Chapter Six

The Devil You Don't Know

"…The best laid plans of mice and men… I can never remember the whole of the poem, and why should I?- I never read it. It isn't really that important because I know what Joyce was saying- or maybe it's what Steinbeck was saying?- one of the two anyway."

"I think that the real bliss of childhood is the notion that by always standing upright and doing what you think is right, that the outcome of even the worst situations will be rosy. Bull. You become an adult when you realize that standing upright in some situations will get you your head cut off, and that always doing what you think is right sometimes doesn't sway a situation one way or the other in the slightest. Adults have to come to grips with the fact that sometimes they're just along for the ride and the ride can be a wicked one. The best laid plans of mice and men, right?"

Mr. Lilith

The Amazon River Basin

Lt Whilite braced himself, knowing that nothing good could come of the signs around him.

The previous morning he and 3rd Platoon of Echo Company had broken camp and set out on the day's planned patrol under the distant thunder of battle. Sound in the jungle acted much as sound to the naked ear underwater- it was distorted. At times the screech and roar of jet engines, and the popping and booming of detonating ordinance had seemed to come from the other side of the world while at times it sounded as though the world underfoot might come to an abrupt and violent end. All the while birds and animals fled the man-made tempest oblivious or at least unconcerned at meeting and passing the Ranger patrol in its transit through their habitat.

3rd Platoon had encountered the smell early that morning after setting out on patrol from their new listening post position.

It had come to Whilite first as the familiar and slightly comforting smell for all of its associated memories of wood smoke. True to smoke's nature, it first permeated and then overwhelmed all other odors of the jungle before it was seen even as the finest of hazes. Whilite had welcomed the drifting smell, as this gave him justification to leave his well-defined patrol pattern to investigate under a loophole in the operational rules. Perhaps a strictly dutiful Ranger would have been justified and not entirely out of place to point out to the platoon leader that the investigation of something that by the virtue of fire was likely a "fixed position" was not in line with the operational objectives of determining rogue Zentraedi movement. Perhaps if strictly dutiful, a Ranger might have justifiably stated this. The Rangers of 3rd Platoon though, disciplined as they were, still had the core flaw of being human and susceptible to curiosity.

The entire platoon had heard the sounds of battle the previous day, and undoubtedly were all asking the same questions about the circumstances surrounding it. A brief deviation from plan within the allowances of operational rules to get some answers to gnawing questions could not do measurable harm to the operation's outcome.

Tracking the smell of smoke to its source was not difficult, requiring only that the Rangers stop periodically to make sure they were traveling into the wind. As the smell had grown stronger and the first visual indications of smoke came with the building light of day, Whilite wasn't entirely certain that he and his Rangers wouldn't just happen across a remote settlement of slash-and-burn farmers, as there were known to be still in the rain forest.

This thought, a plausible if not unsatisfying one was still a happier scenario to what the lieutenant and his command began to think as the smell of smoke began to take on other aromatic hints and tones within the predominant wood smoke odor.

The residue of synthetic explosives had a very distinct smell to it, and one that any soldier who had undergone basic infantry training was quick to recognize.

Burning flesh had a distinctive odor too.

It was the heavy, fatty, charred odor- like a finely marbled steak left too long on a charcoal grill that was burning too hot- that made Whilite rethink and regret his eagerness to investigate that first hint of smoke. As the stench of burnt flesh was joined by that of decomposition, Whilite's regrets deepened though he now had stronger justification and in truth, obligation, to investigate

What was the old adage about being careful what you asked for?

Dense foliage lined the southern edge of a slashed clearing and provided good cover from which Whilite and 1st Squad could observe without fear of detection. Denuded tree stumps, weather-smoothed but still blackened from the fires that had doubtlessly cleared the land for habitation showed the village to be established and not new. Paths were worn into the earth between and around crude hut structures, where they stood and where others apparently had stood showing the routes and relative volume of regular foot traffic.

Of the huts, or sheds as they struck Whilite, that were still standing, a uniform motif of improvised construction prevailed. Wood crate panels, particle board, corrugated plastics and metals, tarps and canvas all came together in patchwork construction of hovels that looked every bit the part that they played as back-woods dwellings. Whilite, using a pair of field glasses, was able to make out details in the construction of one shack that seemed to indicate that it could and in fact had been taken apart (presumably to be moved) and reassembled. Whilite reasoned that despite the established feeling of the camp that this style of shelter indicated a migrant population- slash-and-burn farmers. He would have liked to have corroborated the suspicion by seeing another hovel of similar style- but the shack was one of only three standing and the only one easily studied.

The encampment had apparently been one of nearly forty semi-permanent structures, and had apparently been active with a proportionate population- but at a glance it had also been savagely gutted.

"Looks like a damn hurricane passed through.", Staff Sergeant Byerly commented, surveying the village without use of field glasses.

Whilite's first impression, perhaps because of their greater frequency in Missouri, had been tornado- but the sum effect was the same. Smoldering pieces of what had once been shacks now lay in joined, flattened heaps and strewn about like a jigsaw puzzle that had been completed and then pushed from a tabletop to the floor.

"Yeah, or Godzilla-.", Whilite replied, though an attack by the king of movie lizards was somewhat less likely.

In truth, there was no question as to what had butchered the village- and it would have taken a blind man deliberate effort not to perceive it.

Trails of evenly spaced impact craters pock-marked the village giving it the look of a World War I "No Man's Land"- minus the sepia-colored hue of an aged photograph. Each trail was indicative of and marked clearly the careful walking of cannon shells through an aircraft's strafing run and could not be mistaken for clumsy artillery saturation or mortar fire.

