by John Ringo
“Feet Dry,” Bell Toll announced as they reached a depth that would allow no further submerged progress. “Vent and unplug.” Everyone took one last opportunity to relieve themselves, then disconnected the equipment that made that possible. The Darhel’s anatomy was strange, but it was the type of event that no one wanted to discuss, so no questions were asked. Wiped off with towels in lieu of showers and fastened into assault suits, everyone took a last bite or two and squatted with their gear. That made the center of the ball a packed, elbow-to-elbow mess.
“Tirdal, do you sense anything?” Bell Toll asked. He felt stupid saying the words, they sounded overly melodramatic, but there wasn’t any other way to put it.
“Animals of some kind,” Tirdal replied, not bothering to comment on the captain’s evident discomfiture with the request. “Primitive thoughts regarding hunger and pain. Nothing else. Nothing sentient nearby with the exception of the team.”
“Thanks. Gorilla, go.”
At a signal from Gorilla, the first robot was released from a side hatch. It floated clear of the pod and swam quietly across the choppy surface trailing a hair-fine control wire, its progress slowed by the shore currents. Its paddlelike legs propelled it, and after an impatient time it reached the pebbly beach.
This bot had been chosen for its unobtrusiveness. It looked like a giant pill bug. While it was convenient that it was low to the ground and matched many fauna, it was also a compact and efficient design. Once it touched land, its “antennae” made a sniff for chemicals, sounds and motion. Sensing nothing, it shifted its legs from paddles to tractioned feet and trundled up the rocky terrain into the nearby weeds.
The camera feed came on at once, visible on everyone’s visor in any part of the spectrum they chose to look at. Gorilla said, “Infrared Three appears to have the best image,” and there were grunts of acknowledgment as people sought that view.
“Temperate forest?” Gun Doll asked, examining the dark patches of growth.
“Sort of,” Bell Toll said. “I’m not sure if those trees are actually deciduous. Cycad or palmlike. The undergrowth is heavy.” It was. The screens showed a thick, tangled variety of bushes. Over the bushes loomed broad, spreading trees reminiscent of palmettos and rubber trees. Above them were tall, spindly forest giants, with leaves spiny like cacti. The vegetation was packed in at the shoreline where access to sunlight was the greatest. The ground was thick loam with much rotten vegetation, riddled with holes made by animals. A molten sun was dropping behind the trees, in a pink and blue mural of sky.
“There’s an animal,” Dagger said, his eyes always sharp for movement.
“I see it,” Gorilla said, and adjusted one of the cameras for a closer view. The controller on the front of his harness was set up for fingers or voice, though voice control was rarely used. If he was too busy shooting to have a free hand, then he’d shout orders, but that was to be avoided. “That is the biggest freaking cockroach I have ever seen,” he said, bringing it into sharp focus for everyone.
“More like a trilobite or silverfish,” Bell Toll said.
“Whatever. It’s an insect,” Gorilla said. “If you’re afraid of bugs, you’re in trouble.”
“Aren’t you afraid of bugs, Gorilla?” Thor asked, pushing awfully closely to Gorilla’s real phobias.
“Only from the inside,” Gorilla said, eliciting chuckles. “Which might be possible here. There’s another one, different species. It appears insectoids are the dominant animal form around here.”
“Likely, but let’s not assume too much,” Bell Toll put in. “There could be monstrous birds who eat those things.”
“Good point, Captain.”
“Holy crap, look at the jaws on that bastard!” Ferret said. He lit the creature in question with a cursor.
“Those are some serious mandibles,” Shiva agreed. The bug in question was shearing through plant stalks about ten centimeters thick. The stalks didn’t look like spongy weed, but appeared to be rather woody, like bamboo. As the plants fell, the bug handled them with lobsterlike pincers, feeding them into its mouth as a kid would French fries. They disappeared about as fast.
“Question is, does anything prey on that?” Ferret asked.
“Will it reassure you if I say that the bot found fecal matter and determined it to contain meat residue?” Gorilla said.
“No,” Ferret admitted with a shiver.
