But there were tens of thousands of really angry Posleen starting to dig themselves out of the rubble around the hospital. And they were getting ready to fall on Bravo Company like the hammers of hell. Bravo Company needed all the artillery there to keep from being overrun. If they didn't get some support, and fast, they were going to be thresh-in-a-can before you could say "Spam, spam, spam, spam and rat."

The only thing that would save their ass was more artillery, which they weren't going to get, or sacrificing the Ten Thousand, which he wasn't willing to do.

There just weren't enough resources to get the job done.

In other words, just another day fighting the Posleen.

"Duncan, shift all artillery to the north in support of Bravo Company. Battalion . . . prepare for tena'al charge." He touched a series of imaginary keys and the scene started to change. Where before the holographic camouflage had been blending the suits into the background it now shifted to reveal larger versions of the demon worked into his own armor. As it changed the armor began to boom out a driving electric drum solo.

"Okay," he growled, stamping downward on the dead Posleen at his feet to get a better footing. "Playtime's over. Let's kick some ass."

* * *

"Jesus, Mike, it's not that bad?" Horner whispered as the suit units seemed to go into hyperdrive. All of them had shape-shifted into large demonic creatures and then started sprinting for the heights, laying down a curtain of fire as they went. The silver lightning was chewing the ridgeline, sweeping away the front rank of Posleen as they came into view.

He looked to the north and it was apparent that the company there was in serious trouble. The artillery on the hills had stopped and he could only presume that meant it was shifting to the north in support of that unit. The company did not seem to have taken major casualties yet. But there was a huge mass of undirected normals heading for it and if they could not be stopped they were going to hack the beleaguered company to bits. It was clear that O'Neal had chosen to remove the artillery support from the majority of his unit in the belief that the company could hold out. Overall it did not look like a good bet to Horner; spread out as they were, the ACS were inviting defeat in detail. They might take and hold the bridgehead, but it looked like it would be at the expense of most of the battalion.

On the other hand, the overall requirement had been laid by one General Jack Horner. So he couldn't exactly complain when they did whatever it took to perform the mission.

"Another day at the races," Colonel Cutprice said from the other window. "I'm not going to wait for the bridge. First Batt is fully airmobile; I'll send them across immediately using their tenars in support of Bravo company then start ferrying the rest across to support the ridge. Otherwise we're going to end this day without a battalion of ACS."

"I'll go down and see if shouting at people gets the bridges up any faster," Horner said with a smile, his version of a frown. "And find out why the boats aren't already assembled."

"That would be nice," Cutprice said in a disinterested tone. "It's going to be kinda lonely over there for a while."

" 'Course, what else is new, sir?" Sergeant Major Wacleva asked. "I'll go get your body-armor."

Horner looked over at the colonel and smiled again, tightly. "Do you really think that is a good idea, Colonel? Leading from the front is for squad leaders, not colonels."

"As opposed to, say, watching the ACS slaughtered from across the river, General?" Cutprice asked, pulling out a cigar and slowly lighting it. "Yeah, I think it's a grand idea." He looked east where a cloud shadow seemed to be moving rather fast and frowned.

"Ah yes," Cutprice said after a moment. "Right on time. Wouldn't be a really screwed up battle without a five percenter."

Horner looked to the east and up. "Well, that, at least, we can take care of." He tapped his AID and gestured out the window. "Nag, tell SheVas Twenty-Three and Forty-two to engage the approaching Lamprey at will."

"Colonel, you know that discussion we had the other day?" Sergeant Major Wacleva asked, walking back into the room with two sets of body armor.

"Which one?"

"The one about 'when do you know it's really bad'?"

"Sure."

"Well, it's bad if the Ten Thousand shows up. And it's worse if the ACS shows up. And it's really, really bad if General Horner shows up. But the ultimate in bad has to be when two SheVas show."

* * *

Attenrenalslar was what the humans had taken to calling a "five percenter." Ninety-five percent of Posleen God Kings understood only the simplest imperatives. Eat, screw, fight, take territory and repeat until death. However, that remaining five percent was, in some ways, more trouble than the other ninety-five. The "five percenters" were the ones that jammed the humans' frequencies at seeming random, but always it seemed at the worst possible time. It was the five percenters that occasionally took over a fire net to the consternation of all. It was the five percenters that organized groups of Posleen to act in what was an almost concerted action. And it was the five percenters that used their Lampreys and Command Dodecahedrons as airmobile units.

One of O'Neal's nightmares was somebody who would organize all the five percenters into one massive unit.

Currently, though, Attenrenalslar was one of the very few God Kings that had determined that the best way to turn the tide of this battle was to take his lander across the river and attack the humans from behind. He might be the only one; the percentages on "air-mobile" had gotten worse and worse for the Posleen of late.

Early in the war it was a nearly guaranteed tactic. The humans had very few weapons that could engage the landers and as long as they stayed below the horizon from one of the few remaining Planetary Defense centers, the humans almost had to wait for them to land before having any real chance to attack the Posleen within. Since the landers also mounted anti-personnel weaponry, not to mention space-to-space weaponry that was good for taking out most of a battalion, they could attack ground units with impunity. The wonder was that the Posleen didn't use them all the time.

However, that weakness had been noted even before the enemy made their first landing; Mike O'Neal's first Medal of Honor accrued from almost single-handedly taking out a command ship. But the method was not considered survivable.

In the first major Earth landing it appeared that a battleship had managed, through a fluke more than anything, to take out a Lamprey. From that was born the concept of the SheVa Gun, the sort of weird bastard weapon that is only created in the midst of really terrible wars.

The gun was named after the Shenandoah Valley Industrial Planning Commission, the group that had first solved all the various design problems inherent in the new system, and the majority of the first parts and pieces of the massive construction were made in the Roanoke Iron Works.

The basic parameters for the weapon were simplicity in themselves. The gun was an extended barrel, smoothbore, 16" battleship cannon. Because of the occasional necessity of rapid fire, the standard 16" "bag and round" method of loading, which involved sliding a 1200-pound round followed by fifty-pound bags of powder, had been replaced with a single shell the size of a small ICBM. The SheVa gun carried eight rounds as a "standard load" and a tractor-trailer could haul two "four-packs" that permitted reloading in under ten minutes. Each gun was loaded with standard rounds, but there were at least two tractor trailers "on-call" carrying special munitions, including both sensor and antimatter area effect weapons, at all times.