"I don't see any people-.", Byerly said, then added, "-Or Zentraedi. What's the call, Lieutenant? Do we go in and check it out?"

Whilite was hesitant, "I don't know, Sergeant-. We've got no idea of who's creeping around. Even if we don't get in a tangle, we could give ourselves away."

"Sure.", agreed Byerly, "Something isn't right here though. We've got signs of an air strike- but this ain't a Zentraedi camp. And they only knocked over the hooches-. What are those over there?"

Whilite followed the direction in which Byerly was looking and found that he had been so focused on the obliteration of the structures before him in the encampment that he had not registered the half dozen long, rectangular structures still standing in relatively good condition. Constructed of similar, possibly slightly higher quality materials as the flattened hovels- these structures were clearly for storage.

"To hell with it-.", Whilite resolved. He had already gone off mission, come too far, and had too many questions to walk away without answers. If nothing else, he reasoned with himself, he would need some kind of justification in his report to Capt. Nguyen. Whilite was certain now that there was something vile to be found here, there was that feeling in the air that came with cruel and evil deeds- and the smell of decaying flesh was now quite prominent.

"Have the platoon disburse and sweep the outskirts of the encampment- set up a thirty meter perimeter. Once we're secure, you and I will take your squad in- and get Doc over here- it's a good bet we could need her."

"Yes sir."

Whilite flipped back the cover on his PICS interface pad and marked the map location. Whether it was of any significance or not, this village and whatever had happened here would be a matter of operational record now.

ASC Salvador Base

Major Tomas Santino Juan-Pedro Mencia "Maverick" Cruz, 623rd "Knight Hawk" Squadron awoke without any outward indication of doing so- though he knew he was waking to the inevitable consequences of a night of much-needed debauchery.

His head, no longer awash in the soothing lubrication of whiskey-sours and later (to the best of his hazy recollection) straight shots of whiskey, throbbed with each surge of blood that his heart pumped. He could still taste the booze (good booze), the cigarettes, and- the girl? There had been a girl- hadn't there? Oh yes, there had been a girl. He had not been so drunk, and he was not now so hung over that the memory of her was clouded.

Laying- somewhere (Cruz was not sure where he would find himself when he finally mustered the courage to open his eyes)- he was aware of movement nearby that was undoubtedly the girl, and which had waken him.

Now came that "morning after moment" when Cruz would have to decide whether to give himself away as awake and contend with the awkwardness of having done things with someone whose name he could not readily conjure- or feign sleep and simply let her slip away in anonymity. Normally not a tough choice- and certainly not when deployed to a region far from base where the likelihood of a chance meeting in the future was slim.

Still, from what Cruz remembered with the aide or despite the effects of Irish whiskey, she had been a phenomenal sight in her black cocktail dress- and more so out of it. A last peek was in order.

Cruz opened his eyes slightly, just cracking them to slits the way a child did when pretending to sleep while actively watching something to be seen discretely. The girl was there, and from what Cruz could tell, "there" was in his ASC provided room at the bachelor officers' quarters. She had found her way back into the wonderfully fitting cocktail dress, which despite how easily it had come off was a great feat. Cruz admired the curves of her body in the mercifully dim light, and with what he remembered of the night before considered with satisfaction that he had accomplished something.

It was during this moment of self-impressing recollection that Cruz realized that the girl was far too active to simply be dressing herself again. With her back turned to Cruz and the bed, it was safe for the pilot to open his eyes fully.

The young woman was quietly, though thoroughly sorting through the contents of his emergency escape kit. Having had lost identical kits in the past to unscrupulous personnel in forward areas, Cruz always made a point of taking with him the carbon fiber case that was designed to eject with the pilot of a Valkyrie should the need to do so occur. Containing the supplies to sustain a person for five days in hostile territory, it was generally for the medical supplies- morphine in particular- that the kits were most often stolen. This was what Cruz initially thought the woman was after.

Under her left arm was tucked the unmistakable shape of the escape kit's five, concentrated daily ration packets. She would have certainly have to have happened across the medical supplies by now, but she was taking the food.

"Those aren't nearly as good as they look-.", Cruz said, "And trust me, they look awful-."

The young woman spun as though she had received an electric shock from behind, clutching the ration packs to her body just below her bosom.

"Don't tell!- It's for my family-.", the young woman explained, edging toward the door like an animal cornered and not quite decided on whether to bolt or fight. Whatever facial features that Cruz had seen the night before and found attractive were lost to a mask of abject and absolute terror, "Just don't tell."

Cruz forgot his hangover, forgot the social mores associated with one night stands, and forgot that the young woman was for all intents and purposes a complete stranger- she was showing all the signs of being in dire distress.

Cruz sat up in bed slowly, suddenly aware that he was only clad in his socks- and one of those was half-rolled down his left foot.

"Just relax-.", he said, making a placating gesture with both hands, "Just calm down and relax- no one's telling anyone anything-. If you tell me what's wrong, maybe I can help."

Help? How could he possibly help?

Cruz couldn't believe the words that had come out of his mouth. Consciously, rationally- he didn't want a thing to do with Salvador Base, or even Brazil for that matter- not even this girl. Still, there were times that required at least the gesture of compassion.

"Don't try.", the girl said as seriously as if she were relaying a mandate from God's mouth to Cruz's ear, "Or when you leave, it will be worse."

