by Steve Perry
Wink peeled the pink derm spot from Udiva’s neck and replaced it with a second, blue one. After a moment, she began snoring. He looked at his timer. “Fifteen seconds.”
He waited that long, then peeled the second derm off. “She’ll sleep for an hour, won’t remember what happened.”
He reached down and worked her silk pantaloons down and off.
“What are you doing!”
“Setting the stage.” He tossed the pantaloons onto the floor, spread her knees a bit, and untabbed her tunic, to expose her torso. She had large breasts, and they’d been augmented. Her mons was depilated, smooth as could be.
He stood. “Whoa, look at that.”
“You’re a doctor, you’ve seen plenty of those, haven’t you?”
“Wave the light panel off.”
Jo looked at him.
“Go on, you’ll like this.”
She did.
The room dimmed to a faint glow.
And it wasn’t the only thing glowing. The snoring woman’s pubes and nipples pulsed, each a bright, phosphorescent orange, dimming and brightening in synch with her heartbeat.
Jo waved the light back up. Shook her head.
“I guess some of her lovers must get lost in the dark,” Wink said. “So she lit some landing beacons, just in case.”
“Let’s go find the Rajah and get out of here.”
“We gonna tell him it’s Rama?”
“Not us, that’s for Rags to decide. But now that we know, we can finally get off our asses and do something.”
~ * ~
THIRTY-ONE
“So, it is Rama,” Cutter said.
“Told you,” Gramps said.
“And given your lack of short-term memory, you’ll probably tell us ten more times before the day is done,” Gunny said.
“And I’ll enjoy doing just as much each and every time.”
Gunny shook her head.
Kay said, “Our course of action would be to capture Rama and get him to tell us where he has the Rajah’s daughter.” Not a question.
“Pretty much,” Jo said. “Since we are relatively sure he is responsible, that knowledge will make it easier to proceed.”
“And where is he?” Cutter asked.
Formentara said, “As of now, in northwestern Balaji.”
“What is he doing there?” Wink asked.
“Starting a war, it appears,” Formentara said.
“Fuck! I was hoping to get to him before he did that. I wonder why the Rajah didn’t give us a heads-up?”
Formentara lit a projection, a view from orbit, with a map that included four layers of overlay. “It seems that Pahali forces crossed the border into Balaji, just south of the Inland Sea in the Kadam Forest within the last few minutes. They have been just firing the odd potshot at each other, lighting up the night with a flare now and then, but our sat feed shows that ground troops began their advance at oh-dark-thirty.”
“Has the Balajian army engaged?”
“Not so much. The border guards retreated in a hurry. Lot of commercial timber in the forest there, which straddles both sides of the border. Been a hot summer, the wood is dry. Nobody wants to burn it down, so the Thakore’s main army is waiting on the plain to the southeast. There’s a mountain pass that bottlenecks south of the forest, so they’ll have to throw some big rocks to soften it up.”
“Shit, shit, shit. What about the Rajah?”
“Ramal’s army is still in New Mumbai, on the eastern border, but it is packing up its tents. I had to guess, I’d say he’ll be heading northeast to get behind the Thakore’s forces while Rama’s troops hit them from the front. The capital city is all the way across the country on the east coast, but Balaji’s navy is pretty strong, more gunboats than Pahal’s, and New Mumbai won’t be able to get their ships there without sailing all the way over the Roof, so it’ll take them a while to make any difference at sea.
“Pahali and Mumbaiian air and missiles will hit Balajian ground forces, but Balaji actually has as many fighters and bombers as they do, so that won’t be a rout. I don’t think we are talking nukes here, but there will be some noise.”
Cutter nodded. Yes.
“It won’t be a surprise,” Formentara continued, “but it won’t matter. The Balajians are outnumbered. Knowing it’s coming isn’t the same as being able to stop it.”
Gramps said, “We got to go pretty quickly.”
Cutter nodded. “Yeah. Either way—if Rama has Indira, and he’s planning on ‘rescuing’ her, or dumping her body deep in Balajian territory, then she’ll be there already, or he’ll have her with him. Find him, we find her.”
“If she knows he did it, she’s a dead woman.”
“Yes. But what we have so far, I see Rama as greedy. If he can get it all, I think he’ll try for it. Somewhere in the upcoming battles, Indira will show up, dead or alive.
“Okay, people, you know the drill. Saddle up.”
They filed out, save for Gramps, who lagged behind.
“What?”
Gramps said, “We got an incoming com. It’s from the guy who called us about the Thakore,” Gramps said.
“Put it on speaker.”
“Colonel. We spoke before.”
“Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”
“My country has been invaded by Rama’s army and is about to become a bloody fucking battlefield.”
“I know. Sorry. I’d stop it if I could.”
