"I don't understand. What are we seeing?"
Schrader tutted and used two more screens to display freeze frames from the video. One was the close-up of the yellow eye, the other the two figures. She tapped the first screen. "I ran a comparative ocular scan. This optic does not belong to any of our units or test subjects. The age pattern indicates a far older specimen."
"Another G-Soldat?" said Volks. "Perhaps General Rössa-"
"Ach, you are such a limited thinker, Johann!" she broke in, her irritation rising. "Look here." She tapped a nail on the second screen. "I ran an image transform protocol on this display to clean up the image."
The still picture became washed out as the computer programme artificially added light and shade. Volks watched the two figures gain definition by degrees. One was clearly a Type-K unit, but the other... The other wore a mottled helmet low over his eyes, accenting a grim face locked in angry conflict with the G-Soldat. The helmet bore a circular sigil with the Souther nation's upward facing arrow and two letters.
"GI," Volks read aloud. "Impossible..."
"Is it?" Schrader retorted, barely concealing her eagerness. "The tonal analysis shows a skin coloration variance of more than twenty per cent between 442-Sigma and his killer. Blue skin, Johann! It's him."
"Here?" The officer swallowed hard. "Verkammt... The Rogue Trooper."
Schrader's hand strayed to her chest. "I want him. You will assemble a skirmish team of the best G-Soldats from the current crop and go out into the Quartz Zone. Find Rogue and bring him to me."
"Alive?"
She eyed him. "Don't be a fool! Of course! You understand what he's worth to my work? Rogue is the supreme example of a gene-engineered warrior, the toughest of his breed. He's lived through everything that Nu Earth has thrown at him and survived..." Schrader's voice trailed off for a moment. Volks felt unnerved by the sudden change in her manner. He felt as if she were revealing a new side of herself to him and the officer found it disturbing. "He will be most useful for the project," she concluded. "I must possess him."
"As you order, Kolonel-Doktor. But there are... other matters of concern," Volks said tightly.
Schrader's mood changed with the swiftness of a binary switch. "Elucidate. What petty anxieties do you have now?"
"Your dispatch of General Rössa has created unrest among the men. There may be a problem with regard to issues of continued loyalty."
"Loyalty?" she echoed harshly. "If I wanted loyal men, I would breed some." She prodded him with a slender finger. "It is your job to keep the troops in line, Johann, not mine. I expect you to handle your responsibilities with competence, dak?"
He gave a shallow nod. "Dak, Madam Director."
His answer seemed to please her and she smiled slightly. "Just so. Take the search team out at first light and be sure to locate all of the GI's war gear as well. If there are any survivors from that sud patrol, add them to the test inventory."
Volks gave a crisp, parade ground salute and turned to leave, but Schrader caught his arm and held him back. Lit by the cold blue glow of the monitors, she appeared as if her face was sculpted from steel-hard sea ice. "Where are you going?" Schrader said, half-demanding, half-seductive as she let her lab coat fall open. "I have not dismissed you yet."
"I'll say it again," Ferris murmured, "this place gives me the creeps."
Purcell glanced at him and then at the glassy, reflective tree trunks of the petrified forest around them. "Guess I gotta agree with you there."
With Helm plotting a course, Rogue had led them to a part of the Quartz Zone the maps referred to as the "Shard Orchard". The effects of experimental munitions and thermal warheads had turned a dense woodland into a thick stand of ossified trees, their bark transformed into a dull crystalline matter, bristling with sharp slivers of glass. The soldiers moved gingerly through the confines of the orchard, afraid that a single brush against a branch or bole would tear open their suits. The slow, sullen light of a Nu Earth dawn was working its way through the tree line, creeping up on them as the night faded.
Ferris watched Rogue conversing with the terse sergeant, Zeke. The GI seemed utterly unconcerned about the veteran's antipathy toward him as he outlined his scheme for an ambush. Rogue had already had Bagman run up a digi-pad map of the area, posting positions for each of the soldiers to take. With luck, the Nort hunters that followed the escaped Soldat would find themselves drawn into the throat of a lethal crossfire.
Purcell nodded in Rogue's direction. "How'd you hook up with him?"