The girl had gotten to within an arm's length of the room's door, and the flight instinct of the trapped animal clicked into play. The knob was turned, the door heaved open, and the girl out into the painfully bright sunlight before the inside handle bounced off the room's wall. She had gone so fast, Cruz realized that she had left both shoes behind- lying where they had come off the night before.

Shielding his eyes from the sunlight that was now accompanied by heat that aggravated his hangover, Cruz stumbled toward the door to close it as the last pattering of bare feet on concrete faded away. Sobered, but not totally coherent yet, Cruz found himself hoping that running around barefoot wasn't a regular habit for the girl. After all, he'd had some of those toes in his mouth only hours before.

Cruz had not quite shut the door when a hand arrested its movement on the hinges. A gentle shove and Cruz's allowing of it had the door open again enough for Scooter to poke his head in through the door.

"What was that?", the other pilot asked in a cautious tone.

"A girl.", Cruz said.

"A girl?"

"Yeah", Cruz said covering his eyes from the dagger-like effects of the sunlight, "Y'know, like a guy only with breasts and without the undercarriage."

"I know what a girl is, jerk-off-. –And speaking of which, corral the hog there, Maverick- you're gonna scare the locals.", Scooter said, "I meant why did she leave under full burners? -You weren't doin' butt things to `er, were you?"

Cruz sat heavily on the single bunk that smelled of alcohol and the previous night's activity and covered himself with a pillow. Looking at the shoes, fairly nice women's heels given the general world shortage of manufactured footwear, he replied, "I don't think so- not this morning anyway. Shit- I hope Cinderella isn't expecting me to bring those back to her, `cause they ain't glass and I ain't Prince Charming."

"Hell, Maverick- you're rarely Prince Tactful.", Scooter laughed, "She was cute though. Hope you wrapped up."

"She stole the food."

"What?", Scooter asked, having expected to get some kind of gory detail about Cruz's latest conquest.

"She went into my escape kit and stole the food."

"Maybe you worked an appetite up in her, studly. From the noise coming out of here last night, I'd say you both burned some calories."

"Who's calling who a jerk-off?"

Phillips laughed, "Paging Scooter, party of one!"

Cruz put his hands to his pulsing temples and thought aloud, "Who the fuck steals food anyway? I mean, this close to a supply distribution center, who steals food?"

"Maybe the excitement makes it taste better.", Scooter suggested.

"Maybe.", Cruz agreed, "At least she left the drugs. Get me an aspirin, will you?"

In his groggy, first stages of waking, Winters did not immediately recognize the stinging to his left cheek as a slap. A second to his right cheek brought him a little further into consciousness, and by the third to his left cheek again, he realized that words were being directed at him as well.

"…Jack, come on, wake up.."

Another, more forceful slap and Winters was awake as well as well on his way to agitation. In this state, he recognized the voice and presumably the offending hand as belonging to Dalton. Winters' first inclination was to slug his XO in reply, but his limbs were all lead and his body hurt at the very thought of movement.

"Wake up, Jack.", Dalton said, prepared to strike again.

"I'm awake!", Winters growled, rolling his head to one side in time to miss all but a grazing pass of Dalton's fingers, "How in the hell did you get in here, Freddy?"

Winters wasn't certain, but he was working under the assumption that he was actually in his temporary quarters. He didn't remember being taken to the stockade at any rate, but he had woken up in stockades before without the memory of going there.

"You left the door open, you sot.", Dalton replied.

"Let me rot in peace, for God's sake.", Winters groaned as a cannon barrage was initiated inside of his skull, "Have you no respect for the inebriated?"

"You gotta get up.", Dalton said, his tone serious and bleak, "Wang's dead."

Winters' eyes opened slowly as he lifted his head with considerable effort and considerably more pain. He had to have misheard Dalton in the internal pounding of cannon fire.

"What?"

"Wang's dead.", Dalton said, pulling Winters into a sitting position on the bed, "The ASC MPs called Mumuni, and she told me-. Now I'm telling you."

Winters caught his head in both hands as he was certain that it would roll off his shoulders. The air in the room was hot and sultry despite the rattling of the air conditioning unit and Winters realized that Dalton had meant that he had left the room open to the world and not just the door unlocked. Winters couldn't recall one way or the other. The thought was cut short by a powerful wave of nausea that struck him low in the gut and traveled powerfully upward, cresting and subsiding mid-throat. A close call, but a disaster that would not be averted twice- especially as the taste and smell of bourbon and the previous nights' hors d'oeuvres found their way into his mouth and nostrils.

A thick jet of bourbon and semi-digested bits of finger food sloshed powerfully into the toilet as Winters succeeded in crossing the distance from the bed in three unsteady, sprinting steps.

Dalton, queasy from his own night of overindulging, managed to hold onto the contents of his own stomach only by concentrating on what information he had gotten from Mumuni in their brief exchange, and what he had to now tell Winters.

"Ganyet didn't tell me much, I don't think she knew a lot.", Dalton said, as Winters picked himself up off of his knees by the commode and flushed it, "The MPs apparently found him by the perimeter fence, shot, this morning."

Winters staggered by Dalton toward the small sink in the vanity opposite the bathroom door. He nodded as he wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand before turning the tap on to stream cold water.

"What the hell was he doing out by the perimeter?", Winters asked, splashing cold water across his face and into his mouth to gargle and spit.

