“Ok,” she waved a hand when they were almost at the top and she could see Nert fairly bouncing on his toes with eagerness. “Go ahead. But keep down, you hear?”
“Yes, Sergeant Jarrett,” he snapped a Ruhar salute to her then blushed as he remembered that saluting in the field was an invitation for a sniper to target Shauna. “I am sorry.”
“To hell with it. Don’t do it again. Go ahead.”
They were so close that by the time Nert crawled to peer over the ridge, the scope of his rifle held up just enough to see. Shauna wriggled up on her belly beside him and flipped the front cover off her own rifle’s scope. “What do you see?” She asked.
Nert didn’t reply.
That wasn’t good.
Shauna held up her own rifle, using its scope to feed a view to her helmet visor, without exposing herself to danger beyond the ridge. “Shit,” she whispered.
“Shit is what I was going to say,” Nert managed to sound goofily charming even in the worst situations. “Also other things that are not appropriate in the presence of a lady.”
“Ladies never get this filthy,” she corrected the teenager. “So, fuck your politeness.”
Nert lifted his gaze to silently grin at her.
“I don’t know what you’re grinning at. We are screwed.”
The smoke they had seen was from the base. It had been overrun and ransacked, everything that could burn had been leveled. “Ah, I hope those guys bugged out before the lizards arrived.”
“Perhaps our soldiers torched the base before they left?” Nert suggested hopefully.
Shauna considered that happy thought for only a second, before her heart fell. “No. No, damn it.” To the right of one charred building, a body lay in the sunshine. A body in distinctive Chinese Army fatigues. She shifted the view to see two bodies wearing Indian Army uniforms. “This is not good.”
“I agree. What can we do?”
Shauna thought about that question. “That is the right question, Nert. What can we do? We’re almost out of food, and neither of us can eat any of the local plant life.”
“No, we cannot,” he said sadly, patting his pants pocket to reassure himself he still had two ration packets.
“We need to go down there,” Shauna concluded, making the decision while she heard herself speaking. “There is nothing else even remotely friendly around here. Maybe not everything down there was destroyed, I see a lot of stuff scattered around. If we find food, maybe some communications gear intact or that we can fix, we’ll be better off than we are now.”
“Communications are still being jammed,” Nert reminded her.
“We don’t need to get a clear signal out. If we put a signal on a timer, so we can get clear of the area before it transmits, UNEF or the Verds can locate the source even if they can’t understand what we’re saying. They might be able to divert an aircraft to scout,” she explained more hopefully than she felt. “It’s better than nothing, and nothing is what we have right now.” What she did not say was that even if they did find food packets in the ruins of the base, they would almost certainly be nothing a Ruhar could eat. The logistics of multi-species allied warfare were hellishly complex.
“I will follow your orders, Sergeant,” he stated with a look of such hero worship, Shauna felt her stomach fall. If she got them killed down there, it would be all her fault.
“We observe the area, then approach when it will be dusk,” she decided.
Nert’s face screwed up with puzzlement. “We are not waiting until full darkness?”
“No. I want to see where we’re going, and be able to search the site. The night-vision gear of these helmets is not as good as a full skinsuit, or a Kristang powered armor suit. If the enemy is waiting for us, they will have even more advantage after the sun goes down.”
Nert nodded silently. That made sense to him. He propped his rifle on a stick to get comfortable for the long wait, placing his faith in the human sergeant.
They had not seen any sign of activity other than local wildlife. A sort of buzzard landed and sniffed at one of the dead soldiers, and Shauna had been tempted to take the nasty bird out with her rifle, but she kept her cool and remembered the briefing packet about Fresno. Humans could not eat the local wildlife, and local predators could not eat humans. The buzzard hopped around, sniffing at the dead soldier and squawking, then flew away. Shauna carefully set her rifle down and shuddered with relief.
