Cholosta’an thought about that for a moment. “The last time we had a good count it was over by the town of Seed. There were four.”

“Yes,” Orostan said. “Four.”

“And now there was only one,” Cholosta’an said. “One. And no bodies.”

“No.”

“Oh. Fuscirto uut.”

“I’ll send someone around to look for a corpse,” Orostan said after a few moments’ contemplation. “But I doubt they’ll find anything.” He looked at his tenaral and started to wonder who. Finally he turned away and started back down the hill. The human might have escaped today, but it undoubtedly was “based” beyond the Gap. Its time would come. Soon.

As the last Posleen normal faded out of sight, the “rock” that Mosovich had been standing on shifted and rippled, revealing something that looked very much like a four-eyed, blotchy, purple frog. The creature, if it was stretched out, would have been about eight feet from four-fingered foot-hand to foot-hand and was perfectly symetrical; it had two hands and two eyes on either end with a complex something in the area where a nose might be.

The Himmit scout leaned out from the rock, its rear two foot-hands spreading out over the surface for purchase, and noted the faint heat signature moving away that was probably the human. He then levered himself back and looked towards the retreating Posleen. Such decisions. Human/Posleen, Human/Posleen? Finally, deciding that humans were always more interesting than Posleen — who basically ate, killed and reproduced and who could make a story from that? — it leaned sideways and started flowing from handhold to handhold down the cliff.

Such exciting times.

Mike looked around the room and then undogged his helmet. The command and staff of the 1 st/555 thwas grouped in a kindergarten schoolroom, sitting on the floor to use the undersized tables. The battlescarred combat suits made an unpleasant contrast to the colored drawings on the walls and the prominent poster of the five food groups.

“Well, we’ve had worse meetings.” He chuckled as the last of the gel underlayer from his suit streamed off into his helmet. “Much worse.”

“Yep,” Duncan agreed as he set his helmet carefully on the desk in front of him. The plasteel was still heavy and hard enough to mar the stick drawing of a little girl with “Ashley” written below it. “At least nobody is shooting at us.”

“We’ll get back to that pretty soon,” Mike said. He worked the ball of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other and spit into his helmet. The nannites of the semibiotic underlayer gathered up the disgusting glop which, from its perspective, was simply moisture, nutrients and complex carbon molecules, and carried them off to be reprocessed. “There’s groups of Posleen holed up all along the bottom of the Plain. We’re going to help with the mop-up for the next week or so as reaction forces. After that, Horner has ordered us to move to our barracks and take some time off. Given that we had to reconsolidate without Alpha company, I think some time in barracks is called for.”

“We’ve got barracks?” Stewart asked with a chuckle. “I mean, like, real barracks that are ours and everything? Or are we going to a ‘rest and recreation’ barracks?” he asked with a grimace. The facilities were run by Ground Forces and varied wildly.

“They’re ours,” O’Neal said with a grin. “They’ve been on my books the whole damned time. They’re in the mountains in Pennsylvania. A place called Newry, just south of Altoona. We’ve even got a rear detachment.”

“We do?” Duncan asked, bemusedly. “I would have thought the S-3 would know about that sort of thing.”

“It’s not all that big,” Mike said. “And they’re all seconded from Ground Forces. But there’s a supply officer and a personnel section.”

“And barracks?” Captain Slight said with a light chuckle. “With beds and stuff?”

“The same,” O’Neal said with another grin. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep in one; the last time I tried I was up all night tossing and turning.”

“I think the troops will adjust,” Gunny Pappas said, shaking his head now that he’d doffed his helmet. “They seriously need some down time. And there’s gear that needs work, even the GalTech gear.”

“We’ll do all of that,” Mike said. “My basic plan is this. We should arrive, transportation being available, on Monday or Tuesday. We’ll spend a day cleaning up the barracks and our gear and morguing the suits. Then a day or two on short days around the barracks, getting used to wearing silks again and working on our dress stuff. Friday we’ll have a real honest to God ‘payday activities’ with an inspection of the barracks and dress uniform inspection followed by a battalion formation and dismissal by noon. Everybody to be back in formation no earlier than noon the next Tuesday.”

“You know, I don’t know how that will go over,” Captain Holder said. “Frankly, I think some of the troops will view it as… well…”

“Chickenshit, sir?” Gunny Pappas said. “With all due respect, Captain, I disagree…”

“So do I,” Stewart interjected. “And I disagree as a former troop. All of these troops are volunteers. You don’t get to the point that we’re at without realizing that there’s a reason for all the happy horseshit in garrison. Sure, you ignore most of it in combat, but the best, the most elite troops, have always been the snazziest dressers.”

“Waffen SS,” Duncan noted. “Now there were some guys who knew how to wear a uniform.”

“The 82 nd,” Captain Slight noted. “They were chosen for the role of Honor Guard in post-WWII Europe mainly on the basis of how well they dressed out. And nobody can fault their combat record.”

“Rhodesian SAS and the Selous Scouts,” O’Neal said in agreement. “Two of the baddest groups ever to come out of the Cold War and they were like peacocks in garrison; Dad still has his uniform and it looks like something from a Hungarian opera.”

“Okay, okay,” Captain Holder said, holding up his hands. “But do the troops know that?”

“We’ll give ’em evenings off,” Mike said. “Short passes; they’ll need to be back to barracks by a curfew. There’s a reason for it. Gunny?”

“You don’t just rip soldiers right out of combat and drop them on a town, sir,” Gunny Pappas said with a nod. “You have to… acclimatize them first.”

“We’ll give them a week of ‘chickenshit’ to acclimatize, and a week for the town to get used to the idea and more or less prepared, and then we’ll let them go for a weekend. I don’t see us having more than a couple of weeks, maybe a month, in garrison. We’ll let them unwind for a bit then train back up and then…”

“Back to killing Posleen,” Duncan said with a growl.

“Back to making Posleen sausage,” Mike agreed. “What we do best.”

“We getting any replacements, sir?” Pappas asked. “We’re… getting a little low on bodies in case nobody had noticed.”

“There are twelve suits in the pipeline,” O’Neal said. “They’re all supposed to be waiting for us when we get to Newry.”

“And bodies?” Captain Slight asked. “Even with the troops we picked up from Alpha, we’re under manning.”

“And bodies,” Mike agreed. “Given that we have some mopping up to do, the bodies should be there in time to get the suits fitted and even dialed in. I understand we’re even getting a couple from the Ten Thousand.”