Dalton spoke quickly, lest he take a turn at the toilet bowl, "I don't know, Jack. I don't think anyone knows. He was pretty twirked last night- maybe he was just out getting some air, and-."

"And he just walked into a bullet?", Winters asked into the sink as he dumped a handful of water over the back of his neck.

"Sure-.", Dalton said, not sounding convinced, "Maybe. You know what Mathias said about people getting into the base from time to time-."

Winters felt an aftershock grip his stomach, but it subsided before another eruption occurred, "Mathias says-."

"Yeah, well-.", Dalton said before trailing off into nothing- apparently having nothing to say on the matter further.

Winters toweled off his face and neck and turned to the thought of dressing before he realized that he was still dressed as he had been the night before at the post-operation cocktail party. His utility coveralls were slightly twisted for having slept in them drunk, but a tug of the belt to one side and he was semi-presentable again. As Winters looked about for his wheel cap, he spotted his .44 revolver on the bunk's night stand. His hand dropped to the holster at his hip, and of course found it empty- but not finding it there verified in his foggy mind that the pistol he was seeing on the table was his. As he picked it up, slipped it back into the holster and fastened the strap over the grip, he considered for a moment that he was lucky that he had only set the weapon aside in his drunken state and had not decided to use it on some bourbon-rooted hallucination.

Dalton handed Winters his cap and sunglasses which the CO put on as though he was suiting up in armor. The sun was up and climbing higher into the sky, and for Winters' sins of excess it would be merciless in its punishment.

Winters had never been able to abide by the smell of hospitals.

Despite the rigors practiced to keep surfaces spotless and sterile, and the powerful chemicals and cleaning agents used, hospitals to Winters always had the lingering smell of sickness hovering just under the layer of clean. Military hospitals and infirmaries were no better, and perhaps worse because under their top layer of clean smell was not just the aroma of sickness, but also of blood.

The morgues, of which Winters had seen one or two, were the worst. Devoid of the possibility of making the subjects any worse off, the details of cleanliness were more slack and the attention to them less. The smell of death always mingled with the smell of chlorine and clung to the insides of Winters' nostrils like a sneeze that just would not come.

Colonel Ganyet Mumuni and her executive officer, Lt Col. Drake had met Winters and Dalton at the entrance to the infirmary with the MP who had been assigned to escort them. Few words had passed between the officers as the two top Vigilantes were clearly nursing sore heads as well from the previous night. Winters did not remember seeing Mumuni drink much, but he had been absorbed in the act of absorbing himself. Even if he had seen her drinking, Mumuni was one of those who hid it well as Winters had seen several times at The High Desert Pilot's Social Club back outside of Edwards. She would seem fine all night until you blinked, and then seeing her again she was clearly gone.

Wang was clearly gone too.

A quick walk past several patient wards and a cluster of operating theaters had brought the four RDF officers to the infirmary's morgue, within which Major Anthony Wang, RDF, lay like a centerpiece draped under a white sheet on a gurney with shining, stainless steel legs.

Winters had known at the first glimpse of the shrouded body that it was Wang, so the attending physician's drawing back of the sheet from the young officer's face was only a saddening confirmation. The S-3's eyes were closed and somewhat sunken in the way that eyes became as the blood pooled in a body. Winters was grateful for not having to see the man's glazed stare fixing upon him, but the gratitude was muted by Wang's expression. Even in death, the major's face wore an expression of irritation-. No, it was more than irritation, Winters believed distantly in his hung over mind- he had seen irritation yesterday on the tarmac and at the party. This was something more. Contempt perhaps?

"I'm sorry.", the doctor said, "He was dead when we found him- there wasn't even any point in trying to revive him."

"Where'd you find him?", asked Drake through his hand that was cupped over his mouth more in thought than in any attempt to filter out the smells of the morgue.

"By the northern inner perimeter fence, I'm told.", the doctor said, "I wasn't with the medics who answered the call I'm afraid. I was on duty and have been with him since though."

"What did it?", asked Dalton. It was apparently the time for XOs to do the talking.

"A single shot to the chest.", the doctor said drawing back the sheet to reveal the wound, "Through and through. A rifle maybe- something with power."

The ASC MP, a staff sergeant by rank, spoke finally having only greeted the RDF officers at the door to the infirmary with the briefest of salutations.

"We figure he was walking the interior fence and a shooter got him from the tree line outside of the perimeter.", the haggard-looking man said blandly, "Anyway, there's no way of ever being sure. Begging your pardon, Colonels, but you have got to keep your people away from that perimeter fence- especially at night."

Mumuni spoke for the officers, "We'll remind our people, Sergeant."

Drake reached over Wang's body and drew the sheet back further until the fatal wound was revealed. An entry wound the size of his thumb was punched cleanly into the young man's sternum- but fortunately for the nerves of the RDF officers present, the traces of blood had been cleaned away. Only the deep purple bruising, a patch the size of a coffee cup saucer, and a star-like pattern of charred flesh around the wound remained as peripheral indicators of a violent death. Drake started at the sight of the wound and made an effort to quickly compose himself. The doctor's description of the wound being "through and through", meant that there was an exit wound as well- and probably one not as neat and clean.

Drake had no desire to see it. He had already seen too much on many levels.

"We'll start making arrangements to take him home with some dignity.", Dalton said as Drake covered the young man's face with the sheet again.

"I'm afraid these sort of things are all too common around here.", the doctor apologized, "We don't have much in the way of coffins to provide you- generally body bags are the order of the day."

"We'll figure something out.", Mumuni said, "Where are his personal effects?"

