“Anyway, the Fleet commander in the Islendia sector was Patrick Sunday.”
“Him I’ve heard of,” Thor said.
“Who hasn’t,” Shiva smiled. “He was from the Core worlds and his family had been military for as long as the SSA had been around. But, despite that, he could see the way the wind was blowing. He made a deal with the SSA. The Fringe was in virtual separation from the Core. Taxes weren’t getting paid, orders among the military were being ignored and planets were starting to figure they were ‘on their own’ and developing local militias. And in the midst of this were probes from the Tular, rising piracy and, of course, the odd terrorist.
“The SSA finally gave up. Sunday convinced the majority of bomb throwers and their ‘unaffiliated’ supporters to come in ‘hands up.’ They were amnestied but prevented from taking office. The ones that didn’t go for it were ruthlessly hunted down, by their former ‘colleagues’ among others. And Earth permitted the Republic to split off.”
“It couldn’t have been as easy as that,” Dagger said. “Where’s the money?”
“It wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination,” Shiva admitted. “But, on the other hand, no planets were turned into slag and no suns were detonated. Easy is a relative term.
“And, really, Earth only relented because we had most of the regular hardware, but did not have GalTech in large quantities. We would have been a threat they couldn’t ignore, and not been believable as allies. It was lucky, because we basically outgrew each other. Had we been weaker, or stronger, it would have been a fight.”
“So that’s why ACS are rare in the Fringe,” he said, looking at Thor, “and reserved for very special occasions, and be glad you don’t have one, because usually when we toss them into the meat grinder, it means things are royally succulent and people die. Be glad you have that chameleon at least. And we’re DRT because we’re masochists. Not because we get to kill a lot of things. We’re trip wires.”
“I guess that explains it,” Thor said. He believed it, but he didn’t like it. “But I got to wear ACS once, on Tenarif. It was wonderful.”
“Oh?” Bell Toll said. “I didn’t see that in your file.”
“It wasn’t official,” he said. “And it was while I was still infantry. Remember, I qual’d DRT last year.”
“Yeah, so what about it?” Dagger asked.
“Oh, damn,” Thor said, a glazed look in his eyes. “The suit supports you. You want to sleep, you lie down. It can wake you or put you under. It gives artificial neural feedback like bare skin would. It does nanosurgery to fix small wounds.” He held up his welted hands, scored with saw-edged grass and bites. It was easier to sense one’s surroundings with bare hands than with gloved, but there was a price to pay. “It uses stasis for major wounds. The AID talks to you, feeds you info, cuts out the crap you don’t need and prioritizes the critical stuff. It’ll stop damned near anything incoming, and you have real antimatter beads for weapons, no powerpack needed. Hell, it massages tired muscles. It’ll sing you a lullaby if you really want. I got to wear one for a week during an exercise, as a backfill.”
“I’d heard that about them,” Gorilla said, scratching the grimy stubble under his chin thoughtfully. The suits kept hair groomed, too. “Be nice for sleeping.” His length meant that he often woke with cricks in his neck on deployments, after squeezing into awkward little nooks to hide and rest.
“Yeah, well speaking of sleeping,” Shiva said, “it’s time to do that very thing. And I won’t sing you a lullaby, Thor.”
“No problem,” Thor said with a grin. “Maybe Doll will massage my shoulders.”
“Sure,” she said. “With a rock.”
Thor was on watch again. The rest lay back to sleep. Tirdal sat up, awake, through Thor’s watch before he retired.
“Meditating, Tirdal? Or just can’t sleep?”
There was no reply. Tirdal sat motionless in an almost lotus with his eyes focused on eternity, and it creeped Thor to hell. Eventually, he turned away from the Darhel, not wanting to see those staring eyes. He could still feel them.
The next night took them into foothills. The peninsula they’d come from rose steadily to a ridge that joined a mountain range, and they’d be following the higher ground until they reached a plain.
It was near midnight when Gorilla ordered, “Down!” in a harsh whisper. Everyone dropped silently into the weeds. Ahead, distantly, there was a crashing, rustling sound, muffled by the thickness of the woods. Breaths were restrained, motion frozen, hands gripping weapons and waiting for a threat, a release, anything to break the crisp, dry tension.
“Stand by,” Gorilla said. He ran a diagnostic, then said, “There’s a cliff ahead. One of the bots fell and is out of commission.”
“Destroyed?” Bell Toll asked. “Aren’t those things hard to damage?”
“Not when they dislodge rocks on the way down and get crushed under a two hundred kilogram boulder.”
Shiva said, “So watch where you put your feet.”
The cliff appeared in their night vision as they approached, a dark line angling from the right. They were forced to take a narrow path along the edge of the ridge, the cliff gradually turning to tumbled, rocky bluff then to sharp slope before merging with the line of the hills. They walked with one leg bent against the incline, gripping vines and branches for stability as strained muscles trembled on the rocky ledge. The previous day’s rain had mostly run off and dried, but enough dampness remained beneath fallen spiky leaves to create a slipping hazard, exacerbated by the surreal contrast created by night vision. As the bluff became a steep slope, Bell Toll stopped.
“Angle us down, Ferret. There should be a leveling at the two-hundred-meter contour.”
“Got it, sir,” he replied.
They’d gone only a few meters before Ferret could be heard to mutter, “Ouch!” over the net. In moments, everyone was twitching and cursing as small creatures chewed at their exposed skin, their bites and acidic saliva causing sharp stinging pains. A nest of something had been disturbed, and the occupants were protesting this incursion.
Shiva suddenly clutched at his helmet, fought with the straps and yanked it off. He didn’t cry out, but the expression on his face was mean. They’d been at his ears and neck.
“Retreat one hundred meters, leapfrog by numbers, now!” Bell Toll ordered and the troops scrambled to obey. Noise discipline suffered somewhat; the minor but painful injuries were very distracting.
“Keep the perimeter. Shiva, Tirdal, get people treated. Thor, Gun Doll, let us know if anything moves closer. And somebody give me a report!” Bell Toll said.
“Antlike form,” Ferret said, “but looks more like a roach. And the little fuckers bite like angry rats. Think they can fly or jump. I was sliding up on a downed log and out they came.”
“Got it. So watch for downed logs. Shiva, are you okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Shiva replied. “Going to have huge welts on my cheeks, ears and neck, but I’ll manage.” As he spoke, Tirdal was spraying an anesthetic/antiseptic salve onto the bites.
“I think I see a fragment of mandible,” Tirdal said. “I’ll need to pull it out. Permission to use light, sir?” Darhel had better night vision than humans, but it was a minuscule piece of sting he was trying for.
“Yes, toss up a cover and keep it dim.”
Tirdal pulled his bedroll from the bottom of his ruck, spread it and drew it over their heads. Thus shielded, he could illuminate the wound. There was indeed a small, barbed piece of shell there, and he worried it gently out with a needle and tweezers as Shiva muttered, “Son… of… a… bitch!”