When the Devil Dances

He looked around, but all there was in view were the two privates with him and burning tracks. There was a blackened body hanging out of the one they had unloaded from and another was in sight in the middle of the road. That one was near torn in half and Buckley recognized the sure sign of a close encounter of the worst kind with a plasma round. He’d finally figured out what had kept him and the other two alive; the tank the Brad had been following had started to blow smoke right after the first plasma fire came in. That had given them just enough concealment that the Posleen hadn’t fired up the Brad for a few seconds. Which meant that if those dumb-fucks in the Brad had followed him out right away, rather than stopping to debate it, they might still be alive.

The price of cowardice was just getting unacceptably high.

“You guys see anybody else?” he asked.

“No,” one of the privates replied. “But I heard firing off to the right earlier.”

“Hey!” he yelled. “Somebody out there!”

“Over here!” a voice replied. “Who’s that?”

“Sergeant Buckley!” the sergeant replied, knowing it wouldn’t mean a thing.

“You seen Major Anderson?”

“No! Anybody with you?”

“No!”

“You got a radio?”

“Yes!”

“Hot diggity,” Buckley said quietly. “Stay the fuck down! You may be the only thing that keeps us alive! Anybody else out there?!”

He listened for a moment, but all he heard were moans behind him somewhere, the crackle of ammunition cooking off in the vehicles and the whistle of wind in the pass.

“That’s it?” one of the privates asked. “Just us?”

“Looks like it,” Buckley replied. “Could be worse.”

“How?!”

“We could be in the ACS. Hey! RTO! You got anybody on that radio?”

“No!”

“You got the frequency Major Anderson was using?”

“Yes!”

“Switch to it!” He looked around at the two privates with him and at the drainage ditch. It led to within twenty yards of the overpass, but then it rapidly shallowed out. The three of them could probably low-crawl to within a few yards of the Posleen positions. He hadn’t gotten a good look at them yet, but it looked like the Posleen had blown a trench across the road, under the overpass. Which was way more smarts than he wanted to see out of the horses.

The Posleen basically had stopped firing, there was only the occasional round going overhead. He wasn’t sure if it was intended to keep their heads down, but it had the effect. Really, though, now that he got a look at the situation, they might be able to pull it out. All it would take was a little luck.

He thought about that for a moment then whispered: “Good luck. All it will take is a little good luck.”

* * *

“Sir, I’ve got contact with a survivor up in the pass,” Kitteket said. “There’s not many of them left, this guy says he only knows of four including himself.”

“Well, that’s just ducky,” the colonel said.

“He says the sergeant up there wants some artillery support. He wants an… ‘individual tube adjustment.’ That’s one I haven’t heard before.”

“Put him through.” Mitchell waited until he could hear the carrier frequency then replied. “Infantry, this is SheVa Nine. How do you want that artillery?”

“This is Lima Seven Nine,” the RTO replied. “Sergeant Buckley says he wants an individual tube adjustment, right in front of the Posleen positions. Get this, the horses are dug in under the bridge and half the bridge is still up. The overhead’s not getting near ’em. You got that, over?”

“Roger,” Mitchell called. “We’ll give you the frequency for the artillery and monitor; the only thing we’ve got to throw would kill you quicker than the Posleen.”

“That’s a big ten four, good buddy,” the RTO replied. “We don’t want any nukes, clear?”

“Got that. Do you have a count on the Posleen?”

“Negative, we’re taking some heavy fire and having to keep our head down. But it doesn’t look like many. A few railguns and some plasma cannons sure did for the tracks, though. They’re all gone.”

“Understood. I’m sending you back to the commo officer, she’ll put you in touch with the artillery. Write when you get work.”

“Roger, out here.”

He waited until Kitteket turned over the frequency to the distant RTO and then gestured for everyone to turn to the center.

“Okay, Kitteket, we’ve got contact with one or two infantry in the Gap, the artillery and a few of the militia. Anyone else?”

“Not so far, sir,” she answered. “I don’t have frequencies for the units on the far side of the Gap and everyone else is out of range. I…” She stopped and shook her head. “I’ve got an idea, but I’m not sure it will work.”

“What is it?”

“The nuclear control system,” she said. “It’s a two way system that…”

“Bounces off of the ionization tracks of meteors,” Mitchell said. “But it’s only for sending code groups.”

“Yes, sir,” the specialist replied. “And you can only send three text characters at a time. But it can send any set of text characters; you could type out the dictionary, slowly.”