Disclaimer: I own none of the characters and situations from John Ringo's 'Legacy of the Aldenata' series, aka the Posleen War series, I'm only borrowing them for awhile. This story has spoilers for the novel 'Gust Front' and is set between that book and 'When the devil dances.'
Amazons! A tale of the Posleen War
Teri Nightingale cursed softly as the sargent hefted the heavy rifle and slid along the ditch to the supposedly fortified position that they were trying to hold. The fortifications weren't much, just a ditch with boulders for cover, but they were better than nothing. Fighting against the Posleen had taught humanity that they could not battle in games of maneuver and feint. There were just too damn many Posties, the only way you could fight them was from heavily fortified positions with clear fire lanes and with heavy firepower.
The damn Posties had been on the move up the valley a hour ago, which meant they were going to hit their infantry unit pretty damn soon. She set up the modified Posleen railgun in firing position, sighting down the valley as she plotted the best firing position.
Corporal Katherine Graves, often called 'Gravedigger' by her friends, set up her own rifle nearby as she took her own sighting. "Any idea when they'll hit?" she asked Teri quietly as up and down the line, female soldiers set up.
"No idea," Teri said, not quite lying but not telling the whole truth.
Back when she had been in the ACS, Teri had been issued a mini-computer called a AID. It was gallactic technology, much more advanced than any human design, and with it she could access much more data than a usual foot soldier. The AID bonded with the user, so once she was drummed out of ACS she was allowed to keep it, but few other foot soldiers had them.
"I understand Fleet Captain O'Neil is running the show this time," Gravedigger muttered, '"wonder how many of us will buy it."
"Don't talk about a superior officer that way," Teri said flatly, even though part of her wanted to agree with her.
In what felt like a lifetime ago Teri had transferred over to infantry from Intelligence. And for bad reasons, she understood that now. She had wanted promotions and all that. Instead she found herself in ACS under Mike O'Neil, a man who demanded the best from his teams and who had little good to say about Nightingale. Looking back on it now she realized she hadn't understood how this war would have to be fought, and to be honest she didn't have the needed boldness to carry off his orders.
Even worse, Teri had slept with a officer senior to her to influence him to give her a pass with Iron Mike. She had liked Ernie Pappas, certainly, but the truth was she flirted with him and then slept with him just to get a pass, to keep O'Neil from relieving or demoting her. She hadn't really mastered O'Neil's strategies and fighting style, hadn't internalized it, and Ernie let it go because he thought they had time for her to do so.
It all came together in a giant cluster fuck of failure in the battle for Washington DC. She wasn't ready to command her unit, she hesitated in battle and nearly got her people killed. Relieved of duty she was horrified at the losses the ACS units suffered, and said so on a open frequency. Afterwards the details of her sleeping with Ernie came out, and that along with her failure to lead her unit lead to her being booted from the ACS.
After that had been the worst: the interviews with O'Neil and eventually General Jack Horner. O'Neil had been... strangely quiet, though Teri later learned that he had only recently heard of his wife's death in orbit. He had simply listed her failures in that almost analytical voice, then asked her if she wanted to stay in ACS. He warned her she would be busted down in rank and watched like a hawk, but he needed all the trained soldiers he could get.
In the end, Teri said no. She couldn't bear to serve under them men she once commanded, and worse see their pity or contempt. O'Neil accepted that and passed her off to his boss, Jack. He opened up with, "My temptation is to court martial you and throw away the key. Convince me not to."
Teri met his eyes calmly, "You need every soldier you can get, Sir. And if it comes down to a court martial I could fight it. And you know it."
Jack smiled, an expression that was not comforting, as most people knew he only smiled when he was going to ream someone's ass. "Under current laws I can shoot you right now for what you did," he noted dryly.
'He was right, too,' Teri thought wryly, shaking away her thoughts of the past. She sighted down the valley, looking for the crock-headed yellow centaurs that had plagued humanity.
During the rout of Washington there had been chaos and death, and crimes committed against female officers. Panic and fear can give the lowest sort of man courage, and some of them decided to 'pay back;' women officers who had given them grief. In the aftermath a lot of scum were shot without trial, and the survivors had to take a good long look at women in the armed forces.