The local star was twenty minutes from setting when Shauna announced it was time to go. Nert wanted to go ahead to scout, arguing that if he got into trouble, he could run faster and shoot more accurately than she could. The fact that he added he meant no offense to her specifically, and humans in general, only made Shauna more irritated. She squashed the idea, then thought again. Nert was a teenager, a cadet. She was responsible for his life. He was also correct that physically, he was the superior athlete and soldier. His young life was already at risk anyway. Was her pride the only reason she did not want him scouting ahead for her?
No. Shauna had experience in combat, going back to the jungles of Nigeria. Nert’s only actual combat experience had been at an island Shauna blew up on Paradise. He lacked the experience and judgment to judge what was safe and what was not. If anyone was going ahead to scout the destroyed base, it should be her. To soothe the cadet’s bruised ego, she told him only that they needed to remain close enough to support each other.
The sun had set and the twilight was dim under patchy clouds, with the planet’s small moon providing no useful light. That was perfect for Shauna. It took less than half an hour to determine that if they were to find anything useful, it would be in the scattered debris. At first Shauna thought the base had been attacked from the air, then she examined the debris and realized the Kristang had used explosive charges to destroy the structures. That could only have happened after they killed, chased away or captured the UNEF personnel there. Why had the lizards bothered to destroy the structures? She could only imagine they didn’t have the manpower to garrison the base, and wanted to make sure the Legion had no reason to return. That was a piece of information she needed to report, if she ever got in contact with the Legion again.
“I found these,” Nert whispered as he approached her in the near-darkness, an hour after they reached the base. He held out six standard UNEF emergency ration bars, one of them was torn from what Shauna imagined was a bullet hole.
“Where did you find them?” She asked hopefully. However those ration bars survived, there might be other useful items in the same area.
“Er,” Nert scuffed his feet in the dirt. “They were in the pockets of that soldier,” he pointed to the dead Chinese staff sergeant.
“You went through their pockets?”
He nodded once, not looking up to meet her eyes. “We were trained to use battlefield resources, when resupply is uncertain.” He looked up, a tear in the corner of one eye. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. No, Nerty,” she patted him on the back gently. “You did the right thing. I don’t like leaving them here, exposed to the elements.”
“Should we bury them? There are two others behind that building over there,” he pointed to where two charred walls stood, all that was left of the prefab structure.
“I know, I saw them too. Come with me, we’re not going to find much we can use here.” She led the way under a tree, scant cover but better than nothing. Leaning back against the tree, she took a long drink from her canteen while she considered the situation. Burying five bodies would be hard, difficult work, taxing their resources and taking time they should be using to get away from the base. They were already hungry, Nert’s food situation was worse than hers. Moving the bodies would eventually attract someone’s attention, the Kristang had to be at least casually monitoring the site.
She considered what to do. The smart thing to do was get as far away from the base as they could before sunrise. The right thing to do was care for the fallen soldiers. Shit. Why couldn�
��t the right thing be the smart thing?
She needed to be smart. She and Nert had information vital to the Legion, perhaps even critical to the survival of every human and Verd-kris on the planet. They needed to survive and deliver the information.
Still, seeing the fallen soldiers, their shapes dark against the dark ground, Shauna decided that her humanity was as important as her life. “Nert,” she pushed away from the tree, and slung her rifle. “We are taking care of those soldiers. We will work for,” she set a timer on her phone, “two hours. Then we are getting as far away from here as we can.”
“Good,” Nert answered immediately. “I found some tools we can use as shovels.”
The eastern sky was showing the faintest glimmer of pre-dawn when Shauna called for a brief rest. They had been walking continuously, headed north to avoid the closest Kristang towns. To the north, about forty kilometers, was a large river and Shauna did not know how they would get across, she could tackle that problem when they got there. If they reached the river. After they left the base, they had heard aircraft racing by at low altitude, twice they had heard groups of aircraft. That was unusual, they had not heard or seen aircraft since the first day. Something, Shauna both hoped and feared, was going on.