“I sense no carnivores at present,” Tirdal said. “If there are any nearby, they are not conscious or self-aware.”
“Mammaloid!” Bell Toll said. “There!” A circle glowed around that part of the image, and Gorilla zoomed in.
“Looks a bit like a capybara,” he said.
“Capybara?” Tirdal asked.
“A large rodent creature from Earth.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s a small flyer,” Shiva said, spotting flitting movement.
“Whoa, too fast! Hold on,” Gorilla protested, sequencing the images and numbering them for review. He brought a close-up image of the flyer up for everyone.
The flyer was also mammalian, a bit like a bat but with a longer snout. It and the capybara analog were both shaded from yellow to brown. Their claws were long but curved.
“Herd,” Gorilla said, shifting the image in a blur to the south. The browsers were bugs, and huge, at least a meter tall at the “shoulder.” Their carapaces were striped for camouflage, and they flickered through the darkening shadows, seeming to phase in and out.
“No signs of Blobs or other intelligent life? No technology visible?” Bell Toll asked.
“Nothing, sir. Rats, bats and bugs,” was the reply.
“Go ahead, then,” Bell Toll said, ordering the next step.
“Yes, sir,” Gorilla replied, thumbing another control. The wire to the first bot was severed, giving it easier range of movement. Four more bots kicked loose, swam ashore and trundled into the weeds. Behind them, the pod extended two tubes just below the choppy waves, their mouths sealed by forcefields.
As the bots moved ashore and spread their electronic senses for threats, the team shifted and prepared to debark.
Ferret was the first up, shoving his gear into one tube before sliding himself into the other. He often wondered if this was what a baby felt like at birth. The passage was long, dark, confined and made it hard to breathe. The traction field grabbed him and drew him up until his hands reached the lip. Drawing a deep breath, he slipped up into the chill water. Reaching into the other hatch, he grabbed his punch gun first, then his ruck, which was surrounded by a flotation jacket. The near one hundred kilograms was too much to swim with. Gingerly, he let his helmet break the surface with a soft ripple, then rose with gentle frog kicks until his nostrils just cleared the troughs of the choppy waves.
What the sensors had filtered out and not bothered to mention was that it was raining. Rain interfered with vid image, and it wasn’t heavy enough to be considered a terrain threat. It would give cover to both them and any threats. It was one of those cold, constant rains that fit the term “a great day for DRTs and ducks.”
“Pouring cold rain, but no immediate threats,” he reported back in a whisper, the sensors of his helmet deducing the voice as a transmission.
“Understood, break,” Shiva said from below. “Tirdal, you’re up. Stand to and stand by.”
“Yes, sir,” he agreed, repeating Ferret’s procedure with the tubes.
“Go,” Shiva said a few moments later. Tirdal felt the field grab him, and he was drawn up the tube. He took a breath as he passed through the forcefield, then he was in water. He grabbed his punch gun and ruck and surfaced near Ferret.
Ferret wondered how Tirdal was doing. Tirdal’s breath sounded strained and he was paddling hard to stay afloat. Moments later, he seemed fine, and his motion slowed to near nothing. Some mod of his suit was handling flotation. Was swimming that tough for Darhel? Ferret wondered. Perhaps he was denser than humans. Or maybe he lacked the proper angle to his lim
bs. No matter. He seemed fine now. But damn, did he glow on infrared. Either he was strained, or that was some metabolism he had.
With a nod, Ferret swam forward, low in the water, towing his ruck. He couldn’t fault Tirdal for being strained. This was one bitch of a swim, through chop, loaded with gear and, he found out as he neared shore, through muck and weed. Regardless of the local weather, that water was cold, too. He made adequate time: five minutes for a hundred meters, riding up and down in the waves, dunking occasionally. Months of training had taught him to throttle his breathing at the first splash of water in his nose. It itched and dripped horribly, but he’d take care of that upon landing.
