When the Devil Dances

“Oh, blow that!” Mike exclaimed angrily. After all the years of fighting it took him barely a second to imagine the broad outline of the proposed mission. And it was not survivable. “You’re joking, right!”

“No, I’m not joking,” Horner said coldly. “We still have Banshees, not enough to loft a full battalion but…”

“But we’re not a full battalion,” Mike snarled. “God dammit, Jack, my middle name may be Leonidas, but it doesn’t mean I want to die like him! And the damned Spartans died because they got surrounded; we’d already be surrounded. And just how the hell are we supposed to fight our way into the Gap? How? There are, what, fourteen or fifteen million Posleen waiting to move through? Where in the fuck are we supposed to land?”

“I need the Gap plugged,” Horner said inexorably. “I need it plugged for seventy-two hours.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Mike said. “Are you listening to yourself? I’ve got three hundred and twenty effectives! We couldn’t carry in enough ammo for three days! And there’s no way you’re going to be able to get anyone to us in three days! Not in the teeth of the Posleen!”

“I’m moving the Ten Thousand, they’ll be backstopped by the best artillery I can find,” Horner said. “They’ll take positions and wait for the Posleen to come to them then hammer them with artillery. With you in the Gap, the Posleen won’t be able to push through any more; they’ll only have to take care of the ones that are already through.”

“And the ones in the landers,” Mike said. “Remember? They’re using airmobile, your words.”

“SheVa guns,” Horner said. “There’s one surviving in the valley; it’s got some technical problems, but it will get up. I just need the Gap plugged. And you’re going to plug it for me.”

“Like hell we are,” Mike said. “Nobody will be able to. I’d need a damned brigade of ACS, which we don’t have, and continuous shuttles of ammo and power.”

“Look, Major, every minute that we spend arguing, sixteen or seventeen hundred Posleen go through the Gap. I’m sending the Banshees to your location. Get your battalion moving.”

“Look, General, get the wax out of your ears!” Mike shouted. “We’re Not Going. The fucking shuttles wouldn’t make it to the ground! We’d need a cold LZ! And we’ll need spare shuttles for supplies! And we would last about four hours! We are not going! Period!”

“God damn you, Mike!” Horner shouted back. “I am not going to lose the entire eastern seaboard because you don’t want to lose your fucking battalion! You will take and hold the Gap to the last man or so help me God I will have you court-martialled and shot if it is the last thing I do!”

“Fuck you, Jack! You should have thought of that before you let them put Bernard in charge of the GAP! You got me into this fucking mess! You put me in that plasteel fucking coffin, that I’ve been trapped in for the last nine years, you took away my family, you took away my wife! And the only thing I have LEFT is this fucking battalion and you are not going to piss that away too, you murdering BASTARD!”

The door practically left its hinges as Gunny Pappas stepped through. “Sir, what in the hell is going on? They can hear you down in the damned barracks.”

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, GUNNY!” O’Neal screamed. He grasped the heavy wooden desk, raised it over his head and slammed it into the window behind him. When it didn’t fit he let out a shriek of fury and slammed it into the wall repeatedly until the hole was large enough. Then the desk flew through with a bellow.

It was a full-bore rage, as controllable as a hurricane and nearly as destructive. There was nothing between the world and O’Neal’s blind anger at reality; if he could have twisted a button and turned off the universe he would have. Instead, he took it out on his office and the battalion headquarters building. In seconds the few scraps of mementoes on the walls had followed the desk. He threw everything in the room through the hole then started widening it by punching the walls.