Chapter Nine
The preparations for deployment began later that morning and continued for the next two days. There wasn’t time to to talk, because this was a big one: the entire regiment was headed out to stop the Dragon’s push to Port Moresby.
Mike couldn’t remember many times he’d slept in bed without Alpha beside him, let alone for two days straight. Unable to sleep, he lay on his side, listening for his return each evening until he drowsed off. When he checked Homeland after training, Mike found that Alpha was logging long hours on the game. He was at the top of their server kill ranks, sitting higher than Twofer’s old score. Using it as cover while he fed his mind on whatever evil lies Symon was spooning him, no doubt. Mike had to wonder if Twofer had done the same thing.
They left for New Guinea on Friday morning, one small unit amongst the total mass of the 7th Patriot Legionnaires. They were being sent out with squadrons of drones, Templars and Thrones, the low slung, eight-legged tree climbers that carried snipers to the heights of the jungle canopy or down into the valleys. They had a service just before they loaded on the carrier. The formal prayers of the Chaplain were ashen in Mike’s mouth. He nearly went to the Chaplain afterward to break down and confess, but Symon’s warning loomed large in his mind. Self-loathing, guilty, he remained silent and hoped that battle would clear their heads. It often did. They were better out there, in the middle of the fight. He’d find a way to talk to Alpha and sort this out.
Their orders were refreshed on the way across the Pacific, uploaded while they hunched on the pew-like benches in the carrier. Some stared fixedly at the wall ahead; some men chewed gum, warmed up their aim on the simulator, read their Bibles. Mike couldn’t think about anything other than his squad and the aching loneliness of the last three days. He stared at the floor between his feet, at the steel sheeting pressed with little stars, the raised areas scuffed from the passage of hundreds of stamping boots. Maybe the Old Toms had sat here, too, cheeks red and breath snorting with adrenaline. They’d gotten a faulty Praxis generator and their foxhole had been shelled. The bombs had gone straight through, and they’d been blown to bloody chunks not forty metres from where Mike had gone to ground, all twenty of them. The new Thomas squad, sitting across from the Sams on the other side of the carrier, didn’t look anything like the old ones. They all had an Asiatic cast; the previous ones had been dark-skinned, like them.
When they were at full altitude, the debrief came in. Symon’s cool voice echoed around the inside of Mike’s skull. It felt invasive, loathsome.
“Samuel, Baladam, Thomas and Eglaim squads will be deployed at Popondetta with a six hours rendezvous to Solomon Base. Temperature is currently a sunny thirty three degrees Celsius, with eighty-three percent humidity.”
The Legion was being dispersed in staggered formation behind the front lines, but Sol Base was a fair ways from Popon. They’d be swimming in their kit by the time they reached the end of the march. Mike grimaced.
“Viral payload: extreme.” Symon’s readover was still professional, maybe just a little sullen. He split the orders from that point, addressing the Sams alone. Mike knew it was an illusion. He was debriefing all four squads simultaneously. “S-unit, there’s been an adjustment to your itinerary. You will be taking cargo, heading west to Mt. Victoria.”
Victoria! Mike’s head jerked up, and he looked across at his squad to see if they’d shot up the way he had. Some of them had, spines straightening in alarm and even pleased surprise. Niner pumped his fist; Sixie groaned. Fora rolled his eyes, and flopped back. The highlands around Victoria were the front of the front lines, the worst of the worst. Alpha would get his Dragon’s blood—that was for sure.
Symon continued on, nonplussed. “Samuel-Alpha will have all details. You will accompany T, B, and E squads and rendezvous at Solomon Base by fourteen hundred with your platoon as planned, stay overnight, and then move on to Karo.”
“Cargo run? Screw that,” Fiver said. He shook his head in disgust.
“Quiet down the line.” Alpha leaned out enough to spot who’d spoken, and Fiver cringed back.
Mike pressed his lips together and looked back down at the floor, rubbing the tips of his thumbs together. They could expect heavy casualties getting in and out of Mount Victoria. He’d be treating more than his own squad out there, working together with the other Mikes. How the hell was he going to find time to catch Alpha alone?
He couldn’t think of him without glancing up and across. Alpha was calmly chewing his gum with great attention, eyes closed. He looked relaxed, unbothered, but he’d be thinking and planning while his own unique orders downloaded. Maybe he missed him too, but it was hard to say. Alphas were colder, harder. They had to be, to lead their troops towards death over and over again.
The rest was uncomfortably vague. They’d billet in Sol Base and move out in the early morning while it was dark. The job at Mount Victoria was to join and support C-company at Karo and take over from the Corinthians, the PatriotRanger heavy armored squad defending the checkpoint at their ATA installation. Their shields were being targeted by the Dragon and the outpost was getting the shit bombed out of it.