As he neared the breaker line, he began crawling through the shallows. The suit was tough enough to be a ballistic shield, but it was thin and the pressure of sand and gravel through it chewed his knees to raw meat that stung in the salt water now draining out. In theory the suit could be sealed as an impermeable membrane. For cold climate that was fine; in this weather they wanted ventilation and drainage. As the waves dropped below his torso, he drew his ruck up next to him. He deflated the cushion, which had four more gas cylinders to inflate it, should they need to cross more water. A few seconds of wriggling got the ruck onto his shoulders, with him sitting. Rolling to his side, then to his abused knees, he rose to a low crouch and shimmied up into the shore weeds, cleared his boot soles of gunk, then edged into the taller grass for cover. A quick glance in his rear view showed Tirdal halfway to shore, Gun Doll afloat and almost invisible behind him. That confirmed, he kept his eyes open in front for any possible threats. The hissing waves of rain damped sound, especially on the water.
And Tirdal was good, much better than he had appeared in training. Were it not for the rear image, he wouldn’t have known the Darhel was there. Tirdal slipped to his left about five meters and hunkered down, his punch gun trained outward but his expression seeming to be turning inward. Ferret took that chance to blow his nose, a finger over one nostril to concentrate airflow. Snot, salt water and sand spewed from one side, then the other. He kept it quiet and low to the ground, wiped off on his sleeve and rose back to a low crawl below the grasstops.
Gun Doll was ashore on his right momentarily. While large for a woman, indeed larger than Ferret or Dagger, she was much smaller than Gorilla, and her load was almost as huge. Besides her tribarreled support cannon, she had power packs, ammunition and some of the commo gear. The sheer energy put out by her more massive weapon meant high-capacity heat sinks that added to the mass she carried. She moved slowly, sinking into the muddy sand as she humped up the beach.
The three moved cautiously forward into the drooping forest edge, nerves reaching out for any threat, as Gorilla came in behind. He had an oversized ruck stuffed with technical gear. Added to his huge bulk, it forced him to lie down to minimize his profile. The captain was next, then Dagger. Again they shifted forward, then Shiva and Thor brought up the rear.
Gorilla sent a signal that ordered his bots ahead. Slowly, they clambered through the growth. Their brains were sufficient for most terrain problems. Occasionally, one would pause when it could find no clear or quiet path, and await a nudge from Gorilla, who was watching miniature windows in his HUD. The team slithered along behind the rolling perimeter, alert for anything the broad senses and limited mentation of the bots might miss.
A hundred meters in, one of the bots was attacked by an insect form as it extended the perimeter. The segmented, clawed carnivore grasped the bot in an embrace similar to that of a praying mantis and tried to bite through its carapace just behind the head, mandibles skidding off the tough molecular surface of the bot. The bot reacted as programmed, extending monomolecular spikes that shredded the abdomen of the predator. Everyone paused as the attacking insect twitched and wriggled in death. The bot then dragged the dead body off under a broad, feathery bush to conceal it before resuming its position for the march.
“I’d hate to see an aquatic version of that,” Ferret commented in a whisper. “The Loch Ness Lobster.” There were snickers from Shiva and Bell Toll in response. The rest hadn’t been to Earth and likely didn’t get the reference. Tirdal almost certainly didn’t, and who knew what he would laugh at? Dagger may have gotten it, but loved his icy façade. Still, two chuckles on an obscure reference wasn’t bad.
Behind them and forgotten for now, the ship slowly sank beneath the waves and retreated to the depths for camouflage. Later, it would move to a ready point near the extraction zone and await their return. If no message reached it after two weeks there, it would move to a different extraction point farther south for ninety-six hours. There was a tertiary position to the north for emergencies that would be available for ninety-six more hours; everyone hoped to avoid that, since it would mean mission failure and hiding near what would probably be a Blob military installation with their presence known. If none of those plans worked, the pod would assume the team dead and follow the planned escape route to try to get the information back to the Republic.
Bell Toll referred to the maps on the helmet systems. They’d be traveling for about ten days, over a small range of hills or low mountains, then to an overlook point. From there, whatever they found, they would take a different route back to the new pickup point.
