Chapter 17 part 6

"No, dummy," Carlos snapped. "The evasion jets aren't even firing."

Kivi apparently didn't like being called a dummy any more than the rest of us. She kicked him in the butt, and he caught her foot. He tried to twist it, but she snapped it back and threw a punch.

"Hey, hey," I said. "Let's get our gear on. This is for real."

"Oh yeah?" Carlos asked. "You knew, right? Let me guess: the date marked on your calendar? Or did Graves text you personally?"

"You know what, Carlos?" I said. "You're an even bigger asshole in the middle of the night."

Everyone laughed and loudly agreed. Carlos grumbled, but he shut up and put his gear together.

Five minutes later, we were jogging down the passages to the tubes. We shot down, one at a time. The arrows were lit yellow on the floor and walls—even the ceiling. Our squad number was easy to follow.

I knew long before we got there where we were headed. The team chit-chatted around me as we moved quickly toward the lower decks.

"It's not another drop?"

"Can't be."

"This is yellow-level…that could only mean we're boarding a lifter."

"At least we don't have to get fired out of the cannons again."

In general, the group was happy it wasn't going to be a hot drop. If the LZ was clean enough to allow a lifter to land, it had to be relatively safe.

We were herded aboard a lifter and clamped into place. Rows of troops faced one another, but few of us made eye-contact. Not even Carlos was up for any new jokes. We were tired and worried.
The troops had been elated when they'd pulled the legion off Cancri-9. My team had been left behind, of course, but most had seen it as a narrow escape. The assignment had been rough, and no one wanted to stick around to see just how many lizards they would throw at us the next day.

Now, however, that feeling of relief was over. We weren't going home. We weren't even going to another planet, another assignment. We were going back down onto a planet that had turned utterly hostile.

I leaned back and closed my eyes. The lifter shook, rattled and squeaked. I smelled hot metal and strange chemicals. Cold air and hot vapors chased over us as different parts of the ship vented and adjusted themselves. It was nothing like the luxury ride a passenger ship provided back home.

My head lolled, and I nearly fell asleep. Off and on, my chin touched my chest and woke me up.

Chapter 17 part 5

"What the holy hell do you think old Drusus is up to, McGill?" Carlos asked me loudly.

Everyone looked at me. They'd seen my special trip to the observation tower, my day off from exercises and my trips to the blue level. They knew something odd was going on with me, but they didn't know what it was. In particular, Carlos was going mad with curiosity.

"Carlos is right," said Kivi, jumping into the pack. She'd taken every opportunity to snipe at me since our break-up. She wasn't too fond of Natasha, either. "You know something. I want to hear it. We've got a right to know."

"No," I told them both, shaking my head, "you're in Varus, remember? None of us have rights of any kind. But it doesn't matter because I don't know where we're going. Even if I did, I wouldn't be at liberty to say."

"You're such a kiss-up all of a sudden," Carlos complained. "You were such a tough-guy down in the steel tunnels. What did they do to you? Do you feel bad inside now?"

I actually did feel rather off-balance, but I wasn't going to admit it to him. I knew that Carlos and the rest were half-joking and half-serious trying to browbeat information out of me. I struggled not to get angry with them.

"I'm fine," I said. "But it's time for you to shut up unless you want a fresh lesson in hand-to-hand."

I'd started off untrained, but over the last six months I'd become known as one of the best with primitive weapons. Right now I didn't feel good, but they didn't know that. No one wanted to challenge me after a grueling day on the field. They broke up their circle and wandered off grumbling.

All of them, that was, except for Natasha. She lingered and stared at me with narrowed eyes.
"What? Are you suspecting the worst, too?" I asked her.

"You know something," she said. "I can tell that. We all can. You really don't want to tell me?"

I wanted to all of a sudden. "What's in it for me?" I asked.

She smirked and gave me a small kiss. I reached for more, and she pushed me back.

"I'm not Kivi," she said.

I laughed. "Okay, sorry. I can't tell you anything, but I suspect we'll all find out very soon."

We left it at that and headed for our bunks. I'd been asleep for less than an hour when a whooping alarm went off. It was the emergency klaxons. Bewildered and half asleep, I tumbled out onto the steel deck, scrambling with my kit.

All around me, recruits were doing the same.

"Is the ship under attack?" Kivi asked.

Chapter 17 part 4

Graves lifted an admonishing finger. "Never underestimate an opponent, McGill. If they had all their credits dumped into weaponry the way we do…just think of it. What if the saurian waves you faced had been as well-equipped as we were? What would have happened?"

