When Jared was on the course himself, he exulted in the strange intelligence of it all, at least until the beams over the mud, when his borrowed visual vantage point suddenly wheeled away from where his feet were. Jared missed his footing and fell flat into the mud.
::Sorry about that,:: said Steven Seaborg a few seconds later, as Jared pulled himself out, eyes open. ::Got bit by something. Distracted me.::
::Bullshit,:: Alan Millikan sent to Jared, privately. ::I was one station down and looking right at him. He didn’t get bit.::
Brahe cut in. ::Seaborg, when you’re in combat, letting a squad mate get killed because of a bug bite is the sort of thing that gets you on the unfortunate side of an airlock,:: he said. ::Keep it in mind. Dirac, keep moving.::
Jared closed his eyes and put one foot in front of the other.
::What does Seaborg have against me, anyway?:: Jared asked Pauling. The two of them were practicing fighting with their combat knives. The squad members practiced for five minutes with each other member of the squad, with their integration sense on full. Fighting someone who was intimately aware of your internal state of mind made it an interesting extra challenge.
::You really don’t know?:: Pauling said, circling with her knife held casually in her left hand. ::It’s two things. One, he’s just a jerk. Two, he likes me.::
Jared stopped circling. ::What?:: he said, and Pauling attacked viciously, feinting right and then slashing upward toward Jared’s neck with her left hand. Jared stumbled backward and right to avoid the slashing; Pauling’s knife switched hands and stabbed downward, missing Jared’s leg by about a centimeter. Jared righted himself and settled into a defensive position.
::You distracted me,:: he said, circling again.
::You distracted yourself,:: Pauling said. ::I just took advantage of it when it happened.::
::You won’t be happy until you cut open an artery,:: Jared said.
::I won’t be happy until you shut up and focus on trying to kill me with that knife,:: Pauling said.
::You know,:: Jared began, and suddenly leaned back; he felt Pauling’s intent to slash a fraction of a second before she made her lunge. Before she could pull back Jared leaned back in, inside the reach of her extended arm, and brought up the blade in his right hand to touch it lightly to her rib cage. Before it got there Pauling brought her head up and jammed it into the bottom of Jared’s jaw. There was an audible clack as Jared’s teeth slammed together; Jared’s field of vision whited out. Pauling took advantage of Jared’s stunned pause to step back and sweep his legs out from under him, spilling him flat on his back. When Jared came to, Pauling had pinned his arms with her legs and held her knife directly on top of a carotid artery.
::You know,:: Pauling said, mocking Jared’s last words, ::if this were real combat I’d have sliced four of your arteries by now and moved on to whoever was next.:: Pauling sheathed her knife, and took her knees off his arms.
::Good thing we’re not in real combat,:: Jared said, and propped himself up. ::About Seaborg—::
Pauling punched Jared square in the nose; his head snapped back. Pauling’s knife was back at his throat, and her legs pinning his arms, a fraction of a second later.
::What the hell?:: Jared said.
::Our five minutes aren’t up,:: Pauling said. ::We’re still supposed to be fighting.::
::But you—:: Jared began. Pauling jabbed him in the neck and drew SmartBlood. Jared exclaimed aloud.
::There’s no “but you—”:: Pauling said. ::Jared, I like you, but I’ve noticed that you don’t focus. We’re friends, and I know you think that means that we can have a nice conversation while we’re doing this. But I swear to you that the next time you give me an opening like you did just now, I’m going to cut your throat. Your SmartBlood will probably keep you from dying. And it’ll keep you from thinking that just because we’re friends doesn’t mean I won’t seriously hurt you. I like you too much. And I don’t want you to die in real combat because you’re thinking about something else. The things we’ll be fighting in real combat aren’t going to pause for conversation.::
::You’d watch out for me in combat,:: Jared said.
::You know I would,:: Pauling said. ::But this integration thing only goes so far, Jared. You have to watch out for yourself.::
Brahe told them their five minutes were up. Pauling let Jared off the floor. ::I’m serious, Jared,:: Pauling said, after she hauled him up. ::Pay attention next time, or I’ll cut you bad.::
::I know,:: Jared said, and touched his nose. ::Or punch me.::
::True,:: Pauling said, and smiled. ::I’m not picky.::
::So all that about Seaborg liking you was just to distract me,:: Jared said.
