When the Devil Dances

“You’re leaving the edge of the sensor zone, so we won’t know where you are. But we’ve got a good read on the Posleen and there’s damn near five thousand of them on your tail. I’ve called for some obscurement and I’ll adjust fire to follow you up the hill, but you’d better scram. Good luck.”

Mosovich glanced at the far saddle and nodded to himself. A salvo of variable time rounds was coming in at the moment and the air was filled with black puffballs. The beauty of the scene belied the shrapnel that he knew was flying downward from the red-cored explosions. A rank of Posleen was shattered under the line of fire even as he watched.

But even as the line of Posleen went down another God King stumbled out of the fire and then another. It was definitely time to leave.

Nichols peered through the scope and hammered out another round. The big rifle pushed his stocky body back at least four inches, but he quickly brought the weapon back into battery and started searching for another target. It had long been determined that the artillery messed with the sensors the God Kings used to find snipers so the shots were not as supercritical as the first had been. But every round helped and the team was laying down fire right alongside.

Mosovich swore softly as he picked out another target in the gathering light. Their position was not as concealed as he would have liked. And, despite the artillery, some of the normals were surviving the gauntlet in the gap to spray the hillside with fire. None of it was aimed — they couldn’t see where the team was firing from — but as soon as the sun came up that happy circumstance would surely change.

Mosovich, however, could see the normals fairly clearly. The Land Warrior system was proving its worth again, giving him the capability to easily direct and redirect fire on the targets in the gap, enhancing the team’s vision and permitting them to communicate clearly. Shoot, move and communicate was what war at all levels was about. But it was especially critical at the level of the small team and the suits were a real boon.

They weren’t perfect though. Advanced research on them had more or less been halted at the start of the war and even with the Galactic power systems they were fairly heavy. They also did not have GalTech clarity levels in low light; there was a particular problem with depth perception that seemed insoluble without the Galactic ability to make continuous micro-sensors.

But what they did, they did very well. Mosovich picked out another target, bringing the aiming bead onto the target and squeezing the trigger of the Advanced Infantry Weapon. The system used a series of sensors in the suit and the weapon to determine the accuracy of the shot and whether any inaccuracy was the fault of the weapon or the operator. If any inaccuracy was an environmental input, whether a temperature change in the barrel or a shift in the wind, the system automatically compensated on the next shot. If it was the fault of the operator it simply sulked in electronic silence. In this case it determined that the 7.62 round would miss its target point by less than three centimeters in the four hundred meters of flight. Since this was well within its margin of error, it made no adjustments.

Mosovich knew, intellectually, what was going on, but he wasn’t really worried. The system had proven to be better “straight out of the box” than he had had any inkling would be possible and he had come to depend upon the accuracy of the system. It occasionally “threw” shots, but it enhanced his own already expert marksmanship to stellar levels. Especially in this half-light, half-dark.

Nonetheless, there were already several hundred Posleen forming up out of the artillery box and the system revealed a seemingly unending stream coming up the road from Seed. There was also a smaller group trying to probe around to their right. As soon as it came into view, he’d have to split his artillery and some of the God Kings were bound to get through.

All in all, it was an unpalatable situation.

“We’re going to have to move out,” he yelled. “Nichols, I need you to stay in place until we move up the slope. Then we’ll take over potting the God Kings and you can move. I’ll call for fire on that group coming around the hilltop from there. Clear?”

“Gotcha, smaj,” the sniper said. In a different unit the person being left behind might consider that they were being sacrificed. But Nichols knew that if that was really Mosovich’s intent, he would say “Nichols, I’m going to use you like a cheap pawn.”

“Mueller, Sister, move it,” Mosovich snapped, throwing himself to his feet and turning to scramble up the slope. “Time to didee.”

CHAPTER 11 Near Seed, GA, United States, Sol III 0715 EDT Monday September 14, 2009 ad