"You too! So what's the story?"
"Everybody's is down. Everybody in the squad."
"Deadman! How could it happen?"
"Well, that's a good question, Thinker. One I've been thinking about quite a bit."
"Does it mean we can't contact Recon Control?"
"It means we can't contact them securely. And if we contact them insecurely, we die."
"Come on in," Snow Leopard called out, "the water's fine!"
"Cover me," Valkyrie said. She was next.
"How do you think it happened, Merlin?"
"I think it happened in the armor shop. They did the routine checks on all of us, and passed every A-suit."
"How could they screw up that bad?"
"I don't think it was a screw-up. Let's go."
We plodded across black sands and splashed into a cold, fast-running river. I walked in until I was fully under and the surface was a pale phosphorescent mass, rippling over my head. At first it was so dark it was like walking in ink, but as my darksight adjusted to the underwater world I saw the water was full of faintly sparkling silt, floating eerily past us. We walked against the current on a bed of rounded pebbles, through great fields of pale filmy weeds. I could vaguely see Eleven up ahead, but the tacmap was trash—complete trash. A massive, sunken tree appeared to one side, twisted limbs reaching out to me like a childhood nightmare. The darksight gave everything a faintly green tinge—a river of midnight green.
"This is great," Merlin said. "The mineral content is so heavy it's like walking through a deceptor field. Nobody's going to find us in here!"
"It's good news, Four," Snow Leopard replied. "Let's start walking. I want to put some distance between us and the insertion point. Then we'll break for the night."
A school of phospho white fish darted past us. Liquid sheets of faintly glowing light flowed gently past. Another tangle of black sunken trees, a series of great boulders, then free-floating masses of luminous green algae sliding off my armor. We walked against a strong current and had to lean into it to make progress.
"This is really wild!" Psycho exclaimed in delight. "Merlin, bet you can't spear one of those fish with your hot knife!"
"Save your energy," Snow Leopard said. "We've got a lot of walking to do."
###
I came out from the kitchen, cold as ice, the E extended before me. They were in the family room. The lady was sitting on a sofa with a cup of hot tea, watching the wall screen. The two little red-haired kids were playing with holo toys on the carpet. Domestic bliss—but I'd put an end to that. I was there to finish the job.
"Mrs. Biergart?" I inquired. Startled, she almost dropped her tea, and turned in her seat to face me—a heavy, older mortal lady with reddish hair and splotchy skin. The E was at my shoulder and the laser sight was right on her forehead. The teacup went then—she paled and her mouth opened. I fired, and her head exploded like a ripe melon, splattering blood and brains and bone all over the room. The children screamed and scrambled up from the floor as I shot the first one right in the chest. It knocked him against a wall smeared with his own gore. The second child cowered in a corner, pale and shaken, twitching with terror, splattered with his brother's blood. Pale blue eyes, I thought, just like his father. Staring at me! I shot him through the forehead.
I awoke screaming, terrified, and was overcome with a blind panic when I saw only darkness. Then my faceplate lit up with data and I remembered I was at the bottom of the river.
"What is it? Answer!"
"Deto! What?"
"It's Thinker—Thinker, answer!"
"Nothing! Nothing! It's nothing," I said groggily. "I'm sorry—it was a nightmare."
"Aw, scut!"
"You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
"All right, settle down!"
"Hey, can a guy get some sleep around here?"
"Blackout—now!"
My heart was thumping and I was covered in cold sweat. The current gently washed over my armor. Black weeds moved all around me. We were all flaked out on the bottom of the river hidden in a massive tangle of dead rotting trees and mud and seaweed. Sleeping, at last, renewing ourselves for the coming day's march up the river. The nightmares were getting worse, I thought. I couldn't even sleep any more.
"Thinker—it's Priestess." She was on private. "Was it Biergart again?"
"Yeah," I confessed. "I shot his wife and kids. It was…terrible."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
"It doesn't make sense, you know."
"Yeah."
"It's not logical, Thinker. Why should you let the memory of this man torture you?"
"I don't know."
"He was a cheap, sleazy, third-class professional criminal who turned Whit over to the Systies for a handful of coins."
"I executed him," I reminded her. "I shot him through the back of the head. That's the problem." The nightmares are getting worse, I thought. We may have rescued Whit, but I left a little piece of my soul behind on Katag. Deadman is not going to let me forget this one. I deserve it, I thought—I deserve it!
"We had no choice, Thinker. It was him or us. Would you feel happy if we were in a Katag jail right now?"
"No. But I probably wouldn't have these nightmares."
"It doesn't make sense, Thinker. How many people did you kill on Andrion Two? How many on Coldmark? Or Mongera?"
"I don't know. Quite a few, I guess."
"Do you have nightmares about them?"
"No."
"Why not? Why Biergart? How do you feel about the Systies you killed on Coldmark?"
"The DefCorps? I feel only admiration for them." I thought about it, and the memories washed over me. "Yes, they were soldiers—they died facing us. They were heroes, for a bad cause. How else could I feel?"
"Heroes. But you don't have nightmares about them. Instead you regret the death of that fat slug Biergart, who would have sold us out in a microfrac for cold cash if he'd had half a chance."
"I never said it made sense, Priestess."
"Don't you love me, Thinker?"
"Of course I do. You know I do."
"If you hadn't shot him, I'd be rotting in a Katag jail—or worse. So would you. And Dragon."
"I know."
"It was Biergart or me. Think of it that way."
"I don't order these dreams, Priestess. And I can't make them go away."
###
"ALERT! DefCorps armor! Multiple DefCorps readings!" As my eyes snapped open, my faceplate filled with data. Green luminous DefCorps A-suits appeared on my tacmap, suddenly on us, my God, 20 mikes, so close I could already see one visually right through the silt, a wavering green ghost, leading the march. Adrenalin shot through my veins. I raised my E and snapped off the safety. We were still on the bottom of the river, sleeping in a great mass of tangled debris, almost buried in the mud and weeds, side by side, fields of fire already set.
"Nobody move!" Snow Leopard hissed. "They may miss us! Let them go if they don't spot us!" My heart thumped wildly. Fifteen mikes! How could they miss us? I snapped the E to auto xmax and the indicator lit up on my faceplate. Two of them now, walking upstream, fighting a swift current, leaning forward, their Systie armor a greenish bronze in the darksight, Systie SG's across their chests, the power of the cosmos. More of them! Three, four, five, emerging from the sparkling haze like phantoms, plodding forward patiently, intent on the march.
"I have nine…I have ten," Sweety whispered in my ear. "Ten DefCorps troopers, SG's on safe!"
SG's on safe! They were completely unaware of our presence! We were half buried in the mud, obscured by dead sunken trees and a forest of shimmering weeds and our own camfax and the swirling chaff from the mineral-laden silt.
"Easy, easy…let them pass," Snow Leopard whispered. "If they don't react, don't fire." I was bathed in ice cold sweat. I could see more of them now. They were so close I could almost have reached out and touched them. They were walking the riverbed, passing us right by, a whole DefCorps squad. Green ghosts slowly filing past, the river washing debris all around them, a school of silver fish parting to avoid them. One move, one twitch, just one SG safety snapping off and the river would explode and boil with xmax and laser and multiple tacstars, rising up at once, and it would be a river of blood. I knew Psycho was salivating behind his Manlink, all safeties off, set to fire auto tacstar, his evil blue eyes glowing in the dark.