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Lessons Learned

A tree twenty feet from Meyer's bulldozer had been smoldering for the five minutes since a grenade went off nearby. Hair-thin spines covering the bark ignited in a gush of white that enveloped the branches a hundred and fifty feet above. As the initial gout died away, the trunk itself burst into vibrant red flame. It pulsed like the muzzle flashes of an automatic weapon.

Meyer tapped Seligman's shoulder. "Let's knock that bastard down," she said. "Otherwise it's going to fall in our direction as sure as it's raining."

The driver probably swore, but he didn't switch on the intercom for Meyer to hear it. He lifted the dozer blade from the ground, then began to back and turn the tractor to line up the target.

A stinger cracked out a single pellet. Somebody was making sure a wog knew that dead meant dead.

The bulldozer started forward. Meyer rocked with a motion become familiar.

She was alone with Seligman on the vehicle. Matt had caught fragments of one of his own grenades in his right cheek and arm. He'd insisted they were just scratches, nothing to worry about, but Meyer wasn't having any of that macho bullshit. He'd been wounded, so he was walking over to the docs and doing whatever they told him to do.

She'd been a long time without him, without anybody. She wasn't going to lose him now for a stupid reason.

The tree throbbed before them. Seligman lowered the blade to shave the ground, spilling burning brush to the left.

Meyer checked to be sure the tank of the flame gun was beneath the cab overhang, sheltered from the heat radiating from the trunk. The hard suits protected her and the driver from burning wood, at least for as long as it would take to push the tree over. If the tank cooked off, the metallized fuel could be another thing entirely.

She braced herself. The blade's stinger punched its full length into the fiery tree, just to the right of the trunk's center. The tracks slowed as the cleats bit but continued to work the tractor laboriously forward.

The tree wasn't a particularly big one for this jungle, maybe three feet in diameter. It shook its blazing crown; then the whole trunk started to go.

A branch broke off high overhead and spun toward the clearing, showering sparks through the rain. There was nothing anybody below could do but try to judge its course and run like hell.

Seligman couldn't see the dropping torch; it didn't matter to his job anyway. The bulldozer ground on as deliberately as sand running through an hourglass.

A little child ran past the left side of the tractor, so blind with fear that the heat of the falling tree didn't turn her back. She crossed the ground the trunk would smash and incinerate in a matter of seconds. As she fled she screamed, "Caius! Caius!"

A woman ran twenty feet behind the child, gaining only inches with each stride. She ducked beneath the toppling tree.

The trunk hit with an impact that made the soil ripple. Chunks of burning wood flew to both sides. The woman stumbled but managed not quite to fall. She continued to pursue the child into the unbroken jungle, batting furiously at her coveralls. Though the garment didn't burn, sparks melted into the cloth.

"Did you see that?" Seligman said. He shifted the bulldozer into neutral. "What are they thinking about? Are they out of their goddam minds?"

Meyer sat on the edge of the deck with her legs dangling over, then levered herself off with both hands. She wanted to jump down, but the weight of her equipment was more likely than not to stun her if she got hasty.

The bulldozer backed cautiously. Meyer trotted between the blade and the upturned roots, then into the full glare of the burning trunk. She wished she'd had time to unsling the flame gun before she ran over fiery ground, but there was no time to waste.

If the kid and woman were going to survive more than the next few seconds, Esther Meyer had to get them out of the jungle.

Blohm heard the tree falling—the snap of branches and vines as the trunk tore them away, the sigh of air shoved aside in its passage. Though he knew the tree was so close he could have flipped a pebble against it on an open plain, the only glimpse the scout caught was a wink of bright flame through a gap in the foliage.

It hit. The forest shrugged angrily. Smoke and steam swollen with the odors of life fanned the undergrowth. Blohm opened his mouth to call in his location so that he wasn't shot as he entered the clearing twenty yards distant.

He felt them coming toward him.

Not strikers, because his visor located every member of C41. Humanoids, the survivors of the attack on the column.

