Ringo, John - The Legacy of the Aldenata 04 - Hell´s Faire

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Prologue

Monsignor Nathan O'Reilly, S.J., had to admit that there were good

and bad aspects to being a consultant to the President of the United

States. One excellent aspect was that his access to what limited

intelligence the President possessed about humanity's "benefactors" had

been tremendously increased. Much of it had already been available to

the Bane Sidhe, presumably through penetration of human computer

networks. But it was useful to the Société to be able to both support their

ancient "allies" and, admittedly, ensure that they were not being given the

run around.

The negative aspect, of course, was that semi-professional paranoiacs and conspiracy True

Believers assumed that a Jesuit as a counselor to the President meant some deeply laid conspiracy

involving pyramids, Atlantis, aliens and lore of the ancients. The professional paranoiacs and

security officers of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and other agencies knew that there were no ancient

conspiracies. Any who insisted that Monsignor Nathan O'Reilly, Ph.D., Counselor to the President

for Galactic Anthropology and Protocol, S.J., was involved in a millenia-old conspiracy would find

him or her self in a rubber room quicker than you can say "Quick, get the tinfoil beanie!"

A fortunate attitude, since in this case the wackoes were right.

But his position also gave him a cachet in dealing with certain categories of people. Such as his

current visitor.

Before his desertion from United States Special Operations Command, Lieutenant Commander

Peter Left had been a medium-height man with the build and charisma of a blond, blue-eyed

demigod. O'Reilly's visitor was almost invisible: Brown hair, brown eyes, apparently lightly built,

and his face had none of the commander's movie-star good looks. The standard indentification scans

for entry to Cheyenne Mountain had even revealed different palm prints, facial IR patterns, voice

print, retinal scans and genetics. Nonetheless, Monsignor O'Reilly had no doubt that he was talking

to the third in command of the Cyberpunks.

So far the talk wasn't going well. Regardless of any convergence of interests between them and

the Société, the Cybers existed to defend the U.S. Constitution against the Darhel and the politicians

allied with them. Both the alliance and the orders it had spawned were entirely without basis in that

document—without treaty, without article, without amendment; based solely on findings,

declarations and standing orders—and so, totally counter to it in law and in spirit. As Left had just

explained in quietly angry detail.

"When we presented our superiors with proof of the Darhel's intentions, it was clear that they

had been compromised. So we had to go outside sanction; there was no one left to obey. If we now

start taking orders from some nebulous, Galactic-controlled conspiracy, we will be worse than those

we oppose. Your proposal is, frankly, insulting."

"The Société is not 'Galactic controlled,' " O'Reilly said with a smile. "We're independent of

the Bane Sidhe. But each group has complementary strengths. The Bane Sidhe provide us with

intelligence and access to Galactic technologies . . ."

" . . . And you provide the Bane Sidhe with assassins," Left practically spat. "The Darhel at

least don't cloak their recruiting in high-minded phrases. Just because the Galactics can't do their

killing for themselves, doesn't mean we have to be their lapdogs."

O'Reilly fixed the Cyberpunk with a glare. "Okay, you arrogant jackass. Is that the way you

want to play it? You and your precious Constitution that is as dead as a doornail if we don't get the

elves off our backs? You are fumbling in the dark for answers that we had when Gilgamesh was in

diapers! I can show you the personal diary of Marcus Antonius, senior Centurion of the Fourteenth

Roman Legion, one of the most cold-blooded killers you'd ever hate to meet, who decried in his

personal writings the fact that humans were so often at odds when they should be combining their

forces against the Darhel, the Old Ones as he knew them.

"You act to save 'America' and its precious Constitution, a constitution written in part by

Société members. The Société has one mission and one mission only: Permit the human race to

thrive and grow free of the Darhel! And right now, the Darhel are the biggest threat to your

Constitution. So are you going to work with us or are we going to run around in the shadows at

odds with each other? Those are the choices. Binary solution set. Get over it."

