Damned 02, The False Mirror by Alan Dean Foster

Author:Alan Dean Foster
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-08-11T23:13:22+00:00

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Any early feelings of uncertainty among the members of the attacking force about their chosen course of action vanished as enemy resistance collapsed under the fury of the Human-Massood assault. There was barely enough time to savor each triumph before orders arrived directing the next attack on the enemy's position. Certainly there was no time to formulate questions, which was the intent of Chin and his collaborators from the beginning.

The attack gave no sign of faltering. The soldiers of Chin's battle group were in superb condition, and even seemed to gain strength with each objective attained. Though the initial advantage of surprise had been expended, the battle group continued to forge ahead on skill and dedication alone.

The counterattack gave some members of Chin's staff pause, especially when he insisted on sending shock teams and scouts on ahead to probe the enemy's SHQ defenses in spite of the fact that the enemy now had to be aware of their intentions. But since Chin's predictions had been coming true with edifying regularity, pause did not give way to objection. Not that a few concerns would have swayed the colonel in any event. There were too many others on the staif who fully supported his strategy.

While Chin's reaction to his accomplishments thus far was less than boisterous, some of his personnel were less restrained. Three noncommissioned officers in particular made no attempt to hide their feelings.

Though exhausted, they had no intention of requesting a break, neither for themselves nor their troops.

Not with the perimeter of the enemy's Sector Headquarters already under attack from outlying scouts striking from superfast sliders.

Take that objective, they knew, and the poofs back at Regional would have no choice but to back them with fresh troops. They would have gained too much to risk giving back. Enemy influence across the entire southern quarter of the Eirrosadian landmass would be broken.

Things were going so well that Chin had decided to send several squads racing around behind the enemy HQ in order to be in position to interdict any attempts at reinforcement. In an earlier era such strategy might have been carried out with aircraft, but with the advent hundreds of years before of compact computer-guided missiles and energy beams capable of knocking anything out of the sky, control of the air had become irrelevant to modern warfare. Among the clouds there was no place to hide.

Increasingly tired but increasingly confident, Chin's group continued to advance.

Even in moments of direst distress it was in the nature of the Amplitur to remain calm, a characteristic which their allies found endlessly reassuring. Since the universe had evolved gradually, they were fond of pointing out, it similarly stood to reason that there was no need to concede emotion to haste. It required an extraordinary series of debilitating circumstances to reduce an Amplitur to agitation.

While distinctly nonplussing, the current situation failed to qualify.

"It would seem," commented High-many fold-Leaving, "that our position here has changed rapidly from dangerous to precarious."

"That is unarguably so.

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