Chương 102: 40.Ambush 40-2

After we got back to that elevated root platform, I made sure there were no second-wave surprises about to come up through the ground before I let anyone touch their gear. Not a rest stop. A chance to take apart what had just gone wrong before the next lesson came with a body count. Harvey handled Jess's leg first, then my forearm.

He pressed the neutralizer spray along the edge of my corroded guard and white foam immediately crept into the corrosion line, trading the burning sensation for something that felt like being stung by a dozen tiny, deeply undignified needles. I winced.

"Say something if it hurts," Harvey said, not looking up.

"Would saying something make you gentler?"

"No."

"Then why the hell are you asking?" Jess was sitting on a nearby buttress root, pulling at the cut strap, and caught that exchange in time to laugh.

"Good—Frost 01 can still swear. Brain's intact."

"You almost fed your leg to a wasp nest and you're checking on me?" I turned to look at her. She flicked the severed strap away, expression sour.

"That was a tactical misstep."

"That was you declaring war on the ground with your boots," Harvey said, flat. Jess rolled her eyes.

"Fine, it was all my fault. I should've been light as a love letter, thin as a conscience, stepping like I was apologizing to the plants."

"Start with stepping like someone who wants to live," I said. She looked at me for two seconds. Her mouth moved. Then, unexpectedly, she didn't push back—she dropped the severed strap on the ground.

"Okay," she said.

"I was too heavy. I own it." I paused. Not because the admission was touching. Because she'd said it fast enough that the second half of the dressing-down I'd prepared had nowhere to go. Complete waste. Maki was standing nearby, clipboard already turned to a fresh page, dense notes from the contact filling the lines. She glanced down at it and spoke in the same level tone she used for everything.

"Not only her." I looked up.

"You're included?"

"Yes," she said.

"I identified the nodule irregularity first, but instead of calling the stop immediately, I confirmed with you. Half a beat late." I made a short sound.

"That half-beat was fairly expensive." The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Which is why I'm logging it," she said, looking up at me.

"Next time I see a similar anomaly, I call the stop first. I don't wait for cross-confirmation." I didn't argue. Because she was right. This wasn't a report-writing exercise. Out here, too many things only allowed for stop first, prove you're not overreacting later. Harvey finished the basic neutralization on my forearm guard and finally looked up.

"And you?" He was looking at me.

"What about me."

"You made an error too." …Yeah. The most impressive thing about this bastard was that it didn't matter whether you were team lead or not—he had an uncanny ability to slap the truth into your face right when you'd just caught your breath. I didn't pretend otherwise.

"I know," I said, working my arm to confirm nothing underneath was affected.

"I was fixed on the ground nest. Lost track of feet and upper-right simultaneously. Too slow." Jess immediately pointed at me.

"Witnesses—she just voluntarily self-critiqued. A miracle has occurred."

"Want to see the miracle end?" I said. She laughed, but not as loosely as before. She knew this wasn't purely for show. I pulled in a breath of air so hot and wet it made me want to swear, and brought things back to business.

"All right, let's re-run this." I scratched a quick diagram in the wet mud on the root platform with the cutter tip.

"Three problems with what just happened. One—stop call was too slow. Two—no retreat line pre-marked. Three—everyone was too close to the likely position of the second nest." Maki crouched down and tapped the two nest positions I'd drawn.

"We need more spacing," she said.

"At least one-and-a-half body widths. That way if one person missteps, the others have reaction time." Harvey nodded.

"Point and left flank can't be level," he said.

"I need to be another half-step ahead. Frost 02 can't run the same line as me—if she goes down, she takes the whole formation with her."

"Thank you for describing me as cheap chain-reactive ordnance," Jess said.

"That's what you were," Harvey said. I almost laughed. Held it.

"Right." I continued.

"Revised assignments. Frost 03 keeps point, but half a step wider. You're watching ground and roots now. Frost 02—stop trying to keep up with point. Pull back half a position on the left flank. Your job is to listen and watch—human sounds, water sounds, and—" I glanced at the two metal panels on the ground beside her feet, the ones she'd used to pull the Razorwasps off us.

"Carry two more throwable hard objects." Jess blinked.

"Wait—job promotion? From secondary comms to professional distraction deployment?"

"That throw was good," I said.

"Since your hands are already looking for trouble, put them to use somewhere useful." She stared for a moment, then the corner of her mouth pulled up.

"Is that a compliment?"

"That's resource optimization."

"I'll take it. Frost 02, updated role: portable harassment platform." Maki added, completely deadpan:"High compatibility." Jess stared at her.

"You two are officially ganging up on me now, aren't you?"

"No," I said.

"We're adjusting you in the direction least likely to get the whole team killed." She rolled her eyes but didn't argue. I moved the cutter tip toward Maki.

"Frost 04—not just overhead. Add one more standing rule: anything that looks too much like a resource, call it first. Water, fruit, open ground, clean passage—treat all of it as a trap until proven otherwise." Maki nodded.

"Understood."

"And—" I paused.

"Thanks again. From earlier." She looked at me.

"You already said that."

"This is the extended version," I said.

"That grab was right. Next time my feet do something stupid, pull first, ask questions later." Jess burst out laughing.

"God, that line. Should I have this engraved somewhere?" I turned to look at her.

"You are really asking to be buried today."

"I'm just witnessing Frost 01 painfully discovering what the word teammate means."

"What I'm discovering is how to keep my team lead from dying face-first in a mud pit on day one." Harvey put away the used neutralizer pack and finally said something that functioned as a conclusion.

"Better. This is starting to look like something." Coming from him, that was roughly equivalent to another team receiving a commendation at graduation. I put the cutter away, stood, knocked mud off my gloves.

"Last standing order," I said.

"From here on—anyone spots a clear anomaly, call stop. Anyone spots a viable retreat line, call move. Stop overrides everything else you were about to say. Move overrides everyone's pride. Questions?"

"Frost 02 has one," Jess raised her hand.

"It better be real."

"If what I call out is fuck—which category does that fall under?" I looked at her for two flat seconds.

"Last words." She laughed hard enough that her shoulders shook, then nodded properly.

"Copy, Frost 01." That closed out the argument. Not warmly. Nobody had a sudden emotional breakthrough. We'd just taken the contact that had nearly gone very badly, stripped it down to its working parts, and turned it into a handful of rules we could actually use. On this particular planet, that counted as progress.