The commander considered him calmly for a moment then nodded. "What do you want and

what are you willing to trade for it?"

"You're right that the major needs are for direct action personnel," O'Reilly said with a nod.

"This war has sucked down the available pool of personnel and we have a need for teams, on-call

teams . . ."

Left shook his head. "We cannot act directly against the Darhel. It would violate the Compact.

While it may not be in direct support of the Constitution, we feel that the Compact is in everyone's

long-term interest."

"The Compact, and your actions to bring it about, is what impressed me about you," O'Reilly

said. "Although I think you pulled up short. Five Darhel for General Taylor is a poor trade. Fifteen.

Twenty. A hundred if possible."

"I tend to agree," Commander Left said with a thin smile. "However, five was the best we

could do without . . . excessive sloppiness. We considered being sloppy as payback for framing us

for the Tenth Corps hacking, but it wasn't necessary. If, when, we have to repeat the lesson, five

will be about the most we can guarantee. And since they would be willing to kill the occasional

important soldier in exchange for five senior Darhel, we stated plainly that if the person is

specifically protected it becomes an all-out war. But the point is, we cannot move against the

Darhel. So what would you need teams for?"

"There are other actions that need the 'human' touch. Subtly guarding selected individuals for

example. We actually get very good intelligence on Darhel intentions and can often intercept

assassinations. But we need counter-assassins to do so. We also occasionally need pickups where

angels fear to tread."

"Did you know about the termination of General Taylor in advance?" Left asked quietly.

O'Reilly nodded. "Certain cells were informed in advance along with the warning that using

the information could reveal a source. On the balance, protecting General Taylor and possibly

losing the source was not a good strategic decision. So we allowed it to happen."

Left's mouth tightened. "Like Churchill and Coventry. I understand the logic, but the Cybers

reject that degree of realpolitik. Frankly, you may want to reconsider allying with us. If we do join

up, we will expect a higher degree of . . . moral consideration, Jesuit. Call us paladins, but if you

play realpolitik and dump one of our teams, or let one of our operatives die, we will hunt you to the

ground or die trying. So, do you still want to do this?"

"Yes, we do," O'Reilly said with a sigh. "That, the Cyber Creed as we call it, was much

discussed. One view was that we can work around it. Some sources will be more vulnerable, but if

need be, we'll have them disconnect and we'll recover them. We lose the ongoing info, but not the

source."

"Unfortunate, but you can't use people as pawns," Left said coldly. "Politicians doing that have

brought us to this."

"Another view," O'Reilly continued, "was that we shouldn't ally with you because of that loss.

That was mostly from certain Bane Sidhe factions, the Tongs and the Franklins. You want

underhanded and realpolitik, the Franklins make the Darhel look warm and fuzzy. The third view,

from different Bane Sidhe factions, the Société and other groups within the Mother Church, was

that it is a refreshingly moral approach, and the long-term benefits outweigh any short-term

consequences."

"Jesus," Left said with a laugh, "how many groups of you are there?"

"Quite a few, apparently," the monsignor said thinly. "If there is a civilization of any size, you

will find the Bane Sidhe somewhere in its cracks."

"Okay, you need assassins and counter-assassins. What do we get?"

"Oh, we'll ask for other things than that," O'Reilly admitted. "That a guy with a 'wanted: dead'

poster can walk into High Command proves just how capable the Cybers are." In support of that

capability, O'Reilly offered clean AIDs for the Cybers to study. Access through Indowy contacts to

Fleet's entire records database, and profile generators to better the Cybers' ability to identify good

candidates for recruitment. Access to the Société's safehouse network, in every surviving major

city, and even off-planet. "Weapons, money, documents, you name it, we can provide it."

"And, wow, all we have to do is kill perfect strangers," Left said, shaking his head. "I'll take it

back to Cyber command. But I don't like it that so many of your cells are known to the Indowy. We

will not permit executive connection to them: I meet an Indowy and we'll consider the bridge

burned. Understood?"