"I don't know. They may have wiped us."

He nodded slowly. "Exactly. That was their plan from the start. They gave us a phony contract and we signed on. Then they cheated by fielding, as you so eloquently put it, 'endless waves of lizards'. Now, they're claiming victory with the Galactics. Worse, you personally managed to kill the chief Inspector, the very individual that will decide the outcome of this territorial struggle, twice."

I stared at him. My eyes were squinched up and my teeth were bared in a grimace. I felt slightly sick, and I didn't think it was due to the bad regrow this time.

"Yes," Graves said, smiling at me grimly. "I can see now that you fully grasp the situation and your part in it. Now, kindly get the hell out of my tower. I'm already regretting letting them revive you at all."

I headed for the door, and I didn't look back.

Fortunately, I was excused from the knife-fighting exercises for the day. I wasn't really up to it. I was feeling better by dinner, and by the next day, as the ship began lurching and firing maneuvering jets, my stomach was operating fully again.

But I wasn't happy. I knew, possibly more than any other recruit in the legion, what was really going on. We weren't here to guard some mining complex. We were here to prove we could outfight an equivalent number of lizards—and from what I'd seen, the enemy was more than willing to cheat in this regard throwing at us ten times our weight in lizards. I had no idea how many dinos we'd killed thus far, but it had to be more than ten thousand all together. Maybe the number was twice that high.

The problem was the enemy had the resources of an entire planet to draw upon. They had millions of lives to spend. We had a finite number of men and guns. Our only advantages were in equipment and know-how. We had professional, well-armed troops—troops that could come back to life and fight again, over and over. It was a grim thought, and I felt that a grim battle was surely coming.

Our first advantage, which our tribune was hastily employing, was maneuverability. Using Corvus, we could come down wherever we wanted and face the enemy on our own terms. I was sure the saurians below us were watching closely wondering what our next move was going to be. Aboard ship speculation was rampant.

Chapter 17 part 3

"Well then," I said. "I thank you for reviving me. Am I free to go, sir?"

"Sadly, no. I have to have your word that you won't speak of this incident to anyone. You won't bring up Galactics or being executed—none of it. If you do, your data will be lost, and your next revive will never happen. Do I make myself clear, McGill?"

"Like starlight, sir."

"Good. Now, head to Blue Deck. You look like shit. Get yourself some chemical help. We'll be redeploying tomorrow, and I need every man in fighting shape."

I paused, stunned.

"Redeploying? Where, sir?"

He frowned. "I'm not accustomed to being questioned by recruits, McGill. Don't take our little conversation as some kind of comradery. We're not best friends."

"Of course not. But I thought we were leaving Cancri-9. I thought we'd given up on this mission."

Graves laughed at me. The laugh was an unpleasant one.

"Given up? No, Recruit. This war has just begun. Legion Varus always triumphs. It does not give up when Earth's territory is threatened. We were tricked into this contract but aren't done yet. The Galactics are observing—as you know intimately. Before this is over, we'll have proven to them yet again who the best fighters are."

I was confused. I had no real idea what he was talking about. I knew that Legion Varus often fought other mercenary companies to demonstrate we were the best, but so far, I hadn't seen any evidence of this occurring on Cancri-9. All we'd fought were packs of angry natives.

"One last question, sir," I said. "If you don't mind."

"I do mind. But ask it anyway."

"Who are the enemy? What mercenary company are we fighting against?"

He looked at me in surprise. "Really, McGill? I thought you might have figured that out by now. Maybe that regrow did scramble your brains."

"But sir, we've fought nothing but saurians since we got here. Endless waves of lizards. The only other alien we encountered was the Galactic inspector himself."

"Endless waves of lizards…" he said, smiling tightly. "You should be a poet, McGill."

I thought about that for a second. "Are you saying that saurians themselves are the enemy? That they want to challenge us for supremacy in this region of space? Are they trying to form their own legions?"

"I doubt they'll call them that. They tend to fight in hordes. More numbers, more meat, less armament—but you have to admit, they are pretty effective."

"But why, sir? They have their steel, their minerals to sell. Isn't that easier for them?"

He shrugged. "How the hell should I know why they've decided to try this takeover? Maybe the market on steel has crashed. Maybe they've lost a number of accounts and are hurting for credits. Whatever the case, I think they've been working toward this for a long time. Otherwise, why are they our very best clients? Why so many missions? To observe and learn, that's my guess."

