"astory9" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verona Jeff)

Hell, in shades of freezing mud.
Angelo Cabesa lowered his head against the icy drizzle and checked his watch again. Eleven-fifteen. The transports would be down for dust-off at fifteen-thirty. Cabesa had no doubts that the transports would arrive, but he had no illusions that they would arrive a minute before their scheduled time. Four more bone-chilling hours in this godforsaken swamp.
His squadron sat huddled under hastily-erected tarps, except for the few who were making half-hearted patrols of the perimeter. The locals, flush with victory, seemed content to keep their distance, and Cabesa was grateful for that. Bad enough that his dispirited recruits were being kicked off another world, but it would be worse if some local boy decided to count coup on the Terran forces. He didn't want to have to tell a grieving parent what had happened to their son or daughter again.
Cabesa spat into the muck, immediately losing sight of grey saliva amidst grey mud. For the sixth time in as many battles they were leaving with their tails between their legs. The Colonial Rebellion was over, and Earth had lost. The past year had been nothing but rearguard actions, poorly coordinated and unsupported, while Earth slowly pulled the Fleet home. His platoon had been out on the Rim when the long retreat started, so they would be among the last ones back. But at least they're going back, he thought, as he watched the listless soldiers under the tarps. I'll get them all home.
"Hey, Sarge, any news?" It was Yamora, and the private's unsteady gait showed that he was already drunk.
"Nothing new, private. Dust-off at fifteen-thirty."
Yamora's face tightened. "So we get to freeze our asses off until they decide they want to come get us, huh?"
"That's enough, private. Unless you want to walk patrol until dust-off?" Cabesa grinned, tight-lipped, as Yamora shook his head and stumbled back towards the rest of the squadron. Thank God it was just booze. The mudball they were on was too undeveloped to support serious drugs, and the black market had run dry months ago.
Cabesa yanked his boots free of the mud and began a slow circuit of the camp. Twenty years in the service, and he was still a glorified babysitter. The greasy mud clung to his pants and heavy anorak and spotted the barrel of his weapon. He was a big man, but the unrelenting cold and damp had begun to wear him down as well.
"Everybody here okay?" he called, as he neared the first tarp. A chorus of groans answered him.
"You want some, Sarge?" That was Holmgren, offering a small flask.
Cabesa shook his head. "Not now. But get back to me when we're in space."
"Okay." Holmgren licked his lips. He was trying to grow a mustache, but it wasn't much. "Is it true we're going home, Sarge? Back to Earth?"
"That's what the orders say."
A thin, sharp-faced woman looked up from the weapon she was cleaning and cursed. "They could have shipped us back months ago. Why are they wasting our time?"
"Shafransky, I work for a living. Don't ask me how they come up with our orders." Weak laughter trickled through the troops. "Just keep your heads down for four more hours, boys and girls. We'll be out of here soon. And Peterson, remember you have patrol duty in two hours."
Peterson, a tall red-haired country boy, pulled his visor down lower over his eyes and burrowed deeper into sleep.
"Somebody make sure he does it," Cabesa said tiredly. "I'm tired of spanking his butt." With a nod, he ducked back into the icy mist and slogged to the next tarp.
He finished his check with the perimeter patrols. Here the soldiers were more awake, pounding their hands and stamping their feet to keep their circulation going. Cabesa did a quick count. Seven. Seven?
"Where's Harris?' he asked.
Their replies were a chorus: "Haven't seen him." "No idea." "I'm too damn cold to care."
A chill hand wrapped around the sergeant's heart. Reaching up beside his temple, he flicked his microphone stalk down. "Harris, this is Sergeant Cabesa. Report." He tapped the bead in his ear. "Private Jerome Harris, report." Nothing.
Cabesa glanced up to see the patrol in a loose circle around him. "Who was the last to see Harris?"
They stared uneasily at each other, until a deep voice said "I saw him about twenty minutes ago. Said he was going to the latrine."
"All right, Cooper. Anybody else see him?"
Mutterings, coughs, but no replies.
"Cooper, you hook up with Garcia and Shearer. You others, form pairs. Keep an eye on each other. Nobody goes to the latrine alone."
"Sarge --"
"What is it, Cooper?"
The big man swallowed. "I'm not so sure Harris went to the latrine to do his business. He might have gone, you know, out there," he said, pointing a thick finger at the grey landscape beyond the perimeter.
The cold hand on Cabesa's heart suddenly grew claws. "I understand. Watch your backs." He nodded to the troops, dispersing them, then headed back towards camp, one finger on the bead in his ear. "Spec Four Angel Menendez, come in."
"Menendez here. That you, Sarge?"
"Yeah. I need a trace on Harris, right now."
"Your wish is my command. Let's see, he's....That's funny."
"What?"
"I'm not showing him on the status board. He's not within two hundred meters of the perimeter."
"Can you track him from the satellites?"
Laughter buzzed in his ear. "What, those pop-ups we put in orbit last week? They've all been shot down. All I've got is the uplink to the Fleet." Then the voice sobered. "What, isn't he with his patrol?"
"No."
"Shit. Want me to wake 'em up for a search-and-rescue?"
"No." Cabesa switched directions, heading for the armory. "I'll find him."
"By yourself?"
"He's my man. My responsibility."
"We got dust-off in what, four hours and change?" Menendez's voice faded, then came back. "Four hours, two minutes. How long are you going to look?"
Until I find him, Cabesa thought. Aloud, he said "Give me three and half hours. I'm at the armory...." He broke off to nod at the soldier stationed by the door of the armory and duck inside. The light was dim here, but his hands went out automatically, reaching for the proper places. Homing beacon. Flare pistol. Flares. Spare ammo. He hesitated a second before drawing two grenades from their storage wrap. Better to have them and not need them then need them and not have them.
"You there, Sarge?"
"I'm with you, Menendez."
"I've got a topo map I can download to your visor. It resolves down to about ten meters. Bad news is that coverage in this area is a bit spotty. Nobody expected a retreat into a swamp."
"I'll take it." Cabesa broke open a package of cleaning tissues and wiped a film of mud from his visor before dropping it into place. The heads-up display glowed green before him, signifying the download in progress, then flashed amber before returning to its usually ghostly grey. "Got it. Thanks, Menendez."
"De nada. Oh, and you might switch to channel eight. It's sideband, and I should be able to pick you up out to a kilometer or so."
"Will do." Cabesa switched to the side channel. "Can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear. Good luck."
Cabesa switched back to the tactical channel and checked his equipment one last time before ducking out of the armory and heading for the perimeter. The rain had intensified, and he could feel its cold fingers probing for gaps and seams. The grey overlay of his visor's HUD blended almost invisibly into the tan-and-iron terrain.
Minutes later he passed Harris' patrol and pressed on into the swamp. The footing rapidly became treacherous, each step forcing him to pull his boots from the mud with an audible 'pop.' At first he thought he could track the missing soldier by his bootprints, but water quickly filled the impressions, obliterating them. After some thought, he decided to search a fan-shaped area about ninety degrees wide.
