Guerilla (7 page)

Noojin, the young girl who worked with Jahup's hunting band, didn't like her partner crossing lines. She liked to keep her distance from the Terran Army. Jahup still hunted meat with his band, since those efforts also served as scouting expeditions. Sage figured those trips were a lot more interesting these days than they had been.

Jahup climbed aboard his RDC and switched on the magnetic drive. The crawler shivered to life and rocked forward until Jahup restrained it.

Back on his own vehicle, Sage brought up the shared comm link. “You lead. I'll follow.”

Jahup nodded without turning around, picking up Sage on the 360-­degree view afforded by the helmet. Twisting the throttle, Jahup hunkered down over the crawler and rocketed through the jungle's underbrush.

Sage accelerated, following closely behind as they sped through the jungle. Keeping the RDC on track was mind-­numbing as the hardsuit's AI and past experience kept track of Jahup's route and the terrain without any real effort on Sage's part. Idle, without true focus, his head filled with questions concerning the Phrenorian base and what the Sting-­Tails had hiding there.

 

EIGHT

Fort York

Loki 19 (Makaum—­colloquial)

0541 Hours Zulu Time

T
hey're afraid of us, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Kjersti Kiwanuka knew the assessment made by the corporal standing next to her was accurate. Kiwanuka didn't need the hardsuit's vision multiplier capabilities and body language interpreter software package to recognize the fear that gripped the Makaum onlookers and made them restless while causing them to stand packed together. She'd been in plenty of places where she'd seen it before—­from both sides of that line that kept the two groups separate.

The Makaum ­people stood well back of the yellow warning laser array that marked the blast hole created during the ambush. The sizzling yellow lines were almost too bright to stare at with the naked eye, and the warning hum that accompanied them intensified when any non-­military person approached.

The lasers wouldn't do any real harm if physically encountered, but they did interfere with the central nervous system and render most intelligent creatures nauseous. Unfortunately, most of the life-forms on Makaum didn't have high-­functioning central nervous systems and went through the lasers with impunity. As a result more soldiers had to be assigned to the barriers to keep out wandering reptiles and the larger insects.

And the increase in armed guards worried the locals even more.

“I know they're afraid,” Kiwanuka said. “We're afraid too.”

Army sec drones zipped by overhead, scanning rooftops and trees. One sniper, properly armed, could take down a soldier in a hardsuit. Ten could take down just as many. The snipers might not get away, but escape might not be one of the goals of the next attack.

And Kiwanuka was certain there would be another attack. Whoever had hit them last night had drawn blood. That was sure to incite continued violence.

Corporal Pita Brandvold shook her head. “After I heard the Phrenorians had negotiated treaty rights with Makaum, I came here hoping I could do some good for these ­people.” She took a breath that was audible over the comm link. “I'd heard they were peaceful, just kind of blown away by all the attention. I can't imagine what having alien worlds drop down among them has done to them. But I want to help.”

“I know.” Kiwanuka hadn't been on Makaum by choice. She'd been assigned there after losing an arm and assaulting an officer during a battle in the Kimos system. She'd had the arm replaced with a bionic one, not flesh and blood, because the cyberlimb would be a better weapon than an organic one, and because the demand on her circulatory system would be diminished.

Since she'd lost her arm just before she'd attacked the officer and nearly killed him, the assault charges against her had been ameliorated, but her field ser­vice report was flagged as still “under review.” The Army could sideline her at any moment. She'd intended to simply put in her time on Makaum, keep her nose clean, and get through the probationary period.

Still, a soldier didn't spend time at a post without becoming attached to the ­people she served with, or the ­people she was assigned to protect. That bond was something a lot of soldiers didn't talk about, but it was there. Part of it was pride, wanting to do the job right, but part of it was a sense of community, a sense of belonging—­no matter how briefly—­to a place.

But that sense of community faded quickly when one of the locals attacked the post and seriously injured—­or killed—­a soldier.

“I've just started gaining the trust of some of the kids in this sprawl,” Brandvold said bitterly. “Do you know how hard that is?”

Kiwanuka didn't know firsthand, but she remembered how the children in Uganda had acted when medical ­people from outside the country had arrived to help during crises. Kiwanuka's mother had been from Norway and was working in a medical facility when she'd met her future husband, a diplomatic attaché. Even after years of ser­vice inside Uganda, even with children of her own who had been born in that country, most citizens still considered her mother an outsider.