I didn't know what to say. "They are warlike, primitive by alien standards. They don't even have a worldwide government. Maybe mercenary work would suit them. Do you really think they can beat us? We slaughtered them out there."

Chapter 17 part 2

"Because it wouldn't have been right," he said. "You did your job well. You led your team out of an impossible situation."

I almost believed him. But I waited quietly, staring, just in case.

Graves returned my gaze evenly then he shrugged after a moment. "That's not the only thing, naturally."

Naturally, I thought to myself.

He turned back to the practice fields. The teams were being issued combat knives—sharp ones. They flashed with edges like white lines in the bright sunlight that streamed in from the dome overhead. I winced as one recruit opened up another's arm. There would be plenty of nu-skin sprayed over open wounds tonight.

"The real reason was that Harris and I owe our lives to you."

I looked at him in surprise.

"How's that, sir?"

"We were at the bottom of the mine and cut off. Several teams never made it out of that mine, McGill. Yours did. When you made your report—that changed everything."

I began to put it together. I nodded.

"When I made my report they had confirmation of your death, right?" I asked. "At that point, they authorized your revival. So, they were holding off on doing it until you came out or were confirmed dead?"

He nodded slowly. "That's right. And with the legion leaving Cancri-9, that would have been it for all of us if you hadn't made it out. They'd keep the data, but never make our copies. Perma-death for all."

I understood now why he was impressed by my efforts to survive and why he'd felt the urge to go the extra mile to keep me breathing. If I hadn't made it out, we'd all have been done for.

"Sir?" I asked. "What will the Galactics do if they find out I'm still alive?"

"They won't."

"I know that sir. But, hypothetically?"

"Hypothetically? I don't know. I don't know how connected that inspector is or how pissed off he might be. I would guess we'd all be permed officially. Possibly the entire legion would be unloaded on a rock and nuked. Hell, I don't know."

I stared at him. "That wouldn't be right. I remember Galactic Law from school. It's quite egalitarian. The Galactics are no more—"

By this time, Graves was laughing. "You read their laws? Their treaties? The deals they signed with Earth? That's grand. You should read a little more of history, son. Those who rule don't take insults lightly. They bend the rules now and then, and when they do, they always bend them in their favor. It's a natural part of life, I think."

I shut up because I realized I didn't know what I was talking about. Graves had been out here in space for decades. Who was I to lecture him on the way the universe was supposed to work?

Chapter 17 part 1

I shuddered and found myself at the base of the observation tower. I opened it and discovered a spiraling staircase inside. I was huffing by the time I reached the top, which wasn't normal for me.

The top of the tower was air conditioned and possessed its own snack and drink counter. There were five comfortable chairs circling the room. Graves was in one of them, and he and I were alone in the room.

He didn't look at me when I entered. He was staring outside at the training field watching the squads as they broke up and began to spar with one another. There would be no live-fire exercises today. It was all light exercise and hand-to-hand. Even the officers knew when the troops were tired of dying and needed a break.

"Mind if I help myself to a glass, sir?" I asked him.

He waved his hand over his shoulder at me. I took this as approval. I poured myself something fizzy and sweet. It eased my sweating body when I drank it.

"You feeling all right, McGill?" he asked finally.

"Never better."

He chuckled. "You're a tough bastard. I like that. I really do."

"You've got a funny way of showing your love, if you don't mind me saying, Centurion."

He spun around in his chair which swiveled without a squeak. "You want to know why you're up here?"

"So I don't fall on my face on the field and give it all away?"

His smile faltered. "You're angry? I'm surprised, but I guess I shouldn't be. Gratitude is a rare component in most people's personalities."

I blinked at him, then frowned. "You want a big thanks for having me executed?"

"You weren't executed—at least not permanently."

"It felt real enough, sir."

"I think you need to keep things in perspective, Recruit. I didn't have to bring you back. I took a major risk in doing so. I'll have you know that Primus Turov was against it."

That bitch, I thought to myself. But I nodded. "Sorry if I don't feel like kissing anyone's ring today. They told me when I came out it was a bad grow."

Graves frowned. "A bad grow? Why didn't they recycle and do it right?"

I wanted to shiver at the idea of being recycled. Right then, for the first time, I wondered how often that happened. How often did a man miraculously return to life, only to be killed again instantly and brought back yet again? I bet they threw those little slices of our memories away by not copying our minds when such dark events occurred.