It took him half an hour to search a kilometer. But at least the exercise is keeping me warm, he thought, as he stopped beside a large rock to swallow water from his canteen. He screwed the top back into place, tucked the canteen away. And froze. A new sound intruded above the omnipresent drip of rain. Voices.
Cabesa circled behind the rock and dropped to his belly. A quick tap on his wristpad shifted his HUD into the infrared, and he scanned the territory carefully, looking for signs of heat. There. Two figures, about ten meters away. Hostiles. He pressed himself into the mud, feeling the cold press up against him, as the equally cold rain stroked his back and thighs.
The figures shifted and stamped, and additional points of heat blossomed as they lit cigarettes. Other than that, they seemed content to stay in place. Five minutes passed. A cigarette fell into the mud and died. Then one of the figures stirred, laid a hand on the other, and began to move off to the east. The second figure finished his smoke and fell in behind. Rapidly, they moved away -- thirty meters, then fifty. Cabesa waited until they were two tiny orange smears some two hundred meters away before rising to a crouch. He brushed mud from his weapon as best he could and set off on a perpendicular course, heading south.
The mist from his breath mingled with the mist of the rain as he dodged from tree to tree. He prayed that the enemy patrol wasn't using IR. Despite the protection of the mimic polycarbon in his armor, he felt naked -- a nice, fat target. But the two men he'd encountered seemed bored; they were probably wishing to return to base for a shower and a hot meal. His own stomach rumbled as he thought of food, and he tried to ignore it.
Pausing in the lee of a swamp oak, he called up the terrain readout he'd downloaded earlier. Three hundred meters away, a ravine cut through the swamp. If Harris was down there, the surrounding earth might have cut off his transmissions. Cabesa hefted his canteen and drank, feeling the cold rain needle his neck, then set off for the ravine.
A hundred and fifty meters passed, and a ghost whispered in his ear. He fumbled for his transceiver, stepping up the gain while concentrating on the faint words that rose out of the roar of static: "...injured...from camp...rebroadcast this message in...." The signal died. He queried his computer, seeking the source of the transmission. Somewhere in the quadrant ahead of him, so at least he was headed the right way. And it had been on his squadron's tactical channel, so it was probably Harris. Hang on, soldier, he thought.
Cabesa slogged through the dull grey landscape, concentrating on finding Harris and getting the hell away. But his thoughts drifted, reminding him of other rescue missions -- and other failures. He remembered Kryzinski, buried under a landslide, the man's fingers jutting obscenely from the jumble of broken rock. The heat and stench of a jungle world rose in his mind, a nightmare place with spiders the size of his hand. By the time he'd found Baker's body, scavengers had stripped it to wet bone. But worst of all were the vid messages he had to record for the families, messages that began "Sir, your daughter...." or "Ma'am, your son...." This time, there would be no messages. This time, they would all make it home alive.
A sharp, flat crack broke his reverie. Instinctively he fell, tucked, and rolled, springing to his feet behind a nearby tree as his heart hammered beneath his breastplate. A second crack followed, and a cluster of leaves exploded from a nearby tree. Cabesa peered futiley into the mist. Within a few meters, individual trees dissolved into blurry shapes; there was no way to find the shooter. Then, cursing himself for a fool, he switched to IR. Nothing, nothing...wait. A reddish-orange smudge materialized in the lower right hand corner of his visor, some fifty meters distant. As he watched, a white-hot flower bloomed by the smudge, and an instant later the report of a rifle reached his ear. He pulled himself back, putting the bulk of the tree between himself and his pursuer.
It could be worse. The damn rain hampered both of them, preventing their laser scopes from working, and IR images were woefully imprecise for targeting. He could lead the sniper in a semicircular path around the ravine, then cut through to find Harris. If there was enough time. He glanced at his display and swore as he saw that he'd already burned over an hour. Time to make haste, then. But first, a little thermal distraction was in order.
Cabesa drew a grenade from his belt, set the fuse, and tossed it off into the swamp with a low underhand lob. The flash and boom, when they came, were surprisingly close, but he was already on his feet and moving along the course he had charted. For ten minutes he forged ahead, his back tense as he waited for a slug to slap him between the shoulder blades, and then he paused for an instant and glanced backward. A faint orange smudge shadowed him. He grinned and pushed on.
Another twenty minutes passed. Satisfied that his false trail was secure, Cabesa broke the semicircle and made a beeline for the edge of the ravine, which his map showed to be some fifty meters distant. In the fog and damp of the swamp, however, he nearly stumbled over the edge as he reached it. He pulled a mud-caked boot back from the sudden drop and looked down. Here the land fell away for a depth of ten meters, and the floor of the ravine looked even muddier and less navigable than the rest of the swamp. He scanned the depths with IR but saw nothing.

Cabesa adjusted his transmitter to the sideband channel. "Menendez, this is Cabesa. Don't reply, just listen. I'm at the edge of a ravine. I think Harris is down in it. I'm going after him. If he's there, I'll signal again when we're in the clear. Cabesa out." He flipped the transmitter back to the tactical channel and cast about for a way down into the ravine.
He found one in the form of a shallow stream filled with water and mud, a slippery stew. Half-walking and half-sliding, he worked his way to the ravine floor, picking up a fresh coating of mud along the way. The slimy water found its way under his pant cuffs, leaving a cold, gelatinous trail along his ankle and under his heel, like the track of a giant slug. Ignoring it as best he could, Cabesa drank from his canteen and chewed on a sticky candy bar, unaware of the taste. He made sure to tuck the wrapper into his pocket before pressing on.
Despite the erosive efforts of the omnipresent muck, the ravine was narrow, sharp-sided, and convoluted. A stream the width of his torso ran briskly along its bottom. Cabesa struggled with his footing, stepping over some tree roots while ducking under others. To his disgust, he learned that the map was useless here -- the features of the terrain were smaller than the ten-meter minimum. Ten minutes passed. Nothing. Ten more. Still nothing.
A voice whispered in his ear.
Cabesa jerked upright, then lowered his head from side to side like a dog casting for a scent. "Rebroadcast this message in fifteen minutes." Harris' voice, all right, but thin and thready. He glanced at the clock and saw that nearly an hour had passed since the last time he had caught that scrap of broadcast. His lost soldier was growing weaker. With a snarl, he accessed his computer, calling up the previous message, then overlaying the origin points of both messages across a map of the area. Two ghostly green lines intersected in his display, and he smiled. When Harris broadcast again, he would have his exact location, and in the meantime he could make his way towards the injured man. A burst of strength radiated out from his chest and filled his limbs, and he broke into a half-trot, his boots churning mud with renewed vigor.