“I take it you haven’t found Indira.”
“No. But we have what we think is a strong lead. If we can collect her before it goes too much further, it might help.”
“What can we do to assist you?”
“Nothing, sir. Better that nobody knows where we are or what we are up to. The air has ears.”
“It does. You have this com number. Please let me know if you have news.”
“I will.”
The connection went silent.
“You think it’s him? The Thakore hisself?”
“I’d offer good odds, yes. He’s hoping that we can find Indira and get the war called off. But that’s a really narrow window. Man is looking at an invasion he can’t stop, he’ll check everything that might help.”
Another incoming com cheeped.
“You are getting popular, Rags. Another on the private pipe. Hurry up. We have to go.”
Cutter gave him a fuck-you look: “Cutter here.”
“Hitachi on this end.”
“Good evening, Colonel.”
“Dark, yes, nothing good about it.”
“We didn’t start the war,” Cutter said.
“I know. And since it’s a local dustup, J-Corps won’t get too involved unless it trips one of our beams.”
Cutter knew what “too involved” meant. XTJC would have speckunits roaming in the field, monitoring. They’d be broadcasting GU ID sigs high, wide, and repeatedly, and woe be to anybody who fired on them. J-Corps had a certain rep on backrocket worlds, and deservedly so: Shoot at us, we will nuke you all and let God sort out your radioactive dust. When you had only a relatively few troops to cover an entire world, you went to the big hammer fast. J-Corps wouldn’t think anything at all about deploying tactical nukes to take out a small force. Mama Terra was paying for the boomware: What was a two-klick crater to her if the Army decided it was necessary? More where those came from...
“Just in case any of CFI’s people somehow find themselves roaming around in a war zone, I am hereby advising you to be careful where you do any plinking.”
“Understood.”
“And unofficially, Colonel, if you can come up with a way so they stand down, I’d be happy to buy some of that bourbon you like if we get around to that drink. I know you don’t really care for scotch. Lot of forms I have to fill out when the locals decide to go to war.”
Cutter grinned. “I’ll drink the bourbon, you can have the scotch.”
“Done. Discom.”
Well, well. Best get this show i
n the air...
~ * ~
THIRTY-TWO
Formentara said, “Colonel, we got a J-Corps force on spysat, debarking from a carrier near the border where Rama’s army crossed over.”
“Figures. They’ll be monitoring the action. How many?”
“Short company, a hundred or so.”
Cutter nodded. “We’ll have to make sure we don’t shoot any of them by accident. Hatachi has let it be known that a bottle of good scotch won’t buy us out of that.”
Zhe didn’t speak to that.
“Everybody ready?”
Zhe said, “All green on the log-ins.”
“Okay, you’re in charge. Don’t break anything while we’re gone.”
Formentara grinned.
~ * ~
“You ready to fly, Nancy?” Jo asked. “Honey, I’m always ready to fly.” “Might get shot at.”
“I been shot at. Not a problem if they don’t hit me. I am allowed to dodge, right?”
Jo looked around. The team was all on board: Rags, Gunny, Gramps, Wink, Kay, and herself.
And Singh. The colonel had him come along, and Jo figured it was more because he wanted to be sure that Singh wasn’t bending the Rajah’s ear. When you hire the locals, you always keep a sharp eye on them, JIC.
“Okay. Let’s go places and rescue people,” Jo said.
The hopper’s engines revved, and they lifted.
~ * ~
The colonel said: “Okay, once more, here’s what we will be dealing with. Rama won’t try to run his armor through the woods, so it’ll be infantry. And it’s gonna take a while because there is a huge forest, hundreds of kilometers wide at the border and that far extending into Balaji.
“The forces at the front will be his best and toughest, and Singh here has indicated that they aren’t too shabby.
“Rama’s Navy will sail round the Eastern Horn of Pahal, and there will be armored vehicles hauled that way. Tanks and juggernauts will be airlifted via VTOL lifting bodies and plunked down where he thinks nobody will be expecting ‘em, somewhere east of the Inland Sea.
“Air will overfly where it can—the Thakore has a decent-sized air force of his own, so that won’t be overwhelming.
“Nobody uses nukes, if they keep to the treaty. No satellite-deployed ceepee. No biologicals, and not even poison gas, outside of civilian crowd-control stuff.
“Both armies will be plugged and sonic-damped, so they won’t be spraying puke ‘n’ crap, nor cranking up the amps to blow out eardrums and addle brains, except for civilians who get in the way. We will don our nares filters and pass-through wolf-ear plugs, just in case. Might get messy otherwise.”
Gunny chuckled.
They’d all done training that involved exposing themselves to various noxious chem, and “messy” was an accurate term.
