When the Devil Dances

“I think it’s a bit pessimistic,” Wendy answered. “But there’s one way to find out.” She keyed up a schematic of the Sub-Urb then opened up the emergency services database. “I was wondering, earlier, how we could figure out where the Posleen are. I finally realized you could track them by emergency calls.” She pulled up the call records and patched them into the schematic. “We’ve been on the run for four and a half hours. Penetration was about five hours ago, I’d guess.” She scrolled the schematic back five hours. “See the red dots? Those are calls, both initiating calls and support calls. There’s a bunch of them around the entrances and then they spread out.” She scrolled the schematic forward in time and Elgars could see what she meant; the red dots spread out with a solid “outline” for a while then started to dissipate.

“You can see that there’s starting to be fewer people to put in calls,” Wendy said emotionlessly. “This is by two hours after the entry; we were on our way down at that point. Cafeteria 3-B is already well inside the Posleen perimeter; Dave was gone by then or shortly afterwards.” She scrolled it outward further and now there was a light scattering of red dots. “At this point, almost all the population areas have been overrun and the Posleen are scattering into the industrial sectors. And trying to track them is pointless because nobody is calling for help anymore.”

“So in four more hours?” Elgars asked, tapping at her console.

“There will probably be three or four thousand people alive, trapped and hiding in various compartments,” Wendy said coldly. “Out of two million to start.”

“And they’re not getting out, right?” the officer said, looking at her sharply. “They’re for all practical purposes dead.”

“As a doornail.” Wendy nodded. “Ground Forces have not entered and have not responded and the Posleen are going to totally occupy this facility. There might be a Newt or two left, but for all practical purposes they’re all dead men walking.”

Elgars nodded and hit enter. “Time to leave.”

“Six hours?” Wendy asked.

“Yep,” the captain said, looking around. “Assuming it works. But we shouldn’t dawdle.”

“Are you guys done?” Shari asked, coming down the exit walkway. She had donned a mask as well and the voice was muffled and irritated.

“We could do a backup,” Wendy said. “I’m not sure that will get it going. What did you use for a fuel-oil substitute?”

“Corn oil,” Elgars answered distantly. “What I need is some bloody plastique,” she added, rubbing her chin. “That would fix the bahstahds.”

“We need to leave,” Shari asked. “What are you doing?”

“Blowing up the Urb,” Wendy answered.

CHAPTER 32 Near Cowee, NC, United States, Sol III 2337 EDT Saturday September 26, 2009 ad

“The drive out of here is going to be interesting,” Major Mitchell said.

“No shit, sir,” Pruitt said, scanning the independent sight around. “How do we get out of here?”

The SheVa had headed down the Little Tennessee River to where it was joined by Cader Creek then headed up that valley to rendezvous with its reload group on Cader Fork. The reload teams were well into the process and the spare drivers that accompanied them were working with Warrant Indy to repair some of the damage done to the gun.

“You mean other than going back to the Tennessee?” Mitchell asked.

“Yes, sir,” the gunner said patiently as the gun shuddered to another round being loaded. The word had already reached them that the Posleen had bounded forward to Oak Grove; indeed, the landers would have been cold meat as they passed the valley opening. But what it meant was that there were now Posleen on both sides of the valley entrance. For that matter, there could be Posleen pushing up the valley by now. However, Major Mitchell had detailed the Meemies to screen in that direction so they shouldn’t be caught reloading. “I think by the time we get back there there we’ll be way too popular if you know what I mean.”

“Major!” Indy called. “We’ve got company.”

“Shit!” Pruitt said, sweeping the sight around. “Not when we’re loading! Where? Bearing!”

“No, I mean we have company,” Indy said with a nervous laugh, climbing up out of the hatch. “Get your finger off the trigger before you give our position away.”

Following her was a short, muscular female captain. Mitchell smiled when he saw the ADA insignia on her uniform.

“Whisky Three-Five I presume,” he said, offering his hand.

“Captain Vickie Chan, sir,” the captain said, taking it.

“Thanks for your assistance, Captain,” the SheVa commander said. “I thought we were goners.”

“Captain, I want one of y’all’s guns,” Pruitt said, spinning his seat around to face her. “They are bad. Not as bad as Bun-Bun, mind you. But pretty damned tough.”

“You can have it,” the captain laughed. “You have no idea what it’s like to fire.”

“Bad?” Mitchell asked.