Offworlder.
Kiwanuka heard the word circulate in the crowd that watched with hostility and speculation and, yes, fear. There was always that division of
us
and
them
when two or more cultures shared space. ­People often tried to get past that, to pretend that it didn't exist and to say that it didn't matter, but the division was too sharp, too ingrained.

The soldiers regarded the Makaum ­people with the same reined-­in hostility. Little trust existed at the moment. Everyone was an outsider.

Kiwanuka had been an outsider all of her life. Her father's ­people didn't consider her African enough, and her platinum blonde hair—­which she'd gotten from her mother—­set her apart from the children she had grown up with. And her mother's ­people, and most Europeans, considered her to be African, not white, because of the dusky hue of her skin. On top of that, she hadn't wanted to follow her mother into medicine or her father into diplomacy. She'd had no path either of her parents approved of or offered mentorship for.

Her only choice that had allowed her to be herself was the Terran Army. That was her family. And they'd just been hurt by the ­people they were supposed to be there protecting.

Some of those ­people
, Kiwanuka reminded herself.
Only a handful.

That was all that had shown on the sec cams. The handful of locals had slipped through the shadows and launched the attack from hiding. So far the vid forensics ­people hadn't been able to identify any of them.

She pulled up the med stats on Corporal Anders. He'd been most injured during the attack. The bomb had been a combination of acid and flammable substance, concocted to eat through an AKTIVsuit's armor and burn the soldier inside. The attackers hadn't developed that on Makaum. They didn't have the resources. The weapon had been offworld tech. Evidently when it came to murder and destruction, the anti-­offworlder ­people didn't mind going to offworlders to upgrade their weapons. It was peacekeeping they couldn't deal with.

The med reports weren't accessible. Kiwanuka had no idea how the young corporal was doing. The surgeons would have him sedated now, but once he came out of that fog he would be traumatized and more frightened than he could ever remember.

Flexing her bionic hand that looked human but wasn't, Kiwanuka remembered her own recovery after her life had been saved. Her parents hadn't found out about her injuries till weeks after the attacks. One of her father's diplomat friends had told him, and he had told Kiwa­nuka's mother. Then her mother had called to discuss organic limb replacement, and she'd been shocked to hear about the cyberlimb. Kiwanuka and her mother didn't agree on much even now.

Kiwanuka took a deep breath and let it out as she surveyed the Makaum ­people. More were still arriving. Some in the back were getting louder, trying to whip the others into a frenzy.

Only a handful
, she told herself again.
There are a lot of ­people here still worth saving. We are here to help them. They will recognize that again.

Still, that number of anti-­Terran dissidents was growing, though. She'd seen the reports filtering through to Colonel Halladay. Taking down the DawnStar cartel had been a major victory to the military mindset, and to many of the Makaum ­people, but other Makaum natives didn't like the Army's heavy-­handedness in acting without permission.

Permission was a gray area. Everything in the fort was under military jurisdiction, and permission had been granted to shut down drug dealers inside the sprawl and keep the general peace. Exterminating outlaw drug labs in the jungle had slipped into the gray. Putting those labs out of business had turned into an undeclared war that persisted.

Some of the Makaum ­people, and the soldiers, blamed Master Sergeant Sage for the increased hostility. But Sage hadn't initiated the attacks. Colonel Halladay and Sergeant Terracina, now KIA on one of those drug lab hunts, had started the mission. Sage had just been more successful at it. DawnStar was involved with a PR nightmare, not only on Makaum, but in other systems as well. The Terran Alliance now had their operation in other systems under review. That was no doubt that improprieties would be found.

DawnStar was trying to put distance between themselves and Velesko Kos, painting him as a loose cannon within their ranks. The spin doctors would fix that eventually. DawnStar Corporation was too large, too well embedded in most systems to be easily chased away.

The current situation onplanet had turned nastier. The Quass, and the Makaum ­people, were more divided than ever. The Phrenorians and the (ta)Klar had taken advantage of that, stepping into more prominent roles and spreading the wealth to win over supporters.

The Phrenorian base, if that's what it was, would cause another major shift in alignment when it was announced, but Terran military intelligence circles weren't sure what shape that shift would take. Having the base turn out to be a false alarm would probably be best, but Kiwanuka didn't believe that would be the case.

