“Roger, Sir.”
“Pahner, out.”
“Modder pocker.”
Poertena dropped the case of grenades onto the stack, wiped sweat off his face, and looked around. He’d spoken quietly, but Despreaux heard him, and she snorted as she ticked the item off her list. Despite the intense heat, she looked as cool as if she were standing in snow.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’re nearly finished unloading. Then the fun begins.”
Poertena took on the cross-eyed, inward look characteristic of someone communicating with his toot.
“Modder . . . we’ve been at t’is for hours!” He looked toward the horizon, where the sun was still well up. “When do tee sun go down?”
“Long day, Poertena,” Despreaux said with another cool smile. “Thirty-six hours. We’ve got nearly six more until dusk.”
“Pock,” Poertena whispered. “T’is suck.”
“And you know what’s really gonna suck?” Lance Corporal Lipinski demanded of the universe in general as he affixed a large square of solar film to the top of his rucksack. All members of the company had been issued squares. The combined area was designed to partially recharge the powerful superconductor capacitors that drove the human technology. While the power gathered would never support the company’s bead guns, plasma rifles, and powered armor, it would serve to maintain a charge in their communicators and sensors.
“What?” Corporal Eijken asked.
The Bravo Team grenadier jerked at the belt feed over her shoulder. If the feed wasn’t aligned perfectly, the grenades had a tendency to jam, and that was something she really didn’t want to happen. They were going to be walking a long way through really bad stuff. That much had already become evident.
The company had unloaded and prepared through the remainder of the day and into the night. As the sun went down, the temperature went with it, and by local midnight it was well below freezing. Even with their chameleon blankets, it had been a long, miserable night, and many of the troopers remembered why they’d signed up for the Regiment in the first place. Pride of position was certainly one reason, but another was so that they wouldn’t have to do stuff like huddle under a thin covering in below-freezing temperatures on a surface hard enough for an interplanetary transport landing apron.
They’d been up and at it again before dawn, loading rucksacks and overbags, piling the spare gear on stretchers, and generally preparing to move out. As the sun came up, the cold came off, but now it was building into another scorcher. Which made for a certain amount of bitching, no matter how good the troops.
“What’s really gonna suck,” Lipinski replied, “is humping all of
He gestured cautiously with his chin in the direction of the prince, and Eijken shrugged.
“It’s not that much spread across the Company. Hell, I’ve been in companies where the CO makes his clerk carry his gear.”
“Yeah,” Lipinski agreed quietly, “but they’re not good companies, are they?”
Eijken opened her mouth to respond, but stopped as Despreaux left a gaggle of NCOs and headed their way.
“Company,” the grenadier said instead, and she and Lipinski trotted towards the sergeant as she made an “assemble here” gesture at her scattered squad. Despreaux waited until everyone had gathered around, then pulled out her water nipple.
“Okay, drink.”
The water bladders were integral to the combat harness of the chameleon suit: a flexible plastic bladder that molded into a trooper’s back under his rucksack. The bladder held six liters of water, and had a small, efficient chiller driven by a mechanical feedback system. As long as the trooper was moving, the chiller was running. It didn’t make icewater, but what it produced was generally at least a few degrees below ambient temperature, and that could be awfully refreshing.
“Uh, I gotta get mine,” Lipinski said.
Sergeant Despreaux waited as the lance corporal and a private from Bravo Team retrieved their combat harnesses and the others took swigs from their bladders. Once everyone had gathered again, she glanced around mildly.
“The next time I see anyone without her harness,” she noted, and then glanced pointedly at one of the plasma gunner’s flat bladders, “or with an empty water bladder, I’m putting her on report. Your nanites may help you keep going even when you dehydrate, but only to a point.”
She glanced around the team again, and then shrugged one shoulder. It was the one her rifle was slung over.
“And I’m also gonna put you on report if I see anyone without a weapon again. We don’t know a thing about this planet, and until we do, we will consider it hostile at all times. Understood?”
She listened to the chorus of agreement, then nodded.
“The Captain is going to give a little talk before we get started. Get your teams together and get loaded up. We’ve got fifteen minutes before move-out. I want you to mostly finish your bladders, then refill from the tanks on the shuttles. I want you sloshing when we start out.” She glanced around one more time. “Let’s go over this again. Drink?”
“Water,” the squad responded, more or less in unison and with a few smiles.
“When?”
“Always.”
“How much?”
“Lots.”
“And carry . . . ?”
“Your weapon.”
“When?”
“At all times.”
“Very good,” she said with a blinding smile. “You’re a credit to your squad leader.” She gave them a wink and headed back over to where Sergeant Major Kosutic was standing.
Kosutic waited until the company’s NCOs had gathered around, then raised an eyebrow.
“Well?”
“Just like you said,” Julian said, taking a sip of water from the bladder in his armor. “Nobody had finished his water. Only a couple had refilled.”
“Same here,” Koberda said. “You’d think they’d learn. We’re all vets, and we all went through RIP. Hell, most of us have spent time in Raider units! This is just same shit, different day.”
“Uh-huh.” Kosutic nodded in agreement. “How’s your water level, George?”
“What?” Koberda’s hand tapped the bladder on his back. “Oh.” The bladder was mostly full, and Kosutic chuckled as he popped the drinking tube into his mouth.
“This is gonna be a long mission, By His Wickedness,” she said, scratching her ear. “And we need to get the right habits right at the beginning. Most of your troops think they’re tough. Hell, they
“The troops are gonna get worn out. They’re not gonna want to eat. They’re not gonna want to drink. They’re not gonna want to keep alert. They are not, By His Evilness, going to care.
“So you’ve gotta be their momma and their poppa. You’ve gotta make them eat. You’ve gotta make them drink. You’ve gotta make sure they keep up their hygiene. You’ve gotta make sure they keep up their heads.
“Let the troops keep on the lookout for the bad guys. You squad leaders and platoon sergeants have to keep an eye on the troops.
“And I’ll keep an eye on
