She smiled. “You’re more mature than you look.”
“Not mature enough to stay out of trouble, apparently,” I replied with a shrug.
People were always a little high-strung the day before a battle.
And guys were always looking for an opportunity to look good in front of a knockout like Rachel. The deck was definitely stacked against me, though I’m sure the face I’d been making hadn’t helped the situation any.
“What are you, a pacifist? Rare breed in these parts.”
“I like to save it for the battlefield.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Why you were holding back. You’re obviously the better fighter.” Rachel’s eyes stared down at me intently. She was tall for a woman. Flower Line Base had been built three years ago. If she’d come to the base immediately after getting her nutritionist’s license, that would make her at least four years older than me. But she sure didn’t look it. And it wasn’t that she went out of her way to make herself look young. The glow of her bronze skin and her warm smile were as natural as they came. She reminded me of the librarian I’d fallen for in high school. The same smile that had stolen my heart and sent me happily to work airing out the library that hot summer so long ago.
“Our lives should be written in stone. Paper is too temporary- too easy to rewrite.” Thoughts like that had been on my mind a lot lately.
“That’s an odd thing to say.”
“Maybe.”
“You seeing anyone?”
I looked at her. Green eyes. “No.”
“I’m free tonight.” Then she added hastily, “Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t say that sort of thing to just anyone.”
That much I knew. She’d brushed Yonabaru aside readily enough. For an entire week I’d heard complaint after complaint about the hottest woman whose knees were locked together with the biggest padlock. “It’s a travesty in this day and age,” he’d tell me. And I had a feeling it wasn’t special treatment just because Yonabaru was who he was.
“What time is it?” I still had a schedule to keep.
“Almost three o’clock. You were out for about three hours.”
1500. I was supposed to be training with Ferrell. I had to make right what I’d done in the last loop-the move that had killed Ferrell and the lieutenant. They’d died protecting me because I was showboating. I could still see the charred, smoldering family pictures Ferrell had decorated the inside of his Jacket with fluttering in the wind. A shot of him smiling under a bright Brazilian sun surrounded by brothers and sisters burned into my mind.
I didn’t possess any extraordinary talents that set me apart from my peers. I was just a soldier. There were things I could do, and things I couldn’t. If I practiced, in time I could change some of those things I couldn’t do into things I could. I wouldn’t let my overconfidence kill the people who’d saved my life time and time again.
Under other circumstances I might have accepted her invitation.
“Sorry, but I’m not the guy you’re looking for.”
I turned and started running toward the training field where Sergeant Ferrell was waiting, reeking of sweat and pumped with adrenaline.
“Asshole!”
I didn’t stop to return the compliment.
4
Attempt #99:
KIA forty-five minutes from start of battle.
5
Attempt #110:
They break through our line. Yonabaru is the weak link.
“Keiji… that mystery novel. It was that guy eating the pudding who…”
With those words, he dies.
KIA fifty-seven minutes from start of battle.
6
Attempt #123:
The migraines that had started after about fifty loops are getting worse. I don’t know what’s causing them. The painkillers the doctors give me don’t work at all. The prospect of these headaches accompanying me into every battle from here on out isn’t doing much for my morale.
KIA sixty-one minutes from start of battle.
7
Attempt #154:
Lose consciousness eighty minutes from start of battle. I don’t die, but I’m still caught in the loop. Whatever. If that’s how it’s gonna be, that’s how it’s gonna be.
8
Attempt #158:
I’ve finally mastered the tungsten carbide battle axe. I can rip through a Mimic’s endoskeleton with a flick of the wrist.
To defeat resilient foes, mankind developed blades that vibrate at ultra-high frequencies, pile drivers that fire spikes at velocities of fifteen hundred meters per second, and explosive melee weapons that utilized the Monroe Effect. But projectile weapons ran out of ammo. They jammed. They broke down. If you struck a slender blade at the wrong angle, it would shatter. And so Rita Vrataski reintroduced war to the simple, yet highly effective, axe.
It was an elegant solution. Every last kilogram-meter per second of momentum generated by the Jacket’s actuators was converted to pure destructive force. The axe might bend or chip, but its utility as a weapon would be undiminished. In battle, weapons you could use to bludgeon your enemy were more reliable. Weapons that had been honed to a fine edge, such as the katana, would cut so deep they’d get wedged in your enemy’s body and you couldn’t pull them out. There were even stories of warriors who dulled their blades with a stone before battle to prevent that from happening. Rita’s axe had proven its worth time and again.
My platoon crawled toward the northern tip of Kotoiushi Island, Jackets in sleep mode. It was five minutes before our platoon commander would give the signal for the start of the battle. No matter how many times I