The Sams had to take in a new Praxis generator and kill as many of the Pacs as they could, relieve the Corinthians and help the keep the site from being overrun. That was fairly standard, except that the Corinthians hadn’t been out that long. Had they? Mike thought back, wracking his memory, then checked the computer, bringing up the rotation logs. No, he was wrong. They’d been out there nearly three months.
It was a good eight hours before the cabin began to vibrate and pitch down. The decrease in air pressure and Mike’s corona pinged him out of his doze. He fumbled for his harness and clicked it in before he was properly awake, hands moving automatically. Niner reached over and put something into Mike’s mouth—he crunched down without waiting to find out what it was, and a wave of menthol bloomed up behind his eyes and filled his nose. Caffeinated gum. There was a storm of feet rattling the floor, even laughter, as the men worked themselves up and got ready for the landing. Mike’s corona shrank and clung to the back of his skull as he pulled his helmet down. It sealed with his armor at the neck, and his ears were full of the grinding, crunching sound of his own chewing, and then hissing as oxygen pumped in and began to cycle around.
The carrier continued its descent: vents opened in the walls, and a roaring filled the bay as gas spewed forth, a heavy, invisible cloud that caused their armor to cling and stiffen. It grew louder, and louder, until it was all that Mike could hear was the howling air that pressed in around him like a cold, crushing hand. The cabin pitched and swayed, then angled forwards. He felt giddy, worn out, slightly high. For the moment, his woes took a backseat. His breathing rasped inside his helmet as his stomach fluttered and dropped, dropped again: he focused on his hands, clenching and unclenching his fingers. This part always unnerved him. If something happened to his helmet… if the seal was faulty or there was a puncture or a leak around his visor…
The seat underneath Mike vibrated with a deep, grinding rumble he could feel, but not hear. The carrier bay split like a snake’s jaws, the floor pitching towards the back of the aircraft as they continued their strafing descent. Mike threw off his harness, one unheard click among many as the Alphas bellowed through their helmet radios over the noise. “Move out! Move move move!”
They streamed out and jumped with whoops and shouts—a hundred meter dead-drop through a thick white cloud of gas, dizzying seconds of falling without being able to see where they were going or where they would land. Mike clutched his rifle to his chest and bent forwards, teeth clenched to stop them clacking when he hit. His exo-skeleton armor took the brunt of the impact: a heavy ‘whommph’, a shudder from feet to jaws, and he was back on solid ground. Mike carried the impact forwards into a run, surrounded by his brothers and the other squads. Tom-Mike, the medic of T-Squad, saluted him as his team fell back, behind the Sams, who mustered together to cut their way into the sweltering jungle.
“You heard Symon, boys. Extreme V.C. in this part of the woods. Oxy off, filters on. I don’t want anyone carrying it back to base.” Alpha’s deep voice was harsh in their helmets, banging off the inside. “Copy, T, B, E, Switch?”
“Copy. Loud and clear,” Symon’s dry voice was crisp, clearer on the ground than in the air. Mike’s corona was still working, but powered down. The only ones with fully active coronae were the Alphas and the tech. “You have all three bugs in your area. Sunny level-Echo, TS-2 level-Harry, HEX level-Echo.”
Two extremes and a high. Nasty. Mike made inventory as he strode forwards, last in line. His pack was the bulkiest of the lot of them: he shouldered their primary medical supplies and their emergency decon gear. After Twofer’s run in with the NVD rounds, he had started carrying a healswarm booster pack, heavy as it was. Infection from injury or disease after swarm loss was their worst enemy here.
Sixie lagged behind with him, half a step at a time, until Mike found himself shoulder to shoulder with him. He looked up when Sixie bumped his arm and nodded his head, once. “Hey, is something wrong with you and the Sarge?”
Was it that obvious? Mike slung his harness around, and straightened his belt as they walked. “Actually, I meant to speak to you. I checked the history and talked to Symon, like you suggested.”
“That… doesn’t answer my question, but okay,” Sixie said. “So you saw the same thing we all saw, right?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t mean shit, but it’s infectious. Symon’s trying to lead us on. You and anyone else working themselves up into some conspiracy fit should put it out of mind.”
“Like Alpha? So you two are having trouble, huh?” To Mike’s surprise, Sixie sounded nervous. Something occurred to him then, something he’d never thought of. Since their courting during their basic training, they had always run together as a pair. Bravo was a stand-in in case Alpha ever fell in combat; the pair of them, Alpha and Mike, had always been who everyone looked up to. “Do you… like… think you and him’ll be okay?”
“Of course. We chew each other out all the time when you guys aren’t looking.” Mike really hoped it wasn’t a lie, and not for the first time, he was glad Sixie couldn’t see his face. He had been struggling with his imperative to report for days, and tonight, he would learn whether or not he could continue with a clear conscience, without confessing. “Don’t worry about it, Sixie. We’ll sort it out. We always do.”
