When the Devil Dances

The headquarters was a simple wood frame structure; the interior walls were gyp-rock and the outer was a layer of pressboard covered by vinyl siding. Despite being only five foot four, Michael O’Neal, Jr. could bench press four hundred pounds and each punch slammed through all three layers as if they were tissue; two by fours shattered with no more than two blows. His knuckles were bleeding within a few punches, but he no more noticed than he noticed the fact that portions of the ceiling were buckling; the pain felt good in his universe of rage. The worst part of the rage, beyond losing his father and his daughters and his life, was that he knew in the end that the battalion would go. And the only thing in his mind besides the rage was that evil plotting bastard at the back of his brain, that little thinking bastard that was already figuring out the mission even as every other fiber of his being was denying that they would ever commit suicide in such a clear and stupid fashion.

Finally the rage spent itself fully; there was no emotion left to feel. His office now had a new door, one big enough to fit a car through, and a circle of interested and worried onlookers. He ignored them and strode through the debris path to where the AID still showed a picture of Horner floating in the air.

“Nukes,” O’Neal rasped. “We’ll go. But only if that entire area is slagged to the ground. I’ll have my staff work up a fire plan. You will fire it. If the President balks, tell her it is an order of a Fleet officer and she is under treaty to follow military orders of Fleet officers. You will follow our fire plan, and stand by for on-going nuclear support. We will prepare for the mission. We will board the Banshees. We will fly south. If we don’t get the nukes, you can kiss my fat, hairy ass before we will go near the Gap. And if at any point I feel that we are receiving insufficient support, I will withdraw on my cognizance alone. Call me when you have nuke release and only when you have nuke release, and it had better be open release. Shelly, end transmission.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, cutting off Horner.

“Shelly, I don’t ever want to talk to that bastard directly ever again,” Mike rasped. “When he sends nuke release, just tell me.”

He looked around at the group that had gathered. Most of them were enlisted from Bravo Company — Pappas must have been telling the truth about hearing him at the Barracks — the rest were officers and NCOs from battalion.

“Okay, boys,” he rasped, looking around at the group. “Let’s all go get kil’t.”

* * *

It had been nearly thirty minutes since the last sound of activity around the Wall. There was sound down in the valley, but it was the sound of thousands of feet and the occasional crack of a railgun or plasma cannon, drifting up the hills on the light wind.

“Damn,” Cally whispered as the first Posleen came into sight at the notch. “I don’t think there is a corps anymore, Granpa.”

“Yeah,” O’Neal said. “But that’s not the worst,” he continued, pointing at the tenaral floating up into sight over the eastern edge of the holler. “That’s worse.”

Cally looked out the firing slit to the west and tapped his arm. “No, that’s worse.”

Papa O’Neal flinched at the shadow that was looming over the farm; the Lamprey was heading west from the Gap at about four thousand feet above ground level. As he watched, a beam of silver stabbed downward into the valley and there was a secondary explosion from the direction of the artillery park.

“Are we gonna get shot by that if we fire at them?” Cally asked nervously as the first mine went off. “I don’t like that idea at all.”

“Neither do I,” Papa O’Neal said. “Okay, Plan B is activated.”

“Run like hell?” Cally asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Or at least as far as the mine; it is reinforced for a nuke; we’ll hole up there for a while until the first wave should be past, then we’ll head up into the woods.”

“Let’s go,” Cally said, turning around and pressing in the plywood on the back of the bunker. It pushed inward slightly then popped out on hinges revealing a heavy steel door set well into the hill. She undogged the hatch and stepped through. “You are coming right?”

“Yeah,” Papa O’Neal said, “keep the door open, I’ve got to set all these command mines on a timer. And rig the final destruct sequence; the hell if these bastards are gonna have my house.”

“Well, move it,” Cally said nervously. “I don’t want to go crawling around these hills on my own.”

“Be there in a minute,” Papa O’Neal said. “Get moving.”

CHAPTER 27 Near Dillard, GA, United States, Sol III 1427 EDT Saturday September 26, 2009 ad