By Force of Arms (19 page)

Hebo knew the point position was dangerous, knew he was showing off, but couldn’t help himself. Drang was so pleasant, so much like Hive, that he felt at home. Maybe that’s why he missed the vine viper, mistook the reptile for one of the green runners that dangled from the canopy, and whacked at it with his machete. Not edge on, which might have killed the creature, but with the flat of the blade, which served to make it angry.

The snake, which hung head down, released its grip on a branch twenty feet over the Ramanthian’s head, allowed the full weight of its long sinuous body to fall on the officer’s torso, and struck for the alien’s neck.

The lactic would have worked on a frog, or on a human, but not on a jungle-evolved Ramanthian. Fangs grated on dark brown chitin, tool arms grabbed a section of the viper’s body, and a razor-sharp beak slashed through skin and muscle.

The reptile reacted with understandable violence. It whipped coils of rockhard flesh around the Ramanthian’s thorax and started to squeeze.

Seebo, true to the DNA for which his ancestor had been chosen, took immediate action. Not because he had developed a sudden fondness for geeks, but because he was who he was, and couldn’t stand idly by.

The human’s assault weapon was useless, not unless he wanted to kill Hebo as well, so the clone drew his combat knife, threw himself into the fray, and grabbed a thigh-thick section of the viper’s muscular body. The blade had two edges, one straight, the other equipped with sawtike teeth. It was the second that proved most effective as Seebo sawed through the red-tinged white meat.

Hebo made a note of the human’s attack, felt the snake shudder in response, and knew it was distracted. That being the case, the Ramanthian felt for the short sword that projected up over his right shoulder, pressed a button on the hilt, and felt the weapon come to life.

The force blade made a sizzling sound as it burned through the reptile’s flesh. The viper’s head bounced off the jungle floor, the body gave one last convulsion and finally lay still.

Mondulo stepped over a section of the long serpentine body and said, “Good thing it was only half grown,” and took the point.

Seebo started to laugh, Hebo made strange popping sounds, and Booly shook his head in wonder. It wasn’t the kind of bonding he had envisioned—but something was better than nothing.

Dinner looked a lot like lunch, hell, it was exactly like lunch, which suited Mondulo just fine. The jungle offered enough variety, and it was nice to deal with something you could count on. The noncom stirred the stroganoff with the dp of his combat knife and watched his charges prepare for the night.

The Ramanthian turned out to be one heck of a tree climber, which came as something of a surprise and made the noncom just a little uneasy. The bugs were allies today—but how ‘bout tomorrow? Fighting an army of Hebos in a triple-canopy jungle would be a nasty business. Still, a rough and ready sort of teamwork had emerged, which was the point of the exercise.

MorlaKa whacked trees down with five or six blows of his machete, Seebo cut the resulting poles into sections, and Hebo carried them aloft. That’s where Booly took the raw materials, made some modifications, and added them to the steadily growing platform. He used a timber hitch to get started, followed by square lashings to secure the basic framework.

Then, when that task was complete, he tied a series of forty man-harness hitches into a doubled piece of rope, passed sturdy sticks through the matching loops, and pulled them tight. The result was a crude but serviceable ladder. Not a necessity where he, Seebo, and Mondulo were concerned, and useless for a body like Hebo’s, but a courtesy for the Hudathan. It creaked when MorlaKa made his way upward, but it held and was easy to hoist up onto the platform.

Once everyone was in place and the humans had smeared their bodies with Drang-specific insect repellent, it was time to eat. Mondulo stood guard as the officers grumbled over their rations, the day creatures went into hiding, and the night hunters started to emerge.

The first hint of their presence was heard rather than seen. There were the clicks, pops, and buzzing noises associated with the local insect population, quickly followed by the grunts, howls, and occasional screeches made by higher lifeforms. All of which made Booly glad that they were up off the jungle floor. He finished his meal, used some water from a canteen to speed the last lump on its way, and let his weight rest on a tree trunk. The moon was up, and that, combined with a hole in the canopy, provided some light to see by.