Harris' signal appeared to originate from a point some one hundred and thirty meters away, but the twisting and snaking of the ravine tripled that distance. Once Cabesa banged his knee against a cypress, and he had to stop and rest, hissing in frustration as he watched the minutes vanish from his clock. Barely an hour and a half left, now. Even if he took a straight line back to the dust-off point, it would take an hour to get there, and if Harris were injured....He pushed the thought from his head as he painfully flexed his injured limb. It hurt, and it was going to swell, but he could make it work. So he did.
Up ahead the ravine jogged again, to the left this time, and he dragged himself around the curve. Instantly a voice blasted in his ears, so loudly that he clawed for the volume control: "This is Private Second Class Jerome Harris. I've fallen in a ravine, coordinates thirty-three, seven, four north by one hundred-twelve, thirty-one, eleven west. I'm injured --"
Cabesa thumbed his transmitter cutting into the message. "Harris? That you? It's Cabesa." He waved an arm. "Can you see me?"
"Sarge?" Relief shone bright in Harris' voice. "That you, Sarge? Are you here?"
"I'm in the ravine. Your signal is loud and clear. We have to be within line of sight." Cabesa fumbled for his belt, pulled out his flashlight. Switching it on, he swung the beam in a wide arc at eye level. "Can you see me?"
"I see you! You're off to my right, about ten meters. There's an outcropping with a big tree on it, I'm under that. See it?"
Cabesa's gaze swept up the ravine wall. At one point a finger of land jutted out, break the smooth plane, and a large swamp oak stood rooted on the spar of earth. He tracked the flashlight's beam below the tree, to the sheltered hollow beneath. Mud and fog...and then a section of the mud stirred and shifted. A dirty hand waved at him. "Got you, Harris." He clipped the flashlight to his breastplate and tore across the remaining distance, sloshing to a halt beside the injured soldier.
"Good to see you, Sarge," Harris croaked. His face was pale and greyish, nearly the color of the surrounding mud. He lay half-submerged in the slimy swamp, his upper body and one leg propped up above the level of the chill muck. "Hurt my leg when I fell," he added, pointing at the elevated limb.
"Why didn't you just use the latrine, Harris? Too self-conscious about what your dick looks like?" As the soldier laughed weakly, Cabesa checked the man's injuries. Harris was weak, shocky, probably hypothermic. His left leg was broken just above the ankle, with a jagged edge of bone poking through the skin. A crimson pool radiated out from around the injury, and though he wasn't bleeding at the moment several of the veins had ruptured. If he moved the hurt soldier they might re-open. "How you feeling, son?"
"Not feeling a thing, Sarge. Took some 'dorph."
"All right." Cabesa unscrewed his canteen and held it to Harris' lips. "Here, drink this. It's just water."
The hurt man took a few swallows before leaning his head back. "How long till dust-off, Sarge?"
"Plenty of time," Cabesa lied. "Look, I've got to rig up a splint for that leg before I can haul your farmboy ass out of here. Stay put, okay?"
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere." Harris giggled.
Cabesa's thoughts whirled as he scoured the ravine floor for fallen limbs and broken branches. Getting Harris up and over the lip of the ravine would be the hard part. He could rig a block and tackle, but that would take time. Also, the twists and turns of the ravine had disoriented him; if he guessed wrong, they'd both end up on the wrong side of the swamp, cut off from the camp. No, he'd have to retrace his path to where he'd entered the ravine in the first place. Then he could drag Harris up the incline he had come down.
He found a long, fairly straight tree limb, the wood still solid despite the damp surroundings. He broke it over his good knee and trimmed the edges with his knife. Of course, moving Harris at all risked reopening his wound. The man could bleed out while being hauled to safety. But if he did nothing, Harris would die anyway. Cabesa shook his head. His duty was to get his men back home.
Living or dead.
A stick slipped through his fingers, and he bent down to retrieve it. As he did, a gout of mud erupted mere centimeters from his hand. He dropped to his side in the muck, reaching for the weapon slung over his shoulder. The ground exploded again, spraying mud over his boots as he switched his display to IR and scanned the ridge on the opposite side of the ravine. There. An ill-defined figure glowed dull red, but the weapon in its hands was an angry orange. Cabesa took aim at the orange spot, shifted up and in, and pulled the trigger, feeling the butt of the rifle slide off the slimy mud that coated his shoulder. The figure recoiled as Cabesa struggled with his weapon. Wedging the butt of the rifle firmly at the juncture of his shoulder and chest, he fired three quick bursts. The figure slumped to the ground.
Cabesa kept his rifle trained on the diffuse red smudge. A minute passed, then two, but the figure remained still. The red deepened slightly as the figure lost heat. It was dead.
He reshouldered his weapon and gathered the pieces of his makeshift splint, the hustled back to Harris. "Thought I heard gunfire," said the wounded man as Cabesa propped his rifle up against a tree root.
"You did. Just me taking care of a problem." Cabesa pawed through Harris' pack and came up with a roll of cloth tape. "Sorry, Harris, but this is going to hurt," he said, as he laid one of the branches against the man's shattered calf. Harris shifted and muttered words too soft to hear as the sergeant set his leg. Cabesa finished by encasing Harris' calf, ankle, and foot in the sticky tape. "That should do," Cabesa said. "All right, soldier, time to stand up."
Cabesa knelt in the cold mud and slid his hands under Harris' arms. Hugging the man to his chest he pushed up, feeling his boots sink into the mud under their combined weight. Muscles rippled and tightened along his hamstrings and the tops of his thighs; his abdomen and back strained under the load. He breathed in quick pants, the air an icy knife against the back of his throat, as he wrestled the limp soldier to a standing position. Harris struggled as he came to his feet, accidentally shifting his weight onto his ruined leg. He yelped in pain and sagged back into the sergeant's arms, and Cabesa cursed and shifted the wounded man into position, wrapping one arm around Harris' waist. "I want you to put your arm around my waist," he said, speaking the words directly into the man's ear. Harris nodded and flopped an arm around the sergeant's belt, tangling his fingers into a loop.
"Harris, you've got to help me." Getting no response, Cabesa grabbed the soldier by the chin and forced his head up so that he stared into the man's eyes. "Yo, Harris, you in there?"
The eyes flickered, focused. "Yeah, Sarge."
"I need you to work with me, Harris. When I step, I want you to hop with me. You understand? Hop." Cabesa took a few steps forward, and Harris lurched alongside drunkenly. "That's it, son. Keep hopping."
They made an odd procession, two muddy men lurching through the cold swamp like zombies, aimless and slow. Fatigue burned and dulled Cabesa's muscles. Ignoring it, he forged ahead, willing his legs to rise and fall, pausing occasionally to pull Harris out of his drug-dulled half-sleep and force him to hop beside him. He glanced at the man's wound from time to time, checking to see if it had reopened, but the fading light and the dark tape prevented him from being sure. He didn't dare stop to check it more closely; they'd never get started again. His universe dwindled to the dozen or so meters of featureless mud that stretched before him -- then five meters, then two.