“Anything?” he asked Tirdal. Their helmets used a comm system, originally developed by the semimythical Aldenata, that was understood to be impenetrably secure. Still, it was dangerous to encourage excess talk and a habit one should not develop, as it would carry over to those times when one wasn’t using commo. And since no one knew how the damned thing actually worked at the scientific level, most troops didn’t really trust it.
“I don’t believe I sense any Tslek, but the background from the whole… lifeweb… makes it awkward to tell,” the sensat admitted. “I can only sense for a certain distance.”
“How far?”
“Not very. Several kilometers at most. The emanation is not ‘attenuated’ by distance but nearer thoughts, feelings, are clearer, more in focus. Depending upon the amount of life, beyond a certain point everything is a sort of gray background hum, like light on a snowy day. I do not explain it well, but this forest is teeming with animal life. There are no Tslek near. Beyond that I cannot say.”
“Good enough,” he said. Transmitting to everyone, he ordered, “Forward. Nav points are highlighted on your maps.”
Ten days of infiltration is not like ten days of camping. All night, they moved through the drenching rain as it ran in rivulets down their necks and into their suits, dragging slivers of plant and muck with it. It stung at the scrapes from the initial crawl and irritated every bruise and scratch taken en route. The bots moved ahead, the troops followed, those in front cautiously, those behind alert for any threat from the rear. Roots reached out to trip, rocks to mash, rough grass and leaves to saw and cut bare flesh. The gravity was slightly higher than Earth normal, but they were strong. What was more tiring than the additional weight was the change in inertia and balance the unfamiliar field caused. Quite often, their route would force them to a crawl under choking vines or over boulders and it was then that the gravity pulled at them. The air was strange and humid, redolent with rot and growth, with a faint bite of salt from the ocean.
Rations were cold, chewed as they marched, the trash carefully stuffed into gear to take along. Litter in camp attracts pests. Litter in the field attracts enemy stalkers. Here, it could do both. They paused every two hours and rested, shaking mud and sharp sticks from boots, thorns from clothing and wiping grime from necks and faces. A quick check all around and a few swallows of water, then the pace would resume. They urinated in a jug brought for the purpose, so as to reduce the chance of a chemical trace. It would be emptied when they camped and the contents properly buried. The only advantage Ferret had on point was that he didn’t have to lug the jug. A disadvantage was that while crawling, he was likely to, and occasionally did, slide a hand forward into a cold, greasy pile of animal droppings. The insectoids
left feces that resembled a cross between worm casts and lizard goo, in piles as large as that from cows.
Bell Toll was impressed by Tirdal. He’d understood Darhel were very urban, their planets mostly citified and commercial. If so, Tirdal had learned well, as he moved quietly and with economy. He certainly seemed as strong as was rumored, and traveled easily whether at an erect stride or bent low for concealment. It was obvious that he was following Ferret’s lead, though, and he didn’t seem to be paying attention to what was going on around them. Was that due to his urban background? Or his reliance on his Sense? Or a combination of the two? Either way, he made a note not to put Tirdal on point.
Every planet, every biome had its own unique traits. The least obvious but most important here was the lack of animal noises. The insectoids apparently communicated by chemical or other signals, and the mammaloids didn’t use sounds lest they be detected by predators. This quietness served a positive function, in that there were no sudden silences of wildlife to give away the team’s presence. It also was a hindrance in that there was less background noise to mask their movement.
It was also eerie as hell. The bushes swished and rattled; the fernlike leaves rustled softly. Light breezes swirled and phased the sound of the continuous rain into something from a relaxation soundtrack. Mud splattered and squelched. As they passed, the team heard a scuttling of bugs, wrestling for mates, running away from predators, capturing prey, fighting, mating. Occasionally, branches would thump. And over that… nothing.
Then, as the team splashed through a shallow stream, there was something.
Out of nowhere it came, buzzing and flapping past Ferret’s face, then Gun Doll’s.
“Shit!” he muttered. Gun Doll limited her response to a gasp.
Weapons swung around and eyes sought targets, until Ferret said, “No threat. Just those damned bats.”
“All clear here,” Gun Doll reported. “Though I swear one plastered itself across the visor and flashed me.”
