30
“See anything?” Tomiko whispered to Rev.
“No. Nothing.”
The two lay side by side at the top of a ridge, fifteen meters above a scree field that eventually flattened out into a scrub oak forest below.
“What do you think?”
“They have to be there,” Rev said.
But there was no sign of movement anywhere, nothing odd in the pattern of normal bird life.
“Do we wait for the rest of the team?”
Rev looked at her. It was a good question. They’d been separated from the team for an hour now. They could wait, but there was no guarantee that anyone would come their way. They could be dead, for all he knew.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have split off from them, Miko.”
“No guts, no glory. ’Sides, what’s done is done. The question is, what do we do now? Wimp out or go for it?”
Rev turned back to the trees below. Nothing. No movement.
“Go for it,” he finally said.
“Now we’re talking.”
But how? They could backtrack and descend the high ground to the north, but that would take time. Time they didn’t have.
He edged forward to study the ground below. The loose scree covered about twenty meters before it reached the treeline. He didn’t need to test it to know it was unstable. Trying to jump down to it would result in a mini-slide that would alert anyone that they were coming.
Directly below them, however, were several large boulders.
He focused on one, then subvocalized, “How far down is that?”
<Sixteen meters, twenty-two centimeters to the top of the boulder.>
A good drop, but not an impossible one.
Rev nudged Tomiko, then pointed. “I think we can drop on that. Sixteen—”
“And twenty-two centimeters,” Tomiko said. “I’ve already checked. But drop that far or just climb down?”
Rev looked at the cliff face. The scree came from somewhere, after all. The cliff looked rotted. Too many winters and summers were working to loosen the face, leaving a talus that fell away in wild disarray. Rev didn’t need much to hold in order to climb down; his fingers were almost like climbing pitons. But it didn’t matter how strong he was if the rock face gave way under him. He could do many things now, but flying wasn’t one of them.
“The face won’t hold us. If we’re going to do it, we have to jump.”
Tomiko was quiet for a moment as she looked down.
Probably asking Pikachu.
Tomiko had her AI dialed up to a hundred, and she treated it like a human sounding board.
“Do we do it?” he asked, breaking in.
“It ain’t the drop. It’s keeping on top of it. Then we’ve got to get over all that loose stuff.”
“So, do we do it?”
“Hell, yeah,” she said.
She started to get up when Rev stopped her. “Let me dangle you. Less impact when you hit.”
“What, you’re going to drop me on top?”
“Yeah.”
Tomiko shrugged, then said, “Well, OK, then. Let’s do it.”
They both slung their M-49s, then Tomiko turned over to her belly and reached out to him. Rev took her arms, then let her slide over the edge. A tuft of grass tore free and floated to the bottom. Fully extended, he’d cut off more than two meters in her drop.
“One . . . two . . . three!”
Tomiko landed right on top of the rock and squatted as she hit to lessen the chance that she would bounce off. Always graceful, the drop might as well have been into some dance routine, she made it look so easy. She looked up, a huge smile on her face, and gave him a thumbs-up.
Now it was Rev’s turn. He thought about hanging down, then letting go, but he didn’t think his aim would be that good. So, he lined himself up and jumped. He hit the rock squarely, his thighs flexing to absorb the force, but the barrel of his M-49 smacked him in the head as his right leg slipped off, and he flailed his arms to regain his balance. He was about to go over backward when Tomiko latched onto his combat harness, keeping him in place.
“Thanks,” he whispered as he gathered himself.
“Knew that was gonna happen, as big as you are.”
Rev just rolled his eyes.
“Now what? We still have to get down into the trees without setting off a landslide,” he said.
“Let’s crab along the base of the wall. It looks like there’s less of this loose shit farther down.”
That lasted for about twenty meters. The solid footing turned into shifting piles of rock that moved under their feet. A slab of shale slid out from under Rev to go sliding down the hill, taking more rocks with it in a clattering tumble.
Extremely exposed, the two Marines froze for a moment, searching the trees below for any sign that they’d been detected.
“It’s getting worse,” Tomiko said once they’d decided they’d escaped notice. “I think we have to just go down here. Time’s running out.”
She was right, of course. They had to move.
Holding hands for balance, the two started making their way down the slope. It was like walking on black ice, but ice that moved under them. And they weren’t silent. Small pebbles were knocked free and sent cascading down into the trees. Every second, Rev was afraid he was going to fall on his ass and tumble the rest of the way.
At ten meters from the closest tree, Rev said, “Screw it. I’m going for it.”
“Are you sure?”
With a running start, ten meters was nothing to him. But this was going to be a standing jump from unstable footing.
“Yeah.” He dropped Tomiko’s hand, turned, and planted his feet the best he could. With a grunt, he jumped and cleared the distance, then he grabbed the tree to keep him from stumbling farther. Several small rocks bounced out of sight between the other trees.
“Move,” she signed to him.
There were still rocks on the ground, but fewer. Rev picked his way to the next tree, then turned to watch Tomiko. But instead of jumping, she carefully made her way down, barely moving any of the rubble.
“Straight at it?” she asked as she reached him.
“We’ve still got a bit of time. Let’s cut over and come down on it.”
“Roger that.”