His visor's display read "TIME TO DUST OFF: 00:43" when they finally reached the shallow slope that marked the point where he had entered the ravine. With an effort, Cabesa forced himself to stop. He stared stupidly at the ground before him, then sighed and lowered Harris to the ground, his muscles screaming as the man's weight shifted. Harris shivered as Cabesa laid him on the chilly mud; his lips moved, but no sound came out.
Cabesa worried open the knot on his pack, his fingers unresponsive as sticks, and drew out a length of thin, flexible rope. He tied one end with a bowline knot, leaving a small loop, then slid the rope under Harris' back just below his armpits. Running the free end of the rope through the loop, he cinched it tight. After measuring another twenty meters of rope and tying it around his own waist, he bent his knees to the task of working his way up the muddy, treacherous slope. The knee he had injured earlier throbbed with every step, and his entire body groaned in response. He slogged ahead, mechanically, until he finally gained the ridge.
He paused for a sip of water and several deep breaths before heading for the nearest large tree, a bent swamp oak with a thick trunk. Cabesa walked around the tree, looping that rope that connected him to Harris against the craggy bark. Then he headed back to the slope and began walking downhill. The rope tightened around his waist as the last of the slack vanished, and as gravity dragged him back down into the ravine the rope pulled Harris up. Cabesa pressed on, a human counterweight, until he reached the floor of the ravine again. Glancing up, he saw that Harris was nearly at the top of the ridge. He grabbed the rope between his numb hands and pulled, his muscles grinding like old machinery, until the injured man rested safely on the ridge. Then he began the laborious process of ascending the ridge again.
Thirty minutes remained when he finally unwound the rope and shoved it back in his pack. Dicey, he thought, very dicey. He activated his transmitter and tweaked it to the sideband channel. "Menendez?" he croaked. "This is Sergeant Cabesa. You there, Menendez?"
Static whistled and popped. Then: "Sarge? That you?" Menendez's voice sounded distorted and distant, as if he were speaking underwater. "Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for over an hour."
"I found Harris down in the ravine. Radio signals couldn't reach him. He's pretty bad, I'll need help getting him back to camp."
"Sarge, I wish we could help." A burst of static obliterated the distant voice. " -- party courtesy of the natives. They started pounding the base ninety minutes ago. We've fallen back to the dust-off point. Oh, and I'm detecting a lot of activity in your area. An emergency beacon went off over there around half an hour ago."
Emergency beacon? thought Cabesa muzzily. Then he remembered the man who had stalked him through the ravine, the man he had shot. He must have gotten off the signal before dying.
Menendez's voice buzzed in his ear. Cabesa thumbed his mike, cutting off the specialist's voice. "Repeat, please. All of that."
"I said it looks like there are five or six people in your area, but none of them are heading your way. You'll have to make it to the dust-off point on your own, Sarge. If Harris is as bad as you say --"
"I'm not leaving him." A spark of anger blossomed in his chest, like the last flare of a dying star. "Those men following me, they'll have to cross the ravine first. I can make it to the dust-off point before them. With Harris."
"Okay." The signal broke up, then re-formed. "The transport's coming in ahead of schedule. You've got fifteen minutes. I'll try to hold it, but things are getting pretty hot down here."
"Don't wait for me, Menendez," Cabesa said. "Get the others out. That's an order."
"Sorry, sir, I didn't hear that. Your signal's breaking up." Menendez's voice dropped. "Vaya con Dios, Sarge. And hurry."
The rain had thickened from a mist to something more substantial, and Cabesa shook drops from his visor as he bent down to check Harris. The wounded solider looked pale, ghastly -- dead. Cabesa laid his fingers under the other's nose and felt a faint trickle of breath. He examined the splinted leg, but still wasn't able to tell if the wound was oozing blood. "Harris?" He slapped the man's cheek lightly and repeated the name. No response. The shock, fatigue, and 'dorph had finally caught up with him.
Cursing the stiffness in his knee, Cabesa lowered himself beside Harris and wrapped one of the man's arms across his shoulders. His bones felt leaden as he forced himself to stand. After securing his balance, he slid a hand along Harris' side and leaned so that the man's weight stayed off his injured leg. Then, sucking in a lungful of damp air, he wrenched a boot free from the mud and staggered forward.
He couldn't reach his weapon. If the enemy found him, he was a sitting duck. Of course, he already was a sitting duck, with another duck on his back. Cabesa chuckled, then caught himself. Steady, son. Don't get hysterical now. He linked his receiver with his visor display and opened it to all transmissions. Pinpoints of light flared and died behind him, like fireflies dancing on the far side of the ravine.
Pain. In his legs, his lower back, his shoulders. Harris clung to him like a drunk lover as he forced his feet ahead. One step. Another. He was bringing the last boy home. Had to. No rest for him until the men were safe. The grey landscape shifted and ran before his eyes, becoming less distinct, more unreal. The fireflies buzzed angrily in his visor. Suddenly, he realized his pursuers had crossed the ravine. They'd be on him minutes.
Well, what did you expect, son? Sergeants don't live to collect pensions. Laughter bubbled through his lips, with panic close behind. Still, he raised his leg. Lowered it. Wanting to see his executioners, he toggled his display to IR. My God, there they were already! Red shapes before him, distant blurs, closing. Voices roared in his ears. They were calling his name --
Cabesa snapped back into awareness. "...down, Sarge!" That voice...it was Yamora! He fumbled for his transmitter. "Yamora?" he whispered.
"Yeah, it's me. Sarge, for God's sake, hit the deck! They're right behind you!"
Cabesa fell forward, twisting so that his body cushioned Harris as they splashed into the mud. Distantly he heard the scream of a grenade launcher, and then the jellied earth beneath him trembled. He lay still, his mind blank, relaxing into the comfortable mud...if only it weren't so cold....
A weight lifted free from his back. Hands caught at his back and side, turning him. Then a hand lifted his visor away, and cold rain spattered his face. He found himself staring into a pair of blue eyes. The mouth beneath the eyes was moving, and he concentrated on the words. "Sarge? You okay?"
Cabesa pushed air up from his belly, shaped words. "Peterson?"
The face smiled. "Yeah, Sarge, it's me. Peterson. Shafransky's looking after Harris. Yamora and Holmgren went to check on the enemy, but I think they've turned tail. They weren't really spoiling for a fight."
"Peterson."
"Sarge?" The private leaned closer.
"Good to see you finally got off your lazy ass." Cabesa tried to growl, but it came out more like a whisper. Peterson's answering laugh faded in his ears and his awareness dwindled away.

---

Jeff Verona’s work has appeared in Adventures of Sword and Sorcery,
Bending the Landscape: Fantasy, and Speculations. He teaches courses
in Creative Writing and Science Fiction Literature at Brookhaven College
in Dallas, Texas. Currently he lives in Fort Worth with his wife, Dr. Marcy
Fitz-Randolph, two cats, and two computers.

