When the Devil Dances

The inside of a suit of GalTech armor was filled with a semibiotic shock gel. The silvery gel was the medium that supported the billions of nannites that fed and cared for an ACS trooper, but it also served to prevent high speed impact injuries. Since these affected the head as much as, or more than, any other part of the body, the helmet was cushioned on all sides by the gel, leaving only a small portion open for the eyes, mouth and ears. The exterior of the helmet was opaque; what the “Protoplasmic Intelligence System” inside the armor saw was a fully conformable construction of the external view. This “construction” was, in turn, conveyed to the eye by small optics that were extruded from the helmet. A similar audio system threaded out of the wall of the suit and into the ear canal for hearing while air was pumped to the opening around the mouth.

This engineering, some said over-engineering, had stood O’Neal in good stead on Diess. There, when it all went to the wall, when a Posleen battlecruiser had come in for direct support of the invaders, he had taken the only road to “victory” he could see and used the last bit of his suit energy to fly up to the ship and hand detonate a cobbled together antimatter limpet mine.

He knew at the time that he was committing suicide; had sent a note to his wife to the effect. But through a series of low order physics probabilities and the “over-engineering” of the suits he had survived. Since then, many troopers had survived nearly as strenuous situations, although none as strenuous, and these days no one used the term “over-engineered.” “Hideously expensive,” yes. A command suit cost nearly as much as a small frigate. But not over-engineered.

The armor also permitted degrees of control that were both a blessing and a nightmare. A superior could control every aspect of the battle down to the smallest action of a subordinate. Which was the nightmare. However, it also permitted a commander to lay out a very detailed and graphic plan, then monitor events and intervene if necessary when, not if, the plan went awry.

Now, though, it permitted the major to cover last-minute changes with his company commanders and battle staff while standing on the bottom of the Genesee River.

“Word is we have an additional artillery battalion,” he continued, updating the schematic with the icon for on-call artillery. “It’s still not what I would prefer for this assault. But I think that it’s all that we’re going to get in less than five or ten days. And if we wait that long all that we’ll really get is more Posleen.

“That brings us up to close to two brigades but only one of them is fully coherent and effective. That brigade will initiate with a time-on-target over our initial movement area. With luck that will plaster the Posleen in our way and this will be a walk in the park.”

“Riiight,” Captain Slight said, to assorted chuckles. The captain had come a long way from the newbie lieutenant who had joined Mike’s company before the first landing of the Posleen and she was well respected by her company, what had been Mike’s company. She was also trusted by her battalion commander.

“When we move forward, our right will be aligned on the canal,” Mike pointed out “So it will be covered. But our left flank is going to be as open as a gutted whale.”

“I thought we were going to have a curtain barrage covering it,” Captain Holder said. The Charlie company commander was responsible for the left.

“We are,” Mike said with an unseen grimace. He worked his dip and spit into the pouch the somewhat prescient gel produced. “But Duncan is defining the battalion responsible for the barrage as ‘shaky.’ ”

“Who’d he get that from?” Slight asked. The icon for the artillery coordinator was firmly fixed on the hill previously occupied by the battalion commander and for some of the same reasons. Among other things, it gave a lovely view of the battlefield. More importantly, it permitted the suit’s sensor suite a lovely view of the battlefield, and what the suits could do with that information continued to astound everyone. Including, from time to time, the artificial intelligence devices that drove the suits.

However, the artillery that would be supporting the push was miles back, nowhere near the location of the battalion’s artillery expert.

“I understand he is liaisoning with the Artillery Coordinator of the Ten Thousand,” Mike answered in a lofty tone.

There was a grim chuckle from the officers.

* * *

“Colonel, I’ll ask the question one last time,” the captain said with a grim smile. The junior officer was slight, café au lait in complexion and furious. Furthermore, his reputation preceded him.

“Captain, there’s nothing else to do,” the older officer said seriously. “The guns are getting in place as fast as possible. I know it’s not up to standard, but it’s as fast as this unit is capable of. You have to understand, we’re not some sort of super unit…”