Seebo and Hebo were reliving their battle with the snake, while Mondulo sat with eyes closed, and MorlaKa cleaned his assault weapon. It was strange how the trip into the jungle had served to transform these officers into regular troops. Nowhere was that more visible than in the way they talked. The conversation was about the day’s adventures, about the food, and presumably, when he stepped out of earshot, about what an asshole he was. Because if there’s anything grunts like to do, it’s bitch about the command structure, which in their case came down to one single individual.

Booly felt an insect land on his cheek, swatted, and knew it had escaped. A tree dweller screeched and was answered from a long way off. Seebo said something to the Ramanthian, who made the popping noises that equated to laughter.

So, Booly asked himself, which one of them should I designate as second in command? Which one can the Confederacy count on? Seebo? Because he’s human? MorlaKa because he isn’t? Hebo as a compromise? No, those were political considerations. The one I choose should be the best leader available—and to hell with the way they’re packaged.

The thought served to remind him of his own mixed ancestry, of the fact that some people would regard his command structure as something of a freak show, a thought that struck him as funny. Booly laughed.

Seebo looked at Hebo, MorlaKa looked up from his weapon, and Mondulo opened a single eye. The old man was a nutcase but what else was new? Officers were weird, and sergeants, who served as the Legion’s backbone, would never be able to understand them.

Something made a gibbering sound. A cloud cloaked the moon. The noncom smiled and drifted off to sleep.

Drik floated just beneath the surface of the dark, murky water. It was thick with algae, sediment, and hundreds of tiny lifeforms all vying for their share of the swamp-born soup. Air bladders located beneath his armpits allowed the warrior to control the extent of his buoyancy. That being the case, he could hang suspended in the water for hours or even days should that become necessary.

But it wouldn’t be necessary—not unless his senses had suddenly decided to betray him. A flock of flyers had fluttered into the air moments before. A school of swamp darters had propelled themselves toward deeper water, and he could feel an alien presence. None of the clan members had ever asked him about such impressions, since they had them too, but a xenoanthropologist would have been interested in the fact that while some portion of the data required to generate them flowed from “normal” sensory input, the rest stemmed from something else, which if not telepathy, was somehow related.

In any case, Drik “felt” the aliens approach, could distinguish between different personas, and, had he been allowed to observe them for a longer period of time, might have been able to describe their various emotions.

His emotions were clear. The offworlders had murdered members of his clan, poisoned the planet’s water, and interfered with the Great Mother’s plan. The crimes were clear—and so was the punishment: death.

Booly smelled the swamp long before he actually saw it. The damp, slightly malodorous scent of decayed plant life, combined with the stink of stagnant water, sent invisible tendrils into the jungle as if to warn of the terrain ahead.

That being the case, the legionnaire was far from surprised when his machete slashed through the final screen of vegetation to reveal a broadly shelving mud bank and an expanse of coppery brown water backed by a stand of what Booly remembered as sponge trees, tall woody tubes that contained membranes through which swamp water was continually filtered. Nutrients were removed, waste products were added, and what remained oozed into the estuary.

Booly scanned the area for danger, failed to identify any, and moved to one side. MoriaKa stepped forward, followed by Mondulo, Seebo, and Hebo. The latter shuffled backward, his world divided into hundreds of images.

The noncom squinted into the brighter light, directed a stream of spit into the toffee-colored water, and removed a grenade from one of his cargo pockets. The pin had been pulled, and the object was high in the air before Booly managed to spit the words out. “Sergeant, what the hell are you … ?”

An explosion, followed by a geyser of momentarily white water, served to punctuate the sentence. “Just some reconnaissance by fire, sir. Stir things up, see what’s what, if ya know what I mean.”

Booly swallowed his anger. “So much for keeping our presence secret.”

