A Hymn Before Battle

40 Andata Province, Diess IV 1324 GMT June 24th, 2002 ad

Mike swallowed, “A month?”

“Yep,” said General Houseman, “you’ve been in the body and fender shop over a month and you’ll be here for a while yet. It took them two weeks to do a proper number on the radiation damage alone.”

“What’s happened to the expeditionary force? On Diess?” My platoon? he wanted to say.

“Well, the C-Dec blew up quite spectacularly and did a number on a large section of the city. We sortied in the aftermath. The Posleen weren’t able to move through Ground Zero and we used that terrain obstacle to our advantage. Then, holding those positions, we got the Indowy to build us an abattoir,” he smiled grimly. “Then we slaughtered those sorry bastards.”

“Would you care to be more specific?”

“Do you know what murder holes are?” asked the general, holding a cup of water with a straw up for the lieutenant to drink from. His newly grown arm was still weak.

“Like in castles? Holes to pour oil in the entrances?”

“Burning oil and stick spears through, yes. Towards the end of the castle period and into the twentieth century they used a different technique.

“Just inside the main gates would be a field for sorties to form on. Occasionally the enemy got through the first gates. The walls on either side of the sortie field would be gun ports, hundreds of them. The enemy would pack onto this field and it would become a killing field; the origin of the term, by the way.

“A First Division officer managed to develop a relationship with a high-ranking Indowy. With this Indowy’s help we converted the boulevards behind the MLR into killing fields, two buildings deep. Then we pulled back into them.

“The Posleen came down the boulevards in their normal swarm and the Corp opened up from either side. The boulevards were plugged by ACS in concrete bunkers and there were thirty-foot-high walls on either side. Snipers with fifty calibers along the fifth story just to engage the God Kings. It was hell.

“Hardly any of the Posleen made it to the ACS positions. We set up two boulevards that way and had all the others blocked and supported. The Posleen just kept coming and coming until there were hardly any left and those few leftovers turned tail. We sortied again and pushed them back to their landers where they boarded and left — those that survived the rout. We recovered over seven thousand landers, Lampreys and C-Decs that were left behind.”

“You mean we won?”

“Yep,” said the general, sadly. “As the poet said, it was a famous victory; we only lost the better part of seven divisions to achieve it,” he concluded, shaking his head angrily.

“But, there is general agreement that the turning point was the extraction of the armored divisions and the destruction of the C-Dec. You have a few ‘colored pieces of ribbon’ coming your way.” He slid a blue box across the covers. “That’s the first to be approved, besides the purple hearts; it’s a theater decoration at my discretion. Congratulations, your first Silver Star, wear it in good health.

“That’s just for rallying the survivors of the battalion; I can imagine what they’re going to come up with for the other stuff. By the way, the rest of the personnel under Qualtren have been recovered — which was quite a job — and Captain Wright says, ‘Hello.’ ”

Mike solemnly picked up the box. “Wiznowski?” he said and looked up.

The general nodded his head. “I’ll take care of him and Sergeant Green.”

“Thank you, sir. Can I have another AID? And is Michelle’s personality center available for download?”

“There’s a new AID issue in your drawer.” The general paused and looked slightly awkward. “The data dumps when the nuke warning went out meant that a lot of data was lost. I’m afraid that most of… well, the Darhel say that the personality programs couldn’t be saved.”

Mike looked stunned. “I told her to back up,” he insisted.

The general had been briefed about this by a psychiatrist that he thought was frankly quackers. As it turned out the shrink was right; the officer who had sustained the word that he lost most of his platoon and three limbs in the battle was misting up over a goddamn computer program. Were all these Fleet Strike johnnies nuts, or what?

“The Darhel liaison told me that there was just too much lost in the scramble to back everything up. ‘Non-vital’ data was the last to be saved. By the time they got to backing up all the AID personalities the damage was already done.” The general paused. By the shattered look on the lieutenant’s face, something else needed to be said. “The Darhel worked for nearly a week before they gave up. I’m sorry.”

The officer visibly pulled himself together. “It’s okay, sir. Heck, it was just a program, right?” The officer squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Is that all, sir?”

“Oh, a couple of points. You remember that memorable period where you checked out on me on the radio?”

“Yes, sir,” answered O’Neal with a sheepish expression. It was the closest to a smile the general had seen on him yet.

“Well, we checked that lovely little pharmacy in your suits after it happened. You know that the ‘Wake-the-Deads’ are loaded into the suit, not produced by it, right?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mike, wondering where he was going.

“Well, there was a little problem with the batch in your suit. And in most of the rest of the battalion’s as well. The damn pharmacy company that produced it forgot to put in the Provigil, the ‘anti-sleep’ drug. All that was in it was the GalTech stimulant.”

“Oh, God,” groaned Mike. The Galactic pharmaceutical was ten times as powerful as methamphetamine. It was no wonder he had felt like a tomcat in a room full of mechanical presses. He was surprised his head had not rocketed through the top of the helmet.

“And, since they apparently loaded it by volume, you were getting a triple dose.”

Mike put his hand over his eyes and shook his head. He finally grinned: “Well, sir, I guess that gets me off the hook anyway.”

“Yep. Sergeant Duncan is up for a pretty fair award as well. He was leading the Americans back to the lines, after the detonation, when the first Posleen counterattack came in. We weren’t ready for them and it would have been hairy, but he and a major from Eleventh Cav rallied the cav survivors and hit the Posleen on the flank. When those nuclear grenades of Duncan’s started landing it broke them like a twig. It gave us a breather we really needed and it put some spine back in the cavalry.”

“He’s a damn good NCO,” said Mike. “From what I heard he just never seemed to get a fair shake. He ought to get a promotion as well.”

“I’ll take care of it,” the general concluded, with a nod of agreement to the lieutenant. “You’re scheduled for a casualty lift day after tomorrow. Thanks for coming along, Lieutenant, it was a hell of a ride.” The general leaned forward to shake the lieutenant’s hand. “Good luck and Godspeed.”

“I have been to the speed of God, sir,” Mike intoned solemnly, “and I discommend it.”

General Houseman patted him on his shoulder with a tiny smile and silently left the room.

Mike opened the box that so many had paid for and regarded his first medal for valor with an iron face. He was afraid there would be more.