"John Ringo - The Legacy of the Aldenata 3 - When the Devil D" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

'logistical tail,' sir."
Horner smiled even wider, a sure sign of anger, as Cutprice snorted.
"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