"In storage.", the MP replied, "I'll see that they get to you."

"Thanks.", Mumuni said finally, "I suppose that's it then."

Winters, having not had much to say during the exchange and feeling rather the need to be out of the morgue, had noticed Drake's distraction that had also kept him on the outside of the conversation. The ASC doctor and MP had paid little mind, seeing his expression and dismissing it as grief, or stifled anger, or one of the many other emotional reactions that the loss of an acquaintance evoked. Winters knew Drake better though, not as well as he knew the officers of his squadron, but better than the ASC personnel in the morgue and he saw that besides the grief and the anger, there was something else.

Winters also had the distinct feeling that the something should not be discussed in front of the ASC.

For the heat and humidity that had built noticeably even in the short span of time that the officers had spent in the infirmary, Winters was relieved to be outdoors again. A large part of it was to breathe air that had not been artificially sanitized, but as much or more of it was his curiosity at what was turning in Drake's mind.

As soon as the infirmary doors had closed behind the officers, and when he was certain that there were no nearby ASC ears to listen, Winters seized Drake by the elbow and with a tug, demanded, "Okay then, have it out."

Drake had apparently been as ready to spurt his dark thoughts into words as Winters was anxious to hear them, and that Mumuni and Dalton had been oblivious of as he spilled them with haste.

"Wang was murdered."

Dalton paused in the progress of lighting a cigarette to say dryly, "I believe that was the overall impression that we were supposed to come away with from this."

Drake shot the other XO a glare that could have sliced through a steel I-beam, "Yeah? No shit, Sherlock-. I mean he was murdered not in the way they said."

Mumuni's confusion was obvious, and as senior RDF officer, and the one accountable for all the contingent's personnel, she was as clearly determined to gain understanding.

"What do you mean, Dusty?"

Drake thumped his chest with a balled fist at approximately the same location where Wang had received his fatal wound.

"Did you see that hole in him? Shot from the other side of the fence, my ass! He had powder burns around the wound- that was done at a meter at most. Rifle on the other side of the fence line-. Bullshit. I'm not a doctor, and I can see that. But an ASC doctor and an MP missing it?- Both of `em? No way."

Mumuni nodded, "Okay, fine- I can see your point, Dusty- but who on post would want to kill Wang, and why? I don't see how anyone could possibly benefit."

Winters felt the pounding inside of his skull redouble as any lingering effects of intoxication drained away and were replaced in his veins with ice.

"I do- maybe."

Mumuni's head snapped in Winters' direction, "What are you talking about now?"

Winters took an offered cigarette from Dalton as he worked through the cascading avalanche of thoughts in his head.

"Yesterday Wang was on about getting our flight recorders back from the ASC S-3s. He was particularly ruffled by the fact that he couldn't account for several targets that my section was tasked to-."

A cloud of cigarette smoke was rising from all four officers as they listened to Winters.

"And you think they shot him?", Mumuni asked, "Over flight recorders?"

Winters shook his head, "No, there's more. The details of last night are a little fuzzy, but I got the distinct impression that Mathias was trying to get me into something illicit. He said he needed something transported discretely on a regular basis and told me that there could be a gratuity in it for me."

"And why am I only hearing about this now?", Mumuni asked, the full colonel in her coming out now.

"Because at the time it happened and up until about forty-five seconds ago, I was sloshed off my ass.", Winters explained.

Dalton shook his head, "I'm not getting it, Jack. Mathias is an asshole, sure- and I wouldn't be surprised if he was running something illegal on the side to supplement his combat pay- but how does that get Wang killed?"

"It doesn't.", Winters said bitterly, "Or at least it doesn't add up to anything but paranoid speculation. But you know how Wang is- was. Maybe he pushed too hard to get those flight recorders back, or maybe he asked the wrong questions to the wrong people? Hell, maybe he got hold of the one piece that ties all of the oddball shit going on around here together? Maybe that got him killed."

"Maybes don't make it true.", Mumuni pointed out, "And Wang did all of this while strolling around the fence line?"

"Did he?", Drake asked, "We have no idea where they found him. They say they found him along the perimeter fence."

Mumuni waved her hands before her, "Whoa now-. Let's cut back on the conspiracy pills for a little while and work this out logically. Let's get the official report, get our flight recorders back, and let me have a talk with General Braddock and see where we stand-."

"Let's not have a talk with General Braddock, shall we?", Winters suggested, "If things around here aren't on the level, you can bet your pension that he's at least aware of it. Hell, I'm not even sure of what I'm accusing them of."

"Then what do I do?", Mumuni asked, "I'm open to suggestions because on the one hand I've got an officer who's the victim of a chance murder, and on the other hand I've got one murdered because of something bigger- and damn little in between. Well?"

Winters looked at her disparagingly, "Hey, the checks I get are from the RDF, not Scotland-bloody-Yard-."

Dalton interjected himself before a real blow-up could occur.

"Okay, okay-. Time out! Let's think this through for a second-. Colonel Mumuni has to do something, Jack- right? So we can't go around accusing officers of conspiring in murder and God-knows what else without proof. I say we play along for right now. We get our ducks in a row for getting Wang home, and ourselves the hell out of here, but at the same time that we're keeping our heads down we keep our ears up. Can we agree on that?"

Winters nodded. Even if he hadn't agreed with Dalton, he was in no condition to verbally have it out with Mumuni this morning.

"Sure."

Mumuni nodded her consent as well.