“We’re leaving the suits home. Both sides will be throwing stuff hard enough to hole them, and we won’t be doing any stand-up fighting if we can help it. Getting in and out fast and staying off the pradar is a better way to go. We’ll have Formentara’s magic transponders, and those should help.”
“Nancy is going to sneak us in ahead of Rama’s advance, and it will be cutting it close, but that’s the best option. Once they engage, the armies will be shooting at anything that moves, and transponders or not, we run the risk of getting friendly fire from both sides.
“We collect Indira, Schrodinger’s—either way, we get the hell out ASAP.
“Questions?”
Nobody had any. They had covered all this before, it was just to make sure that he went over it again.
“Nancy puts us down in that clearing, we go through the woods, get to where we want to do, and take care of business. You need to pee, visit the head now.”
~ * ~
The edge of the forest was just ahead, and since that’s where Rama’s camp was, the going would be faster once they cleared it, but that would mean air attacks would be a risk. Lot of dumbot drones on both sides flying around, looking for something to shoot. Plus J-Corps wandering around on the QT
Not that they couldn’t be detected in the thick of the woods with DLIR or pradar, but with all those heavy-boled trees to absorb the shock, the explosives didn’t work as well. Nobody was supposed to be throwing nukes, and having a meter-thick tree between you and a shower of bomb fragments was way better than having to absorb them yourself. Plus nobody wanted to burn down the valuable trees, so more likely they’d send in infantry to deal with them.
Nobody was particularly likely to notice a handful of un-IDed troops during all the goings-on.
But: Speed was of the essence now; they had to get in and out or risk getting crushed between the two armies. The fog of war made everything that moved a target for everybody with a weapon. Lot of friendly-fire killing went on.
Cutter looked at his team. He was getting too old to be doing this shit though he had to admit to himself that there was an element of, well, joy in it.
Never felt so alive as you did after you came out of a battle in one piece. And if you were dead? You wouldn’t feel that...
Jo said, “Two klicks, southeast, Colonel. Kay and I have the point.”
“Go for it,” Cutter said.
The tricky part would be getting next to Rama. In theory, Formentara had adjusted their transponders so they would be autotoggled by any military pradar ping. If Rama’s army looked at them, their ID sigs would match his; if the Thakore’s army did the same thing, the sig would show up as belonging to him. There were always rangers and speckunit boots on the ground in a battle, and as long as the sig matched yours, you tended not to worry as much. Plus a handful of troops weren’t any real threat anyhow.
At least that was the theory.
If they got painted with pradar from both sides at the same time?
Formentara had shrugged. “Transponders will schiz out, offer one, then the other. You’ll be in deep shit, both sides shooting at you. Better to not let that happen.”
Cutter adjusted his low-ready grip on his carbine and watched Jo and Kay take off.
“Move out,” he said.
~ * ~
Jo was up for a party, but she kept her augs running at minimum. They needed to move quickly, but it might be a long engagement, and better not to burn up her energy too soon. No suits for them this time, only helmets and pliable-ceramic armor, and that minimal cover. Fast and sneaky were the keys here, not round-resistance. No way for six of them to offer a stand-up fight against two armies.
She and Kay were LOS lasercom only, so if they couldn’t see each other, they couldn’t hear each other. Not that they needed to talk that much, they’d use jive to signal each other, and both of them had enough night vision to track each other even here in the trees—it was dark, but not completely so.
If they came across resistance this early, they’d need to avoid it or take care of it quietly if they could.
Kay stopped, raised her hand, closed it into a fist.
Jo froze.
Kay pointed, and Kay followed the line in the dark forest...
There, a picket, not looking in their direction, but rifle held at his waist. Not quite low ready. Expecting the possibility of company, Jo figured, but from another quadrant, and no target in view.
Kay pointed at herself, then the soldier.
Jo nodded.
It was always fascinating to watch the change as Kay went into her stalk. She seemed to shrink, become something less conspicuous, and she moved with a stealth Jo could only envy. She crouched lower, stepped slowly and with great care to avoid making any noise.
She stole to within five meters of the soldier.
He wore spookeye goggles hinged to the front of his helmet, so if he glanced in her direction, he’d see her, but so far, his concentration seem to be to the north. Jo didn’t ping his transponder, didn’t want to risk alerting him, so she wasn’t sure whether he was Pahali or Balajian, but it didn’t really matter—either was as much a worry as the othe
r.
Kay crouched, silent, still as a rock. Waited.
Something must have subconsciously spooked him. The soldier turned toward Kay.
Jo raised her carbine and put the floating green dot on the man’s throat, above his pec-plate. She was forty meters away, and the scope compensated for parallax automatically to ten times that distance. The carbine was suppressed, but it would make some noise—