I sipped my fizzy sugar water and stared out at the practice field. "They didn't want to risk a regrow. The bio said I should be all right in a few days."

He nodded. "Well enough, then. With any luck, the Galactics will never bring it up again. You were executed promptly with one of their own as a witness. Fortunately, they can't tell us apart nor do they track individual IDs for us. To them, we're like fish thrashing in a vast pond or rabbits nibbling in an endless field. There are billions of us, and we don't matter as individuals."

I looked at him seriously. "Why did you bring me back, sir? It was less of a risk to leave well enough alone."

galava 8 part 2

After an hour, Veteran Harris wandered by. He asked for my report in a whisper. I told him there hadn't been any significant sightings.

"You keep your eyes peeled, boy," he said. "And I'm not just talking about dinos. If anything shows up that looks remotely dangerous, you tell me about it on squad chat."

"I'll be the first, Veteran."

He left, and I felt lonelier than ever. It was about two hours later that something finally happened. It wasn't what I'd expected, however.

Instead of a theropod creeping up on me, or some other jungle predator, I saw a thing in a silvery skin. I wasn't sure quite what I was looking at, but I knew it wasn't normal. It had to be an alien of some kind. It had six limbs, and two of them were holding a dark, slim object. A rifle? I wasn't sure.

The alien was moving cautiously, scuttling forward on four of its six appendages. I was reminded of a spider but one that had only six legs—each of which could be used as an arm at will.

From the way it was acting, the creature hadn't seen me in my fern bush. I figured that if the enemy slipped right by me—whatever it was—I could make my getaway then.

Moving quietly, I closed my visor. I engaged my tapper, and it zoomed in on the alien. After a few agonizing seconds of watching a spinning "wait" icon, my suit computer finally made its determination. A blue question mark appeared, and the word "unknown".

I had no idea what I was facing, and neither did my suit. It wasn't a saurian, but it didn't look innocent, either. I figured I couldn't just sit there. I had to report the sighting. I slid my hand up to my chest plate. There, I keyed my alarm signal. Still trying not to make a sound, I lifted my rifle as the signal went out.

The alarm was a silent radio blip on an ultra-high frequency, but the creature picked it up somehow. It responded by swiveling its bulbous head back and forth then zeroed in on my bush. That slim dark rod in its hands came around in my direction.

That was all the warning I needed. I lifted my weapon and sprayed it down with slivers with my weapon set on full-auto. The weapon clattered, and the sound tore apart the stillness of the night. Snap-rifles weren't as loud as gunpowder weapons, but when you really held the trigger down, they made a respectable racket. The snap and whine of projectiles filled the air, and the steel shot ripped through the fern I was crouching in, tearing off big, fuzzy leaves.

The creature was caught by surprise and went down in a tangle of thrashing limbs. I gave it another burst to be sure, and then I snapped an image with my helmet visor. Whatever it was, I was certain command would want to see it.

Nearby, I heard rushing feet. It was Carlos, running to my position.

"What'd you shoot?" he asked.

"I don't know," I told him.

We both stared at the forest, and our chests heaved. We watched the jungle intensely, but the night was silent.

"Come on, what had you so spooked?" Carlos whispered. "You never freak out about anything."

I thought about the three juggers I'd run from in this same jungle yesterday but didn't bring them up. Carlos hadn't been there, and it hadn't been my finest hour. I just shook my head and watched for movement.

A channel call came in to us a moment later, and we answered it. Veteran Harris' voice filled our helmets.

"I see you have discharged your weapon, recruits, and Carlos has broken the line. Who gave you orders to maneuver?"

"I'm seeking a new position, Veteran," Carlos said.

True to his word, he found a broken stump and put his back against it. He sighted over the top, scanning for a target.

"Report, dammit!" Harris said.

"Sorry sir," I whispered. "I shot something. I don't know what it was, but I'm sure it was intelligent and armed. It wasn't a saurian."

"Repeat that, please?"

"It was not any kind of life form that is supposed to be on this world. The tapper didn't know what to make of it."

Harris didn't say anything more to that. I wasn't sure what he was thinking. I felt a bit guilty. I had fired without orders, and right now I wanted to run. It was hard to stand a post by yourself in an alien jungle. I couldn't see any sign of the alien from my position, as the grass was too high. I chided myself for not advancing and making sure the alien didn't crawl away.