"Understood," the monsignor said with a nod. After a moment he smiled. "One question: Do

you still have females in your organization?"

"A few," Left admitted. "Cyber training is very physical, but it has as much to do with the

mind as the body. Why?"

"Oh, just a thought," O'Reilly chuckled. "The Société looks at the long haul and we were

discussing recruiting. It so happens we have a mission that has an immediate priority. I did mention

where angels fear to tread, yes?"

CHAPTER ONE

Go tell the Spartans, passerby

That here the Three Hundred lie

Obedient to their commands. —Simonides of Ceos

Inscription at Thermopylae

Near Asheville, NC, United States of America, Sol III

0215 EDT Monday September 28, 2009 AD

Major Michael O'Neal checked the holographic schematic he had thrown up and nodded as the

Banshee banked to the right and dropped; now the fun started.

The shuttle he was riding in looked like a black scimitar scything across the cloudy

Appalachian sky. The combination of human, Indowy and Himmit technology had created

something that was neither the best nor the worst of the three worlds, a ship that was somewhat

stealthy, somewhat armored, somewhat maneuverable and somewhat fast.

Of course, compared to anything from pure human technology, the Banshee III was a marvel

beyond words.

The stealth shuttles had had an uneventful voyage until reaching the area of the southern

Shenandoah. There the Posleen invaders, who held virtually all of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboard,

had made an incursion in the area of Staunton. And that required the scimitar-shaped ships to drop

to below the level of horizon and begin evasive maneuvers.

Over the past five years the Posleen had landed in waves throughout the world, overrunning

virtually every defense. The few survivors of Western Europe were now huddled in the Alps, eking

out a retched existence among those upland valleys. The Middle East, Africa, most of South

America, were either in Posleen hands or in such a state of anarchy not even radio communications

were coming out. The only survivors in Australia were in the far western territories and roaming the

desert interior in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. China had been lost only after loosing nearly a

thousand nuclear weapons in the long retreat up the Yangtze Valley. Others survived in the

highlands of the world, holding passes against the enemy. But few of those scattered groups were a

coherent defense. Everywhere, one by one, the civilizations of the world had fallen to the

remorseless invaders. With one small exception.

In the United States a combination of geographic luck—the Posleen tended to land in coastal

plains and the U.S. had defendable terrain features inward of all the coastal plains—and, frankly,

logistic and political preparation had permitted the U.S. government to retain control, to retain a

condition of "domestic harmony" in a few areas. Of these, the most vital were the Cumberland and

Ohio basins due to their industrial might and breadth of agricultural resources. The vast plains of

Central Canada were still safe, and would remain so as long as the Posleen were resisted at all, for

the Posleen were almost incapable of fighting in snow. But those plains, and the various western

areas in human control ranging from the Sierra Madre to the Canadian Rockies, could produce only

a small number of crops, mostly grains. Furthermore there was little or no industrial infrastructure

in comparison to the might found in the Cumberland and Ohio.

The Cumberland, the Ohio and the Great Lakes regions were the heart and soul of the defense

of the United States. Losing the Cumberland, furthermore, would open all of that up to conquest.

And with one thrust the Posleen had placed all of that in jeopardy. For years the major blow

had been expected at Chattanooga, where little would stand in the way of a break-out. This

battalion, and others, had defended the cities that were scattered down the range of the

Appalachians, each of them, at one time or another, assaulted in force by the enemy. Only a few

weeks before the battalion had been in a hair-raising battle on the Ontario Plain. But this time the

Posleen had surprised everyone, striking an unnoticed and lightly defended sector, and throwing the

defense of the entire Eastern U.S. into flux.

O'Neal and his forces had passed over southern Pennsylvania and through West Virginia

without incident. But now, approaching the jumbled mess of western Virginia, North Carolina and

Tennessee, it was time to get down and busy.

From this point forward the Posleen were pressing hard or already over the Appalachian Wall.