He'd moved under branches sturdy enough to stop or at least slow the falling tree's impact. The bark of his shelter oozed sap that vaporized and made his bare skin tingle, but he didn't intend to stay long in its range.

Around the trunk was an open circle three or four feet in diameter; beyond that grew a stand of wire-trunked seedlings that would bind a human. When the attackers came through the screen at him like water through a sieve, Blohm wouldn't be able to drop more than one of them before the rest got him the way they had Gabrilovitch.

He took the last grenade from his belt and cocked his arm for a throw high enough to clear the screen. The fuel would spray down and envelope everything in the thicket when it went off. Do them before they do you.

Just like Active Cloak.

And because he hadn't thrown the grenade at the last possible moment by which it would have saved his life from attacking humanoids, Caius Blohm heard Mirica scream his name as the seedlings grabbed her. He wasted the grenade in the forest behind him as he entered the reeds with his powerknife.

The trunks were rubbery and hard to grip, but the blade sliced through their softness like cobwebs. Blohm could have cut them with the shaft of a spoon if he'd had to at this moment.

He took Mirica in his left arm and hugged her to him as he strode on slashing. He didn't have a plan for how he was going to free Mrs. Suares while holding the child, but in the event he didn't have to. A striker in an ash-smeared hard suit was already pulling the old woman clear.

They were on the other side of the trap. Beyond was a steam-swathed tree trunk and a bulldozer at the edge of the clearing.

The child called, "Caius!" as she clutched his chest and they all four staggered to safety.

Farrell sat cross-legged with his visor down, clicking through alternative arrangements for deploying his strikers on the march. The helmet AI shifted purple dots and the orange masses of civilians with equanimity, but it couldn't tell Art Farrell what the next threat was going to be.

It could have told him that he didn't have enough strikers for the job, but that wouldn't have been news.

"Striker Blohm is here, sir," Kristal said, loud enough to cut through Farrell's concentration.

He raised his visor instead of clearing it. Caius Blohm stood straight, more like a prisoner tied to a stake than as a soldier at attention.

The problem with Blohm wasn't the sort of thing you expected in the Strike Force. Kristal didn't know what facial expression would be appropriate. She was a little too eager for the extra rate than Farrell liked, but no question she was doing a good job filling in as First Sergeant under the worst conditions you could imagine.

Farrell had set a minilight on the sheeting in front of him. He didn't need the illumination, but it showed the civilians that he was present and accessible. Now he turned the light off, then removed his helmet.

"Sit down, Blohm," he said. "Thanks, Sergeant. Tell God that I'll be unavailable for the next few minutes, all right?"

The present clearing was good-sized, now that there wasn't a battle going on in it. You couldn't call where Farrell sat private, exactly—certainly not from strikers' helmets—but there was a respectful amount of space open around him.

The scout seated himself with cautious grace. He took off his helmet also. Light from the fire crackling twenty yards away accentuated the hollows of Blohm's cheeks and eye sockets, and they were deep enough already.

"I waited till Sergeant Abbado got back to have this conversation, Blohm," Farrell said. "You went out and brought them the last of the way in, I gather?"

"Yessir," Blohm said. "Sir . . ."

He let the word trail off.

"What the fuck did you think you were playing at, Blohm?" Farrell said in a voice that never rose above the minimum necessary for the other man to hear him. "You knew it was your responsibility to guide the patrol back. I wouldn't have given even odds of ever seeing Abbado and his people again."

"Yes sir," said Blohm. His body was still, but his palms were flat together and pressing so hard that they trembled. "Sir, I knew it was wrong."

"Do you think we're so short-handed that I can't have you shot for desertion right now, Blohm?" Farrell said. "Is that what you think?"

"No sir," Blohm said. Tears glittered in his eyes; the shiver in his hands had spread to his voice. "I know you can have me shot. I know you can."