Even as I berated myself, I heard firing erupt off to my left. Then more shots were fired, very distantly, to the right.

"Contact made, recruits!" Harris shouted into my ear. I could tell he was broadcasting now to the entire squad. "Withdraw slowly, link up and provide covering fire for one another. Those to the rear, take up a secure position. You're on overwatch."

"That's us," I told Carlos. "The rest have moved farther forward."

He nodded and, for once in his life, didn't have anything to say. We both stared into the night wondering what was coming next.

We didn't have long to wait. A squad of raptors showed up chasing a recruit.

I was horrified. The recruit looked to be a female, and she was bleeding. It took me a fraction of a second to realize it was Kivi, then another second to notice her arm was gone and it was in the mouth of the leading pursuer.

Without saying anything, we began applying controlled bursts of fire. The thing carrying the recruit's arm went down first. Seeing us, Kivi ran to our position. I saw her face briefly as she staggered past me. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was hanging open, as if she were in the midst of a long scream. No sounds came out of her, however, other than labored breathing.

We put down two more raptors, and they retreated. I realized with a shock that we weren't fighting the expected enemy: juggers. These were the smaller, smarter variety of saurian.

"Doesn't make sense," I said. "This was supposed to be a jugger rebellion. A bunch of pissed off, unpaid miners."

"Who the hell cares? Let's escort her back to the walls."

I checked Kivi's tapper. There was no pulse.

"She's gone," I said. "I'm not going anywhere. We're on overwatch, and we're staying right here."

Carlos looked at me like I was crazy, but he put his rifle to his cheek and kept scanning for more targets. He was breathing so hard I thought he might hyperventilate.

"They tore her apart," Carlos kept muttering. "I can't believe it."

"Shut up. Kivi will be fine. They're probably reviving her right now back at camp. She'll get to her bunk tonight before we do."

The truth was, I didn't want to think about it. I hadn't been intimate with Kivi lately, but it was hard to keep your mind straight when your ex-girlfriend was dead at your feet. Sure, I knew she'd come back to life soon, but my emotions were running high anyway.

"It just tore her arm right off," he continued. "Running around with it like it was some kind of trophy. Do you suppose that one was saving her arm? To show it off—or to eat?"

"Just shut up, Carlos."

He finally did. His breathing slowed, and for the next minute or two, nothing big happened.

Then we heard stealthy steps behind us. I wheeled and almost fired but managed to stop myself in time.

Carlos didn't manage to control himself so cleanly. He put a single pellet into the chest plate of Veteran Harris.

Harris wasn't hurt, but he wasn't pleased, either. He kicked Carlos in the butt with a steel boot and hissed at him to aim his gun forward.

I was surprised that he'd managed to get so close without alerting us. Wearing heavy armor and carrying a beamer, he was slower and louder than any recruit. He stepped beside me and aimed his rifle around the other side of the tree.

He glanced down at Kivi's body.

"Let me guess," he said, "Carlos here blew her arm off, right?"
"Negative, Veteran," I said. "There were six saurians. They charged us and we shot down three, making them retreat. They were chasing this soldier. She died of her injuries."

He glanced at me. "You're telling me you fought off six juggers with two snap-rifles? Show me the bodies."

Rather than arguing, I advanced and showed him the fallen raptors in the underbrush. He came close and stared.

"Regular saurians?" he asked.

"Raptors, sir. The smart kind."

"Where are the juggers?"

"No contact yet, Veteran."

He shook his head in confusion. He took pictures with his helmet and radioed them in. He made a report, but I couldn't hear what he said.

Finally, he came back to us. "All right," he said. "I want you to hold your positions for ten more minutes, then withdraw back to the wall. You did well here tonight."

Then he left us.

About one minute later, Carlos stood up.

"Where are you going?" I demanded.

"Where the hell do you think I'm going?"

"We're holding right here," I told him. "I'm not leaving yet."

He stood indecisively but then crouched down again with a growl of frustration.

"You want a promotion that badly?" he asked.

"I want you to shut up and follow the veteran's orders."

We waited the full ten minutes. The jungle was pretty quiet now. A few more bursts of fire had erupted at the nine-minute mark, followed by what sounded like a scream in the distance. But after that, it was quiet.

"That's it," Carlos said. He'd been pretty much staring at a counter on his tapper.

I lowered my rifle and began walking. We'd done our part. "Let's get the hell out of here," I said.

We took about three steps toward the walls, but that was as far as we got.

