He scratched at a scar on the tenar and ruffled his crest. "The People almost took this planet by storm. We have taken most of it, but a few geographic areas remain. The most troublesome is surely this one. And I think that Tulo'stenaloor's plan will work. We have to think like the humans to defeat them and we must copy some of their ways while using our own also. But the most important thing we must do is we must surprise them. The humans have a saying 'to take somebody from behind.' Like many human sayings it has several overtones which don't translate well.

"You are right, I don't have to be here," the oolt'ondai admitted, looking to the mountains to the north. "I have four estates that are not in orna'adar; I have gathered the treasure of eight worlds and could live wherever I wished if I wanted to settle into death. I am an oolt'ondai, commander of my own oolt'poslenar. I can go anywhere in the galaxy that my drives will carry me and my personal oolt is armed with the finest weapons the People make so once I get there I can take any lands I desire. But for the race, for my genetic line, I am here. And, for the race, for our clans and for our lines, you and I, young eson'sora, we're going to crack this stev. We are going to take their passes, take their valleys and drive to the heart of the grat's nest, 'rolling them up' from behind. We are going to smash these humans flat."

Rochester, NY, United States, Sol III

0547 EDT Sunday September 13, 2009 ad

"Just as soon as the arty arrives, we are going to smash these Posleen flat."

Mike didn't bother to look around; the silty water would have prevented a "real" view of the company commanders gathered in a crouch. Besides, his attention was fixed on the symbology being trickled into his eyes.

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 . . ."

"No, Colonel, you're not," the captain spat back. For most officers it would have been suicide, but Keren, and every other member of the Six Hundred, already knew what suicide was. Suicide was huddling around the Washington Memorial, damn near out of ammunition and completely out of hope, because you'd rather pile up the mound with your dead than back up one last yard. And the one thing that the Six Hundred never, ever accepted was an excuse. From anyone. "What you are is an artillery battalion of the United States Ground Forces. And you are expected to perform as such.

"Unless your command is laid in in the next three minutes, prepared to fire, I will ask for your relief. And General Horner will order it. And then I will take command of this battalion. If I have to kill every member in this unit, until I get to the last ten reasonably competent people, I will do so to get fire on target. Am I making myself perfectly clear?"

"Captain, I don't care who you are," the colonel said harshly. "I do not have to take that sort of tone from any goddamned O-3."