“How could it not?”
Jasmine walked around the table suddenly and gave me a light stroke, running her fingers over my head and through my hair. I stood there, not knowing what else to do. She kissed my cheek, and then retreated with light, quick steps. She was a slight woman, I realized. Thinner and an inch or so shorter than Sandra. I gazed after her fixedly. I felt a pang of longing. My heart accelerated in my chest.
I opened my mouth, about to say something stupid. Something along the lines of: ‘I do have feelings for you.’ But Jasmine spoke up suddenly, intensely.
“Why did you do it?” she demanded.
I looked at her, baffled. She’d been the one to come over and kiss me. This time, it was all her fault. I hadn’t so much as twitched.
“Do what?”
She caught my eye and flicked her gaze toward the entrance. She looked back at me and gave me a tiny nod. Suddenly, I knew what she meant. Someone was out in the corridor, listening.
I felt a new sensation. I wouldn’t call it fear, exactly, although both our lives might well be in danger. Maybe guilt was closer. I felt as if I’d been caught with one gloved fist firmly planted in the forbidden cookie jar. I studied the screen between us, but didn’t see anything. Was it Sandra in the hallway? How much had she heard? How was I going to talk myself out of this one?
“You know what I’m talking about, sir,” Jasmine continued. “Why did you promote Barrera over me? I went out there to the stars for nearly a year with you, Colonel. I think I deserve an explanation.”
I tried to think. I wasn’t quite sure if Jasmine was bringing up this new point as a cover, or if she really wanted to know the answer. I suspected it was a little of both.
“Major Sarin,” I said. “You did well on the Helios Campaign. But my second in command needs some direct experience in combat. Not just operational experience. You didn’t have that, while Barrera did.”
“I shot at a few Worms and Macros, sir.”
“I know you did. But there’s more to it than that. Barrera has shown more initiative. You are an excellent supporting officer. But it has been my opinion, since you’ve asked, that you have not yet shown the same leadership qualities he has.”
Jasmine looked positively pissed now. I reflected that it was a good thing she hadn’t asked about the promotion first. I would never have gotten a caressing touch out of her if she’d heard this earlier.
“I accept your judgment, but I don’t agree with it, Colonel.”
“Good,” I said.
She glanced at me in annoyance and irritation. I smiled at her. At that moment, Sandra decided to walk in.
“Ah, finally,” I said. “Coffee?”
Sandra looked at me frostily. She didn’t hand me the tray. Instead, she slid it over the table toward me. I caught the tray with one hand and the coffee cup with the other before they both slid off onto the floor.
“That looks good,” Jasmine said. “I’ll think I’ll go get dinner, with your permission, sir.”
“By all means,” I said.
As she left the room, I tried hard not to stare after her. She had a nice walk, almost as good as Sandra’s. It was different—less overt, but still sexy.
Sandra was in my face faster than the doughnut and coffee I was trying to eat.
“Thanks for coffee,” I said.
“If I find out you two were making out while I went to get your dinner, I’m going to kill you both.”
I managed to look surprised. “Come on,” I said. “You’re with me every second of the day.”
“I heard your heartbeat, Kyle. I heard hers, too. You were both excited about something. I think it was each other.”
“Well, there was one thing.”
Sandra stiffened. She crushed her coffee cup in her hand, creating an instant fountain of hot, brown liquid. She cursed and threw it on the floor, where the nanites dutifully cleaned it up.
“She didn’t like me promoting Barrera over her,” I said.
Sandra took a deep breath. “I heard that part. But you two were already worked up about something.”
“Take a look at the boards. We’re in the midst of a battle. A lot of good people have died out there today. Don’t the Macros scare you?”
She looked at me suspiciously, then flicked her eyes down to the boards. Macros contacts were everywhere. Motionless red circles glowed in clumps all over the island.
“Yes, they do scare me,” she admitted. “What the hell are they waiting for?”
“Some element of their plan isn’t quite ready yet. When everything is in place, they’ll move decisively.”
“You changed the subject,” she said, giving me a hard stare.
“I answered a question.”
Suddenly, she melted. She kissed me fiercely, and I responded, enjoying myself.
When the kiss was over, I reflected I’d narrowly escaped a very bad scene. I’d only spoken with Jasmine to clear the air, but things had nearly gotten out of control. I told myself I had been a fool to flirt with Jasmine. Sandra was the real deal.
Sandra came at me again. We kissed even harder. A small fear nagged at me as we made out. I grew afraid she would smell Jasmine’s touch on me somehow.
But she didn’t.
-35-
The machines made their next move shortly after dawn. I doubt they planned it for that time, that’s just when their final tunnels breached and Macro diggers swarmed out of their holes. They had brought all their underground units to encircle Fort Pierre. Since they weren’t able to dig through our underground defenses, they came up outside the walls and rushed us from every side.
The big machines began to move then, standing up from their dormant states and forming groups of their own. They marched forward, all surging toward Fort Pierre. I nodded to myself, blinking sleep from my eyes. Typical Macro behavior. They often waited for a crucial tipping point, then slammed everything against a critical juncture. Unfortunately, in this case the juncture was the base I was standing in.
We’d had some forewarning this was their plan. The underground movements showed they were massing more troops under us all the time. They had already knocked out our heavy weapons, weakening us against the big machines.
I had my helmet off. Barrera and Sandra leaned over the table with me. Everyone had dark circles around their eyes. I’d learned the delicate art of scratching my cheek with battle gloves on, and employed it now. I winced as a few hairs of stubble were caught and yanked out. But I was successful. No skin had been removed, and the itch had been vanquished.
“Barrera,” I said, “what do you think we should do in this situation?”
He shrugged and eyed the boards speculatively. “Fight on the walls. That’s why we built them.”
“Can we hold the walls against the tunnelers?”
“Probably.”
“And when the big machines come racing up behind them, what then?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. They’ll step right over the walls. We’ll be overrun.”
“Major, have you ever been underneath an invasion Macro with all sixteen of its belly turrets spraying fire down onto your troops?”
Barrera shook his head. “No, sir.”
He was looking at me now, warily. The others followed his lead. They all stared at me. They knew I had an idea in my head, and that I was bringing them around to making the same conclusion I had. I could tell from their expressions they doubted they would like my conclusion.
“No, you have not,” I said. “None of you have. I can tell you, it is an unpleasant experience, one you will never forget should you be so lucky as to survive. We can’t sit here and wait for them to hit the walls. Not all of us. We have to go on the offensive. Small units will hunt the big machines in the deep forest.”