That was the story Puncher put together in his head. Both he and Baldur were out in the sunshine, crossing through a trash-laden alley, when they saw the pro jogging back. Subcompact held down and out of the way so he could make time. Not worried about anything except catching hell for whatever he’d forgotten.
Puncher was glad he’d stuck to SOP. Something he’d learned in urban warfare dog handling. Using the homeless disguise meant obeying a set of protocols when on the streets, and he’d done that. He’d stowed the heavy SAB on his back and covered himself with the poncho and the rest of his homeless gear. In fact, he’d just been finalizing that when the guy, dressed in red and black to fit in with the Soshies, came into view down the quiet street that led to the booby-trapped hideout.
But, thought Puncher quickly, maybe there’s another reason he’s here. Maybe they’re coming back and he’s been sent ahead to disarm the explosives before they reoccupy.
Baldur was growling.
“Easy, boy.”
Don’t like, said the dog.
It was clear both parties were on an intercept course.
The pro stopped, picked up a bottle, and threw it at them. “Hey, old man!” he yelled. He had a hell-raiser voice. Probably that guy on any team that was always in trouble and always right about everything. “Get away from here. It’s dangerous.”
Reminds me of me, thought Puncher.
The bottle came close but bounced harmlessly off into the weeds growing between cracks in the duracrete.
The pro stopped and began to search for another projectile.
He’s figuring, thought Puncher, that we’re a couple of homeless. Wants to clear us out so we don’t accidentally det the building. He could just tell us to bug out, but nah, he wants to throw stuff. ’Cause he’s that kind of guy.
“L’see if I can hit you with this…”
And then the pro whizzes a real slider. A chunk of some decaying building, like part of a brick. Fast like a rocket. It smacks into Puncher and bounces off the armor.
The guy’s laughing because he thinks the “homeless guy” he just hit is too stupid, out of it, or crazy, to know he just got whacked by a real welt-raiser. He’s probably thinking he might even try to bean this guy in the head, or the dog, with the next one as he bends over to find something perfect for the task.
Really don’t like.
“I know,” whispered Puncher. “Me either.”
Then he adds…
“Get the weapon!”
By the time the pro realizes something’s wrong, the dog has crossed the fifty-meter distance and gone straight for the pro’s weapon. Not whatever bit of junk he was looking to throw, but the subcompact he was holding down at his side during the jog. The guy barely has time to straighten up before the dog leaps forward, snatches the weapon, and yanks it free of the man’s grip.
Puncher is closing the distance and unlimbering the SAB, grunting and swearing as he goes.
The pro knows he’s in trouble. So he runs.
He sprints toward a fence and is halfway up it, well out of human reach, when the rocketing dog literally flies through the air and drags the man back down to the street. Pulling him to the ground and subduing him.
Puncher arrives and calls Baldur to pull back now that he’s covering with the SAB death machine.
“Who-wha-wh—” croaks the guy.
“Never mind,” says Puncher over the Legion helmet’s external speakers. “Tell me where my guys are or the dog rips out your throat.”
Baldur, teeth bared, seems more than willing to do just that.
The pro tries to back up but there’s nowhere to go. The motion seems to invite Baldur to get in the pro’s face, looking like a canine demon.
The Soshie pro starts talking. Fast.
43
Rechs crawled through sewage and sludge. The passage was tight, little more than a connector line from the abandoned building he’d been observing from. But hopefully it would lead him up into the target building: The Excelsior Arms.
If he could get the terrorists calling themselves whatever they thought made them sound like heroes to feel threatened enough to shift prisoner holding locations, and no doubt they had another site on standby, then he could take the leej and the marine back when they were most vulnerable. When they were on the move.
But then the problem became, once he had them, what shape would they be in? And how was he supposed to get them out of what was devolving rapidly into a war zone, according to Lyra? The marines were once again clashing with the Soshies on the streets. And now someone had put out the BOLO. It was being broadcast over the general marine comm every fifteen minutes. Someone was pushing for details.
Someone wanted him found.
So getting the prisoners was one thing, getting them out of Detron was the next.
And that was where G232 was supposed to come in.
The bounty hunter had opened a comm link with Lyra, gotten both bots on the line, and given them their instructions. By now they should each be en route to their separate mission objectives. Rechs figured they had a fifty percent chance of success, but he’d come to expect the unexpected out of them.
Hand over hand, Rechs pulled himself through the darkness of sludge and building waste that hadn’t moved in years. He crossed beneath the street, clearing the debris-littered tube three stories beneath the surface. At one particularly disgusting point, he was reminded of training long ago, back on Earth.
The suck, they called it.
He stopped, catching his breath and hearing only himself inside the vast silence of his bucket.
The suck. It was what separated regular troops from elite. Some Ranger School instructor had once spelled it out to a platoon of huddling wannabes, frozen and tired in some swamp somewhere. Rechs had been one of those wannabes. Shaved head and emaciated. It had been a miserable night. Ice-cold rain. Long hours of land nav. Everything wet. No food.