“I was supposed to spend the morning giving inoculations against disease brought here by interplanetary corps,” Brandvold said. “The Nys'ale brought in a variant of the
Isummy
virus, which could be lethal to local infants if not taken care of. I wasn't supposed to be preparing to shoot some of those ­people.”

Corporal Brandvold was cross-­listed on her MOS, serving as a med tech and as a rifleman. She'd joined the Terran Army to get the training she'd wanted for her eventual return to a medical career in civilian life.

“We're not there yet, Corporal. Don't borrow trouble.” Kiwanuka nodded toward the fence. “Right now we're just here to secure the perimeter. As soon as reconstruction's complete, we'll go back to business as usual.”

“We might, Sergeant, but I don't think those ­people will.”

Kiwanuka didn't have anything to say to that, so she didn't try. Her comm popped for attention and she shifted over to a link where Colonel Halladay was waiting for her.

“Sergeant Kiwanuka.” Halladay sounded calm, but his voice held a note of tension that Kiwanuka could hear because she knew him.

“Yes sir.”

“I was told there were witnesses to the attack.”

“Yes sir. Noojin and Quass Leghef's granddaughter.”

“Jahup's sister and girlfriend?” Halladay's calmness slipped away.

“Yes sir.”

“What were they doing there?”

“I didn't ask, sir. I secured the scene and made certain the two girls were out of harm's way.” Kiwanuka didn't know if Noojin had been part of the attack or if she'd just gotten caught in the middle. Kiwanuka had spotted the broken arrow with transparent blue insect wing fletching in the confrontation area when she'd arrived. It didn't make sense that Noojin would have been part of the ambush while shepherding the young girl. Kiwanuka thought she knew what had happened, but she wanted to hear it for herself.

“Did they see who did this?”

“Private Welchel informed me the girls told him someone tried to kill them, sir. They'll have to be interviewed to find out what they know.”

“Bring them in.”

“Yes sir.” Kiwanuka handed off control of the attack site to another sergeant, let Lieutenant Murad know she'd been called away, and went to get the girls.

Private Welchel had intercepted the girls and brought them into the fort through the hole in the fence. She'd immediately locked them down in an armored personnel carrier.

Crossing the parade grounds that showed fresh wounds from the tracks of the massive main battle tanks that had drawn a line in the sand with their presence, Kiwanuka headed for the APC. The tracked vehicle stood eight meters tall, seventeen meters long, and five meters wide. They were called Invincible Bubbles, and mostly they were. Capable of carrying a cargo of four powersuits, or twenty soldiers, or tons of equipment and materials, they were workhorses in ground campaigns but were difficult to use in Makaum's jungles.

Kiwanuka reached the APC and laid her palm on it, juicing her ID and authorizations through the alloyed skin. A lot of soldiers felt the physical contact was a joke. A Bubble's weps would cut down anyone not cleared by security for 1,000-meter access, so if anyone got that close, the crew already recognized them as friendlies.

But the touch logged the person into the Bubble's rec­ords, something flesh-­and-­blood soldiers sometimes forgot to do in the heat of a battle, or just because they were lax. Kiwanuka left her hand on the behemoth's armored shoulder and let the link flare to life.

“Something up, Sergeant Kiwanuka?” a man's voice asked over the comm.

“I need the two civilians and enough sec to manage a transfer on-­post.”

“Copy that.”

Kiwanuka stepped back. A moment later, the door opened, a short stair extended, and two armored soldiers stepped out locked and loaded. After a short time spent confirming a physical visual recon, Noojin and Telilu followed.

Neither of the girls was bound, but both had small bandages on their arms and faces. Kiwanuka had been told the injuries were superficial and had been sustained from a leap off a house. Kiwanuka figured they were both lucky to be alive from a leap like that in the dark.

Noojin's weapons had been confiscated. She'd been carrying several knives, a short sword, and a bow and quiver of arrows.

Kiwanuka glanced at the arrows, saw that they had the same dark blue insect wing fletching as the one that she'd noted earlier at the confrontation site, and captured a digital image to her hardsuit's memory. She ordered the faceshield to go transparent, so Noojin could see her. They'd met after the DawnStar cartel business. They hadn't gotten to know each other well, but there was something about a woman talking to a woman that broke down barriers.