There had been pressure to pull women out of the army completely, but that was struck down as foolish and stupid. The majority of officers were left where they were, but infantry and lower ranks were given the option of forming segregated units. All women units, it was hoped, would prevent what had happened, or at least give the women a fighting chance.
"Here they come!" came a whisper over their radio headsets.
The Posleen came up the road in a long, undulating mass, unconcerned about military formations or tactics. The aliens had never developed them, according to humanity's galactic allies, they hadn't needed to. Like a swarm of barely intelligent locusts they descended on a world, overwhelming resistance by the sheer weight of numbers.
The fire command came and Teri opened up, scything across the first line of Posleen and watching the yellow blood splash the ground as they fell. The second rank surged forward and was cut down too, but there was always more of them coming.
'They just don't feel the losses like we do,' Teri thought as she kept firing, feeling the weapon heating up in her hands. Your average Posleen normal was about as smart as a monkey, but their leaders the God Kings could command instant, unthinking obedience from them. They would keep on coming no matter what losses, the only thing that stop a charge like this was it's absolute destruction or a unpassable obstacle like a river.
Teri watched in stunned disbelief as the Posties ground forward slowly, taking losses that would have stopped any human army in it's tracks. They were litterally clambering over their own dead to reach them, at least the ones who weren't dicing up their own dead for food. The Posleen were the ultimate omnivores, eating anything organic including their own kind.
The fall back order came and her squad moved, backing up while laying covering fire until they reached the next set of ditches. As they moved some of the Posleen shotguns found their marks, but thankfully this bunch didn't have the hyper velocity missiles that could kill anything they hit. Grenades were tossed into the ditches they abandoned, blasting out gaping holes in the ground that would slow or lame some of their foes.
Waiting for her gun to cool Teri watched with a familiar horror as a Posleen tripped, breaking a leg. Instead of helping it it's fellows simply killed it, swiftly chopping it up and passing the meat back to other soldiers and their leaders. "Oh god," a younger soldier muttered then was violently sick, throwing up in the dirt.
'Poor kid,' Teri thought as she fired into the advancing Posleen once more. 'I wonder when I stopped noticing the horror of it all?' she wondered as she blazed away.
"Think we can stop them?" Gravedigger asked as they cut down more Posleen, watching them move over their old position and slowly come forward.
"No," Teri answered honestly, "but that's not our job. We're slowing them down long enough for the armored suits of the ACS to get set up, and that'll stop them."
"So we're just cannon fodder?" Gravedigger sounded offended.
"No," Teri smiled in a remarkably feral way, "we're bait."
Like a slow moving avelanche the Posleen kept coming, the yellow skinned aliens making slow but steady progress. Teri swapped out one chain of ammo for a fresh one, noting her ammo box was getting low. Calling on her AID she softly asked, "Anne, tactical situation?"
Like all AIDs Anne was female, configured to have a soothing voice and warm manner. "Brava company was slow moving into position three," the computer reported from her belt, "there is leakage of Posleen in that section. They may be able to flank us."
"Oh, lovely," Teri cursed softly. "Let the commander know."
"Will do," Anne replied as she passed the data to their company commander. Once upon a time that would have been Teri herself, but after being busted down to Private it had been a slow road back.
"All right team," Teri addressed the group of privates and corporals she was responsible for, "Brava was slow to move and we had some leakage to the west of us. No idea if they'll reach here, but it's possible."
"Well fuck," Gravedigger cursed while the private went pale.
Teri's radio chirped on private mode and Lt. Conners came on. She was fresh out of Officers Training and asked Teri for help too often, but that was what most green Lieutenants did. "I've radioed headquarters," she said tersely, "they want us to hold for five, ten minutes longer than planned."
'That was not a good thing,' Teri thought. They were running low on ammo and had already taken some losses. Firing she turned a bit to scope out the rear, assessing the terrain. "You want my opinion?" she asked.
"Go," Connie said grimly.
"We pull back to the next set of ditches," Teri suggested as she shot a Posleen with a larger crest, hoping it was a God King, "but form a curve more than a line. Use up the grenades we have to break the Posleen up, then try to conserve ammo."
"Not much of a plan," Conners said to her wryly, "but better than anything I had. Get your team ready to move."