::Oh, no,:: Pauling said. ::It’s completely true.::
::Oh,:: Jared said.
Pauling laughed aloud. ::There you go, getting distracted again,:: she said.
Sarah Pauling was one of the first to get shot; she and Andrea Gell-Mann were ambushed as they were scouting a small valley. Pauling went down immediately, shot in the head and the neck; Gell-Mann managed to identify the locations of the shooters before a trio of shots in the chest and abdomen brought her down. In both cases their integration with the rest of the squad collapsed; it felt as if they were ripped out bodily from the squad’s pooled consciousness. Others fell in short order, gutting the squad and sending its remaining members into disarray.
It was a bad war game for the 8th.
Jerry Yukawa compounded the problem by getting shot in the leg. The training suit he was wearing registered the “hit” and froze the mobility to the limb; Yukawa fell midstride and barely kicked his way behind the boulder Katherine Berkeley had gotten behind a few seconds before.
::You were supposed to lay down suppressing fire,:: Yukawa said, accusingly.
::I did,:: Berkeley said. ::I am. There is one of me and five of them. You do better::
The five members of the 13th Training Squad who had trapped Yukawa and Berkeley behind the boulder sent another volley their way. The members of the 13th felt the simulated mechanical kick of their training rifles while their BrainPals visually and aurally simulated the bullets tearing down the tiny cul-de-sac of a valley; Yukawa and Berkeley’s BrainPals correspondingly simulated some of these bullets smacking the bulk of the boulder and others whining as they shot past. The bullets weren’t real but they were as real as fake could get.
::We could use a little help here,:: Yukawa said to Steven Seaborg, who was the commander for the exercise.
::We hear you,:: Seaborg said, and then turned to look at Jared, his only other surviving soldier, who was standing mutely looking at him. Four members of the 8th were still standing (only figuratively speaking in the case of Yukawa), while seven members of the 13th were roaming the forest. The odds weren’t good.
::Stop looking at me like that,:: Seaborg said. ::This isn’t my fault.::
::I didn’t say anything,:: Jared said.
::You were thinking it,:: Seaborg said.
::I wasn’t thinking it, either,:: Jared said. ::I was reviewing data.::
::Of what?:: Seaborg asked.
::Of how the 13th moves and thinks,:: Jared said. ::From the other members of the 8th before they died. I’m trying to see if there’s something we can use.::
::Can you do it a little quicker?:: Yukawa said. ::Things are looking mighty bleak on this end.::
Jared looked over to Seaborg. Seaborg sighed. ::Fine,:: he said. ::I’m open to suggestion. What have you got.::
::You’re going to think I’m crazy,:: Jared said. ::But there’s something I’ve noticed. So far, neither us or them look up very much.::
Seaborg looked up into the forest canopy, looking at the sunlight peek through the canopy of native Terran trees and their Phoenix equivalent, thick, bamboo-like stalks that threw off impressive branches. The two types of flora did not compete genetically—they were naturally incompatible because they developed on different worlds—but they competed for
sunlight, reaching as far into the sky as possible and branching thickly to offer scaffolding for leaves and leaf-equivalents to do their photosynthetic work.
::We don’t look up because there’s nothing up there but trees,:: Seaborg said.
Jared started counting off seconds in his head. He got as far as seven before Seaborg said, ::Oh.::
::Oh,:: Jared agreed. He popped up a map. ::We’re here. Yukawa and Berkeley are here. There’s forest all the way between here and there.::
::And you think we can get from here to there in the trees,:: Seaborg said.
::That’s not the question,:: Jared said. ::The question is whether we can do it fast enough to keep Yukawa and Berkeley alive, and quietly enough not to get ourselves killed.::
Jared quickly discovered that walking through the trees was an idea better in theory than in execution. He and Seaborg almost fell twice within the first two minutes; moving from branch to branch required rather more coordination then either expected. The Phoenix trees’ branches were not nearly as load bearing as they assumed and the Terran trees featured a surprising number of dead branches. Their progress was slower and louder than they would have liked.
