More likely, like fire from a flame gun.
“It’s not meant for us,” Blohm said quietly. “We’re moving with the forest, not against it. But before the bulldozer gets close, somebody better cut the top off.”
“Us?” Gabrilovitch asked. He carried a pair of 4-pound rockets taped to his thigh so that they didn’t dangle.
Blohm shook his head. “That’s not what we do, snake,” he said. “That’s for the other guys. I marked it for them.”
“I—” Gabrilovitch said.
Blohm, suddenly tense, hushed him with a quick gesture. The environment had changed, subtly but suddenly. It felt like it’d begun to rain, though the drops wouldn’t penetrate the leaves of the canopy for minutes more.
Blohm didn’t know what was really happening. The only change you could expect from this forest was a change for the worse, though.
“Six,” he said to key his transmission to the major, “this is Six-six-two. There’s something going on. I don’t know what it is, but keep your head up. Over.”
Sergeant Gabrilovitch eyed the forest beyond and behind his partner. Gabe’s mouth pursed stiffly, but you had to know him well to recognize that as a sign of tension.
“Six-six-two, this is Six,” Major Farrell’s voice replied. “Do you have a vector, Blohm? There’s nothing showing up on the helmet sensors, yours included. Over.”
“Six, negative,” said Blohm. “It’s—sir, like the sun came up or the wind started to blow. It’s just a feeling. Maybe nothing. Over.”
The branches of a nearby sapling were drawing noticeably closer to the trunk. Blohm didn’t know what that meant, but he wanted to be some distance away within the next minute or so.
“Six-six-two, yeah, maybe there’s nothing to it, and maybe I’m going to be elected to the Grand Council of the Unity,” the major said. “Break. Six-six-one—” Gabrilovitch, the titular patrol commander “—come on in. It’s getting late enough that we’ll camp before we’ve gotten any farther than you are now. And if something pops, I want all the help I can get back here. Six out.”
“Six, roger,” Gabrilovitch said. Blohm was already indicating the start of their route to join the column.
Still seated, Esther Meyer detached the stinger’s take-up spool from the stud on her breastplate and reattached it to her right shoulder where it was ready for use. She’d left most of the extra weapons and gear on the cab platform for Velasquez who took over for her.
She paused. The next part of the program was to walk forward, carrying the pieces of armor to the trailers by now well ahead in the column. Every moment she sat here the walk got longer and the job harder. Christ, she was wrung out.
“Hey, Essie,” said Tomaczek as he trudged past. They’d trained together as recruits. Years later they both wound up in C41. Despite that they’d never had a lot to do with one another. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I just need to get moving,” she said. She thought of asking Tomaczek to give her a hand with the gear, but he was already bent beneath enough weaponry to anchor a ship. Typical little-guy stuff . . . But who was Striker Esther Meyer to talk?
Tomaczek wasn’t really interested in anything but putting one foot in front of the other. He vanished behind a screen of brush where the trail kinked just beyond where Meyer rested. Meyer hoped he’d notice if his helmet flashed a warning caret.
There hadn’t been much trouble back of the lead squad thus far. Every once in a while motion in the canopy would draw a grenade or rocket. A pair of teenagers had slipped off the trail together. The strikers responding to the screams thirty seconds later found broad leaves unfolding from bodies already black and swollen. No problems other than that.
Meyer stared in the direction of the passing colonists without seeing them as she prepared to stand up. She suddenly realized that she was glaring toward (if not at) Councillor Matthew Lock, his wife and daughter.
Meyer and the adult Locks looked away in mutual embarrassment. She heard the little girl squeal, “Mommie! Mommie! It’s the nasty lady!”
Fucking wonderful. At least the kid thought she was human, which is more credit than Meyer was ready to give herself.