Mondulo looked surprised. “Secret? Beggin’ the general’s pardon, but we ain’t got no fraxin’ secrets. The frogs know where we are and what we’ve been doin’. Well, not what we’re doin’, since that wouldn’t make any sense to a frog, but what they think we’re doin’, which is stompin’ all over the Great Mother’s sacred body and pissin’ on her face. The slimy bastards are out there all right—the only question is where.”

Booty swallowed his pride, nodded, and said, “Carry on.”

Mondulo did—and more grenades flew through the air.

The geysers formed a tidy row.

Though moderated by the density of the surrounding water, the explosions wounded a warrior named Gril and delivered what felt like a series of blows to Drik’s abdomen. He felt the air rush out of his lungs, stuck his nose up through the surface, and drew some much-needed air. If the aliens saw, they gave no sign of it, and the warrior was gone before the water started to settle.

Other warriors, too far from the bang thing to be affected by it, towed the half-conscious Gril away. The first blow had been struck—but far from the last.

The Hudathan’s machete made a solid thunking sound as it bit into the side of the TT tree, produced another wedge of flying wood, and squeaked free. The blade, harnessed to three hundred pounds of bone and muscle, had already made short work of fourteen carefully matched eightinch trunks. The trees, which bore only four branches apiece, were strong but buoyant, important qualities for a raft.

Seebo had lobbied for a lunch break but been forced to give way under Mondulo’s insistence that the team construct their vessel prior to eating. Now, with hunger driving them on, the officers were hard at work. The first task was to assemble the materials in the proper manner. The noncom was a strict taskmaster. “This is called a ‘gripper bar raft’ ‘cause of the way we place two lengths of wood on the ground and place logs on top of them. “Now, if you would be so kind as to lay the logs at right angles to the crosspieces, we’ll be damned close to done.”

Booly assisted Seebo, and the majority of the logs had been rolled, dragged, and kicked into place by the time MorlaKa arrived with his latest arboreal victim.

Then, with the tree trunks lying side by side, the last two crosspieces were lowered into position and secured to the first pair, “gripping” the logs between them.

Once that was accomplished, it was a relatively simple matter to construct an A-frame-style support structure, secure it in place with guylines, and add the pole-mounted paddlestyle rudder. Once the last knot had been tied, the entire team took a moment to admire their work. The finished raft was about twenty feet long and nine wide. Though flat, and not especially pretty, Seebo figured it would float. “I christen thee Pancake,” the clone said, sprinkling some canteen water on the craft’s bow. “Long may you sail.”

Other and in some case more colorful names were submitted for consideration, but Pancake stuck, and they broke for lunch. No one had given much thought to Hebo’s rations up till that point, but when he opened a container of grubs, squirted some sort of stimulant into the mix and brought the creatures to squirming life, that got their attention.

The entire group watched in horrified fascination as the Ramanthian speared one of the creatures, shoved it under his parrotlike beak, and bit down. A mixture of blood and intestinal contents sprayed outwards. Seebo shook his head in amazement. “Jeez, Hebo … that was gross.”

The statement would have been a breach in etiquette within diplomatic circles but was well within the realm of what one legionnaire would say to another. Which way would the Ramanthian react? Booly waited to see.

There was a pause while the insectlike alien considered the human’s comment. When he spoke, the words had the hard, flat sound of his computer-driven translator. “Screw you, Seebo, and the test tube you were born in.”

It was exactly how the typical legionnaire would respond. The rest of the group laughed, and Booly smiled. The team was coming together. The officer closed his eyes, thought of Maylo ChienChu, and wondered what she was doing.

The Pancake was launched with more swearing than ceremony. By constructing the raft up on the mud bank, the team had kept their feet dry. Now, in order to launch their vessel, the officers had to lift it. MorlaKa made his part took easy, while the rest of the group strained, stumbled, and swore as they struggled to break the logs free from the mud, hoisted the Pancake into the air, and carried her down into the water. She landed with a splash. Everyone got wet, and waves rolled toward the opposite side of the estuary.