A rustling came from the east; in separate trees Jared and Seaborg hugged trunks and froze. Two members of the 13th walked out of the brush thirty meters away and six meters below Jared’s position. The two were alert and wary, looking and listening for their quarry. They didn’t look up.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jared saw Seaborg slowly reach toward his Empee. ::Wait,:: Jared said. ::We’re still in their peripheral vision. Wait until we’re behind them.:: The two soldiers edged forward, putting Jared and Seaborg behind them; Seaborg nodded to Jared. They silently unslung their Empees, stabilized as best they could, and sighted in on the backs of the soldiers. Seaborg gave the order; bullets flew in a short burst. The soldiers stiffened and fell.
::The rest have Yukawa and Berkeley pinned down,:: Seaborg said. ::Let’s get cracking.:: He set off. Jared was amused at how Seaborg’s take-charge spirit, so recently dampened, had suddenly returned.
Ten minutes later, Yukawa and Berkeley were down to the last of their ammunition, and Jared and Seaborg caught sight of the remaining members of the 13th. To the left of them, eight meters below, two soldiers were camped behind a large fallen tree; to the right and about thirty meters forward, another pair were behind a collection of boulders. These soldiers were keeping Yukawa and Berkeley busy while the fifth soldier quietly flanked their position. All of them had their backs to Jared and Seaborg.
::I’ll take the ones by the log; you take the ones at the boulders,:: Seaborg said. ::I’ll tell Berkeley about the flanker but tell her not to get him until we get our guys. No point giving ourselves away.:: Jared nodded; now that Seaborg was feeling confident, his planning was getting better. Jared filed that datum away to consider later, and moved to steady himself in their tree, putting his back against the trunk and hooking his left foot under a lower branch for additional support.
Seaborg moved one branch lower on the tree to get around a branch that was impeding his sight line. The branch he stepped on, dead, cracked loudly under his weight and collapsed, falling out of the tree in what seemed the loudest possible way. Seaborg lost his footing and grabbed wildly at the branch below where he had stepped, dropping his Empee; four soldiers on the ground turned, looked up and saw him dangling there helplessly. They raised their weapons.
::Shit,:: Seaborg said, and looked up at Jared.
Jared fired in automatic-burst mode at the two soldiers at the boulders. One seized up and fell; the other dove around the boulders. Jared swiveled and fired on the soldiers at the log; he didn’t hit anything but unnerved them long enough to switch his Empee to guided-missile mode and fire at the space between the two soldiers. The simulated rocket peppered both with virtual bits of shrapnel. They fell. Jared turned just in time to see the remaining soldier at the boulder lining up her shot. He launched a guided missile at her as she pulled her trigger. Jared felt his ribs go stiff and painful as his training suit constricted, and fumbled his Empee. He’d been shot, but the fact he didn’t drop out of the tree told him he was still alive.
Training exercise! Jared was so pumped full of adrenaline that he thought he might pee himself.
::A little help here,:: Seaborg said, and reached over with his left hand for Jared to pull him up just as the fifth soldier, who had circled back, shot him in the right shoulder. Seaborg’s entire arm stiffened in its suit; he let go of the branch he was dangling from. Jared grabbed at his left hand and caught him before his fall had gained momentum. Jared’s left leg, still hooked under its branch by the foot, strained painfully from the additional load put on it.
On the ground, the soldier lined up his shot; virtual bullets or not, Jared knew if he were shot the stiffening of his suit would make him drop Seaborg and probably fall himself. Jared reached over with his right hand, grabbed his combat knife and threw hard. The knife buried itself in the meat of the soldier’s left thigh; the soldier collapsed, screaming and pawing gingerly at the knife until Berkeley came up behind him and shot him into immobility.
::The 8th wins the war game,:: Jared heard Brahe say. ::I’m relaxing the training suits now for everyone who is still frozen. Next war game matchups in thirty minutes.:: The pressure on Jared’s right side was suddenly and considerably relieved, as was the stiffness of Seaborg’s suit. Jared hauled him up and then they both carefully picked their way to the forest floor to retrieve their weapons.
