He had seen the weakness of the Path, the Path of War that called for berserk assaults no matter what the target, and he knew there must be a better way. It was because of this that he had responded to the messages filtering through the Net. There was a new Way, a new Path, and a new messiah that would lead them beyond these trackless wastes into the promised land of the interior. It was a new Way and it was a hard Way, but he had never expected how hard.

"I . . . will obey, estanaar," the scoutmaster said. "I do not understand but I will obey." He paused and thought back. "The sky-fire . . . the artillery . . . fell without warning. Rather our tenaral told us it was coming, but only when it was on top of us. Then Ramsardal fell and when I saw the damage I began weaving; I knew it was the human 'snipers' but with the sky . . . artillery fire the tenaral were unable to find them. I bonded as many of the oolt'os as I could on the way past and moved as quickly out of the fire as I could."

"Can you read a map?" asked Staraquon.

"I . . ." The young Kessentai fluffed his crest nervously but finally laid it flat. "I do not know what a map is . . ."

"Call me 'Esstu,' " Staraquon said calmly. "I gather information about the humans. You will be given a lesson in maps later by the Kessentai of Essthree, but a map is basically a picture of the ground from in the air. I would like to know where the encounter was. Since there was sniper fire, it was from a reconnaissance team, one of the human 'lurp' teams, rather than fire directed from their sensors. If there is a reconnaissance team out there, it is probably coming to see what we are doing. We don't want that; we don't want the humans seeing what we are doing. Therefore we want to know where the encounter was and when."

The God King fluffed his crest again and clacked his teeth. "It was last night and it was closer to the human lines. I . . . knew a way to this area but it passed close to the human lines. It was the only way I knew so I took it. I could show you where it is, but I cannot tell you."

"All right," Staraquon said with a flap of his crest. "It would have been good but not necessary." He turned to Tulo'stenaloor. "I wish to send out more patrols and I want some of my esstu Kessentai included. There are detectors we have been working on that might help us find these pesky lurps."

"Was there a transmission from the area?" Tulo'stenaloor asked. He admitted that he did not have the expertise in figuring out how to gather information that Staraquon did. But that was why he had recruited him as his 'esstu.'

"No," the intelligence officer said. "It would appear that they are using some nontransmissive form of communication. Probably these laser retransmitters that they have scattered around the hills."

"Is there some way to gather the information from them?" the older Kessentai mused. "Or some way to feed it in?"

"Both," Staraquon said with a bark of humor. "But shouldn't we wait on that for when the attack takes place? I want these humans to suspect nothing until then."

"Agreed," Tulo'stenaloor said. "Very well, do what you need to, you may even draw on the Kessentai force if you think it can be kept secret. But find this recon team and kill it."

* * *

Jake took another look through the binoculars and scratched his chin in thought. The Tallulah River drained the northeast Georgia mountains, joined by numerous smaller tributaries until it became a substantial stream. At that point, however, humans had taken a hand and the river was repeatedly used for hydroelectric power generation. Currently he was observing the bit of it that flowed out of the Lake Burton Dam and, in very short order, became Lake Seed. Between the two lakes was a short stretch that, according to the map and their intel report, was supposed to be fordable. Only about thirty meters from side to side and knee deep at worst. What was even better about this point for a crossing was that there were steep, heavily wooded slopes on either side of the river. All the team would have to do was move down through the woods, pass through a blessedly small open area, cross the river and move back into the sheltering woods.

Unfortunately, the intel reports neglected to take into account the sumptuous rains of the previous few months and the power plant on the dam.

The plant was old, possibly as much as a century passed since its construction, the large multi-pane windows and antique lights scattered around made that clear. The generators inside would probably be signed by Thomas Edison himself, but the plant still functioned and it was evident that the Posleen were using it to supplement their fusion plants.

Which, by itself, was no skin off of Jake Mosovich's nose. But the problem was the generation had raised the level of the river to nearly chest height and the power of it would make any white-water kayaker happy. But the objective was on the far side. Which created a number of unpalatable options. They could turn around and cross Lake Burton on the north end. But if they did that it would make more sense to extract to behind the lines, drive around to the Highway 76 defenses and start all over again.

Alternatively, they could move closer to Toccoa and make a crossing. The problem with that was that the most dangerous point of the insertion would take place practically on the target. A landing zone for a globe was commonly almost ten miles in radius. It would be expected that landers were at least as far out as Toccoa although telemetry had indicated this landing was remarkably tight. Whichever was the case, crossing further down would be much more dangerous. If anything went wrong on the crossing, they might find upwards of four million Posleen chasing their asses. And while Jake had developed a fond affection for Posleen stupidity, he had also gained a strong appreciation for their tenacity and speed. There was no way they would survive a globe-force on their ass.

That left one option.

"The bridge is up," he whispered.

"Yeah," Mueller said. "And by that you are suggesting what?"

He and Mueller had been together a long time. Along with Sergeant Major Ersin they were the only survivors of the first, disastrous human encounter with the Posleen on Barwhon when a hand-picked team of the best the U.S. Special Operations Command had to offer was sent out to learn about this amazing and unlikely reported extraterrestrial threat.

All went relatively well until the small team was ordered to retrieve some live Posleen for study. It was then that the team learned, to its cost, about the efficiency of God King sensors and how very fast the "dumb" Posleen could react to a direct and recognizable threat. He had completed the mission, but at the cost of six legends in the SpecOps community. And he had never again underestimated the Posleen.

But there was a difference between underestimation and necessary risk.

"I don't see a choice," Mosovich pointed out. "And there's not much traffic. We've seen, what? One group cross it in the last few hours? We move down to right on top of it, make sure there aren't any bad guys around and then sneak across. What's so tough?"

"Getting killed is what's so tough," Nichols interjected. "What happens if a God King wanders by? I guarantee you that if we're 'on top' of the bridge, their sensors are going to scream, even if we don't get spotted by sentries on the dam!"

"What sentries?" Mosovich said. "Posleen don't post sentries. They never do."

"They never send out patrols, either," Mueller pointed out. "And it sure as hell looks like that's what's going on here. How many of these damn groups have we seen, just milling around. Usually they're constructing something or farming or working. These guys are acting like . . . soldiers."