I look around for a weapon. There are plenty of rifles and MARS launchers strewn about. Some of the SI troopers must have tried to make that last bird and got caught up in the explosion, because I can only find eight bodies in battle armor. I collect an undamaged-looking M-95 rifle and have my suit check its function electronically. When it checks out, I remove the empty magazine and forage spares from the harnesses of my dead comrades.
Over by the body of one of the fallen Lankies, I see some movement, and I bring my newly acquired rifle around. But the source of the movement is an SI trooper, crawling out from the debris. It’s the trooper who felled the Lanky by shooting it in the skull from directly below. I walk over to the trooper, who turns toward me at the sound of my footsteps in the rubble. The trooper looks up at me, and her face is about as exhausted looking as I feel.
“On your feet,” I say, and hold out a hand.
She grabs it and lets me pull her upright.
“You in one piece?” I ask.
She nods and looks around on the ground. “Can’t see my rifle.”
“It’s probably under that thing’s head,” I say, and nod at the dead Lanky. “That was the most inspired kill I’ve ever seen.”
“You saw that?” She smiles weakly. The rank stripes on her armor are those of a sergeant first class, and her name tape says “CRAWFORD, K.”
“Got it on visual record. If we make it back, I am putting you in for some tin.”
Sergeant Crawford smiles weakly. “That and a twenty will get me a cup of coffee at the NCO club.”
“Check your armor, and see if you have comms and air.”
She pays attention to her visor display for a few seconds. “Got oxygen; comms and data are fucked.”
“Same here, mostly. My near-field data link is still up.”
“So what’s the plan, Lieutenant?”
Sergeant Crawford takes a few steps, then stops and bends over slightly with a wince.
“You hurt, Sergeant?”
“Suit says I cracked a few ribs. The meds should kick in momentarily.” She continues and walks the way I just came. After a few moments of searching, she picks a rifle off the ground and checks the loading status.
“Near-field data’s got a twenty-klick range at best,” I say. “The plan is we hoof it west until we get to within twenty kilometers of our forward line of battle. Hope someone sees us pop up on Tactical and comes to check things out.”
“Through Lanky-controlled territory,” Sergeant Crawford says. “With two rifles and two busted suits.”
“Just another day in the infantry,” I reply.
“I’m not infantry,” she says. “Not usually. They assigned me to the infantry three months ago. Not enough grunts to go around.”
“What’s your primary MOS?”
“Oh-one-five-one. Administrative clerk. I run databases over at battalion S4.”
“Logistics.” I grin. “That Lanky got its clock cleaned by a logistics clerk.”
Sergeant Crawford looks over at the dead Lanky she brained with four armor-piercing rounds from her rifle. “Uh, I guess so. It seemed like a good thing to do at the time, sir.”
I laugh out loud. “Today, you’re not a supply clerk. You are a podhead now.”
CHAPTER 17
DANGEROUS GROUND
We search the area for usable gear and supplies before we head out into open ground. None of the dead SI troopers have intact armor left, so I can’t just change out of the bug suit and into standard battle armor. At least there’s plenty of spare ammunition. Neither Sergeant Crawford nor I want to encumber ourselves with a MARS launcher, because the things weigh close to thirty pounds and are a bitch to carry around when you have to move quickly, and if we get jumped by ten Lankies, I doubt having an extra rocket or two would greatly influence the outcome. So we fill our magazine pouches and refill our water supplies from the suits of our dead comrades. I make sure I collect the dog tags of the dead out in the open, both the electronic ones and the physical metal ID disks each trooper wears around the neck. We don’t bother sifting through all the bodies in the drop-ship wreckage because neither of us has the stomach to spend a few hours separating SI troopers from dead civilians. There were some kids in the crowd, and I don’t want to find out whether some of them were on that last drop ship. The Lankies don’t give a shit, of course—the difference between an adult and a child would be insignificant to them even if they could tell—but my earlier smidgen of empathy for the Lankies has melted away like an ice cube on a sunbaked armor plate.
“Let’s check the bunker while we’re at it,” Sergeant Crawford suggests.
“Won’t be much in there,” I say. “They were running on fumes before we got there, remember?”
Then I recall a few details from when we opened the airlock and I got a look at the interior of the bunker earlier. “Hold on. Maybe we can save ourselves a whole lot of running, after all.”
The comms unit in the bunker is toast. Whoever evacuated the station when we arrived did a by-the-book job and took out the hardware-encryption module and then gave the control console a few whacks with a fire axe. We can’t use the station’s radio to call for a ride. But there are four electric ATVs parked by the main airlock. They look dusty, but their charging umbilicals are still plugged in.
“I sincerely hope they kept these topped off for emergency use,” Sergeant Crawford says.
“You and me both. I’m not a fan of long hikes through enemy territory.”
Sergeant Crawford swings herself on top of one of the ATVs. Then she activates the vehicle’s control screen.
“Hallelujah,” she says. “Eighty-nine percent charge. Sixty klicks at sixty per.”
“Outstanding,” I reply. “Consider the day saved.”
“No offense, sir, but the day ain’t saved until I’m taking a nice hot shower back at the base,” she replies.
We load up two of the ATVs with our weapons and spare ammunition. Sergeant Crawford is smaller than I am, so she has space for a MARS launcher and two silver-bullet rockets, which she lashes to the seat behind her with elastic cords. The ATVs are made for two passengers, but we each take our own to have a backup in case one breaks in the middle of the Martian plains. I haven’t driven an ATV in months, but Sergeant Crawford hasn’t been on one in years, and she needs to take a few practice runs around the research compound to get familiar with the controls again.
“I think I got the hang of it,” she proclaims when she pulls up next to my ATV a few laps around the block later.
“Is your map overlay still working?”
She checks her suit computer. “Yes, sir.”
“Okay.” I consult my own map. “The spaceport is fifty-one klicks away at two hundred sixty-nine degrees. We’ll have to go a bit longer than that because of the topography. See that hill halfway and ten klicks to the south, the one labeled eighteen eighteen?”
“Affirmative.”
“We’ll go around the north slope, just high enough that we can keep an eye on the valley to the north. We go full throttle when we can, but don’t flip that thing on a rock or into a ravine. And we keep each other in line of sight. Without radios, we won’t know if the other breaks down or falls behind if we can’t see each other. Standard infantry hand signals. Remember those?”