The two slanted to their left, maintaining the higher ground. They had to imagine that the direct approach would be covered, and while not perfect, this might enable them to bypass an observation post.
Moving through the scrub oak was easier. Easier, not easy. Lots of the trees were dead, their branches blocking their way, so their progress was not in a straight line. Still, it didn’t take long until they were above the target. Tomiko motioned to their right, and the two moved abreast of each other, then started carefully moving forward.
Rev swept the area as they moved, his M-49 seeking any sign of the enemy. It was quiet. Nothing was there.
At fifty meters out, Rev brought Tomiko to a halt. For a full ten minutes, the two monitored every passive scanner as they peered through the trees. Finally, time running out, they low-crawled forward as silently as possible.
Thirty-three meters out, they saw their target in a clearing: a small, squat box, a single red button on the top. They froze again. There was nothing around the box, but that didn’t guarantee there wasn’t somebody just out of sight.
They lay on their bellies for another ten minutes, but nothing was registering. Finally, Rev signaled for the two of them to move forward. Centimeter by centimeter, they got closer, all the time nerves almost tingling with anticipation. He didn’t trust the situation and feared a trap.
At the edge of the clearing, they stopped again. Birds were singing in the trees, oblivious to what was happening below. A dragonfly buzzed into the clearing and landed on the red button.
Eight meters. That was all that separated them from their objective. But it couldn’t be left unguarded, right? Try as he might, however, he couldn’t pick up any sign of the enemy. It was possible that they’d put all their efforts in the offense, with no one in the defense.
Screw it. We’re too close now.
He signaled Tomiko to cover him, and she shifted to cover back to the west.
Deciding on stealth over speed, Rev got up. Picking his feet through the leaves and grass, feeling for boobytraps, he crept forward. Seven meters . . . six meters . . . five meters. Every step got him closer. He spotted scuff marks in the dirt. He could ask his AI for a timeline of when whoever made those marks was there, but it didn’t matter at this point. He closed the final few meters.
I’ve got you, suckers, he thought as he raised his hand to hit the button.
Then something erupted from the dirt and leaves right in front of him. With faster-than-lightening reflexes, he lowered his M-49, but he was hit low, just below the beltline. His detectors went off as the figure fired on Tomiko.
“Son of a bitch!”
His M-49 was dead, but he could still butt-stroke the grinning figure, who was covered in dirt and leaves, standing in front of him.
“You’re dead,” Ting-a-ling said.
“You bastard!” Tomiko said, standing up.
Rev shook his head, then stepped over to the Frisian soldier. He’d been hiding in a hole, a meter and a half deep. A plug was upside-down to the side. With the plug and leaves over that, he’d been invisible.
“I thought you would have figured it out. You used your spider hole to drop that dick-in-a-can, right?” Ting-a-ling asked, using the Frisian nickname for a Centaur
“But I did a thermal scan,” Rev said. I should have picked up your breath.”
“Me, too,” Tomiko chimed in.
“I can’t help it if you Perseans don’t augment for estivation.”
“What’s estivation?” he subvocalized, unwilling to admit ignorance to the soldier.
<It is a state of lower breathing and pulse, similar to hibernation in some mammals.>
Didn’t know they could do that. Seems like a good skill.
“And with that, if you don’t mind? There’s still twenty minutes left, and I want to see if I can bag anyone else.”
“Where,” Rev said with a sigh.
The Frisian pointed to the east and said, “About two hundred meters.”
“Let’s go,” Tomiko said, pulling Rev by the arm.
“And both of you owe pitchers tonight,” Ting-a-ling said as he started to crawl back into his hole.
That was the worst thing. Not just losing, and to Frisians at that, but they’d be crowing about it all night. And if the commandos had hit the team’s button, well that didn’t even deserve consideration. It would be too painful.
“This never would have happened if he’d been a Centaur,” he said after stewing about it.
“Yeah, we’d be dead for real.”
“No, I mean, this was fun and all, and I’m glad the brass let us do it, but you and me, we’ve only been trained to fight Centaurs, not humans. No way a Centaur could have been hiding in a spider hole.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But he got us.”
“Not only us,” Rev said, looking at the lieutenant, Tanu, and Hus-man sitting on some rocks.
“You, too? Damn!” the lieutenant said as he spotted them. “That fucking Ting-a-ling get you?”
“Yes, sir,” Tomiko said as she grabbed a rock.
“Well, we’ve just got to hope that Nix or the gunny spots the bastard,” the lieutenant said.
“Or that Staff Sergeant Montez and Corporal DB keep them off our button,” Hussein said. “At least then it’ll be a tie.”
“I don’t want a tie,” the lieutenant said. “I want a win.”
“Me, too. Can we, you know, is there time for us to go at it again?” Rev asked.
“Not today. In fact, I’m not sure when.”
“What about on Sunday?” Tomiko asked.
“First day off in over a month. You sure you want to give that up?” the lieutenant asked.
“What else are we going to do, sir?” Tanu asked. “We don’t have off-base liberty.”
The lieutenant looked around, a hopeful gleam in his eyes. “You’d do that? All of you?”
The four Marines shouted yes in unison. None of them took defeat lightly, and payback was a bitch.