When the Devil Dances

After five years of battling the Posleen invaders, human civilization is down to this: A handful of valleys in the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians, Fargo, North Dakota and the Cumberland Basin. The scattered survivors in the Andes, the Himalayas, the Alps and the Gujarat can't be defined as civilization. They're just meat in a lobster-leg; tasty but too much bother to pull out.Only in the Cumberland Basin and the Ohio Valley do humans retain culture, philosophy and learning. Only in the Appalachians and the Rockies do the humans hold onto their shattered defenses. Only there do they create larger aud larger engines of war to oppose the hated Posleen. Only there do they have hope. As they wait for the return of their forces. As they pray for survival.After five years of battling the Humans, the Posleen are tired and angry. Humans don't fight fair. They hide and borrow like the pestiferous abat. They strike from above with their hated artillery and from behind with their long range reconnaissance. After five years of hammering their crocodilian heads on the Appalachian Wall, the Army Corps of Engineers, the armored combat suits of Fleet Strike and the steel-hard veterans of the Ten Thousand, even the Posleen are ready for a change. And the name for that change is Tulostenaloor. He was beaten in Aradan V. But he has learned. And this is his day.