Hell, in shades of freezing mud.
Angelo Cabesa lowered his head against the icy drizzle and checked his watch again. Eleven-fifteen. The transports would be down for dust-off at fifteen-thirty. Cabesa had no doubts that the transports would arrive, but he had no illusions that they would arrive a minute before their scheduled time. Four more bone-chilling hours in this godforsaken swamp.
His squadron sat huddled under hastily-erected tarps, except for the few who were making half-hearted patrols of the perimeter. The locals, flush with victory, seemed content to keep their distance, and Cabesa was grateful for that. Bad enough that his dispirited recruits were being kicked off another world, but it would be worse if some local boy decided to count coup on the Terran forces. He didn't want to have to tell a grieving parent what had happened to their son or daughter again.
Cabesa spat into the muck, immediately losing sight of grey saliva amidst grey mud. For the sixth time in as many battles they were leaving with their tails between their legs. The Colonial Rebellion was over, and Earth had lost. The past year had been nothing but rearguard actions, poorly coordinated and unsupported, while Earth slowly pulled the Fleet home. His platoon had been out on the Rim when the long retreat started, so they would be among the last ones back. But at least they're going back, he thought, as he watched the listless soldiers under the tarps. I'll get them all home.
"Hey, Sarge, any news?" It was Yamora, and the private's unsteady gait showed that he was already drunk.
"Nothing new, private. Dust-off at fifteen-thirty."
Yamora's face tightened. "So we get to freeze our asses off until they decide they want to come get us, huh?"
"That's enough, private. Unless you want to walk patrol until dust-off?" Cabesa grinned, tight-lipped, as Yamora shook his head and stumbled back towards the rest of the squadron. Thank God it was just booze. The mudball they were on was too undeveloped to support serious drugs, and the black market had run dry months ago.
Cabesa yanked his boots free of the mud and began a slow circuit of the camp. Twenty years in the service, and he was still a glorified babysitter. The greasy mud clung to his pants and heavy anorak and spotted the barrel of his weapon. He was a big man, but the unrelenting cold and damp had begun to wear him down as well.
"Everybody here okay?" he called, as he neared the first tarp. A chorus of groans answered him.
"You want some, Sarge?" That was Holmgren, offering a small flask.
Cabesa shook his head. "Not now. But get back to me when we're in space."
"Okay." Holmgren licked his lips. He was trying to grow a mustache, but it wasn't much. "Is it true we're going home, Sarge? Back to Earth?"
"That's what the orders say."
A thin, sharp-faced woman looked up from the weapon she was cleaning and cursed. "They could have shipped us back months ago. Why are they wasting our time?"
"Shafransky, I work for a living. Don't ask me how they come up with our orders." Weak laughter trickled through the troops. "Just keep your heads down for four more hours, boys and girls. We'll be out of here soon. And Peterson, remember you have patrol duty in two hours."
Peterson, a tall red-haired country boy, pulled his visor down lower over his eyes and burrowed deeper into sleep.
"Somebody make sure he does it," Cabesa said tiredly. "I'm tired of spanking his butt." With a nod, he ducked back into the icy mist and slogged to the next tarp.
He finished his check with the perimeter patrols. Here the soldiers were more awake, pounding their hands and stamping their feet to keep their circulation going. Cabesa did a quick count. Seven. Seven?
"Where's Harris?' he asked.
Their replies were a chorus: "Haven't seen him." "No idea." "I'm too damn cold to care."
A chill hand wrapped around the sergeant's heart. Reaching up beside his temple, he flicked his microphone stalk down. "Harris, this is Sergeant Cabesa. Report." He tapped the bead in his ear. "Private Jerome Harris, report." Nothing.
Cabesa glanced up to see the patrol in a loose circle around him. "Who was the last to see Harris?"
They stared uneasily at each other, until a deep voice said "I saw him about twenty minutes ago. Said he was going to the latrine."
"All right, Cooper. Anybody else see him?"
Mutterings, coughs, but no replies.
"Cooper, you hook up with Garcia and Shearer. You others, form pairs. Keep an eye on each other. Nobody goes to the latrine alone."
"Sarge --"
"What is it, Cooper?"
The big man swallowed. "I'm not so sure Harris went to the latrine to do his business. He might have gone, you know, out there," he said, pointing a thick finger at the grey landscape beyond the perimeter.
The cold hand on Cabesa's heart suddenly grew claws. "I understand. Watch your backs." He nodded to the troops, dispersing them, then headed back towards camp, one finger on the bead in his ear. "Spec Four Angel Menendez, come in."
"Menendez here. That you, Sarge?"
"Yeah. I need a trace on Harris, right now."
"Your wish is my command. Let's see, he's....That's funny."
"What?"
"I'm not showing him on the status board. He's not within two hundred meters of the perimeter."
"Can you track him from the satellites?"
Laughter buzzed in his ear. "What, those pop-ups we put in orbit last week? They've all been shot down. All I've got is the uplink to the Fleet." Then the voice sobered. "What, isn't he with his patrol?"
"No."
"Shit. Want me to wake 'em up for a search-and-rescue?"
"No." Cabesa switched directions, heading for the armory. "I'll find him."
"By yourself?"
"He's my man. My responsibility."
"We got dust-off in what, four hours and change?" Menendez's voice faded, then came back. "Four hours, two minutes. How long are you going to look?"
Until I find him, Cabesa thought. Aloud, he said "Give me three and half hours. I'm at the armory...." He broke off to nod at the soldier stationed by the door of the armory and duck inside. The light was dim here, but his hands went out automatically, reaching for the proper places. Homing beacon. Flare pistol. Flares. Spare ammo. He hesitated a second before drawing two grenades from their storage wrap. Better to have them and not need them then need them and not have them.
"You there, Sarge?"
"I'm with you, Menendez."
"I've got a topo map I can download to your visor. It resolves down to about ten meters. Bad news is that coverage in this area is a bit spotty. Nobody expected a retreat into a swamp."
"I'll take it." Cabesa broke open a package of cleaning tissues and wiped a film of mud from his visor before dropping it into place. The heads-up display glowed green before him, signifying the download in progress, then flashed amber before returning to its usually ghostly grey. "Got it. Thanks, Menendez."
"De nada. Oh, and you might switch to channel eight. It's sideband, and I should be able to pick you up out to a kilometer or so."
"Will do." Cabesa switched to the side channel. "Can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear. Good luck."
Cabesa switched back to the tactical channel and checked his equipment one last time before ducking out of the armory and heading for the perimeter. The rain had intensified, and he could feel its cold fingers probing for gaps and seams. The grey overlay of his visor's HUD blended almost invisibly into the tan-and-iron terrain.
Minutes later he passed Harris' patrol and pressed on into the swamp. The footing rapidly became treacherous, each step forcing him to pull his boots from the mud with an audible 'pop.' At first he thought he could track the missing soldier by his bootprints, but water quickly filled the impressions, obliterating them. After some thought, he decided to search a fan-shaped area about ninety degrees wide.
