CHAPTER NINETEEN
Base Fido, Nature’s Day, 20th of June, 2771
The boy opened his eyes, startled by the gentle prod.
“Sorry for the rude awakening, boy,” Tora said gently, “but if I let you sleep you’ll miss all the fun. I have a few questions ...”
Still groggy after only two hours of sleep, the youth blinked and rubbed his eyes vigorously.
“Understood, sir. Ask away.”
Consulting the list they had compiled as the boy slept, he began to ask the questions, writing brief annotations of the answers as he did so.
What had the Unmil pilot been wearing? What language had he spoken? Had he managed to observe the interior of the Unmil Suit’s interface cavity? Had there been a hydraulic interface of some kind? What weapons had it used? What were those weapons’ natures, rate-of-fire and destructive capabilities? How fast could the Suits run and for how long? Was there some insight as to their intentions? Had anything he or others had done managed to damage the Unmil’s armor?
The boy answered all questions more articulately and in greater detail than Tora would have expected, his brow furrowing occasionally as he thought hard or tried to remember some detail of the preceding days. The information he provided was more much detailed than Ian’s, and the colonel was greatly surprised by the fact that the boy had actively sought his enemy out and engaged him while armed with what was clearly outdated weaponry. Unlike with Ian, there were no soft whispers in his mind as he wondered at the speaker’s motivations, courage or honesty. The Miura boy was easy to read, and he was possessed of a natural aggressiveness that the colonel greatly admired. The cadet probably hadn’t yet realized how unusual his behavior had been, nor how risky. That gave him a thought.
“Grew up on a farm, did we?” he asked.
The boy’s eyes widened slightly and his head turned to the side like a curious hound, the question catching him unawares. Tora grinned and tried hard not to laugh.
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Ahuh, pretty obvious.”
“Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Go ahead. After the number I’ve asked you deserve one yourself.”
“Why hasn’t Sueli been evacuated yet?”
“Sorry about that, but we had to divert that copter to evacuate comrades from the Dogspine. With the wind rising and the enemy between us and them, our window of opportunity is closing. All non-essential personnel will be evacuated from here over the next two hours and she’ll be among the first to leave.”
“What happens after those two hours?”
“You know what will happen.”
The boy’s expression first became pained and then thoughtful.
“I saw those Hammerheads beyond on a dirt road. Is MEWAC here? I need to report to them.”
“Those are EWAC Suits. MEWAC’s in bits and pieces out on Lograin’s airfield, awaiting evac to Leiben. You should be with them, and since you’ve already answered me as best you could, you soon will be. Especially since you have a sliver of poison on its way there. There’s something not quite right with that boy, is there?”
“Sir, that’s one way to put it. His mind’s a mystery to me, but he is dangerous. That much I know for sure. EWAC, right? Is there any chance they’d loan me a Suit?”
The colonel smiled.
“Loan an injured cadet from another outfit an operational Suit? I think not.”
“Pity. I think I know how to kill it.”
The colonel’s eyebrows began to rise at the bold statement.
“Care to explain how?”
“Something the Suit’s doing is causing our weapons to fail, making them not work the way they were made to. But a few days ago I saw a hammerhead drop a grenade as it retreated, and it detonated below the Unmil and sent it flying. That seemed to shake it up a bit. So I thought; if a small, well-placed grenade can do that, just imagine –”
“– what a bigger bomb can do, right?” the colonel finished for him. “A sort of mega-mine, am I right?” he added.
“Not quite, sir. Mines can certainly do some damage but their effectiveness depends on the enemy getting close enough. Maybe it will, or maybe it will find some other way around. What I think is, all Lasers are direct line-of-sight weapons, right? But grenades are by their nature indirect fire weapons. And this terrain must have some sweet spots where units may hide behind cover and do some serious throwing. So I was thinking that satchel charges could be improvised and thrown –”
“...and shot down by those Lasers’ automatic firing capability. That –”
“No. There is no automatic fire capability if the Suit’s on its back. I discovered that when I fired on Kaiser’s Suit as it was lying on the ground that time. My missiles weren’t powerful enough to get the job done, but heavy satchel charges thrown at it while it’s incapacitated will get through and do serious damage, I think. Those mines would be useful if they could be remote-detonated, though. Then it doesn’t have to step on them; the shock-wave alone would be enough to make the Suit hit the deck, and then our Suits could finish up.”
The missing element to Dennis’ plan suddenly slid into place. They had only gotten as far as the remote-detonated minefield that EWAC was emplacing over the base’s south-eastern perimeter. Until then he had been betting on the possibility that the Suit would happen to wander close enough to one to get the grand-prize, but here was a chance to elevate the kill probability to something respectable. Dennis unglued his back from the prefabricated wall and peered at them with a smile.
“Looks like we’re gonna need to do a little more of that combined-arms crap,” he rasped.
The colonel turned to the boy.
“Incidentally, how’s your throwing arm?” he asked.
“I’m a leftie, sir. It’s just fine,” the boy replied, death in his eyes.
The colonel liked what he saw there.