Dalton continued, "Let's assume the worst case scenario, and that something bad is going down here and we've been dropped into the middle of it. We sure as hell don't want to poke the hornet's nest while we're standing under it, right? So we keep our ears open, put together the pieces we can, and when we get home we put it together for General Butler and see where he wants to go with it."

Mumuni gave her grudging approval, "Spineless as that sounds, it also sounds like the best idea. You don't go to fight a lion in his own den."

"Or a snake in his hole.", Winters suggested alternatively.

"What about our people?", Drake asked, "What do we tell them?"

Mumuni was swift and absolute in her response, "Nothing for now. We stick with the ASC story and get on with the business of rotating back to NORAMWEST. If we start putting ideas of some kind of conspiracy in their heads, they're going to go sniffing around, being Type As. God forbid that we're right, we're likely to get more people killed. Let's pull out and lick our wounds later. Wang's already too high of a cost for anything we've done here."

Nods of agreement came from all around and it was decided unanimously.

"Hey, there you all are-."

Winters wasn't sure whether his blood was beginning to curdle or boil at the unmistakable sound of Lt Col. Mathias's voice. In either case, his first thought was that nothing would be more satisfying than to draw his revolver and put a .44 slug between the other O-5's eyes. Better judgment prevailed though- barely.

Mathias had approached on the sidewalk leading to the infirmary from the interior of the base, and as he had still been some six or seven meters away when he had first spoken to the RDF officers, they collectively felt no fear that he had been privileged to any portion of their conversation.

"I heard about your major-. Sorry about that.", Mathias said with the depth of tracing paper, "I rushed over to see if I could do anything- y'know, hoping to get to you before you had to see him- but-."

Winters reconsidered shooting Mathias. The transparent bastard had been in such a "rush" to meet the RDF officers that he still smelled strongly of aftershave and had several dots of coffee staining the front of his utility uniform.

"There's not much to do.", Mumuni said, concealing the germinating seed of suspicion toward Mathias that Winters had planted, "We just need to make arrangements for Wang."

Mathias shook his head in an act less convincing of concern than had it been for a favored sports team's loss at a game match, "Shame `bout him- being so young and all. Well, anyway- if there's anything I can do-."

"Actually, there is.", Winters said, surprising himself almost as much as he surprised the officers around him, "I don't want to bring the lad home in a rubber bag to his mother, and the saw-bones in sick bay said you're somewhat scarce of coffins on post. The nearby towns and villages- there has to be someone akin to a carpenter in one of them. I'd like to get out there and get something dignified tacked together for Wang. I feel we owe him that much."

Mathias initially seemed hesitant- a momentary flicker that he extinguished deftly. He then agreed eagerly, a little too far to the other end of the spectrum, "Sure-. Sure, we can do that. There's a guy who made a lot of the tables for General Braddock's house. Fine, quality stuff he does-. I bet he could tackle it. I need to take care of a few things over at the JOC, and then I can draw a rover from the motor pool with a driver and we can head to town. Two, two and a half hours, okay?"

"That'll do.", Winters agreed putting on a false sheen of pleasantry, "Oh, and while you're there- at the JOC, that is- can you see about getting us our flight recorders back. Call it sentimentality, or something, but that was the last thing Wang asked of me when I saw him at the cocktail party, poor chap. I feel obliged."

Mathias nodded his understanding, "Yeah, I can see what you're getting at. Sure, I'll do that for you. You'll have them back before supper, okay?"

"That's reassuring", Winters said, wanting to squeeze a round off into Mathias more than ever, "Thanks."

The Amazon River Basin

Warrior 1st Grade Diharon sat rigidly as the female warrior identified to him only by exchanges between his saviors as Sub-Lieutenant Quek treated the wound to his neck with a gauze pad, pre-treated with an antibiotic liquid. The sting was sharp, but he endured it without flinching. There was something commanding- no, more than commanding- intimidating about the Zentraedi warriors whose company he had fallen into that seemed to demand a warrior's stoicism. For the attitude that they displayed toward him, he was grateful for the medical aide but would have as quickly expected for Quek to cut his throat as treat his wound.

It had become clear within moments of Action Kevtok's band rescuing him from the micronian patrol that they were on this cursed world by choice, unlike Diharon and the millions of others like him. How they had achieved this and why was not as clear- but everything about their conduct smacked of focus and purpose.

The "how" of their presence on the alien world had been answered half a day's relentless march after Diharon's rescue when well into the night, Kevtok's unit brought him to their semi-functional Transport Pod. At first seeing the now permanently earth-bound vessel, Diharon had thought his first impression had been incorrect. While Zentraedi in the micronized state could certainly shelter in one of the transports, there was no way that even a team working in practiced coordination could fly and operate one- it was a matter of physical scale.

As Diharon was brought aboard he realized that not only was he wrong in his second thought, but how wrong he was.

The Transport Pod was unlike any that he had ever seen, including glimpses of the micronian variant of the craft. The vessel that Diharon found himself aboard was not the conveyance for mecha lacking trans-atmospheric capabilities that he'd been acquainted with during his times of Imperial service. What would have been the pod's cargo bay in a standard transport now had a huge, central structure that spanned from the cargo deck to the flight deck. Furthermore, it was clear that this structure was working and living compartments built to a micronized Zentraedi's scale. Running the circumference of the bay Diharon had gotten a glimpse of combat suits anchored in storage mounts to the bulkhead walls as he had been led into the compartment structure. He recognized their shape to be mostly like the Queadlunn-Rau battle suits of the elite, female, Quadrano warriors. Still, these were not- similar, but not. With the moment he had to see the nearest, and only a partial glimpse at that, he sensed that these armor suits were more massive in dimension.

