Chương 39: Sareth Khan

San Teodoro Peninsula, Vidako Imperium Stellarum November 1, 2847 They'd camped at the top of a rocky bluff that overlooked the river valley, upstream from the lake and the waterfall where Lieutenant Kekoa had brought the cadets for the end of Hard Burn. The trees were stunted here, unable to find much purchase on the bare stone, and none of them grew higher than a Tyro's waist.

The open air, breeze at this height, and distance from the water helped to keep the zombie flies away"You always want to make your camp on the high ground, if you can find any," Vijay Iyer had explained over dinner the night before.

"It gives your mech's sensors better range, makes it more likely you see danger coming. Especially during the rainy season. Otherwise, you could wake up to find the entire campsite washed away." As commander of the squad, Iyer had set the watches each night they were out on patrol. He always took the middle watch but rotated the rest of them. He suspected that the older cadet was going easy on him, but as it was his first patrol, neither of the other cadets seemed to mind yet.

Both of them were from the cohort just ahead of Arc, third class cadets who'd already been at the academy for a year and a half. Christina Fortin struck Arc as very capable, even if her laser focus was a bit unnerving at times. She'd qualified to pilot an Outrider, which he was certain was one of the reasons that Vijay had requested her for the squad.

As the only one in a scouting mech, Fortin spent most of the day away from the other three, running spiraling circles around the group of mechs as they moved slowly through the jungle, giving her higher quality sensors a chance to pick up threats long before either of the Tyros or the Janissary would have been able to do so. In fact, the only time Arc really saw her was when they settled in to camp for the night.

When she'd taken her helmet off that first evening and unleashed a shock of hair as vibrantly red as the sharp leaves of a death root flower, he couldn't help but stare in surprise. She was otherwise so quietly competent, so unobtrusive a pilot, that for some reason he hadn't expected anything about her physical appearance to stand out so much. Any attempt to make conversation with her was met with a monosyllabic response, so he quickly stopped trying. As a scout, however, she was everything a commander could want.

She'd tagged a juvenile male cornibus ten klicks out from their patrol route on the first day, wounded from fighting and headed toward the city. It was the first time that Arc had ever been fed targeting data from an Outrider, and the experience was a revelation. Iyer had set up Arc and their fourth pilot, Sareth Khan, a hundred and fifty meters away from the cornibus' s projected path on a slight rise.

On the squad commander's word, all three of them had fired at once, letting their AIs guide the volley using data from Fortin's sensors. Two CO-4 mech grade laser rifles, each capable of firing twelve kilometers in atmosphere, and Iyer's shorter-range shoulder mounted IMT plasma accelerator, all lit up the jungle at the same time. The twin cerulean beams burned through dozens of trees, leaving a smoking ruin in their wake, while the accelerator shot a toroid of superheated plasma that followed along in their wake.

The cornibus was left a smoking, scorched ruin on the jungle floor, and the patrol continued on their way. That volley was, in Arc's judgement, about the high point of Sareth Khan's usefulness and competence as a pilot. The older cadet had not yet tested out on anything but a Tyro, which had taken Arc by surprise when he'd first seen the group of mechs waiting for them on the tarmac. In Iyer's place, Arc would have wanted a Culverin, perhaps, to take full advantage of Fortin's use as a spotter.

Even a second Janissary would have given them more up-front power than a second Tyro. But Arc tried to reserve judgement. It wasn't even halfway through Khan's second year, and he had plenty of time to test up from a training mech to a front-line model, yet, without officially falling behind his class. But over their first two days in the jungle, it had rapidly become apparent to him that their fourth pilot was a sub-par soldier.

When Iyer set Arc and Khan to dig a latrine each evening—a task familiar from Hard Burn, and one which Arc couldn't really object to, as he was the most junior cadet on the patrol—Khan did as little work as possible. For every shovel-full of dirt Khan moved, Arc dug three. In the end, it was easier to just send the older cadet for the roll of toilet paper and finish the last bit of trench himself, than it would have been to wait for him. Arc had to wake Khan up for his watch once, on the second night.

He'd expected the other pilot to do what Christina Fortin had done—snap awake quietly and without fuss at the first touch of her shoulder. She'd just nodded, once, grabbed her BA-50 rifle, and taken up a place next to their campfire, letting Arc crawl into his sleeping bag and pass out until morning. But when it had been Sareth Khan on watch after him, Arc had to nudge the man, hiss his name, and then shake him again before getting a response.

"Be up in a minute," Khan mumbled, rolling over onto his other side.

"I can't go to sleep until you're up and on watch," Arc hissed back.

"Get up." He had to prod the grumbling man with the butt of his rifle before Khan crawled out of his sleeping bag and stood up. Even then, Arc wasn't very confident that the man wouldn't just sleep through his watch. Before closing his eyes, he put Khan out of his mind as best he could and unfolded his tablet. The glow from the screen lit up the bluff around where he'd laid his sleeping bag, and the pad beneath it, out.