I thought later, looking back on it, that the enemy probably hadn't been quite sure how many guns we had, or maybe they weren't certain where we were. Possibly, they'd been getting ready to rush us and thought we were trying to get away.

Whatever the reason, as soon as we stood and tried to retreat, they charged.

Dozens came. There was a line of raptors in the lead, fast and vicious. I couldn't even count them all. Behind them lumbered no less than eight juggers.

I knew it was over. I stood my ground and fired over and over. I held the trigger down until the gun got hot in my hand. Ignoring the pain coming through my gauntlets and my aching shoulder that was taking a hammering from the butt of my weapon, I never stopped shooting them.

I aimed at the raptors, knowing they would be the easiest to take down. I directed my fire at a target until it fell thrashing and screeching, then swung my weapon to the next. I brought down three and was just lining up my fourth when a pair of jaws crunched down on my right arm.

I'd thought I was ready for this, but I don't think anyone ever will be. The shock of it was intense. It wasn't even pain exactly, just a weird, nervous pinching feeling: Like I had a crick in my neck or something.

Using my left hand I tried to line up the rifle again. But long before I managed that, something ate my knee.

One second I had two legs, and then I was down and I saw a creature running off with one of them dangling from its mouth.

I made some hoarse sounds then. They were loud in my helmet.

I looked back, craning my neck. I saw Carlos. There was no point in running, but Carlos was going for it anyway. I could hardly blame him.

At least for him, it was quicker. A jugger ran him down and took his head and shoulders right off, chewing and shaking. He was dead in a second.

I wasn't so lucky. The raptors were all over me, and they didn't make it quick.

I know for certain that no matter how long I live, no matter how many times I die, I'll never forgive those dinos for eating my guts out while I watched.

Glava 8 part 1

When we finally finished the wall, it looked pretty impressive. Two cohorts of light troops had managed to put up about five hundred meters of puff-crete in a series of one hundred-meter runs. The structure was ten meters high and three meters wide. There was a rampart you could walk the length of, with crenulated battlements all along the top. Unlike fortifications from the past, this wall had a roof. The roof shaded us and provided cover from any type of aerial assault.

At the midpoint of each hundred-meter run of the wall, there was a tower. Four of them stood along the circumference in all. On top of each of these towers, there was a heavy weapon emplacement. These tripod-based plasma guns were manned by weaponeers, naturally. Recruits were only allowed to haul them into place. We couldn't touch the guns after that.

The division of duties was fairly strict in the legion while under non-combat conditions. The weaponeers tended their weapons. The bios tended the wounded and people coming out of the revival unit. The techs did mysterious things with strange-looking devices. I wasn't told, but I assumed they were motion-sensors, radar-arrays and the like.

The most interesting gizmos the tech specialists had were the drones. They hovered, buzzed and zoomed all around the camp. After testing their equipment on us, a few flew over the walls and out into the jungle, but these were quickly retrieved.

We'd all been strictly admonished about the rules of engagement on this mission: no aircraft were allowed. That was in the contract, and we were to adhere to it carefully. The techs were quite disappointed. They'd been ordered to ground all their aerial equipment, including spy-buzzers, sniper platforms and even mechanical ground-support bots. No missiles were allowed either, to the general groaning of the techs. Ground bots were technically admissible, but expensive and deemed unnecessary. The mechanized bots had been left aboard Corvus for a future mission against a more technologically advanced enemy. There was no point in having them destroyed by raging juggers.

The only drones we did have were the crawler types that were designed to investigate and detonate explosives. Bored, the techs ran these around the camp and complained to one another about the restrictions.

As I worked, I noticed a pattern. The light troop regulars and the recruits did all the grunt work while the higher ranks complained. The veterans bellowed at us, finding fault in just about everything we did. The officers made frequent inspections, after which the veterans yelled at us with more vigor.

Of the entire legion, I found the group circling the revival unit to be the most intriguing. That special team formed a unit of their own with their own bio centurion. The unit consisted of a mix of bios and techs with orderlies filling out the lowest ranks. They behaved circumspectly as they entered and exited the puff-crete bunker that housed the alien machine. At the entrance, a guard checked everyone who entered. No one without clearance was allowed inside, not even for a peek.

As I'd yet to experience dying, I still didn't know what it was like in there. I wasn't looking forward to my first time, but I was curious about it.

