"Are you people any better in enemy territory?" Tara asked with a faint smile. It was cold, and her lips were turning blue.
The Legion officer had been astounded after hearing Tara's story, back on the Maiden. He consulted immediately with downside, and orders came through quickly for Tara—she was to accompany us to rejoin Beta. I was mystified by that, and so was Tara. However, she recovered quickly and insisted that her pet ape accompany her. This caused some consternation downside, but was ultimately approved after Tara had a brief but forceful discussion with some nameless bureaucrat. It was incomprehensible, and I didn't even try to understand it. Nevertheless, here we were, trying to find the replacement depot. They were apparently the only people who could direct us to Beta.
"Worthless piece of trash!" Dragon snarled at the tacmod. "I think we turn right here. There should be a series of squadmods up this tunnel." We turned, sloshing through ankle-deep water. A group of forlorn young troopers appeared out of the shadows, picking their way around a pile of dropboxes.
"Say, troopies, is the Twenty-Second Replacement Depot around here someplace?" I asked.
"Just keep going," one of them replied. "Follow the mob." Another amtac glided past us at a more reasonable speed. The amtac's roof was crowded with camfaxed replacements huddled down to avoid the ceiling.
"I'm cold!" Priestess said mournfully.
"Attention! Attention!" A tinny voice called out from our defective tacmod. "There will be a function test of all emergency blast doors in five marks, repeat five marks. This is only a test. Move away from all blast doors!"
"Wonderful," Dragon muttered.
"I think we should be all right," I said. "We just passed some blast doors."
"Maybe it'll slow down these damned aircars," Priestess commented. Another car shot past, buffeting us again with an icy breeze. Gildron roared at it, enraged.
###
The 22nd Replacement Depot was a brand new squadmod buried in the tunnel wall. The interior swarmed with troopers fighting for access to some admin types sitting behind a counter piled high with doc printouts, plastic manuals and d-screens.
"Would you troopers please stop tracking mud all over the deck?"
"Gee, I'm sorry!"
"Did he actually say that?"
Gildron started pushing people aside for us and we were soon at the counter. Most of the objections ceased once the troopers got a good look at Gildron. He was big and bad, and not quite human. We stood behind a group of three new replacements. The admin fellow behind the counter spoke, reading from a d-screen.
"All right, here's your orders. Tenth Regiment, the Fourth, CAT Thirty-One. They're at Axis Gold. Transport is available at the Twenty-Second's Aircar Control Center. It's all in the orders. Next!" He pushed three datapaks across the counter.
"Just a frac," one of the troopers objected. "We were told to report to the Third Amtac Support Squadron. We're techs, and they need us."
"You were told wrong," the admin clerk snapped back. "You've just been reassigned. The Tenth needs bodies, and you're it. Now get moving." He was a thin man with a narrow face and a shrill, raspy voice.
"We're techs!" another trooper objected. "We fix amtacs—you can send somebody else to the Tenth!"
"Don't tell me what to do, trooper! You've just been assigned to the Tenth. Those are your orders. Now disappear! Next!"
I pushed my way up to the counter. "We need the location of Squad Beta, CAT Two Four, Black Twelfth. We're returning to our unit."
"How many of you?" His beady little eyes darted over our group, lingering on Gildron.
"Five. We've got orders."
"Let's see 'em." We handed over our orders, and he fed them into the system. "Just a frac." He consulted a d-screen, then made an entry.
"All right," he said, "you're reassigned to the Tenth Regiment, the Fourth, CAT Fourteen. Location is Axis Gold. Transport is…"
"Hold it!" I said.
"Don't interrupt, trooper! Transport is…"
"Whoa!" I objected. "We already have orders, mister! We're going to Squad Beta of CAT Two Four, Second of the Twelfth, and all I need from you is the zero. Now how about it?"
"Your orders have just been changed, trooper," he snarled at me. "All loose bodies are now going to the Tenth. That's the way it is! So pick up your orders and get out of my sight!"
"May I handle this, Thinker?" Dragon asked me.
"Be my guest." I turned away from the admin puke in disgust.
Dragon smiled at the puke. Then he placed one well-muscled arm on the counter, and cleared it of everything, sweeping it all onto the floor. The room was suddenly dead quiet except for a single dox cup, rolling around on the deck. Dragon reached over the counter, seized the clerk by his tunic, and pulled him over the counter until their faces were only mils apart.
"We're not loose bodies," Dragon said through clenched teeth. "We're with the Twelfth. We're returning to our squad, and we're not going to take any crap from you or anybody else. You are going to give us the location of our squad, and give us back our original orders, right now, or I'll rip your arms out of their sockets and feed them to our friend here." Gildron showed his teeth. The room full of troopers burst into applause, shouting encouragement.
"You're not replacements?" the puke asked. He was sweating. Dragon shook his head, slowly.
"All right…all right," the puke said. "You're not replacements." Dragon threw him back into his chair. The puke shakily pulled himself together again, and rolled the chair back to his post by the counter. "Sorry…I thought you were replacements." The puke tried a smile, but it didn't work. "Squad Beta, you say."
"We've said that several times."
"All right! Don't get upset—I thought you were replacements. Replacements go where they're needed most. We'll find your squad—relax!"
###
"Aw right, who's in charge here?" I shouted. I knew damned well who was in charge, but I had to announce our entrance somehow. Beta was camped out in an enormous black hole torn out of the raw earth just off one of the main corridors of the milbase. It was a nightmare scene from the lower reaches of Hell, a few flickering lights casting long spooky shadows on wet dirt walls, a dead dark aircar surrounded by shadowy figures, piles of equipment stacked on a floor of mud, and someone approaching us out of the dark. It was Beta One—Snow Leopard.
"So you found us," he said calmly. "Good. That's good." He was in camfax fatigues, his long blond hair brushed straight back, a comset clipped to one shoulder. His pale face was completely free of emotion, but his hot red eyes glittered with determination. Beta One was back with us, I could tell. For awhile there I thought we had lost him, after Mongera. "Three, Eight, Nine, welcome back," he said. "They told me about your friends. Tamaling, welcome. I hope Three's visit was useful to you." Cintana Tamaling was Tara's Systie name. One had obviously read her file, which urged us not to use her true name, Antara Tarantos-Hanna. It was a name that could lead to her death.
Tara looked around at our quarters. "Yes," she responded with a dazzling white smile. "Most useful. I appreciate your letting them go."
"We appreciate the help you gave us on Mongera. And this is Gildron." He was looking up at the ape-man. Gildron showed his teeth, but remained silent.
"You'll find him useful," Tara said. "I can't get along without him."
"It's Dragon and Thinker—and Priestess! They've brought the ape!" I recognized Psycho's obnoxious braying. It didn't even bother me—I was that glad to be back.
"Welcome back, guys!" Merlin materialized out of the shadows, smiling. He had a ration pack under one arm. Merlin was our brains. He knew pretty much everything.
"We missed you, Big Guy," Scrapper said, sparkling grey eyes and a face full of freckles and a mop of tawny hair. I had never figured out why she insisted on calling me Big Guy. She had been Warhound's obsession. The last time I saw her, on Veda 6, she had marched up to me unexpectedly and said throatily, "Thinker, I want you to know I'm sorry about Warhound." Then she turned abruptly, to hide her face, and stalked away awkwardly.