"We're working that out. As of twenty minutes ago General Gramns was relieved by my order. The Ten Thousand artillery coordinator is up there right now trying to convince them that a pontoon bridge is a better target than 'assembly areas.' "

"With a platoon of my MPs," Cutprice added. "And two saucers. I told him the first one of those chateau generaling bastards gives him shit, he's to blast him right in fucking public. With a plasma cannon." The lean colonel was so utterly deadpan it was impossible to tell if he was joking.

"Whatever it takes to get their attention." Horner sighed. "And it might take a summary execution. I'd put you in charge of the Corps, Robert, but I can't spare you. And you can't do both jobs."

"I'd end up killing all their rear echelon asses anyway," the colonel grumped. "And all the goddamned regular Army assholes that can't get their divisions to fight."

"The 24th New York and 18th Illinois are reassembling near North Chili," Horner said. "But I don't want to just slot them into the hole. Once we get the pocket cleared out I want you to throw up bridges and press a counterattack. I've sent for Bailey bridge companies and I want you to use them. Harry those horses. Drive them as far east as you can. I guarantee you that there will be infantry for you to fall back on. On my word."

"What is the target?" Stewart asked. "Where do we stop?"

"The goal is the Atlantic Ocean," Horner answered. "But don't outrun your supports. I'd like to see the line pushed back to Clyde. The front would be narrower and the ground is better for us."

"Gotcha," Cutprice said with a death's head grin. "Our flank's gonna be as open as a Subic Bay whore, though."

"I'll have the ACS out there," the general said quietly. "Whether O'Neal shows up or not."

* * *

Ernie Pappas sighed. The hill was a moraine, a leftover of the glacier that had carved out Lake Ontario. On the back side, facing southwest away from the fighting, a former children's hospital had been converted to tend to the thousands of wounded produced by the month's long battle. Including at least a dozen ACS troopers too busted up for their suits to fix.

Even up here in the clean, fresh air the miasma of pain could be sensed. But the hill provided a fine view of the battle that VIII Corps was in the process of losing. A fine view.

Which was undoubtedly why the Old Man had chosen it for his meditations. The major had gotten more and more morose as the war went on and the casualties just kept mounting. There wasn't anything that anyone on Earth could do about it, but the Old Man seemed to take it personally. As if saving the world was all on his shoulders.

That might have come from the early days when his platoon was credited with almost single-handedly stopping the Posleen invasion of the planet Diess. But that was revisionist history. Some of the best and most veteran NATO units had been involved and it was the Indowy-constructed Main Line of Resistance, and the conventional American, French, British and German infantry units that manned it, that stopped the Posleen butt-cold. O'Neal's claim to fame, besides being the only human to ever detonate a nuclear device by hand and survive, was in freeing up the armored forces that had been trapped in a megascraper.

But it might be that that had the Old Man thinking he could single-handedly save the planet. Or maybe it was just how he was; the lone warrior, Horatius at the bridge. He really believed in the ethos of the warrior, the philosophy of the knight, sans peur, sans reproche. And he had made his troops believe in it too, by his shining vision and his intensity and his belief. And that shining vision had sustained them. And maybe this was the cost.

Gunnery Sergeant Ernest Pappas, late of the United States Marine Corps, knew that knights in armor had been nothing more than murdering bastards on horseback. And Ernie knew that what you did was survive. Just survive. And maybe you managed to stop the enemy and maybe you didn't. But as long as you survived to cause them grief that was good enough.

But Gunny Pappas knew that wasn't what got the boys to get up and shoot. The boys got up to shoot from the shining vision and because they believed with Ironman O'Neal beside them there was no way they could lose. Because that was how it should be.

Pappas looked down at the smoke and flames drifting off the rubble of the city and sighed. This sure as hell wasn't how it should be. And if Captain Karen Slight tried to carry the battalion into that fire they would evaporate like water on a griddle. Because they wouldn't believe.

"Major?" he said, putting his hand on Mike's shoulder.

"Ernie," the major answered. They had been together since O'Neal had taken command of Bravo back in the bad days when it seemed like the entire Army had lost its mind. They'd been through the ups and the downs, mostly downs. Whether they knew it or not it was the team of Pappas and O'Neal that defined the 1st /555th and made it what it was.

"That was a long goddamned climb you just forced on an old man."

"Great view, though. Don't you think?" Mike smiled sadly and carefully spit into his helmet where the biotic underlayer picked up the spittle and tobacco juice and started it on its long trail back to being rations.

Pappas glanced at the pistol and winced. "You need to quit listening to Dire Straits."

"What? You'd prefer James Taylor?"

"We've got a situation."

"Yep." Mike sighed and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "Don't we always."

"The 14th Division high-tailed it." The battalion sergeant major took his own helmet off and shielded his eyes. "They're halfway to Buffalo by now."

"What else is new?" O'Neal intoned. "Nice artillery fire, though. Not hitting anything, but very pretty."

"Corps arty. I doubt they'll stick around much longer. The whole corps is thinking the 'bugout boogie' by now."

"Ten Thousand plugging the gap?"

"Yep."

"Yep."

There was a long silence while the sergeant major scratched at his scalp. The biotic underlayer of the suits had finally fixed his perennial dandruff but the habit lingered on long after the end of the problem.

"So, we gonna do anything about it, boss?"

"Do what?" the battalion commander asked. "Charge heroically into the enemy, driving him back by force of arms? 'Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage'? Break the back of the enemy attack and drive them into rout? Retake positions lost for months? Drive them all the way back to Westbury and Clyde where they are supposed to be?"

"Is that what you're planning?" Pappas asked.

"I'm not planning anything!" Mike answered shortly. "But I suppose that is what Jack is expecting. I notice he turned up."

"It's how you know it's serious," Pappas joked. "If CONARC turns up the shit has truly hit the fan."

"I also notice that there are no artillery units responsive to calls for fire."

"They're working on that."

"And that both flanking divisions are defined by Shelly as 'shaky.' "

"Well, they're Army, ain't they?" the former Marine chuckled. "Army's always defined as 'shaky.' It's the default setting."

Artillery fire dropped on the rickety pontoon bridge and the wood and aluminum structure disintegrated.

"See?" said O'Neal. "They didn't really need us."

"Horner wants a counterattack."

O'Neal turned around to see if the sergeant major was joking but the broad, sallow face was deadpanned. "Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack. I thought that was what you was bitching about."

"Holy shit," the major whispered. He reached down and put on his helmet then shook his head to get a good seal on the underlayer. The gel flowed over his face filling every available crevice then drew back from mouth, nostrils and eyes. The Moment, as it was known, took a long time to get over and a lifetime to adjust to. "Holy shit. Counterattack. Grand. With Slight in command I presume? Great. Time to go pile up the breach with our ACS dead."