"Well, if you know that, you're an even bigger damned fool than I thought you were," Farrell said, relaxing. "Christ, man, you're a lot of what chance we have of surviving this ratfuck. Thing is, I need Three-three just as bad. You lot nailed one set of our problems today, but I've seen enough of this jungle to expect something new in the morning. Were you figuring to guard a thousand civilians all by your lonesome?"

"Sir, I fucked up," Blohm said. He wiped his eyes, angry at his weakness. "I—"

He paused, but this time he finished the sentence: "Sir, I never had anybody give a shit about me before. I can't take care of her alone, I know that. I'll do my job, sir. I'll never not do my job again."

"Go get some dinner, Blohm," Farrell said, rubbing his temples. "We've got a lot of long days ahead of us." If we live that long.

"Yes sir," Blohm said as he rose, lifting his helmet with him. Almost shyly he added, "We're having tapioca pudding again. I told her we would when I came back."

He stepped away briskly. Farrell saw Seraphina Suares and a small child waiting for the scout just beyond the range their presence would be intrusive.

Farrell remained as he was. He told himself he ought get back to fooling with the order of march, but that was a lie. He didn't have enough information to know where he should put his strikers, and he didn't have enough strikers anyway. All he'd really be doing was clutching a security blanket. It wouldn't save one single life tomorrow or in the days to come.

Tamara Lundie sat down beside him in the near darkness. "What I really want to do," he said without raising his head from his hands, "is get drunk. But I can't afford to."

"In celebration of your victory?" Lundie said.

Farrell turned his head. He'd never get used to the blonde's earnestness, not if this damned operation lasted a million years.

"No," he said, careful to keep the disgust out of his voice. She didn't know, she couldn't know; and she was trying to learn. "Because I lost people today. I'd like to get drunk enough to forget that, or at least to get some sleep."

"But . . ." Lundie said. He couldn't see any more of her face than a blur as pale as snow. "You've had casualties before. Casualties were very light today in comparison to your achievement."

"Since I took command of C41," Farrell said, feeling his face smile. You had to laugh, or . . . "The company's casualties have been three hundred and fifty percent. The magic of replacements, you see."

"But these were strikers who'd been with you for some time," Lundie said, articulating her understanding in the form of a statement rather than a question.

"I guess they were," Farrell said. "Yeah, I suppose that does make a difference. But I don't take anybody on an operational mission until they've trained with the company long enough that I know them, believe me."

He shook his head. "They all hurt," he said. "Every fucking one of them. I don't remember the names a lot of times, but I see their faces. Every fucking one."

Lundie nodded slowly. "I see," she said.

She stood up. She looked as delicate as a straw doll. "Major Farrell," she said. "I am honored to serve with you and your strikers."

She touched his hand and walked away, toward where her boss was projecting large holographic images for a group of civilians.

In a funny way, Farrell thought, Tamara saying that was better than the usual post-mission quart of cognac.

"Krishna, I'm tired," Caldwell said. "I'm going to treat myself. I'm going to take boots off. I really am."

Abbado snicked closed the latch of the bandolier he'd been about to remove. "What the hell is that?" he said softly. He walked toward the civilians gathered around a huge holographic projection. The sheeting creaked, but his boots and those of his strikers made no sound of their own.

The basis of the display was helmet imagery, mixed from multiple sources and enhanced by a very powerful editing program. You had to have been there to notice the glossy texture that replaced the gritty, vaporous reality.

Abbado had been there, all right. The projection was of the attack on the mother creature and her guards.

"Well, I'll be damned to hell," Matushek said. "How are they doing that, anyway?"

He meant the holograms. Abbado saw God down in front; nothing the manager and his aide came up with was much of a surprise any more. The other question was how 3-3 had managed to survive. That was harder to answer, now that Abbado saw the action as a spectator.

He watched as a figure, Sergeant Guilio Abbado, loosed two rockets at the gravid mother, then stepped forward so that a troll's club smashed the ground behind him. He didn't remember dodging but he must have done. It looked like a ballet pass from the outside, but he didn't remember it at all.