The tarp overhead would keep the rain off them, if any came that night, and heavy netting would keep off the zombie flies. Arc used one finger to flick through his saved pictures, until he came to one that Rain had snapped of he and Cassie on one of the couches in Tycho Hall, slumped against each other and asleep, study notes forgotten on their laps. He touched the screen with both fingers and spread them, zooming in on Cassie's face.

For just a moment, he considered replacing the tablet's background with a picture of her—it would be nice to see her, every time he turned it on. But then he felt a stab of guilt in his gut at the idea of replacing Phoebe in any way—even if it was just taking down a picture. He turned the tablet off, folded it and tucked it in next to him, then rolled over on his side and closed his eyes.

The next morning, Arc took his breakfast rations over to sit, cross-legged on the jungle floor, next to Vijay Iyer, and lowered his voice.

"What's the deal with Khan?" he asked.

"I could hardly get the guy to wake up last night." Iyer considered his answer for a moment, while Arc got a bite of pork sausage into his mouth. For some reason, fleet rations didn't differentiate between breakfast and other meals, and there was only one pack that contained something he considered appropriate for the time of day. He'd already resolved to pack extra, the next time he went out on patrol, so that he wouldn't end up having to eat chili or ravioli in the morning.

"Last year, on his second patrol, Khan lost his best friend," Vijay explained, after a moment. He kept his voice low, so that there was at least a chance it wouldn't carry across the firepit. Not that Sareth, who looked to still be half asleep, was liable to notice anyway.

"I was part of the recovery party," the older cadet continued.

"Sareth had tied Malak's leg off with a tourniquet, did everything right to try to keep the guy alive, but they were just too far out, and it took us too long to get there. No good place to set down a Saker nearby." He sighed.

"Anyway, it was in the second semester, and Sareth had good enough grades up until that point to scrape by. I was honestly surprised to see him back this fall, but he's clearly just going through the motions. I was hoping that taking him out on a patrol—no one else wants him, you can guess why—might shake him out of it, help get him over his issues." If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"It could also leave us down one effective pilot," Arc pointed out.

"He took the shot when we needed him to," Iyer said.

"Two klicks out, in a volley with the two of us," Arc said.

"I'm not sure that proves much, Vijay." Iyer nodded, took one last bite of his rations, and stood.

"I guess we'll find out. But sometimes you've got to give people a chance to show you what they can do, Arc. I hope you'll remember that, when it's your turn to lead one of these patrols." Once everyone had eaten and struck camp, they took the mechs west and then began to swing south. Arc had never been out this far before, and he'd never been in any part of the jungle except for the lake where they'd made camp during Hard Burn.

His main batteries were at ninety-two percent, the plasma blade he'd brought to keep Cassie happy was untouched, and his rifle still had forty-nine shots left. On the one hand, that felt like a lot; but on the other, he'd never once, in any simulation, begun with less than full power and ammunition. I suppose I'll get used to it. Think of it this way, Iceni told him. You would have to go through another forty-nine volleys like the one on the first day before losing your primary armament.

The odds of us encountering another forty-nine spiked terrors are exceptionally low. And indeed, the morning passed without incident. When Christina Fortin called in with a sighting, every target was well away from the city, and either headed toward the mountains, or south to the coast. In neither case were any of the beasts any kind of threat to San Teodoro, and so the patrol allowed them to go on their way.

The mission wasn't to purge the jungle of indigenous life, after all—just to make certain that nothing endangered civilians. They stopped for a midday meal in the foothills, cooking their rations against a convenient boulder and then eating in their cockpits. At night, a good campfire and a sprinkling of chemical repellent usually kept the zombie flies away, but during the day it was safer just to stay sealed inside their mechs.

Arc was working his way through a pepperoni pizza slice when the emergency signal came in, crackling and only half audible.

"—anyone out there? They're fucking killing us!"

"What the fuck is that?" Sareth Khan said, his voice coming through clear from a mech standing only ten meters away.

"Comms clear, cadet," Iyer said.

"Fortin, do you have a read on that?" Arc shoved the remains of his lunch into the storage compartment of his Tyro's cockpit and hoped that it wouldn't spill. The last thing he wanted to deal with when he got back was Natalie Ramírez pissed off that he'd gotten food everywhere. Then, he settled his helmet on his head and buckled his harness.

"Got it," Christina Fortin said.

"Just under five klicks south by southwest. Whoever it is, they're using civilian radios, and their range is shit. I can be there in less than five minutes, sir."

"There shouldn't be civilians out here," Iyer grumbled.

"All the sport-hunting is up by New Toledo. The only reason anyone would be out this far is —""Spike," Fortin said.

"You think it's drug runners?"

