"I love you," I whispered in her ear. "I'll love you forever. I'll never stop loving you."
"I love you, too," she confessed, clutching my uniform blouse. "I never loved anyone like this before. I never felt like this before. I couldn't sleep last night. It's so stupid! I don't even know you."
"I don't know you, either," I said. "And maybe it’s for the best. The truth is, I'm leaving tomorrow – and that will be it. You'd better just forget me."
"Stop it! I don't want to hear it! I can't forget you. It's impossible!"
"Look – I'll write you, whenever I can get access to a starlink."
She moaned, and buried her face in my chest. "Please, please, God, help me. Please help me." She was crying like a river, gasping and shuddering.
Damn it. Now she had me going. I brushed away the first tear and held her tight. I didn't want her to see it. Damn it! What kind of a soldier am I? I glanced across to Arie and Blondie. They were wrapped around each other like a couple of snakes mating. I had never before felt so utterly helpless. We were like bacteria, caught in a cosmic typhoon, rushing onwards to certain destruction.
"Please, please, please, dear God…" she continued, sharp fingernails digging into my back. How could I leave her? She loves me, nobody has ever loved me like this before. Nobody else has ever prayed to God for me. And I have to leave her? I have to forget her?
How am I going to do that? Am I really that strong?
Chapter 5
Planet Hell
"All right, prep to insert," Doggie said. My adrenalin exploded, icy hot. We were poised by the crash doors in the Phantom, A & A, fully armed and armored, glowing in red light, seemingly bathed in blood as the ship hurtled through the night, smashing its way through an inky forest, snapping off huge branches from ancient trees, invisible and silent except for the snapping and crunching of the trees. The Phantom was our invincible goddess. Fully cloaked, it delivered us to the fight, hovered overhead to support us and picked us up on call. We loved her. The Phantom shook and steadied and the assault doors snapped open. A wet breeze shot through the doors.
"Have fun, gals!" That was our new driver, Bird. We hadn't gotten to know him very well yet. Doggie leaped out and we all followed, popping out both doors. My spring boots hit spongy turf and I immediately starburst, jogging from the insertion site, following the green line that my tacmod flashed onto my visor. No commands were needed – we had done this many times before. I was in a tangled wet forest that hid the night sky and it was dead dark but I could see just fine, thanks to Honey.
The Phantom disappeared into the night. Disappeared? It was just as if it had never existed.
"All clear, Prophet," Honey said. "Cloaking is functioning at 100 percent. E is active with safety on, target systems at 100 percent. Counterpsych is active with no psych activity detected. All tacmod systems are green. Tacmap shows all friendly units, completely cloaked. No hostile activity detected." Honey was my tacmod, a calm clear feminine voice that was supposed to keep me alert and alive. She wasn't alive, but I treated her as if she was.
"Approaching Three and Four. Please follow greentracks," Honey said. I was on our left flank with Saka and Ice. The three of us were to advance on the left with Doggie, Scout and Bees further back in the center and Smiley, Nitro and the Professor on the right. We were all fairly widely separated. This was recon formation, allowing us to move forward dispersed, three fire teams in rough wedge formation , while remaining in a very flexible position to respond quickly to any sudden attack or ambush with a counterattack from the center or from left or right flanks, or all three at once.
The forest was spooky – creepy, even. We were moving carefully, brushing aside wet palm leaves and clingy vines and thorns, with evil black branches seemingly reaching out for us. The Phantom was invisible, of course, both visually and electromagnetically, so nobody could have noted the insertion. And we were invisible as well, fully cloaked by the Legion's miraculous technology. My A-suit helmet was topped by a cloaking device that projected an invisible layer of active camfax that deflected all hostile probes and reflected only images of whatever was all around us. You could walk right up to our A-suits without even seeing them. The only way I knew where the others were was because of Honey and her wonderful tacmap.