It took him half an hour to search a kilometer. But at least the exercise is keeping me warm, he thought, as he stopped beside a large rock to swallow water from his canteen. He screwed the top back into place, tucked the canteen away. And froze. A new sound intruded above the omnipresent drip of rain. Voices.
Cabesa circled behind the rock and dropped to his belly. A quick tap on his wristpad shifted his HUD into the infrared, and he scanned the territory carefully, looking for signs of heat. There. Two figures, about ten meters away. Hostiles. He pressed himself into the mud, feeling the cold press up against him, as the equally cold rain stroked his back and thighs.
The figures shifted and stamped, and additional points of heat blossomed as they lit cigarettes. Other than that, they seemed content to stay in place. Five minutes passed. A cigarette fell into the mud and died. Then one of the figures stirred, laid a hand on the other, and began to move off to the east. The second figure finished his smoke and fell in behind. Rapidly, they moved away -- thirty meters, then fifty. Cabesa waited until they were two tiny orange smears some two hundred meters away before rising to a crouch. He brushed mud from his weapon as best he could and set off on a perpendicular course, heading south.
The mist from his breath mingled with the mist of the rain as he dodged from tree to tree. He prayed that the enemy patrol wasn't using IR. Despite the protection of the mimic polycarbon in his armor, he felt naked -- a nice, fat target. But the two men he'd encountered seemed bored; they were probably wishing to return to base for a shower and a hot meal. His own stomach rumbled as he thought of food, and he tried to ignore it.
Pausing in the lee of a swamp oak, he called up the terrain readout he'd downloaded earlier. Three hundred meters away, a ravine cut through the swamp. If Harris was down there, the surrounding earth might have cut off his transmissions. Cabesa hefted his canteen and drank, feeling the cold rain needle his neck, then set off for the ravine.
A hundred and fifty meters passed, and a ghost whispered in his ear. He fumbled for his transceiver, stepping up the gain while concentrating on the faint words that rose out of the roar of static: "...injured...from camp...rebroadcast this message in...." The signal died. He queried his computer, seeking the source of the transmission. Somewhere in the quadrant ahead of him, so at least he was headed the right way. And it had been on his squadron's tactical channel, so it was probably Harris. Hang on, soldier, he thought.
Cabesa slogged through the dull grey landscape, concentrating on finding Harris and getting the hell away. But his thoughts drifted, reminding him of other rescue missions -- and other failures. He remembered Kryzinski, buried under a landslide, the man's fingers jutting obscenely from the jumble of broken rock. The heat and stench of a jungle world rose in his mind, a nightmare place with spiders the size of his hand. By the time he'd found Baker's body, scavengers had stripped it to wet bone. But worst of all were the vid messages he had to record for the families, messages that began "Sir, your daughter...." or "Ma'am, your son...." This time, there would be no messages. This time, they would all make it home alive.
A sharp, flat crack broke his reverie. Instinctively he fell, tucked, and rolled, springing to his feet behind a nearby tree as his heart hammered beneath his breastplate. A second crack followed, and a cluster of leaves exploded from a nearby tree. Cabesa peered futiley into the mist. Within a few meters, individual trees dissolved into blurry shapes; there was no way to find the shooter. Then, cursing himself for a fool, he switched to IR. Nothing, nothing...wait. A reddish-orange smudge materialized in the lower right hand corner of his visor, some fifty meters distant. As he watched, a white-hot flower bloomed by the smudge, and an instant later the report of a rifle reached his ear. He pulled himself back, putting the bulk of the tree between himself and his pursuer.
It could be worse. The damn rain hampered both of them, preventing their laser scopes from working, and IR images were woefully imprecise for targeting. He could lead the sniper in a semicircular path around the ravine, then cut through to find Harris. If there was enough time. He glanced at his display and swore as he saw that he'd already burned over an hour. Time to make haste, then. But first, a little thermal distraction was in order.
Cabesa drew a grenade from his belt, set the fuse, and tossed it off into the swamp with a low underhand lob. The flash and boom, when they came, were surprisingly close, but he was already on his feet and moving along the course he had charted. For ten minutes he forged ahead, his back tense as he waited for a slug to slap him between the shoulder blades, and then he paused for an instant and glanced backward. A faint orange smudge shadowed him. He grinned and pushed on.
Another twenty minutes passed. Satisfied that his false trail was secure, Cabesa broke the semicircle and made a beeline for the edge of the ravine, which his map showed to be some fifty meters distant. In the fog and damp of the swamp, however, he nearly stumbled over the edge as he reached it. He pulled a mud-caked boot back from the sudden drop and looked down. Here the land fell away for a depth of ten meters, and the floor of the ravine looked even muddier and less navigable than the rest of the swamp. He scanned the depths with IR but saw nothing.
Cabesa adjusted his transmitter to the sideband channel. "Menendez, this is Cabesa. Don't reply, just listen. I'm at the edge of a ravine. I think Harris is down in it. I'm going after him. If he's there, I'll signal again when we're in the clear. Cabesa out." He flipped the transmitter back to the tactical channel and cast about for a way down into the ravine.
He found one in the form of a shallow stream filled with water and mud, a slippery stew. Half-walking and half-sliding, he worked his way to the ravine floor, picking up a fresh coating of mud along the way. The slimy water found its way under his pant cuffs, leaving a cold, gelatinous trail along his ankle and under his heel, like the track of a giant slug. Ignoring it as best he could, Cabesa drank from his canteen and chewed on a sticky candy bar, unaware of the taste. He made sure to tuck the wrapper into his pocket before pressing on.
Despite the erosive efforts of the omnipresent muck, the ravine was narrow, sharp-sided, and convoluted. A stream the width of his torso ran briskly along its bottom. Cabesa struggled with his footing, stepping over some tree roots while ducking under others. To his disgust, he learned that the map was useless here -- the features of the terrain were smaller than the ten-meter minimum. Ten minutes passed. Nothing. Ten more. Still nothing.
A voice whispered in his ear.
Cabesa jerked upright, then lowered his head from side to side like a dog casting for a scent. "Rebroadcast this message in fifteen minutes." Harris' voice, all right, but thin and thready. He glanced at the clock and saw that nearly an hour had passed since the last time he had caught that scrap of broadcast. His lost soldier was growing weaker. With a snarl, he accessed his computer, calling up the previous message, then overlaying the origin points of both messages across a map of the area. Two ghostly green lines intersected in his display, and he smiled. When Harris broadcast again, he would have his exact location, and in the meantime he could make his way towards the injured man. A burst of strength radiated out from his chest and filled his limbs, and he broke into a half-trot, his boots churning mud with renewed vigor.
