Gettysburg: A Tale of the Second War for Pennsylvanian Independence Read Online Free PDF Page A

has done well for a long time, since the SOMA
broke the BICE codes. But we still lag behind the power curve. If we don’t
break out of this hit-and-run cycle, eventually Transport will bleed us dry. At
the end of the day, it comes down to the mathematics of resources. We have to
change that equation.” She pointed at the ground beneath them. “ Here .”
    Charger looked straight at her, ruminating a moment, then nodded.
“Yes, ma’am!” Emphatic. Committed.
    “Reboot your BICEs, set them to LAN only. Until we hit
Authority troops with jammers, we can at least coordinate squads. Stay off the Internet. No sense handing Transport our exact location, though I’m pretty
sure they’ll know where we are soon enough.” Someone mouthed approval at that
bit of black humor. “Any other questions?”
    Silence. Then Stug raised his hand.
    “Sergeant?”
    “Do I get to hit someone today?”
    More giggles in the ranks, though they were tentative, as if
testing the waters that it was all right to find humor in such a serious moment.
    This was a time to be a comrade as much as a leader, the captain
decided. “It’s been more than a day, hasn’t it?” she said, putting grimness in
her voice.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he gruffed. “That’s a whole week in dog
years.”
    Open laughter now. Even Charger giggled quietly to herself.
    “For better or worse,” the QB said, “I imagine the answer to
your question is yes.” She sent a silent prompt to her aide, who snapped,
“Ten-chun!”
    The score of men and women immediately stood up straight,
all joking silenced.
    “Squad leaders to me. The rest of you, double-check weapons
and sling extra ammo. You’ll need it.”
    “Dismissed!” the aide said.
    Lieutenants Hatch, Mason, Freeman, Lutz, and Gray joined the
QB while the rest of Bestimmung Company prepared themselves for a fight. She
kneeled on the ground, arranging rocks as landmarks and drawing a rough
perimeter of the town with a stick. On the right side of the crude map, she stuck
one small and one large rock. The warehouses. In the middle she placed an
upright stick representing the guard post Alpha Squad had nullified yesterday.
Behind the town she scattered sticks for mountains. While she could’ve drawn a
3-D image of the same plan using their BICE connection and shared it on their
squad leader channel, the QB preferred battle plans she could touch. She was old-fashioned
that way.
    “Mason, you’ll take Bravo Squad, supported by Gray’s Echos,
and secure the guard post by oh-nine-hundred. No doubt it’ll be remanned, maybe
even reinforced. Alpha Squad, once they’ve done that, we’ll move up from the
woods to the south, with support from Charger and Delta Squad, and probe the
warehouses.”
    “ We , ma’am?” Hatch already knew the answer, but he
wanted it confirmed.
    “I’ll be attaching myself to your squad for the duration.”
    Well, there it was. Not a surprise and certainly not
unprecedented, given the company’s history. Still . . .
    “Captain, if I may speak freely—”
    “I’m going,” she said. “Now speak freely, but make it fast.
We’re burning daylight.”
    Hatch took a breath. Dangerous territory. He admired her
bravery. She set the standard for the unit. She was also too important to it to
become an oo-rah poster model collecting laser holes.
    “Strategically, we’d be better served with you coordinating
from here, ma’am,” Hatch said quietly. There was no ego here, no “nobody leads
my squad but me.” He was simply stating a fact.
    “Coordinating how, Lieutenant?” she asked. “BICEs will be
useless once the forward squads are in range of Transport jamming. And I’ve
forgotten my smoke signal alphabet.”
    Hatch acknowledged the point with a nod. There was more to
his concern than a simple consideration for military strategy, if he was honest
with himself about it. There was the history between them. But best leave that
unopened in the folder marked Past and Done . No time