But ever a blight on their labours lay,
And ever their quarry would vanish away,
Till the sun-dried boys of the Black Tyrone
Took a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone:
And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends,
The Boh and his trackers were best of friends.—Rudyard Kipling,
"The Ballad of Boh Da Thone"
The orders from Snyder had been, "Find the Panamanian Tenth Mechanized Infantry Regiment, a Colonel Suarez commanding. Attach yourself to Suarez. Assist as able." A marker had appeared in Connor's suit-generated map showing the presumed location of the 10th Regiment Command Post.
It had actually been damned difficult to find Suarez. By the time Connors reached the location he'd been given the command post had moved on. Some Panamanian support troops, a maintenance company, was there in its place. They hadn't known where the CP had gone, except that it had gone generally west.
Connors and B Company followed the road at the double time. Rather, they paralleled it because the road itself was a nightmarish mish-mash of confused and tangled units.
"Hey, sir," the first sergeant had called. "Weren't you a tanker once upon a time? Does this shit look right to you?"
"I was, Top," Connors answered, "and no, it doesn't look right. It looks like a recipe for disaster." Connors took the effort to read bumper numbers as he ran past the mess. In twelve vehicles he noted eleven different units represented.
Bad. Very damned bad.
The company pressed on to the west. Surprisingly, the confusion grew less the closer to the front they got. Soon, Connors was seeing only bumper numbers marked for the 10th Infantry, the very mechanized regiment he was seeking. He ran over to a likely looking armored personnel carrier and asked, his suit translating to Spanish for him, "Where can I find Colonel Suarez?"
"I'm Suarez," answered a neat and fierce looking, for all that his face seemed twenty years old, dark-skinned Panamanian.
"Sir. Captain Connors, B Company, First of the Five-O-Eighth Mobile Infantry." Almost Connors used the old gag line, "And we're here to help you."
Suarez frowned. With the idiot orders emanating from division, the absolute goat fuck he knew was behind him on the road, and the general confusion, he wasn't sure what use he had for a company of the gringo self-propelled suits.
"What am I supposed to do with you, Captain?" he asked. "No one told me you were coming. I'm not equipped to give you any support you might need. And frankly, everything is so goddamned fucked up I don't see you doing much besides adding to the confusion. No offense," he added.
"Sir," Connors began to patiently explain, for he had grown used to people who didn't understand the suits and so rejected them, "my company has more practical direct firepower than your entire division. All my men can speak Spanish through the suits' translational capabilities. And we don't need any support: no fuel, no food, no parts, no mechanics. We don't even need to take up any road space."
"No lie?" Suarez asked, one lifted eyebrow showing the skepticism he felt.
"No lie, sir. Just tell me what you need done and we'll do it. Within reason, of course."
"Of course," Suarez echoed, trying to think what use he might make of these gringo—no, galactic, he supposed—wonders.
"I'm torn," Suarez muttered, "between having you go back and unfuck the mess to the rear and having you go forward and clear out a group of the aliens that is holding up my advance. Have you got a map?"
Connors AID projected a 3-D map of the area in midair.
Suarez's eyebrow dropped as he leaned back from the projected map in startlement. When he recovered his composure he said, "Hmmm . . . I wish I could tell you where all my units are. Damned radios are not working quite right." Suarez's eyes widened again as unit icons began to appear on the projected map.
Suarez couldn't resist saying, "Cooollll," as he jumped down from the APC and stood in front of the map. "I've got three problems. One is the cluster fuck to the rear. As I said, I'd use your people to help straighten it out . . . except that if you have the fire power you claim, it would be a waste." Unless, of course, you used that firepower to shoot my division commander.
"My second problem is communications. I might use you for that later, if you're willing, but for now I'd rather use you for problem number three, which is this river crossing, here," Suarez finger touched a spot on the projected map.
"There are enemy on the other side. While I could force it, it would cost me some armor. This, in itself, would be acceptable except that the armor would then block the ford. Can you clear the far side for me, then sweep down and clear the bridge south of the crossing?"