I caught up with Carlos while he was struggling with charging-tubes for a big weapon emplacement atop the northernmost tower. He was cursing, as usual. I lent him a hand, and we soon had a stack of tubes beside the big weapon.

"What are these things, anyway?" he asked me.

"As I understand it, they power this gun."

"Not exactly, Recruit," said a weaponeer. He'd been inspecting his equipment and ignoring us up until now. "Each charging tube holds the energy for multiple discharges, that's true, but they also contain the ammo."

His description didn't sound all that different from what I'd said, but I nodded and didn't say anything. As a fresh recruit, I wasn't about to argue.

I headed down with Carlos to the bottom of the tower. There was a stockpile of charging tubes stored here, but that wasn't good enough for the weaponeer in charge of the tower. He wanted his ammo closer.

Carlos groaned and stretched his back. "This seems like a waste of time," he said. "There hasn't been so much as a sighting for hours. I'm beginning to wonder if the lizards are even going to come to the party."

I took a moment to tell him what I'd run into out in the jungle after my off-target landing. He feigned mild interest.

"I would have shot a few rounds right into the pack of them and kept firing," he said, disparaging my retreat.

"You weren't there," I told him. "And besides, you would have pissed yourself and run without firing a shot."

Just as our argument about possibilities was becoming heated, Veteran Harris showed up and cleared his throat.

"I hope I find you two gentlemen in excellent health today," he said.

"Why, thank you, Veteran," Carlos said. "If you would excuse us, we have work to do."

The veteran looked at him through eyes narrowed to slits.

"You two are goofing off."

"We were just discussing—" Carlos began.

"You're a recruit. Discussing anything is goofing off because you morons don't know enough yet about anything to have a meaningful discussion."

"If you'd like to—" Carlos tried again.

"No," the veteran said, cutting him off. "I don't want to do anything you might be thinking of. See that jungle out there?"

He pointed off out into the forest. It was dark now, and the alien landscape looked forbidding.

"I want you two in the shit tonight," he said. "All the recruits in this unit are heading out as skirmishers. The techs don't have the virtual warning lines worked out yet. You soldiers are going to have to fill in for the missing hardware."

A few minutes later we found ourselves walking around in the jungle with our snap-rifles in our hands. The walls looked positively cozy back behind us.

We spread out, with Harris pacing along at the rear. I could tell this kind of scout work was left to us for good reason. With any luck, if the enemy did arrive, they would only eat a few worthless recruits. Our job was to slow down the charge and maybe take a few down before we were overwhelmed.

"This is bullshit, man, bullshit," Carlos said to me, coming closer than he was supposed to and whispering his complaints in the dark jungle.

"Keep your distance. We're supposed to maintain an even line."

"What kind of plan is this?"

"We're in a skirmish line. Didn't you ever play any legionnaire games?"

"No, I was too busy with my studies."

"Now that's bullshit."

Carlos finally shut up and moved off into the trees taking up his position again. We advanced out into the jungle until we were about three hundred meters from the wall.

At this distance, I couldn't see any sign of human presence. The trees blocked all the sights and sounds of the camp behind me. The jungle itself was eerie at night. I found the sounds to be more disturbing than they had seemed in the day. Unseen creatures burbled and screeched occasionally. Each time, I jumped a little. I had no way of knowing if these were natural background noises made by harmless native species or the calls of vicious organized enemies.

When my tapper indicated I'd gone far enough and was supposed to stand guard, I found a wide-spreading fern that looked bright green-white in my night vision goggles. It was emitting heat for some reason; lots of plants did that on Steel World. I decided the heat-emanating plant would cover my own body heat signature. I stopped there and waited quietly.

After a few minutes, I decided to open my faceplate to breathe the local atmosphere. The air was, by all reports, breathable but not pleasant.

When I sucked in my first gulp, I understood what they meant. The air was thick and humid—almost like breathing steam. The mixture of gases wasn't like Earth's atmosphere, either. It had more than enough oxygen, so much that you had to be careful you didn't hyperventilate, but there were other components, too, that left an aftertaste in my sinuses with every breath. It was like breathing the exhaust of some kind of electrical machine.

After a time, I relaxed somewhat and got used to the alien stink of the place. I could certainly hear more clearly with my visor open. I knelt in the midst of my warm fern and slowly scanned the landscape looking for any kind of movement. Since the enemy were native to this world and accomplished hunters, I knew I was at a severe disadvantage. I felt like I was bait, in fact. A sacrificial lamb tied to a tree stump to attract big game.