March Upcountry

“Who the fuck is going to carry it?” the NCO demanded as fresh firing started to the front and another cry of “Medic!” cut through the bedlam. “We’re getting hammered.”

“Find someone!” the warrant officer barked. He wondered for a moment if he should just write the kid off and get him lashed to a pack beast until they could bag and burn him. But if he could get the holes patched and the bleeding slowed, the fast-heal nanites sometimes could perform miracles. Fuck it.

“And while you’re finding somebody, we’re going to need security!”

“Roger,” Kosutic answered. “Shit!” She looked over her shoulder. “Captain!”

“What?” Pahner never looked away from his HUD. Second Platoon had just passed through in the leapfrog and reported that they were hitting signs of buildings and rock outcroppings. If they made it into the city, it was going to be by the skin of their teeth, and he could hear the howling of the Kranolta horns behind him. It was as if the Huntsmen of Hell had been loosed on their trail.

“Dobrescu is trying to get Gelert stabilized to move. He’s already out of Third’s coverage!”

That was enough to pull the captain away from his display, and he looked up in disbelief. The sergeant major looked as royally pissed as he felt, not that being in agreement made either of them feel any better.

“Dobrescu!” Pahner keyed his communicator. “Get your ass out of there—now!”

“Captain, I have Gelert stabilized. I think I can save him.”

“Mr. Dobrescu, this is in order. Get your ass out of there!” He checked his HUD and realized that none of the private’s fire team had moved out. “Bilali!”

“Sir, we’re pulling out as fast as we can rig a stretcher,” the NCO responded.

“Sergeant—!”

The company CO chopped off his furious command. Long, long ago at the Corps NCO combat leadership school, he’d been told something which had stood him in a good stead for fifty-plus Standard years: Never give an order you know won’t be obeyed. He never had, and he didn’t intend to start today.

“We’ll be waiting for you in Voitan, Sergeant.”

He knew he’d just written off their only medic, who was also an irreplaceable pilot, and a full fire team, but that was better than losing the entire company trying to cover them.

The line of flar-ta was pounding up a slope and through a ruined gateway partially choked by the rubble of the gatehouse. The area beyond was too large to hold for long—a fifty-meter-wide plaza surrounded by overgrown heaps of masonry—but it was a good place to rally.

“Hold it up on the other side,” he called over the general company frequency. “Third Platoon on the gate, First and Second in support. I want a headcount.”

He stepped up onto a liana-bound pile of masonry that had probably been the wall of a house, and looked around. A quick count showed him that all of the pack beasts had made it through, most of them with bead rifle or grenade launcher-armed Marines on top. Then he took another look at the riders.

“Where,” he asked with deadly calm, “is Prince Roger?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Bilali triggered another burst and the group of scummies disappeared behind their log. He had them pinned for the time being, but he was also low on ammunition.

“Sarge,” Hooker called, “you got any ammo? I’m dry.”

He cursed silently. Hooker always put her rounds on target, but she always used too many of them.

“I’m about out here, too,” he answered.

“I’ve got some,” Dobrescu said. “Take ’em.”

The medic had the patient fully prepped and was working on a field expedient stretcher: the trunks of two stout young saplings with the wounded private’s chameleon suit stretched between them. It would be heavy and awkward and nearly impossible to get up to the city, but it was the only chance the wounded trooper had.

“Shit!” Hooker spun to the west. “I’ve got movement between us and the Company!”

“Calm down, Hooker,” came the prince’s voice. “We’re coming in.”

Roger was positive that he’d killed not only himself, but Matsugae and O’Casey as well. Eleanora was shaking like a leaf, but she still managed to hold up her end of the heavily-loaded standard-issue stretcher. Matsugae was smiling, as usual, as he carried the other end, but the expression was a rictus.

“Roger,” the valet told him, “this is quite insane.”

“You keep saying that.” Roger ducked down behind a tree. “Doc, you’re going to have to take the other end for Eleanora on the way back.”

He gripped the butt of the grenade launcher between his arm and rib cage, stood up, and ripped out a string of fifteen grenades. The end of the string traveled upward and off target, but most of them hammered into the area where the scummies had taken cover. The shrapnel and splinters of shattered branches scourged the cowering natives like flying knives, and drove them to their feet, screaming.

While Bilali and Hooker blew their flushed targets apart, Roger ejected the mostly-used belt and picked another off the stretcher. The stretcher was covered in belts, as were his shoulders, and more of them bulged his rucksack.

“We’d better move, Doc.”

“Got it!” The warrant officer dumped the munitions off the stretcher. “Bilali, Hooker, Penti, get loaded.”

Roger kept an eye on the woodline beyond the smashed lane where the flar-ta had thundered through the jungle while the remnants of the fire team gathered up the ammunition the civilians had humped in to them and Dobrescu got Gelert strapped into the stretcher.

“Thank you, Sir,” Bilali said. “But this is goddamn stupid.”

“My blood for yours, Sergeant,” the prince replied. “Why the hell should you try to save my life if I’m not willing to reciprocate?”

“Break out the armor!” Pahner shouted furiously over the general circuit. “Roger, where the hell are you?!”

“Ah,” Roger said as Matsugae and Dobrescu lifted the stretcher. “Our master’s voice.”

Pentzikis was so nervous that she broke into giggles and put a few rounds into the woodline from the twitch.

“We’re fucking dead,” she giggled. “If the goddamn scummies don’t kill us, Captain Pahner will!”

“I don’t think so.” Roger lifted another belt of grenades out of his rucksack and draped it across the top. “Personally, I refuse to die today.”

“Come on, you stupid hunk of crap!”

Julian watched the power levels rise in his helmet HUD. The suit wasn’t even on completely, but he could feel the crash of grenades through the heels of his armored boots.

Despreaux hooked on his gloves, working with furious haste as the crack of bead rifles got closer. A moment later came the furious blast of another string of grenades in the distance, and she knew that Roger, at least, was still alive.

“You’ll make it,” she said.

“I know I’ll make it. But will I make it before Pahner decides to just kill us and start over with scummies as bodyguards?”

“It’s not our fault Roger went haring off!” Despreaux protested, furious with the prince.

“No, but after we save ourselves, Pahner is going to kill us. We were supposed to be