When the Devil Dances

He nodded to himself and switched back to thermal. Taking a breath he flipped the Barrett off of “safe,” placed his finger on the trigger and began to gently squeeze.

* * *

Sergeant Buckley ducked as Posleen fire began to rave out of the trench, but it didn’t seem to be directed at his position. Risking a quick look, it was clear they were firing everything they had at the ridge behind him and to his left.

Taking another risk, he got up on his hands and knees and shimmied towards a chunk of concrete that would make for good cover. It was probably a piece of the south span that had been blasted free by the nuke, but it looked like heaven and a womb to Buckley; he might even be able to sit up behind it.

He rolled into the shelter of the chunk as the fire died down and considered his position. He was within tweny yards of the Posleen trench, but the fire that had come out of it was from more guns than he had thought were there. And the artillery wasn’t taking them out, only keeping their heads down. A bit.

It seemed like there was somebody else out there, maybe a sniper up on the ridge. If he had survived the counter-fire. That would be nice, it would be good to feel that he wasn’t completely alone.

He rolled over to the south side of the chunk and thought about his options. There was another chunk, this one most definitely a piece of the bridge with a big hunk of steel sticking out, about five meters closer to the bridge. And it was lying against the center pylons. If he could make it to the cover of that chunk, he could work his way to where he would be on the flank of the Posleen, in a position to rake their trench from end to end. And with the way the south portion had fallen, he would be in “good rubble.”

Good rubble was a special term for infantry. Rubble was the infantry’s friend; armor couldn’t negotiate it, it shed most artillery and Posleen hated it. Good rubble was rubble like the bridge, fallen and twisted with holes a person could worm into for protection and concealment. The south span looked like great rubble.

There were two problems with making it to that rubble, though.

The first was the artillery. The rounds were falling dead on target — they actually seemed to be digging holes in the concrete of the road — but they were also falling just a few meters from the route he would have to take to reach shelter. If he had a radio, he would have them switch to smoke. But he didn’t and the RTO was way too far behind him to yell to. Even if yelling wouldn’t give away his position, which it would.

He had heard that it was possible to move within a yard or two of artillery like this, if it was falling “away” from you, which this was. There was a solid “thump” of concussion from each shell, but what killed you with artillery was the shrapnel. Most of that was being thrown towards the Posleen positions. Technically, very little of it should be coming back towards where he was going to be crossing.

Technically. Very little.

The second problem, assuming that the artillery didn’t get him, was that there was no cover or concealment between his current position and the next block. None. It was flat, level ground, stripped of any vegetation that might once have been there, directly in sight of the Posleen position and less than twenty meters away.

He could try to run it. Just get up and dart across. The problem with that was that Posleen tended to react much better to something like that than humans; it would be the equivalent of trying to dodge past a professional skeet shooter. They were sticking their heads up, bobbing up and down, even with the artillery. He’d have the chance of a snowball in hell of making it across.

The only other alternative was to try to sneak past.

The lighting was… confused. There was the sudden flair of the artillery, the moon scudding in and out among the clouds, but other than that not much. A few fires that had probably been started by the artillery gave a bit of flickering light, but none of them were nearby.

Posleen had good night vision, but not perfect. And they were taking fire from the ridge; their attention would be centered there.

All in all, it was worth a shot. But best to prepare.

He reached into his butt-pack and pulled out something he hadn’t used in a long time.

CHAPTER 41 Near Balsam Gap, NC, United States, Sol III 2025 EDT Sunday September 27, 2009 ad

Cheer! An’ we’ll never march to victory.
Cheer! An’ we’ll never hear the cannon roar!
The Large Birds ’o Prey
They will carry us away,
An’ you’ll never see your soldiers anymore!

— Rudyard Kipling

“Birds of Prey” March