At that, Coyle herself stomped the poor kid into a tight, dusty corner. And Potocki watched her do it.
A few minutes later, the MPs showed up.
Kazak and the ladies came through this deafer than posts but otherwise unscathed. I acquired a couple of Iglas and a slice across my bicep that took three days under Guru paste to heal. Med center restored everyone’s ears.
Tak lost both eyes, but in short order—the next day—the Corps issued him a fresh pair, bright blue. Within hours he was better than ever. His raccoon-mask chain-whip welt took longer to fade—the rest of our time at Hawthorne. We became local heroes. Skyrines bowed theatrically in the mess. Attitude and spirit.
Most fun we had had in weeks. And we all had inappropriate dreams about First Lieutenant Coyle.
Five months later, on the Red, with nary a bitter word, some of us teamed up with those same Russians and seven hours after our drop engaged a dense Antag redoubt in the center of Chryse, near Shirley Patera. We reduced the enemy to smoke and chaff. Some of the Russians received decorations.
The kid who had chain-whipped Tak was not there. He had been demoted, by request of the Gurus in Moscow, and sent back to Novosibirsk to hump a desk.
I’m happy to see our sisters, delighted to see Coyle, and I hope she remembers me. We work well together.
HOPE IS THE THING THAT FLOATS
Teal and I descend from the watchtower, make our way as quickly as we can down the tunnels, and within ten minutes Teal has climbed into the southern garage booth and opened the outer gate. The three Voor buggies—plus the nine Voors and nine Skyrines—are soon inside an even bigger hollow, a hangar carved out of basalt, with rows of steel support beams shoring up the roof.
After the buggies park, three more Skyrines escort the drivers down from each. There are nowhere near sixty Voors, as Teal feared; there are only twelve. I’m curious why they would take three buggies.
The Voors, all pale males in their twenties or thirties, line up beside their vehicles. One is a skinny old dude, likely first gen. Their skintights are as cadged together as Teal’s, but reddish brown, with black helms and leggings and white-tipped boots.
I finger in magnification and look more closely at the new blazes. The Skyrines are from First Battalion, which in the past has been assigned early recon and ground prep—sneaking around the Red in the dark before a battle, surveilling Antag positions, correcting and refining maps, choosing drop sites.
How these new arrivals have made their way into my lofty presence does not encourage confidence. Still, they have a strong-field suppressor. And they know how to handle the locals.
Before Teal and I descend, I give out a sharp, four-tone whistle, and Captain Coyle greets us at the bottom of the booth ladder, sharp-eyed, pistol drawn and charged. She’s in her late thirties, whippet-wiry inside the skintight, red hair, plump cheeks, and black eyes visible through her helm. I am out of uniform, but I’ve strapped my blaze to my arm, and I pull up my sleeve to show the bump where I’ve been chipped and dattooed. Captain Coyle runs her glove over the dattoo, then consults her angel on name and rank and current disposition, while the other Skyrines listen in, all ears, some grinning—expecting their situation is about to improve. Maybe, maybe not.
Coyle is not yet reassured. With a side glance at Teal, standing a few meters back, she faces me. “Master Sergeant Michael Venn,” she says, echoing the display in her helm. “Sixth Marines, out of Skyport Virginia last deployment. Have we met, Venn?”
“Affirmative, Captain.”
“Can’t recall just where. Can’t read your chip, but the dattoo tells the tale. Are there more of us around here?”
I tell her about our broken squad, the Korean general, how we survived on Russian tents and could not save an assortment of top officers. The captain listens, stern-faced. “We came down about two days after you,” she says, “maybe three hundred klicks south. Similar situation, looks like. Then we ran into these boys. Real charmers. SNKRAZ.”
Sho ’Nuff KrayZ. Recent update from SNAFU, Situation Normal, All Fucked Up, which our alien sponsors do not like to hear.
Captain Coyle takes the suppressor from Gunnery Sergeant Maria Christina de Guzman—mid-twenties, oval-faced, small and supple and very fit looking, with strange, cold eyes—and tells her to prep the Voors. Here, in decent pressure and only a mild chill, Gunny de Guzman orders the Voors to strip to their Dutch undies. I don’t know what “Dutch undies” means, but Sergeant Anita Magsaysay snickers and the others look pleased.
For their part, the Voors are tense and pasty-faced as they pull off their skintights.
I know that in Coyle’s opinion, though she’s being polite, I’m still under suspicion. No angel to lase, no read on my chip, dattoo purely surface, no bona fides other than a whistle that could have been compromised and a detached blaze that could belong to anybody; I could be anybody. I try to look relaxed and friendly.
Teal simply looks frightened. She obviously believes the Voors were sent to kill her. But under firm prodding, the Voors do as they are told, silent, resentful, eight of them young and skinny and scared, three in their thirties and not much fatter, one emaciated elder with burning eyes.
Sergeant Mazura b. Mustafa—of middle height, narrow face, big black eyes, and luxurious lips—binds the Voors’ wrists with tough plastic straps. Several of the almost naked men study Teal as if trying to remember the sketchy portrait on a wanted poster. They could believe we’re going to restore their liberty, allow them to continue their settler ways—do what they came here to do. After all, Earth policy is hands-off, live and let live, right?
Only now are we joined by Gamecock and Tak and DJ, who goggle at this turn of events. Gamecock approaches the captain, who opens her plate and shoots out a gloved hand. The ones in control, for now, begin to relax a little. DJ and Tak exchange friendly greetings with some of our sisters. They are polite but edgy, worn down from whatever they went through before they encountered the Voors—and from having to deal with these gentlemen on apparently less than cordial terms.
And those cold eyes. Something’s different about some of our warriors in this gathering…
But I dismiss all doubts.
“Anyone speak Afrikaans?” Captain Coyle asks. She removes her helm and shakes out a short mop of sweaty black hair.
“I do, a little,” Teal says. Four of our sisters, alerted to her presence, take this opportunity to gather around her, scoping her out, admiring her fashion sense, I suppose. Teal puts up with their curiosity, but after a few minutes, Coyle reins it in.
“Ah, Captain, first ranch wife we’ve seen!” Magsaysay complains.
“She’s tall,” says Lance Corporal Katy Suleiman.
“Taller than you, Shrimp,” Mustafa says.
“Everyone’s taller than Suleiman,” Magsaysay observes.
“She’s pretty, though,” says Corporal Juana Maria Ceniza. She experimentally pinches the fabric on Teal’s arm, eyes wary as a fox’s.
“Cut that shit, Ash!” Coyle warns.
Ceniza lifts one brow, but pulls her hand away and backs off.
“Go on,” the captain encourages.
“Radio talk mostly,” Teal says, shivering at our ladies’ interest. “Taal, t’ey call it.”
“Their English is piss-poor,” Coyle says.
“T’ey speak English well enow when t’ey want,” Teal says. The Voors squint hard at her. One makes a rude gesture, which is knocked down by Corporal Firuzah Dawood, a short, stocky gal with a shaved scalp and a dancer’s way of moving around the captives. Nothing escapes her, and she’s not afraid to be brusque.