"We can," Connors answered after a moment's thought. "Can you loan us some artillery support?"
Suarez's face grew, if possible, fiercer still. "The artillery is my number one communications problem, Captain. I can sometimes get my line battalion commanders. I have not heard a peep from the gunners in hours. I've got my sergeant major out looking for them now."
"Okay, sir. I understand. We've got some indirect fire capability of our own, but the ammunition for that is limited, and I doubt you've got anything we could use in lieu."
Boot don't spatter, echoed in Connors' mind as he set his troops up for the assault. The biggest single thing I've got going is that the Posleen probably don't know we're here and likely don't have much of a clue of what we are capable.
"AID, map."
Okay . . . into the river and move upstream to the crossing point . . . send one platoon. The other two demonstrate on this side. A five-second barrage by weapons and then the platoon in the water charges.
Oughta work. Connors issued the orders and the platoons fanned out, one of them—the first—diving into the water and moving upstream. The fire from the high ground opposite was weak and scattered, really not enough to worry about.
When he judged the time right, Connors ordered Weapons Platoon to fire. The high ground erupted in smoke and flame as several hundred 60mm shells landed atop it. The First Platoon, feeling the vibrations in the water broke out and charged due west.
The First Platoon leader swept across the objective quickly, then reported, "Captain, there's one, repeat one, cosslain here with a three millimeter railgun. And he's deader than chivalry. Nothing else."
That was worrisome but Connors could not quite put his finger on why. He tried to report it to Suarez and found he couldn't get through to the colonel's Earth-tech radio. Instead he sent a messenger and proceeded to follow the plan, sweeping south along the river's west bank to seize the bridge that Suarez really needed.
There was little resistance on the way or even at the bridge. Connors sent another messenger to advise Suarez that the way west was open.
"The trick," Binastarion said to Riinistarka, hovering next to his father on his own tenar, "is to convince the threshkreen that we are as confused as they seem to be. That requires that obvious objectives and key terrain be given up without a fight, but that delayed counterattacks to retake them be put in at a time that is most inconvenient to us. And with significant losses to the threshkreen. Only in this way will they not suspect a trap. The technique is called, 'Odiferous bait,' my son."
"Father," the junior Kessentai said, "I don't understand. When you told us the tale of Stinghal, he left no such guards and didn't throw away any of the people in fruitless counterattacks."
"Those were different circumstances, my son. There, in the city of Joolon, the enemy provided his own reason to believe the city was ready to fall, Stinghal merely added to the illusion. Here, on the other hand, the enemy threshkreen have not been in a position to really hurt us. We must provide the illusion and that illusion must seem very real indeed. Thus, I throw away thousands of the people in these fruitless attacks, to convince the enemy."
"I . . . see, my father," Riinistarka agreed, though in fact the junior Kessentai did not see.
Will I never acquire the skills my father and our people need?
Suarez was screaming into the radio when his track reached the bridge where Connors met him. The gringo captain didn't know at whom the colonel was shrieking, but took it as a good sign that the radios were working at all.
In frustration, Suarez threw the radio's microphone down, and raised his eyes to Heaven, shouting a curse. The curse had no name to it, but Connors guessed that it was directed toward higher levels, rather than lower.
The MI captain trotted over and removed his helmet. Suarez seemed fascinated by the silvery gray goop that slid away from the gringo's face before collecting on his chin and sending a tendril down into the helmet. His eyes followed the tendril as it disappeared into the greater mass, leaving Connors' face clean.
"That creeps out everyone who sees it for the first time," Connors admitted, with the suit still translating.
"Umm . . . yes, it would," Suarez answered in English, the first time he had shown faculty with the language.
"Your radios are working again?" Connors asked.
"Yes. Even the fucking artillery is up." Suarez voice indicated pure suspicion at his suddenly granted ability to talk to his subordinates; that, and a considerable disgust at suddenly having to listen to his superior, Cortez.
