“And perhaps so,” Hesik continued. “But we heard very disquieting reports about members of that unit frequenting the spaceport, where the Khalia had their headquarters. We tried to warn Lieutenant Bundy, but he wouldn’t believe humans would act as traitors to their race.”
“Kowacs here could tell you about that,” Sitterson interjected. “Couldn’t you, Captain?”
Kowacs spread his hand to indicate he had heard the security chief. His eyes remained fixed on Hesik.
“They called us to a meeting,” the Bethesdan said. “We begged the lieutenant not to go, but he laughed at our fears.”
Hesik leaned toward Kowacs. “We walked into an ambush,” he said. “The only reason any of us got out alive was that Lieutenant Bundy sacrificed his life to warn the rest of us.”
“Doesn’t sound like selling butter to the Khalians, does it, Captain?” Sitterson commented in satisfaction.
“Them?” Kowacs asked, thumbing toward the hologram interrogations.
“Not yet,” said the security chief.
“But,” Hesik said in a voice bright with emotion, “my men have located the traitors, where they’re hiding.”
“Up for some real action, Captain?” Sitterson asked. “You said you were a reaction company. Let’s see how fast you can react.”
“Download the coordinates,” Kowacs said, too focused to care that he was giving a brusque order to his superior. He’d taken off his helmet when he entered the building. Now he slipped it on again and added, “How about transport?”
Sitterson was muttering directions to his AI. “You have trucks assigned already, don’t you?” he said, looking up in surprise.
“You bet,” Kowacs agreed flatly. “Priority One,” he said to his helmet. “This is a scramble, Headhunters.”
His helmet projected onto the air in front of him the target’s location, then the route their computer had chosen for them. That decision was based on topographical data, ground cover, and traffic flows along the paved portion of the route.
“How many bandits?” Kowacs demanded, pointing a blunt finger at Hesik to make his subject clear.
“Sir,” said Daniello’s voice in the helmet, “we still don’t have the hard suits back from decontamination.”
“Twenty perhaps,” said Hesik with a shrug. “Perhaps not so many.”
“Fuck the hard suits,” Kowacs said to his First Platoon leader. “We got twenty human holdouts only. Pick me and Sienkiewicz up in front of the security building when you come through the parade ground.”
“On the way,” said Daniello.
“We’re going too,” said Commander Sitterson, jumping up from behind his desk as he saw to his amazement that the Marine was already headed for the door.
“Please yourself,” Kowacs said in genuine disinterest.
It occurred to him that the weasel commando in the area might have human support. And a group of turncoats like these could tell him something about that—if they were asked in the right way.
* * *
Satellite imagery reported seventeen huts in the target zone, which made Kowacs think Hesik had underestimated the opposition. By the time the four trucks were in position, each in the woods half a kilometer out from the village and at the cardinal points around it, Kowacs had better data from long-term scanning for ion emissions and in the infrared band.
The Bethesdan was right. There couldn’t be as many humans at the site as there were dwellings.
For the last five kilometers to their individual drop sites, the trucks overflew the woods at treetop level on vectored thrust. It was fast; and it was risky only if the target unit had more outposts than seemed probable, given their low numbers.
“Probable” could get you dead if one guy happened to be waiting in a tree with an air-defense cluster, but that was the chance you took.
“Hang on,” warned the driver—Bickleman from Third Platoon. Kowacs didn’t trust somebody assigned from the motor pool to know what he was doing—or be willing to do it in the face of enemy fire, when people’s lives depended on their transport bulling in anyway.
The truck bellied down through the canopy with a hell of a racket, branches springing back to slap the men facing outward on the benches paralleling both sides. A limb with a mace of cones at its tip walloped Kowacs, but his face shield was down and the scrape across his chest was nothing new. He held the seat rail with one hand and his rifle with the other, jumping with the rest of his unit as soon as they felt the spongy sensation of the vehicle’s underside settling into loam.