The battalion would actually be forced to fly between two Posleen thrusts; besides the attack

through the Gap the Posleen were pressing in on two flanks of Asheville. If the Posleen were able to

reach the embattled city from the rear, the end would be assured. On that flank, the mountains

above Waynesville would be the key, but they were a problem for others; the only thing the First

Battalion Five-Fifty-Fifth infantry had to worry about was surviving as a plug.

O'Neal nodded again as another turn was faintly sensed. The shuttles used just a touch of

inertial compensation to reduce the impact of their course corrections. Too much and they stood out

like light bulbs to the Posleen. Too little and they smashed their passengers into jelly. Mike

switched to an external view and by the light of the waxing moon he could see the mountains

flashing by overhead; the ships were down in a valley, following its wandering path and only the

occasional shudder passed through to the humans.

Soon enough they began an ascent, traveling at over five hundred knots and not much more

than a hundred feet off the ground. The shuttles rapidly shot to the top of the next ridgeline and

then, in a maneuver that looked flatly impossible, dropped down the back side in exact parallel with

the slope. At no time did their speed increase or slow; it stayed a constant fifty kilometers per hour

under the ambient speed of sound.

Mike noted another checkpoint and looked off to the left. Somewhere out there was Asheville,

awaiting the dawn of a new day, a city still inhabited by over a million civilians and six divisions of

infantry. Behind it were two Sub-Urbs with a combined total of five million souls. And all of it was

in the vise of a nutcracker.

He sighed and brought up a collection of tunes; a little music seemed appropriate at a time like

this. Might as well share the misery. * * *

"What the hell is that?" Lieutenant Tommy Sunday asked as a strange keyboard melody started

on the command override frequency.

" 'Don't Pay the Ferryman,' " SPC Blatt said. The Reaper's armor had a purple and pink

holographic teddy bear on the front of it and when the music started, the bear jumped to its feet and

began to dance, shaking its fat little belly in time to the music. "The Old Man must be really

depressed."

The Grim Reapers were the heavy weapons suits of the ACS. They were designed for long-

range indirect fire or heavy-duty close-in support and generally carried four weapons (versus the

standard one rifle of the Marauders). These might range from anti-ship heavy grav-cannons to long-

range auto-mortars to flechette cannons capable of spewing millions of rounds per minute.

The Reapers' suits were bulkier and slower than the standard Marauder suits, looking a bit

more fat bellied than the "muscle" look of the Marauders, but given that most of their weapons had

much higher ammunition bulk than the Marauders, that was all to the good. The flip side was that

their armor was lighter, so getting into direct fights with the Posleen was usually a losing

proposition.

"Christ," PFC McEvoy cursed, rubbing at his nearly bald head. He'd detached the gauntlets of

his suit and his hand made a rasping sound over the short, thick stubble. He leaned forward as far as

he could and looked to the doors at the front of the compartment. "I hope it's not that whole 'we're

all a gonna DIE!' playlist. If I hear 'Veteran of the Psychic Wars' one more time I'm gonna puke."

The shuttles were small, designed to carry thirty-six troopers and two "leaders" in no particular

comfort. Each "suit segment" was rigid, with clamps to hold the suits in place against the worst

possible maneuvering and designed to swivel and fire the troopers out into a hostile environment.

This did not make for the most comfortable of seating.

"Nah," Blatt replied. "James Taylor next. Betcha five creds."

"Sucker bet," McEvoy replied. "I hear the Old Man's daughter was in the Gap."

"Ah fuck me," Blatt said, shaking his head. "That sucks."

"She's tough," McEvoy said, leaning forward to spit into his helmet. "So's his dad from what I

hear. They might make it."

"That is questionable," Sunday said, looking up from his hologram. "According to

seismographic and EM readings, there have been multiple nuclear detonations in the area of the

Gap. And we're about to make the area extremely unpleasant ourselves."

"I didn't think we'd opened up nukes yet, sir," Blatt commented. He started to put his gauntlets

back on as a timer in his suit tinged. "Twenty minutes."