Monsters came from the smoke. Strikers fired point-blank. Caldwell grappled with a guard, sawing at the tendons of the creature's wrist as its other hand closed on her helmet. Grenades flashed on the guard's beaked face. Still it gripped though the club fell from nerveless fingers.

The image faded into pearly radiance, then blacked out. Manager al-Ibrahimi rose to his feet and bowed to the four strikers. Colonists turned, craned their necks and stood for a better view.

There were hundreds of them watching. Hundreds.

"Ah . . ." Abbado said. "Ah, we didn't mean to disturb anybody."

Christ, he didn't know what to say. "Come on," he muttered to Horgen. "Let's get some dinner and I'll check the guard roster with Kristal."

Their billet was nearby, a hundred square feet of sheeting where Kristal had had 3-3's excess gear dumped to await their return from patrol. The plastic heaved. Abbado looked over his shoulder. The crowd of civilians was following them.

"I'll be damned to hell," Ace repeated.

Dr. Ciler gripped Abbado's hand and shook it. "I'm so sorry about Striker Glasebrook," he said. "He was a hero. Hundreds would have died. Sergeant, you're all heroes."

"It's not like that," Abbado said, frustrated that he didn't have the words to explain. He saw a civilian give Horgen a drink from a chased silver flask that was certainly older than the Unity. Ethanol was as easy to run from the converters as starch was, but other of the colonists were offering sauces and spices.

Mary, Mother of God. The thought of a meal that didn't taste like refinery sludge . . . 

"Doc, it's not like that," he repeated. "We're all in this together."

"Yes," said Ciler. "We are."

Mrs. Florescu was holding Caldwell and crying. The striker looked stunned. When they got someplace he could do it, Abbado'd write Caldwell up for that business with the guard. You couldn't eat a medal, but fuck, the Strike Force usually supplied you with enough to eat.

"I'll be damned to hell!" Matushek said with a bottle in either hand.

No, Ace, Abbado thought. We've been damned to hell. It just might be we'll find a way out after all.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed

Back | Next
Contents

Lessons Learned

A tree twenty feet from Meyer's bulldozer had been smoldering for the five minutes since a grenade went off nearby. Hair-thin spines covering the bark ignited in a gush of white that enveloped the branches a hundred and fifty feet above. As the initial gout died away, the trunk itself burst into vibrant red flame. It pulsed like the muzzle flashes of an automatic weapon.

Meyer tapped Seligman's shoulder. "Let's knock that bastard down," she said. "Otherwise it's going to fall in our direction as sure as it's raining."

The driver probably swore, but he didn't switch on the intercom for Meyer to hear it. He lifted the dozer blade from the ground, then began to back and turn the tractor to line up the target.

A stinger cracked out a single pellet. Somebody was making sure a wog knew that dead meant dead.

The bulldozer started forward. Meyer rocked with a motion become familiar.

She was alone with Seligman on the vehicle. Matt had caught fragments of one of his own grenades in his right cheek and arm. He'd insisted they were just scratches, nothing to worry about, but Meyer wasn't having any of that macho bullshit. He'd been wounded, so he was walking over to the docs and doing whatever they told him to do.

She'd been a long time without him, without anybody. She wasn't going to lose him now for a stupid reason.

The tree throbbed before them. Seligman lowered the blade to shave the ground, spilling burning brush to the left.

Meyer checked to be sure the tank of the flame gun was beneath the cab overhang, sheltered from the heat radiating from the trunk. The hard suits protected her and the driver from burning wood, at least for as long as it would take to push the tree over. If the tank cooked off, the metallized fuel could be another thing entirely.

She braced herself. The blade's stinger punched its full length into the fiery tree, just to the right of the trunk's center. The tracks slowed as the cleats bit but continued to work the tractor laboriously forward.

The tree wasn't a particularly big one for this jungle, maybe three feet in diameter. It shook its blazing crown; then the whole trunk started to go.

A branch broke off high overhead and spun toward the clearing, showering sparks through the rain. There was nothing anybody below could do but try to judge its course and run like hell.