Diharon had seen little within the ship's inner compartments with the exception of the corridors that had brought him to where he now found himself, in the small infirmary. He'd been fed and allowed to clean himself, and was now receiving a med-tech's attention.

Still, there was the impression that those around him cared for his well-being not for his sake, but for something more that they sought.

Yet it was still better than being hunted by the micronians.

Action Commander Kevtok, who had been standing nearby during Diharon's feeding, cleaning, and medical treatment with his arms crossed in a contemplative manner finally spoke.

"Warrior, do you know who we are?"

Diharon shook his head, "No, Lord. You are Zentraedi, but this ship both is and is not. I do not understand."

Kevtok took a step forward, unzipping the front of his utility uniform until he could expose his chest, particularly the ensign of the Te'Dak Tohl laser stenciled into the flesh of his left breast.

A wave of horrid realization swept over Diharon- a near terror that Kevtok knew had been programmed into him the same way as had the hate of the Invid. Kevtok paid little mind to the pitiful display as a warrior nearly his equal in physical size sank to his hands and knees on the deck.

"Forgive me, Lord!", Diharon pleaded, clearly expecting an unspeakable death to be at hand, "We were marooned here! Breetai betrayed us, and we were abandoned here to die! We have struggled to gain the means to return to Service, but-."

"Enough.", Kevtok said firmly, but not cruelly. Lt Moyrt puzzled at this, because the sight of a warrior, even a norghil warrior, groveling had roused the urge in him to kick the spineless beggar. Kevtok had decided on a different approach, which was entirely his prerogative.

"On your feet, Warrior.", Kevtok instructed, closing his uniform again, "Your loyalty to Duty and The Warrior's Code is not in question, and we are not here to punish you. We know that you were betrayed by Breetai, and by The Robotech Masters as well. We have been betrayed as well. We come seeking the means to avenge ourselves, and we require your assistance."

Diharon now stood, but with his head bowed in a subservient display, "Yes, Lord- you have my oath."

Kevtok crossed his arms again and in doing so took on a more imposing appearance.

"Warrior Diharon, our mission is to gather general intelligence as it applies to a larger operation in progress to seize Zor's Battle Fortress from the aliens of this world for service to the Zentraedi. Have you any knowledge of The Battle Fortress?"

"Some, Lord- rumors spoken between warriors. Our goal has been escape-."

"What of The Battle Fortress?", Kevtok interrupted, keeping the warrior on track with his interests.

Diharon complied and said, "Warrior's talk has it that it was destroyed in an act of revenge by Khyron The Back-Stabber, and Azonia. It is said that what is left no longer functions and was buried at its crash site by the micronians far north of here- not even on this land mass. Forgive me, I do not know the exact location."

Kevtok's expression darkened. If the micronians had been able to discover enough of The Battle Fortress's secrets to allow them to repair it after its fall to this world, but then merely buried it following Khyron's final act of reckless stupidity in a life full of such acts- then perhaps this norghil was correct. Perhaps Zor's Battle Fortress was now useless and the bits of information that the Te'Dak Tohl had pieced together were wrong. It was very possible that the Te'Dak Tohl were too late.

Kevtok gathered himself. His mission was not to assess the functionality of The Battle Fortress- but just to gather information that would allow General Krymina to act. He was certainly not going to draw any conclusions on the long-term fate of the Te'Dak Tohl based on the hearsay word of a norghil warrior.

"You spoke of working to escape, Warrior. With whom were you working?"

"Action Commander Yeshta, Lord- I have served him for many seasons now."

An officer- perhaps a more reliable, and certainly a better informed source of intelligence than a warrior. Kevtok saw in this Yeshta, his best option available.

"Do you know where this officer can be found?"

"Yes Lord, he is known to be based in the micronian population center known as Brasilia."

"Brasilia-.", Kevtok repeated, the alien word feeling odd on his tongue, "Warrior Diharon, can you take us to this Brasilia?"

RDF Intelligence Annex, RDF Headquarters,

Yellowstone City

The administrative and office functions of the Robotech Defense Forces- Defense Air Reconnaissance Office (RDF-DARO) was actually on the third floor of the Intelligence Annex Building, and was the location to visit if one was interested in the day-to-day bureaucracy of that organization's function. CDR Anne Weitzel had little interest in the systemic work flow of the DARO front office though, she was interested however in the data output supported by the work flow- and for that, she had to go to "The Pit".

"The Pit", aptly named as it was a sunless environment containing the computer centers and secure classified information facilities (SCIF) in a sub-basement of the Annex, was most daunting because of armed the guard and card-access elevator one was required to negotiate to reach it. Despite its feeling as such, The Pit was not a hardened bunker facility intended to survive a direct attack- but was intended and designed to thwart any attempts at electronic monitoring of its activities or systemic damage from EMP, mostly by virtue of the depth at which it was buiLt

Once the secure elevator released one onto the main level of The Pit (lower levels, or "The Circles of Hell" contained power back-up and climate control systems needed to maintain The Pit's operations) one would find one's self in the familiar secure office surroundings of carpeted hallways, cube farms, and locked SCIF doors. One had no impression of being buried deep in the ground, with the exception that there were no windows anywhere to be found.

