"Colonel," the officer said coldly, "I have shot superiors that failed to perform to my satisfaction. I don't give a flying fuck how you feel about getting reamed out by a captain; we no longer have time for your incompetence. You have one of three choices, lead, follow or die. Choose."

The colonel paused as he realized the captain was absolutely serious. And there was a pretty good chance that if a captain of the Six Hundred asked for his relief, it would be granted. That was what the Army was coming to, damnit.

"Captain, we will not be laid in in three minutes," he said reasonably.

"Colonel, have you ever heard of the Spanish Inquisition?" Keren asked tightly.

"Yes," the officer said and blanched. "I'm . . . sure we can get laid in to your satisfaction, captain."

"Try," the captain rasped. "Try like the Posleen were about to eat your ass. Because if you're caught between the Posties and the Six Hundred, choose the Posties. Do I make myself clear?"

"Clear," the colonel answered and checked his salute before turning away.

Keren watched him leave with cold, dead eyes then stepped around the command Humvee by which they had been carrying on their quiet conversation. He assured himself that no one was watching, then, retaining the identical expression, casually threw up.

He washed out his mouth with a swig from his canteen and shook his head. It wasn't that he was unprepared to shoot the arrogant, incompetent bastard in command of the artillery. It was that it wouldn't help. The unit had been on support duty in Fort Monmoth for so long they weren't in any way, shape or form prepared to do anything but fire, from exactly the same positions, on the same azimuths and elevations, day after day.

Unfortunately, they had been pulled out of their comfy positions as the ones "most excess to need" and sent to support the assault in Rochester. What "excess to need" was turning out to mean was "excessively incompetent." It was an old problem, when a unit called and said "we need your best for something hard" the unit that was losing the capability naturally did not want to send their best. Whether it was a levee of individuals or a shift of units, the commander always tended to send whoever they felt the most comfortable with losing.

And any commander in his right mind would be willing to get rid of this battalion of artillery. Keren had to wonder how many "friendly fire" incidents they had been involved in.

Keren shook his head again and pulled a cellphone out of his pocket. There were still plenty of the towers and, as long as the Posleen weren't jamming, they were a pretty decent way to communicate. And they weren't monitorable by most military units, which was a real plus at times.

"Hey Duncan, man, I think it's time for the Spanish Inquisition. . . ."

* * *

Mike watched the quality marker of the new artillery battery switch from Quality Two to QualFour and smiled. If things like that didn't happen, he'd wonder what was wrong.

"And it appears that Keren just downchecked them," he continued as the rumble of the brigade time on target started, right on time.

"Oh. Joy," Captain Slight said with a slightly hysterical laugh. "We're going out there with our ass in the breeze, sir."

"And such a nice ass it is," Mike said in an abstracted tone. He was flipping at icons and as they changed back and forth knew that Duncan was doing the same. "The choice is the curtain barrage or on call fire. We can put down the curtain with mortars or shift the mortars to on call. Your call, so to speak. I want to shuffle the companies and put Bravo on the left flank. Your orders will be to spread yourself along the left flank and hold that zone until relieved by the Ten Thousand or other similar units. Since you'll be the most spread out, I'll give you the majority of the supplementary fire. For what it's worth, this number of mortars will make a lousy curtain barrage."

He knew that if he set the suit systems to simulated vision, the female officer would be tapping her fingers on the front of her helmet. It was a nervous habit that was the best substitute she had for nibbling her fingernails. Which, when she was out of armor, was what the commander did constantly. He could practically hear the plastic on plastic thunking sound from here.

"On call, sir," the captain said. "I'll want to make the company even more of an 'L' shape. And they'll eventually get in behind us."

"We'll make that bridge when we come to it," Mike answered. "Captain Holder, d'you have a problem taking the center?"

"Negative, Major," the commander replied. "We'll hammer them flat."

"Okay," O'Neal answered, resetting the markers for the three line companies. The three units were already short of bodies and inverting Bravo to cover the flank, necessary as that was, would reduce the density of fire, the "plowing the road" that the ACS depended on to reduce the Posleen swarms. The only reserve was going to be their Grim Reaper heavy weapon suits. Since the suits were configured for indirect fire support, if there was a breach in the line, the only people to take care of it would be the battalion command and staff. Not a pleasant thought, but it had happened before. He reconfigured the companies while the Artificial Intelligence Devices spread the line of attack for each individual trooper in the companies. The lines of attack were only recommendations, though. The ACS troops knew that if things changed they were supposed to think on their feet and get the job done. "Maximum aggression" was the byword. From the saying their commander used all too often, they just called it "Dancing with the Devil." "The artillery's getting ready to wind down support. Let's get reconfigured, fast."

The commanders handled it without even moving and from the surface the movement would have shown nothing but a series of odd ripples. The suit troopers accepted the change without comment; their systems gave them more than enough individual data to understand the reason and they were all chosen for more than just their aggressiveness. It was apparent that they were going to lose the support of the curtain barrage. Without it, the main threat changed to the left flank. And that meant, naturally, that Bravo company would be reassigned. Much as Mike tried to rotate the companies, everyone agreed that when it was really tough, Bravo got the call.

The troopers therefore handled the unexpected move with equanimity and dispatch. They had been arrayed on a line, ready to move out. This required shuffling nearly two hundred suits, under ten feet of water, but that, too, was no problem. The AIDs in each suit gave the path and the troopers followed the guidance, "flying" with their suit drivers in and around each other until all of them reached their assigned positions.

O'Neal didn't even look to see if there was a problem. The Panthers had been hammered until all that was left was bare metal; they could handle the move in their sleep. They could handle the next battle the same way, but the casualties would be steep. And then the battalion would be even shorter, with no significant resupply in sight.

He glanced at his timer and grimaced. He had hoped to move forward in the last stages of the artillery strike; the barrage wasn't going to hurt the suits. But the time-on-target was lifting already and they were just getting into place. It would have to be good enough.

"Move out."

Karen Slight grunted when she saw the actual conditions on the land. Until the suits had crested the water the situation had been a thing of icons and readouts. She could have slaved a view off of Duncan's suit, but it wouldn't have told her anything the sensors didn't. In fact, it would have been far less clear. But what the sensors couldn't give her was the graphic image of the shot-torn hell that was central Rochester.