Seligman couldn't see the dropping torch; it didn't matter to his job anyway. The bulldozer ground on as deliberately as sand running through an hourglass.

A little child ran past the left side of the tractor, so blind with fear that the heat of the falling tree didn't turn her back. She crossed the ground the trunk would smash and incinerate in a matter of seconds. As she fled she screamed, "Caius! Caius!"

A woman ran twenty feet behind the child, gaining only inches with each stride. She ducked beneath the toppling tree.

The trunk hit with an impact that made the soil ripple. Chunks of burning wood flew to both sides. The woman stumbled but managed not quite to fall. She continued to pursue the child into the unbroken jungle, batting furiously at her coveralls. Though the garment didn't burn, sparks melted into the cloth.

"Did you see that?" Seligman said. He shifted the bulldozer into neutral. "What are they thinking about? Are they out of their goddam minds?"

Meyer sat on the edge of the deck with her legs dangling over, then levered herself off with both hands. She wanted to jump down, but the weight of her equipment was more likely than not to stun her if she got hasty.

The bulldozer backed cautiously. Meyer trotted between the blade and the upturned roots, then into the full glare of the burning trunk. She wished she'd had time to unsling the flame gun before she ran over fiery ground, but there was no time to waste.

If the kid and woman were going to survive more than the next few seconds, Esther Meyer had to get them out of the jungle.

Blohm heard the tree falling—the snap of branches and vines as the trunk tore them away, the sigh of air shoved aside in its passage. Though he knew the tree was so close he could have flipped a pebble against it on an open plain, the only glimpse the scout caught was a wink of bright flame through a gap in the foliage.

It hit. The forest shrugged angrily. Smoke and steam swollen with the odors of life fanned the undergrowth. Blohm opened his mouth to call in his location so that he wasn't shot as he entered the clearing twenty yards distant.

He felt them coming toward him.

Not strikers, because his visor located every member of C41. Humanoids, the survivors of the attack on the column.

He'd moved under branches sturdy enough to stop or at least slow the falling tree's impact. The bark of his shelter oozed sap that vaporized and made his bare skin tingle, but he didn't intend to stay long in its range.

Around the trunk was an open circle three or four feet in diameter; beyond that grew a stand of wire-trunked seedlings that would bind a human. When the attackers came through the screen at him like water through a sieve, Blohm wouldn't be able to drop more than one of them before the rest got him the way they had Gabrilovitch.

He took the last grenade from his belt and cocked his arm for a throw high enough to clear the screen. The fuel would spray down and envelope everything in the thicket when it went off. Do them before they do you.

Just like Active Cloak.

And because he hadn't thrown the grenade at the last possible moment by which it would have saved his life from attacking humanoids, Caius Blohm heard Mirica scream his name as the seedlings grabbed her. He wasted the grenade in the forest behind him as he entered the reeds with his powerknife.

The trunks were rubbery and hard to grip, but the blade sliced through their softness like cobwebs. Blohm could have cut them with the shaft of a spoon if he'd had to at this moment.

He took Mirica in his left arm and hugged her to him as he strode on slashing. He didn't have a plan for how he was going to free Mrs. Suares while holding the child, but in the event he didn't have to. A striker in an ash-smeared hard suit was already pulling the old woman clear.

They were on the other side of the trap. Beyond was a steam-swathed tree trunk and a bulldozer at the edge of the clearing.

The child called, "Caius!" as she clutched his chest and they all four staggered to safety.

Farrell sat cross-legged with his visor down, clicking through alternative arrangements for deploying his strikers on the march. The helmet AI shifted purple dots and the orange masses of civilians with equanimity, but it couldn't tell Art Farrell what the next threat was going to be.

It could have told him that he didn't have enough strikers for the job, but that wouldn't have been news.

"Striker Blohm is here, sir," Kristal said, loud enough to cut through Farrell's concentration.