"We have recently," Tommy answered, putting on his helmet. "But these appear to be

secondary explosions."

"Oh, that's okay then," Blatt said. "As long as they're not targeted on us or anything . . ."

"Yeah," McEvoy agreed. "The last time I worried about nukes was the first time I got hit by

'em."

"Any suggestions?" the lieutenant asked.

"Lay flat," Blatt said with a laugh.

"Yeah, getting tossed through the air is the worst part."

"I'd think having your arms and legs ripped off would be the worst part," Tommy commented.

"Well, the only one who's survived from that close is the Old Man, sir," Blatt pointed out.

"You don't wanna be that close; getting an arm blown off smarts."

"Agreed," Tommy said. "Been there done that."

The lieutenant was new to the armored combat suits but not to battle; up until a few weeks

before he had been an NCO in the Ten Thousand, the most elite unit short of the suits. The Ten

Thousand was armed with captured Posleen weapons and other devices and shuttled from crisis to

crisis, thus in his time in the unit Tom Sunday, Jr. had seen more than any trooper short of the ACS.

And he had managed to survive and rise in rank to staff sergeant. All of which spoke for his

versatility and ability to take cover when the shit hit the fan. But even the best soldier tended to run

out the law of averages from time to time.

"Which one, L-T?" McEvoy asked. The officer was new to them and they hadn't had much

time to get to know him.

"Right, just above the elbow," the lieutenant said. With his helmet on it was impossible to tell

where he was looking but McEvoy was pretty sure it was directly at him.

"Ah," the Reaper said. "Just asking."

"You're right," the lieutenant said. "It smarts. So does taking a shotgun flechette in the chest.

Or getting your right kidney taken out by a three millimeter that was, fortunately, going too fast to

do much more damage. And getting caught in your own company's mortar fire sucks. So does

getting shot in the back by a cherry radioman who panics. All in all, I imagine it's really unpleasant

to get blown through the air by a nuclear explosion."

"I guess so, sir," the gunner said, swinging his heavy grav-gun from side to side to ensure it

tracked smoothly. "All things considered I guess wearing armor is the way to go."

"Ah hell," Blatt said, changing the subject. "It looks like you were right. Here we go with

'Veteran of the Psychic Wars.' "

"He's something pissed at those Posleen," McEvoy said.

"I'm sure he's not the only one," Sunday said quietly.

* * *

Captain Anne Elgars looked at the motley group gathered around the small fire and sighed.

The captain appeared to be about seventeen and had a heavily muscled body with long, strawberry-

blond hair. She was, in fact, nearer to thirty than twenty and had until recently been in a coma. Her

recovery from the coma, the musculature, odd skills and personality quirks that had arisen from the

recovery, were mysteries that were only starting to be illuminated.

There were two other adult females, two soldiers and a group of eight children in the small,

wooded dell tucked into the North Carolina mountains. The women and children had been in a Sub-

Urb, an underground city, when the Posleen struck the Rabun Valley and swiftly pushed most of the

defenders aside. Through a combination of luck and ruthlessness the three women had reached the

deepest areas of the Urb, intending to escape through the service areas, when they happened upon a

hidden installation tucked into the Urb. It was there that they had been "upgraded," their wounds

repaired, and imparted with both increased strength and some basic weaponry skills. They had also

found an escape route.

Trying to make their way to human-controlled areas they had first been cut off by the

advancing Posleen and then encountered the two soldiers, Jake Mosovich and David Mueller. Now

the question was where to go now that the easy route was closed.

"It's agreed?" Elgars asked, her breath ghosting white in the frigid air. "We'll head for the

O'Neal farm and raid the cache?"

"Don't see any choice," Mueller replied. He was a bear of a man, not only tall but wider in

proportion, with a thin shock of almost white blond hair. The master sergeant had been running

around snooping on Posleen since before the first invasion and he had regularly found his ass in a

crack, enough times that he'd frequently asked himself why in the hell he kept doing it. But none of

the other times did he have to worry about getting three women and eight children out of the crack.