"Same way as you," the pilot replied. "He pulled my ass out of a fight when I was about to get wasted."
Ruiz looked up from his repair work on the Blowpipe. "We could have handled things."
"Get real," Purcell snapped. "We'd have been sucking chem if Rogue hadn't got that Soldat sniper, you know it as well as I do."
"Huh," Ruiz said. "Rogue, is it? You on first name terms with blue-boy now?"
In a subdued voice, Johnson added, "Not human."
Ruiz didn't seem to notice and smiled at Ferris. "Purcell here, she's got a thing for Special Forces types, ain't ya?"
"Eat glass, you little prick."
He laughed. "Right now, I bet she's thinkin' of what other things about him are 'genetically enhanced'!"
"Maybe... I been around you so long, Ruiz, I forgot what a real man looks like," she replied, then looked back at the GI. "Still, you gotta wonder..."
Johnson made a spitting noise. "How could you even consider such a thing? That creature is an affront to God!"
"Look around," Ruiz said, opening his hands wide to the sky. "This whole skevving planet is an affront!"
The other soldier turned away to clean his rifle, mumbling a prayer under his breath. Purcell gave Ferris a look. "Johnson, he's not what you'd call the most tolerant of people."
"I gathered."
Zeke approached, scowling. "All right, listen up. You saw the map, you know what the fr-" He stopped mid-sentence, looking back at Rogue who stood sentinel on a ridge. "What the Trooper said. Tight aim corridors and fire discipline, people. We draw these Norty buggers in, grease 'em and steal their transport. We're back Southside an hour later."
"Sounds easy," said Ruiz. "It always sounds easy."
"Quit bellyachin' and get that launcher ready." Zeke turned on Ferris. "So, what are you good for?"
Ferris frowned. "I'm a pilot," he said lamely, not sure what other answer to give.
"That's no damn use to me," Zeke replied. "Not unless you gotta gunship in your back pocket."
He produced his pistol. "I can hold my own."
The sergeant snorted. "Not with that pop-gun, you can't. Here." Zeke tossed a compact brick of metal and plastic into Ferris's hands. "Autolaser. Just aim it and squeeze the trigger, works just like an old-style machine gun. All you gotta do is make sure there's no friendlies in front of you."
Ferris examined the weapon as if it were a poisonous insect.
"Sarge," said Ruiz. "I volunteer to stand behind the flyboy."
"Yeah, me too," Purcell added, giving Ferris a wan smile. "No offence."
Up on the slight ridge, Rogue studied something through the scope on his rifle. "Nort hopper in the air to the north-west," he said, his voice carrying through the eerie stillness of the glassine glade. "They're coming for us."
Ruiz swore and frantically began to reassemble the Blowpipe.
"Confirmed, residual heat traces located at grid reference L-113 by T-235."
The Nort pilot's voice crackled in Kapten Volks's ear. He frowned behind the full-face hood of his chem-suit, eyes narrowing. "Copy, Air Five. How many targets?"
"Hard to say, sir," the pilot replied. "The zone has unusual properties in this region... The landscape is riddled with fallout and ferro-particle dust."
"Very well. Prepare for an airborne deployment. Circle around and signal when we are on station."
"Aye, Kapten. Thirty seconds to green."
Volks turned away from the vu
-port and looked back into the troop bay of the transport hopper. A handful of regular soldiers from the dome garrison were conducting last minute checks of their weapons and chem-gear, some of them swapping ribald comments in gutter Nordsprache. He stood up and grabbed one of the ziplines dangling from the ceiling, fastening it to a connector on his belt. "Stand by for drop deployment!" He snapped out the order, "Lock on!"
The other troopers scrambled to follow his command. At the back of the bay there were four G-Soldats, two pairs of green-skinned warriors sitting opposite one another, immobile and silent. All of them already had the ziplines latched to their gear. They seemed like dark, muscular statues - carved jade idols rather than living, breathing beings.
Volks felt his gut tighten as the hopper came about in a fast, wide turn, shedding speed as it came to a halt over the skeletal crystal trees. An indicator lamp on the cabin wall blinked blue-blue-green and the hopper pilot spoke again. "On station."