He raised his visor instead of clearing it. Caius Blohm stood straight, more like a prisoner tied to a stake than as a soldier at attention.

The problem with Blohm wasn't the sort of thing you expected in the Strike Force. Kristal didn't know what facial expression would be appropriate. She was a little too eager for the extra rate than Farrell liked, but no question she was doing a good job filling in as First Sergeant under the worst conditions you could imagine.

Farrell had set a minilight on the sheeting in front of him. He didn't need the illumination, but it showed the civilians that he was present and accessible. Now he turned the light off, then removed his helmet.

"Sit down, Blohm," he said. "Thanks, Sergeant. Tell God that I'll be unavailable for the next few minutes, all right?"

The present clearing was good-sized, now that there wasn't a battle going on in it. You couldn't call where Farrell sat private, exactly—certainly not from strikers' helmets—but there was a respectful amount of space open around him.

The scout seated himself with cautious grace. He took off his helmet also. Light from the fire crackling twenty yards away accentuated the hollows of Blohm's cheeks and eye sockets, and they were deep enough already.

"I waited till Sergeant Abbado got back to have this conversation, Blohm," Farrell said. "You went out and brought them the last of the way in, I gather?"

"Yessir," Blohm said. "Sir . . ."

He let the word trail off.

"What the fuck did you think you were playing at, Blohm?" Farrell said in a voice that never rose above the minimum necessary for the other man to hear him. "You knew it was your responsibility to guide the patrol back. I wouldn't have given even odds of ever seeing Abbado and his people again."

"Yes sir," said Blohm. His body was still, but his palms were flat together and pressing so hard that they trembled. "Sir, I knew it was wrong."

"Do you think we're so short-handed that I can't have you shot for desertion right now, Blohm?" Farrell said. "Is that what you think?"

"No sir," Blohm said. Tears glittered in his eyes; the shiver in his hands had spread to his voice. "I know you can have me shot. I know you can."

"Well, if you know that, you're an even bigger damned fool than I thought you were," Farrell said, relaxing. "Christ, man, you're a lot of what chance we have of surviving this ratfuck. Thing is, I need Three-three just as bad. You lot nailed one set of our problems today, but I've seen enough of this jungle to expect something new in the morning. Were you figuring to guard a thousand civilians all by your lonesome?"

"Sir, I fucked up," Blohm said. He wiped his eyes, angry at his weakness. "I—"

He paused, but this time he finished the sentence: "Sir, I never had anybody give a shit about me before. I can't take care of her alone, I know that. I'll do my job, sir. I'll never not do my job again."

"Go get some dinner, Blohm," Farrell said, rubbing his temples. "We've got a lot of long days ahead of us." If we live that long.

"Yes sir," Blohm said as he rose, lifting his helmet with him. Almost shyly he added, "We're having tapioca pudding again. I told her we would when I came back."

He stepped away briskly. Farrell saw Seraphina Suares and a small child waiting for the scout just beyond the range their presence would be intrusive.

Farrell remained as he was. He told himself he ought get back to fooling with the order of march, but that was a lie. He didn't have enough information to know where he should put his strikers, and he didn't have enough strikers anyway. All he'd really be doing was clutching a security blanket. It wouldn't save one single life tomorrow or in the days to come.

Tamara Lundie sat down beside him in the near darkness. "What I really want to do," he said without raising his head from his hands, "is get drunk. But I can't afford to."

"In celebration of your victory?" Lundie said.

Farrell turned his head. He'd never get used to the blonde's earnestness, not if this damned operation lasted a million years.

"No," he said, careful to keep the disgust out of his voice. She didn't know, she couldn't know; and she was trying to learn. "Because I lost people today. I'd like to get drunk enough to forget that, or at least to get some sleep."

"But . . ." Lundie said. He couldn't see any more of her face than a blur as pale as snow. "You've had casualties before. Casualties were very light today in comparison to your achievement."

"Since I took command of C41," Farrell said, feeling his face smile. You had to laugh, or . . . "The company's casualties have been three hundred and fifty percent. The magic of replacements, you see."