She was about to push herself up off the ground to continue walking, when both of their zPhones made an unusual squawking sound. “General message from the Legion,” she read with surprise. “Jamming has stopped!”
The message was brief and light on details, stating only that the Legion and Kristang had agreed to a cease-fire. Units in the field were to keep the main communications channels clear as bandwidth was limited. Report position and status, the message stated, and wait for retrieval if in hostile territory.
“We are to report our position!” Nert was fairly bouncing on his toes with excitement, his fingers tapping on the screen.
Shauna slapped his hand away. “Don’t do anything. This could be a Kristang trick.”
The cadet looked stricken. “But the message included the correct authentication code,” he pointed to the blue icon flashing next to the message.
“We don’t know if Legion codes have been compromised.”
“We can’t call for evac?” Nert was downcast. He had been so looking forward to eating real food again.
“I didn’t say that. We’re phoning in our position, but we’re doing it smart.” From a pocket, she pulled out three zPhones she had taken from fallen soldiers at the destroyed base. “I’ll type a message reporting our position here,” she looked around for an open area where an aircraft might land. “Put the message on a timer so it doesn’t transmit until we are well away from here. If a friendly aircraft shows up, we call it directly. If not,” she left the rest unsaid.
“Oh,” Nert slapped his helmet in an ‘I am an idiot’ gesture. “That is a good idea.”
It was not until the next morning that Shauna received a personal text message from Perkins. All Mavericks accounted for. Shauna and Nert would be extracted by air as soon as possible, with the message hinting that Perkins was concerned the ceasefire could end at any moment.
Three hours later, an already-overloaded Buzzard roared overhead, escorted by a Kristang gunship. Shauna called in their real position and the pilots landed without commenting on her deception. Many others must have had the same idea.
They climbed the ramp and the aircraft was already lifting off while they strapped into folding jumpseats. A crew chief came over to ask if they needed anything and when Shauna told him Nert was hungry, the man dug through a sack and pulled out some sort of packaged Ruhar meal. Nert’s face lit up and he tore it open without delay.
“Damned good thing this ceasefire happened before we starved out there,” Shauna shouted to be heard over the roar of the turbines, as the back ramp was swinging up to seal in place.
“Don’t be too sure of that,” the Frenchman replied, leaning close to her and speaking softly. He glanced forward to the packed cabin, where dirty, tired and injured humans and a pair of Verd-kris were strapped into their seats. “Rumor has it the Kristang have made an offer to the Ruhar. The hamsters will be allowed to pull themselves and the Verds off Fresno.”
Shauna got a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. “What about us?”
The crew chief worked his lips as if he were about to spit. “According to the Kristang, humans are still legally their client species. We are traitors. You know how the Kristang feel about traitors, no?”
“Shiiiiiit,” Shauna slumped back against the netting of the jumpseat, suddenly overcome with weariness. “At least the timing is good.”
“How so?” The crew chief asked, puzzled what she could mean.
“If the lizards had waited to attack after the second wave landed, there would be another eight thousand humans stuck here.”
The Buzzard landed Shauna and Nert at a makeshift Legion airbase in the middle of nowhere, where she was overjoyed to find Jesse, who was recovering from medical treatment by a Verd-kris doctor. He was tired, he ached all over from the nano machines in his bloodstream busily working to put his battered body back together, he was cranky, and he burst into tears when he saw Shauna. Their reunion was joyous, it was PG-rated because he had medical therapy machines clamped around both legs, and it was brief. “You’re leaving already?” Jesse’s eyes bulged out. “Why?”
“Because, Nerty and I found something out there. Something important, I need to brief the Colonel ASAP.”
Jesse glared down at the bulky machines strapped to his thighs. The docs said they could be removed within forty-eight hours. “This can’t wait, like, one more day?”
