Rona-Sa was correct, and Santana knew it, as the officers stood next to Alpha Company’s quad and looked out over what some wag had dubbed “Lake No-go.” Santana was wearing a bush hat plus a poncho, but his uniform was wet nevertheless. Two days had passed since the Ramanthian attack and resulting stampede. And, insofar as Santana could tell, the bugs believed that the battalion had been destroyed.
That perception wouldn’t last forever, of course, which was why it was imperative to close the distance between the Raiders and their objective as quickly as possible. Before the Ramanthians discovered the truth. Something sinuous snaked through the turgid brown water about twenty feet offshore. Santana looked at the Hudathan. He wasn’t wearing any raingear and seemed unfazed by the weather. “The least you could do is look miserable like the rest of us.”
“You should visit Hudatha,” Rona-Sa replied humorously. “First it rains, then it begins to snow.”
Santana knew that his XO’s home world was in orbit around a star called Ember, which was 29 percent larger than Terra’s sun and well on the way to becoming a red giant. That, plus the fact that the planet Hudatha was locked into a Trojan relationship with a Jovian binary, produced a wildly fluctuating climate. Something that Rona-Sa’s people had evolved to cope with. “I’ll put a visit on my list of things to do right after we win the war,” Santana replied dryly. “In the meantime, let’s use the day to perform maintenance and rest the troops.”
“It’ll be two days minimum,” the Hudathan said gloomily. “Because once the rain stops, we’ll be up to our asses in mud.”
Santana sighed as Rona-Sa turned away. The battalion still had a long way to go, and he was beginning to wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew. Rainwater trickled down his neck, and mud sucked at his boots as he turned to leave. If there was an answer, it continued to elude him.
The downpour stopped shortly after the noon rats were issued. The clouds parted, the sun appeared, and the ground began to steam. It was still too muddy to go anywhere, however, so all the battalion could do was eat lunch and watch the waters of Lake No-go start to recede.
It was a very frustrating time for Santana, who was aching to get under way but knew it would be foolhardy to do so. The solution was to stay busy, which he did by visiting each company, supervising things that didn’t need to be supervised, and generally making a pest of himself. So Santana was kneeling next to a tractor, inspecting a huge bogie wheel, when he heard a squelching sound and turned to find Corporal Colby at his side. “Sorry to interrupt, sir… But an urgent call came in.”
“A call? From whom?” Santana responded, as he came to his feet.
“A Colonel Farber, sir.”
“He was on the hypercom?”
“No, sir. The radio, sir. The colonel is in orbit and asked for our coordinates.”
Santana frowned as they crossed the compound together. “He’s about to drop?”
“Yes, sir.”
Santana’s thoughts churned as he stepped under a widespread tarp and made his way over to the folding table where the battalion’s com gear had been set up. Farber was a much-decorated officer, best known for leading a raid on Worber’s World in a futile attempt to rescue a group of Confederacy diplomats being held there. Unfortunately, all of the prisoners had been killed by the Ramanthians along with more than four hundred of Farber’s five-hundred-person landing team.
Some of the press referred to the mission as “Farber’s Folly” and claimed that the officer was incompetent. Others portrayed Farber as a misunderstood hero. And because Earth had fallen and the Confederacy was badly in need of heroes, the second perspective won out. Major Farber received a Medal of Valor from President Nankool and was promoted to colonel. Now he was in orbit around O-Chi 4 and about to land. The question was, why?
The com tech gave Santana a headset with a boom mike attached. He put it on. “This is Zulu Nine. Over.”
The voice that filled his ears was bright and confident. “Farber here… Glad to meet you, Major. Sorry about the short notice, but there’s a war on, eh what? There will be two of us. The navy types assure me that we’ll put down within two miles of your position. Once on the ground, we’ll stay put until your pickup team arrives. Over.”
Given the circumstances, there wasn’t anything Santana could say except, “Yes, sir. Over.”
The next thirty minutes were spent assembling a pickup team and getting it ready to go. In addition to Lieutenant Ponco, Santana chose to take Dietrich and four cyborgs, including Joshi. After that, it was simply a matter of waiting for the computer-guided drop pod to enter the atmosphere. Then, assuming that it held together, parachutes would be deployed, and a homing beacon would come on. Ponco was ready and waiting when the time came. “It looks like the pod is going to land about a mile out, sir. The swabbies did a nice job.”
Santana nodded. “Let’s hope the bugs are taking a nap. Because if they aren’t, the pod will show them where to look for us. Let’s get going.”
Ponco did what she could to lead the group along a path that kept them up out of the water and the worst of the mud. The result was a snaking route that made the trip longer but prevented the heavy cyborgs from becoming trapped in the muck. But it wasn’t raining, and Santana might have enjoyed the shafts of sunlight that slanted down through the trees if it hadn’t been for the sense of foreboding that hung over him.
Joshi’s foot pods made sucking sounds as Ponco led the team along a rise, through a screen of vegetation, and into the clearing beyond. That was where Santana spotted the two-man pod. Or what remained of it. The egg-shaped capsule had been blackened while falling through the atmosphere and dented by a succession of thick branches as it crashed through the jungle canopy. Then, after hitting the ground with what had probably been a resounding thump, the petal-like side panels had opened, revealing the passengers within.
One of them was still seated, one leg over the other, smoking an old-fashioned pipe. The officer was wearing a green beret complete with the winged-hand-and-dagger emblem of the 2 ^ nd Regiment Etranger De Parachutistes, which legionnaires referred to as the 2 ^ nd REP. It was an organization that didn’t include cyborgs and no longer used parachutes except to slow their combat pods just prior to landing.
Farber was dressed in the shimmery “ghost” camos that Santana’s troops were supposed to have but didn’t. The fabric sought to match the background as Joshi came to a halt and Santana jumped to the ground. He saluted. “Welcome to O-Chi 4, sir. I’m Major Santana.”
Farber knocked the tobacco out of his pipe and raised it by way of a reply. “Nice of you to drop in, Major. I was beginning to wonder. Well, better late than never as they say. Perhaps you would be so kind as to have one of your people cut that parachute down. We wouldn’t want to attract any bugs, would we?”
There was a strong possibility that the Ramanthians had tracked the pod electronically and knew exactly where it was. But there was no point in saying so, and Santana didn’t. He looked up to where the fabric was caught in the foliage above. “I believe Lieutenant Ponco is working on that, sir,” Santana said. A branch snapped as the last cord was cut, and the chute came slithering down to puddle on the ground.
“Good,” Farber said, as he removed a pack from the pod. “Which machine will I be riding?”
Santana didn’t want to get crosswise with Farber but knew his legionnaires hated being referred to as “machines” and felt compelled to say something. “They are cyborgs, sir… And you will ride Corporal Batta. He fought on Gamma-014. So you’ll be in good hands.”