"All right," Teri turned back to her team with a grin, "headquarters has decided we're the ones who help fix Brava's mess." With that she explained the plan, such as it was, and ordered them to get ready to move.
"They're gonna overrun us," Gravedigger said bleakly as she picked her shots, dropping Posleen with bullets to the head.
"Maybe, but they just said to hold, not live through it," Teri sighed. As Gravedigger gave her a questioning look she added quietly so only she could hear, "There's still some un-evacuated towns behind us, Graves. We fail, they die."
Gravedigger look at her a moment, then nodded shortly. As they began to move back she smiled, "Hey, who wants to live forever?"
'I do,' Teri admitted as they hit the new set of ditches, then everyone threw grenades. Normally they would have saved a few but this time they threw 'em all, blowing bleeding holes in the Posleen front line even as they marched forward implacably. The former green valley burned as the grenades exploded, flames licking at the aliens too as they strode forward.
Carefully the fire team tried for headshots, dropping Posleen even as they searched for the larger crests that marked God Kings. As the Posleen staggered forward and the minutes ticked by they fired away, killing expertly but barely slowing the advance down. Making things worse soldiers began to run dry on ammo, switching to handguns or whatever hold out guns they had.
"I'm dry!" Gravedigger growled in frustration.
Teri fired carefully, still having enough ammo to do so as she ordered, "Pistol at my belt. I've got ammo there too."
Gravedigger grabbed her pistol and started firing with it, the range so close it was easy to hit. "Thanks," she smiled, "but what are you going to do if they reach us?"
"I've always got a knife," Teri answered, noting she was nearly dry on bullets too. A odd whistling sound bothered her, making her frown, then as it grew louder her eyes widened. "Down!" she yelled to her squad.
The mortar shells were a gift from heaven, even if they nearly singed her eyebrows off. As the explosions tore through the Posleen Teri got her team together and retreated, finally finding the main line where the ACS and reinforcements awaited. She grabbed one woman by the neck and nearl.y threw her behind the stone walls, firing her rifle for cover as she did, making sure her team was safe before getting clear herself.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" Connie demanded, nearly shaking her.
Teri smiled back weakly as she picked herself up from where a suit had pitched her as she said, "Just keeping my team safe."
The corps of engineers had done a good job building the defenses up and the armored suits were ready and waiting. The Posleen walked into a wall of flying metal accellerated at near light speed, and after the hammering that they had already taken that was all she wrote. There would still be mopping up to do, of course, but for now there was a time to rest.
Teri was sitting on a stump eating a canned ration as the ACS suit approached, the demonic design marking it as Captain Mike O'Neil. The squat, muscular man looked like a troll in or out of his armor, but taking off the featureless helm he looked thoughtful.
"Captain," Teri nodded respectfully. She hesitated for a moment, but her guilt made her ask him, "How's Ernie?"
Mike smiled faintly, "Oh, he got out of the doghouse eventually." He looked at her seriously, "You did good work out there. If the Posties had pressed forward they could have come at us from the side, and things would have been a lot more messy."
"Thanks," Teri said quietly, "but I had a good team." She thought of the private who threw up, Betty something, who had taken a unlucky shot to the head as they made their final retreat. "Not all of them made it," she added softly, sadly.
"They'll be remembered," Mike said, and somehow Teri believed him.
'Maybe he really does remember the faces of those who die,' Teri thought, 'I know I do.' She scraped a bit of her food out of her tin as she mused, "You didn't come here to catch up."
Mike studied her a moment then asked, "I was going to ask if you wanted back in the unit, but there's no point is there?"
"No," Teri agreed. She smiled as she looked out over the girls, HER girls whom she would fight beside unto death and beyond. "I belong here, now."
"Good luck," Mike nodded respectfully, and Teri smiled back.
"We make our own," Teri called back sassily, repeating her unit motto and nearly believing it herself.
End
Notes: Teri Nightingale in Gust Front is NOT a nice lady, it should be noted. She transferred to infantry for the promotion, was obstructive in training for her unit and seduced a officer who was supposed to assess her. So why write a fanfic on her? Partially because she's a character whom was completely dropped in the books without a chance of redemption. We never find out what happened to her after she was stripped of command and if she could ever learn from her mistakes.