And in this case, the crack included that the children, at least, were likely to die of exposure if

something wasn't done.

"There wasn't anything to use at the Hydrological Station." The Posleen raided for loot, then

destroyed every trace of previous habitation. While the station hadn't been leveled it had been

emptied. As had every other building they had checked.

Shari Reilly grimaced. "It's still nearly fifteen miles," she said. "Even carrying the kids, I don't

see how we can make it."

Shari had been thirty-two, a waitress and single-mother of three, when the Posleen dropped on

her hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia. She was one of the very few survivors from that town

and was resettled, along with her three children, in one of the first underground cities. It had been

placed in an out-of-the-way valley in western North Carolina, despite a lack of roads to supply it,

for two reasons: it was unlikely the Posleen would attack into such rugged country, and the local

congressman was the chairman of the appropriation's committee.

As it turned out, after five years of battering their heads everywhere else the Posleen did attack

up the Rabun Valley. And Shari Reilly had, again, been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Story of her life, really.

"I'd like to find out what happened to Cally and Papa O'Neal," Shari admitted quietly. The

group had previously visited the O'Neal family farm and she and Papa O'Neal had gotten along very

well, to the point that he had asked her, and the children, to come live with him. With the Posleen

having overrun the area that plan, like so many others in her life, had been nipped in the bud. But

she still felt it necessary to find out what happened to the O'Neals.

Wendy Cummings shrugged and shook her head, pulling a lock of hair out of her eyes.

"We're still in the same boat," she said, gesturing at the gray skies. In the last few hours the sky

had begun to darken. While the women, with their new upgrades, could probably survive the

environment, the children were without any shelter or heavy clothing. Getting them both was the

second highest priority, the highest being to keep them out of the hands of the Posleen.

Wendy was the main point of contact between the other two women and sometimes she felt

like the only thing holding the group together. She was a well-endowed blonde, another survivor of

Fredericksburg, who had until recently been stymied in her desire to go off and kill Posleen like her

boyfriend was doing. She was doing it now, whenever the Posleen came in view, but killing Posleen

while carting kids around took all the fun out of it.

Still, a mission was a mission.

"We need to get the kids some clothes and we could use some supplies," she continued,

gesturing at the two soldiers. "Even with what the sergeant major and Mueller supplied, it's not

enough."

"There was plenty in the cache," Mueller noted. He slid a little more dry wood into the fire and

looked up at the sky. "If we move fast we can make it to the O'Neal house by midnight."

"Later," Mosovich replied. The sergeant major was the antithesis of his subordinate, slight and

wiry. But he had been beating around the bush when Mueller wasn't even a gleam in his father's eye

and could carry loads that were frankly astonishing. What he would not do, in these conditions, was

lie. "Even with their girls' . . . improvement, we can't carry all the kids that far. And in a few hours

it's gonna start raining, cold rain. And by morning we might be looking at sleet."

"You think we should try something else?" Mueller asked.

"No, but we're not going to make it there before morning." The sergeant major looked at the

children and shook his head. "We'll try like hell, but we won't make it."

"We'll make it," Elgars said, getting to her feet. "But not if we debate about it all day. Sergeant

Major, I'm apparently the ranking officer, but I don't know what in the hell I'm doing. How are we

going to handle that?"

"Well, ma'am," the recon specialist said with a faint grin. "I'll make suggestions and you give

the orders. And if you don't give the orders I suggest, you'd better have a damned good reason or I'll

shoot you."

"Works for me," she said with a laugh. "And your suggestion is . . . ?"

"Let's move out," he replied. "It's not going to get any easier as it gets darker."

"Can I say just one thing?" Shari asked.

"Sure."

"I really hate the Posleen." As they started off, a gentle, cold, mist began to fall.

* * *

Tulo'stenaloor cursed and shook his crest. The senior commander of the Posleen forces

assaulting Rabun Gap had been fighting the humans for nigh on ten years. And over the time he had

developed a healthy respect for their abilities. Outnumbered though they were, outgunned though

they were, the humans were clever about using well-honed skills and an almost devilish ingenuity to

defeat the assaults of the Posleen.