"Deploy, deploy, deploy!" shouted Volks, and the floor of the troop bay yawned open beneath his feet. The whole ventral hull of the hopper split and the men on board leapt free, the ziplines singing as the monofilament cables played out behind them. Inertia reels kept the Nort soldiers from dashing themselves against the hard ground, and the cables deposited them gently on the surface.
Volks had done this a thousand times, slapping his gloved palm against the release switch just as his boots touched dirt. The dangling ziplines reeled back into the hopper, spider web filaments hissing through the air. "Set down beyond the search zone and await further orders."
"Air Five complying," came the pilot's voice and the hopper powered away, staying low over the glassy treetops.
The kapten switched comm channels and addressed the men on the ground. "Sweep teams, forward. Watch your suits on those obstacles."
One of the korporals indicated the quartet of G-Soldats. "What about them, sir?"
As the soldier spoke, the Nort GIs exchanged an unspoken communication and moved off into the Shard Orchard without waiting for an order. "Stay out of their way, Korporal."
"Go to ultraviolet," said Rogue, and the view through Gunnar's optics changed to a blue-white palette of images. Furry, ill-defined shapes moved through the solid angles of the crystal growths, edges blurring as they merged and split.
"Still no good," Gunnar replied, the synth from his chip slot a faint electronic whisper. "You're gonna have to rely on eyeballs for this, Rogue."
"Not a problem. Give me standard scope, mag two." The display returned to a normal image and the GI let the view fill his mind.
The shoulder of a Nort appeared for a brief instant. "Come on, Norty..." whispered Bagman. "We got a surprise for you."
"I hear a mess of footfalls and heartbeats on the audio pickup," said Helm. "A whole bunch."
"Not yet," said the GI. His finger rested lightly on Gunnar's trigger and he watched as the enemy soldiers began to emerge from the tree line at the edge of the clearing. He'd chipped off a section of petrified branch from a trunk at the one o'clock position - the idea was that none of Zeke's men would let off a shot until at least two Norts had walked past the tree.
The soldier on point stepped around the marker, unaware that he was under six sets of gunsights. "That's one," murmured Helm.
More Norts appeared, moving in careful formation; like the Southers, they were afraid of snagging their suits. "Rogue," Bagman said quietly. "They're just regulars... No Soldats."
The GI had just come to the same conclusion when the Nort point man's boot broke a piece of fallen glass with a crack like a pistol shot.
Purcell heard the noise and pulled the trigger on her laser rifle by reflex.
"No! Skev it!" Rogue growled, but it was too late. The Southers opened up on the Nort sweep team with a punishing exchange of energy fire and the point man was ripped apart, body parts flying in all directions.
A voice on the Nort side shouted something indistinct and the enemy troopers scattered, diving for cover wherever they could find it, firing shots back at their concealed adversaries. Although the ambush had been tripped early, there was still little to favour the Norts and Zeke's unit began a bloody storm of payback for the deaths of Taylor and her squad mates.
Rogue put a trio of rounds into the torso of a Nort with a belt-fed heavy stubber, opening him up from gut to sternum in red-orange blasts of light. Fat ballistic shells from the enemy trooper's gun went wild as he collapsed, chewing out chunks of glass from the crystal trees around him. The broken shards were tiny jewelled shuriken that hissed through the air.
Ferris fumbled with the safety catch on the boxy autolaser, squeezing the trigger without success. A Nort saw him and charged, the stiletto bayonet on his assault rifle lancing toward his head. A switch clicked beneath Ferris's gloved fingers and the autolaser went hot in his grip. The pilot savagely yanked the firing bar and a fusillade of beam shots spat from the weapon. They were high, too high to strike the Nort's chest and vitals, but not too far that they couldn't remove the top of his skull. The soldier died instantly, collapsing out of his run into a ragged, bleeding heap as if his spine had suddenly turned to water.
"Pour it on!" Zeke demanded. "Don't let them regroup!"