She leaned down and kissed his forehead, then his lips. “No, it can’t, lover. The ceasefire could break down any second, I need to go now. There’s a Buzzard leaving for Headquarters in two hours, I have to be on it. I’m calling Perkins,” she announced as she pulled out her zPhone and tapped the icon for the private code of the Maverick’s commander.
“This is highly irregular, Jarrett,” Perkins responded.
Shauna rolled her eyes, and put a finger over Jesse’s mouth to stop him from laughing. “Our unit is called Mavericks, Ma’am. We didn’t get that name by following protocol.”
“Ok,” Perkins admitted. “You got me there. This is really that important?”
“Life or death,” Shauna replied. “For a lot of people.”
“I’m going to trust you on this one, Jarrett. This isn’t something you can tell me over the phone, or send an encrypted file?”
“I can’t trust the wrong people won’t be listening in.”
It irritated Perkins that her sergeant was being so cryptic. “Hell, that bird is full. Getting you here means I have to bump some higher-ranking asshole from a seat.”
“Is that a problem, Colonel?”
Perkins snorted, making a booming noise over the phone. “No, that part will be a pleasure. All right, I’ll pull strings to make it happen. Give the phone to Colter, I have a mission for him and Nert.”
Jesse stared at the phone, unable to believe his ears. “You want us to do what, Ma’am?”
“You heard me the first time, Colter. Make it happen. Our asses are hanging out to dry down here. UNEF is not getting off this rock without help, I need you to go get it for us.”
“What am I, Lassie? Timmy fell down a well and you’re sending me to get help?”
“Think of it anyway you want, sergeant. The Deal Me In is sending a dropship right now to pull you and Nert off the surface, under cover of the ceasefire. They’ll take you out to rendezvous with the nearest Jeraptha fleet unit.”
“I’m kind of in the middle of medical treatment here,” he knew that excuse sounded lame.
“Those medical devices are portable, aren’t they? Take them with you. This can’t wait. You know what we have to bargain with, so make the best deal you can.”
“What about the trip to Earth you wanted to trade the, uh,” he used their code word for the priceless
Elder power tap, “the package for?”
“We can’t arrange a trip to Earth if we’re dead, Colter. Make it happen.”
“I’m not trained to negotiate, Ma’am.”
“Think of this as stretching your skill set, Sergeant. There will be a glowing note in your personnel file if you can do this.”
“You mean the secret personnel file, that only you get to see?”
“That’s the one,” she laughed. “You’ve been given an assignment, Colter.”
“Yes, Colonel,” he sighed. “I will execute to the very best of my ability.” How the hell he was going to ‘make it happen’, he had no idea.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
The truck slowed to a crawl to drop off Shauna near the cluster of tents under the stealth netting, which was in the center of a stealth field generated by the refrigerator-sized device set up on a platform near the largest tent. The Kristang starships no doubt knew about the existence of the stealth field despite its sophisticated technology, and they might consider hitting the area with maser cannons or maybe smart missiles, but they held their fire for two reasons. The Legion had brought plenty of semi-portable stealth generators to Fresno, and several were scattered around the area. Some of those stealth fields concealed nothing more than rocks and trees, and the Kristang suspected the Legion had set up decoys, because that is what they would do if the situation were reversed. The second reason the Kristang had not pounded the site from orbit or with ground-based artillery was more practical; the cluster of tents were located right next to one of the planet’s two massive cargo launch railguns. The Kristang did not only want to destroy the Legion, the lead clan wanted to take the planet back and a busted launcher would make the planet significantly less valuable.
The reason the truck slowed down rather than stopping was because Legion Command did not want to tempt fate by making it obvious which stealth field concealed a valuable target. At some point, the Kristang might decide they needed to kill the entire concept of an Alien Legion more than they needed another backwater planet, and they might risk sending smart missiles that had a decent chance of striking surface targets without causing fatal damage to the launcher. The lizards almost certainly had stealthed surveillance satellites in orbit, and a truck that obviously took too long to go from Point A to Point B must have stopped somewhere important in the area.
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