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.