Harris' signal appeared to originate from a point some one hundred and thirty meters away, but the twisting and snaking of the ravine tripled that distance. Once Cabesa banged his knee against a cypress, and he had to stop and rest, hissing in frustration as he watched the minutes vanish from his clock. Barely an hour and a half left, now. Even if he took a straight line back to the dust-off point, it would take an hour to get there, and if Harris were injured....He pushed the thought from his head as he painfully flexed his injured limb. It hurt, and it was going to swell, but he could make it work. So he did.
Up ahead the ravine jogged again, to the left this time, and he dragged himself around the curve. Instantly a voice blasted in his ears, so loudly that he clawed for the volume control: "This is Private Second Class Jerome Harris. I've fallen in a ravine, coordinates thirty-three, seven, four north by one hundred-twelve, thirty-one, eleven west. I'm injured --"
Cabesa thumbed his transmitter cutting into the message. "Harris? That you? It's Cabesa." He waved an arm. "Can you see me?"
"Sarge?" Relief shone bright in Harris' voice. "That you, Sarge? Are you here?"
"I'm in the ravine. Your signal is loud and clear. We have to be within line of sight." Cabesa fumbled for his belt, pulled out his flashlight. Switching it on, he swung the beam in a wide arc at eye level. "Can you see me?"
"I see you! You're off to my right, about ten meters. There's an outcropping with a big tree on it, I'm under that. See it?"
Cabesa's gaze swept up the ravine wall. At one point a finger of land jutted out, break the smooth plane, and a large swamp oak stood rooted on the spar of earth. He tracked the flashlight's beam below the tree, to the sheltered hollow beneath. Mud and fog...and then a section of the mud stirred and shifted. A dirty hand waved at him. "Got you, Harris." He clipped the flashlight to his breastplate and tore across the remaining distance, sloshing to a halt beside the injured soldier.
"Good to see you, Sarge," Harris croaked. His face was pale and greyish, nearly the color of the surrounding mud. He lay half-submerged in the slimy swamp, his upper body and one leg propped up above the level of the chill muck. "Hurt my leg when I fell," he added, pointing at the elevated limb.
"Why didn't you just use the latrine, Harris? Too self-conscious about what your dick looks like?" As the soldier laughed weakly, Cabesa checked the man's injuries. Harris was weak, shocky, probably hypothermic. His left leg was broken just above the ankle, with a jagged edge of bone poking through the skin. A crimson pool radiated out from around the injury, and though he wasn't bleeding at the moment several of the veins had ruptured. If he moved the hurt soldier they might re-open. "How you feeling, son?"
"Not feeling a thing, Sarge. Took some 'dorph."
"All right." Cabesa unscrewed his canteen and held it to Harris' lips. "Here, drink this. It's just water."
The hurt man took a few swallows before leaning his head back. "How long till dust-off, Sarge?"
"Plenty of time," Cabesa lied. "Look, I've got to rig up a splint for that leg before I can haul your farmboy ass out of here. Stay put, okay?"
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere." Harris giggled.
Cabesa's thoughts whirled as he scoured the ravine floor for fallen limbs and broken branches. Getting Harris up and over the lip of the ravine would be the hard part. He could rig a block and tackle, but that would take time. Also, the twists and turns of the ravine had disoriented him; if he guessed wrong, they'd both end up on the wrong side of the swamp, cut off from the camp. No, he'd have to retrace his path to where he'd entered the ravine in the first place. Then he could drag Harris up the incline he had come down.
He found a long, fairly straight tree limb, the wood still solid despite the damp surroundings. He broke it over his good knee and trimmed the edges with his knife. Of course, moving Harris at all risked reopening his wound. The man could bleed out while being hauled to safety. But if he did nothing, Harris would die anyway. Cabesa shook his head. His duty was to get his men back home.
Living or dead.
A stick slipped through his fingers, and he bent down to retrieve it. As he did, a gout of mud erupted mere centimeters from his hand. He dropped to his side in the muck, reaching for the weapon slung over his shoulder. The ground exploded again, spraying mud over his boots as he switched his display to IR and scanned the ridge on the opposite side of the ravine. There. An ill-defined figure glowed dull red, but the weapon in its hands was an angry orange. Cabesa took aim at the orange spot, shifted up and in, and pulled the trigger, feeling the butt of the rifle slide off the slimy mud that coated his shoulder. The figure recoiled as Cabesa struggled with his weapon. Wedging the butt of the rifle firmly at the juncture of his shoulder and chest, he fired three quick bursts. The figure slumped to the ground.
Cabesa kept his rifle trained on the diffuse red smudge. A minute passed, then two, but the figure remained still. The red deepened slightly as the figure lost heat. It was dead.
He reshouldered his weapon and gathered the pieces of his makeshift splint, the hustled back to Harris. "Thought I heard gunfire," said the wounded man as Cabesa propped his rifle up against a tree root.
"You did. Just me taking care of a problem." Cabesa pawed through Harris' pack and came up with a roll of cloth tape. "Sorry, Harris, but this is going to hurt," he said, as he laid one of the branches against the man's shattered calf. Harris shifted and muttered words too soft to hear as the sergeant set his leg. Cabesa finished by encasing Harris' calf, ankle, and foot in the sticky tape. "That should do," Cabesa said. "All right, soldier, time to stand up."
Cabesa knelt in the cold mud and slid his hands under Harris' arms. Hugging the man to his chest he pushed up, feeling his boots sink into the mud under their combined weight. Muscles rippled and tightened along his hamstrings and the tops of his thighs; his abdomen and back strained under the load. He breathed in quick pants, the air an icy knife against the back of his throat, as he wrestled the limp soldier to a standing position. Harris struggled as he came to his feet, accidentally shifting his weight onto his ruined leg. He yelped in pain and sagged back into the sergeant's arms, and Cabesa cursed and shifted the wounded man into position, wrapping one arm around Harris' waist. "I want you to put your arm around my waist," he said, speaking the words directly into the man's ear. Harris nodded and flopped an arm around the sergeant's belt, tangling his fingers into a loop.
"Harris, you've got to help me." Getting no response, Cabesa grabbed the soldier by the chin and forced his head up so that he stared into the man's eyes. "Yo, Harris, you in there?"
The eyes flickered, focused. "Yeah, Sarge."
"I need you to work with me, Harris. When I step, I want you to hop with me. You understand? Hop." Cabesa took a few steps forward, and Harris lurched alongside drunkenly. "That's it, son. Keep hopping."
They made an odd procession, two muddy men lurching through the cold swamp like zombies, aimless and slow. Fatigue burned and dulled Cabesa's muscles. Ignoring it, he forged ahead, willing his legs to rise and fall, pausing occasionally to pull Harris out of his drug-dulled half-sleep and force him to hop beside him. He glanced at the man's wound from time to time, checking to see if it had reopened, but the fading light and the dark tape prevented him from being sure. He didn't dare stop to check it more closely; they'd never get started again. His universe dwindled to the dozen or so meters of featureless mud that stretched before him -- then five meters, then two.
