“Must be pretty sure we’re not going to get shot down,” Kono suggested, gazing at the shadows of passing treetops and hillsides. The hills were all well above them, and some of the trees as well. Obviously the pilots could see the way fine, to risk flying this low. Trace hoped the moons would not make them too obvious, despite the black, non-reflective paint.
“Reeh surface coverage must be incomplete,” Trace said. “I wouldn’t have thought it was that difficult to get complete radar coverage. But corbi are pretty smart. Humans figured all kinds of ways to sneak around the krim.”
“Corbi,” the corbi who’d handed them the flask interjected, pointing to himself. Then he pointed at them. “Hu-man?”
“Human,” Trace agreed. She pointed to herself. “Trace.” Then at Kono. “Giddy.”
The corbi managed a passable approximation of that, then pointed to himself. “Jova,” he said. Then pointed around the cabin, and gave more names. Trace nodded, and repeated each back to them. “Lodi moradan reeh?” Jova asked.
“Reeh,” Trace repeated, catching that one word. She drew a thumb across her throat, vulgarly. Jova nodded appreciatively, and settled back into his seat.
“How you think they got the shuttle down?” Kono wondered, examining the pistol Trace had brought him.
“No clue. When we figure how to talk to them more easily, we’ll ask. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Kono squinted, attempting that. Nothing pleasant came. “Defending the withdrawal. Got cut off. Can’t… remember much. I think Command Squad might be okay.” Hopefully.
“Smiley bought it,” Trace said sombrely, recalling Zale’s final detonation. Kono muttered something under his breath. “Everyone else was just about out, though.” She put her hand on his arm, and squeezed. “We did good. We could have lost everyone. Total fuck up. My fault, not yours. Should never have been there.”
“Had to try, Major,” Kono disagreed. “No choice, we all agreed. At least these guys might have some idea how to actually fight the fuckers.”
“The Resistance we were with supposedly had some idea too,” Trace warned. “And they led us straight into it. Let’s keep our eyes open.”
“So we’re on Rando,” Kono said grimly, gazing at passing hillsides in nighttime silhouette beneath the silver moons. “How long have the corbi been fighting here?”
“About a thousand years.”
“Well,” said Kono, with a tight smile. “They’ve never seen anything like UF marines before. All two of us.”
“No,” Trace agreed, removing her kukri and giving the blade a closer examination for notches. “No they have not.”
About the Author
“Joel Shepherd is the Australian author of fifteen SF and Fantasy novels in three series. They are ’The Cassandra Kresnov Series’, ‘A Trial of Blood and Steel’, and ‘The Spiral Wars’.”
For More Information; www.joelshepherd.com
Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five) Page 47