"If it is, we don't owe them shit," Khan broke in.

"Doesn't matter who they are," Iyer said, and Arc thought he detected a thread of anger running through the older cadet's voice.

"Our mission out here is to keep the city safe and protect civilians. Fortin, get moving. As soon as you have solid intel for me, you get on the comms. Do not, repeat, do not engage without my order. Stay out of sight until we know what we're dealing with."

"Engaging adaptive camouflage armor," Fortin said. As her mech began moving forward, sending clods of earth spraying out behind its oversized feet, Arc watched the armor shimmer and blur into the colors of the jungle landscape. Her AI couldn't quite keep up with the speed at which she moved, but the armor was still surprisingly effective, and she'd vanished into the thick growth of the foothills by the time he was fully connected to the Tyro and ready to move.

"We follow Cadet Fortin in," Vijay Iyer ordered.

"I want this channel clear unless you've got contact with an enemy or something worthwhile to report. Stick with me, boys." His Janissary hefted its five-ton chromium alloy war-club over one shoulder and followed the Outrider's path deeper into the jungle. Arc swung his mech in line just behind the squad leader. He'd considered bringing up the rear, for just a moment, but he didn't trust Sareth Khan to back up anyone effectively. Outriders were fast.

In the hands of a skilled pilot, like Christina Fortin, and depending on terrain, they topped out at around ninety-four kilometers an hour. Neither the Janissary nor the Tyros would be able to keep up with that, but they also didn't need to go very far. Arc figured they'd catch up with her in ten minutes, fifteen at the most. That meant they should have at least five minutes warning about what to expect before they actually engaged.

Branches snapped against their armor as the three mechs tore through the jungle at a full run. At fifty-five tons, Iyer's Janissary was the heaviest machine they'd brought, and more than capable of clearing a path for the two Tyros bringing up the rear. Arc caught a glimpse of a tree cat, startled out of its roost, leaping off to one side and then yowling at them from its new perch. His foot kicked through a clump of death root vines, sending flowers tumbling off in every direction, but they didn't stop.

"I've got eyes on the source of the transmission," Fortin said.

"It's a drug smuggling operation, sir—it's got to be. I see half a dozen white tents, big ones. More like temporary buildings than camping tents, if you get my meaning. There's a beat-up old helicopter, two grav trucks, and a generator. They've been here a while, cleared most of the foliage out fifty meters all around the site."

"What are they fighting?" Iyer asked, not slowing his charge through the jungle for even a moment.

"They're not fighting anything." The Outrider pilot sighed.

"It's a mating challenge, sir. Two male cornibuses have tumbled right into their camp, and they're tearing each other up. They've already ripped through one of the tents and knocked the generator over. I count—half a dozen people down, at least. I don't know how many dead, and how many just wounded. They've got a few black-market guns they're firing at the things, but nothing military grade."

"Nothing that will put down one cornibus, never mind two," Vijay Iyer said.

"Alright. We need to drive them away from the civilians, get them out into the jungle so no one else gets killed. Follow me, and no one takes a shot with the camp behind it. I want stray rounds going into the trees, not into people. Otherwise, come in hot."

"The fuck I will," Sareth Khan said.

"They're fucking drug runners, sir, and that's two spiked terrors. I'm not getting killed for scum bags like that." Arc glanced at the map Iceni kept in the top right corner of his vision and saw that the blue marker for Khan's Tyro was dropping back behind them as he slowed down. Is he actually disobeying orders? Arc could hardly believe it. He'd expected Khan to let them down, but actual insubordination, in combat?

That wasn't just the sort of thing that got you drummed out of fleet—it could mean actual time in a military prison. A court martial.

"Dammit, Khan, you will support this squad," Iyer growled across the comm.

"Stay back and provide cover fire, then. But if you don't back us up, I'll have your ass myself." Arc swallowed, but he didn't say anything. He's backing down. Letting Khan stay back is the wrong move. You can't let a soldier disobey orders. Think about it later, Iceni said. We're coming out of the trees. With a final rush forward, Arc followed Iyer's Janissary out of the foliage and into the cleared ground around the drug-runners' camp.

The light of Vidako's twin suns was bright, after barreling through the dim jungle, beneath a thick canopy of native trees. Ahead, two enormous cornibuses wrestled, their feet dragging the scraps of white polyvinyl that had once been a tent around in their wake. Arc could see broken tables and all manner of machinery, which he assumed was used to process death root flowers into spike, scattered around like so much useless debris. Ahead of him, Vijay Iyer didn't slow.

Instead, he swung the five-ton war club off the shoulder of his Janissary, bringing it around in a furious arc to connect with the nearest of the two spiked terrors, while people in white lab-suits fled in every direction. Arc dropped his targeting reticule on the second cornibus's head, high above the level of the tents, waited for it to pulse green, and pulled his trigger.