But the current group was really starting to annoy him.

"I hate humans," he grumped. "What do we know of this cursed metal threshkreen 'unit.' "

The Posleen had first met the humans at the planet Aradan 5, what the humans called Diess.

Up until that encounter the advance of the host had been continuous and without major check.

There were three races that they had encountered in near space and none of them, not the little green

Indowy nor the taller, slim Darhel, nor the insectile Tchpth, would give fight. Sometimes the Darhel

would fight, but not well and not long. Mostly it was a matter of simply rounding them up and

butchering them for dinner.

Until Aradan 5.

Tulo'stenaloor had been there, when the host had met its first defeat. It had been a nightmare.

Each time they thought they had the humans defeated something had hit them from a different

direction. It was necessary to dig the humans out like abat or grat and they stung worse. The host

had taken fantastic damage before a unit of these demons-be-damned metal threshkreen had arisen

from the ocean of the world and destroyed his first oolt'ondai. He still remembered the unholy

destruction visited upon his fine collection of genetic specialists, ripped to shreds in bare seconds.

Other threshkreen, who had at first fled before the host, had stopped and formed a wall of fire that

seemed unbreakable. Faced with an implacable foe to the side and an impossible foe to the front,

the host had fled. He had barely escaped with his life, limping off planet in a simple in-system ship,

and it had taken him years to recover from that debacle.

"It is led by a human named 'Michael O'Neal' who is one of their Kessanalt. The term the

humans use is a 'hero' or 'elite.' And this is their finest group of metal threshkreen."

Generally other species, and Posleen that had become too injured or old to be of use, were

referred to simply as "thresh" or "food." Threshkreen was "food that stung." All humans should be

called threshkreen; even their nestlings fought.

"Do we know their plan?" Tulo'stenaloor said. "We need to push as many oolt'os through the

pass as we can; we cannot afford to be trapped here."

"They intend to open up the area with nuclear bombardment. . . ." the S-2 answered.

"What?" Tulo'stenaloor snapped, his crest rising. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"The area they will be able to cover is limited," the intelligence officer pointed out, bringing up

a map. "They will be firing ballistic systems from the northern regions and from the sea. Few of

them can even be targeted on this area and most will be destroyed by oolt Po'osol. So all of them are

targeted on a relatively small area. Given that most of the blast will be trapped by these accursed

hills, we should take minimal casualties. They intend to land in this area forward of the original

defenses, where 'Mountain City' once stood. Their fire will only fill that gap in the mountains and

the immediate areas of the pass."

"So we'll lose less than two oolt'ondai," Tulo'stenaloor nodded. "That is fine. But we need a

response, a 'counter-attack' as the humans would use. Prepare one of the elite oolt'ondai and all the

remaining tenaral for an assault upon them as soon as they are on the ground. And two oolt'pos."

"We are almost out of trained forces," the S-2 pointed out.

"I'm aware of that," Tulo'stenaloor said dryly. "But if we can't keep this pass open until others

are breached, it will all be for nothing. We need to crush these metal threshkreen before they can get

dug in or we'll be trying to kill them two days from now. Have the oolt'ondar move immediately to

the hills above the landing zone, in this gap where they will be out of danger from the heavy fire.

Tell them to wait to attack until the unit lands and is in the process of unloading."

"The humans are in two groups, estanaar. They have two 'resupply' shuttles filled with

antimatter following them."

"That should be an interesting target," Tulo'stenaloor said with a rise of his crest. "Have the

oolt'ondai wait until those shuttles land in particular, but ensure that they are struck. That is most

important."

"Very well, estanaar," the officer replied. "What shall we tell Orostan?"

"Nothing for now," Tulo'stenaloor said. "He has his own problems. And more than enough

forces at the moment; it is when he hits resistance that he will need those passing through right now.