The unfrozen members of the 13th were waiting for them, breaking off from their squad mate, who was still moaning on the ground. ::You fuck,:: one of them said, getting directly into Jared’s face. ::You threw a knife into Charlie. You’re not supposed to try to kill anyone. That’s why it’s called a war game.::
Seaborg jammed in between Jared and the soldier. ::Tell that to your friend, asshole,:: he said. ::If your friend had shot us, I would have dropped eight meters without any way to control my fall. He didn’t seem particularly worried about me dying as he was lining up his shot. Jared knifing your friend saved my life. And your friend will survive. So fuck him, and fuck you.::
Seaborg and the soldier sized each other up for another few seconds before the other soldier turned his head, spat on the ground, and walked back to his squad mate.
::Thanks,:: Jared said to Seaborg.
Seaborg glanced over to Jared, and then to Yukawa and Berkeley. ::Let’s get out of here,:: he said. ::We’ve got another war game.:: He stomped off. The three of them followed.
On the way back, Seaborg dropped back to pace Jared. ::It was a good idea to use the trees,:: he said. ::And I’m glad you caught me before I dropped. Thank you.::
::You’re welcome,:: Jared said.
::I still don’t like you much,:: Seaborg said. ::But I’m not going to have a problem with you anymore.::
::I’ll take that,:: Jared said. ::It’s a start, anyway.::
Seaborg nodded and picked up his pace again. He was silent the rest of the way in.
“Well, look who we have here,” Lieutenant Cloud said, as Jared entered the shuttle with the other former members of the 8th. They were on their way back to Phoenix Station for their first assignments. “It’s my pal Jared.”
“Hello, Lieutenant Cloud,” Jared said. “It’s good to see you again.”
“It’s Dave,” Cloud said. “Done with your training, I see. Damn, I wish my training had just been two weeks.”
“We still cover a lot,” Jared said.
“I don’t doubt that in the least,” Cloud said. “So what’s your assignment, Private Dirac? Where will you be headed?”
“I’ve been assigned to the Kite,” Jared said. “Me and two of my friends, Sarah Pauling and Steven Seaborg.” Jared pointed at Pauling, who had already sat down; Seaborg had yet to get on the shuttle.
“I’ve seen the Kite,” Cloud said. “Newer ship. Nice lines. Never been on it, of course. You Special Forces types keep to
yourselves.”
“That’s what they tell me,” Jared said. Andrea Gell-Mann came on board, bumping Jared slightly. She pinged an apology to him; Jared looked over and smiled.
“Looks like it’s going to be a full-up flight,” Cloud said. “You can sit up in the copilot’s seat again if you like.”
“Thanks,” Jared said, and glanced over to Pauling. “I think I’ll sit with my other friends this time.”
Cloud looked over at Pauling. “That’s entirely understandable,” Cloud said. “Although remember you owe me some new jokes. I hope in all that training you did they gave you some time to work on your sense of humor.”
Jared paused for a minute, recalling his first conversation with Gabriel Brahe. “Lieutenant Cloud, did you ever read Frankenstein?” he asked.
“Never did,” Cloud said. “I know the story. Saw the most recent movie version not too long ago. The monster talked, which I’m told means it’s closer to the actual book than not.”
“What did you think of it?” Jared said.
“It was all right,” Cloud said. “The acting was a little over-the-top. I felt sorry for the monster. And the Dr. Frankenstein character was something of an asshole. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” Jared said, and nodded toward the seating compartment, which was now almost completely full. “We all read it. Gave us a lot to think about.”
“Ah,” said Cloud. “I see. Jared, allow me to share with you my philosophy of human beings. It can be summed up in four words: I like good people. You seem like good people. I can’t say that’s all that matters to everyone, but it’s what matters to me.”
“That’s good to know,” Jared said. “I think my philosophy runs the same way.”
“Well then, we’re going to get along just fine,” Cloud said. “Now: Any new jokes?”