Ruiz held his Blowpipe launcher close to his cheek plate and pumped the firing button; there was a split-second pause, just enough for him to start wondering if he had reassembled the weapon correctly, but then the electric ignition caught and the tube cannon shot its load with a flat thump of compressed air. One hundred tungsten carbide needles, each one the length and diameter of a man's finger, spiralled out of the muzzle on spin-stabilised microfins. Many of the bolts impacted in the glassy trees and lodged in their cracked surfaces, but dozens more tore straight through chem-suit material, through armour and into the soft meat they protected.
"Spike you, Norts!" Ruiz bellowed, opening the Blowpipe's barrel; the gun was usually a two-man weapon, one firing and one loading, but Ruiz's team mate Eastman had been killed in the very first attack by the G-Soldats. He caught sight of Johnson, pressed up against the bole of a broken tree, rocking back and forth. Las-fire cut bright streaks through the air around him, leaving purple stains on Ruiz's retina.
"Johnson!" he called. "Quit that skev and shoot back! Cover the flank!"
The other Souther didn't seem to hear him, the blank look in his eyes speaking volumes. Ruiz called into his throat mic. "Sarge! Johnson's lost it!"
Elsewhere, Rogue heard the soldier's angry words. "What the hell? We have to keep the pressure up from all points or this ambush will fall apart!"
"Pink meat, nothing but weak through and through!" Gunnar said sourly.
"Forget that," Bagman broke in. "I got a twitch from the lateral sonic track - there's someone else out there aside from the Norts..."
Rogue reloaded quickly, slamming a fresh GP magazine into his rifle. "Where?"
"Close!" Bagman replied. "Real close!"
The ear-splitting reports from the guns were like nails boring into Johnson's head, each one hammering pain into him. He bit down on his own lip so hard that he could taste blood, warm and metallic. The Souther felt the shakes coming on him again and this time there was little he could do to resist them. His suit air was foul with chemicals and urine and each breath was like razors against his ribs.
None of the other men had seen the small rip in his chem-suit, the thumb-sized tear he'd taken when the Soldats first appeared. In a panic he had injured himself and by the time he had managed to press a patch to the damage, his lungs had been made vulnerable to Nu Earth's stinking atmosphere; it began to eat away at his body and internal organs. At first, Johnson had thought he would be all right - there had been no immediate effects, so perhaps he had only taken a small dose - but then little by little his mind had begun to fog and he realised that it was no simple poison that had entered his bloodstream. The miasma of psychogen gas shredded the last pieces of reason in Johnson's mind and drove him over the edge. He looked and saw nothing but m
en with blue and green skin around him, their clawed fingers reaching for his face.
Johnson screamed and bolted from his cover, the rifle in his hand spitting laser fire in every direction. Beams skipped off the boles of glass trees and hit reflective surfaces, bouncing them back and forth in a web of deadly fire.
Ruiz caught a rebound in the shoulder, burning a tight hole through his forearm. The Blowpipe fell from his hands, still unloaded, and the Souther was punched back by the shock of the blast it. Breathing in laboured gasps, Ruiz tried desperately to reseal his suit.
Beam fire from Johnson's maddened attack struck Nort and Souther alike, ripping into Volks's sweeper teams with wild abandon. Nort soldiers flailed as they were hit, guns discharging and adding more random rounds to the lattice of laser shots cutting back and forth over the clearing. Johnson took a glancing hit but kept on running, fuelled by madness and an overload of adrenaline.
"He'll kill us all!" Ferris shouted, and Rogue knew instantly that he had no other option.
The GI swung the rifle around and took a snap-shot at Johnson's head; the engineered reflexes of twenty plus years of Souther innovation enabled him to kill the maddened trooper with a single bolt through the back of his skull. Johnson's pain ended as his cerebral cortex vaporised.
"Rogue!" It was Ferris's voice again and the warning tone turned the GI on his heel as dark hulks came racing through the trees toward him. Four G-Soldats, each armed with a powerful electrostunner, launched themselves at the Rogue Trooper in a concentrated attack. The GI had no time to bring Gunnar to bear; he simply dodged, marshalling every last flicker of energy in his muscles. The closest Soldat - each was the mirror of the others - punched out with the stunner and struck empty air where the GI had been a split-second before. Rogue extended away and delivered a sharp blow to the first Nort's neck with the broad butt of Gunnar's stock, getting a high-pitched snap of breaking cartilage in return.
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