March Upcountry

time and in open terrain. In the jungle, it would have been a toss-up, at best. The company already had several badly sprained or broken ankles, and the strain of jumping logs and dodging limbs slowed them badly.

But the Marines got a breather by cycling the platoons onto and off of the big beasts. It was hard on the flar-ta, and Pahner hadn’t needed the mahouts to tell him that they would have to rest for at least a couple of days when they reached Voitan, but it was the only way to ensure that the troops would be in any reasonable sort of shape if it dropped into the pot.

Pahner saw the prince pull himself up the ropes onto the flar-ta he’d christened Patty, and nodded. Roger had stated that for purposes of rotation he was in Second Platoon, and he’d apparently stuck to that. Which was good. The kid was coming along.

“Captain!” Gunny Lai called. “We’ve got movement front!”

Cutan Mett heard the tramping sounds of a herd of flar-ta and waved his warriors to a halt. They were the vanguard of the Miv Qist tribe, and he felt their hungry anticipation as they realized that the honor of first contact with the invaders was about to be theirs.

“Fire on the contact,” Pahner said. Normally, he would have waited for more than a sensor reading. That was not only doctrine, it was also common sense . . . normally. But not here. Whether it was a bolting damnbeast or the vanguard of the attackers, it was time to “plow the road.”

“Roger,” Lai responded.

The Imperial Marine M-46 was a forty-millimeter, belt-fed, gas-operated grenade launcher. The advanced composition of the grenades’ filler gave them the destructive force of a pre-space twenty-kilo bomb, but despite any advances in explosive fillers, the chemical-powered launcher had an old-fashioned kick like that of a particularly irritated Terran mule. Ripping off an entire belt in a mass of fire, as the prince had done a few days before, was the action of an idiot or someone who was very good with the weapon and big enough to handle the recoil.

Lance Corporal Pentzikis was neither a fool nor particularly massive. So when given the order to “flush” the detected Mardukans, the experienced Marine settled the big weapon into her shoulder, made sure the forty-round belt fed over her shoulder without a kink, and started a slow, aimed fire.

The rounds impacted with a deep jackhammer sound that raised the hackles on experienced troopers’ necks, and the remainder of First Platoon spread out around her as she fired grenades into the area where the sensors had detected movement. Moments later, the ground and trees flashed white.

Mett shouted as the trees around him started to come apart in eruptions of thunder and lightning, and splinters flayed the warriors of Miv Qist.

“Forward!” he bellowed. “This land is ours!”

There were times when Ima Hooker felt like a distilled potion of fury. Whether that was nature or nurture —the father who’d given her her name had been cruel in many other ways—she neither knew nor cared. All that she cared about were the occasional moments when the Imperial Marines gave her an outlet for it.

Like now.

As the scummies burst out of the concealing foliage, she snugged the bead rifle into her shoulder, placed the laser targeting dot on the body of the leader, and flicked her rifle to its three-round burst setting. Time to get some back from the universe.

Pahner glanced at his tactical display and made a decision.

“They’re trying to close the route,” he snapped over the command circuit. “First, stay in place, screening our flank. As we pass, roll in behind us. Everybody but sharpshooters off the pack beasts. Third to the point, Second in the body. Pick up the pace Marines. Let’s go!”

Roger started to slide off Patty and got slapped on the leg by Sergeant Hazheir.

“Stay up there, Your Highness!” the acting platoon sergeant said. “You’re probably who he meant by sharpshooters.”

Roger laughed and nodded.

“Okay! ” he yelled as the staff sergeant slid off the beast and trotted forward. “I’ll try to remember who the good guys are!”

Corporal Hooker put another burst into the vegetation and cursed. The bastards were figuring out to stay behind cover.

“Behie! Flush those bastards for me!” she snapped, highlighting the cover with her target designator for the grenadier.

“Roger!” Pentzikis had just finished attaching a new belt and pivoted slightly, letting the launcher’s sensors search for the target. “I need more grenades; I’m short.”

“Roger,” Edwin Bilali acknowledged. The NCO shot at a patch of gray and was rewarded by a scream. “Gelert! Get to the pack beasts and bring back three strings of grenades!”

“On my way, boss!” The newbie private put a burst into the vegetation in front of him and reared up to run for the passing beasts. He thought he knew where he could find the ammunition.

Ima Hooker popped out her first magazine and had just started to reload another of the half-kilo plastic packs when a scummy reared up from behind a log and hurled its javelin.

“Heads up!” she shouted, seating the magazine, and took aim.

The spinning HE grenade beat her to the shot, exploding a meter above the Mardukan’s head and turning it into red jelly, but the burst also threw two more targets into her view. The fury within her howled like an enraged beast, for she’d seen the result of her momentary distraction, and she unleashed her rage and flicked the three- millimeter bead gun onto full automatic and cut the unfortunate natives in half.

“Bastards!” she screamed, and swept the muzzle onward, seeking still more targets and fresh vengeance.

Sergeant Bilali ran to the rifleman, but he knew he was too late. The private from St. Augustine scrabbled at the muck and loam of the jungle floor, choking on the blood that poured out of his mouth. Bilali pulled off the private’s helmet and tried to roll him over, but the javelin pinned him to the forest floor, and the movement jerked a scream through the bright, scarlet flood.

“Ah, Christ, Jeno!” The NCO’s hands fluttered helplessly over the wounds. Bullets didn’t transfix their targets like specimens in some alien entomologist’s collection, so all his training meant nothing. “Ah, God, man.”

“Move!” Dobrescu was suddenly at his side. The warrant officer had already learned all he cared to know about wounds like this one. He figured the kid had about one chance in twenty, max, but it was worth going for.

“It’s got to come all the way through,” the medic went on as he pulled out a monomolecular bone cutter. The scissorlike device sliced open the chameleon suit and snipped the javelin shaft flush with the private’s back effortlessly, with absolutely minimal movement, yet even that tiny twitch evoked another scream.

“Now comes the fun part,” Dobrescu added through gritted teeth. “Gelert,” he said firmly, applying a self- sealing bandage. “Listen to me. I got one way to save your life, and its gonna have to go quick. We are going to flip you onto your back. You’re probably going to pass out from the pain, but don’t scream. Don’t.”

Even as he spoke, he was running a drainage tube with frantic haste. The wound was going to have to drain somewhere, and if it drained into the lungs, nanites or no nanites, the kid was going to drown in his own blood.

Gelert was twitching and the blood was going everywhere as the company passed them by. Stopping for one casualty would get them all killed, but if Dobrescu couldn’t get this kid evacuated soon, the company’s advance was going to leave him behind the caravan.

“Bilali, I’m gonna need a stretcher party.”