It was our second month on Planet Hell, and this was an extremely important exercise. If we screwed this one up, our stay in advanced combat training would likely be extended. We were all highly motivated. It was a very realistic and likely scenario. "All right, ladies," Doggie said. "Keep moving but stay alert. We're on an intercept course to these bastards and if we can get a fix on them, we should be able to set up an ambush they can walk into. They're on foot and they've got captives, so that will slow them down. But remember they've got DefCorps tech so they’ll be A & A and maybe they'll be cloaked as well."
It was discouraging news. Slavers were normally not that well armored and they normally didn't have cloaking. It was a tough situation, but I knew these scenarios were all based on past events, real combat situations that Legion troopers had run into. So no whining, I reminded myself. At least this was only an exercise, and we were facing training robots instead of real bad guys.
"Fire xmax only," Doggie said. "And I don't want any dead captives. Kill the slavers, free the captives. Anybody who kills a captive, I'll kick your ass. And if we can do a stealth take down, use hyperdarts instead of xmax."
We were heading roughly southwest, alongside a sludgy creek bed through that trackless forest. The scenario was that the slavers had raided a ConFree town, snatched up some captives and taken off on foot heading in the direction of the Chattan Mountains, a formidable wilderness where they would probably rendezvous with the main group or maybe get picked up by air in a relatively safe area.
"Alert! Freeze. Roving probe has detected possible hostile. Amplifying visual." We froze. It appeared on our tacmap, a pulsing string of light, leading to a vertical blob, then vanishing. Then flickering, and vanishing again.
"Prof?" Doggie asked.
"Looks like they're using leash cloaking. The metal leash is affixed to the captive, and it transmits the hostile's A-suit cloaking along to the captive. But something's wrong with this one – some kind of short. It's flickering on and off."
"So even their captives are cloaked. That explains why they haven't been spotted yet."
"Right."
"The zero is to our east. That's a bit odd. But this tells us where they are."
"One, Two."
"Go ahead, Two."
Doggie and Scout chatted on private, so we couldn't hear it. It was lightly raining – dark and gloomy.
"There it goes again," Doggie said. We could see the probe's image on our tacmaps from time to time. They were evidently unaware they had a unit that was malfunctioning. They were heading roughly west – towards us.
"All right, let's get moving – we set up an ambush and let them walk into it." Our A-suit defenses could highlight the presence of cloaked areas that entered our immediate defensive area, even if the hostile cloaking remained intact and invisible. It was the one weakness of cloaking – and our enemies hopefully had not discovered it yet.
Δ
As we waited in ambush, Honey highlighted the hostile in red. We knew this was really one captive, not a hostile, but the hostile would be a few steps ahead of the captive – and presumably accompanied by the rest of the gang, slavers and captives alike. Our fields of fire would riddle the A-suited hostiles while bypassing the unarmored captives, which would be marked as friendly on our tacmods.
Closer. We could even see the leaves moving as they advanced, coming right at us.
"Looks like only one hostile with one captive," Scout said.
"Damn it. Fire," Doggie replied. Our xmax shattered the silence, tearing up the shrubbery, shredding the trees. Both hostile and captive went down.
"Auto xmax," Doggie ordered. "Clear the site." We ripped up the vicinity, tearing hell out of the jungle. No res
ponse – there was evidently no one else out there.
"Cease fire. Investigate. 365 alert. Bees, see the captive."
The hostile robot was torn all to hell, his DefCorps armor glowing where the xmax had penetrated it, the helmet blasted, his head almost shot off, the armor riddled, one armored arm almost severed. His DefCorps StarGuard battle rifle was in the dirt beside him. He hadn't got off a shot. Cenite armor was pretty close to invulnerable but when you got a non-angled shot with auto xmax it was all over.
The captive was all right – another robot, this one a female in civilian garb, all splattered with mud. She screamed in surprise when Bees suddenly appeared by her side. She could only see us when we were right next to her. "I don't feel so good," she later complained to Bees. She was peppered with light shrapnel wounds that would have seriously incapacitated a human. Bees patched her up and told her how to find her way back to base. We sure weren't going to take her with us.
"This was a set-up," Scout said. "A deception, to get us out of the way while the rest of the group makes its escape. The cloaking defect was deliberate."