He continued, "There was nothing but static or a few disconnected phrases and then, in an instant, poof, I was in commo with everyone. I almost wish I were not, especially with my idiot division commander."
Tracks continued to roar by, heading westward, as the Panamanian and the gringo MI captain spoke. The stink of diesel filled the air as the heavy vehicles ground the highway—never too great to begin with—into dust and grit. Both Connors and Suarez coughed at a particularly concentrated whiff of the crud assailed them.
That track passed and in the sound vacuum left Connors observed, "Well, as long as you have commo with everybody, you're probably best off keeping us close to you and using us as a powerful reserve."
"Boot don't spatter?" Suarez quoted.
Connors smiled. It was so good to work for a man who knew what he was doing.
"You have lifted the interdiction of the humans' radio traffic?" the Rinn Fain asked.
"Yes, lord," the Indowy technician answered. "But we are continuing to monitor for an appropriate time to reimpose it."
"Show me the deployment of the Posleen forces."
Another holographic map popped up, which the Rinn Fain studied closely.
"Very interesting," he said, noting the tens of thousands of Posleen moving off the main road and taking cover in the hidden valleys to the north of it. "This is a clever Kessentai leading these people. He does not know we are helping him, but he sees the results of that assistance and acts accordingly. How goes the attack on the humans' warships?"
"That has been a great success, lord," the Indowy answered. "Two of the three seem to be pulling out of range of their own guns' ability to support. The last was never meant to stand alone."
"It troubles me, Indowy," the Darhel said, tapping a finger to its needle-sharp teeth contemplatively, "that the last ship is able to resist us. Its AID should not be able to do so."
"I have some suspicions about that, lord," the Indowy whispered. "I have checked. Simple insanity is not unknown among Artificial Intelligences. But these are invariable older AIDS. The AID in the human warship is virtually brand new."
"And so?" the Rinn Fain prodded.
"I have run simulations, lord, at much faster than real time. I have discovered that such insanity is possible if a new AID is left alone and turned on for too long a time."
"Do you think this happened?"
"I do not know, lord. But I have sent a query out over the Net as to whether that AID might somehow have been turned on before packing."
Guano and Zira lay on their bellies, fishing poles in hand. They moved the poles up and down, more or less rhythmically, to keep the baited hooks moving. They spoke only in whispers. Zira suspected that the vibrations of loud voices would reach the water and frighten off the fish.
"This is pretty boring, Zira," Guano said softly.
"Is an ambush boring, young Kessentai? Think of it as an ambush."
Guano really had no answer to that. He was too young ever to have participated in an ambush. He tried to imagine one, waiting with beating heart for an unsuspecting enemy to show up, never knowing if the enemy would be too great to take on—even with surprise—and never knowing if the enemy had spotted the ambush and was even now circling to . . .
"Wake up, Guano," came the urgent whisper. "I think one of the little darlings is sniffing at your bait."
"Wha' WHAT?"
The tugging at the line that Zira had seen stopped abruptly.
"Shshsh. Quietly. There's one of the fish that was at your bait."
Guano quieted down and watched the line intently. Sure enough, the line was moving erratically, in a way that indicated something was nibbling at the hook. Suddenly, there was a strong tug.
"You've got him, Guano, now pull once, medium hard, to set the hook."
Guano pulled on the fishing pole, feeling a plainly live weight on the other end. "Yeehaw!" he exulted, though the Posleen word was more along the line of "Tel'enaa!"
"Its mouth might be soft," Zira counseled. "Let it run about until it tires."
For fifteen minutes Guano did just that, giving the fish some room to run and then slowly and carefully bringing it back. By the end of that time, the piscine was running out of steam, its tugs on the line and pole growing weaker.
"Very good, young Kessentai," Ziramoth commended. "Now pull it above water . . . gently."
The pole bent nearly double as Guanamarioch pushed down on the end while slowly lifting from near the middle. With a splash, a foot and a half long greenish gray creature appeared above the water, its tail flapping to one side and then the other as it sought purchase in water that was now too far beneath it.
"Dinner," said Zira, "is served."