They did as I ordered, and soon the region in question was a tiny bit brighter. The dark object that hung there, the moving shadow in the water, it seemed even blacker now. You could see it only due to the fact it was darker than the water that surrounded it.
“McGill,” Harris said, standing at my right elbow. “Whatever it is, that thing means to block our path back up to the surface.”
“Yup. That’s what I think, too.”
-44-
We were all out of light troopers, so I tried to figure out who among my surviving men was the most useless.
It definitely wasn’t one of the heavies, or my two officers, or my noncom veterans or weaponeers. I needed all my best fighters, in case things went badly.
I still had one ghost, Della... I also had a few bio people and techs. That was it. So, it had to be between Della and the bio guys. Della had a stealth suit, although that wasn’t much good under water. You could kind of see her outline due to the displacement of water. You could see her absence, so to speak, because the light-bending tech wasn’t really invented to handle a liquid medium.
“Della! You’re up!”
She ghosted up to me, just like she was supposed to. “I’m really going to have to go up that hill alone? Really?”
“That’s right. The thing probably won’t even see you.”
“James, you know undersea creatures use many senses besides vision. Especially if they lurk at the bottom of oceans where there’s no light at all.”
“Yeah well… good luck, girl.”
She hesitated. “This isn’t because I didn’t come to Thanksgiving last year, is it? I told you I was busy.”
“Nah. Come on, Della. Don’t pull that. If you’re going to work in a legion with a family member, you have to forget all that stuff when shit becomes real.”
“Yes, yes, I know. I’m sorry. I’m a little… concerned.”
I wished her well, and she moved away and up the slope. Harris came to stand beside me.
“You pissed at her, or something?”
“No, man. What’s wrong with everyone today? She’s a scout, and there’s definitely some scouting to be done here.”
“More like some fishing with your ex-girlfriend as bait.”
I glared at him. “You want to replace her? Just say the word.”
He shut up and vanished quicker than a ghost. Meanwhile, Della made steady progress. She wasn’t moving fast, or slow, she kept up a steady pace. I had to hand it to her. The fact that she was more or less visually invisible wasn’t the end of her skills. She’d come from Dust World, and she’d been ranked as a scout by her people. That essentially made her a commando, a native of her planet who was known for getting around in a stealthy manner.
No plumes of dust came up from the seabed where she walked. Nothing seemed disturbed at all. I wasn’t sure how she was doing it. She could have been swimming, but I doubted it. The thin water didn’t support a person who paddled at it. We’d all tried that at one point or another on this long journey into darkness.
No, she must be stepping in heavily tread spots, cleverly using the footprints of others, who’d come down the other way and kicked up any debris that was there for the kicking.
Everyone held their breath, watching as she moved upslope. A dozen meters, then two dozen.
“She’s going to make it,” Leeson said in admiration. “I’m pinging her exact location, and she’s got to be right under the crotch of whatever that thing is hovering over the ocean floor.”
I turned toward him. “You’re pinging her? With your officer’s display?”
Every officer in Varus was issued some special equipment. One item was a tricked out helmet. We could do a lot of things with it, such as marking targets and locating missing soldiers.
“Uh…” he said.
That’s when I put a big, gloved hand on him. “Turn that damned thing off, Leeson. That’s an order!”
“Okay, okay!”
He twiddled some controls, and we both turned to stare out into the dark again. For a goodly ten seconds, nothing happened. We both sighed in relief, and I almost unhanded him—almost.
But then, something shifted. Something big above the pathway kind of—rippled. Out of this ripple fell a glittering loop.
“Oh, gee-zus,” Leeson said. “I’m sorry man. I’m so sorry.”
I opened my mouth in confusion. I didn’t know what the hell he was sorry about, exactly. But then, I caught on.
“That’s the monofilament,” I said. “That thing out there—it ripped it up off the ocean floor hours ago. Now, it’s trying to fish for Della with it.”
“Maybe she’ll get away, McGill. She’s a slippery one.”
I watched, and I thought he might be right. The monofilament, a glittering wire that reflected our shining lights, dragged over the seabed, kicking up muck. All Della had to do was step over it at the right moment—like a kid skipping over a jump-rope.
“Della,” I said on a direct transmission. She was still in range for that. “Just dodge the line when it comes. Don’t even answer me. Just hop over it.”
“She’ll do it,” Leeson said. “Let’s just watch and see how it goes.”
I shook him. His helmet flopped back and forth like a ragdoll’s head in the hands of an abused child. “Get up there! Take your weaponeers. Lance that thing in the belly while it’s distracted.”
“Sir? Are you serious? That thing is huge.”
“It’s not going to get any smaller, Leeson. Attack while the enemy is distracted. That’s tactics 101.”
He didn’t argue any further. Instead, he called up his groaning weaponeers, eight of them in all. They unlimbered their belchers, tightened down the beams to their narrowest setting, and marched up the