"Yeah, you were right," Doggie said. "All right, ladies, let's get moving. I want to catch up to those bastards before they get away. We've got some slaves to liberate."
Δ
"Bird, where the hell are they? Can't you see anything?" Doggie asked.
"Negative, boss. I've got hundreds of probes out there, shooting around the forest, but no sign so far. If we do make a hit, we'll light them up for you on the tacmap, and they won't get away." Bird was floating over the target area, invisible and silent. He was our best chance of spotting the hostiles, but they were being annoyingly low-profile.
"Scout, report." Doggie ordered. Scout and Arie were doing a recon, far ahead of us, probing for bad guys as we continued advancing into the suspected target area. We were all nervous about an ambush because of all the noise we made with that first target. Chances were they were running as fast as possible, but this bunch seemed to be very well-equipped and might chance an ambush on a Legion squad. I sure as hell wouldn’t chance anything like that, but who knows?
"Nothing to report," Scout responded. "Believe they may be in this area. We'll let you know."
"Tenners," Doggie replied.
That’s when they hit us. A shrieking river of xmax lit up the forest, slicing into Saka and Ice and me. My A-suit whined and vibrated and the faceplate lit up in red as emergency notices pulsed their warnings.
"ALERT, PROPHET! Multiple xmax sim hits! You are hit! Multiple non-angled penetrations! Fall and freeze! A-suit systems are shutting down! You have received fatal hits and are presumed KIA. Your A-suit is no longer viable. You are no longer included in this simulation. Sorry, Prophet." Heavy xmax was erupting all around me. What the hell was happening?
"Honey, report! Give me the sit!"
"Saka is hit and down. Ice is hit and down. Doggie is hit and down. Bees is hit and down. Smiley and the Professor have taken cover and are firing back. Enemy is now concentrating on Smiley and the Professor."
"Have you highlighted the enemy?" I asked Honey. I was so psyched up I couldn't even see the tacmap, it was all a great red blur.
"Tenners, Prophet. All enemy highlighted in red." I tried to move my A-suit but had a lot of trouble moving my arms. What the hell?
"Honey–" I began.
"I'm sorry, Prophet, I am programmed to freeze the hydro if you are simulated KIA."
"Smiley, Professor, it's Prophet! We're down and out! Prophet, Saka, Ice, Doggie, Bees are down. They got our left flank and center – so you're it!" Smiley and the Prof were our right flank.
"We're pinned down, Prophet! Very heavy fire – we can't move!" It was Smiley.
"Smiley, you've got to get out of there, then flank them and attack!" Doggie ordered. "We can't move!"
"Neither can we!"
"Smiley, Prof!" It was Saka. "They're all on the tacmap now. You've got to maneuver out of that trap and then attack and waste 'em!"
"Delta, this is Scout! We see them and we're on the way! It's going to take us awhile to get there! Go Nitro!" I knew Arie was going to get here in record time but by then it might be too late. I could see the enemy troopers glowing red on my tacmap. Damn it! I could not move my A-suit.
I forced my hand slowly, against heavy pressure, to hit the release latch on my chestplate. That done, I unsealed my helmet and forced it off with the armored palm of one fist. Once the chestplate and helmet were off, things got easier. I forced my way out of the A-suit, keeping low. A horrific firefight was raging but it didn’t look like they were aiming this way.
"What are you doing, Prophet?" It was Honey. I was out of the suit now, clad only in litesuit fatigues and the flexible footcushions. My life expectancy was dropping fast. The forest was hot and wet and suffocating. I snatched at the tacmod and wrenched it out of the helmet. I clipped it to a sleeve. I picked up my E.
"You just keep those bad guys highlighted, Honey."
"This is against orders, Prophet," Honey objected. I said something rude about the orders. I low-crawled over to Saka, guided by the tacmap. He was on his back in a giant pile of shattered tree limbs, down and out. Once I reached him, he became visible. His A-suit was scarred with reddish impacts from the sim rounds.
A titanic bang ripped through the forest and I was showered with tree limbs, stunned. A crackling white star rose upwards, blinding me. Tacstar! Smiley had evidently found an opening, and blasted the bad guys. He was answered with a deafening volley of auto xmax. No, they were still there.
I popped Saka's chestplate open and wrenched his helmet off. "Let's go, Saka. Every last one of those suckers is on the tacmap. Bring your tacmap. Pick up your E and tell me what to do. You're the man!"
He struggled out of his armor without a word as I helped him, and then he signaled for me to follow him. There were six of them on the tacmap now, glowing red dots, zeroed by our tacmods from their firing tracks. We did a left flank attack and I was salivating like a human wolf. I expected to die at any moment, but at that point I didn’t care. What would one of those sim rounds do to human flesh? And why hadn't they blown us away yet? They could certainly see us perfectly on their tacmaps. I decided I didn't care. I wanted to see a field of dead robots – that's all. Attack us, will you? We'll see about that!
"Delta, Bird. I'm right overhead. Give me the word and I'll erase 'em all."
"Negative, negative, Bird, do not fire! Smiley, Prof. It's Saka. Hold your fire a bit. Prophet and I are now attacking the target from the left. We are NOT in armor. No more tacstars, please! Try not to kill us, tenners? Do suppressing xmax fire as soon as we fire. Firing now."
I fired instantly, two aimed xmax shots into Target 1, then two more into Target 2, then two more into Target 3, all conveniently color-highlighted and labeled by Honey. Saka was taking out his targets as well. Then I opened up on autofire, fire at will, auto xmax, die you bastards, die, I don't care if you're robots or not, you're dead meat! I noted that Smiley and the Professor were firing as well, breaking out of their positions and attacking in a hail of xmax.
Δ
As we stood in the glowing field of shredded A-suited robots, the situation slowly clarified itself. One hostile had been left in their rear with all the captives, and all captives were leash cloaked to the hostile. Arie had run into them during his sprint to get back to us and had blown the hostile away without even breaking stride. Why hadn't the hostiles targeted Saka and me? Probably because we were not in armor and so couldn't be part of the Legion squad they were targeting. They may have thought we were a couple of captives who had broken away from the group – but we clearly weren't worth worrying about. If they had observed us a little closer they might have noted we were carrying E's. But they didn't.
On our way back to base in the Phantom, the ship was crowded with all the captives we had rescued – all female robots, chatting it up, not a care in the world.
"You did it the hard way!" Bird complained. "O
nce they were on the map, I could have wiped 'em all out!"
"That was counter to the scenario," Doggie said. "You were not to pursue or attack, only to search and evac if necessary."
"Oh, and you folks followed the scenario, did you? Ha!"
"That was good work, Saka," Doggie said.
"It was Prophet," Saka said. "He got loose first, then helped me out of my armor."
"Good work to both of you."
"Prophet, why didn't you include me in your plans?" Ice asked.
"Sorry, Ice. I didn’t have any plans. I ran across Saka first, and figured two of us could handle it. There wasn't enough time for any more fooling around. I was kind of acting without a lot of thought. If I had stumbled over you first, it would have been you."
"That's all right, Prophet." She sighed. "You did fine."
"All right, Delta, listen up," Doggie said. "For the record, Saka, Prophet and Bird violated standing scenario guidelines and are to be reprimanded. Bad boys! All right, that's it. Off the record, you guys are great! Prophet, that was brilliant! Saka, damned good maneuvering and a terrific tactical outcome. Bird, we appreciate your fast reaction, and your offer. Final score was all eleven slavers KIA, three Deltas KIA, two Deltas seriously wounded, and nine slaves rescued. That's not as good as it could be, but we accomplished the mission in the face of fierce opposition and didn't kill any captives. I've learned from base that this was one of the toughest scenarios they've got, and a lot of squads run into very serious trouble on this mission – just like we did. We're going to go over every instant of this mission for lessons learned. I'm not happy with five casualties on our side, and I know you're not either. Let's learn from it."
Slaves – that was the problem. They were in great demand in the Gulf, and motivated all the slaver activity that appeared to be increasing every year. And our mission was to stop it – to kill every slaver in the galaxy. Or at least every one we could catch.
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