"But these were strikers who'd been with you for some time," Lundie said, articulating her understanding in the form of a statement rather than a question.

"I guess they were," Farrell said. "Yeah, I suppose that does make a difference. But I don't take anybody on an operational mission until they've trained with the company long enough that I know them, believe me."

He shook his head. "They all hurt," he said. "Every fucking one of them. I don't remember the names a lot of times, but I see their faces. Every fucking one."

Lundie nodded slowly. "I see," she said.

She stood up. She looked as delicate as a straw doll. "Major Farrell," she said. "I am honored to serve with you and your strikers."

She touched his hand and walked away, toward where her boss was projecting large holographic images for a group of civilians.

In a funny way, Farrell thought, Tamara saying that was better than the usual post-mission quart of cognac.

"Krishna, I'm tired," Caldwell said. "I'm going to treat myself. I'm going to take boots off. I really am."

Abbado snicked closed the latch of the bandolier he'd been about to remove. "What the hell is that?" he said softly. He walked toward the civilians gathered around a huge holographic projection. The sheeting creaked, but his boots and those of his strikers made no sound of their own.

The basis of the display was helmet imagery, mixed from multiple sources and enhanced by a very powerful editing program. You had to have been there to notice the glossy texture that replaced the gritty, vaporous reality.

Abbado had been there, all right. The projection was of the attack on the mother creature and her guards.

"Well, I'll be damned to hell," Matushek said. "How are they doing that, anyway?"

He meant the holograms. Abbado saw God down in front; nothing the manager and his aide came up with was much of a surprise any more. The other question was how 3-3 had managed to survive. That was harder to answer, now that Abbado saw the action as a spectator.

He watched as a figure, Sergeant Guilio Abbado, loosed two rockets at the gravid mother, then stepped forward so that a troll's club smashed the ground behind him. He didn't remember dodging but he must have done. It looked like a ballet pass from the outside, but he didn't remember it at all.

Monsters came from the smoke. Strikers fired point-blank. Caldwell grappled with a guard, sawing at the tendons of the creature's wrist as its other hand closed on her helmet. Grenades flashed on the guard's beaked face. Still it gripped though the club fell from nerveless fingers.

The image faded into pearly radiance, then blacked out. Manager al-Ibrahimi rose to his feet and bowed to the four strikers. Colonists turned, craned their necks and stood for a better view.

There were hundreds of them watching. Hundreds.

"Ah . . ." Abbado said. "Ah, we didn't mean to disturb anybody."

Christ, he didn't know what to say. "Come on," he muttered to Horgen. "Let's get some dinner and I'll check the guard roster with Kristal."

Their billet was nearby, a hundred square feet of sheeting where Kristal had had 3-3's excess gear dumped to await their return from patrol. The plastic heaved. Abbado looked over his shoulder. The crowd of civilians was following them.

"I'll be damned to hell," Ace repeated.

Dr. Ciler gripped Abbado's hand and shook it. "I'm so sorry about Striker Glasebrook," he said. "He was a hero. Hundreds would have died. Sergeant, you're all heroes."

"It's not like that," Abbado said, frustrated that he didn't have the words to explain. He saw a civilian give Horgen a drink from a chased silver flask that was certainly older than the Unity. Ethanol was as easy to run from the converters as starch was, but other of the colonists were offering sauces and spices.

Mary, Mother of God. The thought of a meal that didn't taste like refinery sludge . . . 

"Doc, it's not like that," he repeated. "We're all in this together."

"Yes," said Ciler. "We are."

Mrs. Florescu was holding Caldwell and crying. The striker looked stunned. When they got someplace he could do it, Abbado'd write Caldwell up for that business with the guard. You couldn't eat a medal, but fuck, the Strike Force usually supplied you with enough to eat.

"I'll be damned to hell!" Matushek said with a bottle in either hand.

No, Ace, Abbado thought. We've been damned to hell. It just might be we'll find a way out after all.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed