 
DESCENT INTO MAYHEM

Capicua Chronicles

Book I

Bruno Goncalves

Copyright © 2014 Bruno Goncalves

alfgon@sapo.pt

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ISBN: 150275794X

ISBN-13: 978-1502757944
Foreword

Hi there and thanks for buying my book!

A special thanks to the following fellow indie authors:

David Rose (@David_Rose1958), a South African author who took the time to give me immense critical feedback, helping me to revise this book into something better than crap;

Felix R. Savage (@FelixRSavage), a Tokyo-based author without whom certain passages in my book simply wouldn't make any sense.

I´d also like to dedicate Descent into Mayhem to my daughter, Laura, who has taught me a few things about mayhem herself.

Bruno Goncalves

February 01st 2016

### PROLOGUE

**Ten kilometers south of the Northern Wetlands Conservation Hub, 14H05, 5** th **of January 2750**

First-sergeant Devonport suppressed a renewed urge to vomit. He struggled to get his labored breathing under control, dismally aware that it was only a matter of time before his stomach betrayed him. If there was one thing he knew about motion sickness, it was that the nausea would only settle down once the movement that was causing it had subsided.

He pushed the uncomfortable thought out of his mind and focused on his situation instead.

Devonport knelt before the crest of a steep elevation, his surroundings cloaked by rain that had been pouring down since the end of the previous month. Near to him a few stunted trees stood, their trunks turned up in a way that suggested the wind blew uphill on its southern face. There was still some strength left in the day's wind, although it was only a shadow of the katabatic storm that had preceded it. The gusts instilled slight rocking motions upon the MEHEI as he waited, his helmet playing the falling rain's static sound endlessly into his ears.

Well beyond the elevation's summit, someone keyed a radio three times. To Devonport's ears, the sound was barely audible above the background static, but still he tensed as he caught the unmistakable squawks, steeling himself for what was to come.

_Maybe if I croak there'll be a footnote about me in some history book_ , he mused, a humorless smile spreading across his face. His severely cropped moustache, almost Hitlerian in design, brushed against the edges of the undersized mouth-piece.

Devonport's stomach lurched as he rose to a standing position. He shifted his body forwards and began to advance in bounding strides, his pace picking up to a slow, ponderous jog. Pulling from its resting-pylon his sole weapon for the coming fight, he then launched his armored Suit over the crest and became airborne.

The new feeling that invaded him had very little to do with nausea.

He landed heavily with seven tons of hardware tipping perilously forwards. He instinctively buckled his appendages, slamming a right kneepad into the waterlogged ground while allowing his left footpad to slide forward to counter an eventual roll. The impact shook his body, the hydraulic interface's shock-absorbing capability failing to entirely cancel out the vibrations. Gravity conspired with inertia to send him onwards with hardly-diminished speed.

He began to savor the ferrous taste of his own blood.

He pounded his way down the tall hill, unable to see the way ahead except for a twenty-meter extension before him, backsword held one-handed and high over his pauldron. The thick-bladed implement, originally a combat engineering tool, weighed over two hundred Kilo-mass and was single-edged, with the blade remaining rectangular right up to its abrupt end. The hilt allowed for a wide two-handed grip suitable for felling trees, and more than a fifth of the weapon's weight rested in its sizable tungsten pommel. The only disruption to its smooth design was a robust crow-hook at the end of the back of the weapon's blade.

Devonport was counting on the crow-hook to afford him victory in the fight to come.

He picked up several frantic squawks over the comm from his advanced observer. Moments later a disembodied male voice began to offer warning in Japanese.

"Would be sweet if I knew what you were saying, kozo ..." Devonport rasped at the automated voice.

His view suddenly became obscured by several virtual panels offering him urgent instruction in Kanji writing.

The sergeant smirked but forewent any witty remarks. If only he had figured out how to change the language settings, then he wouldn't be about to die from an overdose of ignorance. A twisted grin came to his face as the unit's operating system began to display icons of incoming targets.

He was presently under missile attack.

He increased his pace to a bone-rattling sprint as the incoming missiles' icons arced towards him. The fact that they were detectable at all made it clear that his unit's active threat detection system was somehow operating, basically made him trackable as well. Devonport had no clue as to how to deactivate it. He turned towards the approaching missiles, banking on the rain to disrupt the Bloodhounds' infrared detection systems. Rockets began to slam into the surrounding area in quick succession, all except for the last, which suddenly caught his scent.

"Oh hell ..." he muttered in alarm, as the icon that represented the missile streaked towards him.

Before he could think of an appropriate reaction, the MEHEI's CPU took over, feeding quick instructions to the unit and its hydraulic interface. The articulated suit that enveloped Devonport's body took on a life of its own and lurched forwards into a roll, the encapsulating chassis emulating its actions in almost perfect synchronicity. Warseed, christened as such by Devonport only the day before, rolled over the rough terrain as the missile struck the ground behind him and detonated.

His body timed the gesture fluidly, raising the enormous frame onto its footpads after two stone-shattering rolls before concluding the descent into the jumbled valley below. As he reached a collection of stunted trees, it all became too much for him. He vomited into his mouth-piece and then clawed frantically at his face to tear it off, Warseed's upper appendages copying his grasping motions flawlessly.

As soon as he had stopped heaving, Devonport reined his emotions in and tried to estimate his attackers' location. He reckoned the nearest enemy unit to be a little more than a kilometer away.

The sergeant crouched into imminent contact posture and began a slow advance, sticking close to the cover provided by terrain and trees as he tried to pick up the rumble of approaching armor.

Suddenly, a much nearer engine began to turn.

Warseed's principal power unit roared into life, forcing Devonport to put a kneepad to the ground as the turbine's whine slowly chafed away at his depleted nerves. He prayed silently, hoping that the noise wasn't as deafening as it sounded from inside the unit.

Three agonizing minutes later, the tank was fully pressurized and the engine quieted once more. He unfroze his mind and made a quick decision.

He shut Warseed down and waited in its dark interface cavity for the system to reset to its default specifications. He then reactivated the Suit and was pleased to discover that the threat detection icon was no longer visible. Feeling almost painful relief as he regained stereoscopic vision, the sergeant began to creep forwards once more. Before long he came upon an oddly familiar landscape.

Devonport had once been plagued by nightmares about labyrinths. However fantastic the creatures that populated their corridors were, though, what had terrified his younger self was the feeling of being hopelessly lost, every step into the maze only managing to take him further away from safety and familiarity.

Devonport now found himself on the move inside such a labyrinth, its chaotic passages flanked by ferrous-red clay walls or by twisted masses of vegetation. It was a land carved by flash-floods from the monthly rains, the blood-red flow having created a convoluted topography that offered no clue as to what lay within. The passages were still flooded and Devonport found himself sticking close to the walls to keep his noise signature down, managing to paint his unit red in the effort.

That labyrinth also happened to be populated with its own exotic creatures. But what creatures they were, whether of the artillery kind or of the cavalry kind, and in what numbers, he couldn't hope to guess. Both carried the Bloodhound anti-armor missile, the former defensively and the latter offensively; the missile attack thus offered no clear ID either way. He ignored the growing ball of fear in his stomach as he advanced for a kilometer, pausing before every turn to listen carefully. A nagging suspicion began to eat away at him, one that claimed that his adversary had shut down engines and was silently awaiting his approach.

The Rains slowly gave up their claim over the sky; for the first time in many days, visibility returned to his world.

A rapid succession of squawks cut through the silence. Devonport froze at once, holding his breath as his ears sharpened to take in every digitally-scrubbed sound. He stood within a particularly wide passage that curved gently to his right. The right-side wall was sloped and formed the beginning of a densely forested island, one that extended out for at least three hundred meters. He couldn't guess its maximum width from where he was, but saw that it rose to a good twenty meters above the natural passage.

Four distinct squawks over the comm made his hackles rise. Devonport's mind worked furiously; Imano had seen something important enough to make him risk compromise. He left the flooded passageway below and began to carefully ascend the island. As he slipped quietly into the trees, no more squawks made themselves heard.

The sergeant advanced on all fours through the foliage, dragging the heavy blade so its crow-hook wouldn't snag against roots over what felt like two-thirds of the island's length. His observable universe became restricted to a ten-meter radius of rain-soaked flora. He consoled himself with the belief that if he were visible to the enemy, he would probably already have been fired upon.

Two quick squawks pierced the silence and Devonport froze obediently. A few moments later he heard another three squawks, keyed slowly and deliberately. The speed of the squawks confused him, giving the impression of urging caution. When his spotter repeated the signal, Devonport slowly began to realize what he was trying to say.

His heart began to beat steadily faster.

He cautiously raised Warseed onto its footpads and approached the island's left edge, trying to avoid damaging the vegetation to keep his noise signature down. The island ended in a sheer drop-off that afforded an ideal, if somewhat exposed, panorama of his surroundings. From there, he was able to discover that the passageway he'd abandoned eventually widened before joining the enormous floodplain that divided the valley. He searched for tracks, finding none. Belatedly he realized that he wouldn't be finding any soon; the channel was still flooded with stagnant water.

If his adversary was equipped with main battle tanks, his job of finding them had just become more difficult. The MBTs could maneuver and conceal themselves while submerged for quite some time before eventually needing to show themselves. He wondered how deep the waters were and peered cautiously over the sheer drop-off before him.

His eyes widened in astonishment.

Below him, immobile and immense as they snuggled against the cliff's face, almost entirely obscured by the flood waters, were two self-propelled artillery pieces. They looked like obese crocodiles as they lay in wait, their tracks and chassis entirely hidden in the crimson water, only their colossal heads, long slender snouts and the tops of their towed ammunition trailers visible. The only things about them that broke the reptilian look were the elaborate muzzle-brakes at the ends of their barrels. The unit nearest to him, at rest directly below, had its barrel trained on the passageway he had been using only minutes ago. Its sibling was guarding against rear attack.

Silently he prayed his warmest thanks, praising Imano for his divine guidance. Devonport didn't believe in God, but Imano was a Buddhist and a life-saver, and he deserved a prayer or two. A direct hit from an artillery round would have been enough to make him find out whether God was more than just a fine idea.

Devonport carefully studied the nearest crocodile's head and realized that it was entirely caked with red mud; it was the upgraded OAP-3 that the boys from Fort Kiba weren't supposed to have, which meant that if he didn't destroy them in that moment, the vehicles would be able to make their escape into the water just like any MBT.

He finally located what he was looking for; a circular hatch on the far side of the oversized turret, almost entirely obscured by a layer of clay. A less knowledgeable soldier might have confused it with the rebated radar dish on the turret's opposite side, but Devonport had been privileged to begin his career as an artilleryman.

Springing into action, the sergeant launched his unit over the drop-off and landed with all four appendages upon the OAP's turret, graying out for a brief moment as the resounding shock from the impact nearly overcame him. Sucking it up, he quickly stood and lodged his backsword's crow-hook into the crevasse between the hatch and its casing.

Using the tungsten-rhenium blade as an improvised crow-bar, he then popped the hatch off its turret with remarkably little effort. He had expected no less than that result; the OAP's hatch simply hadn't been designed to deal with so much leverage.

All at once things began to happen.

As Devonport peered into the gaping hole he had just made, the OAP beneath him jerked into motion. The supporting OAP began to traverse its barrel , the turning turret's rear biting deeply into the soft cliff wall against which it was nestled.

The sergeant launched himself towards the supporting OAP, landing gratefully short of his target into the far more yielding water. Planting his footpads securely on the muddy channel bed, he waded towards his second adversary in frenzied desperation, already imagining the first artillery platform's barrel aiming at his backplate. Dipping his helm beneath the second OAP's traversing main gun, he hugged the tank and chanced a quick glance to his rear. The first artillery piece was nowhere to be seen.

Clambering onto his new prey, Devonport repeated his previous performance, prying the hatch off the artillery piece's still-traversing turret as its barrel began to push into the cliff-face itself. Not wasting another second, the sergeant thrust his gauntlet into the turret and began to swat at whatever hid inside.

It was easy to distinguish man from metal.

In a brief pair of seconds, Devonport was sure he had killed or seriously maimed at least two of the five crewmembers who operated the platform. The first, probably the ammunition handler, he crushed against the ammo rack at the turret's rear, the hollow thump of Warseed's gauntlet against his flak jacket making it clear that the man would be doing nothing for what remained of his life. The second, probably the commander if seating arrangement was anything to go by, tried to shy away from his searching grip like a puppy from an obsessed toddler. As Devonport closed his gauntlet around the soldier's torso, he heard the loud pop of a pistol going off, followed by a sound more horrifying than any he had heard before.

It was more of a high-pitched bark than it was a scream, but it still signaled the end of a life.

The OAP's main gun fired into the clay wall and the entire cliff came crashing down. Devonport hastily released his victim, rolling into the water before most of the compacted clay could bury him. The sergeant pulled himself free of the collapsed cliff-face to find the artillery piece interred by its own landslide. A rumbling roar from behind caused him to snap about.

He was just in time to see part of the opposite cliff-face collapse into the water. Still unsure of the first OAP's location, he decided to break radio silence.

"Scryer, this is Champion. Inform location of first hostile!"

"You're looking at it, Champion."

"Say again, Scryer."

"I said you're looking at it, kozo. Your first hostile fled into deep water without knowing it didn't have a hatch any more. It must've flooded and kept on going until it hit the wall. Right now your first hostile's as buried as your second is. Not bad for a guy with a can-opener ..."

The sergeant took a second look at the distant land-slide, finding that it was located right where the first OAP would have reached if it had kept moving in a straight line.

"Roger that, Looker. Inform if your post has further threats on its scope, over."

"This post bids yours farewell and good luck, kozo," Imano replied sadly, "my scope is full of incoming –"

The communication cut off as several flashes brightened the overcast day. Devonport turned and watched in astonishment as the hill where his observer was embedded was pummeled by dozens of artillery rounds. They were closely followed by streaking missiles that dispersed antipersonnel bomblets over its surface, subsequently tearing the hill apart.

The cacophony of detonations finally reached his ears, their massive reports making real what had only a moment ago seemed like another dream creature's appearance.

Imano was dead. If he wasn't dead, he was almost certainly dying. Devonport digested that fact with more difficulty than he would have thought possible.

In another part of his mind, the analyst was quietly at work, duly noting that the units he'd just dispatched had probably only been an improvised screening force. If the enemy had managed to triangulate his observer's location finely enough to order an artillery strike, then that meant the presence of E-warfare units and dedicated artillery batteries, which implied that a combined-arms force was at play. That in turn meant that Fort Kiba had disgorged its entire complement, MBTs included.

Warseed's principal power unit sputtered into life again. Devonport hardly took notice; he was too engrossed with the sight of the debris as it rained down upon the ravaged hill. The rains had ended, he realized as his head begin to throb, taking away the one edge he could ever really have counted on.

There was no longer any reason to remain there, but still he considered the hill as it resettled, realizing that it was possibly his decision to break radio silence that had cost Imano his life.

_I killed the man who saved my life_ , he concluded, aghast at the scale of his sin.

Moving with the sluggishness of the shell-shocked, Devonport turned towards the supporting OAP´s burial site and began to search for his discarded backsword.

It wouldn´t be wise to return to battle unarmed.

### CHAPTER ONE

**20 kilometers east of Leiben, 03H00, 7** th **of January, 2771 (21 years later)**

Toni peered into the fog and thanked the family gods for the concealment it afforded. He winced as he heard a cry in the distance and reminded himself again of how much of an idiot he was.

He could have left without warning, of course. In fact, every rational bone in his body had urged him to do just that. He had decided instead to leave a goodbye note upon his bed before leaving. The desperate voice in the distance belonged to his mother, his sweet mother who, possessed by her uncanny maternal sonar, must have gone into his bedroom to check on him. He had been hearing her voice for the better part of the last half-hour, calling for him.

Toni refused to run, however. Running was something a child would do, and he firmly believed himself to no longer be one. Even so, he hastened his pace.

The fog had Toni wondering whether he would soon be in need of shelter. Peering up was pointless, the unrelenting mist shielding the sky beyond, hiding any clues as to his immediate future. The fact that it was presently the seventh day of the month offered the only clue as to the weather he could expect.

At that time of the month, the sky could be counted upon to be overcast, with a persisting presence of fog, drizzle, or even light showers from the second to the eighth before the crimson sun finally made its appearance. It was only day three since the Great Rains had come to an end.

As he journeyed over the winding dirt road, he finally set his eyes on something that gave him a firm idea as to his location. Under his feet the road began to rise until, several paces ahead and at its highest point, a familiar ochre-red wall appeared to his left. He ran his hand along the rough wall, feeling the rock-like bark grating against his skin, feeling the looser fibers in the intermittent gaps giving way as his fingers scraped along. The road curved around the wall for quite a few more steps before finally breaking off at a downward slope. Toni followed the road, sparing only the briefest glance at the tree behind him, its massive trunk disappearing up into the fog. Today was no day to peer at the silent sentinel.

Toni's heart sank as he spied a more humble redwood at the roadside.

Leaning nonchalantly against it with arms crossed and a furrowed brow, Kaya Miura awaited her brother's silent approach. As he halted hesitantly before her, she uncrossed her arms and shoved her slim fingers into her coat pockets. She was wearing the brown leather jacket. He had worn it once, and knew that its pockets' interiors were lined with genet fur. It was an extravagant coat, quite appropriate for the tall woman who stood before him, appraising him with that critical expression he hated so much. He couldn't help but see his father there.

"So ..." she finally said, "did you hear your mother? Did you hear her calling for you?"

Silently he nodded.

"And?" she asked, the furrow on her brow deepening. "Don't you have anything to say?"

"There's nothing to say," he replied, despairing at the softness of his voice.

"Nothing to say? Nothing? You ungrateful little prick," she remarked quietly.

He grimaced at her tone, recognizing it for what it was: the light breeze before the storm. If he allowed her to get up to full steam, Kaya would soon be yelling loudly enough to trip mother's sonar and draw her in like stellar gravity. He hurried to cut her off.

"It's not a matter of being grateful, I can't be what you want me –"

"You hid your final marks from us," she continued. "More skillfully than I would have expected, I must admit. But using my password was a bit much, don't you think? Was there some hidden message there? Were you sticking your tongue out at me?"

Three days ago, Toni's final examination results had finally arrived at the Miura residence by conventional mail, removing from the household all doubts as to who had been tampering with the domestic server's electronic mail.

"Well?" she insisted.

"No," he lied. "I needed to make time until I had an answer from the Forces. I thought that if I deleted the messages, I –"

"You coward ..."

The word was kick to the gut, and it silenced him instantly.

"I know," he conceded. "You wanted to know why, so I'm telling you why."

"And I guess you realized we'd just think it was the money pit's fault, right?"

The Miura household's domestic server, affectionately known as the Money Pit, was more than thirty years old, having survived multiple ownership over the course of its existence. The forestation company his father had bought it from had neglected to entirely clear the computer's memory banks and so, once reconnected to the grid at its new place of residence, it had showed some entrepreneurial spirit, acquiring countless seedlings of several tree species to the detriment of their bank account. His opportunistic mother had made the best of the mistake and quietly set to work, planting the seedlings around their farm's perimeter and tasking Toni to care for them until they found their footing in the soil.

The computer was subsequently lobotomized, although its reliability suffered a nosedive as a result. It was, in fact, the family's lack of confidence in their connection to the General Civilian Network that had allowed him to get away with his deception for so long.

"Yeah, I guess so. I also knew that without mom's or dad's authentication codes, Southwood would just find another way to send the letters. I just didn't expect it to be so soon."

"Dad threatened the school, Leiben varsity and the GCN employees with prosecution, he kept calling them incompetent. He had to _call them back and apologize_!" she said with rising anger.

"I know, I was there when he made the call ..."

"You're a worm, you know that? You've brought dishonor to our –"

"This is the problem, right here ..." he muttered under his breath as dull anger began to fester.

"What? What did you say, shrimp? You sure you want a piece of me?" she challenged.

"I won't ever be anything like this."

"What?"

"I said I won't ever be anything like this! You step on me. Father steps on me –"

"You screw up, that's –"

"Let me speak!" he spat.

There was enough anger pressed into those words to give her pause. She watched him coolly, her expression momentarily subdued.

"I don't care if I screw up!" he continued, speaking as loudly as he dared. "From now on I'll screw up on my terms. Where I'm going I won't have this insane family to tear me up from the inside out!"

"No. You'll just have some drill instructor to do that for us! You think we were hard on you? Wait until you get a load of them! They'll break your fragile heart and send you home crying," she finished with a laugh.

"No, they won't," he countered with certainty. "I can take them on because they're not family, which means I'll be free to hate them without having to feel ashamed about it. And even if I don't make it somehow, you shouldn't stand around waiting for me to return. If I fail, I'll just walk into the wild until I find a research hub out there. I don't care to return even if it means within a week I'll be eating the bark off of trees. What I feel for all of you now is the worst kind of hate. I've been trying to repress this, but the feeling just won't go away ..."

His words seemed to have made an impression on his older sister. Kaya leaned against the redwood again and listened to the forest sounds, or maybe for some clue as to his mother's whereabouts. Her anger appeared to have abated, and there was a hint of doubt on her features, although perhaps that was just a trick of shadows.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate," she finally said. "I don't really care whether you hate me or not. My conscience is clear on that point. But you might want to reconsider those feelings in relation to Sarah. She's attached to you, and your leaving's going to leave a mark there that might –"

"Go to hell. I knew you were gonna pull the Sarah Card out sooner or later. She'll do fine. She's got two older sisters to take care of her, besides mother. As for me, I'm eighteen years old, my studies are done and I've been accepted into MEWAC."

"Mewhat?"

"MEWAC. Mechanized Warfare Corps. I'm on my way there now."

"On foot?"

"It's not that far away ..."

A slow smile slowly began to spread across her face.

"So you want to break out into the world and be independent. You want to be autonomous, a great warrior, whatever. And you'll be within walking distance of the farm? Don't overexert yourself there, soldier."

As he always tended to do in such moments, Toni wondered whether his sister loved him.

"So tell me about this MEWAC," she demanded.

"It's ... It's a sort of fusion of old infantry and cavalry units from the Henderson and Kumato research hubs. Its home-base is the Adamastor warehouse."

"That a very big aquarium for such a small fish," she remarked more to herself than to him.

For the briefest of moments, he suddenly wasn't too keen on getting there. Then he remembered what had drawn him to MEWAC in the first place; it was the outfit to join if one wanted to drive a Hammerhead Suit.

"What about the Military Academy? It might be a bit much for you, but at least dad might respect you a little more."

Toni grimaced.

"I applied for both the MA and the Army Sergeant School. The Academy didn't even bother to reply, the Sergeant School just sent me the application form for MEWAC. I filled it in and got an answer yesterday."

"You mean _I_ got an answer yesterday. You've been using my user account, I checked the activity log."

"I knew mom was checking up on mine, so ... yes."

"Wonderful. And their reply?"

Toni grudgingly handed his sister the printed sheet. Her eyebrows slowly rose as she studied the document.

"Two spelling mistakes ..." she observed distastefully. "Anyway, it says _incorporation dependent upon approval_. Which means you haven't even been approved yet. To an outfit whose soldiers apparently don't know how to spell ..."

She handed the sheet back to Toni with disdain and he refolded it, trying not to let his feelings show. He had already been painfully aware of what she had said. He wondered whether soon he really would be eating the bark off trees.

"I have to go," he finally said.

"Sure. I wouldn't want to keep you from abandoning your family. However, mother told me that if I chanced to come across you, it was my solemn responsibility to warn you to inform base medical services about your folic acid deficiency."

"My – what?"

"Yes, your folic acid deficiency. She never bothered to tell us about it, but she´s been supplementing our meals with the stuff, it apparently runs in her side of the family. You can be sure the canteens won't be supplementing your meals, so you'll have to inform the medical department about that."

Toni was dubious.

"Does that even exist? I'm sure as hell not going to hang myself by the tongue at medical, Kaya. Goodbye," he muttered as he skirted around his sister, giving her a wide berth.

"That's just fine, then, I'm sure you'll be getting all the supplementation you need when you're eating the bark off trees. I heard they've got a lot of folic acid," she taunted, rubbing the redwood beside her.

It took him only a dozen steps to lose her in the fog.

*****

The sounds of the forest were beginning to make themselves heard. Toni checked his digital watch; it read a quarter past four in the morning. But of course the critters didn't know that, and so they kept to whatever timetable they had figured out for themselves. By the looks of it, at least some squirrels had decided it was daytime, and he could see a pair of them foraging among the roots of a Tanoak to his left. He wondered for the millionth time what true night might be like.

_Close your eyes and you'll know_ , his father had joked the first time Toni asked that question.

He had learned to never expect a straight answer from his father, and had long suspected that that was a treatment the old man reserved only for his son. He felt relieved all over again to be walking away from Mushima farm. His encounter with Kaya had only strengthened his resolve.

He increased the length of his stride, dreading to be late for his first encounter with military life. His backpack felt heavier, and he had begun to switch it from one shoulder to the other more often. His surroundings were becoming noisier. Birds chirped musically as some began to take flight, and at last it became clear to him that the forest had decided it was daytime. Nature's dawn had finally arrived.

Despite everything he had been taught about Nature's adaptation to his home planet, Toni still found its biological clock fascinating. In the complete absence of day-night cycles, the forests had adopted their own circadian rhythm of about twenty two hours, although the cycle-length happened to vary depending on the time of month. On more than one class excursion out to the groves, Toni and his primary-school mates had been instructed to sit silently and listen to the forest as it woke. It was a rare day when Nature's Dawn coincided with the chronological one.

But Nature's Dawn was not a simultaneous continent-wide event. It progressed in waves, the gradual increase in wildlife activity propagating across the countryside like a planet-wide Mexican wave. That wave moved along at over a hundred kilometers per hour and was eleven hundred kilometers deep, sometimes taking more than two weeks to make a full circuit around the Thaumantian supercontinent's arid center. There were never less than twelve such dawn waves in motion at any time, although very rarely dawns fused, or spontaneously emerged from between sister waves that were unusually far apart, or even swirled and eddied over vast mountain ranges and other geographical features. Once faced with a time-lapse simulation of the event on a continent-wide scale, it had appeared to Toni as if a giant hypnotic eye was hard at work, trying to bewitch him.

The tree-roots under his feet had become so densely intermingled that he was having difficulty keeping his footing. The road had since been demoted to a long disused path, but it was already too late to think about turning back. Besides, there was supposed to be nothing else out there except for the base. He maintained his heading, swallowing his anxiety as the minutes passed by.

Half an hour later, the road promisingly began to look well-traveled again, and every once in a while he would find a dirt path leading off it, wide enough for a single column of men to travel through. Visibility had also begun to improve and Toni could see farther out around him. He groaned inwardly, knowing that it was now only a matter of time before it began to rain. He kept following the dirt road until finally he spied something that made his heart leap. He took a quick look at his watch: it was a quarter to six.

Two hundred meters down an arrow-straight paved road, there was an ornate wrought-iron military gate with a solitary black sentry box standing beside it. To the left was a white-washed wall of about a man's height, and it led off into the forest without any end in sight. A wall on the other side led off diagonally into the forest.

After an exhilarating sprint, Toni came to a skidding halt in front of the gate. A quick look at the sentry box provided him with yet another setback; it was quite empty.

_The gate must open at six o'clock sharp_ , he finally realized.

The avian chirping slowly grew to become a nuisance, and Toni saw a number and variety of birds beyond count in flight, or pecking along the ground in ever closer proximity to him as he rested on a rock with his pack beside him.

As Toni tried unsuccessfully to attract the attention of several marauding crows, the long expected drizzle finally began to fall, reducing visibility again as well as chilling Toni to the bone. He removed an oversized jersey from his pack and used it to cover his shoulders like a cloak before perching a wide-brimmed farmer's hat on his head, an accessory as useful to keep his head dry as to prevent the birds overhead from painting a target on his crown.

The minutes ticked slowly away and, to Toni's growing bewilderment, not a single recruit showed up at the gate.

He checked his watch again. It was a quarter past the hour, and that undoubtedly meant he was late. Anxiety lurched forwards and took center-stage in his heart, reminding him in exquisite detail of the shame that awaited him were he to fail.

He walked over to the gate and gave it a long, hard stare. He then shifted his weight back and launched himself forward, sending a boot against the gate in frustration. The sudden impact of work-boot against iron produced a resounding metallic clang.

To Toni's utter surprise, the sentinel box to his left shuddered violently, and a tall figure enshrouded in a black cloth suddenly jumped out, only to collapse to the ground with a thud.

"Uff! HALT! WHO GOES THERE?" the figure bellowed loudly, trying to stand as it did so. It finally managed to free itself from its covering and a compact-looking rifle fell clattering to the ground at his feet.

A crack trooper he certainly wasn't. Toni suppressed the urge to face-palm as the soldier quickly gathered the rifle up with spider-like arms. He wore a vomit-green uniform a little short at his arms and legs, which made some sense, seeing as his extremities were a little long for the body he had been graced with. The expression on the sentinel's face as he spotted the newcomer summed his intellect up nicely.

"Oh, for the love of –" The soldier coughed twice and then spat. Composing himself, he turned to Toni.

"Hell, you had me thinking the Lieutie had caught me at it again!" he gasped with relief.

"Hey ..." Toni said, "I thought there was no one in there ..."

"Oh, just doing the curtain routine. Get some sleep without the critters bothering me. If I knew Parkinson had let someone out, I would've been expecting you. So, ya want in?" He asked, hooking his thumb towards the gate.

"I'm here to be incorporated," Toni stated bluntly.

The sentinel stood there for what seemed like a long time, studying Toni anew.

"You're a ... a rook?"

"Uh ... yes, I guess so. Listen, the sheet says oh-six-hundred and I'm already fifteen minutes late ..."

The sentinel quickly checked his watch, and then marched over to him and put his hand out. Toni shook it, taking note that the soldier possessed retard strength.

"I'm Derek Rooney, but everyone calls me Stick. Get your gear, I'm gonna open the gate!"

"Toni. Thanks."

Before long Toni found himself inside a military base for the first time in his life, his pack shaking and leaping as he coursed down a paved road at a good sprint.

Stick had turned out to be a mate. The lanky sentinel had given a brief explanation on how to get to the Suit parade ground, the usual mustering spot for recruits. Before Toni had been about to break into a run, however, the soldier had stopped him.

"Listen, you look like you're a mate, so I'll give you some advice I didn't chance to get. Only two things. Don't ever trust a comrade right off, not even the friendly ones, 'cause some of them are the pits. That includes the other recruits. And when you get hammered down in the Click, don't ever give up. Giving up will cost you the Suit, and you'll never get that shot again! OK? Good luck, rook!"

Following Stick's directions, Toni kept along the paved road for a full kilometer, occasionally spotting collections of small white-washed huts to his flanks as he sped along. Sure enough, he soon saw to his left an enormous parade ground. Dead center on those granite-grey grounds, he saw a motley group about fifty strong huddled together. Beyond the parade ground was a much denser collection of buildings, white the dominant color there as well.

As sweat burned, Toni put in a final burst of speed and ate up the heavily scratched and pitted parade ground. Beyond the group of civilians, he saw a heavyset soldier standing sentinel, his legs widely spaced apart as he watched over them. He came to a stop beside the group and wiped the sweat from his eyes for a better look.

The recruits wore terrified expressions and stood in a formation three lines deep, their luggage having been piled in a disorganized heap behind them. The soldier standing before them seemed almost inhuman, although Toni couldn't place what made him so uncannily robotic. He was in his forties, with a smart black cap parked on his shaved head and a geometrically-shaped goatee surrounding his almost lipless mouth. His sky-blue eyes remained fixed on the formation before him, giving Toni the impression that he hadn´t registered Toni's arrival.

Toni pulled out the printed attachment of the mail he'd been sent and cleared his throat.

"Sir, uh, Toni Miura reporting for duty! Sir!" he added, considering that one sir wasn't enough for the occasion.

The soldier didn't budge and kept his robotic vigil over the formation before him. Toni wondered what he was doing wrong. And then, in a flash, an epiphany came to him.

He fired off a salute.

The soldier's head snapped towards Toni as if it had been spring-loaded. Someone in the crowd groaned as if he had suddenly fallen ill.

The soldier's mouth gaped as if he was about to say something, and his eyes opened so wide that Toni could see the whites of his eyes above and below his irises. Despite his alarm, Toni noticed that the man had no eyebrows.

"WHAT! THE FUCK! DO YA THINK! YOU'RE DOING? YOU UNDERFED! UNDERBRED! UNDERSIZED! LITTLE SHIT!!" the soldier finally screamed at the top of his lungs. He made for Toni with a fast, almost spastic march, stopping only when his ruddy nose was brushing against the rookie's forehead.

"YOU WILL NOT! I REPEAT NOT! EVER! SALUTE IN CIVILIAN CLOTHING AGAIN! THIS IS NOT SOME NAVY! AIRFORCE! OR OTHERWISE SUBSTANDARD OUTFIT! YOU WILL NOT SALUTE IN CIVVS! YOU WILL NOT SALUTE WITHOUT A HEAD COVERING! AND MOST OF ALL! YOU WILL NOT SALUTE! UNTIL Y'ALL HAVE BEEN TAUGHT WHEN! WHERE! AND HOW! TO SALUTE! ARE WE CLEAR, BOY?"

"Very clear, sir!" Toni answered quickly, trying to ignore the spittle accumulating on his eyelashes.

"THAT'S FIRST SERGEANT MASON TO YA! ROOK!"

"Very clear! First-sergeant!" Toni declared.

Sergeant Mason took a quick step back and snatched the printed letter from Toni's hand, read through it quickly, and then consulted the list on his clipboard with a jerky motion. With another quick jerk he checked his watch.

"Why are you late?" he demanded, having apparently fallen into remission.

"I was let in through the gate to the east, First Sergeant. I didn't ..."

"Sergeant will do."

"Yes, Sergeant. I didn't know any other way here. I came on foot, sir."

"And that constitutes an excuse to you, rook?" he inquired, a smirk beginning to twist his face.

"No, Sergeant."

"I thought not. Up front. No luggage. NOW!" Mason bellowed, pointing with his clipboard to the spot where he had been a moment ago.

Toni hastily discarded his packs and jogged to the head of the troop, his stomach sinking anew. Mason cleared his throat extravagantly and then fired off like a cannon.

"OUR FELLA! HERE!" he bellowed, pointing the clipboard towards Toni and, accidentally or not, smacking it against his temple, "HAS DECIDED TO BE TARDY! NOW SUCH AN INFARCTION! HAS AN UNREASONABLY CHEAP PRICE OF FIVE! I REPEAT FIVE! PRESS-UPS! EACH WILL BE DONE BY HIM! AND THEN DONE BY Y'ALL! I WANNA HEAR THE NUMBERS! LOUD AND CLEAR!"

Sergeant Mason eyed Toni ecstatically and bellowed one final order into his ear: "NOW!"

Toni didn't need to be told twice. He fell on his hands, waiting for the entire platoon to do the same, and immediately flexed his arms against the earth once. Amidst myriad grunts and groans, the platoon followed suit. Before he could complete the second, Mason interrupted them.

"I WANNA HEAR THE NUMBERS! AGAIN!"

Toni started from scratch and bellowed out a hoarse "one". This, apparently, was also unsatisfactory in Mason's idea of how the exercise should proceed. Before long Toni discovered that "zero" was a valid number at MEWAC, and one to be reckoned with, seeing as he ended up doing at least a dozen zeros before Mason allowed him to continue. The sergeant was also highly demanding of proper execution, and every time they neared five, he would find someone who wasn't performing properly and Toni would find himself at zero once again.

He had lost count of how many press-ups they had performed when a boy's hoarse voice piped from inside the formation.

"I don't need this! Sergeant, I've had enough!"

A dark-haired boy finally poked his head above the collection of backs and backsides, his face glistening and his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and fallen drizzle.

"ON YER FEET! ALL OF YA!" Mason screamed, a mad grin on his face as he surveyed the damage. The platoon wavered like a grove of trees in the midst of a storm, some recruits coughing while other rooted their hands to their thighs as if that was the only thing keeping them up. Toni saw that some recruits had something written on their foreheads and he tried to make it out, but then Sergeant Mason's smirking red face filled his field of view.

"Don'tcha move, rook, I've got my inspiration ..."

He took out what appeared to be a marking pen. Wiping Toni's forehead with his sleeve, Mason began to painfully scrawl something there, biting his own tongue in concentration as he formed the letters. Finally satisfied, he turned around.

"YO! FAGGOT! YA QUIT SO YA GET YA GEAR! OUTTA HERE! AND MISTER TARDY HERE! TAKES YA PLACE!"

With a flourish, Mason struck the washout's name from his clipboard and then elaborately beckoned Toni to join the group. Feeling light-headed, Toni left his packs where the others were collected and headed towards the boy's place in formation, whispering a raspy apology to him as they passed each other by.

"Good luck ..." the boy whispered back, although his expression said otherwise, and Toni thought he heard someone whisper "asshole" from nearby. He felt deeply ashamed for the briefest of moments, but then he throttled the emotion.

_No need to be the good guy_ , he admonished himself as he took his place.

### CHAPTER TWO

**MEWAC training grounds, 07H00, 7** th **of January, 2771**

Fat drops drummed heavily against the taut canvass above Toni's head. He hurried to change into the stained uniform he'd been handed, occasionally bumping shoulders with the other recruits as they hurried to do the same. The uniform was vomit-green, had most of its pockets missing or hanging by their threads, and sported a few brown smears of suspicious origin. Some uniforms were in even worse shape, and every once in a while he would hear a ripping sound followed by loud cursing.

Toni had since managed to get a better look at his new companions, and had also taken the time to read the graffiti present on some of their faces. One short and stocky recruit, whose dirty-blonde eyebrows met at a very hairy junction between his eyes, had SCARYBROW scrawled in capital letters, the brows having been used as a writing line. Another recruit, his mouth determinedly closed as he clothed himself in a dolmen missing most of its buttons, had BUCK written on his left cheek and TEETH on his right in bold, square lettering. Some other notable examples were SPAZ, TRAGEDY, CRATERFACE and GAWKER.

First-sergeant Mason had been appeased by the sole sacrifice on the grounds. As the defeated boy trudged away, the soldier had organized the group into a double-column, and they had then set off at a blistering pace, leaving their luggage behind to soak in the rain.

For most of the way, Mason had simply refused to march in a straight line, preferring instead to zig-zag his way randomly among the trees in one general direction. With every turn he put on a renewed burst of speed, periodically circling a large tree or some other landmark like a manic tour guide. Eventually he led them to a densely wooded area, where the ground was churned up and the trees wore scars, some quite deep and old. By that time the old sergeant's ears were cherry-red from the effort, but still he kept up the pace. Mason then received a call on a very battered-looking SatPhone, and their trajectory had then become a straight shot towards their final destination.

They had arrived at a clearing where three large camouflage tents stood erected, a dozen soldiers of diverse ranks loitering between them. Over the course of those first few minutes, Toni had figured that the more decorative the insignias on their shoulders, the higher the soldier's rank. The big-shot on location, a small but wiry man with a very tense jaw, exhibited a pair of silver stars on each shoulder, and he sneered at the recruits for a brief moment before continuing his conversation with the grizzled soldier beside him. Aside from a pair of busy-looking youths whose shoulders were adorned with red stripes, the remainder lacked any insignia at all and, unsurprisingly, they had been the busiest of the lot.

In one quick minute, the busy soldiers had distributed uniforms with no regard for size and, more depressingly, they had also handed out crash helmets and anti-trauma padding. The last offering had been flexible neck-braces.

And so it was that, by ten minutes past seven in the morning, with the rain pelting down with uncharacteristic intensity, the group of terrified recruits was formed up between the tents, the wiry commander standing before them with a crooked smile on his face. As the rain intensified further, drumming deafeningly against Toni's crash-helmet, the commander opened his mouth to speak.

Toni groaned inwardly. He found himself in the rearmost row of the formation, the hammering rain on his helmet broadcasting static into his ears, and the speaker lacked the public speaking ability of First-sergeant "Screaming" Mason. Toni strained his ears, managing only to pick up a few snatches of the discourse.

"... to never, ever forget the name of your superiors. My name is Lieutenant ..."

"... manage to complete the Click in the set time and proper fashion, you will have the honor and privilege to ..."

"... at any time you have any doubts on where to go, you need only to ..."

"... and if you fall short of the mark here, you can forget about ever ..."

The Lieutenant's speech went on for a while, with Toni all but clueless as to what he was saying. He was not alone, not if the other recruits' puzzled expressions were anything to go by. All he managed to learn was that the selection process would involve an obstacle course known as the Click.

The Lieutenant conferred briefly with Sergeant Mason as the recruits whispered amongst one another, all apparently at a loss as to what was to happen next. Their eyes darted forwards once more to a familiar throat-clearing. Sergeant Mason glared at Toni's puzzled expression for a few moments before sounding off.

"THE CLICK! WILL BE COMPLETED! IN ORDER OF ARRIVAL! IN OTHER WORDS! THE LAST GO FIRST! MISTER TARDY! FRONT AND CENTER!" Mason bellowed.

Toni's stomach lurched dangerously. He quickly exited the formation, only to be screamed back into it, having apparently committed another no-no. After a quick minute of instruction, example and execution on the right way to fall out of formation, he was finally allowed to depart from the platoon towards what was termed the "warm-up location".

It might once have been a wide circle set within a pebbled perimeter, but the sheer number of boots that had already pounded the area within its boundary had depressed the ground below, and the rain had done the rest.

All that remained for it to be a pond was the Koi fish.

Five paces beyond the circle was a rising rope ladder under guard of a young red-striped soldier.

Toni splashed along inside the circle, self-consciously wind-milling his arms under Mason's murderous gaze, glancing at the end of every lap towards the flimsy ladder as it disappeared up into a confusion of tree-branches. Forging his way through the icy water, he heard a thunderous horn reverberate across the forest as if trumpeted by some mythical war-god. The sound was so deep and low he felt it resonate inside his chest, almost shaking him. A wicked grin began to spread across Mason's face.

"Any time now, boy!" the soldier shouted.

"What?"

"That was the starting horn! Get a move on, or would you prefer to keep the Sarge company?!"

"Oh ..." Toni muttered, and he set off at a run towards the ladder.

"DON'T BREAK YER NECK, SUNSHINE!" Mason bellowed after him, his taunting laugh following Toni as he began to assault the ladder.

The rope ladder began to swing back and forth as he climbed, and his already upset stomach slowly began to liquefy. As he ascended, Toni forced himself to resist the urge to look up, since every time he did so he'd get two eyefuls of rain and be forced to pause, blinking blindly as he swayed until vision returned. Not daring to look down either, Toni stared out into the woods as he gripped each wooden rung, progressing more cautiously the higher he climbed. Finally accepting the fact that he had exceeded the height where a fall would be fatal, he settling into a monotonous rung-by-rung climbing routine until the sound of raindrops beating against wood caused him to look up. Just above and to his right he found a collection of thick branches interlinked with a dense web of rope and, nailed to the nearest, a weathered plastic sign stating "EXIT HERE".

Toni abandoned the ladder, scrambling clumsily along the confusing cobweb until the challenge beyond caused him to pause. Attached to the trunk and to two diverging branches was an arrangement of taut cables forming a V, interconnected by ropes for every meter of their considerable length. The rope bridge disappeared into the forest with no end in sight. Not bothering to see where the other end was attached, he set off, gripping the two upper cables with white knuckles as he carefully paced along the lower one. He kept his eyes fixed on the bottom cable as he carefully placed his feet, counting his steps as he advanced to keep himself from thinking about how far from the ground he was. At his thirtieth step he dared to peer forwards.

Before him, maybe ten paces away, a hovering, pitch-black triangle enclosed the rope bridge. The sight was so disconcerting it bordered on the unreal, but the rain spattering off the triangle's top facet finally comforted him as to its solidity. Cautiously he advanced.

As Toni reached it he sighed in relief. The obstacle's builders had wrapped the remainder of the cable bridge in a latex-like material, leaving a dark, triangular tunnel within which he could continue. Carefully pressing his hand against the material, he found it rubbery and alarmingly elastic. Doubting that the material could bear his weight, Toni cautiously entered the tunnel.

What moments before had seemed achievable gradually became a nightmare. Only a few paces beyond the sky-tunnel´s entrance it became so dark, finding the bottom cable was a matter of feeling with his feet rather than seeing. To make matters worse, Toni was forced to stoop to keep from rubbing his helmet against the springy ceiling, and the elastic wrapping pressed against the support cables with enough pressure to make them difficult to grasp.

Ten paces later, darkness dominated. Toni began to constantly glance behind him for reassurance as he progressed, the compulsion only serving to destroy his night-vision, leaving a white triangle imprinted on his retina when he turned to face forwards once more. His labored breathing was greatly amplified by the tunnel, and the rain's drumming against the fabric more than replaced the static that had been playing into his ears. As his thighs began to burn from their constant flexing, Toni resorted to using the transverse ropes set along the bridge as tactile guides for his feet.

As he was setting his weight on to a front foot, a powerful gust swayed the bridge and he slipped. Unable to see anything to grasp at, he hooked his arms out blindly, but then he found himself lying on his back instead, bouncing in the darkness with nothing to hold on to. His stomach convulsed, and he left a sopping gift on the elastic wrapping for the following recruit.

Toni finally realized that he had underestimated the material's resilience. Finding the bottom cable suspended just above his head, he gripped it to lift himself back up, but then reconsidered. Instead he chose to leapfrog his way along the bottom. In a few short bounds he reached the opposite end and found it in darkness as well, and he climbed out of the sky-tunnel and into an enclosed and darkened space.

Toni began to reach out methodically, trying to form a mental map of the compartment he was in. There appeared to be a dense mesh of rope filling up the gaps between an array of tree limbs and, where his hands managed to poke through, they were met by the same elastic material that had broken his fall. His hand then gripped something hard and leathery, and he felt his way up, squeezing his eyebrows together in the darkness as he began to pull at the strings that bound the item together.

"Yes, it is a boot, you twit!" a disembodied voice rasped, and said boot suddenly kicked out, clipping Toni smartly on his chin.

"Alright mate, let's send you on your way!"

The voice groaned with sudden effort and something smacked heavily against Toni's helmet, propelling him towards his right side with a deafening clang.

Toni was struck again and yet again, his surprised exclamations adding to the clangor until, with one final collision, he was sent headfirst down a chute.

He was inside tunnel of slippery polymer construction and quickly gathering speed. He gave up trying to brake his descent and instead wrapped his arms around his head, anticipating a collision. To his surprise the tunnel's angle became shallower as he descended until he slid to a complete stop.

Toni peered forwards and saw a disk of light before him. He groped forwards on his stomach, cursing the surface for being so slippery as he tried to gain traction with his nails. He finally reached the opening and passed through into the blinding light.

"Hello, newborn! Time for your spanking," someone said and, before Toni's eyes could adjust to the light, he was once again under assault.

In the moments before he was ushered into another hole with a heavily padded sledgehammer, Toni managed to discover that he was on the ground again, "ground" meaning a tied raft in the middle of a watercourse. The thick tube he was being ushered into snaked along ahead of him, rising and falling into the water and snaking about like a giant serpent. The usher, equipped with the ridiculous motivator, seemed to be having the time of his life. As Toni began crawling into the tube, he felt the soldier hook something to his trouser leg. The obstacle before him soon put that out of his mind.

Toni was in darkness once more, but the tunnel had had sand resined to its walls and he was able to progress with greater speed, shuffling along until first his hands and elbows found water, and then the rest of his torso. His left leg felt as if a dog had latched onto it and elected to be dragged along, but the numbing cold soon put the beast to sleep along with that extremity.

As the water lapped at his upraised chin, Toni's hand slapped against the tunnel's sealed end. For a long moment, he blinked in the darkness, his hand scraping along the wall before him, pushing hard against it in the insane hope that it would somehow pop off. A sudden feeling of claustrophobia stole over him, and he began to hammer his fist repeatedly against the abrasive wall.

He stopped hammering as quickly as he had started. His right hand had slipped downwards, dipping into unexpectedly deeper and cooler water.

The tunnel continued on downwards through a slim passageway.

Whatever it was that had attached itself to his leg suddenly came alive and, with a sudden lurch, he found himself being dragged back along the tunnel. Just as suddenly it stopped, and Toni scrambled forwards and hooked his arm into the tunnel's curve.

Moving quickly, he dipped his body downwards in a desperate dive, promptly slamming the top of his helmet against the bottom. Slapping his hands about frantically, Toni found that the tunnel goosenecked, and he followed it up and out of the water.

It was dark on the other side. Feeling another hard yank on his leg, Toni threw himself forwards and fell headfirst into the second gooseneck beyond. He quickly cornered the obstacle and clawed his way out the other side and into unexpected light.

The old sergeant pulled him out of the tube's opposite end and dropped him dripping onto the tent floor. As Toni gaped in confusion at his surroundings, a medic subjected him to a cursory health check.

"Thirty seconds!" the sergeant stated gruffly as he glanced at a stopwatch, just as Toni realized that he was inside a closed tent.

He was puzzled as to how he could have completed the course in only thirty seconds, but the thought was interrupted by a resounding horn that almost shook the tent down. All three clapped their hands to their ears.

"Fuck hell! Jorren, twenty seconds!"

Toni blinked stupidly as the orderly put a knee to the ground and looked into his eyes.

"Son, do you wish to continue?" he asked.

Toni couldn't work his mouth, so he nodded instead.

"Ten seconds! Jorren, get the rope off the boy!"

The orderly released the rope that had been hooked to Toni's trouser leg and gave it three hard yanks. After a pause the rope slipped back down the tube.

"How long has it been?" Toni gasped, his mind numb as he struggled to stand.

"Three ... two ... one ... go!" the sergeant shouted, giving him a smack in the back hard enough to send him flying out the tent.

"You're five minutes in, boy!" the orderly shouted as Toni departed.

A much younger sergeant stood before him. Grabbing a hold of the newcomer's arm, he lifted a finger before Toni's nose.

"I'm gonna say this only once, so listen good! You've done the fear obstacles. Nice job. From here on out it's all resistance. Keep your pace up but don't kill yourself. You stop running only when they tell you to stop. Understood?"

"Yeah ..." Toni breathed.

The sergeant then pointed beyond Toni towards the triple palisade beyond.

The Click's second part was a cinch for Toni. Growing up on a farm with a lot of trees and fences about had its privileges. If he hadn't already been dead tired from the first part, he might even have enjoyed it. There were palisades, rope swings, trenches, successively taller Chinese gateways, over-unders, a whole assortment of obstacles, variations on obstacles, and combinations of obstacles to overcome. The rain had even let up a bit, although every surface was still wet and treacherous. The resistance course accompanied a waterline that snaked around a low hill. Beyond the waterline he found some spectators, all clad in varying shades of green, grey, and mud-brown uniforms, some shouting words of encouragement while others spewed verbal abuse at his passage. Shortly afterwards a much recovered Toni was making his way around the hill's opposite end, when he saw before him what was almost certainly the final obstacle.

A rippling black wall twenty paces wide and thirty tall stood with an obscene slit at its center, accessible only by a scaffold foot-ramp that began shortly beyond the end of the second-to-last obstacle. A horde of spectators was visible on both sides of the wall, and all were silent for the moment. All fear Toni might have had was smothered by his relief at the sight of the finish-line.

Overcoming a confusing array of low-lying wires, he hit the ramp at a steady jog and held the pace as he ascended. Someone off to his left began to shout on a loudspeaker.

"JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!"

The spectators took up the cry. As Toni peered up at the wall itself, he noticed that it was apparently made of the same flexible polymer he had dealt with minutes ago. He made out three words in a semi-circle above the slit.

ONE GIANT LEAP

His last task was apparently a simple one.

Closing in on the gate as the shouting reached a crescendo, Toni held his breath, crossed his forearms over his chest and leapt with legs locked together through the slit.

For the briefest of moments, he caught sight of something impossibly large moving impossibly fast and, from the corner of his eye, a blur moving towards him like a freight train.

_I die now_ , his mind ejaculated.

The freight train struck Toni, hammering him so hard that the heavens burst before his eyes. The deafening smack resounded in his ears as he was launched sideways, doing a gradual half-turn as he glided through the air. He had briefly relieved himself while in the watery tunnel, believing there would be no more appropriate location than there to do so. What little hadn't come out before did now. One brief, terrified squirt.

Toni's landing was, contrary to all else that had happened to him, unbelievably soft. Landing up-side-down, his hands instinctively clawed at the ascending net of nano-wire that had broken his fall, the net giving way several meters beneath and beyond him. He lay there for a moment, barely registering the raucous cheers from his audience, until a heart-stopping roar tore into his ears, banishing all emotions except terror from his mind.

Toni turned onto his back and laid his eyes upon the armored Suit. It stood before him, grey as granite, segmented in body and headless, holding a gigantic shock-yellow padded sledgehammer in a double-handed grip. Moving with unexpected fluidity, it swung the sledgehammer in an uppercut against the bottom of the nano-net he was lying on. The ripple propagated upwards, flipping Toni right-side-up and forcing him to twist around once more to keep his eyeballs on the colossus.

"CLIMB! CLIMB! CLIMB!" the man with the loudspeaker began to chant, and the cry was soon taken up by the spectators.

Moving with silence and agility, the Suit dropped the sledgehammer into the churned mud below and gripped the bottom end of the nano-net. The titan then shook the net in a parody of spreading a bed sheet and the wave rippled upwards, forcing the recruit to hold on for fear of sliding down into the mud.

Toni took the hint and began to scramble up the net, ascending quickly despite the Suit's occasional shaking and bullying. His shoulders and thighs began to burn fiercely with the effort, but gradually the voices below became fainter and fainter. The net's width varied widely but was never less than twenty paces across, and it kept a roughly thirty degree angle due to having been fixed to nearby trees with nano-wire cables. Finally breathless, his heart beating a heavy staccato rhythm inside his chest, Toni began to hear encouraging shouts from above, and he paused momentarily to rest and scrutinize the source of the noise.

Above him, set between four massive redwoods, was an army encampment. Viewed from below, it appeared to be an enormous hovering square of about forty paces across and canopied with an olive-green awning, and there was a line of desks to either side of a narrow entryway.

At the entryway, an assortment of uniformed men and women applauded and shouted words of support down to him. Encouraged but uncertain, he began to ascend once more, the more suspicious facet of his personality fearing that they would fall upon him with clubs at his arrival. In the last couple of meters the net's angle suddenly steepened, but then a multitude of hands grabbed him by his anti-trauma padding and hoisted him onto the plastic flagstones. Toni felt relieved at having already puked out the contents of his stomach, but still he dry heaved a few times as someone annoyingly patted his back.

"Would you believe it?! The first recruit made it through! We must have done something wrong!" a matronly woman announced loudly to the crowd's laughter.

"Corporal, take the rook out back and see if you can put him back together," a deep voice spoke, and he was gingerly lifted into the arms of a burly soldier with red stripes so old they had faded to pink. Toni stared belatedly at his muddied thighs as he was easily carried by the soldier, and then he was set down against a line of crates acting as improvised railing for the camp's perimeter.

"Who would have thought, a Corpie carrying a rook around like he was a baby ..." the corporal drawled in his deep voice. He didn't sound altogether as offended as the words implied.

"Thank you ..."

"Don't mention it. I'm Baylen." The corporal thumbed at the nametag on his broad chest where, sure enough, his name was neatly printed along with his blood-type. They shook hands briefly, Toni's fingers receiving a surprising gentle squeeze from his beefy shaker.

The recruit quietly observed his surroundings. Most of the camp's population was still at the Click's finishing line, and a solitary soldier manned a laptop at a desk to their left. To say it was windy up there would have been an understatement.

"This place is something else ..."

"Yeah, welcome to Valhalla Command, that heavenly place all true warriors ascend to after getting plastered by a Suit. Or something like that. You just sit there for a few mikes and take small sips from this bottle here, and I'll return once your breath is back to get you stretching. You stink, by the way ..." he added, chuckling as he returned to the crowd.

Toni sat on the tiles alone for some time, keeping his eyes closed as his body slowly recovered, only his ears remaining attentive to their surroundings. Valhalla camp's awning was set at its lowest point to the rear, and a continuous cascade of rainwater drained off behind him and downwards to the forest floor. After a while he noticed that he was wrapped in a thick grey blanket, and wondered when that had happened. Its enveloping hug spared him from the chilly wind's worst bite, but still he continued to tremble.

Baylen returned with dry clothing and duly initiated him into a stretching routine. As he followed the corporal's instructions, Toni heard the armored Suit moving far below, occasionally sounding the war-horn and that skin-crawling roar that, according to Baylen, had once been recorded from a mountain lion and since become a permanent addition to the Hammerhead's playlist.

"So that's a Hammerhead?"

"Yes and no," Baylen answered as he helped him stretch his calves. "Hammerhead is what Joe Public knows it as, and it's also the nick we have for the walker. It's a Model 1 Tactical Armored Suit, and we call it the Hammerhead 'cause the operational ones got a head that looks like those sharks. You know the ones, right?"

"Yes sir."

"Don't sir me, respect me, you hear? We call the Hammer down below Headless. I guess that's about the extent of our imagination. Its chassis and systems have seen better days, and though its OS is up-to-date, its hardware is not."

"What's an OS?"

The corporal chuckled.

"You'll find out if you make it into Suit School, rook. Haven't passed your medicals or the interview yet so don't get too cocky over today. All it takes is a bad non-remediable gene, or maybe a bad interview, or maybe a screw-up on base, and you'll be working Logistics and Support by the end of the day. So forget about the questions for now and keep up your stretching, alright?"

"These are the weirdest socks I've ever seen ..." Toni remarked as he inspected the footgear the corporal had brought with him.

Baylen laughed. "Those are moccasins, rook! Did you grow up on a farm, or something?"

Toni didn't answer, but his ears began to glow cherry-red.

Before long he understood the corporal's concern for him getting cocky about today. By the time Toni, newly clad in a polar-neck jersey, thick cotton trousers and the sock-like pair of moccasins, had joined the crowd by the finish line, the horn had blown six times. Despite that fact, he was still the only recruit to have reached the end of the Click, although only moments ago he had seen a female recruit execute the Leap into the Unknown. She had jumped face first only to be bushwhacked by Headless, the padded sledgehammer's slap against her flailing body carrying all the way up to Valhalla, where it met with the delight of its inhabitants.

"Outstanding, Headless. The brass up here are pegging you as their new cleanup hitter," the soldier beside Toni hollered into his radio, and he was answered from down below with the now-familiar feline roar. Toni wondered what the other recruits were thinking as they heard that sound, suddenly relieved at having been the first to go.

A voice squawked something out of the soldier's hand-held radio that only he seemed to understand.

"Captain, Headless is saying the recruit fell off the net and can't get back on!"

"Give her the two-mike penalty and stop her time."

"Fifteen minutes, twenty and seven seconds, sir!"

"log it, Hank. What's her name?"

"Sueli Cassel, code-name Blusher," someone answered as she perused a clipboard.

There were a few chuckles to that.

"That's why I like Mason at Station One. He can pick up a candidate's traits in a heart-beat," the Captain remarked.

He was a heavyset man in his forties, who sported a wide black goatee in contrast to his shaved skull. Taking a seat on one of the few wooden stools, he supported an elbow against the desk beside him and eyed Toni.

"And he's got enough asshole charm to get rid of the feebles before they get on my nerves."

The captain had a pleasant enough voice, but Toni felt his hackles raise. There was an odd expression on the man's face as he read what was written on the recruit's forehead.

"Sir? Devonport's calling from station two. Says his nightscope's running out of juice."

"That's 'cause our sergeant's keeping the scope up even when no one's there. Tell him to use the ears the Gods graced him with and only punch it when he hears someone coming."

The morning began to stretch out as the rain came and went, horns and roars and occasional raucous laughter filling the forest. The camp, suspended among the high trees by nets and cables, swayed in the occasional breeze.

Most of the sergeants and officers present on Valhalla didn't appear to need to be there, and were regarding the Click as a kind of social event, complete with an improvised buffet table Toni didn't dare approach despite his growling stomach. The few soldiers actually at work were the captain, a female sergeant named Miriam Reeves, Corporal Baylen and the two soldiers manning the electronic equipment. The radio-man, an agitated youth not much older than Toni, would receive news from his various sources on the ground and relay them to the officer. The news focused as much to the spirit with which the recruits were attacking the course as to their actual performance, and he found himself wondering what they had said about him.

It was eleven o'clock before Toni finally found himself again in the company of a fellow recruit.

Her leap into the unknown was original. The recruit launched herself headfirst through the passageway at a steep descent, prompting the Hammerhead's first miss of the day as she splattered into the churned mud below. Apparently unhurt, she jumped fitfully away from the Suit and, spotting the nano-net above her, pounced upwards like a cat and gained a hold of its end. In that moment a second figure jumped through the wall, colliding against the armored Suit's spaulder and somehow managing to grip onto its exposed artificial muscles. As the first to arrive finally clawed her way up onto the net, the second spotted her and launched himself onto it, colliding with the female recruit and almost sending her back down into the mud. The spectators' cheers were drowned out by the armored Suit's frustrated roars as both recruits embarked on their scrambling climb to Valhalla.

The first to arrive was the girl, covered in mud but sporting an insane grin on her face as she scrambled onto the tiles. The male recruit, however, was the proud owner of a newly acquired gash spanning much of his forehead, exposing pale pink bone beneath. His crash-helmet was missing.

Valhalla Camp's medical evacuation procedure proved to be terrifying in its conception. Once his laceration had been briefly disinfected and bandaged, the recruit was fitted with a parachute and flung cursorily over the side. The chute deployed by cable, and within seconds the casualty had touched down on the forest floor. Shortly afterwards, a second Hammerhead showed up, unceremoniously picked up the recruit, wrapped him in parachute silk and stomped away with the boy held in its arms like an infant.

Toni began to wonder how they were going to leave Valhalla. When he asked the radio-operator about it, however, the soldier laughed.

"We're going down the way you came up, chum, unless you brought a chute for yourself."

Toni accompanied Baylen as he directed the remaining recruit to the camp's rear. Pulling the awning's fringe back from the nano-net it was suspended on, the corporal improvised a rainwater shower for her to wash off the mud.

With chestnut hair but the oddest almond-shaped aquamarine eyes, the recruit seemed unable to remove the grin from her face, and indeed he was unsurprised to find "HAPPYFACE" written on her forehead. The corporal treated her like a princess, keeping her company as he sent Toni to fetch dry clothing from a crate at the camp's opposite end. By the time he returned it was clear why Baylen had done so.

The corporal was no longer alone with the recruit, having been intruded upon by a very irritated Second Sergeant Reeves, who had apparently taken it upon her shoulders to protect Happyface's innocence. Baylen was stiffly ordered to vacate the premises along with a bewildered Toni.

"Damn Sarge can read my mind ..." Baylen chuckled as they rejoined the finish line attendants.

Shortly before mid-day the last recruit washed-out in the river tunnel, no other having managed to find his way up to Valhalla.

"Captain, Spaz just cracked in the water-pipe. Nona had to drag his ass out. He froze, sir."

"Strike his name from the log and close it. Baylen, get the boy into his provisionary uniform and out to the canteen. It's time to fill some bellies."

"Yes, captain," Baylen replied, remaining where he stood.

They watched in silence as the camp slowly emptied, its former occupants launching themselves confidently onto the nano-net one at a time, cart-wheeling, rolling or slowly sliding down its extension in single file. If Toni hadn't already seen a sledge-hammer wielding armored Suit ambush flying recruits, he would have considered that the strangest thing he had ever seen.

"What's your name, boy? Baylen asked as he contemplated the descending group.

"Toni, sir."

"Don't sir me. What's your last name?"

"Miura."

"Ahuh. Never heard that name before. Where you from?"

"A farm outside Leiben. My father works in livestock and forestry."

"And your mother's last name?"

"Martial. Why?" he asked inquisitively.

"Don't know any Martials here either. Been a soldier 'bout fifteen years now. Maybe not the brightest, but I still got a good memory for names and families. Don't know how the hell you managed to do the Click in your time, but you came in second best in forty-six runners. The chick you finished ahead of is called Hannah Arakaki. Not a generation has gone by without at least one member of her family making officer rank. And the one who face-kissed the suit's called Ian Templeton. You know the name?"

"Only the last one."

"That's the only one you need to know. The Army isn't a popular institution any more but it's still got a lot of power in the general scheme of things. There's not a seat of power on Thaumantias that doesn't have a Templeton or sympathizer-of sitting in it. If this kid makes it, he'll be the third in MEWAC alone. And he finished the Click in a record time. Four minutes and seven seconds. Makes sense, considering they're all transgen freaks. That family invests so much in gene therapy it's hard to believe they still got more money than God. Arakaki, Tani, hell, most names with top results on the Click belong to families with their fingers and thumbs dipped in all that shit."

"Not mine. My father doesn't believe in it. He's a natural. Only my mother's got transgens on her side."

"Rook, that's my point. You got lucky today. When they do the medical, they're gonna look for the genes they think will fit the Suits. And they're not gonna forget what families support military funding, I guarantee it. You must have had some ideas about what you wanted to do here, but it's best you put the Suits out of your mind. Fifteen years ago, I finished well ahead of the curve in the Click here. Was a bit different then, but I still managed under nine mikes. You know what I do now?"

"No."

"Foot infantry, Close Ground Support. I'm the one with nano-net camo in my pack and a Lacrau on my shoulder. If I'm lucky, I can hitch a ride on a Hammerhead so it will park me up a tree to set up an observation post or a defensive position, and that's about as close as I'll ever get to being in one. I'm saying this 'cause I just don't want you to go down to the canteen and mouth off about your time. Keep your eyes open, your trap shut, and hope for a miracle, 'cause that's about all you can do from now on. Got it?"

"Yes ..."

"And shut your mouth about your father being a natural. You won't be getting any points for that either, understood?"

"Yes," Toni answered quietly.

They stood silently for a while, watching as, far below, the radio-operator carefully dropped his equipment into a soldier's waiting hands before jumping into the mud. A minute later they were truly alone.

Toni finally turned to the corporal.

"Baylen, I know what you said about asking questions, but could you answer me a couple?"

Baylen smiled and nodded. "Depends on what you ask, rook."

"What was my time?"

"Eight minutes, seventeen seconds. Do you get it now?"

"Yeah, I got it. Another question. What the hell did Mason write on my forehead?"

Baylen snapped his head towards Toni and watched him carefully. Then his lips cracked into a grin and he began to laugh loudly enough to disturb the wildlife.

"Ah hell, you rooks crack me up! You mean you haven't even guessed by now?"

"No. I just didn't like the way the captain looked at me, that's all," Toni replied.

The grin dissipated from Baylen's face.

"Rook, you gotta understand that some reputations can be hard to lose around here. Some guys fuck up on Day One and never get over it. And if First Sergeant Mother-Fucker Mason wrote _Mister Tardy_ on your forehead, it's 'cause you broke one of the cardinal rules over here. You never, ever, make your betters wait for you."

"Understood. If that's the case, can we get going now?" Toni asked.

"That's the spirit, rook," Baylen said, giving Toni a heavy slap on his shoulder blade before launching himself out onto the nano-net.

### CHAPTER THREE

200 kilometers above Capicua, 14H35, 14th of January, 2771

Tommi "Kaiser" Von Beulwitz was beginning to feel the gees stacking up, the Tactical Entry Capsule rocking slightly as it encountered denser atmosphere. For the first time regretful at executing the entry dry, he began to flex his forearms and abdomen as his suit tightened like a python around his legs. The following minutes wouldn't fare well if he blacked out. At the very least it would be an embarrassment.

Kaiser wondered how Lippard was in that moment, and whether she was taking any pleasure in the suit's tightening embrace.

_No, no, stop thinking about her_ , he scolded himself. This was definitely no time for an erection. Getting wood just as his suit was constricting his crotch was a bad way to go.

As the blue-lettered display before his eyes warned at a deceleration exceeding six gees, he began to feel very small indeed. One man inside a g-suit, which was inside a mobile Suit, which was inside the TEC, which was at that very moment penetrating the bloated atmosphere of a planet more than three times as massive as Earth. All that remained was for God to show up and dropkick the planet.

The atmospheric entry had officially begun only three minutes before, the four TECs advancing in single file, distanced ten kilometers from one another as they streaked across the sky at just under eleven kilometers per second. That figure was history by now, the speed bleeding off so quickly Kaiser could feel his eyeballs trying to push their way further back into their sockets. The digital deceleration indicator was no longer blue but grey, although he knew nothing was wrong with his instruments; he was momentarily colorblind, in the graying-out stage before complete loss of consciousness. He also knew that he was only a powerless passenger; The TEC's onboard computer was the current pilot for the flight, and it would be taking care of the entire voyage down to the planetary surface, landing included. But most of all, he knew what would be expected of him from that moment onwards.

And wouldn't it be awkward if his subordinates were met with inanimate silence instead of leadership? Lippard would certainly tease him mercilessly afterwards, although that idea he didn't quite mind. He clenched his fists until his knuckles were white, breathing in low grunts as the moment of greatest deceleration came and passed.

The seconds slowly bled away. Already reverting to its sky-blue coloring, the deceleration indicator finally dropped below three gees. Kaiser mentally ordered the OS to indicate airspeed instead. It was time to get to work.

Visible Light Orbital Images had shown the landing site to be almost entirely forested, with the exception of several clearings, each about thirty meters in diameter and set within a region four kilometers across. There had been no positive identification of artificial structures like those found twelve hundred kilometers to its north-east, but near-infrared imaging had pointed to something else; the area comprising twenty by fifty kilometers was noticeably darker than its surroundings in the false-color images, and was roughly rectangular in shape. The clearings were all within that rectangle, and four would shortly be targets of visitation.

Kaiser felt the TEC wobble slightly and veer towards the side. The capsule had found its target and was presently homing in on it. At least, that was what a flash message from its CPU was telling him via its link with the mobile Suit's counterpart. Still entirely blind except for his OS indicators, unable to establish comms with his subordinates and unqualified to pilot his entry vehicle, he ordered his Suit's OS to offer him instead a countdown to landing, feeling momentarily impotent as he watched the clock count backwards from four minutes and eight seconds.

As the seconds passed slowly by, Kaiser took the time to personally reconsider his orders. They had seemed quite simple when studied from orbit, or at least as far as the commander giving them was concerned, he thought. But when one is hurtling downwards towards the unknown, plan B suddenly becomes just as important as plan A. And plan B, in that instance, wasn't altogether too encouraging. He considered his options. The very thought of them left him decided to do his usual. Carve out a plan C.

The warning beep signaling the sixty second mark returned him to reality. He paused for a moment as he collected his thoughts, and then set about checklisting his status. Given another silent order, his OS responded immediately, supplying him with a virtual stereoscopic HUD upon which were displayed several small rectangular panels. Providing the adequate neural impulse every time he locked his eyes on a panel, thus selecting and displacing it closer towards him, he checked his operational status, quickly arming his weapons and synchronizing the reactor's ramp-up with the moment of touchdown. Aside from the chirpy sounds playing into his ears every time a panel was opened, checked or closed, he was pleased to hear the thrum surrounding him become somewhat louder and higher in pitch in response to his adjustments.

As the countdown continued past the thirty second mark with another loud beep, Kaiser left a final panel open before him, willing himself not to activate it before touchdown. The panel lay in the foreground, almost blotting out the digital countdown and other backdrop indicators, and its coloring was presently azure. In a few moments, the panel's activation would turn it green in color, and then the panel would automatically drop back into the semi-transparent miniature of the initial HUD display below and to his right, where his right pauldron was usually visible beyond. If there was a failure of some kind, it would either drop away red, which would be a bad sign, or maintain its current position, flashing crimson with a corresponding verbal warning, which would be far worse.

A clear, serene female voice spoke out clearly, giving a verbal countdown towards landing as if she were calmly reading the numbers from a scroll. For the second time since having begun atmospheric entry, Kaiser felt his spine tingle in anticipation. His entire body began to key up until, just as the count hit the five second mark, he heard a muffled thump, and then he felt his back suddenly press against the Suit's interior exoskeleton as the g-suit within began to tighten around him once more. The deceleration was much more intense than before and, as he heard the last three seconds being announced, his magnified hearing caught the unmistakable roar of retrorockets firing.

And then the pressure ceased entirely, immediately compensated for by the sudden relaxation of his g-suit. Kaiser hadn't even felt the bump of the landing, so smooth had it been, and yet, just as his OS had been programmed to do, he suddenly gained stereoscopic vision, with display overlays duly set at differing depths of perception, figuring dominantly since the mobile Suit's oculars were still in complete darkness. Kaiser eyed the dominant panel and activated it. The panel blinked, glowing suddenly red, and trailed away towards the miniature HUD, momentarily leaving a crimson streak in his field of vision.

"Scheisse!" he muttered.

A brief flash of blinding light accompanied several loud popping sounds, the sudden light being immediately compensated for by the OS before his eyes had even managed to adjust. The TEC's four petals had released, deploying promptly outwards and freeing his mobile Suit's extremities. The solitary red panel still present in the Op Status HUD blipped once more, turning a verdant green color. Kaiser sighed inwardly in relief; apparently in his zeal he had jumped the gun, activating Suit mobility too early.

He lay there for a moment, a feeling of unreality gradually stealing over him as he contemplated his surroundings. The sky was the same blue as the unchecked panels, effectively obscuring them from his sight. The system automatically compensated for that, offering Kaiser the option to change to an appropriate setting. Duly altered, the unchecked panels glowed a bright purple for as long as the backdrop was blue.

It was certainly the most beautiful of days. There were almost no clouds in the sky, the few present nonetheless whizzing darkly overhead with unnaturally high speed. His immediate surroundings, however, were a hazy brown from the violence of the landing, and he could see at least one of the jettisoned braking chutes clinging to the trees at the edge of the clearing, threatening to blow away due to the strong wind that was ruffling the forest treetops. The sound, however, was quite unlike anything Kaiser had ever heard on Earth.

The chirping cacophony of birds was terribly intense, as avian species of all kinds swooped through the air in alarm at the intrusion upon their domain. To his great surprise, Kaiser found that the clouds he'd seen before were nothing less than massive pulsating flocks of birds seemingly disturbed by his arrival, and indeed as one such flock strayed closer towards him, his magnified hearing clearly caught the intensifying swoosh of thousands of flapping wings until, veering away, the sound abated to a rumble. He was astonished by the awesome, almost exorbitant, display of life, a vision quite unlike anything he had encountered in person before.

_Never again_ , he thought in wonder. _Never again shall I set foot on another spacecraft or planet, this is where I will live and where I will die_ , Kaiser privately promised himself.

His sense of balance told him that he was still lying on his back. He stood slowly, one careful movement at a time so as to leave the entry capsule undamaged, and his eyes assessed the state of his appendages, focusing especially on the pulsed laser platform gripped between his mechanical hands. A massive titanium carbon nitride-coated thumb flicked its selector to semi-auto. Holding the rifle in his right appendage, Kaiser flexed his arms outwards and around in a practiced movement, the feedback to his interior exoskeleton telling him that his freedom of movement was currently unimpeded. Surging forwards, the Suit's heavy pads stomped loudly over the ramp provided by one of the petals, until moments later much more muffled footfalls could be heard as he padded over the clearing's grass-carpeted grounds.

_The other TECs must already have landed_ , he decided. Activating the short range radio comm, Kaiser broadcasted into the unknown.

"RecOp Chain, Kaiser here, Over."

A brief moment later he was answered.

"Kaiser, Lippie here."

He felt his spine tingle at the sound of her husky voice.

"Received, Lippard. RecOp Chain, sound-off, over."

"Lippard here."

"Moose here, over."

"Deadhand here."

So operators two, three and four were currently up and running. A perfect drop, he thought with some relief.

"Chain received. Execute recce as previously established. Stay off the air, over."

Kaiser waited for their acknowledgements, receiving them mutely as he itched to set off on his own.

He had exactly one hour to beat his part of the bush before rendezvous four kilometers to the north-east. Conjuring a semi-transparent overlay of the area, Kaiser dragged it with his eyes to the bottom left of his visual display. Taking a few steps forwards, he watched as the semi-spherical virtual compass beside the map danced about due to interference from the myriad local magnetic fields. The planet's magnetic field was just as weak as he'd been warned. He'd have to keep moving while the CPU computed the mean magnetic average, all just to keep his map's top edge pointed north.

After making the necessary adjustments Kaiser finally set off, making a slow circuit of the clearing as he peered at his surroundings. Magnifying a spot of earth on a foreground overlay, he found it littered with what appeared to be bone-white seeds between the clumps of grass, their number increasing sharply as he neared the center. Kaiser scraped his left gauntlet along the soil, bringing up more dirt than anything else, pocketing the yield securely inside an empty pouch on the Suit's tactical vest.

He then moved into the forest with rifle snug against his breastplate pylon, roaming in a spiral trajectory so as to get a feel for the surrounding area. Despite the Suit's sizable dimensions, the trees were tall and well spaced, offering him a meter of ceiling as long as he carefully chose his route.

The woods had definitely seen the hand of man. They had the feel of a kempt plantation, although the trees themselves didn't have the look of a rapid-growth type.

_And what on Earth do you know about trees?_ He asked himself.

_Enough to know that sooner or later they fall, and there simply do not seem to be any of those lying here_ , he mused as he searched around. Yes, he concluded confidently, despite the overwhelming abundance of animal life the place reeked of mankind.

As he moved along at leisure, stopping every few moments to allow his ears to do some exploring of their own, he happened occasionally upon the local wildlife. Aside from the great abundance of birds, whose panicked calls chafed at his ears whenever he got too close to them, Kaiser crossed paths with a troop of small monkeys taking refuge in a particularly robust tree, and they let out all manner of shrieks as he curiously inspected them. He had never seen a live monkey before. Soon afterwards he also crossed paths with a fleeing deer and a shy red fox, although both made themselves scarce in a heartbeat. If it hadn't been for his system's motion alerts, he would probably never have known they were there in the first place.

For most of the hour allocated to him for solo reconnaissance, Kaiser searched his surroundings, finding not a sign of recent human activity. Despite coming upon some narrow roads, clearly intended for use by tracked vehicles, he had been unable to detect a single tread on them, although all led north-westwards to where the nearest known settlements could be found. Kaiser also noticed at least an earth-year's worth of undisturbed vegetation growing over those roads.

Arbitrarily selecting a tree, he inspected it closely, finding large clusters of seeds bending its taller branches. Detaching one such cluster, he noticed that the seeds were akin to those he had found on the ground of the clearing, although smaller in size and bright green in color. Those seeds also found a place in one of his pockets.

Every few minutes his ears popped, and he would deliberately yawn to compensate for the slowly rising pressure inside his Suit. The air pressure would soon stabilize at over three Bars, and he'd be more susceptible to ear infections from that point onwards, or so he had been informed in his briefings. But the change was unavoidable. Without pressure equalization with the outside atmosphere, he would never set foot outside his Suit again.

Five minutes before the expected rendezvous time, Kaiser arrived at the meeting point, a large clearing of about forty by fifty meters across. The choice of the site had been a vital one, and had hinged on the two advantages it provided. The first was the substantial waterline situated only a short distance beyond its northern border, the second being that it would take the least work to prepare for the next phase of their mission. For the moment, Kaiser remained still at the clearing's center, watching the mission time slowly progress as he pondered on what he had observed over the last hour.

The first sign that he was no longer alone came from the north, where an immense flock of birds suddenly took flight. He knew who it was without having to ask. Less than a minute later, and precisely on time for the rendezvous, a second mobile Suit clambered its way into the clearing. With rifle slung across its torso, the Suit's upper appendages parting tree branches as it progressed, clearly not caring in the least for the pathway of destruction it was leaving in its wake. The V-38 Hellmouth Harrower was nearly as beautiful to his eyes as the driver currently inside it.

"Guten morgen, mein Lippie," he greeted her playfully.

"Morgen, dag, oder nacht? You know as well as I that this rock has no morning, mein Kompaniechef. Are the others lost?" Lippard inquired.

"Lippie, it doesn't pay to criticize our kinder so. They will find their way here in good time. Find anything of interest?" he asked kindly, laughing secretly at the tone of her voice. Lippard had a habit of firing her cannon indiscriminately when she felt rattled by something, and she was certainly rattled at the moment.

"There is no fight here! I was expecting everything, anything, except for that and the verdammte birds. They have shat on my Suit. They have shat on my gewehr. And they've shat on your helm!"

Lippard was met by her commander's raucous laughter, his mobile Suit shaking slightly as he entertained the idea of being covered in guano.

"Silence, you swine! Do you want my report or not?!" she demanded.

"Speak, Lippie," he replied.

Lippard filled him in. Speaking mostly in English, but reverting occasionally back to Germanic as she was prone to do whenever they were alone, his lieutenant informed him that there were no recent traces of human activity to the north of their position, and that she had found three streams flanked by deep ravines, the closest of which was the one previously detected in the orbital images. Other than that, she had found nothing of interest for her commander.

By the time she was finishing, Kaiser's motion alert informed him of movement to the east of the clearing. Unlike his or Lippie's Suit, Moose was equipped with the V-35, an earlier Hellmouth design developed as a heavy weapons platform. Presently its weapon pods were empty, its only operational armament being the laser platform and heavy combat knife that had been distributed to all members of the team.

"Moose here. Apologies for the delay," he stated simply as he sauntered over.

It was quite unlike Moose to say much more than that. That trait had apparently been a source of irritation for many of the soldier's previous superiors, but it was what Kaiser most liked about him. Moose never said more than he really needed to, and he always got the job done without muss or fuss.

"Your report?"

"No local inhabitants. And no one's been around for the last several months. This place feels like a plantation of some kind, but I can't tell what they're growing."

"Trees, perhaps?" Lippard mocked.

They waited for a full five minutes before Deadhand finally arrived. The latecomer closed in not from the south, but from Kaiser's arrival point instead, his V-38 heavily smeared with mud and leaves.

"Deadhand here!" he stated obviously, out of breath by the sound of his voice.

"My dear sergeant, you are very well camouflaged," Kaiser remarked.

"Hah! Well, there was one hell of a ravine to cross. I kept moving to the east for a better crossing, but I didn't find it. So I crossed where the river was wider. Place had a couple of meters of mud there, for certain. I slipped down the opposite bank when the ground collapsed and _camouflaged_ myself in the process. Also had some trouble figuring north. This land must have some heavy-duty iron deposits, 'cause I kept losing my bearings over some points."

"Yes, it seems we must resolve this problem in the future. Very well, Deadhand, any contacts?"

"Not a soul. This place has been empty a while."

"Yes, we are in luck. Before we contact Command, we should take a short trip to the nearby stream. I believe it is time to take care of ourselves," Kaiser suggested.

In Command's infinite wisdom, and partly due to water restrictions on board the EFF Leviathan, his teams had been strictly prohibited from using their usual g-suit, the MS-3 uniform, which required more than 10 liters of fresh water to function properly. As a result they had been forced to use a model intended exclusively for gradual accelerations, utterly useless against the sudden knocks they were susceptible to while simply moving in a V-38, much less in actual combat. Adding to the discomfort, the current suits occupied less volume than the MS-3 and so provided a poor fit with the V-38's interior exoskeleton, compounding eventual shocks and reducing the precision of motor movements. Yet there they found themselves, in a land where there were actual rivers of the precious liquid flowing all over, and their uniforms were neatly stowed in their Suits' tactical vests, practically begging to be worn.

The team moved in a diamond formation towards the river Kay, as it had temporarily been christened, their leader giving his orders silently via the Swarm Operating System. The SOS processed the data acquired from all four Suits via short wave radio, using the highest ranking Suit's CPU as a hub to relay the information to its driver and, under his direction, to the remaining Suits. Kaiser noticed as they moved that their collective data provided a much more precise reading of magnetic north, realizing that a pair operating about a hundred meters apart might avoid losing their north that way. He stored the newfound knowledge away for future consideration as the waterline came into view.

Lippard and Deadhand hadn't been exaggerating about the waterlines; the shallow stream there was accessible only with great difficulty by a person on foot, located as it was at the bottom of a steep gorge about twelve meters deep, and with an average width of fifteen meters. He wondered how the winters must be like there for a simple stream to cut so steeply into the rocky ground.

Following Lippard's directions, the group moved east a hundred meters until they came upon a section where both sides of the gorge had collapsed. Deep, massive padprints could be seen traversing the stream from north to south.

"This is where I crossed. We can get there on foot now," she stated confidently.

"Moose, Deadhand, dismount and water your uniforms. Lippie and I will stand by. Keep your comm up, you hear?"

They acknowledged his transmission, and shortly afterwards he watched two tiny human figures as they scurried into the gorge with uniforms in hand.

"Damn, it's dark out here. It's all redder than it looks like in the Suit," Deadhand remarked, apparently out of breath again.

Several silent minutes passed as the operators proceeded to fill their uniforms, the humming sound of the water pumps clearly perceptible to Kaiser's ears.

The men then traded the g-suits for their duly filled uniforms, taking advantage of the opportunity to quickly wash themselves in the stream. Their frequent coughing was beginning to worry Kaiser.

"Moose, is something wrong with the air?" he asked.

"They cannot hear you, Kaiser. They've taken off their mikes to wash," Lippard informed him, her tone telling him she was concerned as well.

Their worrying was all for naught. Before long, both drivers had made their ways back to their Suits, stowing the surplus garments away in a storage pouch before clambering back in.

"Aaah! Major, this is divine. It's like getting your skin back!" Deadhand declared as his Suit stood tall once more, ventilating audibly as he did so.

"I heard you and Moose coughing. Is something wrong with the air?"

"It ain't good, that's for sure. As soon as I was out there, I started getting a sour taste in my mouth. Moose got it too. And I feel like I just came back from a long run. He's feeling drowsy, by the way."

"Are you unwell, Moose?" Lippard inquired.

"Not feeling too good. My nose and throat are burning. And my face. Trying to keep my eyes open ..." he replied softly, his Suit swaying slightly as he spoke.

"Moose, safety your weapon," Kaiser ordered. "Deadhand, escort him to the meeting point and deploy the beacon. I'm going to contact the Leviathan."

"Kaiser, is that wise?" Lippard asked cautiously.

"It is the carbon dioxide. Its level is over four percent, and we were told to expect the symptoms. Nothing can be done about that except to stay in our Suits. But we have already confirmed that the area is abandoned for now, and all the necessary conditions are met. It is time." Kaiser declared, leaving no room for discussion.

As the two sergeants returned to the meeting point, Kaiser checked his timetable, noting that he was currently well within the window of opportunity to contact his command. Deploying the Laser Communications Array, the commander signaled his mothership. The Leviathan's Operations Center answered without delay and they communicated for the following few minutes, trading authentication codes before he transmitted a brief report of what they'd come across. The Leviathan's answer was quick and to the point; The Ebony Tower would be making its landing within the next two orbits.

"You have given us only three hours to prepare the site," Lippard remarked petulantly once he had broken off contact.

"Then we must not delay, Lippie. Exit your Suit but keep your skeleton strapped on."

Kaiser set one massive kneepad on the ground and placed his gauntlets in a supporting position atop the other. Giving his OS the appropriate order, he suddenly lost his visual of the exterior, finding himself in complete darkness as his Suit began to power down. As he removed the display helmet, it was brusquely pulled out of his hands and upwards by the cranial appendage, coming to a rest just below the ceiling of the performance sphere. The interior lighting blinked on, illuminating him with a red glow as he observed the biomechanical exoskeleton encasing his body. His two subordinates had opted to extricate themselves from that structure before abandoning their Suits, thus subjecting themselves to the planet's gravitational pull and increasing their weight by thirty nine per cent. Adding to that the exotic atmosphere's oppressive influence, it was no surprise that they had run into difficulties, since any physical exertion in a high carbon dioxide environment would result in the slow poisoning of their organisms. There was, however, a more elegant solution.

Reaching behind the skeleton's back plate, Kaiser felt for the extension switch and then turned it, activating the dorsal appendage. The dorsal connected the CPU's cables to the skeleton itself, allowing the Negative Feedback Interface to exert its effect, while at the same time keeping the driver suspended in the center of the sphere. Once activated, it lowered the exoskeleton until his feet touched the flooring. Kaiser then pulled the two release pins located just above and below the extension switch, freeing himself from his umbilical support. He quickly opened an access panel near the forward exit, removed his Caudal Mk-2 self-defense weapon and connected its side-strap to the skeleton. Last of all, Kaiser removed his mobile Suit's remote control and clipped it to his wrist.

As he pressed the control, the exit panel emitted several clicking sounds and then popped audibly inwards, followed moments later by the exterior armor plate as it hinged outwards.

Deadhand had been right. It only became another world when seen with one's own eyes.

Although he found himself mostly in the shadow of an overhanging tree, Kaiser could still feel the burn of the red sun above. Gliese 667C, he had been informed. Although only a sixth of its light was in the visible spectrum, the red dwarf nevertheless exerted an astonishing effect at infra-red wavelengths, keeping the precious planet warm beyond what one might otherwise have expected. The star's power was prodigious but there was another reason for its present strength. Kaiser's landing had taken place on the eve of summer. Within fifteen days, the satellite's continuing orbit would take it more than twenty five million kilometers away from the star, depriving it of almost half its precious warmth.

How Earthly life had managed to take root so deeply was a mystery to him.

Kaiser was forced to use his flashlight to search for the heavy uniform, and he found it neatly folded and sealed in a bottom pocket of the Suit's tactical vest. The mobile Suit hulked over him as he removed the garments, watching silently as its driver turned away and jogged at a brisk pace towards its kneeling twin.

Lippard was already waiting for him with a coy smile on her face, her aristocratic beauty not in the least bit lessened by the bulky armor of her exoskeleton. As usual, her silver hair was rolled into a tight bun, giving her a somewhat severe look that contrasted greatly with what he already knew about her. Kaiser pecked her lightly on the lips, their maraging steel sternums clashing noisily in the act, and the two drivers set off quickly towards the waterline below.

*****

Over the following ten minutes, Lippard was forced to gently defeat two amorous advances from her superior, who seemed unable to simply watch as she washed herself in the cold, clear stream. Kaiser's demeanor when they were alone was something others who only knew him professionally would perhaps never guess, she thought with amusement. The Bavarian's worry lines disappeared almost entirely, to be replaced by gentle crinkles around his eyes. His playfulness was almost puppy-like sometimes, although she was quite sure his order for their teammates to return to the meeting point had not been so innocent.

"If I didn't know better, mein führer, I would think you intend to achieve another first for the Earth Federation Forces," she laughed playfully as he began to snuggle against her for a third time.

"Uhumm ... meine liebe, you are entirely wrong, such a thought has never passed through my mind. Wha – what are you doing?!"

"Why, putting on my uniform, of course. Since you are so intent on being noble," she sighed sadly, secretly delighting in his disappointed expression.

"Kaiser, Deadhand here. Moose is recovered and the beacon signal is strong. Umm, coming any time soon?" an inquisitive voice squawked from his discarded earpiece on the ground.

Kaiser snatched up the earpiece and answered as Lippard continued to re-suit.

"Kaiser here. We will arrive in five mikes. You may both begin clearing operations, Over."

"Only five mikes? Why the hurry?" there was a hint of humor in Deadhand's voice.

"That is all. Over and out," the commander replied levelly enough, an embarrassed smile momentarily present on his face.

Deadhand had spoken the truth, she thought. Re-encasing herself in the exoskeleton with Kaiser's assistance, she noticed how much more snug the fit was, and found herself feeling more at ease as she moved around. Donned his own skeleton, the commander kept up his indignant expression as they returned to their larger halves, petulantly warning her not to be surprised if he didn't power up immediately, as he'd possibly be satisfying himself in the PS over the following few minutes. Lippard laughed at that, mostly because the chances of her commander doing such a thing were about as high as the planet spontaneously combusting. Kaiser was not the sort. Even his advances towards her moments before had been nothing more than light flirtation. He certainly knew Lippard would never have yielded.

As they were approaching the Suits, he turned to her, curious.

"Come with me, Lippie, I want to show you something," he said, and he set off briskly towards his kneeling Suit.

The commander leaped athletically onto its massive right thigh and proceeded to search the enormous tactical vest, removing what looked like a cluster of green grapes from one of its pockets. From another such pocket he removed a handful of dirt, and began to studiously sift through it, pecking at objects in the pile with his thumb and forefinger.

Apparently satisfied, Kaiser discarded the remaining soil and, dropping back to the ground, his skeleton absorbing the impact with as much ease as it would on Mars, he sat casually on the titan's left foot, working one of the bone-white objects with an articulated pair of pliers he carried with him.

"What is it?" she asked.

Curiosity caught hold of her, knowing well that few things merited so much attention from him. The officer did not answer immediately, but instead appeared to be trying to crush the seed-like object with the pliers, and apparently with great difficulty since, despite the strength augmentation provided by his exoskeleton, he hadn't yet succeeded. With an audible crack and to Kaiser's pleased exclamations, the seed finally succumbed, revealing a rich red core inside. Rubbing the interior vigorously with his gloved thumb, he touched it to his tongue.

"Nein!" Lippard exclaimed, suddenly alarmed at his behavior.

Disregarding her reaction, he held one of the halves towards her.

"It is quite safe," he added as she hesitated.

Feeling foolish and slightly nervous, Lippard brought the rust-red core to her lips and licked it lightly. The taste caught her by surprise.

"Blood. It tastes a little like blood," she commented, studying the object in her hand with distrust.

"Not blood. ferrous oxide, meine liebe. This place is all an enormous mine. See?" Kaiser exclaimed, breaking one of the green clustered seeds open with much greater ease. Its core was a somewhat paler red color, just shy of pink.

"The seeds store the mineral in them as they develop, and when they are mature, they are cultivated. My landing site was full of the ripe white seeds on the ground. That is why they would have a plantation so far from their cities. This location must have enormous iron deposits, and by collecting these resources using specially engineered trees, there would be no need for the locals to remain here in any number. They must be using the clearings to collect the seeds before transportation, I think. I knew that Command was up to something. And I was right, wasn't I, Lippie?" he finished with a sly grin.

"Have we just captured an iron mine?" she asked as she looked around her with a new interest.

He nodded enthusiastically.

"And perhaps not only iron, Lippie. There are other plantations near this one, and I expect they might have hybrid species of trees collecting other minerals from the soil."

"But how can this be used?"

"Simple, I think. The seed's oil and organic materials must all be quite flammable. The seeds need only be incinerated in a foundry, with the bonus of the organics supplying some of the carbon for steel production. We have seen this before on Mars, remember? Although the colonists there were unable to fully address the low light conditions found so far from the sun. These locals seem to have solved that problem. Don't you see, Lippie? Most of what we need to get started presently surrounds us," Kaiser explained admiringly, slapping his armored thigh in enthusiasm and producing a stiff clang in the act.

Lippard felt momentarily awkward as she wondered whether the local population would put up with that, or whether they would consider the capture cause for war. She quickly put the thought out of her mind; Command had certainly made its decision for very valid reasons. The EFF Leviathan had, after all, just completed its first interstellar voyage, despite having originally only been designed for interplanetary jaunts. No matter how many refits a vessel was subjected to, its end product would never be quite as successful as with a specifically designed ship. In the Leviathan's case its current military payload for an IS mission barely exceeded four hundred tons. And how did one occupy an entire planet with so little hardware? Why, the answer was hanging on the trees around her, and she realized suddenly that the advantage the plantation afforded them could not be overlooked. She had unconsciously known that such extreme measures might be necessary, now that she thought about it.

Duly re-Suited, both officers returned to the meeting point to find that the sergeants were well into clearing operations. Having apparently given up on using the tactical knife as an improvised axe, the pilots were setting their Suits' weight against the trees, uprooting them easily before dragging them out to the plantation and emplacing them amidst a rapidly growing abatis wall. As Lippard went to assist her comrades, Kaiser approached the beacon and repositioned it carefully at coordinates previously extrapolated from orbital images. Having done that, he joined his teammates in the freshly booming business of knocking down trees.

A full twenty minutes before crunch time, the reconnaissance team had effectively cleared a circular area with a radius of forty meters around the radar beacon. As the minutes ticked away, the mobile Suits took up guard positions at the four cardinal points of the circle, facing outwards from behind the abattis as they awaited Ground Command's descent to the planet's surface.

Peering silently over the tortured roots of an uprooted tree she had personally emplaced, Lippard found herself hating the delay. It left her too much time to think.

For the first time she wondered at the kind of people who lived there. Were they the sort to fight, or did they have the wisdom to know a lost cause when they saw one? If they fought, would they fight honorably, or would they fall into the vicious coward routine? Lippard knew herself very well; Mars had taught her a lot about what she could expect from herself in a fight. Her gauntlets tightened around her laser platform as she thought of that planet. Her conclusions over the conflict's origins had been about the only subject she'd ever disagreed with Kaiser over, but then again he could be strange about such things. Lippard knew that if the last was to prove true for those people, she would kill them all if she was given the chance.

An enormous sonic boom suddenly shook the forest's limbs free of its avian inhabitants, announcing the imminent arrival of a behemoth. Moments later her OS motion alert warned her of a significant airborne signature above and behind her. She did not bother to look; a countdown had appeared in a foreground overlay and read thirty seconds to touchdown. She did not require instructions for what was to happen next. The mounting roar of retrorockets firing tore at her ears and she put her Suit's kneepad against the tree's root, lowering her profile as she began to key up for a potential assault. This was the most critical part of the mission; if they failed several hundred deaths would be on their heads, and the four would then find themselves stranded in a hostile environment. The roar began to intensify until it was screaming into her skull. A yellow alert appeared before her display, warning her that, due to the outside sound presently being above the tolerance of human ears, it was unsafe to exit her Suit. Still the roar intensified, since despite her OS having capped any increase in volume to her earphones, the vibrations were still somehow penetrating the armor. A powerful wind began to blow vegetation and all manner of wildlife beyond her, and entire clouds of flying creatures took to the sky in even greater numbers than before. Despite the protection her armor conferred, Lippard instinctively began to squint as great clouds of dust rushed past her, obscuring her surroundings as it scattered an intensifying blue light.

The roar suddenly died away, leaving her surroundings hidden in a dark haze, and a fluttering relief passed through her as she realized that the descent had been completed. Hazarding a look over her pauldron, she could barely make out a massive silhouette rising above the dust cloud like a titan's monolith. It was Kaiser who broke the silence.

"Well done, RecOp chain. Ebony Tower has landed. Rejoice, for we shall all be having lunch in a refectory today."

### CHAPTER FOUR

MEWAC Headquarters, 11H35, 17th of January, 2771

Toni was unceremoniously ushered into the dimly lit interview room, confident that he had committed all possible contingencies to memory. Then he laid his eyes on the interview team.

Oh Gods, no.

Sitting nonchalantly behind an impeccable beige table, supporting his weight on his elbows as he closely inspected his fingernails, was the Screamer himself. Lifting his eyes heavily towards the newcomer, a ghost of a smile played across the sergeant's face as he appraised the recruit's expression. To his right sat a perky female Lieutenant. Blood drained slowly from Toni's face. Mason gestured with a careless hand for Toni to take a seat. Suddenly very self-conscious, the recruit quickly took it, trying very hard to relax his facial muscles as he did so.

"So. Mister Tardy. How are we doing today?" Mason asked pleasantly.

Surprised by the lack of venom, Toni replied with honesty.

"I guess I'm a little nervous, Sergeant."

"I think so too. Boy, do you realize that, as you were waiting in the corridor a few minutes ago, you were talking to yourself? Moments ago a member of the administration came in here and warned me. Apparently he was quite concerned about your emotional health. Tell me, boy, how long have we been holding conversations with ourselves?" he asked with mock concern.

The Lieutenant beside him pressed a palm against her mouth to hide the smile beneath it. The smile was a dagger to his heart.

Toni found himself momentarily unable to articulate words. Hastily he opted to forget all rehearsed answers and hazarded a wild foray into honesty.

"Well, sir, I honestly wasn't aware I was doing that. As I said, I'm a little nervous and, since I have never been interviewed before, I was trying to think up answers for some questions I thought might come up, that was all. I just didn't realize I was mouthing the answers," he replied solemnly, watching closely as a comprehending and benign expression began to present itself on the sergeant's face. He decided to ignore the woman; her reactions to the swordplay were beginning to fray his nerves, and his previously drained face had begun to suffer a rapid influx of blood.

"Yes, I see. I see. And why do you need to memorize your answers, boy? Is the truth not enough for me? What I'm trying to say is, why would you need to deceive the Army?" he inquired politely.

_Bastard_ , Toni thought. The man's face did not betray his intentions, yet Toni could see uncompromising hostility hidden behind his half-smile.

"Sir, I understand my mistake. It's simply that, since I joined against my family's wishes, I thought there would be some questions regarding that. This is important to me, sir. Maybe I was trying too hard," he replied.

Toni was saying much more that he had ever planned to, and he hated himself for it.

"Yes, I see. Trying too hard, yes. Well, shouldn't you perhaps have followed your family's wishes?"

It was not a question. He had stated it as a question, but it had been meant as a statement of fact.

The sergeant looked pointedly over Toni's shoulder to the door behind him, and then back to him, and then held his hands outwards in an apologetic gesture. Toni realized what he was trying to say. The Lieutenant beside him was no longer smiling.

Toni reminded himself of every single mistake he had made dealing with the man. And he understood, finally, how it all had come to that moment. Mason wasn't a man to be dealt with; he fancied himself the dealer, maker and breaker of men, and he would never have forgiven Toni's flaws any more than Toni could forgive him for what he was doing now. He accepted that fact with the sad recognition of someone who had just discovered an important secret too late for it to make any difference.

And yet he found himself unable to stand and leave.

"Sir, was that a question?" he asked innocently.

"No, son, it was not. It was a statement. A statement you have no need to comment on. The door is over there."

"I apologize, sir. I mean, I wasn't aware you required a comment, sir. My father's advice to me was to forget about the Capicuan Defense Force. His opinion is that an institution that hasn't waged a single war in two hundred years is unable to justify its existence, and that it should be disbanded.

"I simply don't agree with him, sir. I think that the defense force is here to prevent wars, first and foremost. And as I see it, the best argument in favor of the CDF is the fact that there have been no wars up until today. Very few people consider that, I think. I'm here because I believe in the CDF, and because I believe I can be useful here. I only need the chance to prove that, sir." he finished.

For the life of him Toni couldn't imagine from where he had conjured the words. He had never considered himself to be articulate, but damned he was if he hadn't seen a sudden spark of interest in the lieutenant's eyes.

"I see," Mason exhaled. "So your family's pro-abolition, and you're a rebel to their cause. But boy, oh boy, if you want to serve, then by all means serve. But tell me why you can't serve in the foot infantry. Or in the Command and Services Companies, for that matter. Do you have any compelling reason to justify being handed a hundred and twenty thousand Credit war machine?" Mason asked, his face expressionless, his tone reasonable.

_Son-of-a-bitch_ , Toni thought.

He decided to give insane honesty one last try.

"No sir, I don't, except for the fact that I want this," he said.

The answer sounded horribly wrong to his ears. Mason's lips curled into a wicked grin and he began to laugh.

"HAH! Want this? Because you WANT this? Boy, that just doesn't cut it here! Everyone wants to be the hero, nobody wants to make the sacrifices. That's rich! HAH! Boy, listen to me and listen carefully, because this is the honest truth. The Army is not a fair institution. If you wanted fairness and justice you should have gone to Varsity and studied Law. The Army cares about only one thing. Putting the right man in the right place so it can get the mission done! And, sorry kid, but I just don't see you there, I just don't see you inside a Suit. Have a nice day!" he finished, snatching up a clipboard and brandishing his pen, a satisfied smile on his face as he searched for Toni's name on the roster.

Toni didn't move a muscle.

The Lieutenant had lightly touched her delicate fingers upon Mason's muscled forearm, causing the sergeant to freeze as if stopped in time, digital pen hovering a centimeter above the clipboard's data-slate.

Toni noticed the Lieutenant's nametag, finding only her first name there. Her name was Rose.

"Good morning, Mister Miura, are you all right?" she asked politely.

"Yes, Lieutenant, quite fine," he replied quietly.

"I see you have amber eyes. Almost golden, in fact. Not exactly an ordinary eye color, is it?"

"No, Ma'am, it isn't. My mother's family has had a lot of transgen modifications going back a few generations."

"And your father?" she inquired.

"My father's a natural. He spent his first years in an artificial atmosphere. Step-by-step adaptation. Six year regimen."

The Lieutenant's pretty eyebrows furrowed, as if the news was particularly upsetting to her.

"And what does he think of transgenetic procedures?"

"He's against them. He – his whole family believes that human adaptation to Capicua's conditions should be a natural event."

"I see. It seems your father seems to be against a lot of things, doesn't he?"

"That's my father in a nutshell, Ma'am."

"I am a transgen myself," she confided in him as she perused the briefs before her, "and so is our sergeant, here. Every driver out there is a transgen, although exactly what genes are at play is very important for this particular line of work. Your physical performance results are quite impressive. Unnaturally impressive. Especially regarding reflexes, coordination, rapid problem-solving, among a few others. I've taken a look at your mother's file. She has inherited some impressive abilities, but it seems some of your results don't entirely correspond to her, um, characteristics. So tell me, are you truly your father's son?"

That was too much for Toni. He tried to cover his mouth, but the smile kept spreading under his hand anyway. A chuckle escaped from his mouth before he could smother it.

"Can it, boy!" Mason growled menacingly.

"I'm sorry, sir. Ma'am."

"It's alright," the lieutenant answered lightly, still smiling at his reaction.

"Ma'am, I'm his son for certain," Toni answered confidently. "We look too much the same, by far. Even people who've only just met us usually make the connection. I might not like it, sometimes, but I am definitely his son. A photo should be in my father's file, shouldn't it?"

"No. Your father did not apply for military service and, since the CDF doesn't have access to citizens' personal information, all I know is what you're telling me.

"Strictly speaking, your mother doesn't have a file with us either," she added. "What she does have is a service record."

"Service record?" he echoed.

"Yes. Your mother fulfilled five years of military service before beginning her civil work with the government. Didn't you know?"

"N-no, I didn't."

"Well, in any case, either your father is a closet transgen, which he can keep a secret if he likes, or you have at some point in your life been the subject of a genetic procedure. Either way, we'll know what you are once the genetic profiling results come in." She studied a document intently as she spoke, ignoring the look of astonishment on the recruit's face.

"So, you want to be a Suit driver, do you?" she asked him directly, finally looking up.

"Y-yes."

"Good. You will shortly be informed of our decision. Thank you." she added, giving him a smile before returning to her reading.

The only sign that Mason was in any way upset came from the twitching muscles on the forearm the lieutenant had touched. Otherwise, he simply glared from beneath his shaven brows as the recruit silently left the room.

The Interview was the ultimate challenge after two weeks of blood extractions, painful tissue extractions, urine and stool contributions, full body scans, neural mapping exams, vascular mapping exams, motor reflex and coordination tests, along with a barrage of logic, memory and rapid problem-solving tests that had occupied the first week. Spanning the three days before the interview, the recruits had fallen victim to a second barrage, comprised of personality tests whilst attached to a temperamental neural scanner that kept going into automatic shutdown.

Toni spent the evenings trying to get along with his fellow hopefuls, as well as reading from the meager partition of the base library reserved for those in limbo. Aside from outdated propaganda pamphlets, Toni had discovered a wealth of technical and mechanical literature, and slowly came to understand that he would eventually be expected to possess intimate knowledge of the Suits' functions. The realization depressed him, especially when he considered his academic performance at Leiben High. On the other hand, it was with relief that Toni came to realize that the members of his provisional platoon harbored no hostility towards him, apparently preferring to reserve such feelings for the sergeant.

Screaming Mason drank only at night, seeing as there existed some leniency on-base regarding the pastime, just as long as it was after-hours and off-duty. At three AM sharp in their first night on-base, an impressively drunk First-Sergeant had elected to drag a casernful of sleepy recruits out of their beds and stand them at attention, giving them each an empty stare as the stench of alcohol slowly occupied the compartment.

The Sergeant had then launched into slurred discourse on the chief military virtues, counting them off one-by-one with his fingers until he miscounted, got confused and gave up entirely, and had then proceeded to explain how his niece currently exceeded all those present in combat preparedness, adding as an afterthought that she was currently twelve. Toni's eyes had become irresistibly drawn to a crack on the opposite wall, and he had stared blankly at the imperfection for the remainder of the sermon, tuning out the sergeant's chafing voice until it was no more than background noise (his father had trained him well). The monologue lasted for an impossibly long hour before an unsteady Mason finally abandoned the casern, braying one last insult over his shoulder as he did so.

The sergeant kept up his nighttime visits with regularity, varying only in hour, number of accompanying corporals, and level of intoxication.

The day after Toni's fateful interview, however, the Genetic profiling results finally came in, and before the afternoon's end he was informed that he would be expected in uniform at 08H00 sharp Monday morning at MEWAC's Suit Instruction Company.

The report added that, in answer to Toni's form declarations, the medical department had scanned his genome and not found any defective genes relating to the metabolization of Folic Acid, and so there would be no need for supplementation or therapy.

A sizable part of Toni wondered whether some administrative official had somehow botched things and listed him in the Inducted List instead of the Eliminated List. He made no effort, however, to correct their mistake.

He also realized with some satisfaction that he would no longer have to suffer the Screamer's abuse.

*****

First-lieutenant Matthias Templeton was a man whose physique did not suggest a military background. Though of respectable height, his slim build and narrow face suggested a fragile constitution, and his well-combed blonde hair and lagoon-blue eyes provided strangers with the impression of an upper class sophisticate.

The manner in which he carried himself, however, ram-rod straight and with a distinctive energy in his step, quickly belied such an impression. There was a confident, well-mannered nobility in the way he walked and observed his surroundings, and the treatment he received from the subordinates who knew him bordered on reverence. Screaming Mason, for one, seemed to regard him as the coming messiah.

The sergeant was grinning broadly as he preened beside his new lieutenant, both men quietly taking stock of the platoon they were supposed to forge into armored Suit drivers.

A resigned Toni was still adjusting to the dim quarters' interior, the yellowish lighting above doing a poorer job of illuminating the classroom than the sunlight that shone in through the high windows. There was a desk for each recruit to sit behind, although the group presently stood at attention as their new platoon leader appraised them. The lieutenant signaled to his drill instructor with a discreet nod.

"Sit down!" Mason barked.

There was a momentary racket as sixteen wooden chairs scraped against the concrete floor. The general consensus by now was that just about everything on base not made of wood was made of concrete.

The lieutenant took his own seat on a stout chair of his own, Mason preferring to stand at ease beside him as the officer spoke.

"First of all, I'd like to welcome all ladies and gentlemen to our esteemed institution," Templeton began without a hint of emotion.

"Although you have all been here for the last two weeks, everyone's been so occupied with physicals and psychologicals that I believe you haven't yet realized where you've landed. I'd like to make that all very clear, so no one can claim ignorance when the screw-ups begin. But before that, I'd like to introduce myself. I am First-lieutenant Matthias Templeton. You will refer to me as either "Lieutenant" or "sir". There is no third option hidden in there," he paused for a moment and stared into the abyss, rubbing his hands together as the silence underlined his words.

"I am twenty and nine years old and this will be the eighth time I take babies off the tit. What I have just said, in case none of you caught it, is code for 'I have already heard every sob story out there'. If I want to hear your sob story, I'll ask about it. But you can rest assured that I won't. The only victims I recognize are those who have ceased to breathe. The remainder are either soldiers or those who haven't the courage to be one.

"I've been a Suit driver for the last ten years, and I will say the following about what I've learned over this time. No armored Suit driver is more of a soldier than a foot soldier is. If anyone tells you otherwise, tell them you have it on good authority that they are wrong. You can even quote me, if you'd like. Anyhow, if you disrespect a footman and it reaches my ears, you'll find yourself among their ranks faster than you can say 'chimpanzee', and that, my comrades, is a promise. Besides being your platoon leader, I am currently the senior subaltern in the Suit Instruction Company, liaison officer for the Leiben Army Education Program, assistant in the Physical Education Department, and manager of the Officer's Mess. Many of you may wonder if these are what are commonly referred to as 'shitty assignments'. No, they are not. They are perfectly respectable tasks and I perform them with the diligence required of a MEWAC officer." The Lieutenant paused once more, eyeing them as if expecting someone to disagree. Faced with the persisting silence, he continued.

"But due to these assignments, it is possible I may sometimes be forced to be elsewhere during your training. And so I expect all to regard our First-sergeant as speaking with my voice when I am absent. His words are my words, except maybe a little louder. Is that clear?"

They declared in unison that it was all quite clear.

At his Lieutenant's beckoning, sergeant Mason introduced himself, although by now it was a futile exercise; they already knew his vital statistics by heart.

Mason was the proud inhabitant of Leiben's May 23rd neighborhood, a working-class community that was renowned for producing about as many soldiers as it did trouble-makers (which often meant the same thing, according to the sergeant). He was forty three, thrice divorced, the father of three boys, each from a different mother, one of which was serving as a cavalryman in the North Thaumantias Research Hub.

And he liked to drink.

"... and in '68 I received my fifth, and last, commendation, from the hands of Colonel Masters himself. I hear he'll be retiring soon, isn't that right, Lieutenant?" Mason finished, turning to his platoon leader. If Toni's memory wasn't failing him, that would just about mark the end of the first-sergeant's introduction.

"Yes, that's right, in a few months the colonel will be getting the rest he thinks he deserves," Templeton replied distractedly as he inspected his hands. There was the lightest of smiles on his face as he spoke, but a moment later it was gone.

Toni had noticed how that smile popped up occasionally over the course of Mason's monologue. He wondered what the Lieutenant truly thought of his sergeant.

"Alright then. I'd like to hear your introductions next. Name, age, place of birth and why you joined the Army. Yes, that would do just fine," the lieutenant considered, and he turned to his right, towards a recruit not too dissimilar to him in appearance.

The classroom's current seating arrangements had placed the most senior recruit to the extreme left of the front row. The recruit sitting there abruptly stood.

"Ian Templeton, nineteen years old and Leibenese. I joined because I was told to."

The recruit promptly sat down without saying another word. If the Lieutenant was surprised by Ian's reasons for joining, he certainly didn't show it. Instead he nodded curtly to the girl behind him.

"Rakaia Tani, I'm eighteen and I come from the Terminator Research Hub. I, um, joined so I could get out of there," the petite soldier finished awkwardly before returning to her seat.

Her awkwardness surprised Toni. The only time he had tried to speak to her, the Terminator spawn had given him a cold look, oozing hostility until he had put a safe distance between them. There was something about her pouting lips and widely-spaced doe eyes that had fooled him into thinking she was approachable, but she had wasted no time in ridding him and the remainder of the platoon of that impression. Everyone just called her the Terminator now.

Lieutenant Templeton nodded.

"So, what do you think of the day-side?"

"It's brighter ..." Rakaia answered quietly. The boy behind her sniggered softly before standing.

"Raymond Rosa, sir. Twenty two and born in Leiben. I joined 'cause I wanna be a Hammer Driver!" he sat back down with a haughty expression, having earned a soft smile from his lieutenant.

Ray was a trouble-maker. Which was why Toni liked him. They were fast becoming mates, their friendship having received a recent boost due to the seating arrangements.

"Tell me, Raymond," Templeton asked, "what have you been doing those long years since you left school?"

"Been helping my pa at the mines, sir."

"I see. Alright, next ..."

As the following student stood to introduce himself, Toni noticed Mason giving Ray a cold look. He found that odd, owing to the fact that Raymond and their drill sergeant hailed from the same neighborhood. He made a mental note to ask Ray about it at first opportunity.

Aside from Ian and Ray, none of his fellow recruits had been raised in Leiben, despite all having been born there.

No one was born outside of Leiben, despite the furthest research center, the Terminator Hub, distancing more than 8000 kilometers from the city. Thus when someone was asked where one was from, one never answered with his place of birth. That was a privilege reserved only for those who had actually grown up in the city.

There were many reasons why all births took place in Leiben, all having been duly explained to Toni in high-school. He remembered only the most important one, however.

The fact was that human births in a Capicuan atmosphere sometimes tended to get a little complicated. As a result, almost half of Leiban's Central Hospital Complex consisted of a very well-financed and equipped Pediatric and Obstetrics Departments, and possessed a maternity ward entirely sealed in a low carbon dioxide atmosphere. Despite most newborns having inherited exogenous genes rendering them impervious to the quasi-poisonous atmosphere, every once in a while a baby would pop out without said genes having been correctly expressed, or even missing them entirely, thus becoming fully dependent on the maternity ward's artificial atmosphere until the problem was corrected.

Then there was the case of the naturals, like those of his father's family. The Miuras did not believe in genetic manipulation, preferring to place their faith in the proverbial hands of natural selection. Which was foolish, Toni thought. His father had lived for several years in the hospital, his lungs forced to gradually adapt to successively higher concentrations of CO2 until, at age six, he had finally been rolled outside for his first look at the wider world. He had at the time been small, skinny and very fragile.

It had taken him another eight years to get rid of the oxygen mask.

"YO TARDY, WE'RE WAITIN'FOR YA!" Toni heard a familiar voice roar.

There were a few sniggers across the room and Toni shook the image of his father's emaciated form out of his mind, realizing that the entire classroom was staring at him. He glanced forwards, only to find the Lieutenant sitting silently, expressionless except for a pair of slowly rising eyebrows.

"Oh!" Toni exclaimed, and hastily he stood.

"Toni Miura, eighteen, raised on Mushima farm, Leiben district, uh, I'm also here to be a Hammer driver!" he declared, not managing to state it quite as stylishly as Ray had. Nevertheless, as he sat down, his friend gave him a confident thumbs-up sign along with a whispered "alright!"

"Hannah Arakaki, I come from the Northern Wetlands Conservation Hub and I'm eighteen years old. Oh, and I'm here 'cause my dad said it would be good for me."

The person speaking behind him was also familiar. It was the femme known as Happyface and, unsurprisingly, she was smiling again.

It was a mystery how Hannah had managed to be admitted to Suit Instruction training. Yet there she was, smiling as if she was there merely in passing, and that in only a few minutes she would be sharing coffee and biscuits with the base commander himself.

He supposed that maybe that was her secret. He didn't know whether it was confidence or sheer naivety that propped up her attitude, but somehow the northerner had managed to coast along just fine over the course of the last two weeks.

"Sueli Cassel, I'm twenty years old and I come from the North Thaumantias Research Hub. I joined so I can do this for a living, sir," the third and last of the platoon's femmes stated.

Sueli could not have been better seated, having claimed the front desk ahead and to Toni's right, allowing him to easily gaze at the contour of her features without drawing attention to himself. Sueli was at the moment the principal star in his nighttime fantasies, although he suspected he wasn't the only one with an eye on her.

The introductions proceeded steadily, Toni taking care to occasionally interrupt his stream of thoughts to take note of the progress. He didn't want to be harassed by the Screamer again, and indeed the bastard glowered at him every once in a while, as if suspecting that he wasn't paying attention. When the last recruit had introduced himself, the lieutenant set off explaining the rules and regulations on base. They were handed several summarized documents, with choice articles of law underlined and minute annotations referring them to yet other choice articles.

Lieutenant Templeton skimmed over the rules, pausing several times to ask whether there were doubts or questions, never showing anger in having to explain things more than once. By the time every document had been handed out and every line of text read aloud, more than two hours had elapsed. Toni couldn't say for sure how long it had been, since the only recruit permitted to carry a watch was Ian.

He found it odd how the lieutenant had asked Ian to introduce himself; they were obviously related and probably knew each other very well. Yet it made sense if one took into consideration the platoon leader's apparent nature. The LT certainly didn't seem the type to play favorites.

The lieutenant finally rapped his fist on one of the desks before him, beckoning all to quiet down.

"There is one last thing I would like to say before we end this class, and it regards the gentleman's agreement that may be celebrated between a platoon and its drill team," he dclared.

"As you may have noticed, the Disciplinary Code we've been studying," he raised the thick blue book in his hand, "clarifies that just about every infraction will result in administrative punishment. Although during your training no disciplinary infraction will survive to be a part of your permanent record, certain violations _will_ get you kicked out of the MEWAC without chance of return. However, should we celebrate the pact I just referred to, some screw-ups, if not too serious, may be resolved in a non-administrative manner.

"The pact that I propose is thus: That if someone here were to get out of line, and I or our sergeant were to propose our own punishment for the error, said person would accept the punishment and carry it out without complaint, and without telling anyone from outside this subunit about it. The advantage for the Drill Team is that we can then be more selective about who gets to be kicked out and who doesn't. The advantage for you is obvious: so that you might avoid getting booted out of the MEWAC's SIC. If we believe you deserve it, I should add. So what do you say?" he finished.

There was a general murmur of consent, although a few glanced nervously at their drill sergeant as they did so. As for Mason, he kept his attention firmly fixed on Toni. He seemed to be trying to say something with his eyes. Toni kept his head safely lowered and stared at the edge of his redwood desk.

"On ya feet!" Mason barked.

Sixteen chairs scraped against the floor and all stood at attention beside their desks, awaiting the order to file out. Class was then dismissed for the morning, and lunch awaited them at the base canteen.

*****

"Damned if the Screamer doesn't have a boner for you, man!" Ray laughed as they waited in line.

As with all buildings on base, the canteen was a low-set construction, bone-white in color except for its roof, which was a dull green. What set it apart was its wide one-piece smoked window, which doubled as a gigantic data-screen. What showed on the screen usually depended on the mood of the shift officer of the day. Some liked to play images from previous courses, the recruits thus being forced to watch as some unfortunate predecessor got his ass handed to him in combat training. Some more administrative types liked to present slide-shows of the military virtues, along with inspiring images of men and woman in impeccable uniforms. Courage, discipline, loyalty, etcetera.

The only shift officer whose use of the data-screen seemed appropriate to Toni was Lieutenant Templeton himself. The day before yesterday, the entire base had been treated to old Earth wildlife documentaries. At breakfast, they had found themselves watching a golden sun, quite different from their own, rising from the African highveld to the soft sound of shakuhachi flute. Lunchtime had been a succession of hunting sequences, focusing mainly on the ferocious feline as it pounced on the endearingly unsuspecting herbivore. It had been interesting to note who rooted for which side as they enjoyed their steak and liver meal.

Toni had sided with the predators, of course.

Dinnertime had bestowed upon them a medley of gorgeous sunsets, accompanied afterwards by images of nocturnal wildlife with a starry sky as the backdrop.

Today, however, the data-screen displayed a rolling message informing all present that, at the end of the previous week, a member of the Foot Infantry Battalion had been found guilty of sleeping in the course of sentinel duty, having as a result been sentenced to a public verbal reprimand and reduction of his Behavior Classification. The shift officer, an ageing captain with a heavy gut and soft, lazy eyes, watched the advancing procession closely, gauging the recruits' level of interest at the public service announcement.

_Must work in the Justice and Discipline Department_ , Toni thought. Apparently he was not the sort to strike gentleman agreements with his quarry.

He wondered whether Stick had been the punished soldier.

"Yo ... Toniquita, did you hear me, man?" Ray asked loudly, tapping a finger against his skull as if to hint at his friend's lack of sanity.

A smile tugged at the corner of Toni's mouth. Ray had a habit of ridiculously pimping up everyone's names.

"I heard you. I saw him give you the evil eye back in class, too. What was that about? Aren't you two supposed to come from the same neighborhood, or something?"

Ray laughed.

"That's exactly why he hates my guts, man. It's a neighborhood thing. My father hates the asshole. Thinks he's a prick, though I can't imagine why. Even said so to Mason's face once. Got into a fight with him 'cause of it. Now Mason hates my pa, which means he hates me by association, get it? Which means we're both fucked, mate," he finished, laughing as he was handed a plateful of chicken stew.

"So who won the fight?" Toni asked.

"Ever seen my pa?" he retorted, apparently offended at having been asked.

"No."

"If you had, you'd know who," he declared boldly before carrying on. "What's your pa like?"

"What? He's, uh, he's CO2 intolerant. Has a lot of problems with that. Works in agriculture –"

"Plantations?" Ray asked with interest.

"Only recently got into pulp production. Mostly we work with livestock." Toni felt uncomfortable with the conversation, as if his father's beliefs would somehow shoulder they way through his words and declare themselves to all nearby.

"You know there are treatments for that, don't you?"

"His condition is pretty serious, alright?" Toni answered testily.

"Ahuh, that's cool, man ..."

"What's cool? Is it edible?" Gordie asked as he bit deeply into a chicken leg. They took their seats opposite him on a solid canteen table reserved for recruits.

Gordon Winters, formerly known as Scarybrow, more recently christened Gordie by his comrades, was nearing the end of his meal, but he attacked the last scraps of food with the same gusto others usually reserved for their first bites. His solid physique was testament to his appetite, although all knew that there was more than fat attached to his frame. His time on the Click had been the fourth fastest.

"Mind your own business, or all you're gonna eat is my boot!" Ray threatened with mock hostility, receiving a smack on his crown for his trouble. The Leibenese winced at the pain, but didn't seem to mind Gordie's quick retort.

"I was talking about my father. He works with livestock."

"Oh, is that right? Mine's in the North Thau cavalry. Had me a little late, he'll be retiring next year."

Gordie suddenly leaned forwards, his lunch safely tucked away, and whispered to them.

"Did you hear about Ian being the LT's nephew?"

"What?" Toni and Ray exclaimed at the same time.

"Got that from a footie last night. Can you believe they just put a Templeton in command of a Templeton? Damn, there should be a law against that," he said, discreetly ensuring that the subject of their discussion was still sitting at the table's other end.

After two weeks in the same casern, their most senior fellow recruit still remained an unknown quantity to them. Ian had a poker face to match his verbal reserve, and kept a wall up as if he were somehow in stiff competition with his fellow recruits. Toni suspected that perhaps that was true, but still found the attitude fundamentally disrespectful. Either way, Ian maintained a force field that to date had resisted all attempts to breach it.

Ray was game for the conversation.

"No surprise he ended up senior then. D'you know what else? According to regulations, until they find a corporal for the Drill Team, Ian will have to assist for them," he whispered conspiratorially.

"No one would put a recruit in a Drill Team. I think ..." Gordie seemed surprised at the information, but Toni suspected that Ray was right.

"Don't hunch together like that, guys, you look like you're planning a coup or something," Hirum whispered in mock conspiracy over their shoulders before settling down beside Gordie.

Hirum was, like Toni, still called by his first name only because nobody had as yet found a more appropriate handle for him. A native of North Thau, the youngest son of a pair of researchers, Hirum was about as tall as Gordie, despite possessing only half his shoulder width. Watching the two, Toni found the contrast amusing. Gordie seemed to sit taller only because his well-padded rear offered him a height advantage over his comrade. Hirum was also the youngest of the platoon, and would be turning eighteen in six months. Speaking softly but still wearing his sly grin, he continued.

"So, let me guess. You're talking about the promotion, aren't you?" he deduced with a snicker.

"Even if it's true, it's still no promotion, dammit. He's only a recruit, no more than any one of us. If it happens at all, it will only be a temporary responsibility," Gordie hissed. Besides Ray, he was the eldest of the platoon, at twenty two.

"Then why did the Screamer call him aside like that?"

"When did this happen?" Toni asked, finding sudden interest in the conversation.

"Oh, you didn't know? I was in the bathroom when the Screamer found me. I thought I'd done something wrong, but he just told me to find Ian and tell him to see the Sarge in the Instructor's Cabin immediately. So I did just that," he finished.

"And what did Ian say?" Ray breathed as he put on his I-told-you-so expression.

"Didn't say a word. He just nodded like he was expecting it, or something, and left."

The group digested the news for a moment.

"If he tries order me around, I'll fuck him up!" Ray finally burst out, rubbing his knuckles dramatically for effect.

"No, you won't," Gordie retorted with a frown.

They had already received warnings from the senior soldiers on base. Drill Teams tended to severely punish their platoons for transgressions committed by any constituent. No one was keen on discovering whether this was true or not.

"You'll see," Ray said quietly. He seemed to be about to say something else, but then Toni noticed Ian walking towards them.

"Quiet, guys. Incoming," he whispered.

Gordie's suddenly innocent expression and Hirum's anxious one amused Toni, but he kept the grin off his face as Ian came to a halt before them. The senior recruit gave the group a curt nod before speaking.

"Guys, I need you to spread the word. We're to form up at ten to fourteen hundred. We need to have a talk."

*****

It was ten to fourteen hundred and the platoon was not formed up. Ray had seen to that. In actual fact, all within earshot when Ian had spoken in the canteen had seen to that. But it was Ray who had presented his fellow recruits with an ironclad excuse to disobey him. Before long, the haughty Leibenese was standing at the casern's front steps, calling out to his fellow casern-mates like a politician trying to improvise a press conference.

"Is that how it is? Any Joe comes out of nowhere and says 'hey, your commander says I'm in charge, so I'll be giving the orders now', and we just accept that? We were with the Lieutie one hour ago, and he said nothing about this! Why the sudden change?" he demanded as recruits encircled him.

Toni felt uneasy about Ray's method of resistance. Nevertheless, he stood staunchly beside his new friend as the Leibenese argued his case. Hirum loitered anxiously beside the parade ground, clearly prepared to form up at a moment's notice, as if being the first to do so would somehow spare him from the anticipated blowback. Gordie only shook his head and kept to himself, apparently just as convinced as Toni that there would be hell to pay if the drill team were to find the platoon at odds with itself. Some recruits kept glancing about apprehensively as if expecting their sergeant to show up any moment, sniffing the air like a police dog that had caught the scent of narcotics.

Mason's particular charisma had somehow turned him into an omnipresent entity.

"Ray, don't forget what we decided. We form up at five to. And that's not too far off now ..." Toni reminded him in an undertone. Ray shook his head as if he was being troubled by a fly.

Ian approached quietly then and leaned close the tense recruit before speaking softly into his ear. A wicked grin stretched over Ray's face and he gave a purposeful nod, and the two turned and entered the casern with a mystified Toni in tow.

The tension between the pair as they entered their sleeping quarters began to alarm Toni. He was suddenly reminded of the first time he had accompanied his father to the slaughterhouse they kept on the farm. His father had had nothing to say at the time, except for a brief explanation on how to use the captive-bolt pistol to euthanize swine cleanly. Toni had pulled the trigger on the last hog himself, and he had since put an end to many a critter that way.

But he had never witnessed a physical act of violence between two human beings.

Ian and Ray squared off in the open area opposite to the doorway, with only Toni, Gordie and a fearful but inquisitive Hirum as witnesses. Ray seemed fearless. He smiled at his senior.

"You sure you want a piece of May 23rd, Ian?"

At the sound of his name Ian bolted forwards, prompting a surprised Ray to swing wildly while backing up, missing his target. Ian fell on him with a vicious head-butt, followed by a knee to the stomach. As Ray doubled over, hugging his gut, Ian pulled violently at the back of his shirt, causing buttons to pop out all the way up to Ray's collar. He then wrapped the cloth around his opponent's head and began to unceremoniously knee him there while holding the shirt in place.

There was something mechanical and unforgiving about the way Ian broke Rosa down. Ray swung out blindly at first, hugging Ian's waist alternately with each arm, apparently not realizing how near his opponent was to him. Ian kneed him mercilessly in the gut, repeating the act like an aerobic exercise until his quarry began to feel the pain and hugged his torso. Ian then promptly began to knee him in the head.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Toni made to intervene, only to be held back by a grim Gordie.

After a while, Ian began to tire. The recruit finally pinned Ray against the wall and unwrapped his head, peeling off the bloody shirt as if he were unwrapping a gruesome gift. He leaned close to Ray's blooded and battered face.

"Had enough?" he asked, almost whispering.

"Yes ..." a hoarse voice replied.

Ian released Ray's body and it slid down onto its knees.

Appalled and horrified, Toni tried to approach his fallen friend, but Ian blocked his path and gave him a frosty look.

"Let me get to him ..." Toni said quietly.

"I'm not done with you," Ian replied just as quietly.

The calm statement set off every alarm bell in Toni's head, and he tensed up just as Ian's boot whizzed up to clip him smartly over the head. Toni backed up, reeling from the glancing blow as warm blood began to stream down the side of his face. Ian rushed him at a sprint and, leaping into the air, he pumped his leg out, hammering it into Toni's chest with a resonating thump. Before the pain reached Toni brain, however, he captured Ian's boot and kicked him stiffly in the crotch. The sound of the impact itself wasn't impressive, but it was more than compensated for by Hirum's audible gasp.

Ian stood there for a moment, his right leg held in his opponent's firm embrace, his left one shivering, and for a moment Toni feared that his senior still had some fight in him. The blonde then sank to the floor and silently assumed a fetal position.

Hirum discreetly took his leave from the casern. Moments later, Gordie left with the unpleasant task of tracking down the Drill Team.

As Toni collapsed onto a bed, blood dripping steadily down his chin, breathing in painful gasps while he stared at Ian's trembling body, he realized that he'd just given the Screamer precisely what he wanted.

### CHAPTER FIVE

**MEWAC – SIC installations, 14H15, 22** nd **of January, 2771**

"I find myself unable to stress enough how unacceptable your behavior was," Lieutenant Templeton said solemnly.

"I briefly considered making a reference to the military virtues, but I think I'll give them a rest for now. I will say is this, however. There are three things a soldier must learn before he can become a functional member of his unit. Firstly, the soldier must learn how to do. To do the things that are expected of a soldier. Fight, eat, shower, make his bed, wipe his ass, and so on. Secondly, the soldier must learn how to learn. To learn how to discipline his mind so as to accept newfound knowledge more easily and understand how to exploit it. All this means nothing, however, if one hasn't first learned how to be! How to exist in this institution, to respect its traditions, its constituents and its laws! You have both failed in this third lesson, and that is why you will be punished.

"Recruits Toni Miura and Ian Templeton, You are both found guilty of behavior unbecoming, and are hereby sentenced to go into orbit for a period of no less than three days from the end of this hour. If either of you return to ground before the end of that period, these events will become known to Captain Damien, who may then decide on what is in the best interests of this subunit," the lieutenant finished in a monotone.

Despite Mason's best efforts, Lieutenant Templeton had adamantly decided that no one would be taking the Walk on their first day of training. Ray had been whisked off to Medical Bay and, after a cursory examination from the orderly, redirected via ambulance to Leiben CHC. Oddly enough, he suffered no consequences besides what had already befallen him in the casern.

By MEWAC tradition, to go into orbit simply meant that, for the period of allotted time, in no way could any part of the convicted recruit's body touch the ground. The only way that such a feat could be accomplished was if the condemned was carried around all day by his fellow platoon members. Drill instruction, physical training, weapons training, civil and military moral studies, signals, topography, vigilance and counter-vigilance, camouflage, eating, drinking, defecating, showering, sleeping, every single daily task, including dressing and undressing himself, would be executed as he was held aloft by his mates. The lieutenant had chosen not to go into detail as to how that should be accomplished; they were apparently expected to figure it out for themselves. But he had solemnly informed his subordinates that, it being a most important tradition, the local base inhabitants would be unusually informative in the event of any cheating taking place. Moreover, surprise inspections would be used as a means to ensure compliance with the sentence.

Mason beamed delightedly, having apparently discovered hog heaven.

As anticipated, the punishment turned out to be just as agonizing for the platoon members as it was for Toni.

The days that followed proved surreal. The entire canteen would burst into delighted applause every time he and Ian were carried in, as if celebrating virgins being offered up for pagan sacrifice.

Figures moved silently in a darkened casern as six platoon members relieved another group holding a snoring Toni aloft, said recruit diligently faking his slumber. He slept almost not at all in those nights, discomforted as he was with the notion of resting while his mates were in effort. Ian did not share his concern, although every time he fell asleep, one of the recruits holding him up would give him a stiff shake. Empathy for their senior had died on that Monday, a state of affairs that Ian made no effort to correct.

The showering arrangements proved particularly harassing for Toni. In their first attempt, his complement had attempted to simply hold him up as he showered, the effort proving impossible due to the shower heads being set too low. The solution they finally decided upon proved feasible but profoundly embarrassing. A loudly complaining Gordie held a naked Toni under the shower as if they were newly-weds, an amused Hirum armed and ready with soap and shampoo.

Nothing, however, came close to the complications surrounding use of the latrine. Toni made every effort to avoid the scenario, eating as sparingly as possible in an attempt to last the three days in orbit without evacuating. The pressure, however, soon began to accumulate, and before long his platoon members were groaning at the impending prospect. Mason took pains to personally inspect the procedure, striving to ensure that Toni's buttocks at no moment touched the toilet seat, his mates going so far as to dismantle the toilet stall nearest the bathroom entrance to make room for three.

No words were immediately available to describe Toni's shame. The remaining MEWAC personnel, however, had no difficulty in describing the episode to the uninformed over beers at the local bar.

Toni somehow managed to keep up with the training. More importantly, he came to understand that if at any time his fellow recruits had gotten tired of the punishment, they needed only have dropped Toni to the ground before Mason's feet. The consequences would only have been his and Ian's to suffer. Yet such a thing never happened.

Toni's feet touched down amid much fanfare a full seventy two hours after entering orbit, and training suddenly became that much easier for the remainder of the week.

By the beginning of the second week, however, the pace of activity had begun to accelerate. Each recruit was distributed a veritable pharmacopeia of compulsory medication, beginning with Ultarine, a selective androgen receptor modulator. The SARM was, as was briefly explained to the platoon, a drug especially designed to duplicate the androgenic effects of anabolic steroids, sans their annoying side-effects. But Ultarine had its own side-effects, centering on loss of body moisture through sweating and urination, and the occasional diarrhea. Accordingly, every recruit was required to carry a canteen on his belt from that moment onwards and required to guzzle three liters of water a day outside of meals.

Metaracetam and Ampakinatam were also on the menu, the first intended to improve memory retention and the second to enhance attention span and alertness. Toni came to suspect that it was the second pill that was responsible for the almost fluorescent yellow urine he began to pass.

Aside the intense physical fitness program, Toni was soon dealing with long hours at a desk or in U-formation out in the open, soaking in as much military lore as his instructors could dish out. He had always been prone to becoming lost in his own thoughts, but the medication had performed a miracle of sorts; he hung on his instructors' every word, committing all to memory with obsessive interest. The list of aptitudes they were expected to accumulate had seemed menacingly vast on his first day, but gradually he began to gain confidence in his ability to meet expectations.

The clear downside to the nootropics was their side-effects. Toni's level of alertness was so high that he usually found himself mentally exhausted at the end of their day, which wasn't a problem at all until they began to be pulled from their beds for supplementary training. Recruits often went into standby mode in those hours, their minds having closed up shop for lack of stock, only their most basic goods still on display.

Some cracked in those days and others crashed, but Toni did neither; instead he operated in a dream-like state, and sometimes he was surprised to discover in their conversations the next day that there had been supplementary training in the night. Sometimes he would remember those times as if they were dreams, and sometimes not at all.

He told no one about the lost time, of course.

He also kept quiet about the obsessive and repetitive behavior he had begun to exhibit in his spare time, although not for fear of embarrassment. He had noticed other recruits pacing about erratically, biting at their fingernails until they bled, and engaging in all manner of repetitive tics. One was spending far too much of his free time alone in the remotest of the latrine stalls.

By their fourth week of training Toni could no longer call himself scrawny. He was putting his all into the physical exercises and the dope's magic was doing its work. He had gained a full six kilo-mass in that time, and the first thing he bought with his initial paycheck was an anti-scarring salve.

In their fifth week of training, the same day recruit Debusey suffered a mental breakdown, earning him a one-way ticket out of the SIC, Toni spoke with several of his mates about the Orbit Order, still curious as to why they had put up with it.

"Wasn't that hard, honestly," Gordie replied, ignoring the outraged retorts of his somewhat weaker mates.

It was Hirum, however, possessed of a characteristic directness that Toni had begun to appreciate, who gave him a straight answer.

"Listen, Toni. What you guys did was stupid. But I honestly didn't know any of you well enough to just give you over to the Screamer like that. And to tell you the truth, we all got to know you better after the order ..."

"Yep, a little too well, maybe –" Ray added with a sly grin.

"Listen," Hirum insisted. "What I'm saying is that if anyone was going to take a dive at the sarge's feet, it would have been Ian. Not you. We even talked about that for a while, but nobody stepped up 'cause then you would have taken the Walk as well."

"I didn't know you guys were still so put out with him," Toni observed quietly. He hadn't missed the collection of scowls at Hirum's statement.

"Let's just say he got a little too comfortable at being carried around like that. You, at least, were just as pissed off as we were," he replied somberly.

Corporal Baylen showed up that week to assume the mantle of assistant-instructor, taking upon his shoulders the added task of training his charges in hand-to-hand combat. The platoon was introduced to the base's Combat Training Square, where they took to assembling every second day, weekend or not, for HHC training. Baylen loved the Art, as he liked to call it.

"I doubt you Suit-pukes will have any need for this training, your thirty millimeter cannon should be keeping you clear of that, but this training should help you become more agile on your feet, and you can certainly use that. Two weeks from now the LT will begin to participate in these classes, and so we'll be adding some fall-rise and lateral-impact training to your repertoire before then. Trust me when I say you'll need that when you face him. I think by then we'll have begun your absorption tests as well."

Nobody had asked what absorption tests were; they all knew better than that. Two weeks later, they found out.

The absorption tests were simple in their design; a recruit was told to remain stock-still in the middle of the CT square, where he would be subjected to a series of shoves, kicks and (if the Screamer was around) blows to the body in ever increasing intensity, said recruit being expected to absorb the punishment in place without flinching, swaying or (most especially) falling down. Staying on one's feet proved to be impossible, though, unless that person's name was Gordie. His body had sucked in the Ultarine like a sponge, and he was slowly becoming as solid as a rhinoceros.

The ultimate goal of the exercise, as they were eventually informed, was for a future Suit driver to become accustomed to performing in combat while under enemy fire. Toni gradually began to imagine every slap as the direct impact of an anti-materiel grenade, every kick or shove the nearby detonation of an artillery shell. Mason's were direct artillery hits. By the end of the second week of absorption tests, rationality and lucidity were tested both during and immediately following every pounding.

It proved to be somewhat difficult to strip down and reassemble a Lacrau after a few blows to the skull.

After a while, the tests began to gain entertainment value; the male recruits found special interest in contemplating the violent femmes as they were put through their paces. In those tests it also became clear why Hannah had made it thus far.

The exercise began with the intimidating encirclement of the subject by the three members of the Drill Team, Baylen adding to the pressure by fixing the female recruit with a dead-eye stare. And it was the stare itself, apparently, which tended to get her going. Standing with her feet widely spaced apart, her arms stretched out beside her, she would bite down on her lips to suppress a giggle, an effort made even harder by the face-pulling recruits sitting at the sidelines. Toni noticed that simply smiling at her in those moments was enough to get her going. The bully team then spiraled inwards and she would find herself being shoved every which-way, holding her knees slightly bent so she might react faster to any push, pull or kick. The only time he ever saw her smile falter was when she received a particularly vicious blow to the head. Mason at his best, of course. Other than that, her morale had proven unshakeable.

Watching the other femmes taking punishment had its own entertainment value. Sueli kept her face tightly expressionless as she was buffeted left and right, but when struck just right she would briefly show the endearingly outraged expression he kept watch for. Rakaia, in true Terminator style, would put up a mean face. She was, however, the femme who fell most frequently, being of slighter build than the others, and each time she would rise with a furious expression, as if wishing death and destruction to the world for not being of more substantial size. Toni often wondered whether she was counting the days until her chance at driving a real Suit. He certainly was.

Baylen's arrival had been accompanied by a torrent of speculation as to what had kept him off-base for so long. Some said he had gotten into trouble with civilian authorities over a bar-fight, an idea most promptly discarded since no obituaries had recently been reported by the media. Other speculated that he had finally managed to bed Captain Damien's teenage daughter, trying to make the connection between one's arrival and the other's sudden bout of irritability. Still others whispered that the corporal was currently the prime suspect in a rape investigation, although no one had volunteered the victim's identity. Toni kept silent whenever he heard the whisperings and tried not to say anything stupid. He already knew why Baylen had been delayed, but had been asked by his instructor to keep it quiet.

Toni didn't quite know why Baylen had confided in him, but was beginning to suspect that he came across as trustworthy.

The conversation had taken place after-hours, as Toni coated the casern's exterior walls as punishment for an infraction he could no longer remember. Mason had decided that Toni shouldn't end basic training before putting a fresh coat of whitewash on the Company building. Baylen sometimes loitered about while he worked, ostensibly to supervise the job, keeping up a low drone of conversation as Toni smeared the walls, the corporal's deep drawl pleasant company after the Screamer's daily abuse. Sometimes the recruit would get a heads-up from his corporal, and those warnings had more than once proven useful in keeping clear of Mason's radar.

And then, out of nowhere, he found his instructor dropping the name of Miriam Reeves.

"The sarge from Valhalla?" Toni asked, trying to remember her face. It had been quite pretty in a very freckly sort of way.

"Yep," Baylen confirmed. "That's why she had her eye on me when I took Happyface to the back, to keep me outta trouble, see?"

Toni nodded silently and returned to his work, his defined forearms lime-smeared up to his elbows.

"There's nothing wrong with a corp and a sarge getting together, you know. But it's gotta be off-base, and there was a rumor going round we were getting intimate in the sergeants' mess quarters. And then Captain Damien heard about it ..." Baylen didn't quite spit the name out, but the resentment was there nonetheless.

Toni simply nodded and made a noise of encouragement as he worked.

"So I was called to his office one day, and he told me there was an enquiry into the matter. I told him he needn't worry, that I and the sarge were respecting the institution. But some people are queer, you know? My saying that confirmed that we were together, and he didn't like that at all. Told me I would never train another platoon. So I put in a few off-days, compliments of the FIC commander, you know him, big fella. Only came back for the enquiry proceedings, and that was ugly. Gotta be the most unpleasant business I've ever gotten mixed up with. I tell you, Toni, this army is asleep at the helm. We're worried about who's sleeping with who when we should be worried about our mission. You might not have noticed it yet, but eventually you will. We're going through the motions of training, we talk about operations and tactics and strategy and all that, but ultimately we're asleep, sleep-walking through our jobs since there's no boogeyman to fight out there. About the last time this army was awake was with the PBI, and that was about twenty years ago ..."

"The PBI?" Toni suddenly felt more than passing curiosity at the conversation.

"Phantom Battle Incident. There was a time just before I joined when some of the research hubs were thinking of separating into independent states, you know."

"Never heard about it," Toni said, trying to remember his history lessons in Leiben High and drawing a blank in his effort.

"Of course you didn't. That isn't taught at school, and there was only some talk about it in the media and Civilian Network, but at the height of the crisis there was a training incident involving a few tanks, friendly-fire during a live-fire exercise. Someone botched things up and, by the time it got leaked to the media, it was supposed to be a full-blown battle. I was fourteen years old at the time, and seeing everyone scared shitless like that gave me more of a hard-on for the service than anything else could have. Some Cavalrymen and Arties died on that day, twenty-four, I think. Anyway, that must be the last time there was a real honest-to-god Red-Alert on any military base. Since then it's been slow slumber."

Toni was surprised by the tone; he had never heard Baylen speak so bitterly before.

"I thought you loved the army, Corp."

"No, Toni, I hate the army. I hate today's army, the one that exists. What I do love is the army the MEWAC could have been if there wasn't so much bullshit flying around. Never forget this, kid. Even in times of peace the Enemy still exists. But this enemy is on our side. Every soldier napping on sentinel duty, every asshole sergeant with a chip on his shoulder, every officer making mountains out of molehills, is the enemy.

"And you've gotta watch out for the enemy. I heard what happened on your first day in the SIC, kid. That was just dumb. You think Ian's your enemy? Take a better look around you. At least he was trying to do his job right. You're the ones who screwed up, you were the enemy that day. You gotta be true now, kid. A few months from now I might have to salute you, and the last thing I want before me is another sarge or officer with a chip on his shoulder. So be true, pay attention to your classes and make me proud, alright kid?"

The criticism had bitten deeply into Toni, mostly because he knew that Baylen was speaking from the heart, and there was no appropriate defense against such words. He was also appalled at the notion that he would soon outrank the veteran standing before him.

The weeks wore on at a snail's pace and Toni kept putting in his best. The dope wasn't all that fueled him anymore, his occasional conversations with Baylen having proven to be more powerful medicine, and his persistence finally began to pay off. The platoon had weekly field exercises to contend with, but on the Friday of their sixth week, he was faced with the field navigation evaluation that each recruit would need to pass in order to qualify for their week-in-the-field.

The morning was spent in examination in the dimly-lit classroom, the examinees' noses nearly having to touch the exam sheet in order for them to read the questions there. Toni was in the Zone that morning, his tics having subsided due to the scale of the challenge before him. By morning's end and as a subdued platoon filed out of the freshly whitewashed building, he knew he had aced the challenge.

Lunch was heavy but Toni ate light, anticipating strenuous activity for the afternoon. Soon they would be tackling a navigation course, and he intended to finish before the Special One, as Ian had begun to be called.

Toni harbored no hostility towards his senior, having begun instead to view him as a rival. He had no illusions, however, about which of the two of them was the more capable.

At fourteen hundred hours, the SIT's entire complement of fifteen recruits stood in formation under the eternal red sun, the orb's heat turning the humidity from the wetter uniforms into steam as the drill team contemplated them. The lieutenant began to brief the platoon.

"The following examination will be a two-part topographical-orientation course. The first part is essentially a treasure hunt, since at its end you will find an envelope with the printout map that will be needed to complete the second. Each recruit will be set loose at five minute intervals. Said recruit will be armed with a map, a scale meter and a set of hectametric coordinates. If examinees happen to be caught together on any part of the course, they will be failed. I should add that there would be no point in doing this anyway, since the first three objectives are unique to each recruit.

"You will also each carry a GPS marker to be kept on your corpse at all times. By collating the marker's data at the end of your run, we will know which objectives were reached and which were not. There will be penalties for failing an objective. If, however, you are unable to finish or you should fail to hand in your marker, you will find yourself privileged to continue your training ... in the FICs and far away from us. Is that clear?"

All present hollered their understanding in unison, and before long the drill team had handed out the gear and sorted the group into single file, the most senior of their number at the fore.

"Recruit Templeton, you have one minute to consult your map," Baylen warned.

Ian put a knee to the ground, spread his map out and aligned it with his surroundings. He consulted his coordinates briefly and then placed the transparent scale-meter over the map. After a quick look-around he stood, stowing the gear away as he patiently waited for the start signal. Thirty seconds later he was off at a sprint, disappearing into the bushes north of their position with no sign of slowing down.

The minutes passed by and Toni waited patiently as the recruits before him were released into the wild. He chose not to worry about competing against Ian; he would run well within the limits of his body, consigning unto the God of the Underdogs the task of leading his rival astray.

"Recruit Miura, you have one minute to consult your map."

Taking two quick steps forwards, Toni put a knee to the ground and spread the map out before him, taking care to orient it correctly. The effort proved to be a simple one, as he'd already seen his mates do the same over the preceding minutes. Consulting the initial coordinates on a slip of paper, he superimposed the scale-meter upon the map's appropriate grid-square and took note of his first objective. A smile came to his camouflaged lips.

The MEWAC water tower was easily visible from any open area in its immediate vicinity, and indeed he found it when he peered south, four stout concrete pillars supporting a spherical, ballasted water tank up to a respectable height of 25 meters. Toni confidently stowed his gear and then set off at a canter once Baylen had given the signal, seeing no significant obstacles to overcome, only a steep, continuous ascent to the crest of the hill occupied by the tower. Within four minutes, he had reached his objective. As he slowed to a stop near the closest pillar, he found his first snag of the day.

A navy blue envelope fluttered clearly in view, tied as it was to one of the many rungs ascending the northern pillar. The tower itself was, however, besieged by a massive growth of thorn bushes. How his instructors had managed to place the envelope up there without leaving their hides among the thorns was beyond him. It was also beyond his patience to discover how, and so he launched himself forward at a mad sprint, terribly aware he would be hating himself over the following days.

As he reached the obstacle, Toni pounced, catapulting himself towards the pillar in a ballistic trajectory. Curling into a tight ball, he flew onwards until, as the pillar approached, he kicked his legs out and splayed both arms before him, reaching out towards the nearest approaching rung. His legs connected first, colliding against the reinforced concrete a split-second before his hands clasped the rung. Strong as he was, however, inertia was stronger, and it was his helmeted skull that finally put a stop to his momentum, clashing against a higher rung with enough force to dent the steel.

_So that's how they did it_ , he thought through the daze, feeling overproud for having managed to evade the thorns entirely.

With a free arm he snatched the envelope from the rung and stowed it away in his pocket, before twisting his body and neck about for a look-around. The new predicament slowly dawned upon him.

His drill team had not leapt over the obstacle to gain access to the pillar. The reason he knew this was because, had they done so, they would then have had to contend with jumping directly into the thorn bushes themselves. Those bushes appeared entirely undisturbed. In fact, they appeared quite intent on losing their virginity to the imprudent recruit hanging above them.

With a groan of dismay, Toni launched himself into the vegetation, and fear quickly morphed into horror as the bush's tentacle-like branches wrapped themselves around his body with his every move. After several fruitless attempts to delicately weave his way out, Toni finally shoved his hands into his armpits, lowered his center of mass and tucked his chin into his chest, presenting the offending thorns with his helmet's dented dome. He then forged a path through the thorns by brute force, exiting the obstacle moments later with spiny clumps of bush still attached to him.

Ignoring the vegetation and his numerous injuries, Toni put his knee down and opened his prize, finding that his second objective awaited him on the firing line of a deactivated shooting range due east. Swearing under his breath, he set off once more, finally finding a blue envelope resting atop the range mast, requiring him to lower it by the halyard as one would a flag.

Toni's third objective took him east, and his fourth further east still, bringing him close to the end of his map. He was on his way to the fifth objective, a crest situated due south of his position, when he came across a disorientated Rakaia.

"Need some help?" he asked her as she stumbled about.

"No! I mean, yes! Oh –" she groaned at her sudden dilemma.

Toni shrugged and kept jogging.

"Wait! Where are you going?"

"Delta Morana," he replied over his shoulder, "still got a click of running ahead of me ..."

"You're going the wrong way," she countered, her brow furrowing. "You should be descending, not moving towards high ground."

"All deltas are summits, Tani, that's why I'm moving to high ground. You've got your peaks and valleys confused."

She yanked out a crumpled map and gave it a long, hard look.

"I knew that ..." she stated in an undertone.

"Good luck," he shouted over his shoulder, already on his way.

Delta Morana was a resting spot a lion would have enjoyed, had a lion been born in the history of the planet. Trees huddled ever closer to each another as they neared the summit, gradually forming a continuous canopy, only to be interrupted by a collection of granite-grey rocky outcroppings. At the center of those rocks a solitary whitewashed pillar presided. To Toni's eyes, it looked like a puritan pastor preaching to the wilderness.

The pillar's northern face was unapproachable and so Toni began to circuit the outcropping from its eastern face, glad to be out of the sun due to the shade afforded by the densely packed trees. Already his uniform was wet under his armpits, as well as where the Tier 1 travel-pack rested against his back. He puffed along doggedly as he gauged how best to approach his objective, keeping close to the rock face so he wouldn't miss the way in. A whizzing noise then became apparent and he turned towards the sound.

The rock struck him hard against his helmet, breaking its chin-strap and knocking him out cold.

Toni returned to consciousness with an unknown presence beside him. Hands passed over his body as if the presence was trying to heal him by touch.

_Thank the gods I have been found_ , he thought drowsily.

Perhaps one of the family gods his father prayed to had arrived to rescue the firstborn son. Perhaps the pillar he had seen moments before had somehow transformed into the pastor he had imagined it as. He rested a tremulous hand on the priest's shoulder in thanks, only to have it slapped brusquely away.

_That just isn't right_ , he considered, trying hard to focus on the stranger's face.

Hazy features slowly sharpened until, eyes slowly widening in surprise, Toni found himself staring up at a very edgy Ian.

"Wha ... What in hell are you doing?" Toni demanded weakly.

"Something you're not gonna like, _mate_ ..." his senior retorted as he searched through his comrade's vest pockets.

Toni tried to rise and received a stiff clout to the face. He momentarily descended back into the abyss.

"Let go, let me go or I'll break your hands!" he heard someone snarl through the fog. He returned to consciousness to find Ian's wrists firmly gripped in his own hands.

From his senior's reddening fist hung a pendant with a fluorescent yellow GPS marker.

Inside Toni's mind, disjointed pieces fell into place all at once, and a hot ball of rage ignited deep within.

"You'll break my hands? How exactly are you going to do that, you son-of-a-bitch?" he growled as he tried to rise.

Ian blinked stupidly for a moment. He then twisted his wrists inwards and inflicted a vicious kick against Toni's head that laid him flat on his back again. Free of the vice-like grip, the recruit then took off at a sprint. Toni's torso tautened and bounced back to a sitting position as if acted upon by a spring, the final assault serving to establish new priorities for the remainder of the day.

First he would find Ian and kill him, and then he would complete his course.

Ian sprinted lithely into the eastern wilderness with Toni's marker firmly gripped in his fist, his furious junior in hot pursuit. The terrain was uneven and cluttered with obstructions, but that played in Toni's favor; after having spent his youth exploring the farm and the surrounding wilderness, his skill at tackling obstacles was perhaps the highest of the platoon.

"You bushwhacking, yellow, thieving backstabberrr! I'll kill, I'LL KILL YOU!" he roared, his bruised and punctured body fueled by outrage into a leg-pumping frenzy. His thighs burned fiercely but he scarcely acknowledged the pain; in due time that pain would wrap around him like a python, but for the moment it was no worse than a rat-snake nipping at his heels.

On the other hand, he was closing the distance between them fairly quickly.

Ian suddenly made a left turn and began to forge a path northwards through the bushes. Toni peered beyond and realized why: the way ahead was barred by an extensive interlocking growth of thorn bushes.

As the desperate pursuit continued, Toni had time to consider what would happen if Ian were to escape. He was horribly certain that if he were to return to base without an explanation for his missing marker, he would be failed from the SIT. He was also quite certain that Ian had already completed his own course. But he couldn't understand how Ian expected to get away with it. If the drill team were to read his marker's data afterwards, they would discover that he had inexplicably returned to an objective of the first part of the course after finishing his. He couldn't possibly hope to –

And then it hit him.

Ian had hidden his marker somewhere safe before searching Toni out. The data it contained would give him all the alibi he needed.

Which meant that Toni's future was presently running on two legs and trying hard to escape him.

All of a sudden, the two recruits came upon a wide, dried-up riverbed, its multitude of large, polished rocks presenting Ian with an unexpected obstacle to a clean getaway. A livid Toni tackled him and for a brief moment both were airborne. They then came crashing down onto the rocky ground.

The recruits rolled among the jutting rocks, Ian's steel helmet clanging loudly as it collided against granite. Toni stood quickly to face his senior, only to find the Leibenese already on his feet, his fists held high as he glared hatefully from between scraped forearms. Toni's jaw tightened at the prospect of imminent pain.

He had no illusions about which between them was the better fighter.

Toni launched himself forwards and tried to tackle Ian again, only to receive a stiff kick to the face that blocked his advance in an instant. He opened the distance hastily, blood coursing from his battered nose as he scrutinized his adversary's fighting stance.

Ian appeared as unapproachable as a battle-tank. His senior's expression slowly relaxed and became impassive. He had apparently chosen to bide his time.

Toni finally smiled.

"You must have trained really hard to be able to fight like that," he quipped, stooping down to pick up three good-sized pebbles, "but it's a pity you never grew up on a farm. Probably couldn't throw a stone to save your life, could you?"

The pebble whizzed through the air, its movement a blur as it struck Ian's upheld arm. The recruit winced with sudden pain and he gripped his wrist, only to be struck by a second pebble against his helmet. A third stone collided against Ian's jaw with a dull thwack, sending its victim down onto a knee as it escaped clattering among the rocks. Before Ian could recover, Toni had closed the distance; he received a kick to his head with enough force to send the battered helmet clanging over the river bed with chin-strap twirling.

Ian clinched at his junior's legs and planted his own squarely beneath his body, and then he lifted Toni high into the air, twisting his body around before sending his victim crashing onto the waiting rocks.

The impact expelled all the air from Toni's lungs with a hollow "humph"; he clawed desperately at Ian's torso as a wave of nausea threatened to overcome him. His senior calmly placed the palms of his hands against Toni's chest and began to push inexorably, and his grip slowly began to slip and weaken.

Toni stared at Ian's splayed hands with furrowed eyebrows, suddenly realizing that there was no GPS marker in them. He remembered that he hadn't seen the senior place it in his pockets during his escape.

Finally, he understood.

Toni's knee briefly jockeyed for position and then promptly ploughed into his adversary's crotch. He managed to repeat the act once before Ian clamped his legs together and rolled stiffly away. He stood and his eyes flashed over his surroundings, finding nothing. He then set off at a run, leaving his groaning adversary behind.

Following Ian's escape route in the opposite direction, Toni's eyes darted about for the fluorescent marker until, four hundred meters from the riverbed, he finally found it swaying on a branch well inside the sea of wild blackberry bushes they had skirted. Grimacing at what he was about to do, Toni bounded into the brambles at an insane sprint, coming to a halt four paces short of his objective due to the branches' tearing embrace. Covering his bleeding head with his savaged arms, he forged a path through the remaining gap until he was able to clutch the marker away from its resting place. With a step back and an excruciating turn, he prepared to make his getaway.

Ian stood blocking his way out with shoulders hunched, his bleeding chin tucked into his chest as he eyed his junior with dead eyes. There was nothing to be said between them. Toni considered the odds.

Coming to a decision, he did an about-face and launched himself into the brambles again, screaming with rage and pain as he continued to forge a path through the thorny growth. Chancing a quick look over his shoulder, he saw Ian backing up for a running start.

The height of the thorn-growth gradually rose above head-level, and Toni was relieved to find empty pockets beneath the bush that he promptly began to tunnel through. Moments later he tore through the sea of thorn's opposite side and sped off, leaving an enraged Ian howling and lost behind him.

Toni's legs pumped furiously as he opened the distance between them, exhilarated by his escape, but somehow ashamed. There was something very craven about running away from an enemy.

He coursed over a crest and into the valley beyond, before turning south and circuiting a humble koppie to veer west. Finding a dense growth of bushes, he took shelter inside it, taking special care to first make sure that the particular variety lacked thorns.

Battered and bloody hands removed the map from a pocket, pricking themselves a thorny branch still attached to his uniform. He splayed the chart on the ground, not bothering to orient it since the bushes prevented him from viewing his surroundings. He studied the map carefully, comparing it with his memory of the terrain he had just crossed. What he saw there made him apprehensive.

His escape had somehow taken him beyond the edge of his map. Simply turning west would not be enough to help him return to it, however, since he then ran the risk of passing below it. He would have to take a north-westerly course, one which would take him dangerously close to the sea of thorns, and towards where he had last seen his senior.

After a careful search of his surroundings, a grim Toni left his temporary refuge and set off at a brisk jog. The terrain was littered with small rocky hills, and with clumps of trees interspersed with myriad bushes. Feeling naked in the open ground, Toni took a page out of his training manual and chose a more winding path from grove to grove in order to avoid being seen. As he came upon the summit of a low hill, Toni finally saw a landmark he was familiar with.

To the west, perhaps a kilometer away, rested a delta-point crowned by a whitewashed central pillar. He smiled tremulously as he remembered what it had reminded him of. _What a sight for sore eyes you are, pas_ –

A sound from behind caught his attention but it was already too late. Ian collided violently against his body and the two recruits rolled downhill, arms flailing violently, before dropping off a short precipice.

Toni returned to consciousness surrounded by unfamiliar terrain. He rose to his feet but promptly collapsed onto his rump in disorientation. He watched in dazed fascination as a blood-streaked Ian, his uniform in tatters, calmly approached him.

"I need to thank you for your love, _Tonesy ..._ " Ian snarled before kicking viciously him in the groin.

Sudden pain exploded from below and Toni curled into a defensive ball in slow motion, steeling himself for a pummeling. Ian stooped over him rained a flurry of concussive blows upon his body, roaring in fury every time a fist connected. Finally exhausted by the effort, he tore Toni's pockets apart until the fluorescent GPS marker fell to the disturbed ground. Snatching the device up with a huff of satisfaction, he then leaned towards his adversary's ear.

"I'll be having an orgasm when I see you walk. That's why you'll see me smiling when you pass me by –"

"And what, exactly, do you think you're doing, soldier?"

Toni heard the woman but was unable to see her through the blood in his eyes. He did recognize the voice, however. Cleaning the blood from his face with a dirty cuff, he blinked furiously and peered in her direction.

A small army camp was laid out before him, nothing more than a smattering of tents beside a shallow stream. To Toni's weary eyes, it was Napoleon's Grande Armeé. Several soldiers stood or squatted beside a water purification apparatus, considering the battered recruits with surprise or mild amusement. A pair of corporals stood flanking Lieutenant Rose as she fumed not five meters away, considering the pair with a humorless half-smile.

### CHAPTER SIX

**Mining Quadrant, 14H15, 19** th **of April, 2771**

The convoy lumbered steadily onwards, the trail's degraded surface causing each vehicle to bounce and shudder in turn. The trucks bore no emblems, but their antique lines recalled the modular transport vehicles once popular in the 2030's. Their gray panels were battered and scratched in a way that suggested they had seen extended service in harsh conditions.

The trucks were preceded by a light tactical vehicle, its chassis, comprised of a framework of metal tubes, bounding along gracefully as the exposed suspension system mopped up vibrations. Four men in civilian attire manned the buggy, the driver and his wingman strapped into their seats with three-point harnesses, the other pair squatting on the rear-mounted engine and firmly gripping the metal tubes.

They appeared to be having the time of their lives.

The men came upon the clearing carelessly, the tactical vehicle galloping over the treeless expanse as the engine noisily cleared its throat. As it reached the clearing's opposite end, the buggy slowed down and then executed a tight about-face, abruptly ejecting the lesser prepared of the rear passengers. He rolled over the sandy soil to the laughter of his comrades, only to laugh himself once he recovered, taking a moment to slap the sand out of his generous head of hair.

He clambered back on board and the buggy set off slowly and deliberately, the second rear passenger spraying a fluorescent orange line onto the ground as it rolled in the opposite direction. The trucks turned towards the line as they arrived and toed it in turn. Before long, eighteen heavy transport vehicles were resting side-by-side in a neat line.

The clearing was soon teeming with people. All wore civvies, the younger workers wearing colorful clothing of all sorts, the older men preferring conservative earth-colored wares, making them look as if they were wearing different versions of the same crappy old uniform. Those men seemed the more diligent workers of the lot as well, and they set about removing equipment from the trucks, recruiting the nearest and most cooperative youths to assist them. The remainder took to the clearing like children to a playpen, and soon their laughing voices could be heard as they crossed the grounds at a run.

One of the running boys suddenly stopped as if something unusual had caught his attention. He peered down at the depression at his feet, and no doubt there must have been a curious expression on his face as he considered the pattern stamped there. He hollered towards a group of passing boys, and soon they were doing some staring of their own. Then one of them took off towards the remaining workers and spoke briefly with them. All work was abandoned as the workers began to spread out over the field, and their shouts of excitement soon became clearly audible.

"That's right, natives, worship the spoor of the gods," Deadhand whispered, the briefest of smiles alighting on his face.

The convoy had been picked up by drones well before their arrival, and the clearing was presently being covered by three mobile Suits. Mentally opening the appropriate comm channel, Deadhand updated his commander for the day.

"Lippard, this is Deadhand, over."

"Lippard here, inform."

"I don't know if you see it from your vantage point, but these natives are civilians. I repeat, they are civilians."

"My vantage is good enough to see that, kinder. That is not the issue. Their chances of survival depend on whether they suspect our presence here. First appearances are not encouraging."

Deadhand didn't like the way she stated that last part.

He preferred Kaiser in such operations. If the Bavarian had been born with a personal totem, it would most definitely have been a fox. He was sly, calculating and wise beyond words. Lippard's totem, however, would have been just like her nickname. She was a leopard to the core. Her tail twitched nervously all the time, and she was always ready to pounce at a moment's notice. To a leopard's eyes, the most innocent of gazelles was fair game. As long as she was hungry and conditions were fair, she was fated to ambush her prey, and she would never feel an ounce of shame in the aftermath of the carnage. Lippard was his number one choice of commander in a stand-up fight, but as soon as he had seen the boys playing in the field, he found himself missing the old fox.

"Looks like it's going to be one of those missions, boss," he remarked as the stick-figures beside the trucks began to raise a communications antenna.

"Moose, Deadhand, standby. I will establish a link with Ebony Tower," she declared.

Whatever his misgivings, Deadhand nevertheless opened his tactical eye and focused it on the clearing. Each vehicle had appeared to carry a driver and two workers and, factoring in the buggy, that put about fifty eight civvies on site. The vehicles were parked as neatly as beer bottles upon a wooden fence.

"Any chance of taking prisoners, boss?" Deadhand inquired.

It took a while for her to answer, and when she did her voice had steel in it.

"Moose, suppression operation initiates at the end of this minute. You will launch an EDI streaker at the vehicles and initiate frequency jamming. You will set pulsed laser platform for anti-personnel and neutralize all indigenous persons. Deadhand, you will set your platform to anti-material and kill the vehicles' engine blocks. Avoid the fuel tanks, we don't want to send out any smoke signals. You will then join us in anti-personnel activities. All fleeing civilians are valid targets. Those who refrain from flight and are cooperative are to be taken prisoner. Inform if you copy, over."

There was a long pause as they digested the communication, and fifteen seconds before the end of that minute both grudgingly copied it.

Deadhand cursed as he set his weapon to intermediate strength and shouldered it. He cursed again as his scope roved over the excited civilians, before resting his reticule on a vehicle's principal heat source. It was the stationary buggy; any fool would want to neutralize it first.

The moment the mission clock added another minute to its elapsed time, a missile streaked up over the treetops and then swerved aggressively towards the parked trucks. It detonated at a respectable height above its targets, the report insignificant compared to the electromagnetic pulse it produced. As soon as Deadhand's sensors detected the pulse, he fired upon the buggy and the engine incandesced and disintegrated, the vehicle doing a jumpy half-turn before abruptly bursting into flames. Fat smoke billowed from the wreckage, obscuring the trucks behind it and rising into the sky.

_Oh, hell no_ , he thought.

He immediately directed his platform to the left and began to fire upon the vehicles' engines one at a time, striving to destroy as many as possible before any more could become cloaked in smoke. Fifteen trucks were soon neutralized, but the rest became obscured and civilians began to run towards them.

"Deadhand, you dummkopf, shift your position and kill those vehicles!" Lippard snapped over the comm.

The Suit pilot leaned forwards and took off at speed, footpads colliding against the earth as the shouts in the clearing began to turn into screams. The cracks of low-powered pulse weapons suddenly increased in frequency, and Deadhand became aware that Lippard had changed her platform's settings to automatic fire. He maneuvered out of the trees and pounded into the clearing, and the civilians wailed at his appearance as if the day of reckoning had arrived. Ignoring the scurrying figures, he moved to his left, trying to gain line-of-sight with the intact vehicles. The smoke enveloped them, however, and so he straddled the trail from the east and began to close the distance. The remaining mobile Suits came into view, Lippard's unit striding and firing at the fleeing natives while Moose kept his distance, picking targets off from the plantation's other side.

A shuddering truck leapt through the smoke and sped towards him, and without further thought Deadhand opened fire. The vehicle promptly gained entertainment value, swerving brusquely before it collided against the opposite side of the trail's drainage ditch, and it then caught fire as pulse after pulse of lasered light disintegrated its front compartment and the people inside it. He fired one shot too many and the beam struck a panel above the fuel deposit, sending a shower of sparks through it. Flames enveloped the vehicle and set the nearest trees alight.

Deadhand began to groan.

"Deadhand! _Avoid_ the fuel tanks is what I said, not _aim_ at them. I –"

A loud chirp cut through her communication, making it clear someone had activated their comm channel's alarm.

"Two vehicles escaping east, they're beneath my line of fire," Moose interrupted calmly.

Lippard's Suit took quick aim and the mouth of her weapon platform strobed briefly, the light show quickly followed by the rapid snapping sounds of autofire. Deadhand vaulted forwards through the blaze and accelerated to a mad run, penetrating the smoky haze beyond to find a ravaged truck slowing to a stop as the other beyond it disappeared through the treeline. Not daring to slow down, he tore through the foliage, finding the trees too low for him to follow the vehicle at its pace.

"Lippie, I need overhead eyeball on the vehicle, over."

There was a moment of silence over the comm.

"The next time you call me Lippie, I'll detonate your Suit. Is that clear, schwarze?" she barked.

He swallowed the insult with some difficulty and reformulated his request.

"Apologies, boss. I need drone recon over the area, I can't keep up with them in these trees."

"Return to the clearing and help us clean up this mess, the drones will finish the fugitive vehicle," she ordered instead.

Deadhand about-faced angrily, smothering his rage as he returned to the clearing. Once there, he stopped to take in the scenery.

Most of the vehicles had been flawlessly killed. So had the civilians, for that matter. Not a moan or cry for help could be heard, only the crackling fires as they consumed the remains of the badly killed vehicles, only the heavy footfalls of Lippard's and Moose's Suits as they padded over the terrain, nudging body after body for signs of life. A detonation to the east caused him to turn.

The luminous ball over the plantation beyond slowly morphed into a puffy mushroom, a cloud as dark as sin that ascended the sky as bodies burned beneath it.

*****

Kaiser woke suddenly in the darkness and slammed his head into an unseen panel.

"The Kaiser has woken," he heard his neighbor say from the other side of the bulkhead. "It seems even royalty has nightmares, no?" the voice declared before letting escape a cackle.

Kaiser paused for a second, situating himself, and then he laughed, apologized, and greeted his neighbor. The voice belonged to Wei Guozhi, the Tower's chief logistics organizer, and thus someone with whom it was important to be friendly with. He heard movement all around him, barely perceptible above the ship's own noises, and realized that they were not the only ones who were awake.

"Greetings, comrades," he called out cheerfully.

There were answering greetings, some enthusiastic, others not so much. He estimated that he could speak with five of his neighbors in that way, the remaining cubicles connecting with his accommodations only at its corners. Five neighbors who could hear him breaking wind were five too many, but the personal space more than made up for that. The sergeants were four per cubicle, while the lower-ranking personnel were eleven for a space roughly twice his own. They accomplished such a feat by sleeping in shifts. At least their beds were never cold.

Already Kaiser had grown accustomed to the potent gravity, and he rose gracefully from his bed, trying to not put an elbow into his immediate surroundings to keep the noise down. He turned on the emergency light only; it was all he needed. Stronger illumination would only cost him points from his card. He stopped in front of the compartment's other perk; an aluminum lavatory before which a battered metal mirror hung. The face he saw there had more lines than he remembered from before their long journey. He suspected he had somehow aged in cryostasis, although the physician had scoffed at the statement, declaring instead that the higher gravity was pulling at the skin of his face in a way that only gave that impression. His hair appeared almost black in the red light. It was light brown, in fact, just shy of dirty-blonde. His grey eyes appeared darker in the light as well, with a burgundy tinge that made him look like a vampire.

He washed and brushed, and then uniformed himself in his more formal number two attire. He thought about his nightmare, trying to remember it but failing in the attempt. It was a now-familiar failure. Since his arrival on the planet, Kaiser's dreams had not been tranquil, and one in particular had been recurring with increasing frequency. He remembered the dream only because of the emotions it elicited upon waking. Misery, guilt, helplessness, a tight ball of emotions that seemed to accumulate with every episode. He discarded the thought and pocketed his wallet, bidding his neighbors farewell before leaving his room.

Compared to the dim light of his quarters, the corridor was positively glowing, and he paused momentarily for his eyes to adjust. As an exclusively military structure, the Tower was small for the multitude of resources it accommodated. The consequence was a web of service passages so narrow, the only way for two people to cross in opposite directions was at nodes where they could pass abreast.

_Evacuation is no concern here_ , he mused.

"Passing through ..." he declared as he neared a sharp corner.

"Waiting ..." he heard, and as he made the corner he found a sergeant waiting for him at the node that followed.

"Good morning, commander. Or is it afternoon?" the sergeant asked.

Kaiser smiled and shook his hand.

"For all I know it is the middle of the night, Mateus. How are you?"

"I'm well, sir. In fact, I'm better than well ..."

They chatted idly for a while and Kaiser found himself wondering what the sergeant might want of him. The reason he knew Mateus wanted something of him was because he was aware of that fundamental trait among all human beings. People who knew each other quite well tended to ask for a favor and be done with it. People who didn't usually pitter-pattered around the subject before committing themselves to the request.

"– which is why I have a favor to ask of you, if I may?" the sergeant finally declared to the commander's relief.

Kaiser appeared momentarily pensive.

"I have not killed anyone for money in a long time, Sergeant. My back has been bothering me, you see ..."

The sergeant laughed.

"I need no one dead, commander. Do you remember Corporal Van Vuuren from tactical command?"

"Hmmm ... young, supple, with ginger hair so tightly bound you could bounce a coin off her cheeks, with –"

"Yes, her," the sergeant interrupted a little stiffly. "My efforts seem to be paying off, and I've managed to convince her into dining with me at the refectory. The problem is ..."

"Let me guess, the copulation room has been reserved for the foreseeable future."

"Well, yes commander ..." he admitted, glowing scarlet with embarrassment, "the newly-weds are living in it for the rest of the week. I was wondering whether I could use your room, sir ..."

"Hmm. My room has too many ears surrounding it. Lippard's room, however, is near to the reactor. Which do you prefer, a silent audience or a noisy reactor?"

"Most definitely a noisy reactor, sir. Won't Lieutenant Lippard object to this?"

"Why, of course not, my dear sergeant," Kaiser scolded, as if the soldier was a fool for considering it. "I and my better half do not mind an audience. Not even a noisy one, for that matter. Besides, she is out at the moment, which is why I am up so early. Enjoy," he finished, slipping him his partner's access card as if he were trafficking forbidden substances.

The sergeant thanked him, promptly declaring that if there were anything he wished for in return, he needed only say so. Kaiser smiled and patted his back.

As Mateus was about to leave, however, Kaiser took him by the shoulder and drew him close.

"Pictures. I want pictures, my dear sergeant," he whispered, his expression dead serious.

The sergeant laughed, not quite entertained, not entirely comfortable. He nodded curtly and promised there would be if she was willing, and went on his way.

Thinking of the fun he and Lippie could soon be having with the photos, Kaiser returned to his journey to Ebony Tower's primary situation room.

Despite his rank and credentials, the commander found himself once more the subject of an interrogation protocol. The Tower's security personnel were an independent structure answerable only to the Executives, and they knew it well. Four ISB soldiers manned the operational headquarters' main access point. He was searched with the respect due to a man of his rank, and so he did not get a hand to the crotch, nor was he obliged to remove his shoes. As soon as the reason for his visit had been established, the commander was allowed to enter the room.

The Situation Room was the single largest division within the Tower, and its organization was evident from where he stood. The room was circular in conception, with the outermost ring acting as a corridor, from which walkways descended towards the floor. The innermost area, known as the tactical floor or more aptly as the arena, was the domain of Tactical Command. The arena was cluttered with luminous panels displaying ongoing events in exquisite detail, and complemented by a host of tacticians manning consoles. Presiding over them were the commander and his vice, both far too busy to receive him at the moment. The intermediate ring was cut into four sections by the descending walkways. The two rightmost sections comprised ground and air support. The opposing side comprised logistics and resupply, and an odd section where the personnel appeared to be slumbering. It was that section which Kaiser approached.

By all outward appearances the least busy of the bunch, Strategic Command nevertheless possessed the authority to overrule all other departments. Except for the Executive Council, of course, whose august members were still safely in orbit.

He approached the nearest of the seven strategists. The man in the reclining chair was old, his grey locks curling around an ancient pair of earmuffs, his eyes hidden beneath a frilly sleep mask clearly not originally his. Gently raising one of the earmuffs, the commander spoke into the elder's battered ear.

"Ah, mein hengst, how I long to feel your rippling muscles between my sweaty thighs. You stud, you dominant stallion, how great is my urge to ride you, to pull at your crest, to pull at your –"

"Alright, alright, you trash talker, I'm up," the old man muttered irritably, pulling the sleep mask up to peer at the grinning German. He shook his head at his visitor.

"There's nothing more upsetting than that kind of mental contamination, German. I am connected to my fellows, and I felt the turbulence in them as soon as you began to speak," he declared, distancing the back of his head from the interactive induction plate before any more contamination could take place.

"Ah, but that begs the question, my dear councilmember," Kaiser countered. "Has my _contamination_ perhaps begun to wet the thighs of the Frau Wenger beside you. Might I cop a feel to verify?"

The old man began to chuckle. He stifled it quickly and directed the mobile Suit commander away from his fellows, sparing a glance at the restless Lady Wenger, who had begun to display a distinctly unsettled expression. They settled down on a bench in the quarter's rest space and silently watched the arena as events unfolded. Things were clearly becoming ugly at the plantation.

"So, having trouble sleeping, are we?" the strategist began.

"Yes, councilman, I am. It mystifies me. Despite not having any real reason for it, I have been having nightmares."

"Perhaps your conscience is not clear."

Kaiser laughed.

"I hardly have a need for a conscience, old man. In any case, that is not why I interrupted your work. Certain unnamable people have informed me that certain devices have been removed from storage."

"Devices? I know nothing of such things," the councilmember answered amiably enough. Kaiser insisted.

"Certainly I believe you but, taking into consideration the nature of these devices, as well as the highly qualified personnel who are prepping them, I must say –"

"Alright, Kaiser. Let's assume your information is correct, for the sake of discussing a scenario, if for nothing else. Why would this be the business of an MS commander such as yourself?"

Kaiser smiled without humor.

"Because the last time you _strategists_ made foolish decisions, I spent the four following years stuck on Mars cleaning up the mess. I guess you forgave your own mistake a little more easily than I did, councilman."

The strategist deliberately avoided Kaiser's eyes, focusing instead on the activity in the arena while the commander breathed heavily beside him. After a while, when Kaiser's body was no longer taut with sudden anger, the old man turned his face towards him.

"This is not Mars, Tommi," he finally said. "Those chappies always knew we'd be knocking at their door sooner or later, so they made arrangements outside of our projections. These colonists, on the other hand, don't even know we exist. Which is why the operation at the plantation is so vital to our future. If even one of those miners manages to slip free, will there be any reason not to hit them with everything we've got? Attacking before we've accumulated enough resources may be bad, but it is still better than being attacked under similar circumstances. Even if they're not annihilated, the knockout will keep them on the carpet long enough for us to get up to speed. Do you have any sound reason to counter that, commander?"

"Yes, although your ability to understand my rationality is questionable."

"You're speaking with the senior strategist of this mission, Kaiser! Do you –"

"That's exactly my point, my dear councilman," Kaiser countered. "You have a very high opinion of yourself, at least for someone who has never hung from a monster's teeth as a consequence of foolish decisions. Which is more dangerous? An army of a thousand before the first hammerblow of war, or one of five hundred after their families have been slaughtered? Your first mistake is presuming your attack will have the knockout effect you desire so much. Such an evaluation is not a matter of mathematics, it is instead one of gauging this country's fighting spirit. That is why I have insisted so much on taking prisoners, to interrogate them, to understand them. Without knowledge of such a variable, how can you possibly expect to predict the outcome of attacking their capital?"

"All I can say, Kaiser, is the following. Pray, if that is something you do, that prisoners are taken and no miners escape. Otherwise our course is set."

Kaiser shook his head, wondering how such intelligent men could be so blind. He made one last attempt to explain.

"Let us imagine for a moment, my dear councilman, that you are one of these colonists. Some futile government service sends a group of miners and agricultural engineers to this remote plantation. After some time has passed, they realize there is no word on the miners. There is no habitation near to the mines, nor any military structures, and so there are no locals to establish contact with. They promptly presume that something of a technical nature has gone wrong. After a while, drones are sent out to locate the convoy, and these drones mysteriously fall out of the sky. After even more time has passed, they finally realize that an enemy exists to their south-east, and the army, there is always an army, of course, is notified. A mission is sent, and it does not return. A larger mission is sent, and it does not return. After a while, fear becomes a physical thing to them, and they will begin to see these events as disasters. Their fear will keep them from wishing to move to the south-east. The mines will be considered lost, and they will begin to prepare their defenses, to prepare their army.

"But here is the most interesting part, dear councilmember. Because the army's command structure never received any real feedback from their lost forces, they will have no idea of how strong we are, how strong we have in the meantime become, or the nature or origin of our strengths. Such commanders will inevitably make the wrong decisions. They will remain a primitive force for not having been forced to evolve. And because of this, when we finally attack in full strength, they will be completely overwhelmed. With no need, I might add, for murdering their families beforehand. Between the two possible scenarios, attack or not attack, the second of these is much more attractive to I, the warfighter. Casualties will be lighter on both sides, and victory will be certain."

The strategist nodded his head slowly as he listened, appearing to seriously consider Kaiser's words. Once the officer had finished, however, he countered.

"As I thought, Kaiser, you have misunderstood our predicament entirely. The decision to attack or not attack is not simply a matter of strategy. It is a bureaucratic inevitability, much more connected to the way we operate than to any other variable. I may understand what you're saying. You may understand what you're saying. But our leadership is a strange democracy, as is our strategic council. And the fact that we can occasionally swim in each other's minds does not change matters significantly. When in council, we can trade information visually and abstractly, even, but emotions are a different matter. Your reasoning is deeply connected to an emotional understanding of how people think and feel, and that is precisely the most difficult thing to directly transmit when in session. People tend to shy away from each other's emotions. After all, there is something inherently threatening about the direct insertion of emotional concepts into other peoples' brains. Information with no emotional charge is much safer, since we all have our own sacred cows enshrined in our heads, and nothing threatens these as greatly as emotions do.

"There is a saying by the classical philosopher, David Hume. One of my favorites, for that matter. _Reason is, and ought only to be, a slave to the passions,_ and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. I like his words, and not because there is anything poetic about them. I like them because they're true, and I know they're true because of my occupation. We have crossed the infinity of space and many of us feel very small. We have established ourselves on a planet with the intent of annexing it in Earth's name, and many of us feel afraid because we know we're intruders. And fearful people are not receptive to new and unusual emotional concepts, especially not when these are presented with the aim of suppressing one's instinct to attack for fear of being attacked.

"They won't change their minds, nor will they accept the unusual reasoning you have to offer. Only the complete destruction of the convoy might give them reason to pause, but even then they must know there will be follow-ups. All you will have for your efforts, dear Kaiser, is my vote and my attempt to dispassionately reason with fearful people. I have long given up on trying more advanced methods of thought transmission. The emotional whiplash one receives in return nearly destroyed me once. I have learned my lesson."

The strategist became silent, and he returned to his attention to the events at the arena. There were plainly no survivors at the clearing, and Kaiser was thankful for that, despite the lack of prisoners that entailed. He observed from a bird's eye view as Lippard approached the location where the drone had pegged the fugitive truck, his paramour certainly as aware as he was of the need to dispatch all civilians before any could escape. The fate of the planet hung on it and, after all, a small dose of genocide could perhaps prevent a larger one from taking place. That was how vaccinations had originally worked, or so he had read somewhere.

The commander sensed movement to his rear, but decided to ignore it. Moments later someone politely cleared his throat. The deep rumble confirmed Kaiser's suspicion. Turning towards the ISB officer, Kaiser presented him with his brightest smile. The officer rewarded him with a humorless grin.

"Excuse me, commander. I trust the motive for your visit has been satisfied?" he declared.

Kaiser sighed and thought on the matter. He then nodded curtly and bid the strategist a good evening.

"It's morning, by the way," the officer corrected. "The director of strategy should return to his post. I'll accompany you to the door, Commander."

Shortly afterwards, Kaiser was stalking along the corridor, his mind racing as he considered what needed to be done. Making a quick decision, he made for the armory.

The installations occupied the tower's entire second level, the first two levels being accessible by stairs or, alternatively, through the chute-and-pole rig that had been the main highway in microgravity. Kaiser naturally used the firepole, his inner child overruling any concern he might have had for doing the stunt under the intense gravity, and he reached the second level in an instant, coming face-to-face with an ISB checkpoint at the armory's only entrance.

Their presence did not bode well for the future. He put on his brightest smile and approached the Principal Chief in command of the checkpoint. The chief smiled back, and Kaiser suddenly knew the guard had already been contacted by his superior two floors above. Kaiser widened his smile for good measure.

"Good morning, Chief, I hope you would not mind me visiting my armorers. We have been having some problems with our platform safeties ..."

The chief nodded amiably enough.

"I see, commander. As much as it pains me to, I am unable to allow you to pass for the moment," he explained with exaggerated pain. "The armorers are at the moment tasked with an important mission, and until its conclusion they will not –"

The double gates opened behind the chief and a specialist exited at once. As all lay their eyes upon his wiry frame, he stopped, planted his hands on his waist and sighed heavily.

"Done." he declared. "And I'm also done for the day. You may all go fuck yourselves."

The specialist took off at a stroll, the ISB personnel daring only to raise their eyebrows as he passed them by. Kaiser gave the chief a farewell nod and followed the departing soldier.

He caught up with him at the elevator.

"Specialist Tarento, I am told our cooks foolishly left their desserts unguarded –"

"No, Commander, I will not go on another adventure with you. I'll go to the belvedere. If you like you may accompany me, and then perhaps we can have a conversation."

"I would enjoy such a conversation, if the belvedere wasn't tapped. The reactor, however, isn't. We –"

"Is this corridor tapped?"

"I think not."

The specialist leaned close and whispered.

"What I have to say won't take long. The number of devices they had us prep goes well beyond tactical use. They are committed to some more strategic objective ..."

"How many?" Kaiser asked.

"All of them. Forty units have been tasked to Tactical Command. The remainder are with strategic. Didn't you say you were going to do something about this?"

Kaiser felt an upwelling of emotion he had only ever felt before in that most unpleasant dream. He smiled automatically, but no answer was forthcoming. Tarento shrugged.

"There's no reason to get too emotional about this. It's mostly humans who are going to die. There are already too many of those in the universe, I think."

"Yes, my kinder, but what cries they make when they expire," Kaiser sighed.

### CHAPTER SEVEN

MEWAC – SIC installations, 10H40, 21th of April, 2771

"I would like to congratulate every one of you for having made it this far," First-sergeant Abner stated, the platoon seated before him observing impassively as he rocked on his heels. "I only hope that you don't relax your present rate of progress. You'll be spending quite a lot of time with me from today onwards, after all. Now that your basic training is over we can focus on the more _relevant_ part of the program. Just never forget that you are no longer recruits, but sergeant-cadets instead. I expect you to act accordingly."

_Their physical training must have been harsh this morning_ , he thought as he took note of the platoon's lack of enthusiasm. All wore flushed complexions, especially the attractive cadet up front, her finely-chiseled cheeks still glistening with after-shower sweat. His loins tightened a little at the sight, letting him know that it maintained its own selfish agenda.

An outburst of coughing among the cadets brought him back to the present. The sergeant frowned at the noise. Lieutenant Templeton liked to exercise his personnel vigorously, but Abner was going to need the cadets´ full attention. He made a mental note to have a conversation with the lieutenant about that.

"So, what did we do for exercise this morning?" he asked.

There were a few smiles, some of them more akin to grimaces, but only one cadet chose to answer the question. He was a big lad whose elbows angled out from his torso by virtue of his overdeveloped muscles. He even seemed to sit a little taller than all the others.

"It was only a run, sir," he replied simply.

"It´s never just a run with Lieutenant Templeton, is it, Cadet, uh, Winters? Must be tricky to take a jog in the midst of the Winds, eh?" the sergeant retorted.

The group rewarded his attempt at humor with wan smiles, but quickly returned to their neutral expressions. There didn´t seem to be any clown in the group to complicate future lessons. He looked at the two empty seats in his classroom and wondered if maybe that was the reason why.

"Very well, then," he said, returning to his introduction. "I am First-sergeant Tolerance Abner and I work in the Armored Suit Company's Repair and Maintenance Section. I have held the position of assistant-chief there for the last eight years, although I´ve since been temporarily transferred to the SIC for the duration of your training. I trust you all know why?"

There were a lot of nods across the room.

_Of course they know_ , he thought. It was certainly in their best interests to know.

Aside from a two week interruption for rest and recuperation, the rest of their time would be spent learning to drive armored Suits proficiently as well as fight in them. In late November, the platoon would be subjected to a very rigorous evaluation, and only its most capable members would be selected to carry on with training over the following year, bearing from that moment onwards the rank of officer-cadet. The rest would be enrolled into the ASC as sergeants-at-arms.

The youngsters before him were thus competing for the privilege of officer status, as all were by now fully aware. In fact, if the cadets were unable to achieve minimum proficiency requirements by the end of their training, they would not be enrolled in the ASC at all.

"In your desk compartments you'll find two items we've seen fit to assign to you," he continued. "The first is a paper-support Instruction Manual for the MoCa-TRI Training Suit. The second is a pen-key specifically coded for each cadet. However, before you remove them you are first required to access your military accounts, where you've already received a message containing your pass-code. Do so now."

As the cadets raised their display screens and began to tap at the options present there, Abner paced along the aisles, looking about to ensure they were not having trouble with the system. Before long, however, a beefy hand shot into the air.

"Yes, Cadet Winters. What is the problem?"

"Sir, my code isn't here, sir," the cadet replied.

Speaking loudly so the entire class could hear, Abner pressed him. "Cadet Winters, can you read what is written at the top of the message?"

"Yes, sir."

"Could you please read it aloud?"

The cadet hesitated for a moment before reciting the message.

"Sir, it says 'Place eyes directly before screen and approximate'."

"Yes, Cadet Winters, that sounds about right. And why didn't you do that?"

"Uh, sir, there's nothing below the message's heading. It's blank, sir," he declared, checking again to make sure that it hadn't popped up while he was speaking.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Abner began, speaking to the ceiling as he paced steadily among them, "for security reasons, only a reader facing this particular monitor directly and at a distance of fifteen centimeters or less will be able to observe the pass-code. This is so the person sitting next to him won't be able to access his user profile. Had you accessed the message on any other type of monitor, you would not have been able to do this. Please do as the message says."

Fourteen cadets craned their necks forwards at the same time, trying to memorize the eight digit pass-code that had magically appeared before their eyes. Abner didn't care to smile; the scene had long ago ceased to have any entertainment value for him. Moments later, all leaned back into their chairs with concentrating looks on their faces.

"All memorized?" he asked. There was a general yessir in reply.

"Good. Close the message and logout. Once you've done so, I want you to close your display screens and raise the top of your desks. Touch nothing in there until I say otherwise," he added.

Before long the cadets were awaiting further instructions, the desks' interiors exposed before them. Not saying a word, Abner began to pace along the aisles again. To the upper left side of their interiors, each desk contained a detachable turn-key jacked into its keyway. Twisting each to the side and pulling upwards, he removed them one-by-one and stashed the lot inside a pouch. Just to be certain, he removed the turn-keys from the vacant desks as well.

_Anything worth doing is worth doing right_ , he considered. Depositing the pouch inside a small built-in safe behind his desk, he turned to his class once more. To his dismay, the silence was no longer complete. A lanky youth with an irreverent air and hair a little too long and wild to be allowed was whispering to the cadet seated beside him. Abner glowered at the pair, earning only a cheeky look from the youth in return. His partner looked far too tired to care about the consequences of such cheek. He decided to ignore them and addressed the class instead.

"What I just did was physically cut each work-station off from the General Military Network. As it happens, this room is the only location outside MEWAC's Suit installations where one is permitted to handle the information contained in your pen-keys. These terminals are also used for other purposes, however, and so they possess a physical cutoff option. If any of you are wondering what would happen if you accidentally leaked information about the Suits to the civil web, it's my pleasure to fill you in. At best, you'd be subjected to basic disciplinary action, and at worst, you'd be court-martialed. And, as you know, in a state of war, a deliberate leak carries the possibility of the death-penalty with it.

"You may now remove your manual and pen-key," Abner instructed with a grim smile. He then fell into a brief explanation of how the pen-key worked and how it connected to their work-stations.

"He does, doesn't he?" Ray insisted, sparing a spiteful look for the instructor as he carried on obliviously with his explanation. "Sounds like a real pussy, doesn't he? Preachy pedantic prick, isn't –"

"Keep talking and you're gonna get us both in trouble. I've had enough of that lately, don't you think?"

Ray's eyebrows twitched at the rebuke but his recovery was lightning quick. He was soon scrawling a message on a piece of paper no doubt addressed to the back of Gordie's head.

Toni returned to his manual and flipped through its first few pages, taking the moment in which Sergeant Abner was explaining something to Sueli to satisfy his curiosity. He felt a bump on his shoulder and turned to find Ray mouthing _Porker_ repeatedly while gesticulating at the instructor. The look on his face was equal parts maliciousness and delight and his gesticulations were as descriptive as they were crude. Toni peered at the source of Ray's excitement and was forced to cover his mouth. The sergeant did seem to be a little too interested in Sueli's neck and cleavage; the crotch of his pants had begun to bulge noticeably just below his paunch. Toni recovered quickly from his moment of mirth and returned his attention to the manual before him.

It was a thick book, despite the very thin pages, and he found it strange that the sergeant had called it a paper-support; its pages were tear-resistant plastic. The manual's hard-cover had MOCA-TRI TRAINING SUIT INSTRUCTION MANUAL, EXTEC written over its front. The only thing Toni discovered before having to return his attention to Sergeant Abner was the meaning of the acronyms, printed on the inside page: MOtion CApture – Transmission/Reception Interface.

"The Moca Training Suit was the final product of the now defunct Experimental Technologies Bureau, before its privatization fifteen years ago," the sergeant continued. "This weapons platform applied tried-and-tested physical-motion capture and ocular-motion capture technologies, and came with a state-of-the-art software program we will be calling the OS, aka Operating System. With the development of the superior Hammerhead design, the Moca was relegated to trainer status six years ago. The Suit possesses many important systems, most of which will be studied in depth over the following fifty two days, particularly the Power Distribution Pyramid and its associated pneumatic, hydraulic and electrical systems.

"This theory will be complemented by practical lessons at the MEWAC's Suit Installations, we call them the Stables around here. If you manage passing grades in both theoretical and practical studies, after a mid-course interruption you will be qualified to drive the Moca in tactical exercises, and you will also commence training for the Hammerhead. Your first excursion to the stables begins today at fourteen hundred hours, so let us waste no more time and get into the material. Ah, excuse me, but your paper-support manual is to be used for after-hours study only, Cadet Templeton. Set it aside."

As the sergeant began to instruct them on how to access the data stored in their pen-keys, Toni turned his attention to the Special One. The cadet's injuries had healed well, he saw, just as his own had. The more recent lashes that crisscrossed their backs, however, gave both cadets no option except to sit up straight; the wounds stung mercilessly from even indirect contact with the backs of their chairs.

Ian had been unable to discourage Lieutenant Rose from filing disciplinary charges against him. His claim of having been assaulted by Toni first had only served to outrage the officer even further, and soon afterwards the SIT's most senior recruit was being led away to MEWAC's detention block.

Toni's injuries had been serious enough to warrant a ride to Medical, where the orderlies spent the rest of the afternoon inspecting and treating his bumps and lacerations. After six o'clock, a stiff-faced Baylen had shown up to interrogate him in the company of a corporal Toni had occasionally seen alongside the base's Justice and Discipline Officer. Baylen had read out several questions from a notepad and jotted down summaries of the recruit's answers, only to leave shortly afterwards with his silent sidekick in tow.

Toni had replied honestly, mostly because he respected Baylen too much to lie to his face, but also because he wasn't altogether sure that embellishing his story would have benefitted him in any way.

Baylen eventually told him that Ian was claiming the apprehended marker had been assigned to him, and that he had been forcefully retrieving the device after Toni had stolen it.

Toni had objected fiercely, convinced that analysis of the marker's data would prove that its owner had initiated the course in sixth place, not only due to the beginning time but also because the first three objectives had been reserved solely for him. Two days after that conversation, however, a sullen Baylen had informed him that the apprehended GPS marker was void of data. It had apparently been out of battery before the course had even begun.

"And you're actually telling me they weren't checked first? You think I'm going to believe that?!"

"I'm not an idiot," Baylen had barked back. "I'm not telling you to believe it, I'm telling you there's no evidence to support your claim or his. Which means from now on it'll be up to testimony, which means it'll be up to who you know, your family name, blind luck or all of the above. Mason lifted the markers from depot without checking them first, that's his story. It might even be true, for all we know ..."

"What about the other markers?"

Baylen had closed his eyes as if in pain.

"Every one of them worked fine. Except for the missing one, of course. That one hasn't been located yet ..."

At the disciplinary proceedings' conclusion, Captain Damien had glowered at the recruits for a long minute before convicting them of conduct unbecoming and sentencing both to be lashed the following day. What all had hoped to see quickly resolved ended up being delayed for the better part of a week, until MEWAC Command finally confirmed the sentence and set the date of punishment for the 18th of April.

At noon on that day Ian had withered under the maximum sentence of twenty lashes by the rod to his upper buttocks and lower back. Toni had received a more lenient ten.

The weals were still fresh and tender, and Toni had since been having difficulty focusing on even the simplest of tasks; the pharmacopeia of nootropics no longer seemed capable of exerting the same effect on him as it had before Friday.

He shook the thought out of his mind and tried to focus on the lesson.

Sergeant Abner was already deep into his lesson and wading in deeper, and he kept pointing at a large inscribed triangle on the display-screen that dominated the wall. At the triangle's pinnacle he could read PRINCIPAL POWER UNIT (GAS TURBINE), and it was to that inscription that the sergeant pointed next.

"We'll begin with the PPU which, aside from the fuel supply itself, is the greatest single contribution to the Suit's chassis. The power unit is the beating heart of our Suits, and most operational parameters stem from its capabilities. There were several initial power plant proposals, but a gas turbine was ultimately chosen for having the most favorable power-to-weight ratio of any hydrocarbon fuel-fed engine, as well as the lowest vibration, fewest moving parts and lowest lubricating-oil consumption. The Moca's PPU burns almost any kerosene-type or naphtha-type gasoline, but diesel-oil and biofuels can be used in a pinch.

"The power unit's main function as a compressor is to supply the adiabatic compressed air tank, aka ACAT, with highly compressed and dehumidified air. This air will then be used to engage the braided pneumatic artificial muscles, aka air muscles or PAMs, which will in turn move the Suit itself.

"The power unit also produces electricity to charge a lithium iron phosphate battery, aka LIP battery, which will power the OS, life-support systems, instrumentation and hydraulic interface, as well as control actuation of the air muscles themselves. And so we get to the bottom of the power distribution pyramid where, as you can see on the bottom-left corner, the PAMs will be consuming significant amounts of compressed air and electricity.

"This is necessary, of course. The air muscles require low compliancy to be able to carry heavy loads, and this implies moderately high pressure within the PAM sleeves. For that effect, air is decompressed from a maximum of five hundred Atmospheres down to ten or so, or about three times higher than ambient pressure at sea-level. This gives us the 6.8 bar of overpressure which will provide lifting and moving power for a chassis with a loaded weight of over three tons. Do you have a question, Mr. Miura?" the old sergeant asked in irritation.

"Well, sir, on my father's farm we have an air compressor. Every time he got it working, the engine made so much noise we'd have to keep clear of the shed. I was wondering, sir, just how noisy is the Suit?"

The sergeant clapped his hands together with glee and Toni realized that he was about to be stepped on.

"Well, as our friendly farmhand here tells us, compressors sure make a helluva lot of noise, don't they?" he drawled, deliberately exaggerating Toni's rural accent to the amusement of his classmates.

"Sir, sir, I think Cassel has a question too!" Ray suddenly said.

The statement caught Toni by surprise; he hadn't noticed any raised hands from her side of the room. If anything, Sueli seemed even more surprised than he was. Abner, on the other hand, appeared positively delighted by the news.

She gave Ray an ugly look; the Leibenese grinned widely back as the sergeant marched purposefully towards her. The noise level in the classroom soon began to climb. Gordie made it clear to his groaning neighbors that, besides being hungry, he was in the imminence of passing some gas. Grimm and Yamato pored over the manual, trading technical observations unconcernedly as Hannah traded observations of a very different kind with Rakaia. Ian consulted the manual in absolute silence, making occasional notes as he leafed through the pages. By the time the sergeant had thoroughly answered Sueli's improvised questions and returned to Toni, he no longer had that malicious look on his face. Ray grinned at Toni and gave him a confident thumbs-up.

"All right, Mr. Miura, I'll answer your question now. The Moca's PPU _is_ quite noisy when it's working; noisy enough, in fact, to compromise some tactical actions. As a result, the designer was forced to find a solution. The Suit's ACAT can store four cubic meters of highly compressed air. That is enough to provide near-silent locomotion for over ten minutes before the PPU needs to be reactivated. The ACAT is part of a closed system, meaning the high-pressure tank is fitted within a low-pressure tank that receives spent air from the PAMs for recycling. The ACAT then taps air directly from the low pressure tank, you see? This does away with the tell-tale hissing sound inherent to pneumatic systems, not to mention that there's no need for the compressor to dehumidify the air since it's already devoid of moisture. There is one last advantage to this layout: for a direct hit on the ACAT to succeed, the projectile would need to penetrate not only the exterior armor, but also the low-pressure tank before confronting the HP tank within."

"But won't damaging the outer tank just leave the Suit inoperable anyway, sir?"

"No, son, it won't. What it means is that spent air will then bleed out noisily from the system, not to mention that the PPU will take nearly twice as long to charge the ACAT due to the added need to dehumidify air. So your Suit's combat radius is effectively halved after such a hit. Understood?"

There was a general affirmative. Sergeant Abner then promptly returned to his lesson and the morning began to drag along at an alarmingly slow rate.

*****

The shuttle braved the heavy winds, the cadets inside clamoring joyfully whenever a more powerful gust came close to toppling it over. The road that linked their base to the MEWAC Suit Installations was embedded six meters below its surroundings, but the frequent curves sabotaged the measure, meant to avoid crosswinds, creating powerful eddies which occasionally challenged the driver. As Toni and his mates cheered in favor of the wind, others shouted words of encouragement to the uneasy driver, his knuckles bone-white as they gripped the steering wheel.

The MEWAC Suit Installations loomed into full view, but Baylen was still forced to point it out to the platoon once he had managed to shut them up. The structure they approached looked like nothing other than a particularly steep hill.

The elevation peaked sixty meters above the surrounding forest floor but Baylen explained that that was merely for show; observed from within the duralumin bracing-reinforced eggshell that enclosed them, the Stables rose no higher than thirty meters. The bracing structure's exterior was comprised of faux rocky outcroppings and grassy extensions, and there were even a few small trees growing intermittently upon it. It was only when clued in to the deception that one noticed the illusion wasn't quite perfect. The trees were stunted in comparison to those that surrounded the Stables, and the artificial cave entrance at its base was a little too regular to ever be confused with a real one.

Their transport entered the cave at a slow crawl, having only moments before been stopped at a checkpoint by a complement of RRU personnel. Toni had never seen commandos in the flesh before. They all wore soot-black uniforms, smart red caps and cold, cold, sleepy eyes. A residue of wind, still strong and chilly, had buffeted their heavy cloaks.

They had appeared wholly unimpressed by the collection of cheerful cadets.

As soon as the transport came rolling to a stop, Baylen began to bark orders. Forming the platoon into a double-column beside the shuttle, the corporal marched them through the overhang and into the cave, and then along the wide tunnel that stretched out beyond it. The tunnel soon opened out into a colossal cavern supported by a vast tangle of girders and struts, from where spotlights shone upon the main entryway to a monolithic wooden building.

Toni stood awestruck before what he suddenly knew to be the oldest surviving construction on Capicua. He had seen images of the facade in his History classes; the Adamastor's crew had had no choice except to over-engineer their first structures on account of the Greats Winds. The History book, however, had not deigned to inform its readers of the building's present purpose.

Baylen set off and they entered the Warehouse District's former administrative building with a silence usually reserved for a house of worship. The building's exterior wall was so thick that crossing the doorway's threshold gave the impression of entering another tunnel, one barely wide enough for two men to pass abreast without their shoulders brushing. Everything appeared to be made of redwood and, despite the countless deep scratches that marred all surfaces, shone as if the wood had been polished.

Toni was surprised to find a large number of personnel at work inside. Moving quietly along the principal corridor, the cadets craned their necks to their sides, peering into office after office packed with soldiers and civilians. The impression Toni was left with as they exited the building through the other side was that there were still places in the CDF where people worked for a living.

They finally came face-to-face with the stables themselves, over which the colossal canopy arched and extended out towards the cavern's opposite end. Each almost as massive as the building they had just left behind, the six stables had inward-facing entrances, three to each side, with an extensive concrete avenue running along between them. Over the avenue he spotted a sturdy overhead rail system suspended from flanking steel columns. From the main line, a secondary branched away towards each stable, effectively interconnecting them.

"You can close your mouths now, Sergeant-cadets," Baylen drawled. "Now that you've all seen what you've gotten yourselves into, we can make our way over to Stable Three."

They set off again. As the group neared the buildings, the corporal began to explain the setup.

"Stables One and Two to your left and right, respectively, house the two ASC platoons, one for each. Stable Three houses the Training Suits and is allocated to the SIC only in practice, since formally it's under the ASC as the Operational Training Section. Stable Four houses the simulators and is an extension of the OTS I just referred to. Stables Five and Six house the Repair and Maintenance Section, also under the ASC."

They passed the first two stables, observing with apprehension as a very solid-looking piece of hardware sailed over their heads and in through the entrance to Stable One. Beyond it, both side walls were almost entirely covered in dense scaffolding, with intermittent gaps about four meters wide and twelve high along their lengths.

The titans lodged within were almost entirely obscured by their service gantries. He managed only to glimpse an enormous rotary-rifle resting on a forklift and surrounded by technicians before the stable's exterior wall blocked them from view.

The platoon approached Stable Three and crossed the entrance's threshold at a brisk pace. As with the previous compartment, it possessed a scaffolding structure along its side walls, beginning about a third of the way down and stretching out towards the opposite end about a hundred meters off. The space between the entrance and the scaffold appeared to be a sort of mustering ground for armored Suits, and the concrete floor was painted with faded squares to indicate each unit's position in formation. The intervals in the scaffolding structure appeared to be smaller and a few technicians in blue overalls loitered where the first of them could be found. The cadets' footsteps echoed in the great room as they closed the distance towards them.

"Heiya, guys. I'm looking for Ruka, she around?"

"Stall Three, Corp," the most senior of them replied as Baylen's hand was briefly shaken by the huddle.

"Yeah, sarge is checking the unit's access-points," another volunteered.

As Baylen was about to thank the civilians, an approaching figure motivated them to stand stiffly at attention. Baylen himself stiffened and fired off the smartest salute Toni had ever seen him give. The passing master-sergeant ignored the civilians and reserved only a slight nod for Baylen before forging a path through the group. The sergeant wore no head-covering and his shaven skull was pock-marked with old scars and burn-marks. His pitted face held a tight but emotionless expression, and the last thing Toni noticed as the sergeant passed within arm's-length of him was the Hitlerian moustache that decorated his upper lip, its whiskers abundantly streaked with grey.

The master-sergeant left the stable and the aura of menace left with him, and it was only as Toni observed the diminishing figure that he noticed how short the man was. He would never have realized that from the way he carried himself.

"Master-sergeant Devonport ..." the corporal explained as if the name alone explained everything, and then they were off once more. As the group passed by what Toni understood to be an empty Stall One, he noticed the titans in the opposite stalls and realized that they were significantly smaller than the Hammerhead.

In their present configuration, however, the Mocas looked far more menacing.

The training Suits' proportions were much more similar to the humans who piloted them, their helms too, than the operational units. But more importantly, the Suits were almost entirely stripped of armor, exposing their glistening pneumatic air muscles to the world. The muscles gave the Suits the volume and appearance of a bodybuilder on a zero-fat diet, which, combined with the occasional jagged protrusions that jutted out from their mostly-hidden endoskeletons, made for a very intimidating sight indeed. Each titan stood like a marble statue within its stall, partially obscured by its service gantry, standing watch as the cadets neared one of their brethren. Toni felt someone elbow him. Ray's eyes were wild with barely suppressed excitement, and he was pointing to his forearm where, to Toni's lack of surprise, goose-bumps had erupted.

He was unsurprised because his hairs were standing on end too.

"Afternoon, Sergeant. How are you today?" Toni heard Baylen say. He turned, curious as to what had motivated the corporal to use his seductive voice.

Sergeant Ruka stood high upon the gantry, clad in a red overall that couldn't quite hide her abundant curves. She wore her black cap with an upward tilt, the expressive eyes beneath it gazing down as she assessed the group. She put on a smile and answered back at him.

"Why, very well, Corporal. And how is Ms. Reeves doing?"

Baylen chuckled.

"She's very well too, Sarge. I got fourteen cadets down here in desperate need of your wisdom. Can you take the time?"

The sergeant pursed her lips.

"I was under the impression there were sixteen of them ..."

"Recruit Debusey took the Walk over a month ago with some psych problems. Recruit Marcus walked last week due to another unpleasant matter. Seems he was caught smuggling forty kilo-mass of preserved meat from the canteen. Captain didn't like that too much."

"Well, the boy sure liked his bacon. All right then, just give me a mike."

Ruka disappeared through the gantry's access point and they heard the rattle of feet against metal before she ducked out of a low doorway at the scaffold's base.

"All right, form them up," Ruka said.

"Form up!" Baylen bellowed.

Within a few brief seconds, all cadets were standing smartly at attention in a formation three lines deep. As their new instructor appraised the cadets, Toni found himself doing some appraising of his own. It would be the first time he was instructed by a woman, and the idea was somehow leaving him uneasy.

She was older than she looked from afar, and fine lines creased the pale skin around her mouth, eyes and brow. Her hair was not dyed and numerous long grey strands streaked down amidst the thick ginger locks; she had tied those locks into an untidy ponytail with what he suspected was copper wire. But all that did not detract from the fact that a handsome woman stood before them. Toni then noticed Baylen observing him with a knowing smile on his lips. Hastily he turned his eyes front.

Clearly unmindful of the scrutiny she had just been subjected to, the sergeant began to speak.

"I am Second-sergeant Ruka Bellamy and I work in the ASC's Repair and Maintenance Section. I am responsible for prepping the Moca Suits for excursions and inspecting them on their return for any damage. Today I will give you a chance to get up close and personal with a real Suit, but first I'm laying a few simple rules down on the table: keep together at all times, don't touch anything without permission, don't interrupt me, and if you have a question, wait till I allow you to ask it. Understood?"

As soon as she was satisfied that all had understood the rules, Baylen dismissed the formation and the cadets were soon huddling beside Unit Three's right footpad.

"I'd like you all to take a good look around. This is Stall Three and it exists to help the maintenance personnel gain access to the hardware. From these platforms we can detect fractures in some components of the endoskeleton, repair or replace ruptured PAMs situated above waist-line height, maintain the PPU, just about anything that doesn't require removal of the unit from its stall.

"But sometimes it's just not possible to do this. If you look above your heads, you'll see that the Automated Transport Bus, or ATB, is able to access each stall in this stable. In fact, it can access any unit in any stable when needed, remove whichever Suit it's ordered to remove and convey it to Stable Five, where we have more specialized apparatus to deal with the problem at hand. With that equipment, we can strip a Suit down to its modules in less than half an hour.

"That's one of the more interesting facts about the Moca Suit; it's highly modular in nature. There are six hundred and thirty nine skeletal muscles in the human body, but only eight different types of PAMs are needed to reproduce with a Suit almost every movement a human being can perform. These PAM's are distinguishable by their lengths, widths and compliancy rating. For example, the lowest compliancy rating PAMs can be found in the lower appendages," she patted the titan's massive calf muscle beside her for effect, "while the highest compliancy PAMs can be found in the upper body and appendages. There are two reasons for this: the air muscles with highest compliancy have the thinnest walls, and so one saves weight where it counts the most, up above. And this way the Suit's muscular structure mimics its human counterpart and gives its hydraulic interface a much easier time feeding impulses back and forth. This takes us to the HINT itself. Follow me."

She set off towards the scaffold's stairway at a brisk pace and the cadets scrambled to catch up to her. After climbing three flights of stairs, she exited onto the platform that allowed access to the Suit's thorax. Before the cadets had managed to set their feet on the structure, Ruka shooed them back and slid an extension plate forwards along the flooring, gaining access to its right breast. She paused for a moment as the cadets crowded onto the cramped gantry, her hand resting lightly on the glistening muscles that covered the breastplate like pythons. Toni and Ray traded mischievous grins with one another before Balyen's scowl cowed them into submission.

"Take a good look at Unit Three's right pectoral muscle. It's comprised of fourteen A3-type PAMs. Anyone care to tell me why it's so important to have fourteen air muscles instead of just one?"

"Because a direct hit would only damage a few of them, leaving the machine still operable," Hirum volunteered.

"That is correct, though calling the Moca Suit a machine is a little like calling your mother an incubator. It is either Suit or Unit, I'll accept nothing else. Understood? Each of the fourteen PAMs connects to a detachable interior half-breastplate. That breastplate is detachable for a reason. Watch closely ..."

Ruka pointed to the wide metal ridge that separated the half-breastplates. She then traced her hand up over it before coming to a stop above a small orifice where a human collarbone would normally be. Taking out a large metal turnkey, she inserted it into the orifice and twisted it counter-clockwise. Nothing happened.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Ruka cursed, and she began to slam her knee against the PAMs. On her fourth attempt, the right breastplate suddenly moved, opening out like a clam-shell to the whine of hydraulics to expose its dark interior.

"Hatch is a bit twitchy. And the lighting's out," she explained before quickly producing a penlight and illuminating the interior.

There was something medieval about the contraption suspended in there, humanoid in form but crawling with countless color-coded wires that hugged the structure tightly. Its head was missing. A heavy-looking helmet hovered before the hydraulic interface, hanging loosely from the compartment's ceiling from thick spiraling cables. The interface itself stood suspended by a thick robotic arm fixed to the ceiling, giving the impression that the HINT had been impaled upon a gigantic articulated meat-hook. The compartment's walls crawled with more wiring, some of it feeding into the hydraulic system that apparently moved the Suit's breastplates. The sight of it all made Toni feel a sudden urge to strap himself in, to enter the techno-womb and become a titan himself.

Others did not seem to share his enthusiasm.

"Horrible! It has barely more space than a coffin. And what's with all the wires?" he heard Sueli say, her pretty nose crinkled as she stared with horrified fascination. The sergeant's answering smile was not entirely genuine.

"There are two types of wiring in the interior. The red-black wiring is electrical and feeds the HINT, hatch mechanism and HUD Helmet. The Blue-yellow type is actually hydraulic tubing, which again feeds the HINT and hatch mechanism. The Moca doesn't have as much interior space as our more recent model, nor is its cavity as tidy as theirs. But don't forget that it was a pioneer model, and so this probably couldn't be helped. On the up side, the Moca weighs less than four tons fully loaded compared to the Hammerheads' eight and has almost twice the autonomy and less than half the fuel consumption. Respect the Moca, or I'll lose respect for you.

"On the down side, there is a flaw inherent to the cavity's reduced volume. Some heavy impacts against the Suit, like when it takes a fall, will result in the driver making physical contact with the cavity walls. Due to this we've been outfitting the cavities with protective padding, which we expect will protect the tubing and wiring against damage from the HINT, as well as to provide some protection for the driver himself. In any case, a Moca driver may, with some impacts at least, feel two collisions for every one that actually happens. This is what we call double-slamming –"

Sergeant Ruka's explanation was cut short by a blaring alarm. The grating sound filled the cavernous compartment, causing echoes to rebound from the opposite side and add to the cacophony. Only then did Toni notice that loudspeakers had been fixed to the ceiling above every second stall. There was one just above his head, which probably explained why his ears were beginning to hurt.

Ruka's face began to pale. Pulling Baylen by the collar until his ear was beside her mouth, the sergeant shouted urgently into it. Toni was unable to make out what she was saying, but he didn't really need to; by her gestures alone, she was ordering him to get the cadets out of there in a hurry. The corporal quickly obliged.

"SINGLE COLUMN!" Baylen bellowed as he displayed an index finger above his head and, without waiting for anyone to react, the corporal began to descend the scaffold stairway at a run. Toni was among the first to follow his instructor. As Baylen left the stairs for the stable's ground floor, someone collided violently against him and both fell, setting off a traffic jam among the platoon-members still within the scaffolding structure. Toni fell over the struggling pair and rolled over the floor instinctively as he was ejected through the doorway. Toni saw several blue-clad civilians running towards the other stalls, surprise and puzzlement stamped on their faces. Turning around, he found that the man who had caused the collision was one of those technicians. The civilian was splayed out on the floor, held in a headlock by a very livid corporal.

He hurried to intervene.

"Corporal, sir. Baylen, you're gonna kill him, dammit. He's a civilian!" Toni shouted as he and others tried unsuccessfully to loosen his superior's hold on the man. The technician's face was fast becoming as blue as his uniform.

The corporal suddenly released him and, after shouting a few expletives into the dazed man's ear, stood and stepped away from the doorway, holding a pair of fingers above his head in a V sign. The platoon poured out of the scaffold and formed a double-column while on the platform above their heads an exasperated Ruka shouted for her missing assistant. The platoon then set off at a run and quickly exited Stable Three, finding the first two stables in an even greater state of confusion as they passed them by.

"Open columns!" Baylen shouted as they neared the exit.

The platoon hurried to comply. A second group, also formed up in a double column, raced through the doorway at a sprint and passed between them. Toni watched the soldiers as they sped by, mostly men with short haircuts and hard faces, but some women were among them too. One femme was still clothing herself in a driving suit as she ran, her muscular arm straining as she pushed the other through its elastic sleeve.

A few short seconds later they were gone, and Toni only realized that they were the ASC's sergeants-at-arms once his platoon was already abandoning the warehouse district.

### CHAPTER EIGHT

Leiben, 14H49, 21th of April, 2771

It being the twenty first day of the month, many in Leiben were surprised with the cloudless sky upon waking that morning.

Despite first appearances, however, over the course of the day cycle the city was wracked by powerful gusts of wind, the squat, aerodynamic buildings that dominated the capital channeling those gusts into its streets and alleys, effectively turning them into wind-tunnels. By early afternoon, most commuting was being conducted via the metro system and subterranean walkways that interconnected the buildings, and as a result very few citizens were topside when the solar flare alarm began to sound. The few up top who did hear the intermittent blare found it all quite odd, not so much due to such flares being a rare occurrence, but because of the peculiar manner in which it all happened.

There was a sudden, intense flash from the sky above, and all those who happened to be looking up were momentarily blinded, feeling sudden warmth on their faces they hadn't known over the last few days. Many kept their eyes to the sky a moment longer, finding it strange that the quickly dissipating flash had originated separately from the red sun further south, a few of them wondering whether it was some strange atmospheric phenomenon due to solar wind striking the upper atmosphere.

Even those citizens, however, soon found themselves bounding towards the nearest building or underground access point as the alarm's urgent blare began to make itself heard. No one wanted to be caught topside once the flare's full force hit the planet. The alarm had choked momentarily before singing out with all its might, something else those who had heard it before didn't remember having ever happened. By the end of the first minute after the event's onset, every window in the city had been shuttered and every citizen evacuated to a safer place, all except for the ATS users.

Almost every transport vehicle of the Automated Transit System inexplicably sputtered to a complete stop, their panicked passengers being forced to use the manual overrides to exit their allotted cars, some even having to shatter the side windows with little glass-breaking hammers. The few hundred ATS commuters scurried towards the nearest refuges, the unforgiving wind buffeting them violently as they hurried along like drunks in a footrace, some glancing to the sky with barely-suppressed panic while others laughed at the unexpected adventure.

By that time, almost every alarm system crammed inside a cramped room within the Anti-Air Threat Artillery Command Center had been muted, their overwhelmed operators struggling to take stock of the situation.

*****

Donovan Gaeta had been an AATACC Second-Lieutenant for more than two years, and the small, comfortable, air-conditioned Detection and Response Room was slowly becoming a second home to him. One year short of the thirty five year promotion barrier, Don had finally been evaluated as officer material, his electronic warfare background having weighed heavily in favor of the decision.

The promotion's details didn't matter, however. What mattered to him was the net effect it would have on his life. His current employment was in a home appliance repair shop, and the extra pay from his part-time commitment to the forces, along with his recent promotion, were allowing him to entertain possibilities that only a few years ago he wouldn't have dreamed possible. Lisa had recently begun to hint that they should once again request endorsement for procreation. It was time for offspring number three, perhaps, she had whispered to him more than once. Don had decided that morning to discuss the possibility with the lieutenant who warmed the seat beside his.

First-lieutenant Mara Springer had more than twenty years of service and four childbirths under her considerable belt. She possessed a healthy dose of lucidity, a larger dose of humor, and happened to enjoy dispensing advice when encouraged to do so. After the usual morning formalities, their conversation had focused mainly on the weather and other such futilities, until he had finally broached the subject of family planning. Mara had found interest in the subject-matter, and they had spoken all morning about licenses, parental financing and his wife's current state of health. By morning's end, as they enjoyed the best grub an Army with a tight budget could afford, he had quietly decided to become a father again. Everything of relevance having been said, the afternoon began to drag along more slowly, the operators trading point position with one another so Don could get some drill-time on the principal console.

The AATACC's DRR was Capicua's primary instrument for the detection and elimination of air and spaceborne threats against its capital. Mostly that implied the detection and tracking of Apollo-type asteroids or similar bodies by way of the Active Electronically Scanned Array, an old-world Radar system scavenged from the Adamastor, the system being complimented by an ultra high gain antenna array of similar origin for threat pinpointing and ID. The AESA was an old workhorse and had been upgraded several times, but as yet no replacement program had been developed out of the sheer expense such an endeavor would entail. In fact, the only recent addition to the collection of detection instruments was the Plasma InfraRed Emission Detector, a relatively recent investment that, duly coupled with the Disposable Laser Cartridge Artillery System, was expected to intercept any inbound hyper-velocity target over the city's upper atmosphere.

The PIRED and DLCAS were the brainchildren of those who had been particularly shaken up by the long-past phantom battle, and both systems were currently an integral part of Leiben's continuing bid to be the sole power on Capicua.

A warning blip suddenly made itself heard, the response room's mellow lighting correspondingly morphing into red. Surprised at the unexpected exercise, Don sat a little straighter, flicking his eyes towards Mara; she appeared bored and a little irritated by the interruption to her private thoughts.

"Threat identified!" Don said, a little louder than was really necessary. Mara annoyance intensified. She was once again sitting in the primary's seat and he had just spoken her line.

"Threat identified!" Mara barked, staring at her second with an expectant quirk in her brow. Feeling foolish, Don quickly slid up his display screen and assessed the incoming data.

"Threat inbound from LCO, heading towards the equator at 62 degrees latitudinal inclination. Velocity barely sub-orbital, vertical component almost nil, with an altitude a smidge over one hundred clicks. No threat of impact with Leiben or any other manmade infrastructure," he summed up.

"Sub-orbital ..." Mara whispered. More loudly, she addressed her second.

"No intervention necessary. Inform the artillery batteries to standby but to not, I repeat, to not fire against threat."

As Don hurried to comply, Mara took a closer look at her own screen's display, the only one between them that provided a visual representation of what was taking place; the three-dimensional image before her eyes displayed the curve of a planetary surface and, high up and moving in a lazy arc just north of Leiben's outskirts, a small yellow blip surrounded by a triangle.

"What's its cross-section?" she asked.

"It's tiny. Must be a meteor, probably no more than a few kilos."

"No meteor would be moving at sub-orbital speeds. This is man-made, Don. We're looking at a man-made something coming out of orbit. Or maybe this is just an exercise."

A debate broke out between them as to whether they were at the moment party to a simulation, and indeed Mara was beginning to suspect that that was the case. All orbiting objects more than five centimeters across had already been detected and their orbits characterized. All fifty five of them. And there was no indication that any would be returning to Capicua in the near future. Just as Mara was thinking that, however, the yellow blip vanished.

Several things suddenly happened at once. Every single alarm system inside the room simultaneously elected to bleat, blare, and otherwise buffet the operators with an overwhelming cacophony of sound. In the same moment their display screens caved in, and Mara suddenly found herself staring at a transparent glassy pane and, through it, at myriad flashing lights fixed against the wall, warning her that something was terribly wrong.

"What did we do?" Don asked, holding his hands away from his console as if suspecting he had pressed a wrong button.

"Nothing. Restart your computer."

Pressing the rapid boot button on the wall, she began to pray as she waited for a response. An impossibly long second later, their display screens came to life again, and Mara's relief was quickly overruled by fear for what she might find once all systems were running. Working fast, she digited her pass-code when the prompt appeared, barking at her second to hurry and do the same. Before assessing the visrep on her screen, she pressed the Call-to-Quarters alarm button and, quickly pulling the C-to-Q pass-code tag out from the crevice of her substantial bosom, she broke it and read the eight digit alphanumeric code concealed inside. Quickly digiting the code into the appropriate prompt, she entered, and a brand new hooting alarm began to make itself heard somewhere beyond the response room. Hollering at her second to evaluate and deactivate the remaining alarms, she finally opened the visrep on the screen before her.

What she saw there nearly stopped her heart.

Several dozen blips populated the entire lower thermosphere above Leiben, and were belting down fast over the capital of her world.

"We're under attack," she stated breathlessly.

"What do you mean, under attack? You just said it was an exercise," he countered.

Not saying a word, she turned her display screen towards him. The expression on his face made it clear that he was seeing her point. She hurried to make a decision.

"These are way too many targets to leave to human intervention. I'm removing execution authority from the ArtBats and handing it to the MAGE. Do you agree?" she asked, her chest heaving.

"Seventy-three – no, seventy-five ballistic targets inbound at over five clicks per sec. Yeah, I agree," he replied, and then they simultaneously did the same thing.

Removing pen-keys from their pockets, they inserted the devices into their respective slots on the consoles before them. All visual displays promptly disappeared, only to be replaced by a series of command options. Working quickly, they progressed through each option. The last one was for Mara alone.

She opted to engage the MAGE.

A corded telephone suddenly chimed beside Mara, startling her. The phone rang once more before the lieutenant managed to unfreeze herself and answer it.

"Say, what the hell is going on over there, people?" an outraged voice shouted from some obscure office in the Strategic Command Center. It was Lieutenant-Colonel Timmons, the center's most highly decorated asshole.

But Mara couldn't let him be one today.

"Colonel, sir, we were moments ago tracking a single space-borne threat as it passed over Leiben. It then detonated and almost knocked out our defensive capability. Since getting our systems back online we've been tracking seventy-five targets closing in on Leiben at over five clicks per second. I initiated the Call-to-Quarters alarm and passed execution authority to the MAGE –"

"You did WHAT?" her superior screamed from on other side. She winced at his sudden rage and wondered for the first time whether she had done the right thing. The colonel began to laugh.

"Well then, Lieutenant, we seemed to have jumped the gun a little here. You may not have realized it all cooked up in there, but the solar flare alarm has sounded over the city, compliments of our Flare Early Warning System. What you're seeing is a clear sign of interference from the higher atmosphere due to unusual solar activity. We are not, nor have we any reason to suspect we are about to be, under attack. Now just relax and keep your hands off the console so I can overrule that decision of yours."

"NO!" she shouted before she could stop herself.

The complete silence on the line was disheartening.

"Apologies, sir, but that decision can't be made without authorization of the SCC commander himself," she reasoned, thinking hard as she mentally reassessed what she had witnessed over the last minute.

"Sweetie, I know you think you're very smart, but if I inform the Colonel you engaged the MAGE under these circumstances, you will be court-martialed. Am I clear?"

"Yessir, I understand that, but if you're wrong and I'm right, in a minute or two we'll all be dead. Please listen, sir. If the signals we're receiving were radar phantoms, and my second's telling me we're up to eighty-three now, their trajectories would be erratic. Not ballistic! And certainly not nearly parallel to one another. My conclusion is that this is either an exercise or a legitimate strike. I'll stake my career on it, sir!"

There was a long pause as her superior pondered on her words.

"Well, sunshine, you're in luck today, 'cause I'm not in a mood to stake your career on this notion of yours. I am removing execution authority from MAGE and handing it to the ArtBats. Where it belongs. Have a nice day, dear." The line went dead, leaving a very distraught Lieutenant to stare at her screen as a cascade of inbounds rained down over her beloved city.

*****

The moment after Lieutenant Mara engaged the MAGE, the Master Gigabit Ethernet system was flooded with several terabytes of data that had accumulated in the response room's databanks since the first bogey's appearance. It took all of ten seconds for the silicone-germanium processors to upload and process the information, and to reach a decision. Accessing the General Military Network, it ploughed through all firewalls and hooked itself up to the six Artillery Batteries that belted the capital, as well as to the three primary instruments with which it intended to perceive its foe. Accessing the Active Electronically Scanned Array, Plasma InfraRed Emission Display and High Gain Antenna array directly, it dispensed with the response room's torrent of data, preferring the much more direct influx those systems could provide. The master system duly noted that the inbound targets did not appear on the scanned array and presumed that it was due to stealth technology on the Threat's part. In fact, the signals only showed up on the PIRED because their inbound trajectories through the lower thermosphere were leaving an infrared-emitting path in their wakes. The system calculated the probability of interception at the nearest target's altitude, which at that very moment was just inside the mesosphere. Dissatisfied with the results, it decided to wait, and instead prepared the Disposable Laser Cartridge Artillery System for firing operations.

Surrounding Leiben like somber sentinels, the Anti-Air Threat Artillery Batteries stood potently, each with three cannon pointed out towards a non-existent enemy on the horizon. Upon receiving orders, only four of the batteries activated; the remaining two were under maintenance, vital hardware components having been removed for repair.

The artillery system, better known as DLCAS, had been the subject of a fifteen year research program before finally being fielded, and centered on an entirely new way to fire cannon. Designed around its munitions, each unit possessed a ludicrous combined reinforced/perforated chamber, which once activated opened to allow a two-meter long, 200 millimeter shell to be inserted. The cannon then resealed their breeches and traversed their snubbed barrels up towards the sky. Once there, the cannons' instrumentation extracted specific data from the shells to assist in calibration, and then paused for further instructions.

Momentarily foiled in its intention to strike down the incoming targets, the master system relied instead on the High Gain Antennas for targeting. By themselves, the HGAs were nearly useless, possessing such a narrow field of vision as to render them incapable of detecting the incoming objects. Combined with the PIRED, however, the HGAs would be able to pinpoint each target's real-time location precisely enough for it to be engaged. There was a rub to contend with, however.

What allowed the PIRED to detect the objects at all was the infrared signature they produced as they tore through the thermosphere, compressing the already hot gases there to a point where IR emissions could be detected. But with such a steep descending angle, with such a powerful IR signature compared to its size, and at an altitude of over a hundred kilometers, the targets frustrated PIRED's attempts to supply the artillery system with the precise data necessary for interception.

Added to that was another complication. The high gain antennae were unable to penetrate the ever-intensifying plasma surrounding the objects, meaning these would have to descend until they were low and slow enough for the shroud to dissipate. The system calculated that, at the current rate of the targets' deceleration, the altitude of engagement would be thirty-five kilometers. And so it waited another twenty seconds, tasking several HGA components in pairs to each battery in advance.

As the nearest targets punched through the thirty-five kilometer mark at over three kilometers per second, the ionization dissipated enough for the high gain antennae to precisely map their trajectories and the laser cannon system began to be fed real-time data. Finally receiving the necessary vectors, each individual cannon acquired its respective target and began tracking operations. At 14H50, local time, Unit 2 of the 1st Anti-air Threat Battery reached a firing solution and electrically initiated its shell.

The shell cartridge's rear section consisted of a cylindrical block of high explosives, encased within a copper cylinder and surrounded by a carefully spaced solenoid, the casing and solenoid forming an open circuit at their extremities via an instrument package.

At rest, that circuit was devoid of current, but upon the shell's electrical initiation, a capacitor bank, hidden safely within the Battery infrastructure, instantly pumped a powerful electrical charge into the solenoid, generating an intense magnetic field between itself and the casing for the briefest of moments.

At the point of highest magnetic intensity, the electric detonator at the shell's base fired, sending a detonation wave coursing through the Elastomer-bonded Octogen main charge. Before five microseconds had passed, the expanding shock front reached the metal casing and began to deform it outwards into a funnel shape, distorting the magnetic field between itself and the solenoid until they contacted each other, and in doing so progressively short-circuiting the circuit along the shell's length as the wave-front advanced. The detonation wave raced along the entirety of the explosive charge, the expanding plasma plasticizing its metal container, torturing it into a magnetic field-distorting, electrically inducting tube, and so causing a significant fraction of the explosive charge's stored chemical energy to be transformed into electrical current.

By the time the explosive shock front had reached the end of its short journey, the inducting effect caused by the distorting magnetic field had intensified the current by two orders of magnitude. In that moment, a load switch placed in the fore instrument package did the first, last, and only thing it had been designed to do: it closed at maximum flux compression, transferring the generated current into the killing component of the shell, an optically pumped diode laser, specially designed for the sole purpose of producing an exceptionally intense, coherent infrared flash before frying itself.

Over the following seconds, all operational cannon fired, sending twelve coherent near-infrared flashes across the distance between the weapons and their targets, some managing to deposit over twenty kilojoules of thermal energy against the objects' blackened exteriors in a microsecond. The PIRED detected six brief, very intense infrared flashes as targets disintegrated, the remaining six continuing their descent unhampered. By the time the sixth flash had been detected, the first cannon to fire had already reloaded and prepared to fire again.

Ever more frequent flashes of light illuminated the countryside as the seconds passed by, each accompanied by the tremendous concussion of the DLC cannon as their perforated blast chambers noisily expelled super-heated explosive residue before ejecting the remains of their shells. The incoming targets continued to slow down as they penetrated the lower atmosphere, their numbers dwindling quickly with each passing second until, only a moment before complete interception, the MAGE was abruptly pulled from the task, execution authority automatically transferring to the four stunned Battery commanders who had only just reached their stations. The remaining two inbounds struck their targets and detonated within a second of each another.

The first warhead detonated beside the 3rd Anti-air Threat Artillery Battery's center cannon, releasing a deadly burst of Gamma rays, x-rays and a constellation of charged particles outwards into the immediate area. Twenty meters away from the heart of the blast, the steel-reinforced concrete bunker proved thick enough to absorb most of the radiation. The lieutenant and his three-man crew, having barely begun to take stock of what was happening, nevertheless received more than fifty gray of lethal emissions. Suffering an influx of more than three thousand joules of heat energy each, the four men suddenly felt an intense searing sensation course throughout their bodies.

It was the last feeling they would ever experience.

Thermal radiation emanating from the proto-fireball simultaneously assaulted every surface it came into contact with, ablating steel and concrete away with enough intensity to toss cannon out into the incandescing trees like juggling clubs. The enormous pressure from the bunker's ablating roof drove it downwards towards the doomed soldiers until, a fraction of a second later, the expanding fireball collided against the concrete. In the briefest of instants, four young lives were snuffed out.

The second warhead came down over the city itself, detonating ten meters above a residential complex in the May 23rd neighborhood. In an instant of fire and light, the building was driven into the ground, its solid construction no impediment to the forces acting upon it. Floor after floor collapsed, extinguishing the lives of men, women and children in a layer-cake of tragedy until the collapsing mass broke through its arched foundations and pummeled into the underground transit system beneath. All commuters who had taken shelter there perished immediately, not even those who had been shouldered into the station's radiating tunnel complex being spared of such a fate; the falling debris acted like a pneumatic hammer, ejecting air from the station's cathedral-like interior with enough force to propel anything not bolted down towards unyielding concrete and unforgiving steel.

Two nearby buildings came crashing down with the blast, their ruins cutting off all access to the gaping hole in the earth where the center building had stood.

All electronic devices in the immediate area were instantly destroyed and power spikes in the electricity distribution grid damaged all appliances in the city lacking the proper protection. Leiben Varsity was one of the more fortunate establishments, its electricity grid possessing many contingencies meant to protect its sensitive research equipment. In the Varsity's distinguished Department of Physics, in a dark room with blacked-out windows situated on the complex's third floor, a computer connected to a collection of scientific instruments duly recorded the second warhead's neutron spike. A nearby physicist, distracted by his calculations, raised his head in irritation at the computer's warning bleep.

His hackles then rose as an odd crackling sound began to emanate from the blackened windows beside him. His stretched his hand out hesitantly and splayed it upon the nearest windowpane´s surface. It was warm to the touch and heating up quickly. Whatever thoughts were going through his mind then fled as the windows shattered with explosive force. Glass fragments and broken window frames flew into the compartment with an earsplitting concussion, carving up the young man's exposed skin and tossing him mercilessly onto the floor.

He lay there for a long moment, his slowly recovering ears picking up the sound of glass shards tinkling off myriad chairs and worktables, listening in astonishment to the resounding rumble that was coming from a large, rectangular hole in the wall. Carefully but clumsily he rose, barely noticing the pain from the cut in the palm of his hand. A jagged piece of glass stuck out of the wound, having found its new refuge the moment he had pushed himself up off the floor.

He approached the opening with awkward steps, the enormous explosion having somehow knocked all grace out of him, and then paused to contemplate the solitary black mushroom cloud that stooped over his city. He felt sick all of a sudden and wondered numbly whether it was from radiation sickness. He found that his right eye could no longer focus correctly, and was about to rub it when he became aware of his shredded hands. He stared down at them, horrified by the vision of carnage. Was that a piece of milky white glass, or was it a protruding bone? He tried to poke at the outcropping but quickly gave up when the pain intensified. Blood dripped freely into his palms and onto the patterned floor, and his right eye was entirely out of focus now, able to see the world outside only through smudged shades of red.

His untidily scribbled notes lay forgotten on the floor. Only moments ago he had been working on an efficient new way to produce Polonium-208 from natural Bismuth. As much as he tried now, however, all he could focus on was what his only remaining eye could perceive – at the base of the rising mushroom cloud, an enormous billowing cumulous expanding up and outwards, blotting out the still-erect buildings with a deep rumble. In a few moments that cloud would reach him.

Hot tears joined the rivulets of blood streaming down his face.

### CHAPTER NINE

**900 kilometers south-east of Lograin, 09H30, 19** th **of May, 2771**

The ScoutEagle MA-17 Reconnaissance Drone persisted at its set altitude of twelve thousand meters, the unmanned craft's systems retransmitting the acquired data along a string of relay drones that stretched to the north-west like pearls on a necklace. Five such pearl-strings advanced parallel along a south-easterly course, the edges of their twenty kilometer-wide target-terrain overlapping so mission analysts could later compile a detailed map of the Mining Quadrant.

The drone constituted the lead element of the center-most pearl-string, its directional tail-antennae pointing back towards the nearest data-relay drone more than a hundred kilometers away. The trailing element's only answer to the torrent of raw data came in the form of an occasional ping, allowing the lead know its antenna's aim was true.

Operation Widescan 3 differed from its predecessors in two important ways. The previous operation's drones had merely made use of passive detection equipment, while the current leading drones were freshly equipped with active ground-mapping radar. It was also the first mission tasked to cross the 45º radial line, beyond which several million hectares of exclusively plantation land was to be found.

The Ground-Mapping Radar system possessed one significant advantage and one compromising handicap over earlier sensors. Unlike its predecessors, which could only passively detect the UVB and long infra-red components of the electromagnetic spectrum, the GMR produced a high-gain radar beam in the microwave frequency that not only detected all surface structures, including those hidden beneath the more sophisticated camouflage nets, but also most subsurface excavations of military value. The beam streaked across the terrain over fifty times per second in ten meter-wide swaths, the raw return signal being immediately redirected to Lograin Air Base's operational headquarters for analysis.

The system's weak point, however, was that a sufficiently advanced passive radar system could possibly detect operating GMRs, the diffracting effect as its beam passed through certain airborne obstacles acting as a possible source of detection, not to mention the signal-scattering effect that occurred whenever the beam came into contact with rockier soils.

So far, the center lead drone had advanced unmolested, and apparently undetected, over the course of more than seven thousand kilometers, and was nearing the end of its outward leg, where it would, along with its flanking companions, execute a carefully choreographed about-face and head for home.

Shortly after it passed the seventy one hundred mark, however, the autonomous aircraft's fate was abruptly sealed. The drone's forward ocular, existing only for flight navigation and obstacle avoidance, barely had time to register an abrupt change in the incident luminosity before the entire front portion of the craft disintegrated.

As the leading craft's flaming remains initiated their plummeting journey back to earth, its two nearest brothers placidly maintained their heading. Had they been piloted aircraft, their pilots would have experienced an "oh shit!" moment and bugged out in time to give warning of the attack, with the additional bonus of preserving their lives and equipment. Instead both continued on their courses until, as if on cue, both were obliterated.

Moments later, someone at Lograin Air Base suddenly stopped drinking his coffee and experienced his own personal "oh shit!" moment, and then he ordered the five pearl-string's trailing elements to update their status and bug out.

The most advanced trailing elements' CPUs reclassified themselves as the new leading elements, transmitted the video data of their former leaders' abrupt demise, and initiated a lazy turn for home.

Three of them abruptly burst into flames.

*****

The wall-clock indicated that it was already quite late in the morning. Or at least late for the army, or for the farm, or for any other place where people might be expected to put in solid working hours.

But it happened to be a Sunday, and it also happened to be the first day the SIC's sole platoon had gotten off in over a month, and all were currently dedicating themselves to lying on their beds in slumber. The violent femmes were nowhere to be seen, and were probably dedicating their morning to similar pursuits in their own casern.

The blackout boards had already been rudely pulled out of their fixtures from the high windows; yet another of Mason's many fervent contributions to the platoon's general mood. The bastard was a consummate morning person, and had apparently objected to his charges' intention to remain indoors until lunchtime. No one had found the nerve to protest as he yanked the boards out, flooding the darkened compartment with painfully bright sunlight, everyone knowing all too well that the less they argued, the faster he would leave, and the faster some brave cadet might rise to the occasion and blanket the windows.

Toni wasn't going to play the part. It wasn't that he was afraid of Mason. His body simply ached too much for the effort it required.

They had gotten a brutal working over in the sims yesterday, their Lieutenant having tweaked the feedback interface so that all quicker movements required an unusual amount of physical exertion to induce the simulator to respond. The exercise objective had been to discover how to moderate one's movements so as to reduce compressed air consumption. Smooth motion, extended range. That had been the maxim of the day. It had taken a while for them to get used to the change, but in the end it had been unavoidable, since it had been only a matter of time before their sapped limbs finally gave up fighting, slowing down to economize all by themselves.

At the exercise's terminus, they had each received a final report displaying the rate of compressed air consumption over elapsed mission time. Toni had performed terribly; he'd been fighting his simul-Suit like a maniac, and by the end of the affair his legs had been shaking like saplings in the great winds.

That was nothing, however, compared to how he felt today.

He had it worst in his abdominal muscles, which seemed to have contracted painfully in the aftermath of yesterday's training. He was following Gordie's example, who had decided to lie on his back with a pillowcase underneath his thighs to reduce the muscular tension. At first it hadn't appeared to help at all, until he had tried removing and felt the pain sharpen as his abdominals tautened. Finally giving up, Toni contented himself instead with simply lying there, allowing his troubled mind to wander freely, as it was prone to do.

The days following the April 21st attack on Leiben had been pregnant with barely-suppressed panic in the Armed Forces, a state that MEWAC itself had managed to shy away from only due to the professionalism it still managed to retain. On the other hand, there was no euphoria, the primary reason being that, overshadowing their outrage due to the assault on their capital, was the stark realization that they were the ones who were supposed to do something about it.

Baylen had aptly managed to put the mood into words. He reasoned that, had he been a civilian, he would have been outraged enough to join the forces and "get even" but, since he was already there and knew the full extent of what they might be in for, all that remained was to brood over their unknown enemy, and over what lay ahead.

Toni discovered that he was completely unafraid, and wondered whether that said something very good about his mental state, or something very bad. He suspected that he probably had yet to fully understand the scope of the crisis before them. Adding to that, his mind had recently begun to feel warped out of shape, and he had since found himself overreacting to the ever-more-frequent frictions between the cadets. Perhaps it was the excessive doses of nootropic medication, or perhaps the suffocating pressure, or perhaps there was something fundamentally wrong with him, but Toni was no longer able to get through a day without entertaining thoughts of killing someone. Sometimes a person in particular would be a target of the notion, but mostly a dark part of him had begun to feel that killing every single biped in his immediate vicinity would somehow make the pressure go away. He kept the fantasies to himself, despite having briefly toyed with the possibility of telling Ray about it.

The attack on Leiben had led Toni to make the first significant purchase of his life, his miserable current salary having been just enough to acquire a DigiSlab personal computer. Its performance was nothing to write home about, but at least he no longer needed to wait his turn at the Cadets' Messe, as they called the computer-filled compartment reserved for their platoon. He had also begun to tune into all local broadcast systems, be they video, audio or net. At least until the blanket ban had come into effect, cutting most base personnel off from the outside world. Now the entire planet could be on fire, and he would only know about it when the skyline was aflame.

The ban had also denied him any prospect of reestablishing contact with his family.

He sometimes wondered about the enemy. Local speculation currently ranged from aquatic aliens in fishbowl helmets to the exceptionally rancorous inhabitants from the Terminator hub (All gave Rakaia a wider berth once that theory became airborne). All that was certain was that Leiben had come under missile attack twice on the same day, each salvo having been launched with enough force to completely annihilate it if not for the city's defense grid. The few missiles that had managed to punch through devastated entire segments of the city. Not a whisper of enemy action had been picked up afterwards, although elements of the ASC had since begun reconnoitering eastern Thaumantias due to whisperings about lights in the sky and missing miners.

Baylen had been pulled from the SIC last week, a personnel deficit in the FIC having apparently been discovered, and they were once again stuck with Ian as liaison between the instructors and their cadets. Morale had subsequently taken a nose-dive. Ray hadn't been helping things either. His father's life had been extinguished in the second strike and the cadet's once-entertaining tantrums had begun to take on a much nastier tone.

His performance in the sims, however, had suffered dramatic improvement.

Despite the brutal increase in the training load, the platoon was still only expected to graduate by the eve of September. The mid-course break had unsurprisingly been cancelled, but there appeared to be no wish from the brass to commit cadets to a fight before they were fully qualified. Toni felt both relieved and annoyed by the decision, although Ray had been furious when the platoon was informed. He had since had a look in his eyes that kept most cadets clear of his path, although Toni still counted him as a friend and therefore listened patiently to the cadet's vengeful monologues.

"Cadets, time to get up!" Toni suddenly heard someone say.

He turned his throbbing head slowly, feeling every muscle in his neck strain as he did so. An already uniformed Ian stood beside his bed as if expecting his comrades to leap up eagerly from theirs. A few well-deployed blankets ensured that it was still quite dark, but Toni didn't need the light to know that Ian's boots were already shining.

_Backside-kissing fire-stomper_ , he thought tiredly. He wondered whether he should inform medical of his persistent headaches.

All cadets remained where they were. When Ian realized that no one was going to move in the predictable future he finally gave up, exiting the casern quietly without a backward glance. Toni suspected the special one was about to inform on them, but he couldn't have cared less; a day off was a day off in his book, and he was not alone in the thought.

"You guys thinking what I'm thinking?" Gordie croaked out loud. There were several answering grunts.

"If the Special One gives me grief today, I'm gonna fuck him up." he declared throatily.

"About time," someone groaned.

"Make it count," someone else added supportively, and similar remarks made themselves heard over the following minutes.

"Choose the time and place carefully, mate ..." was about all Toni could say. There were several agreeing grunts to the somewhat obvious suggestion.

And just like that, Ian Templeton had once again been promoted to target status. There was no need for deep discussion among them; he had simply pissed off too many people too many times for a cadet to be willing to speak in his defense. Comforted by the prospect of justice, Toni found himself drifting towards sleep again.

The lunch-horn rudely woke him.

He had managed to fall deeply asleep, and time must have flown by over the course of his slumber. Glancing at the wall-clock, he found both hands pointing to the number twelve. Surprisingly, Toni didn't feel hungry in the least, and even Gordie complained that he could have waited another hour or two before stuffing his face. The shift officer might have something to say to that, however, and so all reluctantly left their beds, some complaining loudly over the assortment of injuries they possessed.

There was little time. Within fifteen minutes the platoon would be expected to form up before the canteen, and so there was a hurried rush to the lavatories at the casern's opposite end, although not without the customary laughing and shoving that normally accompanied the trip. Thirteen brief minutes later, the platoon's male elements exited their casern at a swift jog and coursed towards the canteen. Something struck Toni as quite odd as he ran; no other platoons or companies were formed up inside the bright yellow rectangle at the canteen's entrance, where a single blonde cadet awaited their arrival. He also noticed that the few observable soldiers remained at their own caserns' entrances, some clearly showing surprise as they observed the cadets' progress.

The inertia of habit causing them to continue, the platoon formed up hastily as a beefy shift officer and his sergeant-at-arms joined them from the canteen's interior. Toni made no effort to remember their names.

"Well, well, just look at all those slumberous faces ..." the captain remarked with a smirk. He then turned towards Ian.

"Cadet, why are there five holes in the ranks?"

The cadet stood at attention and answered.

"Sir, there are only three missing cadets, the others have walked, sir."

"I see, but where are –" the captain began, but then something at the parade's opposite side caught his eye. His hardening features gave Toni the feeling the officer had just caught sight of the missing cadets.

Soldiers snorted and laughed as the three female cadets crossed the parade at a run. Each requested permission to join the ranks and hastily fell in, Rakaia occupying the empty space before Toni. As he waited for the storm to break, Toni glimpsed the sweaty outline of the Terminator's neck and wondered briefly whether she had ever been kissed there.

"I patiently await the inadequate excuse for your tardiness. Please take your time," the captain declared, a sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his almost lipless mouth. Rakaia snapped to attention.

"Captain, sir. We, um, had pressing sanitation issues to take care of, sir," she answered, earning a quick grin from the officer's stocky sidekick. The captain appeared unmoved by the explanation.

"I care not about the current state of your menstrual cycle, cadets! There is no justification for such a delay. This platoon is already well into its basic training and we're still seeing day-one fuckups here! I have been told your sergeant ordered you to get your rears out of bed over an hour ago. Isn't that correct? This is so far beyond disrespect, it borders on insubordination!" the captain roared.

A few silent moments passed by and the officer slowly regained his color, having apparently reached some sort of decision.

"Alright, so be it. I'd been pondering a simple chewing out and dismissal, but it seems we'll be requiring more drastic correctives. This platoon will remain formed up until the lunch hour arrives. If in the meantime I happen to notice a single cadet twitch in formation, you'll be spending the remainder of the afternoon in formation as well. That clear?" he finished, flashing them with a vicious grin before about-facing and returning to the canteen's cool interior.

There was silence as all digested what had just been said. Toni required no explanation; only Ian was permitted to carry a watch, and the caserns' wall-clocks were regulated by the shift officer from his office. He wondered idly what time it really was, and whether the stunt had been Ian's idea or the captain's.

In truth, it did not matter who the mastermind was. As the volume of whispering began to swell, all eyes became fixed on the blonde cadet standing rigidly at ease before them. Ian's expression hadn't changed over the last few minutes, but his eyes occasionally darted towards the cadets standing at ease before him. What he saw there probably didn't please him, and instead he began to stare long and hard into the void directly over their heads.

The whispers died down after a while and the cadets settled in for the wait until the lunch horn, the sun slowly baking Toni's ebony cap until he began to feel light-headed. He could usually bank on his unstoppable train-of-thought to entertain him in times like those, but today was a different matter. His body was in such discomfort that he couldn't focus on anything but the pain, nor could he manage to keep from staring at Ian's pale throat and imagining his hands wrapped around it.

After a while, base personnel began to loiter beneath the canteen building's shadowy overhang, curious at the collection of cadets suffering under the blood-red sun. Through his discomfort, Toni noticed that a few had huddled together and were talking excitedly amongst themselves, and he saw several credit-notes passed between hands.

Toni suddenly felt himself sway and quickly righted himself, and there was a sudden flurry of excitement among the huddle of nearby soldiers. That was all he needed to know what they were betting on.

As the platoon's discomfort began to peak, Toni once again heard dire mutterings from the cadets around him. Ray's voice was particularly prolific among the renewed threats and insults being hissed at Ian. He remained quiet, however, preferring instead to focus his attention on the canteen door in case the captain were to make an unexpected appearance. Gordie was making a particularly nasty remark about Ian's lineage when they heard a throat clearing noisily behind them.

"So this is how we treat each other when the brass isn't looking, huh?" a familiar voice remarked. "It seems we must inform the platoon commander that his lessons of unity are failing, mustn't we?"

The captain slowly stepped around the platoon from behind, his boots beating a slow and steady cadence against the concrete parade ground until he stood before them once more, smiling at their steadily reddening faces. Despite his embarrassment, Toni was quite impressed at the subterfuge. Impressed enough to take a brief glance at his nametag. ALBINO O -, it proudly declared.

Captain Albino had probably left the canteen's rear entrance and circled around unnoticed between the double-rank of buildings that flanked the parade ground. The captain huffed indignantly, but didn't waste his time with another scolding.

"As soon as each cadet has had his meal, this platoon is to form up again. And it will remain in formation for the 'noon until it has become clear to me that you all understand the error of your ways. Are we clear?" he demanded, waiting for an answer that was reluctant to come.

"I SAID ARE WE CLEAR?" he bellowed. The answering affirmative was loud and angry.

"Good ..." he breathed, and promptly exchanged their company for the relatively cool canteen.

It was three quarters past infinity and Toni's feet were numb when the proper lunch-horn finally sounded.

There was a smattering of applause from the base personnel as they quickly formed up beside them, not to mention a few disappointed faces, perhaps because no member of Toni's platoon had managed to face-plank into the parade ground.

_Serves the bastards right_ , he thought as the captain took his place before the soldiers to receive them.

Lunch was a silent, tense and all-too-brief affair, and before they knew it the platoon was once again formed up on the ground for the remainder of the afternoon. The day loomed long before them.

It was Toni who came up with the idea. The "Sweet Laurinda" marching song was one that all had become quite familiar with; the LT had made sure of that over the last few months. If the song was sung at its intended tempo, from its first "O sweet Laurinda" to its last "bare your thighs once more", approximately two minutes would have passed by. The idea was simple enough, and was quietly agreed upon by all members of the platoon (sans Ian) as they stood in formation; when the end-of-lunch horn resounded, the cadet to the front and left side of the formation would sing the marching song in his head until the last verse, which would be sung under his breath, thus signaling the cadet beside him to take up the tune. Once the song had made a full circuit in the formed platoon, they would by then know that about twenty six minutes had elapsed, thus providing them with a reliable measuring stick of time. A quick calculation also made it clear that each cadet would have to sing the "Sweet Laurinda" eight times before they could reasonably expect dismissal.

Toni had prepared for the afternoon in other ways, swiping several packets of sugar and stashing them in his breast pocket, and loosening his boots so as to provide more irrigation for his feet. It hadn't been enough. By his second Sweet Laurinda, Toni's toes were tingling.

"Bare your thighs once more ..." Rakaia breathed tonelessly before him.

The last verse had long ceased to have entertainment value, although Toni would still hear an occasional snort when one of the femmes sang it aloud. He began to carry the tune in his head for the third time, well aware that that meant over an hour had elapsed. As the song approached the part where the departing soldier was making indecent proposals to his fair neighbor, Rakaia began to sway dangerously.

"Knee to the ground, Tani," Toni whispered urgently before continuing the song in his head, finding it odd that she was showing fatigue after only one standing hour.

"Kaia, put your knee down!" he heard Hannah whisper more forcefully from his left. As the tallest of the three femmes, she was situated in the same rank as Toni, allowing her to see the same thing he did.

"Silence in the ranks!" Ian snapped.

"Shut it, ya peacock!" Ray snapped back to the amusement of his comrades.

There was a sudden intake of breath from Hannah and Toni barely had time to snatch a handful of Rakaia's uniform; she had begun to swing forward in a classic planking maneuver. Instead she crumpled to the ground like an inanimate puppet.

There was no need for drama. Hannah calmly broke rank to assist her prone comrade as Toni returned to his at ease position. He glanced expectantly at Ian, who didn't seem too thrilled at the turn of events but had returned to his quiet contemplation of the void above.

"Yo, master and commander. Why don't you make yourself useful and inform the brass about Tani?" Toni finally demanded. Ian stood where he was for a full minute before reluctantly abandoning formation in search of the shift officer.

The day was a whore, however, and it had only just begun to screw them.

Hirum went down in the sixth Sweet Laurinda. It was an unexpected event, and there had been nothing to warn of it. Toni had been resting his eyelids, a most risky endeavor under the circumstances, when he heard a heavy thump. Had Hirum been any taller than he was, he would have been luckier. Being, however, of shorter constitution than even Rakaia, he had found himself in the first rank and with no one in front of him to break his fall. He performed a ten-point face-plank against the concrete ground, knocking himself out in the process.

The unconscious cadet was carried away shortly afterwards by the shift orderlies, both of whom had been loitering nearby as if expecting another collapse. One of them whispered softly to Gordie before leaving with his new charge. Before a minute had passed, Hannah was whispering the news to Toni.

"Orderly said for us to stop being so damn proud and put a knee to the ground if we're feeling sick. Otherwise they won't know there's something wrong until someone hits the concrete. He's also saying that Rakaia's anemic."

"What? Why?" Toni asked, mystified as to how an illness had slipped through Medical's fingers.

Hannah shook her head and faced forwards with a mysterious smile on her face, leaving Toni to ponder on the matter. He whispered the message to the cadet behind him, getting the same question asked in return. He shrugged his answer.

They were well into their ninth Sweet Laurinda, and Toni had begun to suspect they were singing it too fast, when they were once again visited by the shift officer. The captain gave the platoon a hard look and then chewed their ears out for good measure, before promptly dismissing the cadets for the remainder of the day.

Ian made it easy for Gordie by making his way directly back to the casern. He was followed by the entire platoon.

Toni hurried to keep up beside Gordie who, despite being a first ranker in formation himself, was maintaining a respectful pace for one with such short legs.

"Gordie, you thinking about doing it now?" he asked. Gordie didn't bother to reply.

"Yeah, Gordie, Gordie, let's take him out, yeah," Ray blustered on Gordie's other side, smacking his fist into his palm like a prizefighter.

"He's mine ..." was all the answer they got from him. His tone was soft, but it brooked no argument. The last few meters were crossed in silence.

Hannah and Sueli, in direct violation of base policy, entered the compartment along with the rest of them. The group found Ian standing beside his bed as if awaiting their arrival, and they remained at the entrance as Gordie approached their senior.

Toni found it strange as he watched the pair speaking in low voices. Anyone unfamiliar with them would have been forgiven for believing that they were two friends in conversation, as outwardly pacific as the exchange appeared to be. Only Ian's last remark, clearly audible to all those present, was enough to break the illusion.

"– in any case you might want to remember what happened to your mates, right, chum?"

At the last word, Gordie bunched himself together with a snap and ploughed both fists into Ian's torso, driving the cadet back with enough force to lift his feet off the ground and slam him into an open locker with a deafening clang. Hands hurried to close the compartment doors before anyone heard the ruckus.

Gordie's charge had managed to fit Ian neatly inside his own locker, with only his boots still sticking out. Gordie then began to rain right-handed blows into the locker's interior, each shaking the metal structure more loudly than the one before. A boot suddenly connected with Gordie's pelvis and he slid back a couple of meters over the polished floor. The locker was then tipped brusquely forwards, lifted up and then thrown towards him, clothes, books, snacks and a host of unidentified objects flying through the air. The locker collided against the muscle-bound cadet with a thunderclap. Ian counterattacked, kicking his adversary viciously in his middle as the locker thundered into the floor beside them, and then he grabbed a hold of his adversary's head as it dipped low and began to repeatedly knee his torso, a mask of rage fixed on his bloodied face. He got as far as two knees before Gordie clamped onto his leg.

With the same ease with which the aluminum locker had flown in one direction, Toni saw a cart-wheeling Ian fly in the other to slam upright against the wall, the breath in his lungs being expelled with one explosive "HUMPH!".

Gordie wasn't far behind; he slammed the top of his skull against Ian's face with a sickening thunk before, tearing a page from his adversary's book, he pulled Ian's dolmen upwards and over his head and wrapped his head with the cloth. Gordie avenged Ray's beating, slamming his own knee repeatedly against the dolmen-covered head while holding it low.

He got as far as three knees.

In a blur of movement, Ian twisted himself around and shredded his uniform into flying tatters, before quickly opening ground to the very center of the compartment, his arms still wearing their sleeves as he took a fighting stance, his sinewy upper body now bare. Gordie nonchalantly discarded the olive-green shreds in his hands and squared off with Ian.

Then he rushed in like a charging bull.

Ian spun in place and connected the heel of his boot against the top of Gordie's head in a full-blown spinning kick. Inertia conspired to close the distance between the fighters and Gordie slammed heavily into Ian. Regaining his balance with unnatural agility, Ian then let loose an unbelievingly fast combination of blows against his adversary's body and head.

It quickly became clear the fight was over.

"Enough!" Toni bellowed, but Ian only halted once the group had closed the distance, backing up against the wall as if in full expectation of a lynching.

"Leave him alone!" Toni hollered as some made to move towards their senior. He wasn't alone in the thought, and others pulled at sleeves and dolmens to keep the more belligerent cadets away.

Toni sat Gordie carefully upon one of the beds. His comrade wasn't bleeding much, nor had he fallen to the flurry, but his eyes were vacant and he was not answering questions. When Toni asked for the third time whether he was alright, Gordie vomited onto the pristine compartment floor, splattering a couple of beds along with Toni's boots.

"Wonderful, just wonderful!" Ray wailed as he assessed his puke-stained sheets.

"Ray, shut it!" Toni barked. "Something's wrong with Gordie. I'm gonna take him to the infirmary. See if you can clean up all the crap, alright? Ray, leave him alone, he's had enough," he added, since Ray had a look that suggested that he also wanted to try his luck with Ian.

"He has, has he?" a quiet voice inquired from the compartment's entrance.

Lieutenant Templeton placidly observed the group from the doorway. It was the first time they'd ever seen him in civilian clothes, and he looked as smart as the devil himself. Black, neatly pressed suit, dentine white shirt and a honest-to-god black bow tie to top it all off. His ebony shoes squeaked as he shifted his lean weight about.

"And there I was in Leiben, attending my nephew's baptismal, when I receive an odd message from the shift officer, cautioning me that my children are misbehaving on their day off, of all days. Who could have anticipated that?" he speculated as he casually paced along the room's extension, avoiding some underclothes and biscuits spread across the floor.

"And so I thought I would leave the matter until tomorrow. Until I received a second message saying my cadets were now threatening each other with bodily harm. And in formation, no less," he added pleasantly as he snapped his fingers before Gordie's vacant eyes. Gordie didn't flinch, nor did he blink until a full second had passed by.

The LT continued.

"So I decided to make a brief trip to MEWAC, the last place I'd want to be on a Sunday, by the way, about as soon as the festivities were well underway," he looked up at a battered Ian, who was bleeding from his nose and several cuts on his brow, and who had taken up a posture that was somewhere between at ease and attention.

"And this is what I find ..." he breathed. There was no expression in the lieutenant's eyes. For a brief moment commander and cadet appeared very similar.

"Very well, then," he said, smiling once more, "Mr. Toni and Mr. Raymond will take Mr. Gordon to the infirmary. Mr. Ian will take himself there as well. The two female cadets will remove themselves from these quarters immediately, in full knowledge that their violation of MEWAC regulations will not go unpunished. The remaining cadets will now begin cleaning their compartment until it is impeccable, and they can expect their quarters to be subject to inspection by shift personnel in the next thirty minutes. And I will be informing the shift officer and your Company commander of these events. I guess that covers everything, unless there's something else?" he asked, as if honestly expecting someone to say yes.

"No? Very well then, on the move. I will see you all tomorrow."

The lieutenant calmly strolled out without a backward glance. A couple of seconds passed by without anyone moving at all, but when they finally did, it was with an ever mounting sense of urgency. One cadet began to wipe a substantial amount of vomit from the floor with his personal hand-towel.

_Bad choice_ , Toni thought, _I would have gone for Ian's towel_. _It's right there on the floor along with his other belongings._

He and Ray removed Gordie from the casern and grimly set off for the infirmary, Ian already well ahead of them on the parade ground.

"What do you think they'll do to Gordie?" Ray asked.

"Don't know, maybe they'll take pity on him ..." Toni replied as he gazed at his mate's defeated expression.

*****

"It's only a concussion ..." the doctor muttered as he squinted at the display screen on his lap. A moment later he seemed to remember that he wasn't alone and turned to Toni.

"And just what in hell is wrong with you, cadet?" he asked, peering curiously at the cadet.

"Nothing, sir. I just brought him in here," he replied in surprise.

The doctor was a civilian, one of the many who worked in MEWAC, but Toni still felt obliged to sir him. He was a man in his late forties, with a deeply lined face that made him look somewhat older, and he had sad eyes. He probably wouldn't be around much longer, at least not in MEWAC. Over the last month, many civilians had been pulled from the unit, probably because nobody wanted any civvies lounging around the base in the event of a shooting war. One simply couldn't ask them to be running those kinds of risks, the brass had apparently said, although he had heard that many of the Stable boys were being kept due to their intimate knowledge of the Suit installations.

"That's not what I mean, son," the doctor replied sourly. "You are Cadet Toni Miura, are you not?"

"Yes, sir. How did you know?"

"I'm psychic," he replied dead-seriously. A twisted smile then began to play across his face. "Or I just read your nametag. You know, the one pinned to your chest."

That was enough to put an embarrassed smile on Toni's face, but it dissipated as the doctor became somber once more.

"What I mean is that I've orders to harvest you for stem cells. Now why would they have me do that, boy?" he pressed. Toni shrugged in reply.

"Haven't a clue, sir. I was fully tested those weeks before day one, and the researchers seemed pretty satisfied. But if they want more blood, they can have it, no problem," he answered levelly enough, although his blood pressure began to drop at the thought of needles and blood loss.

"Son, they don't want blood. They want stem cells. Autologous stem cells, to be precise. It's not going to be as painless as, say, a needle prick, so you'd better prepare yourself for some real pain. You're going to lose some marrow," the doctor stated with a grim smile. "Take your shirt off and sit over there," he ordered bluntly, waving carelessly at a metal cot as he began to remove instruments from a drawer.

"Uh, marrow?" Toni inquired softly as blood drained from his face. The doctor looked irritated by Toni's lack of immediate compliance, but answered him anyway.

"Yes, boy. Marrow. Bone marrow. Sweet, juicy bone marrow for your Commander's evening soup. Now you go sit over there before I start telling everyone that you're a coward," the doctor threatened.

The threat proved to be just enough to get Toni moving.

*****

Thirty minutes later, a semi-comatose Toni was rolled, color slowly returning to his ashen face, into the rearmost of the infirmary's two recovery rooms.

"Pathetic –" the medic said under her breath, her expression akin to pity, "– that a Suit driver could be so queer about needles."

Toni tried to counter but his teeth were in his tongue's way, and so he abstained from speaking. Instead he focused his attention on the ceiling, his head still spinning wildly. The medic tisked and finally made her way out of the room, leaving him to recover and think.

While performing the horrendous deed, the doctor had inquired about what would lead Toni's family to believe he suffered from folic acid deficiency. Confronted with the cadet's teeth-clenched silence, the doctor had continued with his procedure and his monologue, explaining how MEWAC had received an urgent letter from a certain Kaya Miura, declaring the need for her brother to begin supplementation as soon as was possible. The doctor hadn't gone so far as to establish a direct connection between the letter's contents and the present procedure, but there had been no need to.

He reminded himself to thank Kaya appropriately for her sisterly consideration.

"You fell too?" he heard from his right.

Slowly turning his head, he found Rakaia lying on her side on a cot. She seemed to have regained some of her color, and her eyes had the look of not being too far from sleep.

"Nope. Doc just poked a needle in my spine. We're no longer in formation," he explained.

"What's the noise outside?"

"Gordie's probably awake again. Must be making another try at Ian. It's been a hell of an afternoon ..."

Toni recounted the events to his comrade.

"Oh no! This is just what I need!" she groaned.

"You weren't even there, Kaia –" he began.

"Who cares?!" Rakaia interrupted hotly. "Since when has not being there been any excuse to stay out of trouble? _For the error of few, many must pay_ , right?!" she recited before she realized what Toni was doing.

"Hey!" she suddenly exclaimed.

"... hum?"

"Stop checking me out, you freak!"

As Toni had been teetering near sleep, his eyes had begun to roam over the curves of her body. He hastily snapped them back to her face.

"Oh ... sorry. I'm just a little worn out," he apologized.

"So that's your default programming? As if you have a chance, gawker!"

"Maybe it is, I guess ..." he replied apologetically, trying to ignore the insult, "but that doesn't mean I don't think well of you. I respect you, Kaia. There's a lot of buzz on base about you guys, but I –"

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"That ... that Leiben's attackers were Terminators like you. That there's been a lot of unauthorized military development over there, which would be necessary for such an attack to even be possible. I don't believe any of that, of course, there's been too much focus on the iron mines ..." he added, disliking the murderous expression that had begun to form on her face.

"Stay off my side, gawker! I've had the entire base giving me the evil eye over the last month, but not even that has made me so desperate as to want you on my side!"

Her tone grated on his depleted nerves, her insults hitting harder than they ordinarily would have. He tried to hold on to his temper.

"I guess I didn't make myself understood. Just because I was being friendly doesn't mean I was trying to be your friend, Kaia. You Terminators sure don't seem to need any ..."

"And just what the fuck do you fuckers know about the Terminator hub in the first place?!" she shouted. "Maybe we drink the blood of newborns, right?! Or maybe we're born with horns on our foreheads, and need to have them surgically removed so that the decent, law-abiding gawkers of the central government don't see our mark of the beast! Right?!

"And why the fuck are you calling me _Kaia_ , huh? Are we buddies, maybe? Mates? Do you think you're going to make friends with me if you give me cute diminutives? Want to get in my pants? Do you, Gaw –"

"I wouldn't dream of pulling the pants off a bleeding sow like you, _Kaia_!" Toni heard himself say.

Rakaia blinked.

"For all I know you were born with a horn in your ass, and needed to have it removed so you'd be able to sit down and study like the rest of us. That's the real reason you Terminators are illiterate, isn't it? And how the hell would you be able to take a crap without removing it? Not sure I even want to imagine that, _KAIA_!"

Rakaia made to answer, but then paused and stared closely at him.

"What's wrong with –"

"So you feel the eyes of the world on you? Do you, now? Well you're not imagining it. People on base don't trust you people, _Kaia_! I, at least, was willing to respect you. And I can still respect you, just as long as you're willing to show a little gratitude!"

_Did I just say that?_ he thought in astonishment.

He willed himself to shut up, and they stared silently at each other for a few moments. Finally, Toni let his breath out and slowly unwound, and before a minute had passed he was finally prepared to say the words.

"I'm sorry, Tani. It's been a long day and I don't know what I'm saying anymore."

"What's wrong with you?" she asked.

The question hurt him deeply and he was not entirely able to hide it. He spoke without thinking.

"I like you, Kaia. I mean, I like you in a way I really shouldn't ..."

For a moment, Rakaia's wide eyes remained fixed on his, unblinking, the tendons of her neck standing out in stark contrast to her soft throat. She seemed about to say something, but instead her body shivered as if a particularly unpleasant thought had just flashed across her mind. Finally she broke eye contact and sat up.

"Not if you were the last man on Thau." she hissed.

A few moments passed by as Toni digested the statement. Apparently calm again, Rakaia politely addressed the wall. "I think I'm quite recovered. I'm leaving now. Excuse me."

She quietly left him sitting there.

For a long while, Toni was simply too stunned to think. The first thought that did find its way into his consciousness, however, arrived in the form of a question.

What in the hell is wrong with me?
CHAPTER TEN

**MEWAC medical bay, 19H15, 19** th **of May, 2771**

The confrontation with Rakaia left Toni horrified. Not with her, of course; the Terminator had always rebuffed the cadets surrounding her, and he would never have expected anything less than the same for him. It wasn't what she had said that distressed him, but his free-running mouth instead, and more specifically, the words it had uttered. Most especially, it was the _feeling_ that had accompanied the words that were jilting his nerves.

The _feeling_ was not entirely unfamiliar.

Over the course of his training, there had been moments when the pressure mounted alarmingly. In those times, a terrible thought sometimes crashed into the midst of his consciousness, yelling that he had finally reached his limit, and that it would all be so much easier if he simply gave up and took the Walk. At first he had simply ignored the thought and, more often than not, those moments were fleeting enough for the tactic to work.

But then those critical moments had begun to stretch out, and simply ignoring the voice was no longer a practical option. It eventually became something to put up with, like Mason or the tics, any attempt to smother the voice only resulting in it squealing even louder in more desperate instances. It began to harass his spirit and slowly he had begun to hate the voice, and then that _feeling_ had begun to make itself known. His memory tended to become hazy whenever that happened, and he would eventually return to himself afterwards in the shower, another critical training session having been accomplished without incident, his only memory of the session that _feeling_.

A _feeling_ as if he was no longer alone in his own mind, that there was another consciousness to be reckoned with, one which held grudges, which took revenge, which felt itself entitled to more than a fair measure of divine selfishness. There was no pity in it. That intrusive stranger would laugh whenever Toni agonized, and indeed he could hear it sniggering despite his present solitude. Closing his eyes, Toni focused on the emotion and sought to reach out and make contact with that hidden facet of his self.

He let go of his self-pity and felt himself approach the stranger. He abandoned his empathy, and closer he crept. He rose out of the trench that was his life and looked down upon it, observing the shoddy workmanship and the haphazard way it interconnected with those around him, and he sneered at it all. The _feeling_ was becoming very strong. He accepted that he was of no worth. How tremendous it was, life. He had no value in the midst of it all. The myriad trenches surrounding him were better organized and kept, for the most part. They accommodated platoons, whole battalions, even, while his accommodated a young boy who didn't even know how to speak to members of the opposite gender. He sneered once more, his fangs showing. None of that mattered, of course. No matter how many virtuous lives needed to be snuffed out to validate his own insignificant existence, the deed would be done. No matter that his genes were defective, whether they be folic acid deficiencies or something more sinister, he would pass his genes onwards. He would engineer his way into the Terminator's unworthy womb, even if he had to forcefully pry her lily-white thighs –

He began to tremble as the horrible imagery paraded before his mind's eye, the stranger smirking slyly beside him. His emotional self began to tear itself apart, the horrified rejection of the delicious possibilities opposing itself to the epiphany of a draconian world view. A savage dogfight broke out in his mind, and his body began to shake and shudder.

Turning his back towards the infirmary door, he smothered a scream and caved in to the overwhelming intensity of his emotions. At the peak of his anger, as his hate extended beyond himself and towards all the antagonists of his life, he sensed his moral skin slip away, feeling simultaneously terrified and delighted that it could so easily slide off if he allowed it to.

He glimpsed the demon hidden beneath, and it proudly basked in the light of its discovery before once more hiding itself within the fabric of his mind. As the foul creature disappeared from Toni's consciousness, his weaker self tried desperately to hold on to some remnant of its power, but a moment later it was wholly gone except for that _feeling,_ and for the reassuring knowledge that it was still concealed within.

His shaking eventually subsided, and he began to lose track of time.

The affliction had long departed when the infirmary's automatic blinds suddenly snapped shut, putting an abrupt end to Toni's dark thoughts.

_What time is it?_ he wondered. Slowly he rose, joints cracking loudly, and he crossed the room towards the entrance, unfastened boots squeaking over the varnished wooden floor. He found the medic at her desk reading, and she reluctantly turned her attention towards him as he approached.

"Well, finally up. You look flushed, cadet. Are you alright?" she asked, concern lightly etching her pretty brow.

"Oh. I'm just fine. What time is it?"

She pointed delicately to the wall-clock above her head. It read nine o'clock. Dinner-time had come and gone quite a while ago. He had missed formation. The medic appeared to read his mind.

"There's no need to worry, dear. The Commander passed by more than an hour ago. Told us it was alright to bring dinner to the injured in the infirmary."

"The ... Commander?" Toni asked.

"Well, yes, of course. The entire base is out and about. Something's up, but I'm afraid I don't know what it is, so don't ask," she warned. The furrow of concern deepened.

"Listen, dear. I don't like how you're looking, nor did I like the strange noises you were making while you slept, so why don't you try resting a little more. I'll bring you your dinner just now, alright?" she proposed with a sweet smile.

Toni felt that her smile was disingenuous, but still felt obliged to comply. Presenting her with a smile of his own, he thanked her and returned to bed. As he lay down again, Toni realized he was still smiling, and quickly wiped it off his face. What had she meant by strange noises? Had he spoken out loud? He wondered what she must be thinking of him. And how had he not noticed the arrival of a full-blown Colonel in the bay?

He couldn't afford to lose his mind, not when the world was on the verge of becoming an interesting place.

Toni made his way back to the casern a few minutes before the call-to-silence horn. What he found there caught him by surprise.

The entire platoon had travel-gear spread out on the beds, and was prepping Tier Three travel-packs for locomotion. His own bed had one such T3 pack lying on it, but everyone appeared to be too busy to explain to him what to stow where, or why.

"Yo! Still in time to go back to Med Bay, Tonesy!" Toni heard someone bray from further down the compartment.

Ray's arms were dug in up to their elbows in his larger back-pack, and the Leibanese looked happier than Toni had seen him in a long while. He sauntered over to the busy cadet, hopeful for information.

"Mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

"Are you ready to fight a war?" Ray asked, giving him a wolfish grin. He then proceeded to explain.

Apparently, the CDF has finally gotten wind of the enemy's general location. Their defensive systems had proven so advanced that all unmanned aircraft in the vicinity had been incinerated. In fact, the weapons' range was so extensive that the venerable Adamastor, Capicua's one-time interstellar spaceship and sole remaining space station, had that very afternoon been knocked from its orbit as it passed overhead. All hands had been lost, elevating the body-count since the conflict's beginning to more than four hundred dead.

"Oh, and the Enemy's got an official name now. We'll be calling them Unmil from now on."

"Unmil? How did they figure that?"

Ray looked at Toni carefully for the first time that day.

"You alright, man? You usually pick that crap up faster than me."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I get it. Unknown Military, right?" Toni ventured, trying to look as excited as his friend was. Ray's preoccupation vanished at once and he proceeded to lay down facts more relevant to their immediate future.

The brass, in their infinite wisdom, had proposed to the government that MEWAC's entire ground force be committed to offensive action, aimed at striking a devastating blow against the Unmils before they got too well established. And somewhere along the line MEWAC's entire ground force had come to include the Moca Suits, momentarily tasked to a certain platoon of eager, if rather malcontent, cadets.

Hence the T3 packs.

"So you pack for extended operations, as per page one-oh-seven of the MEWAC Recruit Manual. Though they told us to pack it all very tightly, 'cause they're gonna have us stow three days' combat rations and a few extra Lacrau clips in there. Yo, master and commander! You got that pill for the Tones here?" he bellowed suddenly at Ian, who had been methodically running a pen through a checklist.

Apparently, the novel situation had put Ray in such high spirits that he had quite forgotten about his beef with the special one. Ian approached them quietly, taking a small capsule out of the breast pocket of his brand new dolmen as he did so. Toni accepted it reluctantly, deeply suspicious of anything Ian would offer him to swallow.

"It's a sleeping pill ..." Ian explained neutrally. "They want us to take one at the call-to-silence horn."

He returned to his list without another word.

"Yeah, that's right! We gotta take it at the call-too-shilence hawn! But you'd better put a hold on that until you got everything packed. Help me out, and then I'll give you a hand, arright?"

Ray's enthusiasm proved infectious, and soon Toni found himself forgetting about what happened at the infirmary as they set to work. By eleven o'clock, even Toni's backpack was neatly stowed, Ray having already gotten good practice sorting his and Gordie's out, and by then both had decided to swallow their little ivory-colored pills. The drug appeared to have no effect on their disposition, making them wonder after a while whether they'd been given a placebo.

As the remainder of their fellow cadets slept like the dead, the two friends clasped hands aggressively. With not the least care for any lurking sergeants or officers, they slapped each other's faces, laughing and promising one another that they would cut a fair length of Unmil-throat before the campaign's end.

As Toni finally lay down in his bed, a genuine smile spread across his face as he wallowed in his good mood, he peered around at the remaining members of his platoon, wondering idly whether any would die over the following weeks. They certainly looked dead at the moment, not a single one stirring except for Ray, who was rolling under the bed sheets as awake as he was.

Sleep fell on him like a thief, stealing from him the memory of any dreams he might have had.

Dawn proved to be a particularly windy one, and it was the music the gusts made against the casern's exterior that woke him. He hid his head under his pillow, trying hard to shut out the sound, made worse by the loud conversations taking place all around him. His shoulder was shaken twice before he found the resolve to look around.

Gordie was once more among them. As the cadet laughed with his mates, ecstatic to be among his own again, Toni noticed only some puffiness around his eyes. Other than that he was no worse for wear.

The wall-clock read four o'clock in the morning.

Yet another shove on his shoulder finally got him onto his feet. Moving like a drunk, he uniformed himself, not caring to wash. He'd do that after the morning run. Then he remembered there would be no morning run.

Sergeant Mason stomped into the compartment, and Toni discovered what his face looked like without its characteristic smirk. It seemed to be carved from stone.

The platoon stood immediately at attention beside the beds.

"At ease, cadets," he began, dispensing with his usual game of stare and intimidation. "I'll say this now, 'cause this is the last chance I'll get to say it. I'm dead sure none of you are ready for this. Not a one! None of you should have been pulled from your training for this!" he growled.

The cadets watched their sergeant silently, none daring to agree, disagree or state any otherwise opinion.

"In fifteen minutes you will all form up before the company building for a briefing by our Company Commander. You will leave your equipment inside your casern. After a short briefing you will be distributed PDWs and corresponding ammunition, an anti-trauma suit and helmet, three combat rations, one box of combat nootropics and one pair of binoculars. None of what I've referred to is to be stowed in the Moca Suit. Instead it will be worn on your person or stashed inside your T-packs. No exceptions!

"There is one last thing I need to say before formation," he added after a short pause. He observed them one at a time, and for once he had no sneer reserved for Toni.

"What's going to happen can end a million different ways, but there's only two ways this will end quickly. Either the Unmils are a bunch of pussies, and we'll sweep the Cap free of them in a day, or they will be far superior to us on every level, and they'll defeat us decisively. In my view, and considering we don't have a clue as to the technology gap between both forces, the first battle may well result in one of these two scenarios.

"Considering this, I'd like to offer you all maybe the best advice you'll ever get from a soldier in this army. No matter what the brass tells you on that parade today, if you come into contact with the enemy, and they're plowing through us like they're fixing to sow the field, then forget about attacking, exacting revenge, or any other foolish idea that jumps into those juvenile minds of yours. You're not gonna turn the battle around with obsolete equipment and incomplete training! Remember the following three Rs: Retreat, regroup and retire! A battleground is no place for cadets! We understood?" he barked, his neck muscles taut as he waited for their answer.

There were several reluctant yessirs and a few nods around the room. Toni didn't say a word; he was too busy marveling at the change of demeanor.

"Don't make us wait!" he finally barked, about-facing snappily before he left the room.

"Pussy ..." Toni heard someone, probably Ray, breathe to his left.

The preparations for formation began to accelerate. The male cadets formed up a full minute before the expected time, and for once the femmes did not let them down, arriving only moments later at a brisk run.

Toni searched Rakaia's features as she formed up in front of him, hopeful that she hadn't spoken to anyone about their exchange. She gave him a look of pure venom before presenting him with her back.

_Not the most encouraging sign_ , he thought sourly.

He glanced to his left, only to find Hannah peering back at him with an indecipherable expression. He raised his eyebrows pleadingly, hoping she'd recognize a wordless apology if she saw one.

"Eyes front," Ian ordered in a low voice.

"Cadet, direct the platoon to the briefing room," the LT called from behind.

Ian barked out a collection of orders and the platoon obeyed reflexively, forming quickly into a double column before marching towards the casern's briefing room.

Before entering, they were overtaken by the lieutenant, Mason, and a troop of sergeants and corporals. The corpies were carrying electronic equipment, and the sergeants several large scrolls.

The fourteen cadets silently took their seats, Lieutenant Templeton having waived formalities beforehand.

"Good morning, cadets," the lieutenant began. "So, before you all melt into the ground in sheer terror, I'd like to make the following quite clear: you will not be expected to directly engage the enemy."

He paused for a moment, silently observing as a kaleidoscope of emotions played across his subordinates' faces. What he saw there must have been amusing, for a wry smile began to spread across his narrow face.

"However much that might disappoint some of you. The current situation also seems to have gifted to the more troublesome members of this flock with a reprieve; any disciplinary proceedings regarding what happened yesterday have, at least for the time being, been suspended.

"I would, however, like to make something clear. A declaration of war is in effect and, in case you're not aware of what that means, the SIC's 1st platoon is forthwith an operational combat unit. As a direct result, any failure to comply with orders, as well as the committing of any other essentially military crime, will be dealt with severely. And when I say severely, I mean the firing squad. Taking this into consideration, and also considering that you are not expected to directly deal with the Unmils, you should be much more afraid of your own screw-ups than of enemy action. And so I expect you to listen to this briefing with great care, because I don't think that the "my mind was somewhere else" excuse is going to work in a court-martial. Corporals, if you'll please set up the holographics ..."

That took all of thirty seconds. As the corporals set up the display equipment, Toni took a good look at the strangers before him. There were the three corporals, certainly close ground support. The footies usually had a beefy look to them. The sergeants, however, were something else entirely. Young, thin, wiry, and lazy eyes born of self-confidence, they were beyond a doubt members of the ASC. And all three were distinctly displeased at their assignment. It was the disgusted look they were throwing the cadets that gave it away.

"Very well, thank you. I think before we get into the details of our current assignment, I'd like to outline the change in status. By order of our Commander, Colonel Masters, all training and the SIC itself are suspended until the end of the Wild Rose Campaign. Our former 1st platoon is now the Logistics Support Platoon, aka LOGIS which, due to obvious considerations, will be dedicated to second-line duties. This platoon has been divided into three sections, consisting of the following: In the 1st Section, under 2nd Sergeant "Dim" Dunn, we have Cadets Miura, Kimble, de Venter, Bowker and Grimm. In the 2nd Section, under 2nd Sergeant John Revone, we have Cadets Allerton, Cato, Tani, Winters and Yamato. And in the 3rd Section, under 2nd Sergeant Carl Jordan, we have Cadets Cassel, Arakaki, Rosa and Templeton. Once this briefing is over, these cadets are to join their respective section commanders."

There was no need to ask who his section leader was; every time the LT had called out a sergeant's name, one of them had stood at attention. His own leader was the pissed-off looking oriental who, incidentally, didn't look dim in the slightest. He got the impression that his new leader was the most displeased of the lot.

"Alright, moving along ..." the lieutenant continued. "LOGIS is now an independent platoon under the MEWAC Task Force and our mission is a complicated one, so listen good: Firstly, to progress along with the main force as a reserve subunit, carrying excess ordnance and fuel for the Combat Suits moving ahead. Secondly, to execute flank reconnaissance when required, and only by explicit order from the Task Force's Commander, Lieutenant-colonel Kokubo. This is due to the Moca Suits' only advantage over the Hammerhead: it has almost twice the range. Thirdly, upon first contact with Unmil, one section will support our Combat Suits by supplying ordnance whenever and wherever necessary, while the remainder will assist foot infantry units in the creation of improvised fortifications along our TF's probable axis of retreat, said fortification remaining under the protection of these sections until relief by the first retreating subunit of Combat Suits.

"Not that we'll be expecting any order to withdraw. After all, Lieutenant-colonel Kokubo is not the kind of leader who would make such a decision lightly. I hope you noticed my reference to the term "Combat Suits". In case there are still any doubts, I'll make this crystal clear: The Suits in our subunit do NOT qualify as such, and so I expect you all to refrain from sticking your noses into the fight, if there is one. If any of you disobey this order, I'll remote-detonate your Suit. That is a promise. Are we clear?"

It was all apparently very clear to all present, and Toni had no doubt that the LT could do exactly what he had just threatened to do. He was, however, a little miffed for never having been told that such a contingency existed, although when he thought better of it, such a measure actually made sense.

After all, if one of them were to commit to battle, the remainder of the section would probably feel compelled to at least back him up. Even if the entire section wasn't wiped out as a result, it would still become bogged down in an unnecessary fight and leave their mission unaccomplished. The lieutenant took that sort of mathematics very seriously.

The LT then began to expand upon the details of their mission, going through a blow by blow of what had to be done, by whom, and under what circumstances. As time began to stretch out, Toni was forced to fiercely discipline his mind so as to keep his attention firmly fixed on the briefing. His efforts were well rewarded when the LT quizzed them on the mission plan and Task Force organics. No one failed to correctly answer his questions.

The last thing their platoon commander did before dismissing them was to order them to download all details of the mission from the GMN.

Shortly after dismissal, Toni found himself in a corner of the classroom along with the rest of 1st section, watching silently as the SecLeaders conferred with their lieutenant in hushed voices. He peered at his surrounding comrades and a knot began to form in the pit of his stomach.

Ray wasn't there. Nor was Gordie, nor any of the femmes. Hirum was there, although his presence didn't boost Toni's confidence in the least; Hirum was a decent friend, but his sim scores were well on the lower end of the performance spectrum. The remaining members were more comrades than mates, and only Clive Bowker, whose bed was beside his, was a closer acquaintance. The tall cadet's natural reserve, however, had kept them from being anything more than that.

Don Kimble, on the other hand, suffered from a bad case of androgyny. His skin was soft and rosy, he possessed no facial hair to speak of, and he was handsome in an almost feminine way. Toni suspected exogenous genes at play. The cadet also got along quite well with the femmes, which only served to ensure that he be kept at arm's length from the platoon's male members.

Jim Grimm was officially an OK guy. He hung out with Shinji Yamato and Daryl Cato, and together they formed their own little special-interest group. The corn-haired cadet happened to be a hardcore programmer, thus adding his expertise to what they referred to as the Terrorbyte Crew. They constituted their own nation, but diplomatic relations with the remainder of the platoon had always been friendly.

Toni was glad for Jim's inclusion in the 1st section; they were currently rivals in the race to the summit of the performance spectrum.

"Toni?" Hirum inquired hesitantly.

"What?" he replied, still focused on his thoughts.

"What happened between you and Tani?"

"Why would you think there's something between us?" he answered, thinking it wise to answer the question with another.

Don sniggered and answered in Hirum's stead.

"She's been looking at you like you shot her dog, man. Look at her."

Toni turned towards the 2nd section and, sure enough, Rakaia stood there watching him like a hawk, her irises half-hidden by her eyelids. Toni turned away, his face tightly expressionless.

_No need to be the good guy_ , he told himself. Turning to Hirum, he finally answered.

"I only presented her with a few unpleasant facts, that's all. She took it a little worse than I expected."

Don thought on the answer for a moment, and then fixed Toni with a cold look.

"Rakaia doesn't need someone like you to tell her the facts, she knows them for herself already. She escaped some domestic issues back at the Terminator Hub. She's had some real problems, unlike you, and it just wouldn't be a good idea to poke her like I expect you did. Especially not since she's about to be handed a four ton piece of military equipment to play with. And a live Lacrau. And a twenty-five millimeter cannon. What do you think?"

Toni nodded weakly, figuring he'd only make a bigger fool of himself if he opened his mouth again.

"First section! Form up on me!" Sergeant Dunn suddenly barked.

The powwow was over and their secleader stood at the doorway with two fingers above his head. The five cadets formed a double column before him and then they were off at a quick march.

The entire base was unrecognizable in its new level of activity. The caserns had disgorged more foot-soldiers than he had ever thought existed, and many were already formed up beside their impossibly large T4 travel-packs on the parade ground. The packs presently rested at their owners' feet, the personnel having yet to requisition their exoskeletons from the 3rd War Materials Deposit.

Over the course of the following hour, time became a blur of confusion as all the promised equipment was requisitioned and distributed. Toni had to hand it to his new secleader; none of the WMD grunts gave the sergeant any hassle, his threatening demeanor proving to be a most efficient lubricant against the customary bureaucracy. Still, some of the clerks parted with their equipment reluctantly, as if their loss was a personal one.

Before long the requisitioned material found itself before each driver's feet, the platoon forming a U on the parade ground as nearby footmen clad in combat exoskeletons clomped towards their destinations.

Had he not seen the array of armament and equipment being fielded by the footmen, Toni would have believed that Kokubo intended them to fight on foot as well. He checked his gear.

One Lacrau rifle with 180 rounds of eight millimeter caseless ammunition in four magazines. One Hornet TF-33 sidearm with 80 rounds of six millimeter caseless ammunition in four clips. A light-duty ballistic helmet. One light-duty ballistic vest, including sternum and dorsal anti-trauma plates. Frag-resistant combat fatigues, including integrated tourniquets at the nub of each extremity. A travel pack containing three combat rations (each providing a day's worth of nourishment), a collapsible thermal oven and a first-aid kit including enough combat nootropics to fight for three days without pause. One MFES Mark 4 Comm device, apparently only for emergencies. And one sleeping bag, which also served as a one-man tent or raincoat, depending on need or imagination.

It all totaled twenty-two kilo-mass of equipment which, allowing for the local gravity, culminated in more than thirty kilo-weight to be carried. That number did not include some of the other goods they'd have to carry in their T3 travel packs.

"Why can't we get one of those?" someone pointed to the exoskeletons nearby.

"'Cause then you wouldn't be able to interface with the Moca, you idiot," sergeant Dunn replied dryly.

"Couldn't they get one of those combat suits to interface with the Moca instead of the HINT?" Toni wondered out loud. The question drew a short pause from the sergeant.

"Don't be ridiculous," he finally huffed, ordering them instead to shoulder their equipment and return to the casern for the rest of their gear.

It took the better part of an hour to take care of breakfast, and before long the platoon was joining the traffic jam of overburdened soldiers awaiting transport to the stables. As he laid his eyes on the mass of combat-ready men converging upon the shuttle pick-up point, Toni began to feel giddy with the unreality of it all.

There were at least three different types of exoskeletons to be seen, or at least three different configurations of the same suit. Heavy weaponry, including anti-armor missile launchers and entire base-plate-and-tube mortar assemblies were shouldered nonchalantly, their carriers possessing the wired expressions of those under the effect of performance enhancers. The level of hyperactivity amongst the soldiery far exceeded their commanders' abilities to quiet them, and so the volume of conversation slowly escalated as each bus arrived and then departed, followed by the vocal cursing of those left behind. Some officers began to warn their men against popping combat pills for the buzz. There were others, however, who seemed to have nothing to say. Some of the soldiers stood very still, while others kept searching the skies as if anticipating a raid.

Suddenly not feeling so well, Toni stared down over the curve of his frontal pack and into the well-trodden dirt beneath his feet, only to discover that someone had already beaten him to the punch; he was treading what was left of someone's partly-digested meal. He prayed for the next shuttle to arrive, if only so he could leave the unsightly mess behind. Before long, he began to feel his jaw tighten, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he did the same.

Feeling a sudden slap on his shoulder, he turned to find Sergeant Dunn leaning towards him.

"Take it easy. What's your name, kid?"

"Tuh ...Toni."

"Well, listen here, Toni. A soldier's life is ninety nine percent waiting and one percent combat. The trick here is not to let the waiting part ruin you for the rest, alright? Find your zen," he added with a smile, giving him another slap on the shoulder before moving on.

Toni thanked him silently as he left, feeling ashamed for having nearly fallen apart when so many were laughing and jeering around him.

Time began to stretch out, and Toni eventually found his zen. It consisted mainly of not thinking too much, or looking at his watch, or counting the number of shuttles that had already departed, or trying to pay attention to the conversations around him.

_They have nothing interesting to say anyway_ , he thought from deep within his anesthetized mind.

Their shuttle eventually did arrive, an old bus with the appearance of having very recently participated in a bumper car rally. It stunk of sweat and, by the time it began to move, every window had been opened, buffeting his platoon and the better part of another with some welcome fresh air. The journey woke him up a bit, but he kept his peace for a while longer, observing silently as the forest glided by.

Far from being stopped at the usual checkpoints, the shuttle plowed straight through, entering the "mountain" directly from a discreet side-door to stop beside the warehouse district. The immediate area had fallen into confusion, a scuffle having broken out moments before between footmen and local technicians, the footies' commander having been forced to shut down his entire platoon's exoskeletons before they killed anyone. More than thirty men suddenly fell to the ground in unison under the weight of their packs, the invisible troupe of puppeteers pulling their strings having apparently decided to take a coffee break.

_Better that than remote detonation_ , Toni thought.

As quickly as could be managed, LOGIS was directed towards Stable 3, where a frazzled-looking Ruka awaited them impatiently.

"Listen up good, 'cause I'm only going to say this once," the sergeant began." Inside each Moca's cavity you will find a stowage compartment directly to the HINT's left. The first to try and squeeze his back pack in there will get a kick in the head. Your Lacrau and sidearm are to be kept there in their respective holsters. All other equipment will have to be stowed against the cavity walls using the straps present there. It is vital you strap it all down well, otherwise you might have your pack sliding into your legs in full locomotion. Which is a pretty stupid way to get yourselves killed or put out of action, by the way ..." she added.

"Aside from that, strapping into your HINT is no different from the simulators, except you'll have to insert your pen-key into its slot directly before the interface first, otherwise it's a no-go. Each interface has already been adjusted for your specific biometry, so make sure to enter your unit in order of seniority; the eldest takes Unit One, number two takes Unit Two and so on. Any questions?"

A timid soul raised her hand.

"What is it, Sueli?" Ruka asked irritably. The sergeant appeared to remember the cadet.

"Will we get a chance to go before we go, Sergeant?" she asked apologetically.

"What? Oh, for the love of ... Lieutenant, your steeds need to make water, so please see to it. I need them strapped into their units within ten mikes or it's my hide, understood?"

Nine minutes later Toni was easing into his hydraulic interface with care, his sense of peace having collapsed entirely. Toni was upset, partly due to his failed attempt to apologize to Rakaia after the bathroom break, which had resulted in her sweetly cautioning him to watch out for friendly fire incidents. However, for the most part he was upset due to Unit Seven's present condition.

As he had been about to enter his unit, Ruka had approached him with a somewhat apologetic look on her face.

"Miura, may I have a word?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I feel there's something you should know: yours is the oldest unit of the lot. Make no mistake, its systems are sound and its APU is almost new, but the chassis' and appendages' tolerances are no longer very high. You may want to be careful regarding any precision movements."

"You mean like aiming a cannon?" Toni asked as unreality began to creep over him again.

"That doesn't worry me, Miura. I'm told you'll suffer greater chances of coming under fire from friendly forces than from the enemy, so precision won't help you at all there."

"No shit ..." he moaned, remembering Rakaia. He felt his hold on his nerves begin to loosen.

"Listen to me, 'cause we haven't much time," she insisted. "Because of this, interface errors will tend to build up and Unit Seven will be more challenging to control. I didn't want to field it, but the higher-ups insisted on deploying the entire platoon without exception. I allocated Unit Seven to you because you have among the highest scores in mobility proficiency."

"Wow, that's just great, ma'am, isn't it?" Toni exclaimed with a pained smile.

He fought back tears of frustration, taking out the turnkey he had been given moments ago to open the Suit's hatch. Ian's mobility proficiency scores were higher than his, but no doubt the unit allocated to him purred like a kitten. He knew why the special one would not draw a defective Suit, and it enraged him beyond anything words could describe. Ruka descended the scaffold without another word, leaving Toni alone to consider the smell wafting out from the open hatch.

There were two simple words to describe that smell. Sweat and piss. Ruka had apparently neglected to inform him that the unit's previous occupant had somehow relieved himself inside the HINT.

"LOGIS Prime here. All units inform current status."

Toni heard the call coming from the helmet still suspended before him as he was strapping into his interface. The stench was having a strange effect on him, making him want to pee despite having gone only a few minutes ago. He pushed the thought out of his mind and forced his head into the helmet, the suspension coils instantly relaxing their tension in response.

The screen was pitch black, with only a password prompt in green lettering floating before his eyes.

"Mushima," he declared. The prompt disappeared and the screen turned a pale blue.

"This is your first live session, standby for user customization," a strong masculine voice suddenly spoke into his ears.

The voice did not surprise him; it belonged to Unit Seven's CPU, and he would have to parley with it over the following few minutes. By now his remaining comrades were well into their status reports, and he realized he was falling behind. Without delay, the voice continued.

"Ocular Motion Capture targeting in three ... two ... one ... mark!"

A glowing red dot, barely the size of a mosquito, suddenly appeared one palm away from Toni's nose. He focused his eyes carefully on the object.

"Mark," he declared, at which point the dot disappeared, only to reappear a foot away and slightly to his left, challenging him to look again.

"Mark!"

Toni kept up the exercise for about as long as the CPU needed to calibrate the ocular cursor, which turned out to be a little over a minute. Without a calibrated cursor, most of his orders wouldn't get through to the unit's main processor, so he focused on the task completely.

"Calibration complete. How should I sound?" it inquired.

"Female. Young. Soft."

"Is my voice now acceptable?" a pleasant female voice spoke.

"Yes," he replied. That voice, so often chosen in their simulations, was not too different from Sarah, his youngest sister and his favorite.

"What is my name?" she asked.

"Sarah," he informed her.

"My name is Sarah," She confirmed, as if that had always been her name.

The blue screen disappeared and Toni finally gained stereoscopic vision, only just glimpsing the stall gantry as it automatically slid out of his way. To the extreme left and right of his field of vision were several virtual targets arrayed in a line. He decided to leave them alone for the moment.

"Unit Seven, you done debating with your OS, or do we need to leave you behind?" Dunn's irritated voice sounded over the comm, making him realize that they had all been waiting for him. Which would not have been the case if his predecessors hadn't torn out so many cavity wall straps, forcing him to use his imagination to tie down his gear.

"You _do_ realize you're never going to shed the Tardy handle that way, don't you?" he heard Hirum voice over the comm. It put a smile on his face, but the Lieutenant quickly preempted any retort.

"That's the last time I hear you wasting air time, Unit Fourteen. From now on I want radio discipline. If what you have to say isn't important to the mission, don't say it. Brother One, continue," the Lieutenant finished.

"Let me hear it, Unit Seven," Dunn rasped.

"Systems up and operational, Brother One," Toni replied.

"LOGIS Prime, this is Brother One. All units ready."

"Very well. Brothers One, Two and Three, form your sections up at the mustering ground."

"Brother One to Section One, muster up and be quick about it," Toni heard over the comm.

As Toni eyed a red virtual target it began to glow, and he prepared to activate locomotion.

"Engage," he declared, feeling his HINT suddenly envelope him more snugly, each of the sensation pegs hidden in the interface giving his skin a good poke before settling down again.

He took a step forward, disliking the vibrating shudder that shook the unit as his right footpad hit the ground. Belatedly he realized that if he kept it up he'd eventually shake the Suit into a junkpile. He began to cat-walk, laying each footpad on the ground with care as he turned towards the mustering ground; the shaking ceased at once and Toni began to hear the stomping of the other titans as they left their stalls. Grimm's Unit Four strode into view.

The Moca Suits appeared somewhat less impressive than when last he had seen them. Almost their entire surface area had been outfitted with light, flexible armor. It appeared quite reptilian in nature, grey-brown in hue and scaly, with occasional loose folds at the joints that became apparent only in movement, like the elephant skin he had seen in documentaries. The protection afforded by such armor was hardly worth the ugly, elephantine look the Moca currently possessed; it was expected to stop Infantry rounds, artillery shell fragments and direct hits from some grenade types, although any direct hit from a twenty-five or thirty millimeter round, or the occasional artillery or mortar shell, would put a very abrupt end to the driver's dreams of glory. It was obvious why the platform was no longer considered adequate for combat.

As Units Four, Six, Seven, Ten and Fourteen formed a single column at the mustering ground, Sergeant Dunn's Unit Fifteen standing at the head, Toni heard the remaining Suits leaving their stalls.

LOGIS formed for the first time since its inception.

### CHAPTER ELEVEN

**945 Kilometers south-east of Lograin, 23H54, 13** th **of June, 2771**

"Grove one-oh-thirty-one up ahead, fifty paces," Toni heard over the comm.

Hirum's voice was regaining that peculiar monotone.

_He must be getting tired by now, but he's already popped all his pills_ , Toni thought, far beyond caring. _Anymore and he is going to crash. Again. And then Unit Fourteen will again be autostriding in the rear along with a sleeping Grimm and a handful of burnouts_.

Fifty gigantic paces ahead, advancing in single file, they came upon a grove of Diesel Trees. Essentially Baobabs with particularly bulbous bases, the trees elongated somewhat closer to their crowns, only to branch out in a particularly spectacular manner, exposing their broad leaves to the sunlight as far as ten meters from their trunks. Toni identified the likely avenue of approach and stood directly before it, putting a knee to the ground. Units Six and Ten quickly followed suit.

Without delay, eight exoskeleton-clad footmen clambered off each Suit, having until then been hitching a particularly bumpy ride whilst gripping the units' torso webbing. With little time before the main force's arrival, they dispersed into pairs at a run, each approaching a tree on either side of the avenue. Toni watched them momentarily, and then directed his attention to their surroundings.

He had given up imagining enemy formations hidden amongst the foliage; he was simply too tired for the mental effort it required. Instead he observed without searching, counting on his innate ability to spot movement and pattern, his mind too familiarized to the forest sounds to associate any ominous significance to the occasional creak or snap.

The footmen continued their work. The corporal nearest Toni quickly removed equipment from his comrade's travel pack and began to cut into a square scar at the base of the tree. The bark extended more than a palm's breadth into the trunk and was hard enough to require vibrating cutters, but once the block was excised, the far more porous interior was exposed and began to exude a syrupy resin. The other footman then plugged the hole with a square metal peg of just the right size, inserted a thin perforated shaft into the slot at the peg's center and shoved all two meters of it into the broad tree. The last few centimeters required some delicacy as he secured the shaft's base snugly against the slot's outlying lip.

Now came the easy part. The corporal's pack was almost entirely composed of the Portable Refinery Module, a 60 kilo-weight device intended to extract and refine the Resinin oil contained deep within the genetically engineered tree. Laying the PRM on the ground, the corporal connected it to the shaft's base via a wire-coated hose, initiating the diagnostic pump as soon as he connected his terminal to the device.

The pair had been quicker than their comrades; their PRM was the first to activate, the noisy pump breaching the silence violently enough to cause some upheaval among the nesting sparrows.

_So much for noise discipline_ , Toni thought in disgust.

Shortly afterwards, the remaining PRMs added their voices to the din while their operators carefully gauged the progress on their terminals. Before a minute had passed all the devices ceased to operate, with the exception of the first; it continued on for a full twenty seconds more, producing a revving sound before slowing down and then cutting off entirely. The footmen, all logistics personnel, momentarily parleyed among themselves in an encrypted frequency before passing their findings over to Section One, LOGIS.

"Unit Six, this is Lightfoot, over," the corporal sounded over the comm.

"What's the verdict?" Bowker answered with his butch tone. Toni hadn't yet worked up the nerve to discourage him from talking like that. The macho voice sounded fake and Toni suspected the more senior footmen thought so too.

"The site is adequate for Main Force passage; it's the mother lode we were looking for, over."

Toni felt a heavy load fall from his shoulders. They had finally found a grove large enough and with substantial enough oil reserves to fuel the entire expeditionary force. That alone meant they might suspend their march for the night, something the lot of them would certainly be grateful for. After all, it would probably take the entire night to fuel the multitude of Suits. Toni hailed Bowker once the information had been relayed to Wild Rose Ops.

"Unit Six, here Unit Seven, over."

"What the deal, Seven?"

"Bowker, drop the badass tang, it's me you're talking to and they can't pick us up."

"Uh, right Toni, what is it?"

"I'm sure you know what's gonna happen as soon as Main Force gets here, right? Alpha Sierra Charlie's gonna put us last in line to refuel. Why don't we refuel now and save ourselves the grief?"

"I dunno, Toni, that's up to the corporal –"

"Bowker, use your head. Tell him we're nearly out of gas and want to be ready for action. That isn't exactly a lie, you know ..."

They needn't have worried. The corporal wholeheartedly agreed, fully aware that soon there would be a traffic jam of Suits of all shapes and sizes waiting to be topped up, and seeing the opportunity to get a head start.

The armored Suits topped up in pairs with over five hundred liters of bioether-saturated Resil each, their APUs having been designed to run on the biofuel as a contingency. As refueling took place, the remaining footmen demarcated the loitering area, placing luminous beacons in a funnel along the grove's axis of approach. Units Six and Seven were the second pair to refuel as the remainder kept up their vigil.

"Any idea when the sarge's gonna show?" Toni asked.

Unit Six did not to answer for a while, perhaps in protest for Toni's rebuke.

"When the fucker feels like it, I guess ..." Bowker answered as soon as his unit had been topped up.

Sergeant Dunn's leadership had thus far been somewhat unorthodox, almost every member of his section having been rotated into command status on missions, thus leaving their cat-eyed commander to engage in activities unknown. The first indication those activities were for the section's betterment had arrived in Lograin Air Base, when each Suit's allocated ammunition was doubled from one hundred to two hundred twenty-five millimeter rounds.

LOGIS had left MEWAC base with five twenty-round clips of twenty-five millimeter High Explosive-Tracer ammunition and twenty-four flare cartridges in cluster pods per Suit, which only served to underline their commander's statement that the platoon was to avoid combat whenever possible. The principal side-effect had nevertheless been a somewhat rebellious attitude from the ex-ASC section leaders, most notably from 2nd Sergeant Dunn himself. Upon landing in Lograin Air Base, barely a thousand kilometers from Unmilfor's Projected Area of Influence, Dunn had performed a disappearing act, leaving a shocked Grimm to assume section command as they knelt along the airfield's perimeter. It had been a very silent wait, mostly due to their impromptu section leader not having figured out how to communicate over the comm without tipping off their platoon commander.

When Dunn returned, moving lithely in his armored Suit as no SIC trainee could seem to manage, he had directed his section to the local ammunition depot, where they received another hundred twenty-five millimeter rounds, four hundred cartridges each for their spaulder-mounted anti-personnel sentry guns and a pair of anti-armor SABERO rocket pods, each mounted on their innermost spaulder pylons. Dunn's Suit padded ponderously among them as they stowed the extra ammo.

"Unlike what you got at the Stables, the twenty-fivers you're receiving here are armor-piercing incendiary rounds. From now on you will stack your clips with one HET round followed by two API rounds successively. If you need to lay down fire, you will fire in three round burst mode using the tracer for aim correction. With the three rounds being fired at eighteen hundred rpm, you'll feel it as one kick against your chest-plate, but by then the slugs will be well on their way ..." he bellowed over his unit's integrated loudspeaker as they set to work, making it happen.

"Never forget that the tracer loses visibility at twenty four hundred meters, so consider that your practical range."

He kept up the cascade of counsel even as Toni struggled with his clips; the hand-gauntlet interface should have been sensitive enough for the job, but Ruka's warning had proven to be well-founded, leaving him no choice but to reset his unit's synchronicity every few seconds. His efforts were helped not in the least by the magazines themselves, which were dented enough at their lips to occasionally send a half-kilo round flying. As he despairingly picked up yet another round rolling in semi-circles along the ground, Dunn continued with his rant.

"Never conjoin more than three clips for your twenty-fiver. Each of them loaded weighs more than ten kilo-mass, and you won't want more than thirty kilos added to your main gun. The magazine detention peg is just not designed to take that much weight.

"You should consider yourselves fortunate. Only the fact that section one's been tasked for combat resupply has allowed Command to open up an exception, otherwise not even my bitching would have allowed me to up-arm you."

And just like that, Toni discovered that Section One had drawn LOGIS's Great Prize.

Some of the news he'd gotten over the grape-vine as the great circus departed Lograin had been even more sinister. There were apparently those who believed that Dunn had negotiated for Sec-One to be up-armed in exchange of tasking to resupply detail. Toni wasn't sure he believed it, nor whether, if it was true, he loved Dunn or hated him for it.

"Unit Six, here Brother One, over."

Speak of the devil ...

"Er ... here Unit Six, inform, over."

Bowker never tried to talk tough with Dunn.

"My unit is one mike from your location, coming in from your north-west with Main Force in tow. Upon Main Force arrival, Section One will be relieved by Alpha Sierra Charlie's 1st platoon, 2nd section, and proceed to waiting area. LOGIS Prime wants a word with us."

*****

All LOGIS members were free of their armored Suits for the first time since leaving Lograin, their units currently fulfilling the role of full metal gargoyles around the platoon's improvised mustering ground. From all around Toni and his comrades, a multitude of hard, flat titanium faces and ice-cold oculars stared down, contemplating the tiny creatures that controlled their fates. The platoon didn't form up, but huddled instead around Lieutenant Templeton, who for the first time in an age was simply the Ell-Tee instead of LOGIS Prime. His subordinates looked quite different from when last he'd laid eyes on them.

There were already some dedicated autostriders among the cadets, Templeton thought distastefully. Sueli Cassel was bright and dedicated, and yet she had been the first to fold, vomiting so much only a few hours into the land excursion that the inside of her Suit's interface cavity sloshed with every stride, much of the muck having been absorbed by her travel pack before finally sludging up and settling over the entire cavity floor.

Motion sickness had always been an issue with the Suits.

About as soon as the first walkers had begun to pad over the Thaumantian continent, their drivers had had to contend with it, the end result being that no rookie driver was able to operate his Suit for extended periods without medication. His platoon members were therefore regularly allotted several adhesive patches apiece, meant to be attached to the skin behind their ear before each session.

The first Driving Patches had been exclusive scopolamine vectors, until it was realized that the high atmospheric pressure on Capicua caused the anti-motion sickness medication to induce extreme dilation of the pupils. Several sergeants lost their eyes to glaucoma before the patches were reinforced with mirtazapine and clonidine, counteracting the blindness-causing pupil-dilatation and ocular hypertension. The patches were presently quite sophisticated, although some drivers had proven to be unable to deal with the multitude of side-effects from the combined medication.

Sueli had been relegated to the autostrider "brigade" at Main Force's rearguard, where she remained sick despite alternative treatments. It was not always so simple, however. Allerton had also been persistently sick, but an encrypted conversation with the driver had confirmed the commander's suspicion; Motion sickness was sometimes a mask for cowardice, and the lieutenant had heard enough to think about eventually directing the Allerton boy away from front line duty. Sueli, on the other hand, had proven to be a much tougher nut to crack, and she had hidden behind the motion sickness explanation as if it were a Spartan shield. She hadn't as yet spent more than a day away from the rear.

Hirum was the one most fraying on his nerves. Motion sickness wasn't the problem there at all, the driver's inner ear and stomach apparently being tough enough for the jerky accelerations inherent to Suit locomotion. But on the sixth day he had begun to suffer a persistent increase in his stress levels, accompanied by an abrupt decrease in performance. From that day onwards, Hirum had been experiencing what Templeton could only describe as a series of miniature nervous breakdowns, followed by suspiciously quick recoveries. Maybe the driver was trying to break the tempo of operations to suit his limitations. Maybe it was something else entirely.

Autostriders aside, it was clear from their expressions that exhaustion was taking a hold of most of the remainder, and it had begun to court the hardier drivers as well. He felt relieved at having requested the timeout.

"It appears you've lost more than five kilos apiece since I last saw you together ..." he stated.

It was no joke; they had probably lost that if not more. He began to chuckle.

"I won't lie, you all look like you've gone through the gut of a Master Sergeant."

A few grinned. There were even a few laughs, but Hirum's expression remained as empty as before. The cadet's lack of emotional response was known as blunted affect, and it never meant anything good about the subject's emotional health.

"That's why I wanted to record this moment of misery on photo. Tomorrow, whatever happens, you will survive. And when you do, I want you all to take a good look at your tragic mugs and laugh at what you see there. Sergeant, if you please ..."

Before long, what the lieutenant most desired began to happen. It was like magic, that strange phenomenon called morale. As they began to jockey for position with a pair of kneeling Mocas as backdrop, directed only sparingly by their section commanders (as he'd ordered them to), some cross-talk began to take place among them. Then someone made a joke (Rosa) and there was an outburst of laughter. From that moment onwards it didn't matter that their lips cracked and bled with the effort; quick grins covered their faces almost entirely, expressions softened and the motley crew reverted to their natural selves in no time at all.

He observed them carefully.

Rosa stood beside Miura at the back, plugging his nose theatrically and complaining at the stench of urine that apparently emanated from his fellow driver. He was quite the entertainer. On Miura's other side, Tani also seemed to be keeping her distance, although perhaps for some other reason, he supposed. Besides Tani, the troop's left flank was almost entirely composed of Miura affiliates, as he'd begun to think of them as. Winters, Hirum, Rosa, and the remainder of section one, sans Kimble, seemed to have clumped together into a group, the Boy with Strange Golden Eyes at its center. Miura hadn't as yet rotated into interim command of a mission, but Templeton had noticed over the comms how many had deferred to him when in doubt, even the Kimble character, although Miura often seemed as much at a loss as the rest. Perhaps there was more to him than appeared at first sight, he thought.

Then again, perhaps not.

Ian didn't think twice and pitched a tent in the center, and no one appeared to object to that at all. That didn't even qualify as ambition by afterthought; Templeton knew Ian was only thinking about how the Old Man would react if he saw his grandson in any position other than front-and-center. No one clumped around him.

The blonde cadet kept his face tightly disciplined as his platoon-mates positioned themselves to his flanks and rear, as if he were being surrounded by the enemy but was too polite to frown about it.

_Tactical monster_ , Templeton considered. He cursed his older brother yet again for what he had done to his own son. The boy was probably damaged beyond repair, although the lieutenant was slightly impressed by the fact that no one had yet perished at his hands.

Templeton took a few stills and recordings, participating good-naturedly in the banter before handing the cam to a friendly footman. The platoon posed and then posed again, and the level of noise soon began to attract unwanted attention from nearby ASC drivers. The lieutenant hushed the troop at once and sent the majority to the waiting line to top up their Suits. Discreetly he called Miura aside.

"We need to talk a moment, Miura. Got the time?"

"Nothing but time, sir. Have I done something wrong?"

The lieutenant chuckled.

"Why is it every time I call a cadet aside, he think he's about to get squeezed? No, as far as I know you haven't done anything wrong. Tell me how things have been going for you."

That seemed to give the driver some pause for thought.

"Well," he finally said, "we've been on the move non-stop for twenty days, never knowing the enemy's location. I and my mates are in the same platoon, but today is the first time I've seen their faces since Lograin, they look as bad as I feel, and some of them look worse. I'm not even sure what day of the week it is, or where I currently find myself besides some position on some map, and no one else knows any better. I stink all over, I itch all over, I haven't washed since MEWAC and I feel like I have sticky paste covering my body and gun oil in my hair. Other than that I'm OK."

The lieutenant inclined his head in consideration and let the sarcasm slide.

"The Moca's operating system is a bit simple," he conceded. "That's to be expected, seeing as it was meant to be supported by an equally simple CPU. Has something to do with the price-tag, I guess. But the map is there and it is accurate. Trust me on that. As for where the enemy is, is it really that important to you?"

Miura nodded silently.

"Very well. We're currently forty clicks closer to Unmil than any UAVs have come before and less than four hours march from the mine plantation. We have some reports there was a disturbance around these parts a few months ago, heavy enough to cause a brand new dawn-wave to propagate over the continent. The Research Hubs compiled all the data pertaining to the event and processed it. The point is they figured the dawn's point of origin to be about three hundred clicks to our east, give or take a hundred.

"My guess is, if the enemy's around these parts, he's going to notice our presence here. Which is why from now on Main Force will be moving in battle line instead of column. That is also why LOGIS will be marching half a click behind the ASC. Today's grove was a good catch, it was what we were needing. From now on there'll be no grove-hunting, we'll be operating on what we have. Feel any better?"

"Actually, yes sir. I was beginning to feel like this could go on forever."

The lieutenant grinned.

"Rest assured that if our commander had decided to not jaunt to Lograin, it would have. But that's not the reason why I wanted to talk to you. Who are you paired up with?"

"Grimm. Unit Four, sir."

"Not anymore. You'll pair up with Fourteen while Four assists Brother One. Understood?"

Miura's disappointment was hard to miss.

"I ... Yes sir. Why?"

The lieutenant sighed heavily.

"Listen, Miura. I'm sure you've already noticed that Hirum's having it hard out here. He's going to need someone he knows and respects beside him to keep him in line. You realize that, don't you?"

"Yes sir. It's just that ... well, I –" Miura began.

"You just want to be a hero. Right, I get that, except that you're not authorized to be a hero. That's the true nature of military service. Shitty assignments. I hate them as much as you and I do everything I can to stay away from them. But they're still assignments and they need to be done, otherwise I foresee Hirum will screw up so bad he'll either get himself killed, get everyone else killed, get himself court-martialed, or a combination of the above. You're his mate, right?"

"Yes ..."

"I'll arrange to open a private channel so you can talk only between the two. That should make it easier for you. But you've got to keep him engaged. Are we clear?"

"Yes sir, I'll get it done," his subordinate finally said, apparently resigned to his fate.

"Excellent. Now get a meal in your belly. And wash. You smell like you've spent the last three weeks living in a latrine."

*****

Toni gave Unit Seven a cold, hard look. It stared back at him as placidly as ever, its expression a study in neutrality. Toni remembered how at first he had thought it looked somewhat wrathful in appearance. Now it appeared almost afraid, although perhaps he was simply seeing his own emotions reflected there. The Suit was currently lightly armored, and it was certainly armed about as well as he could have hoped for, but the array of weaponry still looked woefully inadequate when he considered what he'd seen over the net. Leiben had been solidly creamed from afar and drones had fallen like confetti from the sky. Yet they were expected to get up close and personal with the attackers, a military force whose exact location, strength and number of bodily appendages was entirely unknown. Just how exactly were they supposed to engineer a victory?

He took out a thick marker he'd commandeered in Lograin and hopped up onto the unit's right knee. Approaching its forearm, he began to write on it, trying hard to make the lettering square and legible.

"Finally found a name for it?" he heard from below as he finished up. It was Ray.

"Not quite ..."

"I'm calling mine MAY REVENGE. What do you think?"

"Sounds appropriate, I guess ..."

Toni hadn't even considered naming his Suit. Somehow he didn't feel connected to it enough to do so. He had always thought it would be a Hammerhead he'd eventually be naming, anyway. Ray scrutinized the print and read it aloud.

"I am not authorized to be a hero. What's that about?" he asked in puzzlement.

"It's just something the ell-tee told me. It's to remind me of what I have to do."

"And what's that?"

"I'm a baby-sitter, I guess ..." Toni admitted with a sigh, and he explained what had happened only an hour before.

"Jeeesh ... Hirum?" Ray exclaimed once he'd finished.

"Yup."

"That's bad luck for you, Tones. Escort detail on your own mate. But you still drew resupply, so don't bitch about it too much. I'm gonna be in the rear-end digging emplacements and stretching wires while you're having a ball, so it's not all bad. Maybe you'll even get lucky and see some action ..."

"Yeah. Lucky ..." Toni mused.

"You all right?"

"Yes. Listen, how're things going in sec-three? Your sarge putting up for you?"

"Jorren? Every time he sees us, he gets this look like he's disgusted or something and looks away. It's beginning to piss me off. I might just have words with him about that ..."

Toni grinned. Had he known Ray for only a day, he might have taken him seriously, but he had since learned that if his mate had that deadpan face, it was probably because he was screwing around. No cadet would dare "have words" with their section commanders; that was a conversation that would never happen. They all knew the ex-ASC drivers were ticked off for having been pulled from their company in the eve of Capicua's first battle.

"Yeah, you do that. They're full of themselves, they are. Need to be put in their places. And what of the special one?"

"Hell, forget about him, Tones, he's not screwing around. Sueli's the one pissing me off. Sickness is her natural state now, though every once in a while she goes into remission. Right now Hannah, Ian and I are sec-three's only operational units, except for the sarge, of course. And we're all that's needed, you know. That Hannah's a real trooper. She's the best looking femme too, now that Sueli's gone three shades of green. I –"

Ray cut off whatever he had been about to say. As Hannah approached she tripped over a shrub, letting off a girlish squeal quickly followed by an embarrassed smile. Toni realized what Ray had meant; having lost only a kilo or two, she didn't have the almost emaciated look of Rakaia and especially Sueli, and as such her complexion wasn't much the worse for wear. Her eyes, pale as always and a little tired, nevertheless expressed some enjoyment at her predicament. And she seemed as yet completely untouched by fear.

"Hi, Toni. Can we talk?" she asked.

Toni's brow twitched at the question.

"Arright, I'm gonna get some sleep. See ya later, Tones. You too, Khaki ..." Ray declared with a twisted smile on his face, giving Hannah a brotherly clap on the shoulder she seemed not to notice. They waited silently until he was out of earshot.

"Khaki?" Toni remarked with a smile.

"Arakaki. Khaki. It's his way," she explained distractedly, refusing to meet Toni's eyes for a moment.

"Ahuh. He likes you."

"Shut up, ok? I'm here about Rakaia."

"Oh."

"Are you angry with her?" she asked bluntly.

Now that he thought about it, he had never had a one-to-one conversation with Hannah before.

"No, far from it. I think it was me who screwed up, actually, though I don't want to get into details ..." he answered carefully.

"Good, I don't wanna hear about it," she said evenly before pushing on.

"Point is, Rakaia's got some issues to deal with so she can be a little ... uh, brittle, sometimes. I know that and she knows it too. And I'll admit whatever happened in med bay is none of my business. So I guess I'll just be direct. Do you like her?"

"No. I mean I like her, but not that way. I mean, hell, she's as well equipped as any I've seen so maybe I was checking her out a bit, but ... can I shut up now?" he finished, hating himself to the core.

Hannah's slender eyebrows had perked up just a little at his reference to equipment, but she hadn't said anything. She considered his reply for a while.

"OK, it's simple then. You've apologized, from what I heard. She accepts your apology but says for you to keep your distance, you fucking pervert. Not my words," she added with a smile.

"I'm sorry ..." was all Toni could say.

"Keep your head down out there, OK?" she warned, flashing him with a bright smile before she walked away.

_Not to worry, dear Hannah_ , he thought as defeat overtook him, _I'll never raise it again_.

Turning away, he slipped the Suit's access-key into its slot.

### CHAPTER TWELVE

945 kilometers south-east of Lograin, 03H43, 14th of June, 2771

Enveloped in darkness, Toni awoke to a persistent beeping sound. Groggy with sleep, he decided to ignore the sound in the hope that it would eventually go away. Instead it was replaced by a compelling whoop suspiciously similar to the alert one would hear inside an armored Suit.

Then he remembered.

Opening his eyes to find yet more darkness, he ordered his unit to activate. Eyelids still sticky with sleep, Toni finally gained audio and visual, and he blinked furiously at the written warning on his virtual foreground.

ALARM MODE ACTIVATED. SIGNAL SOURCE ASC P1 S4

Feeling a chill reach into his bones, Toni inquired over the comm.

"Brother One, here Unit Seven, over."

There was no delay in the answer.

"Shut your ass, Seven, I'll get to you in a mike."

A particularly loud report suddenly made itself heard, jolting him fully awake more quickly than anything else could have. Moving his helm around, he tried to lay eyeballs on the source of the explosion, finding only that the remainder of his platoon, still facing inwards into their circle, were trying to do the exact same thing.

"Here LOGIS Prime. All units about-face and hunker down where you are." It was the lieutenant, and he sounded angry.

Toni hurried to comply, whirling fast around his center of gravity and putting his kneepad to the ground a full half-second before the rest. He gripped his rifle firmly and strained his ears, trying to pick up every sound.

All remained silent, except for the occasional nervous chirp of birds woken by the report. He wondered if perhaps they were hearing something he could not.

He increased audio sensitivity, gradually becoming aware of far-off popping sounds, followed by a second-long roar.

Somewhere far off, a unit of the ASC was firing thirty millimeter cannon.

Toni tried to keep his breathing slow and steady as the seconds passed by, his effort sabotaged by a particularly loud concussion from the south-east. The unit to Toni's left flinched at the sound, the Suit producing a shudder in the act. It was Hirum, and he had probably augmented his audio sensitivity too. Toni dragged his ocular mouse to the communications panel on his virtual display and looked at his options there, finding that the lieutenant had kept his word. He activated a private comm link between Units Seven and Fourteen.

"Yo, Fourteen, you believe this?"

"Toni?" a disbelieving voice sounded over the comm.

"Yours truly. No worries mate, Grimm's with the sec-leader now. You're with me from now on."

"Really?" there was an almost childish note in Hirum's voice.

"You OK with that?"

"Hell yeah, Toni, 'course I am. Are we on an encrypted channel?"

"Yeah. I, uh, took a look at the communications panel and realized your unit is on it. Maybe the pairs can parley privately now."

"Oh, that's great. That's more than great, 'cause I'm freaking out here ..."

"Listen, Fourteen. Don't do that, OK? All we need to do is what we're told. It'll all work out, alright?"

A monotonous voice cut off their conversation.

"LOGIS, here LOGIS Prime, standby to receive operational updates from Wild Rose. This is the only time I'll be saying this. From now on these messages will be keeping you posted on current events."

There was general silence for a few moments.

"Uh, Fourteen, maybe we'd better keep the comms to the minimum, before we miss something like that ..."

"Roger that."

A few moments later the Op-update appeared before Toni's eyes.

» ASC 1ST PLATOON, 4TH SECTION, ON PERIMETER PATROL 5 KM EAST-SOUTH-EAST OF MAIN FORCE ENCOUNTERED UNKNOWN NUMBER OF LAND VEHICLES. FOUR SUCH VEHICLES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED, REMAINDER HAVE RETREATED DUE EAST. MAIN FORCE WILL ASSEMBLE PREDETERMINED BATTLE-LINE WITH VANGUARD 500 METERS DUE EAST FOR IMINENT CONTACT PROGRESSION.

He read the message twice over before banishing it to his mission log. Then it finally began to sink in that an ASC section had contacted and wasted four enemy vehicles, and the blood in his veins began to flow faster and hotter. The silence over the comm was broken once again.

"LOGIS, here LOGIS Prime. Form up at the tree-line facing east. Sec One in the center, Secs Two and Three on left and right flank respectively, over."

All units immediately obeyed, their drivers somewhat less hesitant than they had been previously. Toni's augmented hearing began to pick up a multitude of APUs coming to life all around the forest. The entire ASC was prepping for locomotion, their turbines working furiously to increase the gas pressure in their pressure vessels, their drivers anxious to join the comrades who had just blooded themselves.

The Mocas moved towards their starting points, their motions those of an undersea diver walking on the seabed. The Hammerheads, however, were fast and fluid as they occupied their positions, the members of LOGIS reaching their line about twenty seconds afterwards.

That was one of the very few things Toni knew about the Hammerhead; its closed system forewent air in favor of germane, mostly because the gas was far more fluid than ordinary air, thus making PAM inflation and deflation much quicker, thus improving pseudo-muscular performance, and thus increasing Suit agility and reflexes. He put the thought out of his mind since it depressed him, thinking instead on the opposite side of that particular coin. If the Hammerhead's exterior pressure vessel were to be breached, it would only be a matter of time before complete locomotive failure took place, since the system wasn't designed to work with ordinary air.

The wait persisted and Toni was once again forced to consider Dunn's advice at the shuttle platform. Trying to relax, he found himself unable to do so, and began to compulsively check his operational status instead.

Discreetly he confirmed that his main weapon was safed and checked its serviceability. The sleek rifle's slender, fluted barrel was mostly hidden inside its ample hand-guard. The hand-guard also concealed an automatic anti-personnel shotgun, the fifteen millimeter cartridges it used having been designed to release twenty-four flechettes upon firing. The shotgun's two hundred round helical magazine was presently empty, that particular caliber no longer in production.

As ordered by Main Force Ops, his sentry guns were at the moment deactivated, their employment dependant on his voicing a key-word while eyeing the appropriate icon on his display. Knowing his own tendency for forgetfulness, Toni recorded the key-word on a semi-transparent sticky note and dragged it below the icon. When activated, those guns would fire upon any nearby hostile forces and even upon incoming projectiles with twenty millimeter fragmentation grenades, supposedly creating a safe-zone around his unit.

The only problem was that sometimes the Moca's CPU got a little confused about exactly who the enemy was, hence the Main Force order.

The SABERO rocket pods were preset in the same fashion, but he set them instead to launch by rifle trigger for faster engagement. There were two rockets per pod, allowing him to engage only four targets at best. He had been surprised to discover, however, that both pods together were worth about as much as his Suit's production cost, quite the thing to boost his confidence in their effectiveness.

"LOGIS, here LOGIS Prime, increase unit spacing to forty paces and standby for lomo," the lieutenant sounded over the comm.

Toni didn't budge an inch. Belatedly he realized he was at the square center of the progression line. The more rational part of his mind remembered that enemy contact could take place along any part of its extension, but still he would have much preferred to be in the flanks. Everything he had ever learned regarding conventional combat tactics made clear that it was the center that usually took the most punishment, their traditional role being to fix the enemy while the flanks became mobile to do the greater part of the actual killing.

He consoled himself with the fact that there was an armored company half a kilometer ahead shielding their movement.

He had barely begun to calm down when the the electrifying order finally came through.

"Attention to all LOGIS units. Locomotion. I repeat, locomotion."

Toni's footpads began to move without being having told to, his ears catching the sound of gigantic footfalls as nineteen armored Suits crossed the tree line into the forest beyond.

*****

"All units pause and observe ..." Toni heard over the comm.

He halted his progression again, the remainder of LOGIS doing the same. Toni suspected the ASC units ahead were also pausing to listen, and to release micro-UAVs into their surroundings for a quick look-see. He had already lost count of the number of times the order had been given, although by now the procedure was gaining a familiar feel, like pausing beside the living room door to judge whether his father was inside before crossing its threshold.

Every once in a while he'd receive an update on his display or a verbal order from Dunn; he no longer had access to Lieutenant Templeton's communications. The only other sources of input he still possessed were his own sensors and the annoying comrade who was presently whispering into his ear.

"Do you think they saw something? Toni?" Hirum breathed fearfully over the comm, causing Toni's tense jaw to tighten a little more.

"Lay off the comm, Fourteen ..." he replied, trying hard to keep the irritation from his voice.

Hirum had been getting on his nerves since the imminent contact progression had begun more than an hour ago, his comrade having taken to speculating on everything that might be happening up ahead. At first the noise over the comm had been merely annoying, but Hirum's constant thought verbalization was beginning to cross the boundary from annoying into deadly distraction.

As he willed his jaw to unclench again, Toni noticed diffuse smoke at a spot forty paces ahead. He switched his spectrum sensitivity to infrared and picking up a small, flickering heat source in the distance, partially obscured by the plantation trees. He kept his eyes on the light and wondered at what it was.

"Hey. Hey! There's something out there, man!" Hirum suddenly cried, causing Toni's body to tense up instinctively.

He scanned his surroundings, seeing nothing outside or on his display worthy of attention. Gritting his teeth, he willed himself to calm down again, reminding himself that it was Hirum who'd given the alarm.

"You talking about the smoke up ahead or what?" Toni asked, keeping communications strictly to their private line.

"Huh? Yeah, that's it – Wait, you think it's where they wasted the Unmils?"

"Uh. Yeah, that's probably it. I guess we've advanced five clicks, so that'll put us right where the shit happened. Listen mate, check your panic over the comm, alright? I nearly went into labor here ..."

He mentally kicked himself for not having thought of it first. Of course that was where the smoke was coming from. He searched the ground ahead and noticed how badly it had been disturbed by the maneuvering Hammerheads, and how a tree seemed to have been violently shouldered into; it's trunk was bent at an angle, a splintered limb resting on the ground beside it.

"You think something's gonna happen soon, Toni?"

"You do realize it's the third time you've asked me that, don't you?!" Toni finally burst out. There was merciful silence for a moment before an apologetic Hirum answered.

"Sorry, mate ... It's just that – how long do we have to keep on doing this? We can't keep up the pace. This doesn't make any sense ..."

"We'll keep going like this for as long as we want to do the job and get home safe ... or maybe you'd prefer for us to walk into an am–"

"Here LOGIS Prime, from now on there will be no chatter over the comms. All orders will be given and received over your displays."

As the lieutenant cut off, Toni quickly checked his communications panel to find that his ability to verbalize over the comm had been deactivated. A sudden thought stabbed at him, one that suggested that the lieutenant had been monitoring their conversation. A moment later he received a flash memo from the lieutenant.

» SORRY ABOUT THAT, ANY MORE FRICTION AND YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN TEMPTED TO FRAG THE KID. NOT CONVENIENT.

The memo confirmed his suspicion. He tried to send one in return but found he was blocked from doing so, resigning himself instead to trying to remember whether he'd said anything potentially compromising over the last hour. Eventually deciding he was safe from court-martial, he basked instead in the joy of having been unplugged from his partner, although at the expense of not being able to communicate with Dunn without activating the emergency mode.

He barely had time to think about what would justify Em-mode activation before another memo appeared on his display.

» RAISE CAT PRESSURE TO FULL AND PREP FOR LOCOMOTION.

Toni activated his APU, feeling his body shake in its HINT as the turbine resting below his Interface Cavity roared noisily into life. That was the other reason why they were halting their advance every few minutes.

Progressing with activated APUs was a little like hiding in a forest with a solar flare siren strapped to one's back. It was worse for the Hammerheads than for the Mocas; the combat units had more efficient PAMs and greater interior tank capacity, but their armor and chassis was on the bulky side, and the gas it took to make them move forced the drivers to top up more frequently. Putting it simply, his Moca could move on air pressure alone for a full ten minutes at maximum consumption, while a Hammerhead could hardly manage more than six.

The combat unit's upside was an attractive one though: they carried more than five times the armor and three times the operational payload of the Moca.

The APU ceased to operate after only a couple of minutes, leaving him to wait patiently while their big brothers half a kilometer ahead continued to pressurize. He soon received another memo ordering renewed progression.

Toni was fortunate; his trajectory took him towards the source of the smoke. What he saw there, however, disappointed him greatly.

What was left of an open-box mining vehicle, not so different from something he'd expect to see on a farm, smoldered inside a deep crater, its front so heavily damaged any possible seat would have been crushed beyond recognition. It still carried part of its load of plantation seeds, the remainder of its cargo having been wastefully strewn over the ground. Pushing on, he came upon a second object thirty meters down, apparently the remains of a robotic arm, gouges on the ground nearby suggesting that it had been flung there from the wreck. Moments later he came upon another mining vehicle even more badly damaged than the first, its chassis having been mercilessly riddled by cannon fire.

There wasn't the slightest suggestion of armament on or around the wrecks. Had they even belonged to the Unmils, or had the ASC patrol simply obliterated the first vehicles they came upon that didn't wave a white flag on it? He heard a metallic sound behind him, turning quickly to find the lieutenant's Suit holding the robotic arm in its gauntlet, inspecting it carefully. A text appeared on his display.

» HAVE YOU COME ACROSS ANY CORPSES OR BODY PARTS?

It was from the lieutenant.

» NEGATIVE.

» ANY WEAPONS?

» NEGATIVE.

» KEEP YOU EYES PEELED. COOLED DOWN YET?

» SORRY SIR. I LET HIM GET TO ME.

» NO SHIT. I COULD HEAR YOUR TEETH GRINDING OVER THE COMMS. KEEP YOUR COOL AND CARRY ON.

They pressed onwards, their progress occasionally punctuated by pauses for pressurization and observation. Toni's eventually found himself moving through flat plantation land, finding only green, unripe seeds still hanging from their trees. Every couple of kilometers they came upon uncultivated islands of forest where floral species unknown to him abounded, dark and dense and sinister, and packed with troops of tail-less macaques, their red rumps contrasting starkly with their storm-grey coats. The islands exploded with avian confetti every time they set their turbines running, dismaying him as the flocks rose high enough to be visible for kilometers around.

It was morning, chronologically speaking, when LOGIS finally hit hilly terrain, the islands and plantations fast asleep except for the three kilometer wide swath of alarmed fauna in Main Force's wake. Soon they would be sound asleep as the giants that had woken them disappeared into the forest.

He envied them for that.

"Execute order: Upper Limbs Autostride. Execute order: Deactivate Right Ocular," Toni ordered his OS.

His right eye plunged into darkness and he lifted the flip-up display that covered it, stretching his arm out to feel his way along the interface cavity's wall for the light switch. Finding an inset switch, he turned it, remembering too late that it opened the hatch. The cavity's interior was suddenly flooded with light as the hatch popped open, paralyzing the Suit's right appendage as musky air poured in from the gaping hole. Cursing to himself, Toni used the daylight to find the light switch to his left, turning it on before he tried to shut the hatch again.

It failed to close.

Cursing again, he turned the hatch switch repeatedly, finding to his frustration that it wouldn't budge more than an inch before returning to its open position. Too late his left eye saw a low-lying branch and the Suit collided against it, the deafening clang making him bite his own tongue as he struggled for balance. Still Looking through his left eye, he realized he'd fallen behind and picked up his pace, finding it much harder to maneuver without binocular vision. With his right eye he searched the interface cavity's interior, finding to his surprise and satisfaction that the collision had sealed the troublesome hatch. Hastily he removed a small pill from the pouch on his HINT and slipped it into his mouth, swallowing it dry. He regained stereoscopic vision to find a memo floating before his eyes.

» HOW MANY PILLS HAVE YOU TAKEN TODAY?

» FIRST ONE NOW, SIR. DID YOU NOTICE?

» EVERYONE DID. NEXT TIME KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE TREES. STILL GRINDING YOUR TEETH?

» NO SIR, NO TEETH GRINDING.

» GOOD. DONT FORGET TO KEEP AN EYE ON FOURTEEN TOO. DOESNT MATTER IF YOU HAVE TO GRIND YOUR TEETH TO DUST, ONCE WE RETURN ILL GET YOU NEW ONES. GET THE JOB DONE.

» YESSIR.

» YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT THE ASC LEFT FLANK HAS FOUND THE MISSING MINERS. THEYRE JUST BONES ON A FIELD NOW AND THEIR EQUIPMENTS MOSTLY ABSENT. DONT TELL HIRUM IF YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR JOB EASIER. DID YOU KNOW ROSA WAS ACQUAINTED WITH SOME OF THE MINERS?

» NO SIR.

» HES NOT REACTING TOO WELL TO THE NEWS. IF NECESSARY I WILL PULL YOU FROM HIRUM AND HOOK YOU UP WITH HIM. ARE YOU GAME?

» MOST DEFINITELY, SIR.

Toni had to wonder about the lieutenant. Was he texting the other units as well, or only his? Not that he disliked the attention, but somehow it made him feel pressured. The thought was interrupted by a flash update on his display.

» FORWARD UNITS REPORT AVIAN UPHEAVAL ONE CLICK EAST IN PROXIMITY OF FRIENDLY FORCES CENTER. UNMIL ACTIVITY SUSPECTED. STANDBY FOR ORDERS.

And there it was, the ever more familiar ripple up his spine. It wasn't as bad as the first time he'd received a similar warning over an hour ago. That time it had been the Hammerheads' turbines that had startled the wildlife. But the timid animal in the corner of his mind reminded him that the Suits were currently running on pressurized gas alone. He felt a second ripple up his spine and began to gear himself up for action.

» HERE BROTHER ONE. FROM NOW ON AND UNTIL CONTACT WE WILL USE HAND-SIGNS ONLY. ALL EYEBALLS ON MY UNIT.

Toni turned to his section leader to find Unit Fifteen with its gauntlet held high above its head, its index finger on display. They hurried to comply, forming a single column behind his unit with Grimm bringing up the rear. A quick look to his flanks made Toni feel a little anxious; they were now clear of friendlies, the remaining sections well on their way to set up a possible axis of retreat in the company of combat engineers.

Section One's mission was clear. Upon imminent contact they were to rendezvous with the two resupply sections of the ASC platoons two hundred meters behind the skirmish line, and then assist in ammunition resupply of combat units on demand. In the previous hour's false alarm they had gotten as far as where they were now, pausing in single column as Dunn awaited a signal from Main Force.

The delay proved to be a short one.

Dunn gave the signal to advance and stomped ahead at high speed, leaving the remainder of his section to try to keep up. Toni momentarily felt his footpads leave the ground, and he realized that he was actually running in his armored Suit for the first time. He deeply disliked the shuddering noises and pendulous movements his inner ears were picking up, the timid part of his spirit hoping that something wouldn't be able to take the stress and break down.

Shortly after, the column slowed and took a more winding path among the trees, as if their section leader was looking for something and failing to find it. They came to a full stop beside a clump of trees with no resupply Suits yet in sight.

Following their sec-leader's signals, the section formed a loose line facing east and advanced carefully for about a hundred meters before pausing again and putting a knee to the ground. Toni chose a particularly broad tree to shelter behind, although he was still afforded a good look of the front line.

The Hammerheads were strewn out about a hundred meters ahead, with perhaps fifty meters of spacing between each hulking unit. Some had deployed Remote Mortar Assemblies further back, the systems still under the control of the drivers via a thirty meter armored cable. The units stood immobile, the dark grey camouflage that covered their chassis working well enough to make it difficult for Toni to count their exact number. The seconds passed by as he watched, and no resupply sections deigned to make an appearance and link up.

Toni saw the detonations before he felt them; wherever he had counted a Hammerhead, and in some places where he had not, brilliant flashes blinked in and out of existence as a cascade of sparks erupted from the units. Then the very air around the Suits erupted violently, enveloping the surrounding trees in unnatural ruby-red flames. The shock-waves from the detonations arrived first, coming across as a particularly stiff cannonade that rattled the bones in his body as well as the structure of his Suit. The combined wave-front from the secondary explosions arrived a moment later, lifting Unit Seven clear off its footpads and into the air.

### CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mining quadrant, 08H35, 14th of June, 2771

_You've been taught how to stand in your Suit_ , Toni reminded himself as he stared hazily at the treetops above, the sky beyond darkening fast.

Something was wrong with his Suit, although he couldn't quite figure out what it was. He rolled over his left side and onto a prone position. Pushing himself with difficulty up onto his kneepads, oblivious of the roaring chaos, he finally realized that his right appendage was unable to move. Finally managing to lift himself upright, he peered to the right side of his Suit's torso.

His appendage, undamaged although it was, appeared as though it had been pulled halfway round to his back, and there appeared to be an object of some kind protruding from his right breastplate, exposing its interior. Slowly he realized that the hatch had popped open, the repeat event currently leaving him able to see almost directly into his chest, where the interface cavity resided. That explained the pungent air that was presently searing Toni's lungs. He tried to close the hatch with his left gauntlet; as he'd expected, it didn't budge. Almost as an afterthought, he gazed at his surroundings.

He easily found east due to the wall of flames that was feeding on the plantation, belching coal-black plumes of smoke into the sky as if giving birth to a storm.

Movement to the south suddenly caught his attention. Dunn's Unit Fifteen was a hundred paces away, motioning frantically to Toni to retreat westward. The two Mocas beside him were scorched but otherwise operational, and they accompanied their sec-leader as he turned west and set off at a run, several damaged Hammerheads quickly overtaking them at a sprint.

The last of the Hammerheads burned fiercely with crimson flames as it bounded along, heedless of the thick smoky trail it left in its wake.

The vision made no sense, and he dully decided that if it didn't make sense, it didn't really matter. _You are not authorized to be a hero_ , he reminded himself once more.

The remembered words reminded him of Hirum. Turning north, he searched for his partner's unit, and found it still gripping what remained of the tree it had been sheltering behind. Toni bounded towards him, and he began to choke on the fumes that were circulating more briskly in his cavity. Dimly he wondered if it was some sort of chemical attack.

Dimly he decided he didn't care.

Reaching Hirum's unit, he pressed the PTT on his rifle-grip, trying to hail him over the comm and failing to do so. He checked his communications panel and did not like what he saw; his OS had just completed a self-diagnostic test, having confidently concluded that radio comms were no longer possible due to action of enemy frequency inhibitors. He activated his loudspeaker.

"Hirum," he bellowed loudly, the smallest hint of feedback in his ears. "Let's get the hell outta here. Ya hear me?"

The Suit did not budge.

Toni tried to pry Unit Fourteen's hatch open with his gauntlet, not managing to find any handhold to better apply his strength. _My hatch can't stay shut and his just won't open_ , he thought, somehow finding the irony amusing.

Unit Fourteen's titanium face turned slowly towards him. Its placid expression seemed to fit there, as if hugging trees in a burning forest filled with monsters was the thing to do nowadays, didn't you know?

"Awake now? Good! Now let go of the fucking tree, mate ..."

Its round oculars stared at him uncomprehendingly. Cursing, Toni grabbed a hold of Unit Fourteen's torso webbing and gave him a violent yank, shaking himself so badly in the process that he teetered on the verge of unconsciousness. Two more firm pulls and he was finally able to get Hirum moving at the cost of an uprooted tree.

Hirum backtracked placidly under his mate's towing force, hugging the tree as if it were some hideous teddy bear, clumps of earth still falling from what remained of its roots. Toni suddenly perceived movement from the smoldering forest. Instinct took over and he slipped behind Fourteen's bulk.

An earsplitting concussion hammered its way through his skull as Unit Fourteen tore apart, sending incandescent metal through Unit Seven's hatch and against his right arm, encased in its hydraulic interface. Lava-hot spalls punctured through steel and flesh alike, the impacts shaking him as if he were being ravaged by a predator. Screaming, Unit Seven fell hard upon the earth, splintered wood raining down all over as an orange haze cloaked the unknown assailant from his sight.

Jet engines screamed at full throttle beside his ears, and it took a while to realize the sound wasn't coming from outside his skull. Aside from the sharp headache, Toni felt little pain, although he was beginning to feel a warm wetness beginning to spread over his right arm and groin. Refusing to deactivate oculars, he attempted to access the integrated tourniquet under the HINT's armpit. It was no use; every time he came close, his gauntlet collided against the open hatch or his spaulder, forcing his real hand to stop short of its objective. Working against time, Toni decided to deactivate his Suit.

The interior of his interface cavity was a mess. Although partially shrouded in a haze, he could still make out a few branches and an armful of leaves, fragments from Unit Fourteen and a lot of draining hydraulic fluid. He followed the fluid to its source, realizing in horror that it was mixed with blood. Desperately he pulled at the tourniquet near his armpit until the tightness satisfied him, his eyes carefully avoiding the wounds. Within fifteen minutes he would need to relieve the pressure. As if to underline the situation's urgency, Toni felt the ground begin to vibrate. He reactivated Unit Seven and took a quick look around.

No more than twenty meters off, an armored Suit unlike any Toni had ever seen lumbered into view. It was heavier than the Hammerhead beyond a doubt, and its aerodynamic rifle was still smoking from what looked like radiators along its barrel-length. The unit managed to look squat and sleek at the same time. Its narrow skull turned to observe him.

The air around the unidentified Suit suddenly became alive with supersonic fireflies, each accompanied by a sonic boom, several of them impacting the walker's superstructure in a festival of fireworks. Unaffected by the impacts, the Suit bounded back east with surprising agility and fired off a casual shot with his rifle, the sound it made no louder than a petard. The microsecond flash produced by the weapon elucidated Toni as to its nature.

Toni heard the characteristic chainsaw-like roar of the Hammers' thirty millimeter cannon a full second after the fireflies' appearance, putting them three to four hundred meters away. He searched for the enemy Suit, finding to his relief that it was nowhere to be seen. Locating his rifle beside him, Toni sat up to reach for the weapon. Something slid down onto his Suit's lap with a metallic clang.

He looked at the object for a while. It was torn in two just as its Suit had been, though where the other half was he wasn't inclined to speculate. Hirum's corpse was still encased in its interface, hydraulic and electric wires in disarray, only his right arm remaining, his left having found someplace else to rest. His eyes were semi-closed as if about to fall asleep, an illusion not helped much by the fact that most of his cranium was missing. Toni lifted the corpse delicately from his lap and laid it to rest beside Unit Fourteen's exposed APU, horrified by how light the body felt to him. What remained of its head bobbed sickeningly as he laid it down, giving him a brief peek at where its brain should have been. Unformed thoughts swimming in his mind, Toni picked up his rifle and began to move east.

It didn't take longer than a minute for Toni to find what he was looking for. Something between eight and a dozen Hammerheads had opted to engage the Suit, and the hilly forest was alive with ricocheting fireflies and earth-shaking concussions. Every few moments a brilliant white flash could be seen from the converging point of the Hammers' wrath and, some of those times, the flash struck its target, precipitating another eruption of the unnatural red fire. They were moving fast, faster than Toni could keep up with, but every time he slowed down the memory of the lolling empty head returned to him. He pressed onwards, moving across plantation land where fires raged and Hammerhead scrap was everywhere to be seen. His APU sputtered into activity, the sound it made somewhat unhealthier than when last he'd heard it. Finally he put a knee to the earth inside a shallow depression and ordered his Suit to shutdown.

Toni lost track of time for a while as his darker half showed up to pay the world a visit. By the time he finally snapped back into consciousness, he found himself sitting on the cavity floor, his right arm disinfected and bandaged, the tourniquet loosened, and smelling like a latrine.

The arm looked ugly in its blood-soaked bandages, and he realized he wouldn't be able to reinsert it into the interface. Inspecting the device as it floated before him, he began to cut into wires and hoses with his pocketknife, adding even more hydraulic fluid to the mixed puddle of blood and oil on the floor. Before much time had passed and with the assistance of a few conveniently removable pegs, Toni managed to detach the HINT's right appendage and toss it out the hatch. Renewed sounds of battle became apparent to his recovering ears, and he peered hard at his surroundings through the broken hatch.

The terrain kept its secrets, whatever they were.

He popped three pain-killers at once, hoping they would be enough. Strapping his right arm carefully to his chest, he slipped once more into the HINT, ignoring the scent of his recent urinary contribution to the device. He activated his Suit and tried to spy the source of the sounds. Gradually he became aware of Hammerheads communicating through loudspeakers to the east. Whatever they were saying, they sounded desperate. The sound of several turbines at full throttle became clear and began to intensify.

From the east, Toni finally spotted several Hammerheads sprinting in single file at speeds he had never imagined possible. The larger trees were spared by the group, the smaller ones simply being shouldered aside as they tore desperately towards the west. He counted four Suits, the rearmost lagging behind by a fair margin. It seemed to be that driver who spoke as they passed obliviously by at a hundred paces.

"GOING FOR IT. BEST OF LUCK!"

The Hammerhead released an object from its gauntlet and then put its footpad into the ground in a braking action, the extremity excavating enough earth to impress any dump truck driver. Before coming to a full stop, the Suit snapped about and fired off a short burst with its cannon. Several missiles rocketed from its spaulder-pods while smoke grenades popped off around him, effectively obscuring the titan from view. Then the Suit detonated in crimson flames, the fireball expanding quickly to envelope the surrounding trees. The enemy Suit appeared from the forest unscathed to calmly survey the carnage.

Toni made ready to engage, but the Suit immediately noticed the Moca and turned its rifle to towards him.

A powerful blast suddenly lifted the hostile Suit off its footpads, engulfing the Unmil in a miniature mushroom cloud before gravity pulled it back to earth. It struck the ground on its back, the impact causing the leaf-less trees surrounding it to shake as if they had suddenly come to life. The detonation appeared to have originated from the Hammerhead's discarded object.

Toni took advantage.

Activating all armament, he opened fire on the Unmil simultaneously with rocket-pods and rifle. The sound of all systems firing at once rang him like a bell, the sight of the impacts against the hostile Suit's chassis making the agony worthwhile. Quickly he changed clips and prepared to reengage.

A brilliant flash from the Unmil's upraised rifle coincided with the complete disintegration of Unit Seven's right appendage. PAMs popped as the Suit rolled to its left, and Toni hastily decided it was time to become scarce.

He rolled out of the depression and began to wind among the trees as fast as his one-armed Suit could carry him, glancing back occasionally to see whether he was being followed. Seeing nothing, he decided not to risk it and took advantage of the long descent to pick up speed. A tree behind him suddenly exploded into splinters, followed by another a moment later. Giving his dancing compass a cursory look, he took a westish course and prepared to go aerobic.

A full minute later, Toni's APU was running to an ever louder clattering sound and a burning smell began to intrude upon the interface cavity. His dismayed oculars were staring at the open hatch, watching as diffuse smoke billowed from its interior, when a tree close behind suddenly exploded into splinters. The laser beam burned its way through the wood and struck the fugitive unit below its pressure vessel, where its APU was situated. The impact sent Unit Seven rolling down the hill, colliding hard enough against trees to uproot one and spilling four hundred liters of Resinin oil over the landscape. Toni collided twice against the cavity's interior wall, and he mentally thanked Ruka for the padding she'd thought to fit there. Taking advantage of his momentum, he rolled himself back onto his feet and took off at a sprint, his lungs beginning to burn on par with his legs.

Strangely enough, Toni suddenly found it much easier to run, and before long he accelerated to a pace beyond anything he had thought possible for a Moca. He managed the following hill so fast that only the occasional tree strike was enough to reduce speeds to their original level. Two minutes later he took the moment to read the accumulating warning messages on his display. The information was like a blade through his heart:

» WARNING: APU PURGED

» WARNING: FUEL TANK RUPTURED

» WARNING: ACAT AT 50 PERCENT CAPACITY

Somehow he had managed to lose his APU and empty his biofuel deposit in his rolling descent. And he had five minutes' worth of locomotion, at best, before he ran out of air entirely. The cause behind his sudden increase in performance was no doubt due to the loss of so much weight.

Running flat out, he made for a forest island and then adjusted his trajectory to home in on the axis of retreat displayed on his map. The islands were much hardier terrain than the plantation land, probably the reason why they had managed to remain forests in the first place, and that suited him fine; with more landscape to hide behind, agility, not peak speed, became the primary factor for survival.

As Unit Seven came out onto an open area on the island's opposite side, a laser beam struck its titanium skull, disintegrating it and sending his Suit rolling down what remained of the high ground. Entirely blind, Toni fell into a ravine at the end of the decline, landing on his right side to the sound of a loud snap just before his body double-slammed against the cavity's wall. The OS automatically activated the Crab Eye system, the pair of wing-like accessories with compact oculars at their ends unfolding elegantly from the torso's summit.

Picking himself up, Toni turned and bounded unsteadily down the ravine with an intense hissing sound coming from below his midsection. Water vapor began to condense around the Suit's waist area as cool air bled out, both denouncing his presence to any potential pursuant and warning him that its hollow hipbone had probably been damaged.

The ravine was dangerously straight and bare, and he was fortunate in finding a collapsed bank only moments after his fall. He decided to move parallel to the axis of retreat, suspecting that the enemy armored Suit had placed itself between him and his escape route. Once again Toni found it easier to move, and he realized that the pressure build-up in the Suit's hollow bones and external tank had probably been slowly decreasing the PAMs' ability to expel air, a problem inadvertently resolved by the sudden pressure loss from the break. He continued onwards desperately, hoping that somehow the Unmil had give up on him.

His hope proved to be optimistic.

As Unit Seven intruded unexpectedly upon the edge of a wide clearing, the Suit's lower appendages exploded underneath it, the legless torso plowing into the ground with a tremendous crash before it came rolling to a halt. The dying Suit dug its only remaining gauntlet into the ground and rolled away from the clearing. It kept on rolling, the open hatch scooping up so much earth with every turn that the cavity was becoming akin to a concrete mixer, soiling Toni's injuries in the process. Keeping his mouth closed, holding his breath and then holding it again when his loose travel pack smacked against his body, Toni finally came to rest inside a shallow dip in the terrain.

Raw terror, never too far away, made an opportunistic stab for the limelight. For a while Toni was unable to move or even think; his eyes, however, were already occupying themselves with his surroundings.

He lay in a natural bowl three meters deep by about twenty wide, likely the topographical dimple resulting from a cave collapse. The trees surrounding it were widely spaced but very broad. The ground was soft and moist.

Toni's mind slowly began to function again. He weighed his options carefully; he could stay and fight and die. He could stay and surrender. He could abandon his Suit and try and escape on foot. Option three appeared by far the most attractive of the lot. Suspecting that he wouldn't have much time to effect an escape, he tried to look around, only to be reminded that he no longer had any head to swivel. A sound at the edge of his hearing then caused him to freeze and listen very carefully.

Picking up nothing but suspecting every sound, he slowly came to terms with the fact that the Unmil Suit was hunting him. An idea of the desperate kind came to him.

He popped off his twenty-four flares all at once, and they shot off banging and hissing every which way. Supporting himself on his remaining arm, he lifted his torso up awkwardly, looking west where it seemed likely that the enemy unit would have placed itself.

Only its movement gave the Suit away. The hostile was less than fifty meters off, quite difficult to see due to the quality of the Moca's auxiliary oculars. Toni threw himself onto his back with a shudder and then tried to fire over the depression's lip with his rifle. The first burst hit the ground nearby, the explosive rounds peppering his Suit with tungsten carbide spheres in the process. He fired higher and managed to get a second burst over the lip. Then his only remaining appendage disintegrated all the way up to its elbow and the spinning rifle hammered into the ground nearby.

"Deactivate suit!" Toni roared.

Finding it very hard to extricate himself from the interface with only one functioning arm, he finally shrugged his way out through the exposed right side, pulled the pen-key out from its slot and bolted for the cavity's access panel. He reached for his sidearm and put it away in a pouch on his vest, shouldering the Lacrau firmly as soon as he'd hooked the strap to a pad eye on his shoulder. Carefully, he approached the hatch and peered outside.

From its full height of ten meters, the enemy armored Suit peered down at him, its chassis showing more damage than he had noticed from a distance. Toni moved out of sight, thinking hard. A sudden impact projected him against the cavity wall and he struck the HINT's maintenance panel hard with his unprotected head. Blacking out momentarily, he returned to consciousness with what remained of his Suit still rocking from the kick it had just received.

Toni strode beyond fear and into the land of hate.

Finding his helmet beneath a pile of rubble, he strapped it on firmly and kept out of the enemy Suit's sight, hoping that the driver would somehow be foolish enough to exit his unit. Another violent shudder shook the Moca, and Toni began to feel his gut sinking as the entire chassis was lifted off the ground. He grimly prepared himself for the end of his life.

Instead the entire cavity shook and shuddered and turned, and the accumulated cargo in the interface cavity began to pour out of the hatch. Feeling once again as if he were inside a concrete mixer, Toni held on as best as he could to the wiring surrounding him, finding himself being shaken almost beyond the resilience of his flesh as rock, dirt, vegetation, what remained of his first-aid kit and his travel pack were ejected into the world beyond. After several frustrated shakes that Toni barely managed to resist, the enemy driver disgustedly released the chassis, and the remains of Unit Seven collided hard against the soil. Toni took the impact against his right side and screamed in pain, far beyond caring about his fate anymore.

A pair of intense strobes suddenly filled his field of vision, making him suspect that he was on the verge of passing out. A moment later, Toni felt more than heard a heavy impact that shook the ground beneath the wreck. Silently he waited, trying to grasp what was happening.

An immense shock-wave suddenly struck the area with enough force to lay the chassis out on its side and strip the leaves from their trees, leaving the foliage to fall to the ground like confetti. A second shock-wave then washed over the tormented land, threatening to turn the Moca's remains over entirely. Enough was enough; a bloody and butchered Toni abandoned his unit for the last time.

He came out into the open with the Lacrau hanging impotently from its strap, a multitude of leaves still falling upon his skewed helmet as he stared agawk at his surroundings. To his south-west and no more than a couple of kilometers from where he stood, two great mushroom clouds rose majestically from the ground, presiding over their immediate territory like twin gods fallen from the skies. Toni could see them clearly because every tree around him was stripped of its foliage, allowing him also to observe vast forest fires from south to south-east. And the goliath that only moments ago had been trying to shake him out of his Suit like a mouse from an empty can of beans was lying motionless on its back, almost perfectly camouflaged by the fallen leaves.

Hugging his middle, Toni plodded miserably towards his badly beaten travel pack, still reeling from the trauma and sick with the thought of returning to an interface cavity any time soon. He reached his pack only to vomit beside it, the effort of the act causing him to black out once more. He slowly regained consciousness to a persistent hammering noise. Suddenly there was another sound, much like something giving way.

"Sheisse!"

Toni turned towards the source of the sound. Unable to move, he watched as a man's torso protruded from an opening in the flank of the enemy unit's breastplate. The man was dirty-blonde and rugged in appearance, and clothed in what looked like a black bodysuit. And he was armed with a sleek rifle, which he promptly raised towards the injured driver.

Toni acted due more to a sudden spark of rage than to fear. Gripping the Lacrau with a slap of his hand, he fired a short burst at the driver, striking him several times. The remaining shots veered away as the rifle danced in his hand and the enemy driver disappeared quickly into his unit. The driver began to laugh from inside the colossus, a genuine laugh that seemed alien to the circumstances. The laughter was followed by several words that Toni failed to understand, and then by a hand -grenade that flew out the hatch towards him.

Toni instinctively sheltered behind his travel pack, and the following concussion promptly riddled it with shrapnel. Both soldiers rose from their shelters simultaneously, Lacrau eight-millimeter projectiles crossing paths with sub-caliber two-millimeter flechettes in a hailstorm of gunfire. Toni was struck twice in his vest and once under his right armpit, hardly feeling the impacts as he watched some of his own strike home. A second grenade detonated nearby, how it had arrived there quite beyond Toni's understanding. His already injured arm took a fragment and a second one thwacked against his helmet. Taking shelter again, Toni began to get the distinct impression he was losing the fight. Further laughter from the enemy driver only served to add weight to the thought.

Desperately he unpocketed a grenade and pulled out the arming pin with the hook on his vest, giving the hatch a split-second glimpse before he lobbed the device. As the grenade left his hand, a moving shadow near the giant's armpit caught his attention. The shadow catapulted over the unit's arm, rolled over the depression's lip and disappeared from sight just as the hatch swallowed the grenade. He bolted after the driver, his mind too numb to think about leaving the depression from a safer side. As he approached the lip, several impacts against his upper vest felled him, the gradient rolling him back until he was beside the Unmil Suit. He barely had time to notice that the hatch had somehow sealed itself when the enemy unit's torso ruptured with a thunderous thump, much of the overpressure inside being relieved by what looked to be explosion vents between the giant's neck and pauldrons.

Rising unsteadily to his feet, Toni released his rifle to hang at his chest, produced a second grenade and pulled its pin. A part of his brain was having a hard time deciding whether it was currently in command of a human body or an armored Suit, but he shoved the thought aside and instead released the safety lever, lobbing the grenade outwards at a high angle. Three seconds later a blast shook the area, followed by the static-like sound of shrapnel impacting wood at ever greater distances.

Throwing himself forward as if breaching an invisible force field, Toni bounded up and over the lip, picking up as much speed as his ailing body would allow. Grunting in pain and effort, he searched for his quarry. A fleeing figure slalomed among the denuded trees.

He set off in pursuit with another grenade firmly held in his hand, his rifle tucked snugly into the crevice between his vest and his badly bleeding arm. He did not need to pursue for long.

A grenade, surreptitiously dropped by the escaping driver, detonated twenty paces ahead of Toni, drumming shrapnel into the trees before and beside him. Not daring to slacken his pace, Toni deviated left to follow a more parallel trajectory. Despite his bleeding wounds, his burning muscles and lungs and the weight of his equipment, he found himself closing the distance quickly. Soon he was thirty paces away and beginning to suspect that the slowdown was deliberate, but then the fugitive collapsed into the ground and lay there motionless, his only sounds a deep, unhealthy wheezing.

Pocketing his grenade, Toni approached carefully, aiming the Lacrau at the back of the soldier's head.

"Throw the weapon aside! NOW!" he demanded, his suspicion deep despite the soldier's unhesitating obedience.

"On your back!" he ordered. Very slowly, the enemy driver obliged.

He was older than he looked from a distance, his handsome face finely lined by time. Despite his wheezing, the soldier wore a wide grin on his face, perhaps more akin to a grimace. As Toni stared at his eyes, those intelligent grey eyes, they stared back at him measuringly. The soldier spoke.

"Yes yes, kinder. You are a very persistent boy. You have captured me. Well done! Now you must show me –"

"You killed my friend ..." Toni interrupted.

The man's grin faded to a forced smile. He insisted.

"That is unfortunate, but this is war –"

Toni fired a burst into his gut, the soldier's body wiggling spastically as the rounds connected. The object of his rage turned to the side and let off a long, choked groan, his perspiring face flushing red as the he momentarily ceased to breathe.

"On your back!" Toni demanded, kicking the man viciously as soon as it became clear he wasn't obeying.

Eventually the soldier did obey and lay gingerly on his back, his renewed breathing shallow and difficult. There was no longer a smile on his face. Instead the soldier looked sullen, almost sulky, and he held his hands high beside his head. The bodysuit appeared almost unchanged except for some stretch-marks in the fabric. That fascinated Toni enough for him to consider repeating the act, but the soldier read his thoughts easily.

"Nein, Nein, kinder! The textile is special, see? If you press slowly it bends easily, but the harder you strike it, the harder it gets. That is all, that is all it is –" The soldier began to wheeze again, the act of speaking having apparently exhausted him.

Toni fired another burst into his midsection and then the electrical firing pin arced across empty air. Hastily he reloaded, a task not aided in the least by his onehandedness. He cursed at his own stupidity; if the soldier had not been rolling in the leaves crying, he would have been fighting a two-handed adversary for his life.

He noticed the man watching him from the corner of his eye, tears of pain still coursing from it. There was pain to be seen there but, more importantly, there was a barely-concealed coldness that he hadn't seen before. For a moment Toni imagined having to imprison someone as smart and cold-blooded as lieutenant Templeton while having use of only one good arm. The thought helped him to make the decision. He pointed his rifle at the soldier's head, committed to what he needed to do.

The soldier rolled slowly onto his back, the cold expression replaced by a very cautious one. He spoke again.

"I am sorry, kinder. I have been a soldier for too long and sometimes I forget how deeply young fighters feel a loss. I am your prisoner, as certainly as you would have been mine if I had caught you. I would have honored you as a prisoner, and you will honor me as one too, yes?"

Carefully he turned over onto his stomach, placing his hands behind his back, wrists side-by-side. And then he waited quietly.

### CHAPTER FOURTEEN

**Mining quadrant, 09H32, 14** th **of June, 2771**

The psychotic teenager pushed the rifle's muzzle against the back of Kaiser's head, making it very clear that he was unsatisfied with his prisoner's marching speed. Unwillingly he hastened his pace, bloodshot eyes darting at his surroundings every few moments in expectation of a rescuing Harrower's appearance.

The Bavarian was having difficulty keeping from laughing out loud at his predicament, still not fully believing he had just been defeated in combat with the aid of his own commanders. That would make it only the second time he had lost a Suit, although on Mars he had still managed to return safely to friendly lines. And last time he hadn't sacrificed a quarter of their combat strength in the course of his defeat.

Laughing out loud was certainly not a thing to do with this boy, however. Once the youth had bound him with his bandoleer, Kaiser had made the mistake of smiling up at him; the result had been a rifle-butt to the skull with enough force to knock him out cold. Once he had regained consciousness, he had found the boy squatting over him with a well-used pocketknife in his hand. Not the most promising of developments. It was the look in his eyes that had worried Kaiser; the boy appeared to be slipping into a dark, ugly place.

"Oh, so you _are_ alive ..."

And that had been the last time the boy had spoken to him.

From that moment onwards, Kaiser had opted in favor of complete cooperation as his surest survival strategy, not feeling confident enough to have to wrestle him, bad wing or no.

The root source of his lack of self-confidence stemmed from the fact that Kaiser was also a quite impressed with his captor. Already, the red sun's merciless rays were murdering his own skin, and the gravity sucked the energy out of his body with every step he took. He was also certain that the carbon dioxide that had almost asphyxiated him during his attempted escape would certainly do the same if he were to try again.

Yet despite the slim pilot having suffered enough damage to drop a special ops trooper, he had still managed to course the uneven terrain like a gazelle in the course of the foot-pursuit. More impressively, the boy seemed completely oblivious to the sun's effects as he loped along, his bandaged arm regularly dripping blood, carrying that enormous mutilated backpack of his with remarkably little effort. Perhaps it was the reddish light, but his eyes were a strange golden color he had only ever seen in the more engineered canine breeds. His captor was probably far more adapted to that planet than he was, which meant there were only three ways he would be able to secure his freedom: outside assistance, subtle deception or dumb luck.

"Kinder, it would be unwise for us to keep approaching those clouds. Surely you know what radioactivity is, no?" he spoke over his shoulder, slackening his pace.

The boy's answer was simply another jab at his skull. Kaiser picked up his pace again, thinking hard. The quickly dissipating mushroom clouds were of no concern to him, of course, the aneutronic fusion devices that had birthed them having been designed to minimize fallout. Indeed he was probably at greater risk from his mobile Suit's continuous low-level radioactivity than from what he was seeing up ahead. But Kaiser would be hard put to work his magic if the boy were to somehow hook up with his comrades-in-arms. He stared ahead, cursing those clouds and the cowards who had chosen to put them there.

If his Suit had been in good working order, a nearby thermonuclear event would have been of no consequence to him; like all front-line equipment and armament, the Harrowers had been hardened against electromagnetic pulses of nuke origin or otherwise. The problem was that the electronics itself was far too sensitive to be impervious to such interference, which was why EMP hardening depended almost exclusively on the set of faraday cages that encased the sensitive parts of his Suit.

He refused to believe the impacts against his unit had breached the CPU's robust encasement itself. But the CPU was connected by cable to other sensitive components, and any failure to those cages, or to any of the armored cables themselves, would probably have been enough to compromise the entire system. Considering the intense magnetic fields inherent to charge separation-type EMPs, the collection of circuit breakers protecting the CPU would simply not have been able to open fast enough once cage integrity was spoiled.

But the nukes hadn't destroyed the Suit. Kaiser had.

Or to be more exact, Kaiser had neglected to close the hatch after exiting his Suit, hoping that the boy would simply presume he was still sheltering inside. And then he had made it worse by sealing the uncompromised hatch by remote in the hope of retrieving the platform later. How was he to know that the boy had tossed a grenade inside? A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, and he wondered whether his captor knew just how much disruption he had caused to their plans.

They eventually intruded on the outskirts of the nearest site.

The tactical nuke had detonated over a broad valley, setting fire to an area three hundred meters wide and uprooting all but the strongest trees for more than half a kilometer. As they moved into the clearing of upturned trees, the wind blowing strongly against their backs and towards the inferno, his captor motioned for him to stop. Grateful for the pause, Kaiser sat with his back against a fallen tree, breathing fast and shallow as perspiration dripped from his nose and chin.

Sitting on an unearthed root, the boy stared expressionlessly at the forest fire as if mesmerized by its flames. Despite his agony, a couple of quips jumped into Kaiser's mind, but he decided to remain silent instead. The events had taken a heavy toll on the pilot. It was never wise to poke at a wounded creature, and this one was certainly wounded in more ways than one. Slowly but surely, the fire began to close the distance towards them.

"Who are you?"

Kaiser turned towards the boy.

"Hello, how do you do? I am Kaiser."

"I don't give a shit for your name, asshole. Who are you?"

"Ah. I am Major Tommi Von Beulwitz, Mobile Suit commander of the Earth Federation Forces."

The boy stared at him for a long while. Soon the increasing warmth to the side of Kaiser's face was warning him of the encroaching danger.

"If I may, kinder, I would advise we not remain here much longer."

"My name is not kinder! You'll be calling me Sergeant Muira from now on. I'll make this very clear: If you try to escape, disobey or generally piss me off, I'll snuff you out, whatever your rank. On your feet."

They skirted the forest fire by moving south, weaving their way with difficulty among the collapsed plantation trees due to the angle at which they had fallen. Gradually the terrain's inclination began to steepen and before long Kaiser began to have difficulties.

After several pushes and one violent shove, Kaiser realized he needed to be more obvious about his breathing difficulties. He collapsed to the ground and began to hyperventilate.

"Get up!" Miura ordered.

Kaiser tucked his chin in defensively as the boy made ready with his rifle-butt.

"Please, Sergeant, I need only a moment – this air is poison to me, verdammte!" he shouted just as the butt collided against his skull.

He had already been suffering from tunnel vision. Double vision arrived and then he finally blacked out. By the time he returned to a world swimming in starbursts, the boy was staring at him speculatively.

"Poison?" he repeated.

"Yes, boy ... Sergeant, I mean. Poison."

"You're a natural?"

Kaiser disliked the way in which the boy had said the word, and he made an effort to find an acceptable answer, his numbed mind struggling to think.

"Oh, no I am not. But I am not adapted to the air of this planet as you certainly are."

"Then you're a natural."

"Nein, nein. I am not, I tell you! I am genetically engineered like you are, except to be a better mobile Suit pilot!" he insisted, disliking where the conversation was headed.

"Then you're a natural!" the boy repeated. "You weren't made for this world, but only to be a Suit driver. Your Suit is your world, then, not Capicua. What are you doing _here_?" he demanded.

The boy's words shocked Kaiser more than he would ever dare admit. The very thought had passed through his mind in his darker moments, although he had never dared put it into words, not even to Lippard, with whom he could be so candid about so many things. Carefully he put it all out of his mind, along with the fleeting thought of Lippard.

He prepared to gamble.

"I am your enemy. Your enemy in this world. The whole universe is filled with mankind, and there are many planets out there where men forget they are a part of something larger, greater. And I am only one among many who have come to remind you planetary retrogrades of precisely that. You are not some indigenous species of this world. You are only one outreaching hand of mankind."

"Sorry _Major_ , but Earth is very, very far away, and I'm not gonna get into a debate about who belongs where. The plain fact is you pissed off the wrong people when you attacked Leiben."

"Lieben?"

"Leiben! The city you dropped a few of those on, remember?" The boy gestured angrily towards the black clouds persisting over the valley.

"Ah, my apologies, then. I did not agree with that decision. There are better ways to greet the locals, I said. You must understand there are many on my side who get nervous when they see so much armament skirting a city like that. But please do not forget we are here to pacify you –"

Kaiser was expecting what came next, having spent the previous minutes working to loosen the bandoleer that bound his arms. The sergeant kicked out viciously and his boot connected with his captive's head. Taking advantage, Kaiser caught the boot with his newly untied hands as it retracted, knowing that the boy's legs were strong enough to help him up in the process. Twisting around so his back collided against his adversary's slung arm, he hugged the rifle with both arms and sprung upwards, rolling in mid-air over his shoulder as he did so. The weapon twisted into his hands more easily than he would have dared hope, but then his back collided hard against the uneven ground. It was somewhat more difficult to perform such acrobatics under the intense gravity of that planet.

Before a split-second had passed, the young sergeant's elbow came crashing down on his face, breaking his nose. Eyes watering badly, Kaiser felt his adversary shake the weapon out of his grasp. One deafening gunshot later, Kaiser was cradling the side of his face where a projectile had torn a ragged path. Cursing his idiocy, he waited for the finishing shot.

Instead the seconds kept ticking by, and as Kaiser began to wipe the tears from his eyes there was a second shot from a distance away. It was not an echo. The young sergeant's strange eyes became wide and hopeful as he searched the summit, rifle still trained on his prisoner.

"Up! Now!" he ordered, having apparently forgotten that they had been fighting only moments before.

Kaiser obeyed, cradling his face as blood dripped through his fingers. He renewed his ascent, crossing what remained of the jumbled landscape until they reached the summit of the hill.

On the opposing side, they came upon a second Harrower, lying on its side amidst a carpet of fallen leaves.

"Tonesy! Over here, mate!" Kaiser heard to his dismay.

Standing beside the giant like victorious Lilliputians, several locals were gathered. One of them crossed the distance at a run, a tall and lean fellow with wild hair a little too long to be allowed. By the way they greeted one another it was clear they were friends.

"This guy's an Unmil. He's from Earth," Miura said after a moment of shoulder-slapping, gesturing to Kaiser with a wave of his hand.

The local approached and stared at him with an unfriendly expression. Kaiser decided to make a good impression.

"Hello there, kinder. I am Kai– UMPH!"

Without warning, the local had buried a boot into his gut, putting enough force into it to rupture something were it not for the shock-absorbing qualities of his suit. Kaiser's legs gave in and his knees hit the hard ground percussively as pain radiated from his abdomen.

_Fucking sadist_ , he cursed silently. The pair apparently had that much in common. An explosive laugh left his lips before his lungs seized on him.

"Now this doesn't make any sense! You gotta see the one we've caught, he'll blow your mind ..."

They half-escorted, half-dragged him towards the remainder of the group. There he found three equally young locals standing near the Harrower's helm, two of them women, and a fourth person sitting cross-legged on the ground amongst them.

It was Deadhand.

As Kaiser was made to sit down, he evaluated the state of his subordinate, and was appalled by what he saw; Deadhand had taken a beating against which his own injuries paled by comparison. His ebony face had ballooned, especially around the eyes, and his lips were torn and uneven. His skull appeared to have been scraped over by a blade several times, leaving him almost scalped. The same blade had probably been used to gouge at the side of his muscular neck, having probably stopped short of his carotid by mere millimeters. His right ear was only half-attached, and it protruded from the side of his head as if it had been viciously yanked at.

Kaiser raised his eyebrows questioningly. The African simply shook his head, his battered face too deformed for the Bavarian to be able to read the expression there.

The excited conversation among the locals died down as the Miura boy squatted to take a good look at the other prisoner. He kept the stare up for quite a while.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked to no one in particular.

"That's his natural color, he calls himself a 'colored man'! Think he's an African like in the books?"

"No, that's not what I meant ... I mean, how did this happen to him?"

The friend became fidgety, and one of the women replied instead, her eyes an impossibly light shade of blue.

"Ray lost it when we got a hold of him. Our Suits collapsed close together as Davos here was about to kill us. The sarge died trying to defend us ..."

"Jorren's dead?"

"Yes. The driver killed him when this was still a battle with Suits. Then the nuke detonated, and we managed to reach Davos as he was trying to get out of his hatch. He wasn't armed but he attacked Ray anyway. And Ray lost it ..."

"Lost it, my ass ..." Ray interrupted hotly, blood vessels protruding from his neck, "It was self-defense!"

"Not a problem, Ray ..." Miura said calmly. "I was just curious as to how it happened ..."

"Where's the rest of your section?" the third boy, a sullen blonde, asked.

"Hirum's dead. The rest evacuated while I was trying to pull him out. Hirum was done in by _Kaiser_ here."

The group turned towards him, as if seeing him anew. Alarm bells began to ring in Kaiser's head. As usual, his instincts were right on the mark.

"You sonufa ... BITCH!" Ray screamed, launching himself towards the prisoner before anyone could stop him.

Ray kicked Kaiser hard and the Bavarian's back smacked against the dirt. The local straddled his chest and pulled a knife from his vest, but before he could make any use of the weapon, his arm was expertly gripped by the blonde boy, the remaining soldiers wrenching the knife from his grip. Ray began to howl in rage and nearly managed to shake them off, but before long both of his wrists found themselves in a firm lock.

"Ian, don't hurt him, you'll only make it worse!" the pale-eyed girl shouted as she struggled to hold on.

Gradually the soldier began to calm down, but suddenly a scuffle broke out between Miura and the blonde boy.

"You trying to bind your own mate?! Get your hands off him!" Miura roared.

"That's enough, you two! No one's going to bind anyone. Right, Ian?"

"Yeah ... that's right. And when he loses it again, you can hold him down yourself, _Tonesy_. He's freaking out and he's not going to calm down until the patch wears off."

Miura touched something behind his ear, a fleeting act that nevertheless alarmed the pale-eyed girl.

"Don't take it off, you'll stroke out!"

He removed his hand as if he'd just received an electric shock, nodding instead to her in thanks. Turning to Ray, he spoke reassuringly.

"Listen, Ray. We've managed to capture these two alive, right? And my prisoner here, Major what's-his-name, has already told me that our enemy is the Earth Federation Forces, and that they're here to annex us to Earth's authority, or something along those lines. They can tell us a lot more, too, but we gotta get them back to friendly forces, right? And that gets a little difficult if they can't walk for themselves ... You need to lay off the kindness, OK?"

Their shocked expressions at his revelation were not entirely unexpected. What was unexpected was the one that momentarily played across the blonde soldier's face before he smothered it. Kaiser was an expert at reading micro-expressions; he quickly tucked the information away in a corner of his mind for future use.

He then noticed that Deadhand was staring at him with raised eyebrows.

"So we're allowed to pass on intelligence to the locals now, Major?" he whispered.

"Do not worry yourself, my friend. In due time these children will be dealt with. There is dissension among them, as you may have noticed," he whispered back, marveling at how easily they were able to hold that conversation as the soldiers talked excitedly among themselves.

"Toni, who patched up your arm?" Pale-eyes asked.

"I did, I guess ..."

"Sueli, I'm taking your kit, if you don't mind. I have feeling I'll need more than mine to treat that."

They settled in comfortably beside the felled Harrower, no one seeming to realize that Ebony Tower's first objective would be to locate their fallen combat assets. Kaiser blessed them for their ignorance. Miura and the young woman removed the bandages from his arm and gasped at the level of tissue damage. Even Kaiser felt his stomach go queasy at the sight; the triceps muscle above his elbow was deeply torn, a ragged layer of yellow fat on display there. His brachial artery or some ramification thereof had probably been affected, and the wound began to bleed again as soon as the bottom-most bandage was removed. The entire remainder of his arm was heavily cratered. A jagged bone poked out from a wound on his forearm.

"The break looks clean enough ..." Pale-eyes remarked, a smile playing on her face. A moment later she became somber.

"We need to align the bone. If we can, I mean. I'm not sure if there are any fragments in the way. We'll have to clean the wounds first, of course. Toni?"

"What is it, Hannah?"

"This is going to hurt like a mouse in a blender. I'm going to spike you with flupirtine first, of course, but you're still gonna have to help me here. You too, Ray."

They set to work on Miura and before long Kaiser was hearing howls of pain as they attempted to reset the bone. The Hannah girl was caring but relentless as she worked, and he found himself beginning to respect her.

The other girl was a little too pretty for such a place, as if someone in the human resources department had screwed up and yanked her from Public Relations. She kept her composure well enough, though, despite clearly preferring to keep her distance from Hannah's gory first aid efforts. The blonde, however, had been behaving oddly since his discovery of Kaiser's provenance. He appeared quite determined to avoid eye-contact with him, but there was neither fear nor hostility in his demeanor, only a guarded expression. As with all odd things, his interest was piqued, and he filed that information away for future exploitation.

As the hours passed and the group prepared to move, there was still no sign of EFF activity. To Kaiser's chagrin, no Suit, no infantry force, not even a lousy drone dared make an appearance in the area. Leaning over to a newly bandaged Deadhand, he whispered softly.

"Are you up to some delaying action, my friend?"

"Anytime, Commander. What kind of action we talking about?"

"The playing-mostly-dead kind. I need you to lie down and close your eyes as if you are unconscious. We must make time for the Tower to find us. I'll take care of the explanations. Understood?"

Deadhand's reply was to lean into the ground and slowly close his eyes. Kaiser smiled inwardly, thanking the pilot for his courage. His thoughts were interrupted by a shout from Miura.

"Ian, what in hell did you just do?"

The blonde-haired boy had just returned from the trees to their west, where several plumes of smoke were rising from the trees there.

"Don't have a miscarriage, _Tonesy_. As the senior sergeant here, it is my duty to destroy our Suits so they don't fall into enemy hands. We couldn't leave without doing that first. Now we can leave."

"Now we can DIE! You don't think they're gonna see that smoke from ten clicks away? They're the only fresh plumes to be seen around here!"

"Calm yourself down, comrade. We're wasting our time here now. It's time to go."

The explanation didn't seem to go down well with the remainder of the group either. As Hannah approached Ian, she spoke to Toni.

"Tones, could you get the prisoners on their feet?" she said before turning to the blonde. "I'd like to chat with you a moment, Ian. Is that alright?"

As the pair wandered out of earshot, Miura approached Kaiser.

"On your feet."

"Sergeant Miura. We have a problem, I think. Deadhand was not feeling well minutes ago, and now he will not wake up. We might need to carry –"

"No one's gonna be carrying anyone! Deadhand," he called the wounded prisoner, giving him a tap with his boot. "Get up now. NOW!"

The prisoner didn't budge. Carefully, Miura checked his pulse and breathing.

"He's breathing. Come on, Deadhand, get up."

Much to Kaiser's delight, the soldiers fell on the contingency of wetting the prisoner's face with water from their canteens, soon after escalating their efforts to lightly slapping his cheeks. The unconscious prisoner remained as he was, the turban of bandages around his head and swollen appearance lending realism to his fragility. Ray kept away from the prisoner, perhaps feeling guilty over the turn of events.

"What's going on?" Hannah asked as the two returned, Ian's complexion considerably paler than before.

"The dark-skinned one's not waking up ... he's breathing but not moving a finger, whatever we do ..." Miura replied.

"We'll simply have to organize a stretcher."

"No we're won't –" Ray countered, and he fired a rapid burst from his Lacrau into Deadhand's head, tearing it apart.

A deafening silence took hold of them all as they contemplated the twitching body on the ground, blood still pulsing from its multitude of wounds. Ian slowly raised his weapon to the shooter's chest. Ray only smiled in return.

"Don't sweat it, Ian. I'm giving Toni my rifle, see? We couldn't just drag this bastard for a thousand clicks while his buddies hunt us down. And now _Kaiser_ here knows what'll happen to him if he slows us down."

A wail caught them by surprise, and they turned to see Sueli fall to the ground and began to cry convulsively. As Hannah and Ian went to her, Toni approached Kaiser and put a knee to the ground.

"I'm so sorry about this ..." the youth whispered somberly.

"There is nothing to be sorry about, Sergeant. It was not you who committed a war-crime," Kaiser replied with a sad smile.

Inwardly, he was roiling with thought and emotion. He took a good look at the teenager who had murdered his fellow veteran. Ray kept away from his comrades and looked at the trees to his east, his face relaxed as it hadn't been before, no trace of guilt present. He doubted whether the medication they were under could come close to explaining that.

He had not truly been Deadhand's friend; they had never held that much in common with one other. But his subordinate had been an exceptional professional, and never the sort to leave a man behind. He had been a soldier right to the end. Which was why Kaiser was not going to forget Ray's kindness.

He could be very kind himself, if he wanted to be.

"I really need you to get up now, Major."

He smiled at Miura once more, seeing the haunted expression on the boy's face.

"Very well, Sergeant. I wouldn't want to slow you down any further."

### CHAPTER FIFTEEN

**Mining quadrant, Nature's Dawn, 15** th **of June, 2771**

Birdsong woke Toni from an uncomfortable sleep. Stiffly he unhugged his arms from around his rifle and took a good look at his surroundings. Not much had changed since he'd fallen asleep, except that it was presently a semi-comatose Sueli who was guarding their prisoner. Kaiser was already fully awake and smiled widely at Toni in unspoken greeting. Toni nodded in return.

He was beginning to find it difficult to dislike his prisoner.

"You awake, Toni?" Hannah asked with a smile, already on her feet as she checked her travel pack.

_She and Kaiser must have common relations_ , he mused. He smiled in return.

"Looks like I'm the only one who wasn't. Are we eating before we're leaving? "

"We're eating like we're moving. Fast and light. Need a hand up?"

He didn't really need any assistance but accepted it anyway. He enjoyed the fleeting moment as his hand held hers.

He had a nagging suspicion that he was setting himself up for bitter disappointment in the future.

They breakfasted on what was left of their first day's combat rations; Toni had managed to hoard an energy bar and most of his milk from the day before, although he offered some of both to Kaiser just as Hannah had yesterday. Kaiser gratefully accepted, his bindings having temporarily been removed to allow him to feed himself. The remainder of his comrades contented themselves with their own leftovers, although Ray raided his second day's rations for its chocolate cake.

As soon as they were finished, the group set off in the north-westerly course they had been following over the last two days. Toni no longer knew what time it was; Ian's watch had stopped working, killed by the twin EMPs from that awful day. And so they presently had no choice but to bow to the rhythms of nature itself. Somehow that simple act of submission to the forest's biological pulse had afforded Toni a more fitful sleep than he'd enjoyed in his lifetime, in spite of the hard ground. The only hitch was the knowledge that the winds from Thaumantias' eye were not too long away.

In only five days, Capicua would find itself at the perigee of its orbit with Gliese 667C, by which time the heating desert air at the supercontinent's center would begin to rise and radiate towards the terminators. As that happened, the cooler, more humid air from the Crescent Ocean would be pulled towards the subsolar pole; the ensuing violent winds were well-known for making life difficult for any unsheltered creature. The tempest would abate as the planet swung out to its apogee and the humid air would finally condense into a dense, continent-wide cloud, and by the 26th of June the diluvian rains would begin to fall.

It was not by coincidence that MEWAC Command had timed the Wild Rose campaign when it did. No one wanted to fight in hurricane winds, much less test their Suits flotation specs in battlefield conditions. But now Toni's small troop was on the move in a deeply-furrowed forest, unprotected and with wounded among them, the plantation land having been left behind by the end of the first day's march.

"Hey, Ian. Wasn't there a road from the plantations to Lograin on the maps?" Toni asked as they marched in single file.

"Why do you want to know?" Ian inquired coldly.

"It would be nice if we could be surer about our heading, not to mention that the road will be easier to travel on."

"And risk being seen from the air? I prefer the forest, thank you. We'll just have to find another way to home in on the base."

"I –" Toni suddenly stopped in his tracks. Slowly he began to walk again, thinking with every step.

"I think I know how we might do that," he finally said before continuing. "Those comm devices we were allotted, they have a range of a couple hundred clicks. We could use them to relay our position –"

"Except they were fried by the nukes, Tones," Ray interrupted.

"Did you even read the manual, mate? They're hardened against that. Our model might not have the GPS option, but each unit has a pendant cable about two meters long, and they're interconnectable. If we link all our cables, spread them out high enough and connect them to a comm unit, I'm sure we could extend the range by a few hundred clicks!"

"Optimist," Hannah cut in.

"It might actually work, why don't we try it now," Ian said to Toni's surprise.

"Wait a second," he countered. "We're way too close to the EarthFeds for that. Right now we'll have far greater chances of betraying our position than of contacting Lograin. Besides, what would the base do even if they knew we were here? Send a rescue mission? We're only about sixty clicks from where we got our asses kicked, remember?"

Ian looked somewhat annoyed but didn't insist on the matter.

"Got our asses kicked, for sure. You know what I keep thinking about?" Ray asked.

"Getting your rifle back?" Ian ventured.

"Nah, it's in good hands so I've no worries. Listen, I was thinking about what the Screamer told us in the casern before we deployed ..."

"And what was that?" Sueli asked, apparently clueless as to what he was talking about.

"What, he didn't talk to the femmes? Guess that goes to show what he thinks of you, ha! He told us that first contact would probably only end in one of two ways: easy victory or crushing defeat. And he told us to run like hell if it was the second."

Hannah wrinkled her nose at the answer.

"I'm kind of glad he didn't visit us, then. It's not very useful advice. If you think about it, that's exactly what we did all by ourselves."

"It would have been worse if you'd stood your ground, don't you think?" Toni interjected. "Which begs the question. What happened so you ended up fighting the African? Weren't you supposed to be the rearguard?"

"We _were_ the rearguard. And that's exactly where we were attacked. Either Davos punched through the van, or he took it out altogether, 'cause he reached us before any retreating front-liners did. And you, Toni? How did you end up fighting Kaiser here? Weren't you supposed to be retreating as well?" she inquired, entertained by his sudden apprehension.

"I, uh, had some difficulties finding the retreat axis ..."

His reply was followed by a low chuckle from Kaiser.

"Yes, Sergeant Miura, indeed you appeared to have confused west with east, for when I found you, you were quite a few kilometers in that direction ..." he declared.

"Really, Major? And just what was he doing there?" Hannah inquired in mock seriousness.

"Why, dear lady, he was trying most diligently to kill me," he laughed.

The answer seemed to take her aback, and she raised her eyebrows at Toni questioningly.

"I was lost ..." he replied in a monotone as Kaiser chuckling softly.

"Nice, Tones ..." he heard as Ray clapped him on the shoulder.

The march became silent as they fell into a routine, the terrain challenging them as they moved into a land deeply gouged with natural spillways. There were fewer trees there, the space occupied by several bush species that formed an almost impenetrable tangle in some places. Toni knew the spillway, having crossed it in the opposite direction, and he also knew that it extended for over fifty kilometers. After several failed attempts to advance over the terrain, and then along the convoluted spillways themselves, he had finally proposed that they move north until they found the trail opened up by Main Force's passage. The proposal was gladly accepted, and before long they were northbound.

The group's failed attempts to penetrate the broken land had cost them half a day, and by the time they reached the flattened ground marking Main Force's passage, the wildlife was settling in for slumber. They camped in a particularly dense clump of trees on a hill, in a location that afforded them ideal overwatch of the trail below.

Their difficult progress, along with the decision to abstain from lunch in order to preserve rations, had begun to take its toll on the group. Only Kaiser kept his spirits up, despite having no choice but to share their hunger. As the cadets nibbled on salty biscuits, drinking water instead of milk or juice so as to have something for the following morning, Kaiser spoke of Earth and of the other planets that presently harbored terrestrial life.

He spoke about the first missions to Alpha Centauri A, Epsilon Indi and Epsilon Eridani, which had succeeded in establishing multinational colonies on Earth-like planets.

He spoke also of the second wave of colonization, initiated thirty years afterwards, when the world economy had finally begun to recover from collapse. The second wave had focused on the colonization of the more numerous Red Dwarf systems, and so Mankind had extended its influence out to Bernard's Star, Wolf 359, Lalande 21185, Lacaille 9352 and Gliese 1061, All falling neatly inside a twelve light-year radius of Earth itself.

Then came the mission to Gliese 667C, the only privately-funded initiative of the lot. 667C's colonization was the most expensive to date at four Trillion Euros, having been conceived and carried out by a mega-conglomerate of Japanese, Korean and European manufacturing companies, with employees and stockholders serving as colonists.

The following centuries saw the consolidation of human presence in all locations, all under the auspices of the United Nations.

And then four hundred years ago, it had all come to an abrupt end.

A devastating war, the kind that could only arise from an exceedingly long peace, was fought between Earth's Social and Capital Blocs, and had resulted in a draw. Which was one way of stating that both had been remarkably successful in nuking each other into oblivion. The world population abruptly slimmed to a mere billion, the number eventually falling to half that in the first ten years after the exchange. There had been survivors, but the global trauma caused by war led the earthlings to focus on domestic matters over the following three centuries.

Until the planet's ultimate unification under the Earth Federation.

In a frenzy of activity, mankind reestablished contact with its colonies, extending its influence beyond the planetary surface to the Moon, then to Mars, and then finally to the remote stellar outposts.

After their meager dinner, the group agreed to password-and-counter-password procedure and settled in for the night, Toni as usual being the first to draw watch due to his injuries. As he sat there, watching Kaiser sleep and trying not to think about the throbbing pain in his arm, he felt a mild itch behind his ear. Giving the skin there a light scratch, he felt his driving patch slide easily into his hand. He held it there, noticing in satisfaction how, after six days of use, its surface was no longer sticky.

In retrospect, Hannah probably _hadn't_ saved his life when she warned him not to remove it. Although the principal withdrawal symptoms from the patch's Clonidine component was dangerous hypertension, he had already lost so much blood that his body probably would had welcomed it. But would it have been worth the risk to find out? Probably not, he decided. Too many novice drivers had stroked out due to having removed their patches before their time. As a rule, the patch would need to be replaced by another so as to keep their Clonidine level up, or the patch would have to remain attached for another three days, releasing the drug in ever more diminutive doses to attenuate the withdrawal symptoms. He wondered how many years it would take before his brain finally adapted to Suit locomotion, thus sparing him from medication.

He wondered whether he would live that long.

They had no way to measure the passage of time, and so Toni spent much of his watch walking in circuits around the camp, having as usual found that he was unable to remain still for very long. Fifty slow circuits later, something caught his attention and he looked skywards.

His eyes saw nothing except for the treetops. His ears, however, warned him of a faint buzzing sound from the sky above them. He wondered who the drone belonged to. Remembering his binoculars, He quietly removed them from his travel pack and descended the high-ground they were camped upon until the sky opened above him. He then heard a faint percussive sound from above and found that he wouldn't need the instrument to discover its source.

High in the sky to his north-east, he made out a distant black bloom that dissipated as he observed it, and from which a long, thin trail, as delicate as one penciled by an artist, curved downwards towards the ground. As he continued to watch, the falling object disappeared into the forest, and before long his eyes were rewarded with a rising plume from the skyline.

He tried to gauge the distance with his rangefinder, but found that it was unable to measure distances beyond ten thousand meters. Mindful of his duties, he returned to the campsite and confirmed that Kaiser was still asleep. A long while passed by before Toni shook Sueli awake to be relieved.

In the following morning, Toni informed them what he had seen on his watch. An argument quickly followed.

"I told you, I didn't see any other drone!" Toni declared angrily for the second time.

"But there could have been one. Which means you could have been seen ... which means Lograin might already know where we are!" Ray exclaimed hopefully.

"There's no indication that it was on our side," Sueli retorted. "The other drone, if there was one, could have been EFF, which means you might have given us away ..."

"The way it fell made it clear it was coming from Lograin. And how many times must I say this? There was no other drone!" he huffed.

"Was it coming from Lograin, or returning from there?" Hannah asked softly, her almond eyes narrowing.

Toni hated to admit it, but he was deeply regretting having abandoned the camp at all. They were right, of course. The optics of most UAVs were quite capable of picking up his figure if it contrasted clearly enough with the background. And it had been cloudless at the time, so his shadow would have been obvious.

That was just the sort of detail that Air Recon software was designed to pick up. If the Capicuan UAVs were that good, he dreaded what capabilities the EFF drones might have.

"Alright, it _is_ a remote possibility," he admitted, trying for some damage control. "But don't forget that our friendly UAVs were knocked out around these parts as well, and from enemy ground fire. They've got something like a laser platform that does that from a distance. But this raises the possibility that the EFF _could_ field drones to search for us, so I suggest we move parallel to the Main Force trail instead of on it."

"Toni, that's obvious. And now we must skip breakfast and move out on the double. Right, Ian?" Hannah suggested.

The looks they were giving him were like knifes in his gut. They moved out without further delay and even Kaiser looked sullen. That shouldn't have affected Toni in the least, but somehow it did. After all, the Earthling was his Catch, and in his mind that made it almost obligatory for the man to respect him.

Their intention to move parallel to the trail proved impossible for the same reason they had searched it out in the first place. Before long the group was moving along the four meter-wide path, exposed and in a great hurry. Toni occupied the rear, trying to ignore his shame as Ian pressed on at the head of the column with Kaiser following closely behind.

As the march progressed, Hannah fell back slowly until finally she was marching beside him.

"You know, Toni ..." she mused. "If it wasn't for your occasional fuck-ups, you'd probably be a very reliable soldier."

"Yes, princess, you could be right about that ..." he answered bitingly.

She flashed him with a quick grin before continuing.

"Have you noticed anything odd between Ian and Kaiser?"

"What? Besides Ian hanging on his every word? Besides Ian insisting on personally taking him out to pee all the time? Wait, you don't think they've become ass-mates, do you?"

"Not anything like that ..." she answered vaguely. "You're a heavy sleeper, so maybe you didn't notice, but when Ian's guarding Kaiser in the night, they talk a lot. Too much. Whatever his family connections, I don't trust Ian and I don't like where this might be going ..."

"Welcome to the club ..." he began, but Hannah softly shushed him.

"Which club? Ray doesn't suspect much. Certainly Sueli doesn't either, I think. I mean, she's clever and all, but she's barely keeping up with current events."

They marched quietly for a while, scrutinizing Ian and Kaiser as they walked side-by-side.

"Talking to him about this is pointless ..." Toni finally said.

Hannah only nodded.

"My arm isn't hurting as bad as it was," he lied, "so maybe I don't need to be on first watch anymore. Ian was on last watch this morning, so he can do the first tonight and I'll go after him. Only I won't sleep while he's with Kaiser, I'll keep an eye out for an escape. You're usually before him, so on the other nights you can eyeball them after your watch. What do you think?"

She gave a slight nod and returned to her place in the line, leaving him to think dark thoughts about his senior for the remainder of the morning.

They lunched ravenously among the trees, arguing over how they would feed themselves for the remainder of their trek. The group had been traveling at a pace of about forty kilometers per day, but much of that had only been roaming. Ian estimated that it would take at least twelve days of marching before they came within pickup distance of Lograin. He also decided that whatever time was lost due to the winds could be compensated for with Toni's comm idea. Whatever happened, however, all agreed that if they didn't get free of the forests before the diluvian rains began to fall, their chances of survival would dissipate to zero.

But if they had twelve days ahead and only two days of rations left, then the obvious conclusion was that they would eventually have to forage for food. After an inconclusive debate, the discussion was postponed and they set off for the trail once more.

It proved to be a grueling afternoon. Kaiser's usual contingency of covering his head with an undershirt proved insufficient to protect against the sun's UV light, and his black bodysuit absorbed IR light as effectively as tar, slowly cooking him inside. Added to that, they soon found themselves moving along broken land. Their prisoner finally collapsed after a valiant effort, gasping for air like a fish out of water.

For the remainder of the afternoon, the group was forced to carry the earthling on their backs, the effort pushing their already taxed bodies to their limit. Toni, preparing for his pitch to do the second watch, refused to be exempted from carrying him, although he suffered greatly as a result.

Notwithstanding the need to stop occasionally to trade packs and prisoner between them, the group made good time, and by the time they were nearing the end of their day, they had cleared the spillway land and moved into the cooler, shadier forest beyond. Finding a small depression that hid them from their surroundings, the cadets settled down and began to treat their afflictions.

"No conversations from now on," Ian decided. "We just eat what we have in our second ration and get some sleep. What, Toni?"

"My arm's not too bad anymore, I'd like to shift my watch like everyone else. Alright?" Toni said, trying to make it sound like nothing of consequence.

The proposition gave Ian pause for thought, but finally he agreed.

"Fine, I'll do first watch, then wake you up. Now go eat."

And that was that. Between Toni and Hannah, Ian's watch was now bracketed by the two people who trusted him the least. Feeling proud of himself, he dined on aquaculture tuna in tough bread and drank only water, pondering on the fact that he hadn't had a single bowel movement in more than four days.

_I'm turning into a brick-factory_ , he thought, hoping there was nothing wrong with him.

After his dinner, Toni chose his sleeping spot so as to be able to discreetly watch the pair. Hannah was right. They were awfully chatty, the two of them.

He marveled with semi-shuttered eyes at how Ian's expressions were somehow more human as they spoke. Kaiser was a wily one, indeed, to be able to befriend him like that. The earthling had somehow managed to overcome the blonde cadet's defenses. Or was it more complicated than that? The pair spoke for what felt like a long time, Ian squatting while the prisoner sat.

Finally the sentinel stood, helped Kaiser to his feet, and led him out of the depression.

Toni quietly rose and approached the lip. He was very cautious, his body involuntarily remembering the last time he'd tried to follow Kaiser out of a depression. Peering over the terrain, he saw an unbound Kaiser relieving himself against a tree about forty paces away, his guard keeping a respectful distance. Once the prisoner had finished urinating, Ian approached with the strap.

Toni decided to return to his spot as the pair turned towards camp, feeling foolish. Belatedly he realized that the only way to truly foil any escape attempt would be to cover them from up close. Before long, they had returned to the depression.

Toni began to slide into sleep as he watched the pair holding another whispered conversation. His increasingly groggy mind noted that their expressions were becoming more serious, and he wondered whether he was imagining it.

Ian shook him awake.

"Toni, your watch."

"Huh?"

"It's your watch. I'm going to sleep."

"Uh, right ..."

Toni cursed himself silently for having fallen asleep, realizing that he had just given them a perfect opportunity for escape. He approached Kaiser to find him still awake.

"Not going to sleep?" he asked the prisoner.

Kaiser smiled at him with tired eyes.

"I shall not be awake too long. That boy never stops asking questions. You seem tired yourself, Sergeant."

Toni nodded. "I'll sleep soon enough. Goodnight."

"Until tomorrow then ..."

The earthling lay on his side and promptly fell asleep.

After a while, Toni felt the need to move, and so he quietly stood and began his usual slow circuits of the camp. Twenty seven circuits later, Kaiser awoke again.

"Sergeant, I am afraid I need to relieve myself once more. With my age there is no choice, yes?"

Toni helped him to his feet and directed him to the predetermined watering spot. As he was about to unbind his prisoner's wrists, a sound from behind caught his attention. Quickly he turned.

Something swished over his head and suddenly his own rifle-strap was constricting his throat. Desperately he grabbed at the strap with his only working hand, but a vicious kick behind his knee caused him to buckle and the pressure instantly doubled. Unable to breathe, seeing starbursts as he desperately tried to make noise, any noise, he was suddenly being dragged deep into the forest. Giving up on the strap, he tried instead to grab hold of Kaiser's fingers, but the earthling's slender digits contracted into an impossibly solid fist. Toni blacked out, wondering whether they would ever find his body.

He was still unable to see when he finally realized he was still alive.

"We are alive, yes?" a satisfied voice asked him.

"Whuffah –"

"Yes we are," it replied in satisfaction.

Toni's throat was suddenly being constricted once more, and again he was being dragged along the forest-floor. He had enough time to ask himself why he wasn't dead yet before he blacked out again.

He slowly returned to consciousness, his asphyxiated mind wondering when the Click would ever end.

"Hello, my boy. We are alive, yes?"

Toni began to dread what came next and attempted to beg for mercy.

"–plagh!"

"Aah, there we are," said the voice, positively delighted.

Toni was once again being dragged through the forest, the constricting strap ever tighter around his throat. Toni tried hard to think.

_Next time_ , he decided, _next time I'll_ ...

Slowly, Toni returned to consciousness, still blind, aware only of the rustling of leaves as someone or something moved around him. His arms were bound behind his back around what felt like a tree and something had been shoved into his mouth.

Breathing hard, the creature approached Toni's ear.

"Well, my fine young sergeant. It seems we are still alive."

Toni braced himself to be suffocated, but it didn't happen. Instead, the voice spoke again.

"I must apologize for this treatment, since it is not in my nature. However, if I am to effect an escape, well, I will need to run very much indeed, will I not? I must apologize as well for the things I am about to do. They are terrible, yes, and you are only kinders, but this is a matter of justice, ya?"

Casually, Kaiser pulled Toni's dagger from the sheath on his vest. In that moment Toni remembered that he had been armed with the weapon. Then he remembered the sidearm in his vest's side-pocket and began to hate himself fiercely.

"Thank you, this is a good weapon. My first debt is the one I have to you ..."

Toni suddenly regained vision as Kaiser removed the MEWAC undershirt from his head. The earthling held Toni's head firm and slashed him across the side of his face. Letting go as Toni screamed into the cloth in his mouth, the major observed his work with grim satisfaction. Turning about, he paused and spoke over his shoulder.

"I hope your arm rots off and you are unable to fight ever again, because if we ever cross paths again you will most certainly die. Now I really must pay your murderer friend a visit ..."

He abandoned the clearing at a casual pace, leaving his prisoner to bleed.

### CHAPTER SIXTEEN

**North-west of the mining quadrant, Nature's Night, 17** th **of June, 2771**

Toni's head swiveled about, trying to glean some clue as to his location. He tried to shout, only to have the sound smothered by the cloth in his mouth. It tasted of sweat, and Toni knew it was part of the undershirt Ian had given Kaiser to protect him from the sun.

His prisoner was on the warpath and his camp was unprotected. He thought of the possibilities, and they terrified him.

The stranger reminded him that it was all his fault. He should not have turned his back on the earthling. He should have remembered the dagger. He should have remembered the pistol as well. Each realization was like a punch to the stomach. But when he thought on it a little harder, he realized that his first mistake was having spared Kaiser's life on that day at the plantations.

He forced himself to calm down and think of a way out of the mess. He decided to test his bindings and gave them a good yank, only to feel his right arm's wounds tear open and begin to bleed. He cried into the cloth in his mouth and then tried to spit it out. The effort proved impossible; a strip of cloth wrapped around his head was holding it in place. He then tried to stand.

The tree he was bound to was a thick pine, but the wide strap that confined his arms afforded him enough space for the necessary acrobatics. Finding a knobby outcrop about a foot above the ground, he put his boot on it and threw himself up and forwards, tucking his body into a tight roll. His boots scraped against the trunk, sending bark everywhere and slowing him down a little too much. He fell hard on his head, only his right leg managing to get clear, his bound arms still hugging the other leg as well as the tree itself. The jolt of the collision sent shockwaves throughout his body and he felt his wounds tear open a little more. He screamed with the pain again, almost choking on the cloth as he tried to suck air in.

Finding himself in a very awkward position, Toni's heel found the knob and he jumped again, his left leg finally managing to clear the tree as he fell onto his side, still hugging the cursed pine. With enormous difficulty he stood again, his twisted body set in an upside-down hug. He leaned against the trunk and tried to grab his own wrists, working blindly.

Finally he gave up, realizing that they were still too far apart, and tried to kick at the bindings of his left wrist instead. They were too firm to slip off; he had been bound with his own rifle-strap.

_I suppose that's what Kaiser would call poetic justice, heh?_ the stranger sniggered.

Cart-wheeling over his head and on to his other side, he kicked at the bindings on his other wrist. They were slick with blood and gave a little. Desperately he pressed his boot's edge against the bulge of the strap, ignoring the pain shooting up his arm, and felt it slowly begin to recede. The knot slipped off his swollen wrist with a particularly vicious kick.

Without delay, Toni lay on his back and pulled the pistol out of his pocket, loving the feel of steel against his palm. He chambered a round, pointed the weapon to the sky and fired off three shots, praying that he was not too late. He rose unsteadily to his feet and began to search the ground around the tree for drag-marks. They proved to be easy to find.

Moving as fast as he could, Toni followed the trail back to the camp and arrived there in under a minute. His comrades were already awake, hands gripping rifles in expectation of a fight, and they stared at their arriving comrade as if in shock. Ian appeared particularly surprised to see him.

"He's gone ..." was about all Toni could say.

"We know ..." Hannah replied, her expression grim, and she pointed to the only prone figure among them.

Ray had been sleeping on his back when Kaiser found him. He still lay that way. The only change was the gaping wound that had almost separated his head from his body. The body lay in a pool of blood. The damage seemed almost impossibly great and Toni approached the corpse in horrified fascination, taking note of the almost peaceful expression on its face. The cut had been clean, and it appeared to have begun well on the right side of his throat and ended well to the left, having only been stopped by bone. His dagger had done all that. He noticed the depressions in the ground where Kaiser's knees had made an indent as he sat astride his victim, preventing him from making a sound.

_So this is how a professional kills_ , he thought numbly.

He turned to Ian and pointed the pistol at his right shoulder. The weapon kicked satisfyingly in his hand with a sharp crack, the projectile striking its target perhaps a little more to his left than he would have preferred. Ian's face became even more surprised, and the Lacrau that he had been holding moments before slipped from his hands to hang from its strap.

Sueli fell to the ground and began to cry again.

"What are you doing, Toni?" Hannah demanded.

"Keep your eyes out for Kaiser ..."

"I said, what the hell are you doing, Toni?!" she shouted as Ian's disbelieving eyes followed the blood flowing from his wound to its source.

"KEEP YOUR FUCKING EYES OUT FOR KAISER!" Toni roared. Just as quickly he calmed down again and turned towards Ian.

"You are under arrest for aiding and abetting in the escape of a prisoner of war. I do believe that falls under treason, am I right?"

"You shot me ... I did nothing to you –" Ian sputtered incredulously.

"You did everything to deserve this. And if you open your mouth again, they'll have to wire it back together."

"It was your watch, _your_ watch, not mine –"

Toni approached Ian at speed. His senior didn't even bother to evade the assault as Toni's boot crashed against his jaw. The bone didn't quite shatter, although the impact did produce a satisfying thunk. Ian collapsed to the ground and lay there, cradling his wound.

He disarmed the fallen soldier and removed the rifle-strap from his weapon before binding his wrists with it.

"Toni, would you care to explain this?" Hannah insisted, her rifle fixed on the surrounding trees.

Toni recounted what he had seen during Ian's watch; of how their senior had had an opportunity to only appear to properly bind their prisoner, and how, when Toni had taken Kaiser to relieve himself, he had been distracted by a sound much like a rock thrown into the trees. He also explained how Kaiser had not been in possession of Ian's MEWAC undershirt at the time. And yet that very same shirt had been used to gag and hood him.

"And you think that will hold up in a court?! He's a Templeton, you IDIOT!" she exploded at last.

"You know there's no way Kaiser could have escaped without somebody helping him, not the way we were doing things," he insisted.

"You're bleeding again ..." she muttered, looking him up and down. "Can't you do anything without bleeding?"

A very upset Sueli kept watch while Hannah treated Ian's and Toni's wounds. The effort ended up taking much more time than expected, and before long the first tentative chirps of dawn could be heard.

Ian made a difficult situation easy by shutting up for good. Simplifying things even more, Sueli renounced her claim to the throne about as soon as seniority came under discussion. Thus Toni found himself the acting senior of the group, or at least what remained of it. Finally they broke camp, leaving Ray's body where it lay.

The smell of smoke caught Toni's attention, and he led the group to higher ground to contemplate what he supposed was Kaiser's parting gift. A string of forest-fires extended out to their south-east, the nearest no more than a few kilometers away.

"The Winds will make that spread for days ..." Hannah breathed, appalled by the destruction.

"What worries me is that the fires are pointing out our axis of retreat," Toni said, once again reminding himself that he was responsible for the mess.

"How do you think he set them?" she wondered.

"Did you see Ray's travel pack? He must have taken it before he left, along with the box of matches from his survival pouch. And his rifle. And his pistol. Damn."

"Maybe we should go ..." Sueli suggested apprehensively.

They set off again in a hurry, eager to get as much distance between themselves and the fires. They were fortunate in that the rising winds were blowing north-west-north, so there was little risk of losing a race against the inferno. Surprisingly, however, they found the wilderness surrounding them begin to teem with escaping wildlife, mostly several species of deer, but also wild boar and even a harassed-looking pair of foxes. The sight of the fugitive creatures pulled at the heart-strings of the femmes, but Toni surprised himself by seeing only Meat On The Run, and his trigger-finger began to itch for the chance to take one down.

He may have never thought of himself as a hunter before, but he had never found himself starving in the woods before either.

It was about mid-day when Toni saw a solitary boar trotting anxiously by about sixty paces to their right. It wasn't much to look at, but he decided it would do well enough. Setting his Lacrau to semi-auto, he aimed at the beast's shoulder-blade and fired off a shot. The result was almost comical; the creature leapt into the air almost as high as its own shoulder and took off at full steam as soon as it landed, shrieking as it went. It zigged and then zagged, and then disappeared into the forest.

Sueli gave Toni a dirty look, and then looked pointedly elsewhere; Hannah began to laugh, and she kept laughing until a quarter-hour afterwards, when they happened upon its carcass. Fear of pursuit quickly gave way to hunger, and before long they were trying to figure out how to gut a particularly hairy pig.

Finally they gave up trying and hacked off its hind-quarters instead, surrendering the remainder of the feast to nature. Toni estimated that each leg still carried more than five kilos of meat on them, and felt that the effort had been a worthwhile. One was stowed away in Toni's pack, the space there having become ample due to their dwindling rations. The other they placed over a campfire, where they spent the better part of an hour roasting and slicing their way to a distended belly.

By the time they resumed their march, Toni found himself looking over his shoulder at the darkening sky to the south-east. The winds were picking up by then, and it seemed that the blaze had finally established itself in the land.

With no feeble earthling to slow them down, the group began to make good time over the course of the remaining afternoon. The air stank of smoke and Toni realized that the winds had changed again, an event not too uncommon for that time of the month, although by the twentieth they could expect it to radiate from the Thau's pupil and become very, very strong.

Nature's Dusk came earlier than expected, and Toni suspected that the smoke had something to do with that. They pushed onwards nevertheless, a mute Ian almost leading the way in haste. Toni knew what he was thinking, but in the meantime he simply enjoyed the fact that he didn't have to constantly prod his prisoner into movement.

They finally pitched camp at the military crest of a steep hill, not so much because of hunger or lack of sleep, but mostly because their legs had begun to fail beneath them. As the femmes set about foraging for firewood and Ian sat on his rump with a defeated expression, Toni collected the Mark 4 comm boxes and began to mess around with the pendant cables' male-female interconnections. He ended up connecting two cables in a line, with the third and fourth spreading out from its end to make a capital T.

"You think that's wise?" Hannah asked as they returned with armfuls of rotting wood.

"It won't be a good idea to transmit, but at least we can try to passively scan frequencies, can't we?" he proposed.

He tried to climb a tall pine and quickly realized that the task would require two working arms, and so he gave up instead and sat opposite Ian. They tried very hard not to stare at each other as they awaited the femmes' return.

"My, how in hell have men survived so long?" Hannah quipped as they returned with another load. She turned to Sueli with a cocky grin. "Look at them! Faces busted up, arms slung, unable to climb an itsy tree, they're practically an endangered species ..."

Toni tried not to smile. It hurt his ego too much.

Before long, camp was set and a fire sizzled, what remained of a boar's leg roasting from a spit. Hannah climbed the tree and stretched out the antenna, leaving him to try to figure out the communicator's functions. Before long Toni could hear the steady crackle of static over the comm, and he set the mode to frequency scan, carefully keeping his fingers clear of the PTT.

It did not take long for the scanner to pick something up. A simple non-repetitive clicking code was being transmitted from somewhere to their north-east.

"What, you improvised a Geiger counter?" Sueli asked, in high spirits due to the impending meal.

"Nope. I think it's a signal from Lograin." he replied with a frown, catching everyone's attention.

"Press decode ..." Hannah suggested after a moment of silence.

He fixed the frequency and pressed the decode button. Surely enough, after a few moments of listening, the device's display presented him with the decoded message.

SOURCE: LOGRAIN AIR BASE (UNCOMPROMISED)

DISTANCE: 685.7 KM

MESSAGE: ALL WILD ROSE SURVIVORS MUST REMAIN PASSIVE ON COMMS UNTIL 500 KM FROM BASE. NO EVACUATION WILL BE ATTEMPTED BEYOND 500 KM RADIUS OF BASE. UNMIL FORCES STILL ACTIVE BEYOND ORIGINAL CONTACT LOCATION.

"How can they be so sure about their distance to us?" Hannah asked, apparently not too happy with the number. Toni smiled.

"All radios and transmission towers have synchronized atomic clocks. These emergency signals are sent at precise times, so the receivers only need to measure the delay in signal reception to calculate their distance to them. Direction's another matter, though. Our antenna is non-directional, which is another way of saying we're 685 clicks away from Lograin without a clue as to azimuth."

"We'll just have to keep following the trail ..." she muttered.

"Follow the trail for the next two hundred clicks?!" Sueli cried. "That's more than four days' march, and the Winds will have hit us by then. No one sends rescue missions against the Winds!" She began to weep again.

"Then we'll have to find shelter for as long as they last," he suggested, disliking the defeated tone of her voice. "We've already proven we can hunt, but what we really need to do is find shelter that can stand up to the Rains. It might be a good idea to leave the valley up ahead and climb the Dogspine range. I'm sure we could find a cave or something along those lines."

"How far up ahead is it?" she asked hopefully.

"A hundred clicks or so. Enough to get there in two days and settle down for the wait."

"Alright, we will do that if we must ..." Hannah agreed.

Toni tested Ian's bindings before going to asleep, noticing with satisfaction how the winds rustling the treetops had cleared away the smoke. They did not set a watch for the night.

Toni was roughly shaken awake in the morning, finding an alarmed Hannah urging him to rise. He felt strangely heavy and had difficulty making out the camp, and he finally realized that it was almost completely obscured by smoke. He picked up a crackling sound uphill, and his eyes widened in alarm as he saw an enormous tongue of flame reach towards the sky.

"You're kidding me!" he exclaimed.

"I wish! We have seconds to scoot!" she shouted as she began to stow her sleeping bag.

Feeling drunk with sleep, or with carbon monoxide poisoning, now that he thought about it, he quickly gathered his things and removed Ian's bindings, and before long they were making a running descent of the hill. By the time they had reached its base, the entire heights were ablaze, and a strong wind was pushing the inferno further towards them.

Then he remembered that he'd left the pendant cables hanging in the tree.

"Oh, no ..." he exclaimed, hating himself over yet another blunder.

"What?"

"Never mind ..."

They kept up the running pace and slowly managed to outrun the wildfire, moving over the MEWAC trail since it was relatively clear of obstacles. Toni wondered for how long they would have to flee, knowing that it was only a matter of time until they exhausted themselves.

"We march _and_ we run ..." he decided.

The group spent the following two hours marching and running in equal intervals, trying to keep up a respectable pace until they finally began to feel a steady north-easterly again. Only then did they rest.

"We've lost the cables," he finally admitted.

"I know," she replied, not caring to discuss the matter further.

There really wasn't much else to say and so, after the pause for rest, they set off again. After a while they realized that the forest was ominously silent, as if dawn had not yet arrived.

"It hasn't ..." they concluded after a short discussion.

Toni felt cheated of his sleep.

There were, however, only two things that could be done about the matter. After a short debate the group opted for the more unpleasant choice, and they each swallowed a pill from the meager remainder of their combat kits, each capsule containing enough delayed-release Ampakines and caffeine to keep them going for twenty hours. Beyond that boundary, only a double-dose would be able to keep them from falling into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Toni didn't want to think about what would happen to him after a double-dose of combat pills' effects had worn off. As the group set off yet again to follow Main Force's trail, he quietly decided it wasn't worth the risk to find out.

As they progressed along their north-westerly course, Toni made an effort to tune out his surroundings and focus on an imminent problem.

MEWAC had timed their operations to take the greatest possible advantage of the twelve-day window of good weather, but as Capicua's orbit took the planet out into deeper space, the humidity that was slowly building up would eventually condense into rainclouds. Before that, however, the winds would pick up as the hot air from its solar pole began to trade places with the more temperate and humid air from the sea that surrounded Thaumantias. A powerful and continuous wind would eventually sweep the landscape and test every tree's will to stand. Few animals would dare to be out in the open when such winds were raging. But once the humid coastal air had made it in deep enough, and as the planet swung out at its furthest distance to the red sun, the winds would die down and the downpour would begin, as the saturated atmosphere cooled down enough for the trapped moisture within to be finally released.

To sum things up neatly, if the Great Winds didn't kill them, the Great Rains most certainly would. And he honestly couldn't see himself hunting during those days, which meant that no hunger he had felt before would compare to what the Cap had in store for them over the following fortnight.

The group had perhaps two days of hunting at best before the brief window of opportunity snapped tightly shut. There would probably be no forest fire to herd the fauna their way, and Toni wouldn't dare set one on purpose; with the uncertain winds, they might well kill themselves in the attempt.

The more he thought about it, the more desperate their situation seemed to him.

_There's always Ian, if you're hungry_ , a dark voice suggested.

He throttled the thought immediately, horrified at the mere possibility of the act. But the words echoed persistently in his mind, unasked for and unwanted. They were grimly self-righteous words, spoken with the upper lip pulled back to the gums, and he deeply disliked them.

But the stranger quietly did the math until, satisfied with the bottom line, it returned contentedly to its slumber.

Over the following hours nature's dawn arrived, and the survivors of LOGIS settled down to roast that remained of the boar's hindquarter. No one spoke, none willing to bring up the fact that they had only a day's worth of rations left. The hindquarter was scraped to the bone for every sliver of flesh, and Toni couldn't help but wonder at how Ian would look once all the meat had been carved away from him. He shivered, and tried hard not to look at his prisoner.

The day stretched out and so did the kilometers, the cadets eating up the distance as if it was their final meal. There was no pause for lunch, and by the time the local fauna had settled in and the group collapsed into an exhausted pile of limbs, more than seventy kilometers had been traversed since their awakening.

The following morning, Toni awoke to find that they would not be repeating the previous day's performance. His legs weren't merely stiff anymore; there was a pain in his joints that recent experience had taught him was a prelude to injury. There was no Ultarine in their combat kit to accelerate muscle and ligament regeneration. It was tagged as good for training but bad for combat, its side-effects prone to dehydrate a fighting soldier to the point of incapacitating him.

And it also became clear to him that he wasn't alone. Hannah wasn't smiling anymore and Sueli wasn't bitching anymore, and Ian kept his head between his legs as he sat, speaking to no one.

They skipped breakfast and set off, moving dispiritedly along a trail that was no longer so easy to follow. The terrain was becoming difficult as they approached the foothills that preceded the Dogspine, the topsoil there almost non-existent, the spacing between trees and shrubs wide enough in Wild Rose's initial passage for little vegetation to have been disturbed.

Toni sullenly realized that, with the present trail so tenuous that only Suits' footpads on the ground were still visible, then after the rains it would be nearly impossible to find.

After a meager lunch, the cadets decided to rest their feet for a while. They soon began to dose off, and before they knew it nature's dusk arrived. Sitting in a circle as stillness fell upon the forest, the sergeant-cadets observed each other tiredly, not deigning to say a word. Toni finally took out a combat pill and swallowed it, the remainder doing the same except for Ian, who required assistance from Sueli.

They set off into nature's night, the sun shining as brightly as ever but the fauna hiding from it. Toni was on point again, wondering whether it would be easier to hunt during nature's night, when the critters were all sleeping in their holes.

To his surprise, he began to hear birds chirping again. Quickly he put a knee to the ground and took shelter behind a tree, the remaining cadets hastily following suit.

It was far too early for dawn, and Toni had since learned that when birds sang in the night, it was because something had upset them. He was certain his group had been moving too quietly to be the culprits, and so he peered cautiously into the forest ahead, using the broad tree to shield his body as he sought the source of the disturbance.

All was strangely quiet again. Toni looked to his rear, where a puzzled Hannah was raising an eyebrow at him. He frowned, uncertain of what to do.

After several minutes without noise or contacts Toni began to question himself. Finally he stood, disgusted with himself for being so skittish, and began to advance cautiously over the uneven terrain, the remnants of his platoon following behind at a distance.

He began to hear chirping again, and he paced the distance slowly with his Lacrau held out before him, wondering whether the local fauna had taken offense at their presence. The chirping slowly intensified as a reddening Toni advanced, until finally he lost his temper.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" he roared into the wilderness.

He was answered immediately.

"ATTENTION INDRUDER. IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON."

Toni hurled himself into a bush and smothered his body against the ground, the noise to his right and rear making it clear that his mates had copied him. His heart pounded heavily in his chest as seconds passed by.

"ATTENTION INTRUDER. IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON."

"Identify yourself first!" Toni shouted.

"O-KYAKUSAMA, GO-CHUUI KUDASAI. SAKKYUU NI NANORIDETE KUDASAI. NANORIDENAI BAAI HA HAPPOU SAREMASU."

He recognized the Japanese, and realized it had been worded far too politely to have been spoken by any living soldier. His mind raced, thinking of the possibilities. Deciding to gamble, the cadet set his weapon on safety, walked out of the half-smothered bush and loudly answered the challenge.

"I am Sergeant-cadet Toni Miura from 2nd section, LOGIS platoon, MEWAC. Please identify yourself."

He stood out in the open with hands in plain view and Lacrau hanging from his tactical vest, ignoring the urgent whispers from his mates as he half-expected to be gunned down. Finally a cheerful human voice answered him.

"Boy, you look like you've had an evil week. This is Captain Venter of the third Bot Company, second Battalion, ROWAC. How many have you got with you?" the cheerful voice inquired.

"Three and one prisoner."

"You've got to be joking. You got one of them?"

Toni paused for a moment, thinking of the one that got away.

"No sir. He's one of ours."

There was a brief pause.

"Ahuh," the captain finally said. "We were beginning to lose hope over any more survivors, but still we had our bots keep from shooting without orders. I am very glad of that. If you were to have arrived tomorrow, the second you reached friendly lines you would have gotten a whole bunch of eight millimeter surprises."

Ignoring the momentary flutter in his gut, Toni asked the question that was foremost on his mind.

"Sir, did LOGIS make it through?"

Another pause.

"Bits and pieces, I guess. We'd better talk about that when you're safely in the rear. You see, we're expecting some company over the coming hours. Of the Unmil kind, if you get my drift. You and your mates need to move towards my voice. When you see a tin can with eyes and a rifle, you've reached the frontline. Don't make me wait, now!"

### CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

**Front-line, Nature's Night, 20** th **of June, 2771**

As the last remnants of LOGIS broke through the foliage to scrutinize the source of the cheerful voice, it quickly became clear to Toni how lucky they had been.

Interspaced five meters from one another, the combat drones rested in semi-prepared positions along a front that stretched out beyond sight. Humanoid in general appearance, especially the light-weight ones armed with modified Lacraus, they nevertheless lay unnaturally still in their incomplete foxholes. Further back he could spy the heavier firepower, an anti-armor team to his left and a less deftly concealed machinegun position above and to his right, all manned by heavy combat drones. The heavy bots were of more robust constitution, although their greater carrying strength was counterbalanced by slightly reduced autonomy. Toni had read the right magazines to know that much about the killing components of the Robotic Warfare Corps, but the SIC's formal training regimen hadn't yet progressed to the point of discussing the finer points of their sister military unit.

It was also clear that the line was positioned in a zigzag pattern along the terrain, their group having crossed the frontline at the nook where a zig began to zag.

"If you close your mouths and advance twenty paces, I'd really appreciate it, guys," the cheerful voice piped. Toni peered up into the trees, aware that the low static sound emanating from the bots nearby had intensified the moment the voice had spoken.

The group set off again and ascended the rise from where the voice had come from, coming upon a local droid commander surrounded by its protective detail. It turned its inhuman oculars towards them and spoke.

"Greetings, pilgrims. You're still a good distance from where I am so, if you turn left and scoot south-west about fifty meters, you'll come upon another section leader and his command section. Good luck," the bot spoke cheerily as the surrounding bots hissed aloud.

It then returned its attention to the lines as if the ghost possessing it had suddenly abandoned its frame.

"Thank you ..." Toni declared uncertainly, unnerved by the fact that the bots had also hissed at his words, as if outraged that he would dare say such a thing.

Fifty paces ahead they came upon another section commander which, at their arrival, turned towards them and cheerily pointed them once more to the north-west. The group thanked the bot and trundled wearily onwards for another two hundred meters, before arriving at a small depression guarded by more heavy bots armed with light machineguns and antitank weapons. In the depression's center, the only human members of the robotic infantry company sat. Heavily camouflaged and armed with an assortment of portable electronic equipment, two men about ten years their senior peered away from their instruments and towards the newcomers.

"You lot look like you've been through hell," the more heavy-set of the two remarked cheerfully as he approached and shook their hands, waving off their salutes as unnecessary.

"Good day ..." said the younger of them, a reed-thin lieutenant with a grim face who raised his hand up at them before returning to his duties.

Once the cadets had introduced themselves and presented their credentials, the captain turned towards the only one among them whose hands were bound.

"Is this your prisoner?" Captain Venter asked, taking Ian carefully by the arm for a closer look.

"Sir, I have been wrongfully arrested. My junior has a beef with –"

"Shut it, Ian," Toni interrupted. "Sergeant-cadet Templeton may be the most senior of our platoon, but that still doesn't give him the right to aid in the escape of an enemy prisoner. That prisoner then slit another cadet's throat before setting fire –"

"That cadet executed a prisoner-of-war in cold blood! And you shot me after letting a prisoner under your direct responsibility escape, Ray's death is on your h–"

"Shut your mouth, prisoner Templeton!" the Captain interrupted. He was no longer cheerful; a broad frown had spread across his wide face. He turned to Toni and gave him a hard look.

"I won't interfere in this matter. You gave the order of arrest, and so it's you who'll have to back that decision up with evidence. I have a bigger fish to fry, and it is pesently on its way here."

"A big fish ... It wouldn't happen to walk on two legs, would it?" Hannah asked.

The captain flashed her with a wicked grin and remarked with his faux-American accent, "You hit that nail right on the head! We expect to have enemy contact within the next two to four hours. Single walker, its heading is suspiciously similar to yours, so I expect you lot were being followed."

"Or maybe it's just following the same thing we were," Toni suggested, "the trail left by MEWAC on its way south-east."

Toni's remark brought a slow smile back onto the captain's face.

"Well, if that's the case, then I'd expect it to contact that line right where you did, right? Arright Lieutie, get ready to redeploy our line! I want the left flank to fall back until it's staggered, and call Murata to our left and tell him to do the same with his right flank. We're gonna funnel this walker in –"

"Won't work ..." his lieutenant interrupted tiredly. "The Unmil will be tipped off when it passes through the trenches our bots have already dug."

"– I want our right flank to advance until it is staggered, call Murata to do the same with his left. We're gonna funnel this walker in –" the captain corrected confidently.

"If you wanna call Murata, you can do it yourself. And you can call HQ to get authorization while you're at it," the lieutenant interrupted again before calmly holding a corded telephone out to his commander.

Venter sniffed at the snub but didn't seem too upset. He approached his lieutenant, snatched the phone from his outstretched hand, squatted on the dirt and began to speak into it.

From the telephone receiver a black wire stretched, snaking its way into what appeared to be a compact switching station. From that station many more wires snaked, two of them extending in opposite directions parallel to the front lines while more stretched out rearwards into the forest.

The captain spoke cheerfully into the receiver as the cadets sat on the hard ground, nursing their foot-blisters. The conversation continued for a while, the speakers on the other side apparently reluctant to authorize what was sounded like a risky plan. Before long, however, it became clear from the lieutenant's exasperated expression that the captain was going to get his way. The captain finally handed the phone back to his subordinate with smug satisfaction.

"As I was saying, Leslie, you are to stagger our right flank _forward_ so as to make the right side of a funnel, while Murata does the same with his left, and then we will move our praetorians to plug up that funnel's base. It will be caught like a rat in a trap –"

"Sir ..." Toni spoke out, "I'm not sure that's going to work."

The captain peered towards the cadet, momentarily peeved.

"Say your piece," he finally said.

"I confronted one of those Suits directly, sir. It took direct hits from twenty-five mil, thirty mil, four SABERO rockets and the hammerheads' Bloodhound II's. Nothing stopped it. The Unmil killed a member of my section, took out my Suit, and killed a large number of Hammerheads without a sweat, and the only thing that stopped it was a nuke detonated by its own forces –"

"Sergeant-cadet Miura, do you think that I'm stupid?" the captain asked.

"N-no, sir."

"We have already been briefed regarding the enemy Suits' capabilities. Several days ago, in fact. We are here for one reason and one reason only. That lone Suit is advancing straight towards Lograin Air Base, and that's just where everyone happens to be boxed in. As you boys were advancing to the south-east, ROWAC and the light infantry battalions were touching down in Lograin along with enough unattached heavy armor to found a new corps. By the time we all got there, most of you MEWAC boys were already beating a hasty retreat back to base. It is now overpopulated and understaffed, and then they tell us it's time to retreat so we can reorganize our forces, get our factories up to full gear and come up with a winning plan. Only there aren't nearly enough aircraft for the tonnage that we need to shift.

"ROWAC's presence here has only one objective, and that is to delay the Suit's advance until the base has been evacuated. And we're doing that because we _are_ supremely aware of its capabilities. If we were to give it less than our very best, it would simply swat us aside and keep on advancing, and Lograin just can't afford that, can it?"

"No sir. I just –"

"I've organized an evacuation for you but it's going to take a while. The rovers have been tasked with actions other than evac, and so I expect they'll only be free to get you out once they've fulfilled their other obligations. In the meantime you stick with us, understood?"

"Yes sir," they all replied quietly.

Before long, the group was once more on the move, although the journey proved to be a short one. The command section, their compliment of praetorians and the ragged cadets moved eastwards for half a kilometer, where they reformed at the base of 3rd company's left flank. There was hardly any need to dig in, their new position being located precisely where Toni and his crew had come upon the frontline less than an hour before. As the captain personally marked where he expected the praetorians to establish their positions, Toni cautiously approached the lieutenant.

"Sir. May I ask why you're so worried about this? Is it really such a bad plan?"

The lieutenant sighed in annoyance. He gave Toni a measuring look, and then he shrugged and answered his question.

"No. The plan isn't bad. Except for the fact that the captain always insists on being where the action is. And that means being where his praetorian guards are. He intends to try and funnel an enemy Suit right against our company's most heavily armed and armored elements. The problem is that, if it works, that means he'll be directing the enemy onto his own position! And if the praetorians don't stop the Suit, chances are good we'll be fried once it punches through the line."

"We can fight, sir."

The lieutenant sighed once more.

"Fighting's for bots, cadet. I'm not so sure mankind has any place left on a battlefield. I'm more certain now after what happened to your outfit."

"Sir, the enemy's got men driving their Suits. I know that for a fact –"

"You don't have their Suits! You don't even have your own Suits! All you've got is that rifle and a few grenades. So what's going to happen is –"

"Leslie, where the fuck is Murata?"

The lieutenant sighed yet again and turned his attention to the captain.

"Sir, my name is Lieutenant Stevenson. And Captain Murata isn't going to be with his praetorians. His bots are already emplaced where you wanted them, but the captain's going to find a safer spot for his command and equipment."

"Pussy ..." the captain remarked with a twisted smile.

Toni couldn't help but smile at the captain.

"The captain's wasted in ROWAC. He should have been light infantry," he remarked in an undertone.

"He was a footman before he went to Officers' School," the lieutenant replied, as if agreeing that all footmen were insane.

The praetorians began to hiss again. When Toni remarked about it, the lieutenant explained.

"It may sound like a hiss to your ears but that's actually one of the ways the bots communicate. They're equipped to communicate by long-wave radio, short-wave radio, luminous signals, hand codes and audio comms. Since we didn't want any comms intercepted or jammed, and since the bots were mostly out of each others' sight due to terrain, the only remaining solution was audio comms. They were even communicating when you boys were closing in on them. You heard them as birds chirping, but there was a cipher hidden in the sound. The Suit probably won't know we're out there until the festivities begin. The way the captain's organized things, the better part of two companies will have an opportunity to engage the Unmil in the first moments of battle. And it won't be able to block the comms like it did with your drivers."

"Sorry, sir, but I don't think that will be enough."

"Seventeen anti-armor teams per company. Two companies. Four RPGs per two-bot team. That's a hundred and thirty-six RPGs, each with an explosive warhead weighing over twelve kilo-mass. Such an assault could take out most of the ASC under ideal conditions. Either way you boys shouldn't be here by then. Just keep to our rear, jump on the rovers once they get here and don't look back."

The lieutenant returned to his duties, leaving Toni to ponder on the matter. _They're going to die in that foxhole_ , the stranger declared nonchalantly, _you've got your own battle ahead of you, and you have precious few weapons with which to fight it_.

Toni knew what he was talking about. The captain's words had finally begun to sink in regarding the need to defend his order of arrest, and he realized that all he had at the moment was his word against Ian's. The thought of what he was going to have to deal with in the future made him want to jump into the trenches to fight alongside the bots. They at least weren't prone to bush-whacking or betrayal. A sudden hissing along the line, however, made him wonder about that.

"Unknown contact audible in the forest," Lieutenant Stevenson whispered as they huddled around the equipment. "Heading is what we expected, it's following the MEWAC trail."

"Is it in the funnel yet?" the captain asked. He was staring thoughtfully towards the south-east.

"It's in, but just barely," the lieutenant answered.

"We wait ..." the captain decided.

A full minute passed before the captain asked again. His lieutenant answered softly.

"It's in but not yet midway. The Unmil is either being careful, or it suspects something."

"Tell Murata to begin to carefully close the end of his side of the funnel. Do the same with ours."

Thirty seconds later the lieutenant began to tense up.

"Sir, the Unmil has halted. I'm stopping my bots."

Another minute passed and only the hissing could be heard. It seemed so loud to Toni's ears that he wondered if it was the noise that was giving them away.

"Unmil is on the move again. Moving slowly. Heading straight towards us. Sir, it's half a click away and closing. Do we assault now?"

"Are you mad?" the captain retorted irritably. "We want her to come here, where we've concentrated our RPGs. Let her come. Keep closing the other end of the funnel. Box her in."

Another minute passed by and the lieutenant gestured silently to the cadets to get ready to move at any moment. Turning to his captain, the lieutenant whispered.

"You're going to get what you want. The Unmil is less than two hundred meters away and closing. The funnel is closed and the contact is boxed in. There are confirmed visuals by emplaced anti-armor teams. Now, sir?"

After a moment's pause the captain looked rearwards. There was no longer a smile on his face, only that broad frown. Tensely he gave the signal for the cadets to retreat before returning his gaze to the south-east.

"Engage the fucker," he ordered.

The cadets did not retreat but watched silently instead, spellbound by the tension of the moment. A silent order passed from the lieutenant to his bots in a hissing wave, and then the forest suddenly became alive with screeching missiles.

Deafening concussions rocked the woods, waking it violently from its slumber as belching fumes began to ascend the sky. The detonations were immediately followed by the roar of machineguns, increasing in number and intensity until all Toni could hear was a screaming, popping static. The static began to be punctuated by ever more frequent detonations as the sounds of battle began to reach their peak.

"What exactly are we still doing here?" Hannah shouted into his ears.

He thought about that for a moment, and it became clear to him that they urgently needed to be someplace else. There was no need to reply. Hannah grabbed Ian and Toni grabbed Sueli, and the remnants of LOGIS set of at a run to their north-east, again following what remained of MEWAC's signs of passage. Toni risked a glance behind and saw the vegetation before Venter's position being struck by a laser pulse, its defenders hastily exiting their foxhole as smoke and fire nearly overwhelmed them.

More concussions rocked the forest, their shock-waves knocking flat anything not attached to the ground, and Toni suddenly found himself lying there, the deafening static sound of gunfire still screaming into his ears. The enemy Suit came within sight, and it sauntered over the forest floor with kneepads well-bent and frame in reduced silhouette, its armor sparking and glinting as myriad small-caliber projectiles struck their target.

The Suit's oculars laser glimmered, its beam cutting up the landscape like a luminous scalpel. Its helm turned towards him and that laser flashed once more, the ground shooting up dirt wherever the beam touched, bark and limb and tree bursting into flames and subsiding to the earth. The kicked-up dust enshrouded him, cloaking his surroundings from the titan's killing sight, and the screaming static in his ears was overruled by a keening, screeching sound that tore into his heart.

Twisting around where he lay, his eyes fell upon Sueli, who rolled over the ground hugging what appeared to be a child by its leg. Clumsily he stood and approached and tried to pry the child from her arms before she could smother it, his mind at odds with what he was seeing, wondering how a civilian could have found its way into the midst of a battlefield. Sueli held on desperately, as if it was her own offspring she held, and once he had managed to pull one of her arms away, he realized how wrongly he had judged what he was seeing.

It was not a child. It was her own leg she was holding, the member's boot having somehow been lost, her petite foot jutting out from her embracing arms for the world to see. He stared in horror at the vision, and then his eyes searched downwards until they found the cleanly cauterized stump well above her right knee. Looking behind, he found the sounds of battle receding as bots coursed the terrain in pursuit of their prey, oblivious to the fact that they would also soon be in pieces.

Toni scooped her up, caring not in the least for his injured right arm, and stifled his emotions as he set eyes upon her face. Her face was perfect except for the horror that was stamped there. She cried and shrieked, and there was something animal about the way she blinked at her surroundings. He ran as he held her firmly, coming upon Hannah further down the trail where she had been wrestling with Ian on the ground.

He said nothing to her or to Ian, the weeping soldier in his arms putting an end to the fight more effectively than any word could have.

They stared at Sueli as she embraced her leg. Blinking back tears, Hannah took out a hypodermic painkiller and injected the drug into her comrade, and the group then set off at a jog down the trail, where the revving of engines had became audible.

Four rovers coursed over the terrain at speed, jumping and careening along almost as if they were out of control. They rolled to a stop before them and ROWAC's Command and Services section assessed the state of the group.

"Oh lord ..." was all one of them could say.

Moments later, Toni was shoved into the confined flatbed of the rover with a warning to "hold-on tight", a semi-conscious Sueli still firmly held in his arms. He numbly realized that that was the first time he was holding a woman in his arms.

_Pity_ , the demon inside jested, _pity that she's in pieces and would sell you downriver in a heartbeat for her leg back_.

Toni didn't care if she did, nor would he blame her, for that matter. He rested his head on her chest, feeling the fever-quick beat of her heart against his cheek as he fell off into a deep sleep, heedless of the bouncing rover or the suffering woman, and heedless also of the fact that Ian was for the first time alone, separated from his teammates on a vehicle that was no longer in sight.

*****

"KAISER!" Lippard roared over the loudspeaker, armored footpads pounding over the forest floor as she momentarily ignored her scurrying foes. It was a useless exercise, the deafening noise produced by the surrounding suicidal infantry drowning out her calls.

The question of whether the locals had any fight in them had been answered in capital letters. Her oculars had already been damaged several times, and she suspected that snipers were deliberately aiming for them. The stock of oculars that were stored in her helm was down to two-thirds capacity after less than a minute of battle, with no end in sight to the engagement.

Nothing enraged her more than the sort of tactics she was witnessing at the moment. Whether one called it a human wave attack or a banzai attack, what she saw before her was an almost alien, inhuman commitment to resistance. That fact alone was enough to make her blood boil, but the rage was compounded by the fact that Kaiser had been taken prisoner by the heathens.

How could he?! How could he allow himself to be captured? Deadhand was dead, a gigantic loss for their team. Kaiser's Suit was beyond repair, which was perhaps an even greater setback. But if Kaiser were somehow forced to speak, the consequences would be disastrous. They hadn't as yet established themselves at the mines in any way that would allow them to counteract their lack of manpower. And yet the Ebony Tower, hermetically sealed and sanitized in its methods of thinking as it was, had decided to forbid any rescue operations.

All of which meant absolutely nothing to her. The mobile Suit she currently possessed was thermonuclear powered, her lasers feeding on the very same power source, and only food supply limited her autonomy in any appreciable way.

Several rockets suddenly impacted against her frame, the detonations sending her into the dirt below. The performance sphere cocooned her securely, considerably reducing the force of impact. It was, however, entirely inadequate to shield her pride, and it was there that the fall most injured her.

"Das ist es! JEDER STIRBT!!" she roared, her hoarse voice breaking with the effort.

Planting her footpads securely on the ground, she lowered her center-of-mass and gave her system the appropriate orders. All movements in her field of vision suddenly sprouted bright red reticules, and another larger reticule appeared directly in the center of her field of vision. Turning her head, she centered the large cross over the many smaller crosses, the Suit's OS making the appropriate calculations before activating the co-axial laser. That laser, sharing the space inside her helm along with the oculars and ocular replacement equips, had only one purpose: antipersonnel. It cut through the landscape and bodies fell, and Lippard began for the first time to wonder whether her attackers were human at all. Where was the screaming that usually accompanied its use, where were the bodies cut in pieces, and why were so many exploding into flames? It wasn't their ammunition that was doing that, although she could hear them popping off as the flames enveloped their burning bodies. Some continued to fight as they burned, and she watched, horrified, wondering whether they were under the influence of narcotics.

One more flash and, somehow, through all the shots and explosions, Lippard began to hear a wailing, screeching sound, shortly followed by someone shouting. The sounds were music to her ears, and she grinned viciously as she turned her armor towards her enemies' left flank. The screams slowly became less pronounced as she moved along the trenches and foxholes, cutting and burning her way through the vegetation and all who hid there until she could no longer hear anything at all.

Before long, Lippard was moving in silence except for the impact of projectiles against her frame, the occasional explosion, and the tearing sounds produced by her laser beams against their targets. One particular target died hard, hit below by her pulse-rifle and then seared by her co-axial laser, but it kept on firing as it burned, making no sound. She halted her advance and pulled the warrior's rifle from its hands before picking it up for inspection.

Inside her performance sphere, Lippard's eyes hardened as she turned it over in her hand, suddenly aware that no amount of force from her gauntlets would be enough to kill it. The vessel in her hands had never known life. It stared at her as it burned before beginning to chirp beautifully, as if encased somewhere within its metallic body a talented songbird sang.

Lifting the obscene creature over her helm, she launched it out into the wilderness, a champion's throw that would keep it airborne for a few moments at least, flying and singing as it left a charcoal smear across the windy sky.

"KAISER! GET ME OUT OF THIS NIGHTMARE!" she screamed, the loudspeaker of her Suit failing to amplify her words to the volume she felt they deserved. The forest around her smoked and burned, the rising pillars slanting to the north-west as the strengthening wind pushed them away. The scurrying figures continued to fire at her, their obsolete projectiles impacting against her armor to make obsolete sounds.

Then the figures began to retreat towards the mountains. Lippard hesitated for a moment, wondering what to do. Then she began to follow them, lost and uncertain, but aware that among those tin cans some humans could be found. The screaming from before made her certain of that. She would find one of them and squeeze his body as she asked a few questions. Crushing pain was about the worst pain that one could feel, and she had learned by acquired experience that even the toughest combatant could sing like a canary if enough pressure was applied.

She relished the thought, shivering and smiling as her footpads began to pound the earth again.

### CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

**Base Fido, Nature's Dawn, 20** th **of June, 2771**

Colonel Toramaki Sen observed the display panel and grimaced. His expression was carefully studied and imitated by his subordinates, who surrounded the wide table into which the panel was embedded. Looking briefly south-west through the campaign tent's mosquito-netted window, the colonel thought about the difficult decisions that lay before him. Grimacing again, he leaned towards his comms officer.

"The companies currently under attack are to cease offensive action and retreat. This retreat must be slow and organized, and they must head northwards into the Dogspine. Waste this monster's time! Get it lost in the range's folds and crevices, because the time we've made it lose up until now doesn't yet justify the losses we've just suffered.

"As for the companies it passes by, once it's in the Dogspine they are to harass the bakemono every step of the way."

"Colonel, as for the casualties –"

"The bot casualties are of no concern. They were out-of-date anyway ..."

"I think he meant our people, sir," an old major interjected. "They have perhaps two days of food left, the winds are arriving and the rains will soon follow. What about them?"

The colonel thought about that for a while.

ROWAC was an unusual unit in that the majority of its human components were not dedicated to frontline duties. Between logistics, resupply and the three Cs, ROWAC congregated more than two hundred personnel in its command base.

He had decided to locate Base Fido right in the middle of the pass that interrupted the northern and southern ranges of the Dogspine. The base was a highly improvised thing, of course, but its situation, well flanked by the mountain range's tall peaks, and by the fast river that followed the northern slopes of the northern range, provided effective protection. The base was also situated on the axis MEWAC had forged in its passing, and his esteemed EWAC colleagues were at the moment improving the conditions of that axis from Fido to Lograin to favor a more fluid ROWAC retreat, and booby traps had already begun to be set there.

The base itself was concealed within the tall grove that grew in the pass, a smaller grove of nearby Diesel trees having blessed that spot as well. The Diesel grove had been spurned by MEWAC in their passing; their deposits were too meager to justify the effort of tapping for fuel to power those oil-guzzling armored Suits. ROWAC's energy requirements were more humble, however, and the grove had proved generous enough to fuel all his bots.

The bots didn't burn the fuel, of course. Their generators had instead been designed to saturate the oil with oxygen and infuse a small amount of initial heat, the resulting slow decomposition being enough to quietly and efficiently power their systems for a couple of days.

That grove had since dried up, not due to ROWAC, but to EWAC's efforts instead. Contrary to common belief, MEWAC wasn't alone in operating Suits; the Engineering Warfare Corps possessed some of their own, although their adapted Hammerheads were far more lightly armed and armored, having been exclusively tasked to combat engineering, mobility and counter-mobility works. It was EWAC that had dug the improvised command bunker in the midst of the more extensive pine grove. They had also dug the trenches for his elite praetorian bots, and opened up the ground surrounding the base to establish a killing field for the anti-armor teams, recycling the acquired timber into the central bunker and other key positions. Progress had become slower since then, the Suits having to depend on fuel resupply from Lograin, its arrival slow and difficult due to terrain constraints.

All combat was a race against time. The more fuel they had, the faster they would be able to build up the road. The faster they built up the road, the more fuel they would have, not only to continue building up the road and base fortifications, but also to dedicate their time to the setting of some very macho booby traps along the axis of retreat. Simply put, the more time they could conquer, the faster the base could become something to do some serious delaying of its own, the faster they could evacuate if things went awry, and the better their chances of dealing damage to the enemy Suit if it made the foolish mistake of using the road.

The decision was all too clear for him.

"Our combat personnel are to persist in delaying action until the Unmil is dead, or until they are dead, or until it loses interest in them and abandons their theater. Should it leave, they are to remote-detonate their bots, group into survival teams and move into the mountain range. They are to survive there in comm blackout until the sixth day of the following month. Whoever is still alive must then open comms so we can get a fix on their positions and evacuate them by air."

"By air?!" the major blurted out angrily. "There'll be no Lograin air base by that time, only drones could come in so deep, and they cannot evacuate a brown squirrel!"

"But they can make supply drops, Dennis. If that's the only option, then it can't be helped. The alternative is that the Unmil will get here while we are still weak, smash its way through and catch Lograin with its pants down."

"And what makes the colonel think it won't smash its way through even when we are better fortified," a younger major asked.

The colonel sighed.

"If we begin to make such pessimistic assumptions, we might as well decide to surrender our families to something that might not even know what mercy is. This enemy is powerful and relentless, and as a result we are being forced to make some very difficult decisions, but there is no living thing immune to death, and this one is certainly no exception. We will face it, and it will tire. And then we will kill it or we will die trying."

"If this command dies, it may prove impossible to resurrect ROWAC in the near future," his lieutenant-colonel coldly warned.

"True, but if we fail to halt its progress and instead escape this theater, we won't have the window of opportunity to manufacture a house-cleaning bot, never mind a force of combat drones. We'll have to take the risk."

"Be that as it may, if it becomes clear to me that it's prowess is beyond all our measures, I'll be pulling select men from battle whether you need them or not," his right-arm man informed him.

The colonel sighed again.

Lieutenant-colonel Dale Arakaki was too hard-headed to warrant an argument with. The blue-eyed officer possessed the almond-shaped eyes of his Japanese ancestors, and they had narrowed to slits as he spoke. Like most transgens, Arakaki frowned on naturals like the colonel. Toramaki felt like explaining to his subordinate that he was still paying the debts for his three offspring's transgenetic procedures, that he had opted to ensure that his children be spared the suffering that he had endured over his youth, and that he still had to deal with every day. Colonel Toramaki had progressed within ROWAC to a position that many envied, and he had done so despite being at an enormous disadvantage in regards to his peers. It was his sharp mind that had made up for that, but he still had to deal with men like Arakaki, who failed to understand why their senior would refuse to subject himself to the same treatments as his children.

"Feel free to do whatever you like, Dale, in full knowledge of the fact that if I survive such an event, you would later find yourself the subject of court-martial."

The lieutenant-colonel gave him a stiff nod, apparently unconcerned over such an eventuality.

"Pass the orders on," he ordered his comms officer.

*****

As his subordinates reluctantly turned to their tasks, the colonel set off on his own, exiting the campaign tent towards its windy exterior. Moments later the old major quietly joined him. Of all his staff members, Dennis Haven was the one he liked the most. Which was no wonder, seeing as he was the only subordinate present by Toramaki's personal request.

The old grunt had never thanked him for that, but Tora had never for a moment expected him to.

The men stood in the wind and observed their surroundings. The trenches were barely visible beyond the tall trees. Their canopies were being harassed by the rising winds, branches creaking and groaning noisily, striking each other occasionally to make dull wooden sounds.

"That thing is probably only going to stop when it wants to. You know that, right?" the major said quietly.

"My greatest wonder is about its armor ..." the colonel remarked, ignoring the question. "The missiles we're firing at it carry Octogen two-stage shaped charges, with copper-bonded tungsten powder cones. This is our state-of-the-art, and yet even multiple hits are entirely ineffective. What are your thoughts on that?"

"Has some kind of non-explosive reactive armor ..." the major mused. "Something that sets the charges off prematurely or deflects the forged carrots so they won't penetrate. You should be asking someone from MEWAC or the cavalry units, though, not me."

"But I'm asking you, Dennis ..."

"Then my answer will be the simple one. If a small bomb doesn't do the trick, hit it with a bigger bomb!" he rasped.

"Bigger bombs are less mobile, slower and more cumbersome. There are no warheads in existence that –"

"Yes there are! The air force has no lack of big bombs in their inventory!"

"But no missile that can pack that punch. The bombs are slow to fall and quick to be intercepted. The missiles are faster and have been getting through, but they're cherry-bombs compared to the free-fallers."

The major turned on him with a scowl.

"Why are you talking to me about this? You know there's a force right here with whole truckloads of explosives, a force that makes a point of improvising the charges in size and type for the mission at hand. Talk to EWAC! They're mine-layers as well, and no mine needs to fly about to get its job done. Hell, they even have the equipment to dig as many massive holes as they need to – why are you smiling?"

The colonel beamed, amused at the major's angry and puzzled expression. This was why he had requested Haven for his staff officer. The grunt was just the man to bounce problems and potential solutions off of, and on occasion he even managed to come up with one of his own. The reason for that was very simple. The major was old, tired and nearing retirement, and knew he would never be promoted beyond his current rank, nor did he have any fear of speaking his mind. Of course, as long as Tora had known him, the old major had never possessed such a fear in the first place.

Which was why he was still a major at the ripe old age of sixty three.

"A mega-mine, heh? That's your solution?" the colonel asked with a smirk.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?! If that thing comes close enough to a giant remote-detonated mine, it won't matter what magic it's got up its skirt! The acceleration alone will kill the driver inside, even if the Suit doesn't have a scratch on it after."

"That is, assuming there's a biological entity inside," the colonel observed thoughtfully.

"If you don't risk it, you'll never get the brandy!" the major retorted.

"We need to find ourselves some combat engineers ..." Tora decided, and the pair set off to the north-east, where some could certainly be found.

*****

"Sergeant-cadet Templeton reporting, sir," the youth declared.

The filthy cadet had an injured wing. No, more like a badly injured shoulder, his arm having been confined to a sling. Nevertheless the soldier stood rigidly at attention, silently awaiting recognition by ROWAC's commander after having arrived on base as one of the occupants of a single rover. Tora raised his weary head from the map he had been studying.

"No need to stand at attention, cadet, just take a stroll to medical bay and see to your injuries. You'll have time to do that; there won't be an evac to Lograin for the following two hours –"

"Sir, I have an urgent matter I must first discuss with you. May I?"

The colonel squeezed his lips together in irritation. The tent's window flaps had been lowered to prevent the sunlight from reflecting off the display panel's surface, and he and a couple of captains from EWAC had been studying a map of the outlying area, discussing what to do about their uninvited guest's eventual arrival. The captains were young but sharp as daggers, and they had shown to be possessed of a practical intelligence he greatly appreciated.

And now this.

"You'll want to take quick run to medical bay, because the only way we're going to talk is after those bandages are fresh and clean. Understood?"

The youth stood there for a long moment and the colonel began to suspect that he was about to object. Then the cadet gave his senior a stiff nod and made an abrupt about-face before exiting the tent briskly. The colonel paused for a moment, wondering if there was something wrong with the boy. Pressed for time, however, he soon returned to his duties.

The meeting lasted the better part of an hour, and the wind had in the meantime picked up and begun to ruffle the campaign tent as well as those inside. He was relieved when an EWAC sergeant finally informed them that the fortified bunker was complete and ready to receive ROWAC Command. The colonel had to wonder how long it would be in use, but he knew at least that those quarters would not be falling prey to the coming tempest.

As the command section reached the site, Tora found the ground surrounding the bunker to still be marred by innumerous footpad-prints from the Suits that had built it. The shelter was a low-set construction cut into ground, bracketed by tall pines and capped with a central mound meant to provide protection against direct artillery hits. An array of camouflage nets lay over that squat artificial hill, although a moment's look at its soiled surroundings made clear that they formed what was essentially a bull's-eye for any drone. One of the EWAC captains quickly put his concern to rest.

"They'll return shortly with more netting. I've ordered those to be erected with spacers."

"I trust your men when it comes to these things, captain. Although perhaps those nets on the hill should be on spacers as well," Tora declared.

The captain grinned and shook his head.

"That's exactly what we won't be doing, sir. If the site gets detected, we want them to focus on attacking the areas that appear like we made an effort to properly camouflage them. We'll be placing decoy tents and heat generators on the ground beneath the spaced nets, and that might give them the impression that the center-mound is nothing more than an empty mustering ground. We'll even be marking the hill appropriately to that effect. We have little hope avoiding detection, so decoying is the only other viable option."

The colonel nodded and quickly banished all doubt from his mind. The plan probably wouldn't work if Unmil nuked the spot, but there wasn't much that could be done about that. The engineers' logic was sound for anything less than the worst scenario, and worrying about that when so many other problems needed to be dealt with was a waste of time.

And time was getting more precious with every passing hour.

They entered the bunker's access tunnel, its walls solidly reinforced with tree trunks laid on their sides and meshed together with barbed wire. It was all very slapdash in appearance, but Tora was familiar with that spec of wire, knowing that its tensile strength, cross-section, and the design and placement of its barbs had been optimized for just that function. The logic was that, the more any nearby explosions shook the structure, the more those barbs would bury themselves into the wood and hold the bunker's structure together.

As they reached the bunker's pre-fabricated concrete heart, the colonel entered the tiny compartment reserved for the HQ commander and stowed his knapsack inside, and then he began to instruct his aides on how he wanted the War Room to be organized. By the time all tables, chairs, assorted placards, data-screens and communications equipment had been positioned, the injured cadet was back, somewhat cleaner than before and with freshly dressed bandages. Sighing at the chore but conscious that soon he would have no time at all, the colonel received the boy in his newly furnished office.

"So, cadet, what is the problem?"

The cadet spoke slowly and carefully, laying out a story that surprised and shocked the old soldier. As he listened, Tora happened to remember the boy's surname and was doubly surprised.

"Earthlings. I admit I wasn't even considering that possibility any more. But this is good news, I think. If they have pilots inside their Suits then our plans might just have the effect we're hoping for. And the enemy nukes disabled two of their Suits. This is very useful information indeed, cadet. I thank you. But how did you lose that prisoner?"

The cadet continued with his story, and as he spoke the colonel's eyes began to narrow. That part of the story was more unpleasant to listen to, rife as it was with war-crimes, insubordination, mutiny and negligence, and with the assertion that some of that was presently on its way to Base Fido.

Armed with the newfound information, the colonel wrote up a detailed report, keeping the young cadet seated beside him for occasional prods for information. Haven showed up shortly afterwards to quietly read the report from the screen. Its content was enough to elicit a whistle of admiration from the soldier.

"When can I be evacuated, sir?" the cadet finally asked as they encrypted the report for sending.

"Next copter is fourteen minutes away and closing," the major rasped. "Keep your pants on, boy, we'll get you out."

The cadet thanked his seniors and left in a hurry, leaving the two men to sit quietly inside the cramped compartment, each immersed in his own thoughts.

"Is it just me, or was that boy just plain desperate to get the hell out of here?" the major finally asked.

"Isn't just you. But don't forget the cadet who shot him is about twenty minutes off."

"What's taking them so long?"

"Apparently peeled away from the trail by mistake and had to forge a new path. They've got a seriously injured cadet with them. Apparently an amputee, and the leg's no good for reattachment, it's been separated from the body too long ..." he observed grimly.

"Poor boy ..."

"Girl. And young."

"Shit! Couldn't we have had the copter evacuate her?"

"You know we're prohibited from flying beyond this point with what's coming our way."

The major gave his commander a look which told him precisely what he could do with that order.

"The pilots aren't ours to order around," Tora defended.

"We've gotta get us some of our own one of these days ..." the major sulked.

The officers returned to their duties until the distant rumble of rovers caught their attention. The revving engines intensified and then slowly died away. The officers looked at one another.

"Medical bay!" the major declared.

Driven by curiosity, the pair momentarily left matters in the lieutenant-colonel's hands and passed by medical bay, where the arriving rovers had finally rolled to a stop.

The medical bay was located opposite from the Unmil's expected axis of approach, the common wisdom being that men previously injured in combat probably wouldn't appreciate first-class seats to the forthcoming battle. It bracketed the copterpad along with the war-material deposit, the setup following a classic "bullets and bandages" philosophy. This allowed an incoming logistics copter to touch down with its most common cargo destinations only fifty meters away. The downside of that logic was that any missile strike against that deposit would probably leave the bay roofless at the very least. The world wasn't perfect, of course.

The rovers rested unguarded beside the bay's low-set roof, its occupants loitering at the building's entrance or already inside. The soldiery saluted the colonel smartly as he entered, their expressions grim. He heard screams from within one of the compartments.

_That's my cue_ , he thought, and duly entered.

The first thing he came upon was a naked leg cleanly cut a palm above its smooth knee, the limb having been discarded on a hospital cart like surplus gear.

_Petite foot_ , he thought, swallowing his horror.

Its owner lay on an evac cart, thrashing about madly as orderlies tried to tie her down for transport. She was a beautiful thing even in her distress. Two soldiers leaned against the opposite wall, both of them as dirty as hogs in a sty. The male cadet, his bandages brown with dry blood and grime, kept his eyes fixed on the cadet as she screamed. As someone who came from a family of naturals, Tora had seen those eyes many times before. They were Sanpaku eyes. If one could see the whites of a man's eyes below their irises as well as beside them, those eyes were saying that their owner was at the end of his rope.

It was the most telling sign of mental fatigue he had ever known.

In a gesture of familiarity and comfort, the girl beside the cadet had her arm draped over his shoulders. Her serene demeanor said much about her mettle.

He approached the pair and they straightened at his presence.

"At ease," he said, shaking their hands. "Is this your comrade?" he asked, turning towards the struggling figure.

"Yes," the girl replied. "Laser did this to her."

"I see. Your name?"

"Sergeant-cadet Hannah Arakaki, sir"

"Arakaki? You wouldn't happen to know a Lieutenant-colonel Dale Arakaki, would you?"

Her expression hardened a little before becoming impassive again.

"Yes, sir. He's my uncle."

"Ah, yes, I would have expected greater similarities between the two ..."

" _Twice_ removed, sir," she added.

The colonel smiled, liking her for disliking his second-in-command. He watched quietly as the orderlies finally managed to sedate the amputee and then turned to the boy.

"And you must be Toni Miura."

The cadet's three-corner eyes fixed onto his senior's and held them unblinking for a while. The expression conveyed nothing, yet the colonel began to feel distinctly unsettled.

"Yes, I am, sir," the boy finally replied. "I expect a cadet named Ian Templeton spoke to you, sir."

"That's right, but let's not worry about that for now. The next copter is coming in within the next half-hour to evacuate you three –"

"I never said I wanted to leave, sir," the boy interrupted quietly, puzzling the colonel.

"I see ..."

"The copter was leaving when we arrived. Tried to wave it down but it just kept going. I thought I saw Ian there, but I'm not sure ..."

"He was on the last copter, all right. As I said, all that can wait for later, first you'll receive treatment and then you'll be evacuated."

"I arrested him, he helped the prisoner escape ... and then Ray –"

"That's enough Toni," Hannah interrupted gently. "The colonel doesn't need to know that now. I'll see to it that he's treated, sir, although what he says is true. Toni arrested Ian because he believes he helped a prisoner escape. The prisoner, Kaiser's his name, then entered our camp and cut our mate's throat."

As the colonel heard her speak he slowly began to suspect that he had made a blunder. He had made that very same mistake more than thirty years ago, when he took the words of a soldier to be true without speaking to the other party involved. A sergeant had stood at court-martial for that error, although thankfully there had been no conviction. He had promised himself he would never again be "impregnated through his ears", as the saying went.

_Oh well, I did it again_ , he realized, and cursed his own foolishness.

Turning to Dennis, he found the major observing him with an amused expression. His eyes appeared to be saying that it wasn't yet too late.

"Well," he decided, thinking hard, "so you're not really interested in leaving, are you, Toni?"

The cadet's eyes widened slightly, and then he gave a short nod.

"No sir. I faced one of these Suits personally, and I know none of you are ready for what's coming."

"Not entirely true, but I'd appreciate your input anyway."

With their more seriously injured patient temporarily out of the way, the orderlies began to focus on the task of addressing the cadet's injuries.

As he watched them work, marveling at the injuries and how they had already begun to knit back together by themselves, he received a call from his second-in-command.

"Colonel, the time you wanted? You're not going to get it. The Unmil successfully captured one of the captains and has set off with him in hand. I suspect it has ceased harassing the companies and is returning to the trail, and I expect it will be arriving at Fido within the next four or five hours."

"I see," he breathed. "I guess that was all for naught. Tell the boys to remote-detonate, clump together and standby for evac."

"Standby for wha–"

"EVAC!" the colonel roared, angrier by the second. "Do as I say. I'll take care of the rest. Understood?"

As soon as he was certain that the fool understood him, Tora turned to his old friend.

"We're about to get into some aggressive negotiations with the next copter pilot to arrive. I expect you to do your best, Dennis."

"You can expect the worst ... I mean, the best of me!" the major answered with a sly grin.

### CHAPTER NINETEEN

**Base Fido, Nature's Day, 20** th **of June, 2771**

The boy opened his eyes, startled by the gentle prod.

"Sorry for the rude awakening, boy," Tora said gently, "but if I let you sleep you'll miss all the fun. I have a few questions ..."

Still groggy after only two hours of sleep, the youth blinked and rubbed his eyes vigorously.

"Understood, sir. Ask away."

Consulting the list they had compiled as the boy slept, he began to ask the questions, writing brief annotations of the answers as he did so.

What had the Unmil pilot been wearing? What language had he spoken? Had he managed to observe the interior of the Unmil Suit's interface cavity? Had there been a hydraulic interface of some kind? What weapons had it used? What were those weapons' natures, rate-of-fire and destructive capabilities? How fast could the Suits run and for how long? Was there some insight as to their intentions? Had anything he or others had done managed to damage the Unmil's armor?

The boy answered all questions more articulately and in greater detail than Tora would have expected, his brow furrowing occasionally as he thought hard or tried to remember some detail of the preceding days. The information he provided was more much detailed than Ian's, and the colonel was greatly surprised by the fact that the boy had actively sought his enemy out and engaged him while armed with what was clearly outdated weaponry. Unlike with Ian, there were no soft whispers in his mind as he wondered at the speaker's motivations, courage or honesty. The Miura boy was easy to read, and he was possessed of a natural aggressiveness that the colonel greatly admired. The cadet probably hadn't yet realized how unusual his behavior had been, nor how risky. That gave him a thought.

"Grew up on a farm, did we?" he asked.

The boy's eyes widened slightly and his head turned to the side like a curious hound, the question catching him unawares. Tora grinned and tried hard not to laugh.

"Y-yes, sir."

"Ahuh, pretty obvious."

"Sir, may I ask a question?"

"Go ahead. After the number I've asked you deserve one yourself."

"Why hasn't Sueli been evacuated yet?"

"Sorry about that, but we had to divert that copter to evacuate comrades from the Dogspine. With the wind rising and the enemy between us and them, our window of opportunity is closing. All non-essential personnel will be evacuated from here over the next two hours and she'll be among the first to leave."

"What happens after those two hours?"

"You know what will happen."

The boy's expression first became pained and then thoughtful.

"I saw those Hammerheads beyond on a dirt road. Is MEWAC here? I need to report to them."

"Those are EWAC Suits. MEWAC's in bits and pieces out on Lograin's airfield, awaiting evac to Leiben. You should be with them, and since you've already answered me as best you could, you soon will be. Especially since you have a sliver of poison on its way there. There's something not quite right with that boy, is there?"

"Sir, that's one way to put it. His mind's a mystery to me, but he _is_ dangerous. That much I know for sure. EWAC, right? Is there any chance they'd loan me a Suit?"

The colonel smiled.

"Loan an injured cadet from another outfit an operational Suit? I think not."

"Pity. I think I know how to kill it."

The colonel's eyebrows began to rise at the bold statement.

"Care to explain how?"

"Something the Suit's doing is causing our weapons to fail, making them not work the way they were made to. But a few days ago I saw a hammerhead drop a grenade as it retreated, and it detonated below the Unmil and sent it flying. That seemed to shake it up a bit. So I thought; if a small, well-placed grenade can do that, just imagine –"

"– what a bigger bomb can do, right?" the colonel finished for him. "A sort of mega-mine, am I right?" he added.

"Not quite, sir. Mines can certainly do some damage but their effectiveness depends on the enemy getting close enough. Maybe it will, or maybe it will find some other way around. What I think is, all Lasers are direct line-of-sight weapons, right? But grenades are by their nature indirect fire weapons. And this terrain must have some sweet spots where units may hide behind cover and do some serious throwing. So I was thinking that satchel charges could be improvised and thrown –"

"...and shot down by those Lasers' automatic firing capability. That –"

"No. There is no automatic fire capability if the Suit's on its back. I discovered that when I fired on Kaiser's Suit as it was lying on the ground that time. My missiles weren't powerful enough to get the job done, but heavy satchel charges thrown at it while it's incapacitated will get through and do serious damage, I think. Those mines would be useful if they could be remote-detonated, though. Then it doesn't have to step on them; the shock-wave alone would be enough to make the Suit hit the deck, and then our Suits could finish up."

The missing element to Dennis' plan suddenly slid into place. They had only gotten as far as the remote-detonated minefield that EWAC was emplacing over the base's south-eastern perimeter. Until then he had been betting on the possibility that the Suit would happen to wander close enough to one to get the grand-prize, but here was a chance to elevate the kill probability to something respectable. Dennis unglued his back from the prefabricated wall and peered at them with a smile.

"Looks like we're gonna need to do a little more of that combined-arms crap," he rasped.

The colonel turned to the boy.

"Incidentally, how's your throwing arm?" he asked.

"I'm a leftie, sir. It's just fine," the boy replied, death in his eyes.

The colonel liked what he saw there.

*****

Colonel Brunn Pienaar grinned from ear to ear as he listened, nodding curtly every time a particular point was made. The commander of EWAC appeared to be anything but an engineer, and Tora liked that about him. He was also game for the audacious plan.

"That sounds awesome! You know, every time EWAC goes on campaign you people never seem to know what to do with us. Usually you guys think we're here to dig you a bunch of trenches, right? But we are a combat arms by our own right; we even fight as infantry or armor if there's no alternative. And now there _is_ no alternative."

"What about the cadet's request?"

"We can do that. Two of our Suits are on their asses; their drivers popped their fuses and have already been evacced to Lograin. He can take one, and if you have someone else trained to drive a Suit, he can take the other."

Tora knew of one other, and made a mental note to ask for her assistance. Nodding to Pienaar, he bid his counterpart a momentary farewell and set off with his vice-commander in tow. Making a decision, he turned to Dale.

"Do you know a young woman by the name of Hannah Arakaki?"

The lieutenant-colonel appeared surprised by the question.

"Indeed I do."

"And do you know where she is?"

"Well, I presume she's still grinning like an idiot at her father's manse. At least, that's what she was doing the last time we met."

The colonel pursed his lips.

"Well, that's not quite up-to-date ..." he remarked, and then he explained.

"Oh lord ..." Arakaki exhaled, struck mute for a moment. His face then began to harden.

"Where is she?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Before I answer, I'd like to make something clear. She may be your niece or thereabouts, but she's MEWAC personnel first in my ledger. And as you may already have noticed, I wasn't born with a silver spoon stuck up my ass, so I don't care much about aristocrats' special dealings with one another. If I need to use her, I won't hesitate to give the order. And if you resist me on this I'll have you in cuffs and out of the way, seeing as up to now you've been about as much use to me as a well-trained monkey. And you won't be evacced either; you'll sit in a room until we're either victorious or smears on the ground. Understood?"

"Understood," he replied, his cold eyes saying, however, that he didn't understand at all.

The colonel sighed.

"She's in medical bay, sleeping in one of the cots. Wake her gently, alright? She's had a bad week."

But the lieutenant-colonel was already on his way.

It was difficult, sometimes, deciding on the right thing to do. He could have kept his mouth shut about the cadet, but his old habit of keeping his closest subordinates in the loop had taken over, and suddenly there was one more variable to consider.

Sighing at his own foolishness, he gave Dennis his orders and set off to medical bay again.

His fears were laid to rest as soon as medical came into view. Tora crossed paths with Dale as the lieutenant-colonel marched in the opposite direction, alone and with a redness in his cheeks that the crimson sun could not entirely explain. He didn't raise his eyes, preferring instead to curse the cadet he'd just left in a way that no family-member rightly should.

Tora smiled and entered the building.

He found the girl sitting stiffly on the cot she had been sleeping in, her arms just as crossed as her legs were. She turned her eyes towards him, and he momentarily saw her wrath there.

_What in the hell are they feeding cadets these days?_ he wondered as he put on an apologetic smile.

"My apologies, Sergeant-cadet, but I wasn't aware of the family feud until I had spoken the words. Although I've come to find this current generation of soldiers tends to resolve their family disputes by running off to the army."

"With due respect, Colonel, I didn't run off," she objected. "I am here with my father's blessing. As for the rest of the family, they were not a factor in this decision, nor will they ever be despite their foolish ideas."

"Sorry, but I am not here to meddle in your personal affairs. What I am doing here is offering you and Sergeant-cadet Miura the chance to participate in an act of divine vengeance. Are you game?" he asked with a wolfish grin.

The cadet slowly unthawed, and she uncrossed her arms as the full weight of the proposal came to her attention.

"We ... we can kill it?" she asked uncertainly, her blue eyes darting towards the compartment door beyond which Toni rested.

"You can try. There are two Hammerhead Suits that EWAC will be making available for you, although the only weapons you'll be using are still being put together by their personnel. They have six drivers who have never dealt with this thing before, so I have some expectations from your side. Get it?"

"Got it, sir," she replied, licking her lips.

"You are to get off your rears and meet up with the EWAC section right now. You can find them two hundred meters further up the road. They're expecting you, so don't waste their time."

He turned to leave and then changed his mind. Turning once more to the cadet he gave a parting shot.

"And tell that Miura something for me. His situation with the Templeton boy will be infinitely improved if he manages to kill the Unmil. That bakemono's destruction could make the difference between a medal and a firing squad. Understood?"

"Y-yes, sir."

"Good ..." he smiled his thanks and set off once more, mentally thanking Dale for being an idiot.

There was nothing more dangerous than a highly motivated soldier, and he felt he now had two instead of just one.

The next jaunt in his preparations took him to the war-materials deposit on the copterpad's opposite side, where EWAC personnel worked on the improvised weapons to be used in the coming engagement. The deposit was made up of three separate compartments that curved around a common area. The first was a small room dedicated to assorted detonators and fusing systems for EWAC personnel, whilst a larger had been dedicated to small and medium caliber ammunition for the ROWAC force, along with hand-grenades and anti-armor munitions. The largest compartment, however, housed the astonishing consignment of explosives that had been dedicated to the construction of the path and the setting of booby-traps. Several tables positioned at the center of the common area were surrounded by combat engineers, and soldiers kept entering and leaving the largest compartment, carrying heavy brown sacks over their shoulders. Those sacks were being fitted into large backpacks while the remaining personnel installed the fusing systems.

A captain who was overseeing the operation approached him and saluted, proving to be yet another EWAC captain whom Tora wasn't familiar with.

"Sir, Captain Van Dyke, Sir. I command the Fortification Section, sir."

"FORTSEC, right. That's the name of your Hammerhead section, isn't it?"

"Yessir. I'm overseeing the preparation of the charges, sir."

"Drop the sirs, alright Captain? You don't want you to tire yourself out before the fighting begins. But I would like you to give me an idea of how these charges work, if you don't mind."

Momentarily miffed at the colonel's comment, the captain nevertheless showed the frog-swallowing talent inherent to an officer and guided the colonel to the nearest table.

"DIMEs. Short for Dense Inert Metal Explosives. We're taking sacks filled with a granular explosive charge of octogen and fitting them into these travel packs –"

"Who did the travel packs originally belong to?" the colonel interrupted, throwing the captain off his explanation.

"Uh, we had to commandeer them from all EWAC personnel, sir," he replied before grimacing at having once again sirred his superior.

Some men simply failed to realize how much they entertained others with their antics. The colonel kept a serious face and shook his head in concern.

"That must have caused some serious problems, didn't it, Captain?"

"Oh yes, it did," the captain replied with a pained expression. "Even had some trouble convincing a few of the more senior corporals to hand them over."

"Horrible indeed. And what did you do with all their personal effects?"

"Well, sir. Um, we sort of overturned the packs onto a flatbed and sealed it."

"Ahuh. I wouldn't want to be nearby when they try and sort out what belongs to whom afterwards. What do you think?"

The captain's face was dead-serious.

"Neither would I. There'll be blood for sure."

Try as he might, the colonel was unable to keep the smile off his face. Clapping the soldier on his shoulder, he continued with the matter at hand.

"Alright then, what's a DIME?"

"They're explosive charges filled with very fine tungsten powder. Doing that gives the charge less brisance but more pushing power per square-centimeter of surface area. Also good for seriously damaging any ocular devices within its range."

"Are all the charges made that way?"

"No, sir. We're rigging about half of the packs with DIMEs and lacing a blue cord to the fusing system to distinguish them from the more conventional charges."

"Conventional as in conventional explosives?"

"Yessir. The remainder have only octogen as its main charge. Their cord is red, sir."

"Where'd you get the cords?"

"They're actually armbands, our boys like to carry them to recognize each other in combat. Blue is for the Mobility Company and red for the Counter-mobility boys."

"Understood. Just give me a moment to observe," he finally told the captain.

After a few minutes, the colonel began to understand the methodology. The travel packs were fitted with an eleven kilo-mass sack of explosives at its base. A hand-grenade, which a separate team had modified by cutting away its handling lever, was then placed upon the sack and a length of nanowire snapped onto its grenade-pin. The nanowire was then threaded through two more sacks as they were also fitted into the pack, before finally being clipped to an armband of the appropriate color on the opposite side. The pack's cover was then closed and carefully sealed with duct-tape, with the armband sticking out of the orifice meant for its water tube. The end result was an explosive device of about 34 kilo-mass for a red-cord and 56 kilo-mass for a blue-cord.

"You think the travel packs will stand up to a Suit's handling?"

"Easily, Colonel. They're tough, they were designed to provide some protection against flack. That's why we wanted them so bad," the captain replied.

And the fusing system is reliable?"

"We tested it with a partially-deactivated grenade and sacks of soil. We finally got a fuse to pop after a good yank. The Suits are easily strong enough to pull the grenade-pin right out of the pack, but the damage to the sacks isn't going to affect their ability to detonate. The tests also made us realize the only way to get it to pull reliably was to tighten the sacks inside their pack as much as possible. That way the grenade's length is perpendicular to the pull direction, since it's being pressed between the sacks. Hence the duct-tape, sir."

"Nice. How many charges?"

"Depends, sir. Depends on when the Unmil arrives, mostly. The completed charges are soon going to be stacked outside along the deposit's wall. We expect at least fifty within the next hour."

"If that doesn't get the job done, nothing will ..." the colonel thought aloud.

The captain remained quiet for a moment, before the need to speak overcame him.

"Sir, what are the chances of these charges being effective against the Unmil?"

"Sincerely? I'm a little upset that our travel packs aren't a bit more spacious."

The captain looked discouraged. Sighing, Tora decided to throw him a bone.

"Listen, Captain. Two MEWAC cadets who survived the debacle at the mines are on their way to your drivers. They've both had personal experience regarding what's coming our way, and if you want more information regarding your enemy, then Miura's the one to talk to. You're also going to be their commanding officer for the coming engagement. They volunteered to drive your two unoccupied Suits. Understood?"

"Understood, sir," the captain quietly answered.

Van Dyke kept the colonel company for the following five minutes as they inspected the weapons' assembly until, hurriedly excusing himself, the captain left for the dirt road. The colonel had a suspicion the officer was on a mission to find the cadets.

Abandoning the deposit, the old colonel made his way back to his bunker, where he found a sulking Dale staring at a map.

"I don't want to talk about it," the lieutenant-colonel said without raising his head.

"Good. I don't want to hear about it," the colonel answered cheerfully.

"Your major's back from the frontline. He decided to pull your entire complement of praetorians and pile them on the northern and southern shoulders of the Dogspine."

"Good. I told him to."

"He also decided to remark the map using your user-profile."

"Good. I told him to."

"You might have been kind enough to tell me to do that!" he suddenly barked.

"And I would have," Tora calmly replied, "had you not shown greater interest in arguing with your niece. Do you understand the reason for my orders?"

Dale rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"Yes. I guess you pulled the bots so they'd be out of FORTSEC's way, but left them in a position where they can still harass the Unmil to their hearts' desire."

"Correct. And the maps will shortly be uploaded to FORTSEC and redirected to their Suits, thus allowing them to know the minefield's location, as well as their ideal defensive positions based on terrain curvature. Dennis, how is our minefield?"

"Up but not yet running," Haven replied from his bench outside the commander's compartment, rubbing his knees as he spoke. "They're unrolling and camouflaging the lead-wires back here to Command. Pienaar apparently wants to use our bunker as his base-of-fire."

"And he's welcome to it," Tora replied. "It'll save us the trouble of comm difficulties and lag-time."

"It also puts both EWAC and ROWAC commanders in the same spot of a combat theatre, in plain violation of Army doctrine," Dale interjected, forcing the colonel to do a moment's thought.

"I'll allow it," Tora finally decided. "Doctrine is not absolute, and it is certainly better to have two commanders in a hardened bunker than one outside of it, especially if the mission's chances of success increase as a result."

Tora took advantage of the time to inform them of the deposit's state of preparations, and of Toni's and Hannah's recruitment to FORTSEC. The lieutenant-colonel simply shook his head when he heard of the development, and prudently refrained from voicing his opinion on the matter.

Over the course of the following hour, the diverse elements of their plan began to click into place. Exceeding their initial expectations, a hundred pack charges had been improvised and transported to their expected locations of use via flatbed trucks. Aside from the four Hammerheads that had remained at the frontline to assist in mine emplacement, the remainder had, after unexplained delay, finally settled into their initial positions along the entire front. More than a hundred lead-wires had been laid and camouflaged, converging on the carefully disguised Command bunker and feeding into an EWAC control console, where a simple switching system would allow remote-detonation of any of the hundred and three improvised landmines at a moment's notice.

From the ROWAC side of things, all preparations had also been completed. After careful consideration, the old colonel had decided to remove from combat all bots not tasked to the anti-armor role and elected to evacuate them on foot to Lograin. This left the cramped heights that flanked their chosen frontline bristling with bot anti-armor teams, their rockets having proven to be ineffective, yet still hopefully capable of providing a lethal distraction for their enemy. Also nestled into the mountain face and expertly camouflaged were two remote camera sensors, providing secure video and audio feed via electronically shielded cables. Those cameras were ROWAC's eyes in the field and their location provided ideal overwatch over the entire frontline.

All that remained was to wait as all systems were checked and rechecked, and the colonel took advantage of the time to send an update to Lograin, taking care to detail how the MEWAC cadets had been debriefed and recycled into FORTSEC. He tried not to overdo the report, conscious that to do so would be to take a departure from impartiality that could later bite him in the rear.

"Colonel, Lograin reports one of its drones has been destroyed over Fido. Our guest's apparently not far off."

Tora gave up writing his report and entered the war room, pausing to take a good, long look at the video streaming in before taking his seat at the head of the table. To his right sat Colonel Pienaar, who was junior to him, and to his left was Dale. The only other sitter was Pienaar's vice-commander, a lieutenant-colonel with a name so complicated that he'd settled on calling him "comrade" for the time being. The remaining officers and aides mostly stood to accommodate their number in the cramped quarters, Dennis having barely managed to commandeer a spot of real estate to place his stool.

"Has there been anything of note on our images?" he asked no one in particular.

"Nothing, sir," a captain answered.

"Contact Lograin and get the precise hour their bird got shot down. Then check our infrared feed at that hour –"

"That won't be necessary, sir ..." the captain interrupted.

There was something strange about the way he said it, and the colonel quickly followed his gaze to the live feed displayed on a separate screen. There in color, in the forefront of a grove of trees reaching to spaulder level, stood an armored Suit, as static as a statue and as great as a god. At first he thought it was his imagination, but as the moment passed he became certain. Its helm was swiveling slowly, slowly, as if surveying the terrain before it.

"Transmit the feed to Lograin," the colonel whispered, as if the Suit would somehow hear him if he spoke loudly enough. The image was pixelated and the screen's palette of color was somewhat pastel, but he still noticed something resting upon its breastplate, and it –

"It suspects something ..." the major quipped from his stool, causing the entire room to wince at his loudness.

The Suit continued to slowly observe its surroundings and Tora's anxiety rose, knowing full well that the nearest mines were only tens of meters away. He leaned towards Pienaar.

"What's the nearest mine?"

"A17. We're already ahead of you. It needs only take a few steps forward and we'll send the fucker back into orbit."

The Suit continued to slowly turn its helm until finally it faced forwards and ceased to move entirely. A full minute passed by, making it clear to Tora that the Unmil would not be easy prey.

The ground before it suddenly bloomed up and outwards, filling the entire screen, the vision quickly followed by a tremendous shudder that shook the bunker violently enough to rattle the logs against one other.

"Sir. Mines A16, A17 and A18 have detonated simultaneously!" he heard an EWAC captain shout.

"What's the meaning of this?! Pull the image out! Get a fix on that Suit!" Tora ordered, shouting to make himself heard above the noise.

"Tora ..." Pienaar stated simply, showing him the pen-key he still held in his hand, the one that he had been about to insert into the com-con to initiate the nearest mine.

"If it wasn't you ..." the colonel breathed. He turned to his comms officer, and the lieutenant answered his question before he had a chance to ask it.

"Strong electromagnetic interference emanating from the contact since the first moment of detonation, sir. It sent out a pulse –"

"– and the inducing effect was enough to force a current through the nearest lead-wires and into their detonators!" Pienaar exclaimed.

The cameras had zoomed out but the dust cloud was gigantic and filled their screens. Turning again to his comms officer, he ordered the man to contact FORTSEC. The lieutenant turned to his EWAC counterpart, who simply shook his head.

"Comms disabled due to enemy interference, sir."

" _Incoming!_ " someone suddenly barked.

The missile shot through the dust cloud and streaked off-screen in a fraction of a second. A moment later the bunker ceiling partly caved in as a tremendous shock-wave struck the fortification. Barbed wire snaked and coiled along the logs, making tearing sounds Tora's concussed mind could barely register, until a loud snapping sound punctuated the abrupt end of his life.

### CHAPTER TWENTY

**Base Fido, Nature's Night, 21** st **of June, 2771**

Toni gave the Hammerhead a long, hard look, the problem before him having finally presented itself. There was no orifice for opening the titan's breastplate, and its large and heavy frame made plain to him what he hadn't considered when accepting the colonel's proposal; the Hammerhead was an entirely different species from the Moca Suit, and he simply hadn't the training or experience to operate it. He didn't, in fact, even know how to access its interface cavity.

"You gonna keep screwing it with your eyes? Get in, rook," Jonah ordered as she stowed her gear in a plastic duffel bag, her travel pack's fate having already been tragically sealed.

"There's just one problem, corporal. How do I get inside?"

She paused in the midst of her activities and remained there for a while, taking the remark in and slowly realizing what it implied. She had been on the juice for a while, and her jaw bulged before it met her ears in a very masculine way, a trait in stark contrast to her full lips and feminine pose.

"How in the hell _wouldn't_ you know?" she asked bitingly.

"I've only ever been trained in the Moca. Never drove a Hammerhead before."

"So the Suit you faced the Unmil with ..."

"... Was a Moca, yes."

"Fucking rooks!" she exclaimed angrily as she shook her shaved skull. "You're missing an arm and haven't the slightest idea of how to get into a Hammerhead, much less dri–"

"He has a very good idea how to drive a hammer ..." Park interrupted, oblivious to the drama. "That's what the Moca's for, don't you remember?"

The man had enough muscle on him to make Jonah look scrawny, but Toni had quickly realized that he possessed the more moderate disposition between the two EWAC corporals. Toni had also become conscious of the fact that his being a sergeant-cadet carried absolutely no weight with either, his unofficial rank of "rook" having promptly relegated him to a category below human.

"You need the appropriate pen-key, rook, yours just won't do," Park informed the cadet levelly. There was something about the man, probably the wide lion-like interval between his Korean eyes, that made Toni want to turn away. But he didn't, giving him a firm nod instead.

"How do I get one?"

The corporal smiled.

"You simply use the one your predecessor left behind when he stroked out," he replied, tossing the device to a surprised Toni.

"Sorry 'bout that. Didn't know he was dead."

"Dead? Oh no, the dickhead's alive enough, but he's probably not going to have it easy for a while. You better learn from his mistake. If you tighten your straps too much and keep hard at it for long enough without rest, once you loosen them again you might be sending a blood clot on its way to your thinker. Understood?"

"Yes, sir. Where do I insert it?"

"Up its ass, of course. No, no, I'm just kidding, cadet, leave that alone. There's no insert for your pen-key; you just touch the stick against one of its oculars and infrared comms will do the rest. The user-manual's in a compartment in the cavity's left flank. Give it a quick read-through, but focus on the customizable settings, 'cause you're probably going to have to make some in-stride adjustments."

The moment Toni touched the pen-key against the bowed helm's left ocular there was a swoosh of hydraulics, and the thorax's access doors opened before him like twin petals, exposing what was by his standards a very spacious interior.

His view of its hydraulic interface was partly obscured by a wide sternum the access doors locked into when they shut, and as he clambered onto the titan's kneepad he became aware of its impressive thickness. The doors themselves, which when closed constituted about the only frontal armor he could reasonably expect to protect him, proved to be of even greater thickness, and a side view made it clear to him that they were laminated, spaced and well-backed. Awesome.

"Your diapers, rook!" Toni heard from behind.

Expecting literal diapers, he turned to find Jonah offering him several new Scopolamine patches. Taking them from her outstretched hand, he thanked her, only to have her sniff disapprovingly and turn away. The patches were thicker than he was used to, and he realized they were meant for five-day jaunts. He almost wished they _had_ been diapers.

Almost.

The Hydraulic interface appeared much sleeker than that of the Mocas', with its wires and piping conveniently secured and protected in adhesive cable organizers, and the suit's strapping system was much sturdier, having apparently been conceived for aggressive maneuvering. And so the old problem arose once more; the tighter the fit, the more precise the interface was, but the greater the chances of constriction of the circulatory system. Toni remembered Kaiser's uniform, and of how it had appeared to possess a thin layer of some protective liquid beneath it. They seemed to be on the right track there.

Finding his predecessor's spare uniform jammed into the compartment Park had referred to, Toni pulled it on over his own in the hope that the straps' constrictive effect would somehow lessen that way, feeling only stiffness in his arm where days ago he had felt pain. He then removed the pristine user-manual from its plastic wrapping, leaned against the cavity's tilted floor and began to do some heavy reading.

It wasn't long before he realized his initial impressions of the Suit had been wrong; the Hammerhead had apparently been conceived to more closely emulate human maneuverability, and as a result it relied on more than just germane as its pneumatic gas of choice. Germane was apparently also known as germanium hydride, and above a certain temperature it decomposed into amorphous germanium and hydrogen gas. The hydrogen was then recycled and stored in a separate tank for use in powering a significant portion of the Suit's artificial muscles.

Thus germane was employed in slow-twitch PAMs for greater power due to its high gaseous density, while hydrogen was employed in fast-twitch PAMs for greater speed due to its high fluidity, and the ratio of G to H could be decreased by passing the gas through a resistance and storing the resulting solid. The Suit possessed two different types of CAT, as well as a specialized compartment between them intended to store all excess germanium. Also within that compartment was an apparatus that manufactured germane gas by extracting Hydrogen from one tank, heating it in the presence of the amassed solid, and depositing the final product in the other. It was known as a GH reactor, and its activity was closely linked to the battery of compressors that partly encircled it. Among the first in-stride adjustments he would soon be expected to make was to follow the OS's instructions, maneuvering the Suit until the ideal ratio of slow-to-fast twitch PAMs could be calculated, as well as their precise locations in the general muscle structure.

It was all fairly impressive, but Toni could only remember how easily the MEWAC Suits had exploded into crimson flames that day at the mines. _Germane burns with a bright red flame_ , he reminded himself.

Peering once more at the interface cavity above and around him, Toni tried to memorize its interior. Its almost spherical wall was well-padded with square panels of beige-colored foam and, aside from reinforced tubing that snaked up the HINT's articulated support crane and into the roof, was entirely devoid of the innards he'd become accustomed to seeing inside the Moca. The crane itself possessed some padding of its own around its sharper corners, although its hydraulic cylinders, much more robust in section and length than their equivalents in the Moca, were still plainly visible to his admiring eyes. A few panels were bordered in bright orange, and their centers were covered in writing that explained what could be accessed behind it; RIGHT DOOR HYDRAULIC NODE – DO NOT CUT, GENERAL ELECTRICAL GRID – RISK OF ELECTROCUTION, DANGER – LIVE WEAPON INSIDE, among others. The only exception consisted of a small transparent panel inside of which was a pen-key insert and the door controls.

"Hey there, Mr. Tardy!" an ecstatic voice sounded from below, causing Toni to smile.

"Hey there yourself, Happyface! So, do you like your new partner?"

True to her handle, Hannah beamed up at him from between the titan's kneepads, clearly exhilarated at the state-of-the-art war-maker she had just been handed.

" _You're_ my new partner. Didn't you know?" she quipped, causing him to blush.

Her happy face momentarily became serious.

"Toni, I know what the colonel said about sorting out that business with Ian, but that's no reason to go berserk out there. Remember what Baylen keeps saying ..."

"The Pair is the army's smallest unit, I know," he replied seriously. "I don't have any plans to die today, Hannah."

Hannah was about to say something else, but an EWAC captain's sudden arrival cut her short.

"Cadet Miura? Please come down," he ordered curtly.

Toni clambered down from his unit and approached the captain uneasily. Not bothering to salute due to not having donned an appropriate head-covering, he stood instead at attention before the officer and awaited recognition.

"At ease, cadet, let's leave formalities aside. And, Arakaki, you stay too. I have a few questions to ask, and I need them answered within the hour."

"Uh, sir, I've been doing a lot of that today, I don't know what else to say."

"Listen. These Unmils, they're humans, right? What are they like? What are they here for?"

Before Toni could answer, Park appeared and warned the captain that Command was waiting on them to deploy. Irritably waving the corporal away, the perspiring captain focused on the cadet before him once more, apparently not caring in the least for his superiors' order-of-operations. The senior corporal gave his commanding officer a long, expressionless stare before finally departing for his unit.

"Sir, they are definitely human. One of them is already dead, so they can most definitely be killed, and they're not adapted to our planet's gravity or atmosphere like we are. And if I didn't get it wrong, they're basically here to annex Capicua to Earth, and they've no problem in wiping out our capital to get it done, sir."

"They're not willing to compromise, then? At all?" he asked tensely.

"I don't think they really need to, sir ..." he replied, beginning to doubt the officer's nerve.

"Right ..." the captain declared with a skyward glance.

Toni tried to reassure the captain, but the officer cut him short and ordered them to Suit up and run through the setup sequence. He could see the alarm on Hannah's face as they turned to their units, but he suddenly remembered something that caused him to turn once more.

"Sir? We don't know our call-signs yet ..."

The captain took a long while to think on it before finally answering.

"Right, you're Digger Three and the other's is Digger Five. You'll stay paired up with Park like your predecessor was, and Five will be with Jonah."

"Sir, I'd prefer to –"

"You'd prefer nothing, cadet! I'm not pairing up a couple of rookies with no walking experience an hour before combat! Get to your Suits!" he roared, scaring the notion out of Toni's mind like a bat from a twilit cave.

"Yessir!" he hollered and snapped about smartly, earning himself a stifled snort of laughter from his fellow cadet.

Accelerating to a jog, Toni leapt upon a buckled kneepad and into the cavity's lobby, pausing to hurriedly insert the pen-key into its slot, seal the doors and stow the manual before finally laying his back snugly against the HINT. He then carefully inserted one leg at a time into the device, strapping both securely in before doing the same with his arms, and lastly with his abdominal and thoracic bindings. After checking his straps carefully for their tightness, he pulled down and donned the light-weight helmet and facemask.

"Activate Suit!" he ordered.

The graphic display made him feel like he had just fast-forwarded a full century, and when he ordered outside-visual the image quality left Toni almost immersed in his surroundings. The foreground display prompts were comparatively streamlined, but their organization greatly resembled the Mocas' and he quickly initiated the customization process. Hannah's Digger Five, which had only moments ago been kneeling on his left side, was already beginning to move and, not wishing to retain his notorious handle, Toni rushed through the ocular calibration and ordered biomechanical diagnostics to initiate.

"Initiating bio-diagnostics," his sister's sweet voice began. "Your full cooperation is fundamental for successful calibration. Please stand!"

Armored gauntlets pressed against Digger Three's left kneepad as he heaved upwards, and he felt the HINT straps pressing against his extremities and shoulders as the device's hydraulic interface fought his effort to stand. Moments later he was ordered to return to position one and then, once again, to stand. The second effort proved easier. He followed the computer's instructions very diligently over the entire process, fully aware that, although the OS was conceived to keep a running diagnostic on its driver and update its settings accordingly, he would probably find himself in the midst of battle before his ideal ratio had been reached.

"Here Digger Prime, Diggers inform romeo conditions, over."

As the silence stretched out Toni began to wonder whether he was supposed to be the first to sound off. A crackling voice corrected him of the thought.

"Here Digger Two, romeo conditions fine," Park's calm voice hailed over the comm.

"Here Digger Three, conditions fine," Toni reported cautiously.

"Here Digger Four, comm fine," Jonah reported.

"Here Digger Five, romeo comms fine," Hannah sounded enthusiastically.

Toni smiled and peered to his left, where Hannah's Digger Five was on its pads and eagerly flexing its upper appendages. He prayed her armor would hold, but as he did so an image of Sueli hugging her severed leg momentarily flashed before his eyes, earning him a warning from his OS as it registered the brief palpitation of his heartbeat.

"Form a single column behind my unit's position," Digger Prime ordered, and a Hammerhead that strode south-easterly on the dirt road lifted its massive gauntlet skywards, its index digit protruding.

All units walked and took up positions on the leading Digger's rearguard, and Toni marveled at the fresh fluidity of his movements. Had he not strapped himself in only moments before, he mightn't have believed that he was currently encased in a HINT. He had barely taken up position behind Digger Two before they were off at marching speed.

One and a half kilometers further on, after having passed by the deposit and then a Command Bunker surrounded by decoys, wiring and camouflage nets, the column finally arrived at the point where the path and frontline intersected. To their left was an improvised staging area where armored Suits loitered among several flat-bed trucks, and where pack charges had been laid out on the ground as if in formation, eight columns of twelve or thirteen devices each. Digger Prime then had the entire section huddle and instructed them on the nature and function of their new weapons, before giving them the opportunity to do practice throws with duffel bags packed with the appropriate weight in rocks.

And so, after fifteen minutes' worth of practice, where the Suits settled into opposite sides of the clearing to launch their improvised practice grenades at one other, all Diggers were finally permitted to snap on lower-torso webbing and attach their charges securely to it. Toni's allotted grenades consisted of twelve of the rigged travel packs, six of them red-cords.

"You know, I think I just got my own travel pack handed back to me ..." Toni heard Park mutter over their private comm channel.

"Don't despair, Two, if you leave it for last you might not need to toss it," he shot back, and was rewarded with a chuckle and accusations of being an optimist.

Shortly after, Toni's OS privileged him with an up-to-date virtual map of the surrounding area, and all titans momentarily stopped whatever they were doing as their drivers studied the chart, taking special note of the minefield's location and of their designated starting points.

"FORTSEC, take your positions," Digger Prime finally ordered.

Encumbered with the four charges that Toni hadn't managed to strap on to his webbing, Digger Three strode towards his designated spot, situated only a few dozen meters north of the path and behind a bump in the terrain. The remaining Hammerheads also dispersed to their locations, some raising their closed gauntlets in salutation to each another, all appearing pregnant due to their protruding payloads. Studying the map again, Toni realized that Diggers Two, Three, Seven and Eight bracketed the path where it became MEWAC's axis of retreat, the remaining Suits having been dispersed along the front in much lower density.

His hair crawled as he suddenly realized what that meant. Some brain in the bunker had probably realized that the Unmil would appear while following that axis, and had decided to place his most senior or combat-experienced assets at its flanks. Which put Toni smack in the expected center of action yet again. The coward in him sighed tremulously and, getting down on a kneepad, he compulsively surveyed his unstrapped weapons.

Having decided to favor mobility, Toni had clipped the six lighter reds and two blues onto his lower torso, which left him with four DIME charges for the initial ambush, after which he would have to make do with whatever he could easily carry in hand and webbing. And he knew the enemy Suit would probably not remain still long enough for all four devices to be thrown. He also disliked the charges' lightness of weight, finding himself disappointed that the travel packs hadn't more space for explosives.

The thought gave him an idea.

He clipped the packs two-to-two and, unpocketing one of the oversized rolls of duct tape the engineers appeared to carry on their Suits at all times, he reinforced the union and then overlapped the blue armbands' extremities from opposite ends, bonding them together.

As he proudly surveyed the product of his labor, his private comm panel blinked on once more.

"Whatcha doin' there, pilgrim?"

Park apparently had a thing for the legendary American west.

"There probably won't be time to lob all our excess charges, so I'm preparing double-whammies."

"Of course you realize you haven't drilled to throw anything that heavy ..."

Toni shook his head, the act emulated by his Suit's hammerhead as the OS processed the data from his helmet's gyroscope.

"From what I noticed in our session, those duffel grenades weighed in between a redcord and a bluecord, and varied a lot between them. Added to that, I couldn't even throw with full force, every time I did that the duffels would tear or hit the trees on the other side. So I'd say I haven't been drilled in throwing any real grenades anyway, so I don't care. All I know is that I don't like leaving grenades behind, and this way the first detonations will be felt."

He was met by silence, although twenty meters away and behind a dense growth of trees, he heard the sound of duct tape being deployed. Smiling to himself, Toni decided to also pair up the charges he had strapped on, the task taking him the best part of ten minutes before all was finally done and returned to place. He then gripped a pair of blue-cord packs in his considerable gauntlet and began to burn the time until contact.

His position had been wisely chosen, not only because the curvature of the terrain favored concealment, but also because the tall trees that grew there offered shade to the entire area, diminishing several detection factors simultaneously. All that was left was for him to minimize the remaining and most important detection factor of all. Movement.

Statically he awaited the Unmil's arrival, scanning the treetops to the south-east for any movements not windborne as his active mind, starved of the nootropics it had become accustomed to, tried not to wander. Trying also to gain some situational awareness, Toni studied the map and attempted to correspond what he saw there to the landmarks surrounding him. His eyes soon fell on the minefield, which began a hundred and fifty meters further on and was a good hundred deep. What he saw there made him groan.

One couldn't reasonably have expected the engineers to emplace two hundred and forty one tons of explosives, in over a hundred different locations and within the course of a few hours, and have simultaneously expected them to camouflage them effectively. The ground was smooth and appeared untrodden, for sure, but it hadn't been covered with vegetation and the sappers' solution had apparently been to spread the excess dirt over the entire area. It was an understandable thing to do, since that way the precise location of each mine was a mystery, but if his enemy possessed any similarity to Kaiser at all, he would certainly find an alternative path around.

A sudden loud snap in the distance caught his attention and his body tensed brusquely in its interface, causing his Suit to shudder slightly. Sorely tempted to break the radio silence that had been ordered almost an hour ago, he decided instead to lower his profile and sharpen his eyes.

"You see something?" Park suddenly asked from his position on loudspeaker. "Can't see shit with these trees in my face."

Taking a moment to first moderate his loudspeaker's volume, Toni answered him in a low voice.

"Nothing. But something might have fallen from the sky. I'm seeing a streak of smoke up there. Pretty far away, though."

"Ahuh. I see it. Can't be it, too fresh."

"Maybe – I have visual on contact directly ahead!" Toni breathed, his heart skipping a beat.

Three hundred meters beyond his position, near the maximum probable range of a grenade throw, stood the enemy Suit, proud and tall and drenched in blood. Hanging from its gorget like an oversized neck-tie, was a bloodied and mangled corpse clad in ROWAC's pixilated cammo fatigues.

The corpse swayed ever so slightly in the strong wind and Toni watched, horrified, and tried to understand the mind of the pilot who had hung it there. The attempt failed. Kaiser he could understand, but not this.

_This is something else, someone else entirely_ , he suddenly realized, and a cold fear gripped him as the monster silently surveyed the terrain before it.

_This isn't gonna work!_ His mind screamed as he began to careen towards panic. Once he arrived there, however, the dark stranger inside opened an eyelid and bid everything turn to ice. The storm in his mind suddenly abated, and he found himself gripping the double-pack charge almost to the point of tearing its tough fabric. Relaxing his grip, he peered out towards his enemy and willed his fear to die away, until all that remained was the grim realization that he was laying his eyes on the bringer of his death. He decided to accept that truth, knowing that he wouldn't be able to move a muscle otherwise, remembering that he hated cowards more than he would hate to die.

With a luminous flash, three sudden plumes of soil sprouted into the sky, uniting at the speed of sound into a wall of earth and blocking the enemy Suit entirely from his sight. The following moment the concussive shockwaves reached him and, despite his semi-prone position behind the shelter, his Hammerhead was almost lifted into the air. The noise to his right made it plain that Park's unit, more exposed as it was to the elements, had impacted violently against the ground.

He began to count the seconds through clenched teeth, each one an opportunity to attack not taken advantage of. When he reached five he snapped, pulled the pair of blue cords from the device in his hand, and lobbed it out towards the rising dust cloud. The throw was better than he had expected it to be, but no sooner had it reached the cloud than, still high above the ground and quickly descending, it detonated spectacularly.

"What?" Toni had time to say, before an arriving Park explained his error for him.

"Three to four seconds, you fool! That's the delay time of the hand-grenades we're using to initiate these charges. Just 'cause you can throw that far doesn't mean it'll get there." His Suit was still covered in soil from his fall, but his voice remained calm nevertheless.

"But if our expected range is two hundred meters, then we were too far back to begin with –" he began, but his conclusion was cut short by a streaking missile that punched through the dust cloud and roared over their heads.

A moment later, a painfully intense flash of light filled his field of vision and the remainder of the minefield detonated simultaneously, lifting an entire wall of earth into the sky and then towards them. Toni barely had time to throw himself into the ground before the collection of shockwaves reached them with the power of a small nuclear weapon. His unit was launched backwards, uprooted trees crashing around his rolling frame as he lost notion of his horizon. He came to a sudden stop at the roots of a particularly sturdy pine tree, which nevertheless balanced back and forth like a metronome in slow motion. Then another shockwave, one with less weight behind it but far more snap, collided against his reclined form and the trees that surrounded him, and the majority of the old pine's branches came crashing violently to the ground.

All the forest's leaves fell like confetti and Toni felt somehow he had had such a vision before, a lifetime ago when two thermonuclear weapons had changed his life.

_You're dead_ , the stranger in his mind informed him gleefully, _it doesn't matter if you die, 'cause you're already dead_.

He knew what the voice was implying; it was time to find the monster and kill it. And after that was over and done with he would go find Ian and kill him too. The thought brought a cruel smile to his lips, and he stood once more, noticing that his second blue-cord charge was nowhere to be seen.

Nor was Park, for that matter.

Pulling a red-cord double-whammy from his webbing, he gripped it firmly and lowered his center-of-mass, and then he set off back to his initial position to reestablish visual with the bakemono.

As he laid his eyes once more on the remains of the minefield, he found a wall of dust one kilometer across rising high into the sky, where the savage winds were proceeding to demolish it. Without a second thought he stepped into it, his visibility suddenly diminishing to no more than a few meters. Forwards he marched, heedless of the risk, eager to meet the alien who was tearing his world apart.

Because whatever its form, he absolutely refused to consider it human. And that made it all so much easier, since once something was no longer human there was no need to speak of honor or fair treatment. He understood what Ray had done for the first time, and knew also what logic had made his friend kill the dark man in the first place. If only he had done the same to Kaiser, his mate might still be alive for two Earthlings dead. There was a lesson hidden in there somewhere; no good deed goes unpunished, no need to be the good guy, not authorized to be a hero, no –

Snapping and ripping sounds suddenly made themselves heard, and he bounded blindly towards its source, managing only to plunge into the massive hole left by a landmine's detonation. Collapsing onto his kneepads, he twisted into a roll and smacked his backplate against the sodden ground at its center. The force of the impact caused him to pendulate in his HINT for the briefest of moments, making it clear that he had probably not been too far from double-slamming against the cavity's rear wall.

More snaps and suddenly Toni was roaring as he rolled onto his four appendages, and he coursed his way out of the fosse in bounding strides, leaving a twisted and torn double-whammy behind to soak in the muddy water. Pulling another charge from its webbing, he bounded over the terrain, falling twice as his body slowly became accustomed to maneuvering and compromising with the new HINT. A louder snap, followed by a crimson fireball that illuminated the haze directly ahead, made it clear to him what was happening. Passing the double-whammy from left hand to right, he accelerated to maximum velocity until a silhouette became plain before his eyes.

It was too large to be a Hammerhead.

It turned suddenly towards him but it was too late; Toni had already pulled the red armbands out of his charge the moment after the switch from one hand to the other, and he slammed the device high upon the upper thorax of his enemy as frame collided against frame. The detonation was catastrophic, and Digger Three's right appendage blew apart as the force of the explosion separated both Suits as quickly as they had united.

Toni screamed in pain, the HINT's violent flurry as it emulated its synchronized appendage's final moment causing old wounds to tear. He double-slammed against the cavity's interior and then the Suit collided against the ground, the interface crane's pendulation wreaking havoc in his inner ears as he tried to stop his roll and recover. Finally sliding to a stop, he peered at his right appendage, finding only a stump at his elbowpad, loose PAMs diverging from his spaulder like fat bananas and loosely surrounding their endoskeletal gas conveyors. It looked like Mr. Fandango's Class of Fucking Robot Anatomy.

"STERBEN!" he suddenly heard screamed from a very loud loudspeaker, and he rolled instinctively as brilliant lines of white light flashed all around him.

Finding his feet, he fixed his eyes on the source of the light-show and pulled another double-whammy from his webbing. He attempted to pull the red-band, discovering that he had no hand to pull it with. His next instinct, pulling the band with his teeth, failed due to the Hammerhead not possessing such an innovation. All that remained as the laser pulses closed in on him was to place the band between his kneepads and give the packs a stiff pull. He then lobbed the grenade towards his adversary and threw himself into the dirt. The detonation caused Toni's Suit to slide, and he dug his stump into the ground to anchor him firmly there.

Wobbling slightly, Toni stood again and rushed forwards in desperate search of his adversary, finding the Unmil on its knees attempting to re-shoulder its rifle. Forgetting the grenades, he rushed his adversary and launched a vicious kick towards its helm, only to discover that it somehow no longer had one. It was with his trailing appendage that he finally struck the Suit, causing him to lose balance and plow into the ground on the other side and onto his right spaulder.

Abandoning long-range combat, he wrapped his remaining appendages around his adversary's lower body and tried to kick the rifle from its gripping gauntlets. Several failed attempts later, Toni realized that its musculature and structure were way beyond those of any Hammerhead, and it inexorably turned to face him as if wrestling with a child. The monster finally released its weapon and grabbed a firm hold of him by his webbing, and Toni began to feel himself being lifted off the ground.

_Oh well, it's sayonara time, isn't it, Chum?_ the stranger quipped delightedly, and Toni was forced to agree with him.

Thinking fleetingly of his family, he pulled both red and blue bands from his remaining charges with his remaining gauntlet, and then pushed his webbing as far away from his body as possible and towards his killer's arms.

The detonation knocked him out cold.

### CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

**Above Base Fido, Nature's Day, 21** st **of June, 2771**

Toni returned to consciousness inside the personnel cabin of an air force copter. It was probably noisy out there, since all those without earmuffs were presently pressing their hands against their ears. One of the earmuffed soldiers noticed that he was conscious and said something to the high-ranking officer beside him. The old officer, whose appearance suggested that he had just survived hell, leaned over him and spoke a few words.

Toni wasn't too good at reading lips, but the man seemed to be trying to console him. Toni asked whether the Unmil was dead, and was surprised to discover that he couldn't hear his own voice. The sad expression on the officer alarmed him. Was he sad because it was not? Or was it because he hadn't understood the question?

He tried to move but found that he couldn't, and he began to panic, wondering whether he was strapped down or whether he no longer had use of his body. He closed his eyes, preferring the darkness, and felt hot tears roll down his face.

He returned to the warm void where his savage self roamed, and remained there for a while.

When he awoke again, Toni lay in a cot in a medical bay quite different from the one he had known at Base Fido.

That single compartment possessed a surface area larger than Fido's medical bay, and hospital cots like his lined both sides of its considerable length. To his right was a wide entrance, its double-doors kept open as nurses and orderlies passed busily through to attend to the injured. The patients numbered at least thirty.

He suddenly realized that he was able to hear again, and he lay there for a while, weeping quietly and thanking the gods for their mercy. He then closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of his surroundings. His ears felt like they had been stuffed with cotton, but still he could hear nearby patients in conversation, the howling wind outside and even the occasional groan of pain.

Discovering also that he had the use of his left arm, he touched his hand to an ear and felt through its folds, finding nothing jammed in there. His ears were back, but they weren't in good shape and possibly never would be. His sadness was greatly lessened when he found he could also move his legs. Slowly he flexed them, and felt more than heard his knees snap painfully. It was an acceptable pain, one that told him he might one day run again.

Something struck Toni's head and he opened his eyes, peering about. Finding a crinkled piece of paper on his bandaged chest, he searched for its thrower, and found a patient of his age smiling in the cot beside him.

"Got your ears pretty hammered, huh?" the boy asked cheerily.

Toni had no difficulty in understanding the question, and indeed the other patients had winced at the loudness with which the boy had spoken.

The soldier turned out to be an aircraft maintenance assistant by the name of Harry Osaka. Four days previously, as they had been prepping a drone with missiles for an attack sortie, someone had made the mistake of maneuvering the forklift a little too aggressively and had collided against the craft, rupturing its fuel tank. The end result had been an escalating chain of fires, deflagrations and detonations that had left two base personnel dead and more than twenty injured, Harry among them.

When asked if he knew anything about what had happened at Base Fido, Harry appeared puzzled, and the base-rat was forced to grapevine with the remaining patients before presenting Toni with the sole tidbit of information regarding ROWAC's and EWAC's delaying activities; ROWAC's commander was dead and a score more injured, both unit commands having been effectively put out of action by a single nuke. The information was known only due to the fact that the injured had been evacced to Lograin, all other details being classified. Swallowing his sadness for the old natural, Toni thanked the runway jockey for the intel.

They chatted for a while longer, Toni having to strain his ears and Harry his voice until an irritated nurse finally approached, putting an end to the loud conversation. They were duly informed that night had begun, and the curtains were closed and day-lights extinguished as if to underline the point.

Toni was relieved. The effort of keeping his head turned to his left side had left him with a crick that took a while to subside, and his brow had beaded with sweat with the effort it had required to listen to the chatty mechanic's assistant. He closed his eyes again and found blissful darkness to match the silence. A nurse arrived shortly afterwards with a syringe and then it was his pain that was numbed, and he drifted off to sleep with titans colliding in his groggy mind.

An eternity later morning came, and he smeared the sleep off his face with his only working hand. A nurse arrived shortly afterwards to raise his cot and place a tray of breakfast on his lap. Thankfully finding Harry still deep in blissful sleep, he ate his eggs and toast peacefully, caring not in the least for the lack of salt or butter. Someone had finally deigned to update the wall-clock, and he found that it was a quarter past eight in the morning.

Shortly after nine o'clock a senior nurse arrived, gave him a nervous smile and began to search through a transparent plastic bag beside his bed that contained a tattered and bloody uniform. Finding a nametag there, she carefully cleaned and read it before apologizing to him and exiting the room in a hurry.

Something struck the back of his head and a crumpled piece of paper ricocheted towards an intermediate nurses' station, earning them a rebuking glare from the squat nurse who was nesting there. Toni turned to find a very alert Harry leaning towards him. Suppressing his despair at the prospect of another neck-ache, he smiled and leaned towards his neighbor, only to have the boy slip him a folded piece of paper. Toni read the message there and felt his heart begin to gather speed.

THAT IS THE SECOND TIME THEY'VE GONE THROUGH YOUR STUFF! THEY KEEP CHECKING OUT YOUR NAMETAG, AND THEY'VE BEEN WHISPERING LIKE THERE'S TROUBLE. WHAT'S GOING ON?

Not trusting himself to whisper low enough, he requested his mate's marker and scribbled a quick answer.

_PROBABLY_ _IN_ _TROUBLE! GOT A LITTLE POISON PILL IN MY UNIT WHO WANT'S TO DO ME IN. CAN YOU WALK?_

Harry nodded and, following Toni's gestures, he limped towards the foot of the cadet's bed and discreetly removed the chart that had been hung there. As he handed it towards him, Toni mouthed a very genuine word of thanks and then carefully inspected the untidily scrawled document.

An EWAC soldier by the name of Frederic Granger was apparently into his fourth day of internment after having suffered traumatic injuries during combat. The soldier's right arm had suffered significant tissue damage, and had already been subjected to corrective surgery. Aside from that, the patient had suffered penetrating wounds from more than two hundred incandescent spalls into his upper and lower body (presumably originating from the interior surface of a Suit's armor), which had had to be removed before stem-cell netting could be applied over his burned skin. The patient had suffered a multitude of hematomas due to his Suit's straps, a severe concussion that by itself would require at least three weeks of convalescence, and damage of unknown seriousness to his hearing.

The patient also happened to possess a deep incisive wound to the right side of his face, although it appeared to have healed well enough to not require further treatment.

The injuries were very familiar, as was their origin, but the name was not. And then Toni remembered what he had done before going into combat against the Bakemono; he had garbed the previous occupant's uniform over his own to protect his body from the interface's punishing straps. Carefully he sat up and removed the plastic bag with his belongings from beneath the nightstand. Searching its interior, he found a torn and blood-spattered dolmen and inspected its nametag. It read Frederic Granger A+.

Toni thanked the gods that the soldier's blood-type was the same as his. Searching beneath its tortured fabric, he found his own dolmen and removed the Velcro nametag with his true identity as discreetly as possible. The gesture did not pass unnoticed by Harry. He hurriedly scribbled message onto another piece of paper.

IS YOUR NAME TONI MIURA?

Toni's world began to tilt to the side. He had been too cautious about it for Harry to be able to read his nametag, which was now carefully hidden away in his hospital-supplied underclothes. He took the paper from the soldier and wrote a quick answer.

YES. HOW DID YOU KNOW?

MP SHOWED UP HERE WHILE YOU WERE KO, LOOKING FOR A TONI MIURA.

MP?

MILITARY POLICE. THEY WERE LOOKING FOR YOU!

And that was that for him. There was only one thing left to do, and that was to find Ian and kill him before he lost his chance for good. His mind began to work frantically through all the options at his disposal. A nurse's arrival interrupted his thoughts.

"Corporal, could I have a quick word?"

"Y-yes, nurse," he replied.

"We're having problems registering your name into our database, apparently there's another Frederic Granger in our patient list, he had a work-related stroke a few days ago. Could you please confirm your name?" she kindly asked him.

Thinking hard, Toni threw himself at the only door he could find.

"My name is Raymond Rosa, I'm a Sergeant-cadet from LOGIS, MEWAC. I was using Granger's uniform for lack of my own, I'm sorry ..." he lied.

She brightened up immediately and thanked him for his cooperation before taking her leave.

Belatedly he turned towards Harry to find him shaking his head disapprovingly. The boy took up the piece of paper again and scribbled furiously.

HOW MANY NAMES DO YOU HAVE, ANYWAY?? BUT THAT PROBABLY WON'T WORK. THEIR DATABASE IS ON THE GMN. IF THE GUY WHO'S NAME YOU GAVE IS SOMEWHERE ELSE OR MISSING, THEY'LL KNOW!

Missing!

Ray was dead, but he was probably listed as missing. He had just bought himself minutes, not days! Hurriedly he thanked a bewildered Harry and carefully stood on his feet, finding that even his soles hurt. Grimacing with the pain, he checked to make sure that no one was looking, and then set off like any other patient with a need to pee would; with great care and greater urgency.

Exiting the compartment, he found himself in a wide corridor. He turned towards what appeared to be the building's exit, a well-illuminated atrium with a reception to one side and four men on the other, MP written into their armbands in capital letters. Toni about-faced and followed the corridor in the opposite direction, coming across a lavatory populated with a pair of peeing patients. He occupied a stall as they did their business, thinking hard. His mind remained sluggish, however, and he realized that he didn't even know whether he had the strength for what needed to be done.

The pair finally left the room and he exited the stall nervously. Acting on a whim, he quickly locked the lavatory from the inside and proceeded to open the window. After several failed attempts it finally opened with a clang, and the compartment's interior was suddenly invaded by a whirlwind.

Only a fool would venture outside with the wind so strong and a body so frail, but a fool was he, and he sat his rump on the sill and pivoted his legs over with great effort. His hospital skirt suddenly blew into his face, his hidden nametag magically slipping out of his breeches and over his head to strike against the lavatory door.

Moving feet were clearly visible beneath it.

Cursing loudly, barely managing to hear the words due to the wind, Toni jumped out and fell the half-meter that separated him from the medical bay's grassy grounds. Unable to keep his footing, he purposely fell on his left shoulder to lessen the damage. The pain, however, was terribly severe, and he knew that somewhere he was bleeding again.

Can't you do anything without bleeding?

He remembered Hannah and wondered if she had survived the engagement, the real possibility that she might be dead agonizing him more than the pain. Suppressing the thought, he carefully stood and stepped into the buffeting wind, peering at his surroundings and trying to situate himself from what he remembered when he had last been there.

LOGIS had spent most of its time in the perimeter of Lograin's airfield, and so he searched for that first. To his left were a few buildings, some of them derelict, and then a fence and the shifting forest beyond. He turned to his right and shuffled towards a group of taller buildings blocking his view of whatever lay beyond. Lowering his center-of-mass as if he were driving an armored Suit, he leaned into the wind and moved towards the buildings, desperately hoping that he wasn't being watched.

Feeling the chilly wind suck all the heat from his body, Toni began to regret not having remained in the warmth of his hospital bed. He might even have gladly accepted being arrested just to stay warm and safe.

Then he imagined the firing squad and the little smile on Ian's face as he watched, and knew the cold was preferable to that. Not because of his execution, of course. It was the smile that bothered him, that cruel, un-empathetic, superior smile of his that said everything about what really went on inside the traitor's mind. He could not bear to see that smile again. Colonel Tora was dead and who in hell knew if the Bakemono was dead or not, but if he was going to face a firing squad, it would be while savoring the memory of sitting on the traitor's chest, grinning like an idiot as he cut his senior's pale throat.

The wind changed as he closed in on the nearest building, and instead of fighting against his advance, it began to push him towards the darkened edifice. There was no sign of activity inside, and as he stumbled towards an imposing pair of solid wooden doors, he chanced a quick look towards the medical bay. There was no sign of activity at its exterior.

Momentarily encouraged, he twisted the door's knob only to find it solidly locked. Kicking it in was beyond serious consideration.

Fighting the wind, Toni rounded the building and soon found himself on a wide abandoned avenue. Finding another locked door, he lost his patience, found a hefty rock and tossed it towards one of the ground-floor windows. The projectile struck the glass and it fractured, retaining its integrity only due to the thick protective film that covered it. The abetting wind did the rest, and under the gale's relentless force, the pane finally caved in and flew into the building's interior. The sudden "whoomp!" it made as it disappeared would have attracted much attention on any other season of the month. Today the noise was almost entirely drowned out by the winds.

Grunting with the effort, Toni pulled himself onto the window sill and forced his legs over it, the strong wind helping to forcefully vault him into what appeared to be an office compartment. He struck the ground hard and began to roll slowly across the cluttered floor, moaning in agony as the invading whirlwind sent papers flying into the air around him. Once the pain had subsided, Toni stood and tried the only door, finding it unlocked. Opening it carefully, he peered out through the crack to find only a central corridor bordered by windows to his left and closed office doors to his right.

Closing the door behind him, Toni limped along the pristine corridor, its cleanliness an assault on his senses after weeks of blood and grime. Quietly he paced its length, still expecting some caretaker to appear as he passed a succession of sealed doors, until he came upon an elaborately decorated entrance hall, its double-doors the same ones he had attempted to open minutes before. The hall was flanked by a wide staircase that allowed access to the floors above. Tiredly he gazed at those steps, wondering if he had the strength.

Finally coming to a decision, he began to carefully climb the flights, calmly allowing the stranger to take the helm as he did so. Upon reaching a floor, he peered at his surroundings, sniffed the air, and then kept climbing.

On the fifth and final floor, the stranger sniffed something that caught its attention. The floor was dirtier but well trodden, and most tracks led off to the corridor to his left. Following them, he eventually came upon several doors deep inside the building. The nearest was unlocked, and he opened the door and walked inside.

He found himself inside a workshop clearly meant for building maintenance and repair, its interior clad with weapons of diverse size and weight. On another day it might have been a toolshed, but to the stranger's eyes it was an armory. He searched the compartment's walls for anything both compact and deadly, and slowly came to the realization that he would need a cutting instrument to fit the part. He ruffled through several desk drawers, coming upon his first box-cutter. Before long he held four in his newly grimed hands. Two he discarded for being too fragile to hold up in a fight. A third, already well-used, he reserved for an emergency. The fourth, a wickedly sharp blade about twelve centimeters long when fully extended, became his weapon of choice.

He imagined it covered in blood, and willed it to become so. His sweet mother of Galician descent had once told him of an ancient god her far-off ancestors had prayed to in times of war. Its name was Cosus, if he wasn't mistaken. Hoping he had remembered the name correctly, he held the weapon between his palms and prayed to the non-existent god, pouring all his hate into the weapon in his hands. He had never done anything even remotely similar before, but it felt right, and it settled his mind and heart enough to accept what needed to be done, and what he would probably have to sacrifice in order to achieve it.

He had already wasted all his life-points against the Bakemono. He accepted that as he stood in the center of the workshop, and it brought him peace.

His peace was rudely broken by a rifle-butt to the head. The sudden impact drove him almost to the ground but, lowering his center-of-mass having become his first instinct when attacked, he buckled his knees, laying both hands on the floor before snapping his head over his shoulder to scrutinize his assailant.

His adversaries were two well-armed MPs, the looks their eyes making it clear they knew that they had found the missing cadet. The sergeant spoke, but Toni didn't hear the words. Instead he observed both soldiers as they covered his only exit. Their uniforms were characteristically black, their berets navy-blue, their Lacraus strapped to a diagonal leather shoulder-belt that clipped onto a waist-belt, and upon which a sidearm rested in its holster. But Toni didn't care about that. They wore high leather gloves that covered the tendons at their wrists and much of their forearms, and the only adequate remaining target was their exposed throats. Toni cared about that. And there was a rifle between him and his nearest foe's throat, its strap not long enough to turn against his second adversary without first having to waste a precious moment to cut the bond.

Slowly he relaxed his body, realizing he must certainly be raising red flags in the MPs' minds. He shook his head, trying to force himself into thinking.

"What do you mean, no? On the ground or I'll pop you. This is your last warning!" the sergeant ordered.

Turning his head slowly towards his superior, Toni smiled, finding it appropriate that he'd already managed to put in a prayer. He hadn't managed to see or hear any more soldiers beyond the room, and he no longer had any expectation that there would be. He stared hard at the sergeant as the soldier's nose flared at his target's non-compliance, and saw only swine there. The sergeant's lacrau was a compact weapon with a bull-pup design, meant for movement and combat in tight spaces, but that was going to work in Toni's favor.

Springing into action, Toni grabbed the rifle in his right hand and launched himself towards the sergeant, managing to leap-frog his hand forwards to grab his adversary's shoulder-belt as his left slipped the box-cutter's blade out of its handle.

Easy does it, now.

He leaned hard into the sergeant and sent him thudding against his corporal, and his left hand snaked along his foe's torso until the blade nestled against the straining muscles of his neck. The sergeant gave a squeal and fired off a burst, but then the corporal slammed against the corridor wall and all three came to a sudden halt. Toni began to push the blade in, the ease with which the steel suddenly entered the sergeant's throat shocking him enough to make him pause momentarily, his adversary squealing and kicking as he pleaded for his life. Toni then began to cut more deliberately, putting more power behind the act, until the blade suddenly dug entirely in and laid bare the left and center of his foe's throat. The sergeant fired off a long, impotent burst from his Lacrau and wood splinters flew, its barrel snugly secured beneath Toni's armpit as the sergeant's horrendous wound gave up its treasure. Blood poured in hot jets against Toni's surprised face, flowing into his mouth as his jaw fell open at the affront, fat drops spraying heavily against the wall and the corporal's struggling body with every generous spout.

The sergeant released his weapon and clapped his hands against his throat, and the panicking corporal, pinned into a sitting position by his superior's weight, tried to throw the body over his knee and deploy his rifle.

Toni laid his knee on the weapon and pushed it down, and then placed his blade against the soldier's throat and held it there with both hands, shock and horror briefly freezing his muscles in place.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, man. Just let me go. I won't tell, OK? OK?!" the corporal pleaded as his senior rolled over the tiled floor beside him.

The soldier had a cleft chin, and it was clean-shaven despite him having the look of someone whose beard grew thickly. His dark hair had recently seen a pair of scissors. His eyes were wide and leaking, and his eyebrows were crushed together and reaching for the sky, his eyes possessing the pitiful expression of one who had just learned how one died by the blade. The soldier was well into his twenties, but in that moment he sounded clearly like a child, and Toni pitied and hated him for that.

"I'm sorry ..." Toni answered sadly, and with a sudden snap of his body, he opened the man's throat.

Blood sprayed everywhere, momentarily blinding him, and as his adversary clutched the gaping wound and began to roll beneath him, Toni felt a hand take hold of his shoulder. He stared at the large hand, painted red with its owner's blood, and he had a flash of a bloody armored Suit with a corpse hanging from its gorget. Turning to face the sergeant, he found the man stooping over him, Lacrau hanging loosely from its strap as the soldier used his free hand to plug the wound. The hand appeared almost sunk into his throat, but the expression on his face was tragic, and it spoke words the man could no longer utter. He fell upon Toni's kneeling form and vomited a gush of blood upon him, and then he lay down where his dying subordinate thrashed and took him in his arms.

A minute passed by as Toni, sitting numbly with his back against the corridor's wall, watched them bleed to death. The two men held each other tightly until the sergeant ceased to move, and then the corporal released himself from his superior's limp grasp, huddled into a corner, and died alone. Before long there were no more sucking and choking sounds, and silence became bliss.

It was a while before Toni finally realized he was crying, and he continued to do so for a time.

A long while later, Toni's breathing became regular and he stopped spitting compulsively to rid himself of the taste of the fallen soldiers' blood. He decided that he had learned something new about himself. He was most certainly not a born killer. What he had done horrified him, left him disgusted with himself. The emotion was so powerful that he found himself trying to smother it, before the horror could smother him.

Obeying a sudden urge to not look upon the corpses, he abandoned the corridor and took refuge in the workshop. Standing before a mirror fixed into the wall over a tiny lavatory, he stared at his reflection, newly horrified by what he saw. There were places where blood hadn't smeared, but they were no wider than a coin's breadth. His hair had become stuck to his skull, and he had what he could only call a blood-beard, where the blood soaked up by his two week-old fuzz had begun to clot. He looked into his own eyes, but quickly averted them as a potent wave of shame nearly overcame him. Slowly he began to wash his face, and then his hair and neck, until finally he began to carefully peel off his clothing and bandages, layer by layer.

He finally stood naked and decidedly cleaner, and he inspected his injuries against a mirror that had become speckled with drops of diluted blood. He realized he was fortunate in that the MPs had not put up a more considerable resistance. His right arm was bleeding from the corner of a half-healed surgical incision above his elbow, although it wasn't even a trickle compared to what he had witnessed some minutes before, and the medical weaving that covered much of his chest, abdomen, groin and thighs seemed to require the bandages he had just removed to prevent infection. Every injured surface that had suffered compression ached terribly, and he realized that he was possibly bleeding beneath the affected skin as well.

That wouldn't make any difference, though.

Covering up his crime was pointless, except in the interest of widening his window of opportunity to find and engage the special one. His injuries weren't a problem either, since it would probably take days for any infection to do him in.

Finding an oil-stained overall inside a beaten locker, Toni put it on and pocketed his box-cutters. There was also a dirty sweatshirt and he donned it as well, ignoring the fact that it was in direct contact with the stem-cell matting that covered his injured flesh. Discovering a tough old pair of work-shoes hidden deep in the locker, he put them on without socks and found that they fit snugly.

Taking a moment to settle his emotions, he then walked out into the corridor and was struck by a powerful smell to accompany the vista. It was an odd smell, not foul but nauseating nevertheless, and he knew where it came from due to his stints at his father's farm. Blood pooled around the deceased soldiers' bodies, and had begun to clot. He approached them and the odor of clotting blood intensified, but eventually he realized he could deal with it.

Toni searched through their pockets and shut down every electronic device he could find, including their watches. He unstrapped the less bloody of the two rifles and then stowed it along with two spare magazines into a rucksack he had found, before finally removing the pistol from the sergeant's holster, taking note that his nametag read Luco Varano O -.

The pistol, a semiautomatic Miroku in eight millimeter Short caliber, had a twenty-four round magazine for a loaded weight of 480 grams, each round leaving the weapon's barrel at a blistering Capicuan mach two; if he couldn't get the job done with that, then he deserved to fail.

He checked the weapon and found the chamber clear and the magazine full. Feeling that the situation called for it, he racked the slide, chambering a round before placing the weapon on safety. The pistol found a noble place in the overall's front pocket.

Before turning off their digital watches, Toni had noticed that it was only eleven. It shocked him. Less than two hours ago he had been lying on a hospital bed, sated and content.

He wondered whether the two soldiers had informed their superiors which building they had entered. The reasons why they had entered in the first place seemed clear to him already; they had been searching for a missing patient and had found a broken window on the ground floor of the nearest building. That would have been enough for him to radio in, had he been in their shoes.

That helped him to make up his mind. Leaving the building was vital, the chances of having a run-in with another patrol being simply too high. He would find somewhere to hide and rest until nineteen hundred hours, since he could reasonably expect most base personnel at that hour to be at the canteen, along with a considerable percentage of those on duty.

Donning a dirty air-force cap and shouldering the rucksack, Toni exited the building gingerly from the vacant window. Holding onto his new head-covering lest the powerful wind blow it away, he moved slowly among the buildings and away from the nearby medical bay, reminding himself repeatedly that he was now a base maintenance technician. His mind kept returning to the two dead bodies that lay behind him. He had taken the time to read the corporal's nametag, finding to his dismay that the man had been named Toni Nievers.

It was the first time he had ever killed a human being, and the stranger within was perhaps no longer as mysterious as it had once been, although it was certainly more silent for the moment. Perhaps it was just as shocked as Toni was. Either way, Toni was more committed than ever to his goal.

He came upon an abandoned building that flanked a deactivated runway, its dilapidated structure three floors tall and its top flat and out of sight. That suited him just fine. Entering carefully through a vacant space that had once been furnished with doors, Toni climbed the closed staircase inside, ignoring the crepitating shudder every time a stronger gust shook the building, until he came upon a rusting metal door. Pushing it open to a loud creaking sound, he stepped back into the wind and then closed the door securely, jamming several pieces of broken concrete beneath it to ensure no one would be able to open it from the inside.

He walked onto a roof that allowed him a fair view of the central part of Lograin air base. Barely registering that view, the powerful wind forcing him to shield his eyes, he plodded instead towards what appeared to be an empty shed at the roof's nearest corner. It consisted of two-by-two meters of dirt-covered floor, but Toni didn't care; it was all a murderer needed for sleep, any convict in Leiben's Central Presidiary Facility could vouch for that.

### CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

**Lograin Air Base, Nature's Day, 26** th **of June, 2771**

It was the roar that woke him, not the howling wind. The howl was something one got used to after a lifetime in a bipolar world, but the roar was something else entirely.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Toni wondered at what time it was, a sudden growling in his belly making it clear to him that he had missed a meal. He wondered whether the base's dinner-horn had sounded yet.

Then he realized that there was no way he could hope to hear the horn above the gale, finally understanding that he must have overslept. Hurriedly he exited the shed, only to be forced to take sudden hold of the doorway to keep from being swept off his feet. Finding his windlegs, he peered at his surrounding and gaped in wonder at what he saw.

A Quasar heavy carrier presided over what Toni had believed to be a deactivated runway, its reactors nearing full throttle barely a hundred meters from where the building stood. It had only just begun to move, but already its vulture wings shuddered from the gale-force winds, gigantic tires rolling over asphalt that appeared to have been sprouting weeds for years.

It didn't make any sense; any fool could see that those were no conditions for an aircraft to takeoff.

_Unless an even greater threat is on its way here_ , the stranger opined, apparently rested enough to have reacquired an opinion.

Toni reckoned he had more than one clock ticking against him. It was not just a matter of when the MPs would catch up to him, or whether Ian had already evacuated Lograin or not. If Lograin was evacuating all its personnel and he failed to find his way onto a transport, he would soon be braving the Bakemono _and_ the Great Rains with nothing more substantial than a light infantry rifle. The wind had gained a characteristic iciness to it and the sky had become overcast, and both reminded him that the rains were less than a day away.

Dark rainclouds raced over his head, making him wonder whether it was already too late.

As the giant aircraft's reactors peaked and it began to pick up speed, he cupped his hands protectively around his ears and peered at his surroundings. What he saw confirmed his suspicions. The base was crawling with activity, and already he could see five more Quasars on their runways or taxiing towards their positions.

He also spied what he had been hoping to find. Near the deactivated runway's end and where it intersected one of the base's two main runways, was the colossal building that had been built to house MEWAC's armored Suits.

By the time the enormous transport was rumbling its way into the gloomy sky, Toni had gathered his rucksack and abandoned the decrepit building. He set off at a brisk pace towards the structure, dismally aware that the wind was against him and the ground terribly uneven. To walk on the runway's level asphalt would be foolish, he decided, since it would probably earn him far more attention than he was willing to accept at the moment. The runway's flank, however, was overgrown enough to provide cover and also act as a natural windbreak, and so he picked his way among the bushes and trees, estimating that the journey would take at least an hour to accomplish.

The estimate proved to be optimistic.

The detail he hadn't considered was the weight of his rucksack, and it was his mounting exhaustion that finally forced him to question the need to carry the cumbersome weapon. It would hardly be discreet or easy to deploy, and if he kept porting it with him, by the time he finally reached the stalls he'd be too exhausted to fight.

Finally deciding he would have to make do with the pistol, he abandoned the rucksack in a flooded ditch and continued to cross the uneven ground, his mind persistently returning to the men he had killed.

He wondered why Ray hadn't made any noise as he died, and had a newfound respect for Kaiser, for having been able to pull off the kill without waking his victim's comrades. It had been more than cold. It had been professional. And he was dead certain that he wasn't nearly as professional as Kaiser was.

The runway's outskirts were riddled with potholes and half-buried rocks, testament to the shoddy method of construction that had birthed the base, their existence made more menacing by the overgrown vegetation that hid them from his eyes. Twice he almost twisted an ankle, the first time as he hurried to hide from another Quasar as it taxied along the runway to its starting point, the second as it came thundering along in the opposite direction.

Although he couldn't be entirely certain, more than two hours had elapsed before he began to approach the better maintained outskirts of Lograin's MEWAC accommodations.

Lograin's on-base facilities usually followed one of two architectural philosophies; while most opted for a very solid construction, others favored a cheaper aerodynamic approach to deal with the winds. MEWAC's accommodations, however, possessed both characteristics. Shaped like a particularly squat dumpling, it was nevertheless a very solid construction, favoring a reinforced concrete inner shell covered by a spaced steel outer casing. No attempt had been made at camouflage, and its gigantic grey form dominated its immediate surroundings, making even the Quasars look like over-grown toys as they taxied nearby. Besides the grand entrance, where the Suits gained entry to the main hanger's interior, the installations could be accessed through the three personnel entrances at its remaining three sides. The north-east entrance awaited Toni's arrival, its gate entirely devoid of security.

Curious but cautious, Toni peered at his surroundings, his paranoia heckling him despite the stable's abandoned look. His hearing's sorry state, the winds and the roaring Quasars all conspired to make him effectively deaf to his immediate surroundings, and that fuelled his mistrust more than anything else. Approaching a small prefabricated cement cube that functioned as a heavy machinegun bunker, he poked his head in and found no one. The primary weapon and its tripod were absent, and there wasn't an ammunition box within sight. The fact that the armored door had been left open, exposing its interior to the brutal elements, underlined the obvious; its complement had left in a hurry and without any prospect of return.

Making a decision, he began to approach the main installation's entrance. Its doors were ajar and he entered cautiously, taking care to check his corners before stepping through. He found the administrative section beyond devoid of light or people, and with its office doors locked. One could apparently rely on bureaucrats to lock their offices even when evacuating.

He wandered through the dark maze of corridors, remembering nothing from the last time he'd been there; all he had seen five weeks before had been the hanger area, where the stalls and servicing equipment could be found. Finally he came upon a shadowy tunnel that he felt pointed in the right direction, and decided to follow it. Before long he bumped against an unlocked door. He opened it to find that his sense of direction was not entirely absent.

The hanger looked like an oversized cave, the overcast sky and complete absence of overhead lighting lending the place a forlorn look. The wind made music off the entrance, and Toni's ears were filled with howling and roaring. Realizing that he was wasting precious time there, Toni began to hurry towards the grand entrance when a shout caught his attention.

Standing beside a heavy-duty forklift stood a tall, slim man. Despite the darkness, what little light there was still shone off the stars on his shoulders. Approaching carefully, Toni called out.

"Something wrong, sir?"

The officer walked towards him and cracked a wide grin.

"It's been barely two weeks and you've already forgotten the sound of your owner's voice, haven't you?"

Toni's eyes widened as he looked the officer up and down, and realized he was staring at Lieutenant Templeton. The lieutenant's grin widened even more, relieved at having finally located his subordinate.

"Sir! My apologies, sir," he finally answered, saluting him before he could stop himself.

The lieutenant could have said something about Toni saluting him in civilian clothing, but instead he approached and warmly shook his hand.

"You were my only missing chick, you know it? Everyone else is either dead or accounted for. Are you alright? I was told you saw action after the mines."

"I am fine, sir, though I'm still recovering. You said everyone's accounted for. Are Ian and Hannah too?"

The lieutenant's face turned ugly for a moment, and then he sighed.

"Both are accounted for, and in good health."

"Sir, I –"

"There's no need to say anything. Hannah said it all when she returned, and Ian's been remanded into the custody of the Military Police. He will face court-martial and so will you, probably. And you'll both almost certainly get slaps on your wrists because you're both cadets, and were committed to combat before you'd taken the oath. But I don't care about that. What I care about is that we've been ordered to evacuate, and there are people missing all over the place. First you, then a medical patient and now a couple of MPs."

Toni felt a chill travel up his spine; he knew full well that none of them were missing. Feeling terrible, he tried to speak.

"Sir –"

"We've been ordered to evacuate. Our Quasar was already supposed to have lifted off, but I've been pulling in some favors to get them to wait. Our platoon and the squad of MPs guarding Ian in there are going hungry, all because you were still unaccounted for. Now there's no longer any reason to wait. Within the hour we need to be on it, 'cause we're expecting the base to get hit after that."

"Is it the Bakemono, sir?"

"The ... what?"

"The enemy Suit we fought at Base Fido, sir."

"No, no, some puke from EWAC took care of that one. Damaged it badly enough so that it pulled out of combat, to MEWAC's everlasting shame. But Hannah at least managed to find two of its extremities and its helm, and we've got those in the Quasar for future research."

"Sir –"

"Less talkie, more walkie, cadet. I –"

A radio squawked and the lieutenant snatched it irritably from his belt, and Toni's trigger finger slipped inside the trigger-guard of the pistol in his pocket, almost causing the weapon to fire. He scolded himself silently as the lieutenant communicated with a very angry tower-man, realizing that the last thing he wanted was the Ell-tee's blood on his hands. Hannah was alive, Ian was in custody and the Bakemono had been defeated. The fact that the soldier credited with the accomplishment happened to have been in an induced coma at the time was of little interest. He wondered about the dead MPs and tried once more to smother his shame.

"What's wrong? Are you alright?" the lieutenant asked with a look of alarm.

"I'm fine, sir," he answered as a cold sweat began to bead his forehead, "though I'm just not feeling too good."

"Can you walk?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, because that's what you're going to do. Our Quasar has the number Thirty-Seven on its tail. You're going to find it and present yourself to its boarding sergeant. I have another matter to deal with."

"Can I help, sir?"

"Can you? I think not. We'll just be looking for some stragglers, and I don't intend to lose you again. You'll go straight to your transport, and that's an order. Clear?"

Toni nodded and apologized, and went on his way.

_I'll tell you where you can find those stragglers, if you'd like_ , the stranger sniggered, and Toni began to weep.

Realizing that the pistol in his pocket was the last obvious evidence of his crime, he ditched the weapon in a deep crevice beside the runway and approached the three aircraft awaiting permission for departure.

He remembered Gordie and was suddenly anxious to see him again, and he prayed that his friend had managed to survive that day at the mines. He also remembered Hannah and reminded himself to thank her for all she had done. He tried not to think about Sueli.

The birds were parked side-by-side along the apron that flanked a taxiway, and were indistinguishable except for the silver double-digit numbers painted on their vertical stabilizers. Soldiers braved the winds and loitered near their tails, talking into each other's ears as they peered nervously at the thunderous sky. Quasar Thirty-Seven's rear cargo hatch was lowered and an ancient sergeant waited on it, howling inaudible curses at the wind, and at the wrench-jockey who was approaching him.

"What? What?" he ordered, the words curses unto themselves.

"Sergeant-cadet Toni Miura reporting for evacuation, sir," Toni answered at attention.

The sergeant looked him up and down, and then barked the inevitable question.

"Where's your fucking uniform?"

"My uniform's ruined and there was no one at deposit to hand me another, sir," he lied.

"Hah. Would have preferred to show up naked than like that, but to each his fucking own, right?" he answered with a smirk.

The sergeant took out a piece of paper to consult, but the wind suddenly snatched the document and sent it flying over the taxiway. Keeping a stiff upper lip, the sergeant irritably waved him into the aircraft.

Passing the thick rubber curtain that shielded those inside from the foul weather, Toni came upon an interior altogether different from the one that had ferried LOGIS to Lograin. It was different enough, in fact, to make him wonder whether it was the same aircraft at all. Uncomfortable-looking seats flanked both sides of the aircraft's aft interior, the central corridor having been left bare to allow myriad equipment and supplies to be strapped down. More rubber curtains hid the aircraft's central cabin from view.

On their journey to Lograin there had been no seats or divided cabins, only a very sturdy floor over which the Suits could safely pad before shutting down to be secured to the structure. Then he remembered that most of the Mocas hadn't survived the plantation engagement, the crews probably having been forced to modify the aircraft to better suit the task of evacuation. Finding no one he knew among those seated, and feeling a little uneasy with such a large number of them being MPs, he passed through the second curtain and into the compartment beyond.

Toni's puzzlement began to give way to alarm. He found not a single tied-down armored Suit, but instead a continuation of the carefully secured and spaced payload along with many more seats, their occupants mainly base personnel and another handful of MPs. Wondering whether they could smell their comrades' blood on his hands, Toni froze where he was, and as the group turned their gaze towards him his heart skipped a beat. They soon returned to their heated conversation, however, and he pushed the thought out of his mind.

Feeling the aircraft begin to move, he took a seat beside a window as far as possible from the evacuees, trying not to look at the blue-berets as they talked excitedly amongst themselves. Having apparently discovered that there was far more room in the center cabin than in the rear, a group of runway jockeys passed through the dividing curtain and began to choose their seats. One of them, apparently thinking that Toni was also base personnel, raised a hand in cheers and took a seat two places beside his. Toni knew what came next, and a few moments later the young soldier spoke to him.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, looks like we got the final call," the young soldier repeated.

"Why do you say that?"

"All the Quasars. They're taxiing all at once."

Toni peered outside the window and confirmed that they were, and he wondered whether Lieutenant Templeton had managed to make it aboard. Standing again, he exited the central compartment and approached the boarding sergeant as he hollered at the soldiery to take their seats.

"Sir, has Lieutenant Templeton arrived yet?"

The sergeant gave him a murderous look.

"And now the fucking cadet! I just confirmed to the Lieutenant on comms that you're aboard, I'm not about ask him where the fuck _he_ is! And rest assured that Lograin Tower would rather abandon an entire company to die here than sacrifice a single Templeton!"

"Does that mean the other Temple–"

"Fuckoff! Back! To! Your! Fucking! Seat! FUCK!" he howled, and the base personnel laughed and hooted as the old sergeant bulldozed Toni back to his seat.

The sergeant then returned to his own seat beside the cargo-door, hollering curses at all present as he passed them by, and even the MPs had the good grace to lower their heads at his irate passage, some going so far as to applaud his labors.

So Toni was on the right carrier, on the principle that the lieutenant hadn't sounded blindly to all aircraft to confirm whether he was on board. But if so, then where was his platoon? Where was Ian, along with the compliment of MPs guarding him? And where were the Suit parts that Hannah had managed to apprehend?

Ignoring the base-puke's newest attempt to strike up a conversation, Toni stood again and, ignoring the reproving glare of the nearby MPs, began to make his way to the forward cabin. Passing through the heavy curtain, he found the compartment full of low-density, high-volume loads secured with netting. It included mostly an abundant stock of fuel and paper documents, and he realized that if they were to crash the fireball would be spectacular.

As he returned to his seat in deep thought, he barely noticed how the personnel had congregated around the circular windows, the soldiers practically silent except for some quiet observation from one or another. There was no more care for remaining seated, the sergeant's absence from that cabin effectively leaving them to do as they pleased.

_... and we've got those in the Quasar for future research._ Toni was almost certain that was what the lieutenant had said.

But which Quasar? Toni had presumed that he had been referring to their Quasar, but it could just as easily have been another. And where was the remainder of his platoon?

As he took his seat, he began to wonder whether the lieutenant had deceived him, but quickly he banished the thought from his mind. The lieutenant had never shown any fondness for his nephew, the relationship between them appearing much closer to indifference than love. And there was the matter of the very genuine warmth and relief he had displayed only minutes ago.

Banishing the thought to the back of his mind, Toni tapped the chatty base-puke on the shoulder and asked what all the fuss was about.

"Really?! Fourteen Quasars are about to try and takeoff at the same time from three different runways! That's more than eight thousand tons on the move at the same time without anyone in the tower to coordinate, since they've boarded a carrier themselves. The chances of there being a mid-air collision are beyond bad, they're terrifying. How can you be so calm?"

"Just ignorant, I guess ..." Toni replied.

The soldier looked at him for a moment and then turned towards the window again, shaking his head and muttering.

Toni wondered whether he and the soldier belonged to the same species.

There was a sudden blinding flash of light, quickly followed by two more, and all personnel who had been looking out the window suddenly yelled in pain, clapping hands to their faces as if they had just been burned there.

"Those are nukes detonating, guys," Toni heard himself saying. "Get away from the windows and don't look out again. Strap yourselves in 'cause the shockwaves are on their way."

Knocking into each other in their haste and blindness, the center-cabin passengers began to sit into the seats nearest to them and fasten their seatbelts. Every second that passed by made Toni more certain that the detonations had taken place a fair distance away, since the six roaring engines had only choked for a brief moment following the flashes.

Then the shockwaves arrived, and they struck the aircraft's fuselage hard enough to momentarily rock it on its landing gear. There were a few screams and squeals, and Toni was once again reminded of the two men he had murdered.

As the Quasar began to turn in to its starting point on Lograin's runway number one, Toni found the window beside him facing roughly south-east, where he observed five mushroom clouds ascending the skies perhaps ten kilometers off. That surprised him, since he didn't know of any permanent construction to be found there. Reminding himself to follow his own rules, he turned away from the window and found himself looking at the young soldier.

"Am I gonna go blind, man?" he asked as he blinked his eyes furiously.

"Have no idea, mate. If you can see anything at all then it's probably not that bad, I think. Don't worry about it, we've got bigger –"

There were several more flashes of light, and the engines choked again before resuming their approach to their full power. Toni counted the seconds away and, once he reached fifteen, the thunderclaps finally reached them, making the fuselage creak and groan and shudder in a way that did not sound healthy at all.

Turning to his side, Toni observed six more mushroom clouds rising in the foreground to their predecessors, about six kilometers off.

"Our base defenses aren't even firing, man. They've abandoned their posts, the fucking cowards!" the soldier cried, only to be stiffly corrected by another.

"That's bullshit! The system's automated, the GMN's taking care of the defense."

"They're leapfrogging ..." Toni muttered.

"What?!"

"I said that they're leapfrogging," Toni said more loudly. "They're firing those nukes outside the base's area of intervention. When the mushroom clouds rise high enough to block all radar and infrared, they fire a second volley through them and detonate those nukes closer to the base than they could otherwise have gone. If they keep doing that –"

"Game over ..." the first soldier breathed.

"Right. Let's just hope we're out of here by then," Toni finished as he watched the clouds rise, almost hypnotized by their beauty.

He hurriedly diverted his eyes once more, focusing instead on trying to calculate how long it would take for the nukes to strike the base proper. He got as far as figuring out that, as the base anti-missile system's delay in detection and response decreased the nearer the enemy missiles came, the leapfrogs would need to be shorter to prevent interception. The exercise left him clueless as to how long they had before the missiles came within killing range.

"Not again ..." another soldier moaned as several more blinding flashes strobed Toni's field of vision.

He felt the heat on his face and turned to see seven luminous golden spheres ascend the skies, their distance perhaps four kilometers away. The Quasar was already accelerating along the runway, gaining the much-needed speed for safe takeoff, and Toni's stomach lurched as the reactors began to struggle unexpectedly. They were supposed to be EMP resistant, but it was quickly becoming clear that they were not immune. There were cries of panic as the engines continued to hesitate, but then they resurged and all backs were suddenly pressed against their seats.

The shockwaves struck the aircraft's fuselage in a flurry, and the left wing began to tip up alarmingly. A loud grinding noise became clearly audible to all, although it ceased abruptly as the carrier righted itself.

"Wing just scraped against the tarmac, guys. God!" a civvie seated near a window on the right side informed them, and Toni began to wonder whether he should perhaps be a little more concerned.

Then an unexpected shockwave struck them, weaker in intensity but with much more push. As the aircraft's fuselage began to tip upwards and the tires separated from the ground, the windows from both sides abruptly darkened as the screaming reactors changed their tune. Barely a second passed and then the aircraft was out of the smoke cloud and airborne, leaving everyone in the cabin acutely aware of the fact that the preceding aircraft had crashed.

The runway jockeys wept as several more intense flashes blinded the passengers.

"Gods," Toni muttered in irritation as the reactors began to lose power, feeling his innards rise as the aircraft's ascent faltered.

But they resurged once again and the Quasar began to put distance between itself and the air base. Banking sharply as it ascended, the pilots pointed the aircraft's tail towards the imminent shockwaves. When they arrived, the impacts were weaker than those preceding them, letting the passengers in on the fact that they had seen the worst of it.

Toni closed his eyes, wondering whether he deserved the reprieve. Finding no ready answer, he remained seated, quietly observing the surrounding soldiers. Some behaved like frightened animals, twisting around skittishly in their seats like cats in a shaken travel cage. Others, particularly the older personnel, he envied for their calm. The most senior of the MPs, an old lieutenant who had probably begun his career from base rank, appeared unfazed by the events, and he eyed Toni coldly as if he suspected something. Toni couldn't blame him. He closed his eyes again.

The aircraft continued its unsteady ascent, the strong winds buffeting its fuselage as it passed through turbulent airstreams. Every once in a while, several flashes illuminated the cabin's interior and Toni's darkened world would momentarily strobe black and red. The shockwaves gradually lost their snap and the carrier began to turn again, and he opened his eyes to peer out his window.

He found a slowly turning world beyond, low and remote and wild. More than a minute passed by until he was awarded with a sight of what had once been Lograin air base. It had become a mushroom farm, and indeed as he watched he could see them rising, ebony pillars with a marked inclination towards the north-east, the once-spherical clouds atop them no longer fully able to withstand the furious winds. Several more bright flashes momentarily blinded him and he was forced to turn away, the searing pain in his eyes greater than he would have expected. Closing them, he saw the ghosts of the detonations like static in his field of view. He counted them, realizing that four missiles had detonated before he'd been able to turn away.

He finally grasped the fact that his crime scene had been sanitized in a way he could never have accomplished by himself. The realization depressed him terribly. The truth would remain for him alone, making him feel like he had somehow claimed undue ownership over their souls. He remembered their names once more, and promised himself that he would find out whether they had children and, if so, whether they wanted for anything. He owed his victims that, at the very least.

He opened his eyes to find the old MP lieutenant sitting quietly beside him. A feeling of unreality began to creep over him as the officer turned his eyes towards the recruit.

"Looks like they've got us in a holding pattern, don't you think?" he opined by way of conversation.

"Appears so, sir," Toni answered quietly.

"They've really hammered Lograin, haven't they? It breaks my heart, seeing the world coming to an end like this. It's in times like these that we must be particularly vigilant. And self-disciplined. Isn't that so, Sergeant-cadet Miura?" he casually inquired.

Toni turned towards the man beside him.

"I was told that when I arrived at this carrier, I would find what remained of LOGIS, as well as a cadet in the custody of the military police. That cadet's name is Ian Templeton."

The lieutenant sighed.

"LOGIS was evacced from Lograin three days ago, including the Templeton boy. The carrier was then refitted for general evac and returned there. Your lieutenant came with us. We were told he was looking for a certain rotten egg who shot his nephew and got another cadet killed. The Templeton boy isn't under arrest, nor was he ever. He was sequestered for more than three days under threat of a firearm. You have a lot to answer for, boy."

"More than you can imagine," Toni muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind, sir. Is it true that certain parts of an enemy Suit were found and secured?"

"True. Although whatever that has to do with you is beyond me."

"It has nothing to do with me," Toni answered quietly as tears rolled down his cheeks.

Lieutenant Templeton's treachery shocked him beyond words, mostly because it had been so flawlessly executed. He had been smart, feeding the cadet tidbits of valid information and hiding the bait in between. And the blue-berets had accosted him only as soon as the Quasar had become airborne.

He supposed he was just an amateur who had just been outmaneuvered and cornered by professionals. Varano and Nievers had just been unfortunate. The system had won. Turning to look over his shoulder, he found a stony-faced sergeant pointing a Miroku pistol at the base of his skull. The remainder of the passengers watched on silently, enraptured by the possibility of bloodshed.

Sighing, Toni stared out the window and found that the aircraft's holding pattern had brought Lograin back into his field of view. The attack appeared to have ended and the base burned fiercely, thick black smoke streaking away to the far-off sea, towards the dark, dead side of his beloved world.

He wondered once more what true night must be like.

"Whatever possessed you to pick a fight with the Templetons?" the officer asked quietly.

"I never did, sir. They've been picking one with me."

"You were a fool to put up a fight."

"I have my pride, sir."

The officer slapped his hands on his lap and stood, beckoning him to do the same. Calmly Toni rose and, not needing to be told, he turned his back to the man and offered his wrists. The officer removed an old pair of handcuffs from his belt and began to bind him, speaking casually as he did so.

"Let us see what your pride has cost you, boy. Sergeant-cadet Toni Miura, you are hereby arrested on grounds of incompetence, insubordination, grievous assault, false-imprisonment and sequester, and you will remain in our custody until you have been duly court-martialed."

As he felt the cool steel sliding into place, listening to the officer's damning words as the storm clouds outside mercifully blocked his vision of hell, Toni remembered Cosus, the war god, and the peace he had felt when he had prayed to him.

_You're gonna be praying a lot more, mate_ , the stranger sneered, enchanted by the developments, _better decide if it will be to the god of sheep or the god of war._

Toni began to laugh as he realized to which one it would inevitably be.

### EPILOGUE

**Leiben, 10H50, 21** st **of June, 2771**

Criminal court judge Ken Hirano was nearing the end of his rope.

Two weeks ago, a law had been hastily passed, granting criminal court judges the power to sentence convicted felons to compulsory service in the armed forces. Such a decision had seemed a little extreme even in the midst of the recent crisis, but after news had begun to surface of more than a hundred combat casualties in the mining quadrant, Ken had realized that such a decision was tantamount to a death sentence.

Almost every judge of the criminal court circuit had flatly refused to pass such sentences, hoping that, as had happened so many times before, the council would understand that they had been hasty in passing the law, and allow it to be in effect tacitly revoked through sheer disregard for its tenets.

Instead the Council had decided to enact Article Thirteen of the offending law. In an ultimate insult to any self-respecting judge, the article called for attachés from the Military Justice Department to be appointed to assist at criminal trials, and to advise their civilian counterparts on the best way to go about fulfilling the Council's wishes.

Lieutenant-colonel Germano Gutierrez smiled at him as the moment for sentencing arrived, making plain his intention that the four youths accused of engaging in a street fight be inducted into the forces.

Sighing heavily, Ken shook his head at the officer, and he thought hard on a justifiable reason to spare the boys as he watched Germano's smile grow daggers. Finally clearing his throat, Ken passed his ruling.

"It is the decision of this court that, on the day of the facts previously described, the four defendants engaged in the crime of public disorder. The fact that the defendants have accused each other of provoking the altercation is insignificant, since provocation as a justification does not legitimize the criminal act. In light of the proven facts, it is the decision of this court –"

He hesitated, aware that the colonel possessed the authority to usurp sentencing from his hands and make his own ruling, and finally decided upon a concession.

"... that Donovan Lieberman and Rikku Thomasson, each being the elder of the opposing pair, be sentenced to no less than eight months of compulsory military service, with the possibility of said period being extended at the pleasure of his Excellency the Commander of the CDF."

The decision carried through the courthouse like a sonic boom, and the looks of terror on the elder boys' faces tore at his heart. Both families lost their composure, and it took the intervention of several members of the court Police to stop them from forcefully approaching his bench. The younger two, who had only recently finished high school and had good perspectives for higher studies, both collapsed into their seats as if by common agreement.

Whatever their objections, Ken had no doubt that it had been the two older boys who had begun the fight. Wishing them well, he sentenced the remaining pair to eighty hours of community service each.

The lieutenant-colonel gave him a sly look and then followed with a discreet nod, and the beginnings of an understanding began to form between the two judges.

"Next case!" Ken ordered.

The bailiff squared her slim shoulders and leaned up to whisper to him.

"You honor, this next case is that queer one we were discussing yesterday ..."

"The ... oh hell ..." he remarked, remembering. "Call the boys in."

At the bailiff's soft beckoning, a rugged crew of eight young men trudged into the courtroom, followed by a squad of metropolitan policemen. The detainees sneered at the court officials as they entered and then gazed indolently at their surroundings. The last to enter was the smallest among their number, clothed in a trench coat a size too large for him. Lieutenant-colonel Gutierrez watched the group like a hawk as they formed a line before the dock.

"Very well," Ken began, "the case before us regards the group of young men known among police officers as the Pirates of the Periphery. I have come to know of this misfit group over the last few months due to their ... uh, activities. We will begin with a confirmation of your identities."

The old judge read each youth's name in turn, taking care to confirm home address and date of birth. He wasn't surprised to discover that the boy in the trench coat was the youngest of the group, at nineteen. The remainder ranged from twenty to twenty four years old, and all without exception hailed from the research stations.

That was one of the unusual aspects of the group. Every gang he knew of was local, those hailing from the hubs usually arriving in town only for birth, study or employment. He turned to the man studying documents to his right.

"Prosecutor, please present your case."

"Thank you, your honor," the prosecutor said. "On the eighteenth of June of the present year, a purported separatist movement known as Core Hack simultaneously hacked into the Leiben Metropolitan and Underground Transit Systems. The computing power for this act originated from the twelve computers of Leiben Varsity's Central Library, but by the time the Campus Policing Authority had made its appearance there, no one was to be found. Not even the librarian, it seems.

"However, the hack was ultimately successful only because two groups of varsity students infiltrated city administrative facilities and connected to terminals there, shutting down the systems and creating the wireless connections necessary for the hack to proceed. These groups, consisting of four students each, were subsequently arrested and stand before Your Honor today."

"And how was the arrest achieved?" Ken inquired.

"The shutting down of the transit systems did not deactivate the installations' security cameras. Metro and UTS security officials detected the intrusions and informed the LPD. Officers converged on both locations, Metro Administrative headquarters and UTS Services. Due to the UTS being of great proximity to LPD personnel's sleeping lodges, an abundant number of off-duty police officers made the arrest on location. The only problem was deciding who would get recognition for the arrests .The final tally of arresting officers was twenty-six."

Ken whistled at the number.

"Was there resistance? Who are the detainees from the UTS?"

"Darryl Hikari, Fumio Fukitsu, Peter Kojima and Timothy Bowker. All four resisted vigorously, they're members of Leiben Varsity's Kendo club, but apparently they dab in other arts as well. Seven injuries among the officers," the prosecutor finished with distaste.

"And what of the Metro group?"

"They –" the prosecutor suddenly stopped, and Ken was alarmed at the expression he saw there.

"Well?"

"Perhaps it would be best if the senior arresting officer speaks about that," the prosecutor proposed carefully.

"Is there any particular reason why you shouldn't be able to explain that yourself?" the judge asked, mystified.

"Indeed I read the documents pertaining to the arrests, and it was all so convoluted I have a few questions myself," the prosecutor answered in embarrassment.

"Very well, then, prosecutor. Please have the holographics of the security cameras set up. While this is done I will hear your officer."

*****

Ken blinked as he digested the officer's words.

"Sergeant-chief Portento, could you run that last part by me again?"

The sergeant sighed and rubbed his shaven head.

"A tram. An electrical tra –"

"With or without the passengers?"

"With."

"How many passengers?"

"Four hundred and fifty-seven, Your Honor."

The judge studied the sergeant for a few moments. He then laid his eyes upon the defendants, as if seeing them anew. The lieutenant-colonel tisked, a delighted expression stamped on his face.

"What insane band of baboons would see fit to hijack a tramfull's worth of our nation's citizens?!"

The sergeant cleared his throat.

"Eleven, sir."

"What?!"

"Eleven tramfulls' worth, sir."

"And they hacked it?"

"That and other vehicles, Your Honor."

"Please continue."

The sergeant rubbed his hands together, trying to remember where his story had been interrupted. Then it came to him.

"So when metro security informed us that the suspects were on the move towards Neumann Station, we raised camp and set south. Traffic was high so, in order to gain time and prevent accidents, we activated the Sudden Stop contingency."

"Could you explain that last part, Sergeant-chief?" the prosecutor interjected.

"When we request the Sudden Stop contingency to our radio central, they commandeer the ATS systems and paralyze all automated surface vehicles. They simply pull over to the curb and leave us free to move."

"And the hack wouldn't have prevented that?"

"No, prosecutor. That system was not hacked."

"And this could not have been done with the metropolitan tram?"

"No, prosecutor. That system _was_ hacked, they could do what they wanted."

"So you activated the contingency ..." the judge interrupted. "Proceed with your testimony."

"Activating the contingency became part of the problem," the officer remarked angrily before continuing. "When we got there, we surrounded the station's exits. We were about to make entry when we were swamped by the tram passengers. We found out fast that the suspects had already abandoned the location.

"Then one of my officers approached me. He had arrived from the 14th Precinct, opposite from our heading, and he told me that an ATS cab had passed him by when he was closing in. He hadn't thought much about it at the time, but then he remembered that no cab was supposed to be moving. And he also remembered the four young males who were inside the vehicle."

"No. Don't tell me ..." the judge huffed in disbelief.

"Yes, Your Honor. They hacked the ATS cab ..." the sergeant admitted, as if he himself were to blame.

There were sniggers from within the group of defendants.

The judge banged his gavel and bid all be quiet, warning of consequences if they were to test him again. He then asked the sergeant to continue.

"We came across the couple they'd kicked off the cab. When we activated the Sudden Stop, their vehicle came to a stop in front of Neumann station. They were simply waiting for the vehicle's system to reactivate when the four showed up and threw them out. They literally _threw_ them, Your Honor. Then the victims got mixed up with the throng of metro passengers and we only heard from them a minute later. We informed radio central of the development, and requested that personnel keep an eye out for any mobile ATS cabs. We then dispersed all over Leiben. Destiny had it that mine would be the patrol car to come across them. We found the fugitive vehicle grinding against almost every parked ATS cab on Eric Vandenburg street."

"Vandalism?"

"No sir. The ATS cabs have no actual wheel to drive with, as you may well know. Our technicians explained that steering, accelerating and braking information to the cab is supplied by the vehicle's CPU. The boy somehow managed to supply direct orders to the vehicle at real-time speeds."

"And who is this boy you're speaking about?"

The sergeant pointed out the boy in the trench coat.

"That one. Isogu Kitsune. He looks like a high school boy but the others listen to him. He's more of a troublemaker than he looks. Mister Kitsune was the Metropolitan tram driver and the ATS cab driver, he was imputing the instructions to both vehicles with a heavily modified qwerty keyboard. But as soon as we showed up and it became a pursuit, he simply wasn't able to type fast enough. The ATS cab managed to keep going another four hundred meters, and then it clipped two parked cars and hit a patrol car."

"How many injured?" the judge asked.

"None. The vehicle's officers had positioned it to block the road. They were outside the car, Your Honor."

"Did the defendants put up a fight?"

"We didn't give them the chance. The collision left the suspects shaken up long enough for us to make the arrests without incident."

"What else can you tell us, Sergeant-chief?"

The sergeant appeared indecisive for a brief moment, and then he clapped his hands determinedly together and began to speak.

"I know the group, Your Honor. The 'Pirates of the Periphery' is the name we had for the group before we could put faces to their hacker aliases. We now know that they call themselves Core Hack, and that they're a computer hacking community bent on enabling independence of the research hubs from centralized government. Within that community is a hard core of activists known as the Alphas. Our informants declare that this nucleus has command and control over the remainder, and that they consist of a group of eight individuals, mostly from the Terminator hub, just like the detainees present in this very –"

A choked guffaw interrupted his monologue. The judge instantly banged his gavel and ordered the offending defendant to be gagged. The attempt to gag the boy sent the remainder into laughing hysterics, and it took seven additional gags to put an end to the laughter. Once silence had been reestablished, Ken turned to Sergeant-chief Portento, a severe expression set on his face.

"I hardly think the leaders of a movement would have exposed themselves in the way these fools have. How did you get by this information?" he asked critically.

The question put the sergeant on guard.

"Varsity sources, Your Honor. Surely there's no requirement for me to be more specific."

"There is not, " the judge decided after some thought.

"Your Honor," the Lieutenant-colonel intruded, "I am satisfied. Regarding the evidence presented against the defendants, I mean. Moreover, I agree with you about the supposed leadership role of these boys. These boys aren't leaders, they're adventurers. If they want a real adventure, I've got one for them. I want them. All of them," the officer declared, his gaze fixed on Ken.

The old judge grimaced, knowing the old soldier was right. He stared at the haughty youths, and his gaze paused on the boy with the trench coat. There was an almost vulnerable demeanor to him, as if a war would tear him apart in the first clash. Then he considered the sheer panic the city had suffered at their hands, and his heart began to harden. He thanked the police officer for his testimony and dispensed him from further questioning. He then cleared his throat and made his judgment.

"The defendants before me have managed to simultaneously paralyze the Metropolitan, Underground Transit and Automated Transit systems. Had this happened at the eve of the Great Rains, what might have happened? Hundreds would have been stranded above-ground to brave the Winds at their most intense, and if the Rains had happened to pelt down at that time, how many would have been washed into the floodplains? Perhaps your friends took this into consideration or perhaps they didn't care. The people of Leiben have always been brother and sister to you, and now that the Earth-born have arrived to put an end to all indigenous inhabitants, that truth is all the clearer now. At least for those sensible enough to see it.

"You young men seem not to have seen it. And blindness has consequences in the real world. The consequences in this case will be severe.

"Darryl Hikari, Fumio Fukitsu, Peter Kojima and Timothy Bowker. You are convicted of Civil Net piracy, qualified intrusion, sabotage, resistance and seven counts of qualified assault. You are sentenced to no less than two years of compulsory military service, with the possibility of said period being extended at the pleasure of his Excellency the Commander of the CDF.

"Wolfram Kurayami, Drakum Balog, Maderu Scindia and Isougo Kitsune. You are convicted of Civil Net piracy, qualified intrusion, sabotage, qualified damages, resistance, four hundred and fifty-seven counts of sequester, wanton vandalism and two counts of simple assault and coercion. You are sentenced to no less than four years of compulsory military service, with the possibility of said period being extended at the pleasure of his Excellency the Commander of the CDF."

He expected the storm to break. It did not. Several of the newly convicted smiled beneath their gags, while others merely appeared annoyed at the sentence. The boy in the trench coat maintained an impassive expression, and the old judge began to wonder about him.

*****

The moment the judge wished them well, policemen removed the convicts' gags and shushed them as soon as they began to complain. The group was then led away to the courthouse detention block to the building's rear.

The eldest among them smiled as they walked along, thinking of how it had all worked out. The Movement's greatest weakness was not a lack of personnel. It was quality and training that they was lacking. Not one soldier, not one police officer, not even a fireman was to be found among them. They were a horde of overeducated undergraduates. It was that very dominant quality within Core Hack that had motivated the Wolf to form his own pack. Unfortunately, there was only one within it who possessed the intellect for elaborate planning. The remainder, if he was uncomfortably honest with himself, were little more than muscle.

Which was why they were known as the Alphas. It was not a name they had chosen for themselves. It was the depiction the members of Core Hack had of them, a derogatory adjective that had slowly become a name. The Fox's recruitment had been meant to make up for that.

As they entered the cell block where delinquents awaited transport to the army recruitment office, the Wolf gave the Fox a one-armed bear-hug and pulled him close.

"Sorry about this, Isougo, it looks like study time is over."

The Fox shrugged.

"Thank the gods. I was sick of it any way. Do you realize how fortunate we are?"

The Wolf smiled from his two meter frame, letting loose a chuckle at the thought.

"Free training and operational experience. Access to weaponry _and_ ammunition. This is a wet dream for me. What's your analysis?"

The Fox furrowed his brow as he thought on the matter, ignoring the congratulatory slaps his pack mates were laying into his back.

"It would be inconvenient if we were all to die. We need to volunteer for different operational units. And –"

"No, my hasty fox. We need to stick together. I know it would be more rewarding information-wise if we were to separate, but you're not considering that _we are a pack_. So, what do you think of the earthlings in all this?"

The Fox peered up at his senior with a quizzical expression.

"You know well that the people from the hubs will be used as cannon fodder against the earthborn. We'll simply have to defeat them. And then we can finish what they started when they tried to level Leiben."

The Wolf grinned and leaned down to his junior's ear.

"It seems my hasty fox has unwittingly become a wolf. Good for you."

END OF BOOK ONE

Author's note:

Thank you for taking the time to read my book. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends and posting a short review. Reviews are an indie author's best friends and much appreciated.

_Tears of Gliese_ is the next installment of this series.

Kindest regards,

Bruno Goncalves.
