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, realizing 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 a pause, they set off once more. 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 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 once more 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 began to tune out his surroundings as he focused 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 had slowly built 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 disliked them most profoundly.
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 deceased boar’s hindquarter. None spoke, there being no need to bring up the fact that they possessed only a day of rations left. The hindquarter was scraped to the bone for every sliver of flesh, and Toni couldn’t help wondering how Ian would look once all the meat had been carved away. 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 the 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 incapacity.
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 preceding the Dogspine, the topsoil almost non-existent, and 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, if the current trail was so tenuous that only Suits’ footpads on the ground were still visible, then after the rains it would be nigh 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 cadets observed each other tiredly, not deigning to utter 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 ever so brightly but the fauna hiding from it. Toni was on point again, and he wondered 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 once more. 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 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 once more. 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, disliking 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 suddenly began to hear chirping once more, 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. He was answered immediately.
“ATTENTION INDRUDER. IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON.”
Toni hurled himself into a bush and hugged the ground, the noise to his right and rear making it clear that his mates had copied him. His heart pounded in his chest, and he hated himself fiercely for not trusting his instincts.
“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 realize
d 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 at any moment. 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 are 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,” it finally said, “we were beginning to lose hope that there would be any more survivors, but still we had our bots refrain 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 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
Frontline, Nature’s Night, 20th of June, 2771
As the last remnants of LOGIS broke through the foliage to scrutinize the source of the cheerful voice, it 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 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 as the voice had spoken.
The group set off once more 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 who had possessed 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 angry he would dare say such a thing.
Fifty paces further on 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 sat the only human members of the robotic infantry company. Heavily camouflaged and armed with an assortment of portable electronic equipment, the 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 heavyset of the pair remarked cheerfully as he approached and shook their hands, waving off their salutes as unnecessary.
“Good day ...” the younger of them, a reed-thin lieutenant with a grim face, momentarily raised his hand towards them and then returned 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 provide 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, and a broad frown had spread across his wide face. He turned to Toni and gave him a hard stare.
“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 currently 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 interjected, “the trail left by MEWAC on its way south-east.”
The captain seemed a little confused for a moment, but then began to smile.
“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 is 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 tiredly interrupted, “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 and calmly held a corded telephone out for 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’s base stretched a black wire, snaking its way into what appeared to be a compact switching station. From that station snaked many more wires, two that extended in opposite directions parallel to the front lines, while more stretched out rearwards into the forest.
“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 the 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 uncertain.
“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 precisely 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.
Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) Page 30