Get the oolt'ondar moving immediately; ensure they are heavily weaponed. As the humans would

say, they must 'load for bear.' " * * *

Cally O'Neal looked at the pack and shook her head; she wanted to load for bear but there was

just too much to carry.

She had spent half the night curled up in a ball, alternately sleeping fitfully and waking up to

cry. She wasn't very good at crying—it really ticked her off when she did—but she had a lot to cry

about.

When the word of the Posleen invasion had come, both of her parents were recalled to duty.

Because her mother was considered "off-planet," Cally's older sister, Michelle, had been moved to

safety on a distant Indowy world. Cally had been left behind in the care of her grandfather on the

family farm in Rabun County in north Georgia. The farm just happened to be about five miles on

the good side of the Eastern U.S. line of defense.

The Posleen had hit the Wall at Rabun Gap several times over the last few years, but this was

the first time they had ever succeeded in breaching it. Now they were all over the place and she was

alone in a friggin' cave, behind the lines and without the comfort and advice, not to mention combat

support, of Papa O'Neal.

It was not the Posleen who had killed Papa, though, or at least not directly. Something had hit

one of the landers when it was passing over their valley and the antimatter containment system had

failed. The explosion, equivalent to a one-hundred-kiloton nuke, had come as she was moving back

to the deeper shelters. But Papa O'Neal had still been in the outer bunker.

She had found him later, or at least an arm, which was as far down as she could dig, but it was

still and cold. She had covered it back up and headed to Cache Four where she had spent the night.

The cache had everything a person on the run could need. Papa O'Neal had spent plenty of

time opening up Viet Cong tunnels and he knew what the best ones stocked. He had simply updated

the list to the times.

The first thing she donned was her body armor. The Class IIIA armor was custom made—

nobody made body armor for thirteen-year-old girls—but she carried it without thought; she had

spent so much time already in her life in body armor it was like a second skin. The armor was

studded with pouches for ammunition and grenades, and they were all filled.

The base of the armor had latch points for more equipment and she had a holstered Colt .44

magnum on one side and a combat knife on the other. The .44 was a revolver—she just didn't have

the wrists for a Desert Eagle yet—but she was nearly as quick with a speed-loader as most people

were with a magazine. She also had two quart canteens—they would supplement the camelbak built

into the back of the armor—and a buttpack with an absolute minimal of survival materials.

In the pouches she had her basic load, 180 rounds of 7.62, five fragmentation grenades, five

white phosphorus grenades and two smoke. She probably wouldn't have an opportunity to use the

smoke, but if she needed it she would need it bad. With the armor, pistol, ammunition pouches and

grenades she was already looking at over forty-five pounds. Which was half her body-weight.

Around her neck she had a set of night-vision goggles. They were lightweight and had

binocular zoom capability, both optical and electronic. As such they had it all over standard helmet

monoculars. But, with the weapons sights she wasn't sure she should carry them. And the helmet

she had just put on seemed like an unnecessary extravagance. Papa O'Neal was always adamant

about it when they were going in hot against Posleen, but if she was on the move she wasn't sure

she could afford the extra weight.

She thought about Papa O'Neal and a lump rose in her throat. He had always

seemed . . . invincible, immortal. He had fought in just about every brush-fire war that existed for

nearly two decades then came back to the farm when his father died. With her mother dead and Dad

off with the ACS, he had been all she had and for him it seemed like a chance to make up for never

being there when her father grew up.

He had taught her, intensively, from the first day she arrived. And she, in turn, had been an apt

pupil. Demolitions, close combat, long distance shooting, she had taken to all of it as if only having

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PrologueMonsignorNathanO'Reilly,S.J.,hadtoadmitthatthereweregoodandbadaspectstobeingaconsultanttothePresidentoftheUnitedStates.OneexcellentaspectwasthathisaccesstowhatlimitedintelligencethePresidentpossessedabouthumanity's"benefactors"hadbeentremendouslyincreased.Muchofithadalreadybeenavailabletothe...

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