His visor's display read "TIME TO DUST OFF: 00:43" when they finally reached the shallow slope that marked the point where he had entered the ravine. With an effort, Cabesa forced himself to stop. He stared stupidly at the ground before him, then sighed and lowered Harris to the ground, his muscles screaming as the man's weight shifted. Harris shivered as Cabesa laid him on the chilly mud; his lips moved, but no sound came out.
Cabesa worried open the knot on his pack, his fingers unresponsive as sticks, and drew out a length of thin, flexible rope. He tied one end with a bowline knot, leaving a small loop, then slid the rope under Harris' back just below his armpits. Running the free end of the rope through the loop, he cinched it tight. After measuring another twenty meters of rope and tying it around his own waist, he bent his knees to the task of working his way up the muddy, treacherous slope. The knee he had injured earlier throbbed with every step, and his entire body groaned in response. He slogged ahead, mechanically, until he finally gained the ridge.
He paused for a sip of water and several deep breaths before heading for the nearest large tree, a bent swamp oak with a thick trunk. Cabesa walked around the tree, looping that rope that connected him to Harris against the craggy bark. Then he headed back to the slope and began walking downhill. The rope tightened around his waist as the last of the slack vanished, and as gravity dragged him back down into the ravine the rope pulled Harris up. Cabesa pressed on, a human counterweight, until he reached the floor of the ravine again. Glancing up, he saw that Harris was nearly at the top of the ridge. He grabbed the rope between his numb hands and pulled, his muscles grinding like old machinery, until the injured man rested safely on the ridge. Then he began the laborious process of ascending the ridge again.
Thirty minutes remained when he finally unwound the rope and shoved it back in his pack. Dicey, he thought, very dicey. He activated his transmitter and tweaked it to the sideband channel. "Menendez?" he croaked. "This is Sergeant Cabesa. You there, Menendez?"
Static whistled and popped. Then: "Sarge? That you?" Menendez's voice sounded distorted and distant, as if he were speaking underwater. "Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for over an hour."
"I found Harris down in the ravine. Radio signals couldn't reach him. He's pretty bad, I'll need help getting him back to camp."
"Sarge, I wish we could help." A burst of static obliterated the distant voice. " -- party courtesy of the natives. They started pounding the base ninety minutes ago. We've fallen back to the dust-off point. Oh, and I'm detecting a lot of activity in your area. An emergency beacon went off over there around half an hour ago."
Emergency beacon? thought Cabesa muzzily. Then he remembered the man who had stalked him through the ravine, the man he had shot. He must have gotten off the signal before dying.
Menendez's voice buzzed in his ear. Cabesa thumbed his mike, cutting off the specialist's voice. "Repeat, please. All of that."
"I said it looks like there are five or six people in your area, but none of them are heading your way. You'll have to make it to the dust-off point on your own, Sarge. If Harris is as bad as you say --"
"I'm not leaving him." A spark of anger blossomed in his chest, like the last flare of a dying star. "Those men following me, they'll have to cross the ravine first. I can make it to the dust-off point before them. With Harris."
"Okay." The signal broke up, then re-formed. "The transport's coming in ahead of schedule. You've got fifteen minutes. I'll try to hold it, but things are getting pretty hot down here."
"Don't wait for me, Menendez," Cabesa said. "Get the others out. That's an order."
"Sorry, sir, I didn't hear that. Your signal's breaking up." Menendez's voice dropped. "Vaya con Dios, Sarge. And hurry."
The rain had thickened from a mist to something more substantial, and Cabesa shook drops from his visor as he bent down to check Harris. The wounded solider looked pale, ghastly -- dead. Cabesa laid his fingers under the other's nose and felt a faint trickle of breath. He examined the splinted leg, but still wasn't able to tell if the wound was oozing blood. "Harris?" He slapped the man's cheek lightly and repeated the name. No response. The shock, fatigue, and 'dorph had finally caught up with him.
Cursing the stiffness in his knee, Cabesa lowered himself beside Harris and wrapped one of the man's arms across his shoulders. His bones felt leaden as he forced himself to stand. After securing his balance, he slid a hand along Harris' side and leaned so that the man's weight stayed off his injured leg. Then, sucking in a lungful of damp air, he wrenched a boot free from the mud and staggered forward.
He couldn't reach his weapon. If the enemy found him, he was a sitting duck. Of course, he already was a sitting duck, with another duck on his back. Cabesa chuckled, then caught himself. Steady, son. Don't get hysterical now. He linked his receiver with his visor display and opened it to all transmissions. Pinpoints of light flared and died behind him, like fireflies dancing on the far side of the ravine.
Pain. In his legs, his lower back, his shoulders. Harris clung to him like a drunk lover as he forced his feet ahead. One step. Another. He was bringing the last boy home. Had to. No rest for him until the men were safe. The grey landscape shifted and ran before his eyes, becoming less distinct, more unreal. The fireflies buzzed angrily in his visor. Suddenly, he realized his pursuers had crossed the ravine. They'd be on him minutes.
Well, what did you expect, son? Sergeants don't live to collect pensions. Laughter bubbled through his lips, with panic close behind. Still, he raised his leg. Lowered it. Wanting to see his executioners, he toggled his display to IR. My God, there they were already! Red shapes before him, distant blurs, closing. Voices roared in his ears. They were calling his name --
Cabesa snapped back into awareness. "...down, Sarge!" That voice...it was Yamora! He fumbled for his transmitter. "Yamora?" he whispered.
"Yeah, it's me. Sarge, for God's sake, hit the deck! They're right behind you!"
Cabesa fell forward, twisting so that his body cushioned Harris as they splashed into the mud. Distantly he heard the scream of a grenade launcher, and then the jellied earth beneath him trembled. He lay still, his mind blank, relaxing into the comfortable mud...if only it weren't so cold....
A weight lifted free from his back. Hands caught at his back and side, turning him. Then a hand lifted his visor away, and cold rain spattered his face. He found himself staring into a pair of blue eyes. The mouth beneath the eyes was moving, and he concentrated on the words. "Sarge? You okay?"
Cabesa pushed air up from his belly, shaped words. "Peterson?"
The face smiled. "Yeah, Sarge, it's me. Peterson. Shafransky's looking after Harris. Yamora and Holmgren went to check on the enemy, but I think they've turned tail. They weren't really spoiling for a fight."
"Peterson."
"Sarge?" The private leaned closer.
"Good to see you finally got off your lazy ass." Cabesa tried to growl, but it came out more like a whisper. Peterson's answering laugh faded in his ears and his awareness dwindled away.

---

Jeff Verona’s work has appeared in Adventures of Sword and Sorcery,
Bending the Landscape: Fantasy, and Speculations. He teaches courses
in Creative Writing and Science Fiction Literature at Brookhaven College
in Dallas, Texas. Currently he lives in Fort Worth with his wife, Dr. Marcy
Fitz-Randolph, two cats, and two computers.