Weitzel swiped her identification badge through the card reader of the DARO Flight Operations SCIF and punched her PIN into the reader's keypad with her forefinger. The lock released and she entered without drawing more than a quick glance from the SCIF supervisor.

The room was lit at roughly half the light intensity of a standard office, but this was to facilitate the easier reading of the four, large monitor screens that occupied the SCIF's far wall. Multifunctional, they could display live video or sensor data feeds from any of the DARO manned or unmanned surveillance aircraft operating anywhere in the world via the RDF InfoLink system. At the moment though, all four screens were in various map modes and showing common operating pictures of varying detail of four different geographic locations.

Manned workstations related to the multiple elements of data gathering, processing, and dissemination occupied most of the SCIF in bleacher-like tiers facing the four screens. To the extreme right of the room, on two level platforms, were the remote pilot control stations from which any DARO UAV could be controlled by manual remote.

Each "Pod" looking much like an enclosed video arcade game (with the exception of having seating for two) functioned in much the same way. Sitting tandem, the pilot at the front of the Pod had the controls of the virtual cockpit complete with master capabilities of the UAV's camera and weapons (if any) systems. In the rear seat, a mission specialist was able to operate the sensory packages loaded for a particular mission.

Only three of the dozen Pods were occupied for direct UAV control as all of the unmanned aircraft in the DARO inventory had the ability to operate autonomously in a limited capacity and spent most of their time doing just that.

"Commander", called Senior Tasking Monitor, Major Agala (RDF), upon seeing the IFD senior analyst, "You grace our humble home with your presence!"

"Major.", Weitzel replied professionally but with a touch of human warmth to the young officer of southern Indian descent, "You've been in this billet too long if you're calling The Pit home."

"Well, ma'am, they don't like to let us out much.", Agala said, "On to business though. You're here to check on your bird?"

Weitzel nodded, "I'm not here for the scenery."

Agala motioned for the commander to join him on the first tier where his monitor's workstation was located. As Weitzel was joining him, Agala was busily stabbing commands into his console to call up the link with the Global Hawk II JTUAV that had been tasked to the mission.

"Operation Ascension-.", Maj. Agala said, tapping a finger on the hard copy of the official tasking orders DARO had generated for the IFD's request, "Very transcendental- I like it."

Weitzel shrugged, "It fit with the whole outbound message thing, I think- things rising. It was that or Operation Viagra."

Agala made an amused grunt and said, "Hmmmm-. Yeah, better to stay high-brow in case the file doesn't just end up getting flushed."

"That's what I thought."

Agala's console screens filled with current flight data, sensor log information, and a COP map all related to Weitzel's JTUAV.

"There he is."

"He?"

Agala shot Weitzel a harsh look, "Don't be a sexist- not everything needs to be referred to as she."

"Point taken, Major- keep talking."

Agala tapped the COP map and quickly explained, "Okay, your bird reached the AO six hours ago-."

"Six hours? The tasking came down yesterday morning, Paul."

"Nooo ma'am", Agala corrected politely, "The request was made yesterday morning. The resource assessment, allocation, and tasking came down last night. You're lucky there was a carrier off of Cuba with an untasked UAV aboard to fill the order."

"Yeah, one.", Weitzel scoffed, "It's good to see how much weight we carry around DARO."

"It's not like that, Commander- we love The Warped Corps!", Agala laughed, "No, seriously- we just have a very full plate right now."

"Who doesn't?"

"Good point.", Agala admitted, "I'm watching out for you though- I've already got my eye on a second bird that will be coming off tasking in seventy-two hours. If I wrangle it right, I may be able to forego the standard turn-around maintenance and get it retasked mid-flight. Maybe."

"Do it and I'll dance at your wedding.", Weitzel promised.

"I'm already married."

"I'll dance at your next wedding then.", Weitzel said.

"Let's not go there.", Agala sighed heavily, "Anyway, your bird is still flying the initial search pattern- about another four hours on that."

"Four hours?"

Agala looked defensive, "I'm good, but not that good. A UAV flies at a certain speed and can cover a certain area in a pass- plus you gave us a big area. It's got to set up a baseline map database through SAR and-."

"Yeah, Paul", Weitzel said impatiently, "I know the process. Did the swabbies load a PDIS package like we requested?"

Agala nodded, "Yeah, it's not the latest generation, but that hardly matters."

"Why not?"

"So much damn bio-ethereal energy down there from all of the Flower of Life plants- you won't get a good image anyway. Plus, I can tell you from just general intel that the area is lousy with dittos anyway and one group on PDIS looks about the same as another."

Weitzel was able to follow Agala's point without much elaboration. The Protoculture Detection/Imaging System (PDIS) operated with the same general principle as thermal imaging, only it detected the unique bio-ethereal energy associated with protoculture, the processed derivative of The Flower of Life, and a key component in the genetic engineering and manufacture of Zentraedi. Use of the system allowed the operator to distinguish at distances between human and Zentraedi when other means failed. Similarly it could detect protoculture fueled craft and mecha that were otherwise concealed from more traditional detection methods.

As Agala had pointed out though, in areas where The Flower of Life was found in even moderate density- the system could become clouded easily. PDIS was a useful tool when used in conjunction with others, but it was far from the "silver bullet" that "non-op" analysts liked to think of it as.

"Don't sweat it, Commander", Agala assured her, "If your bad guys are down there, my little pride and joy will get them."

"It's carrying the signals intercept and electronic surveillance packages then?"

"Those we got a deal on- top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art.", Agala promised, "You know, Commander- you guys upstairs really need to switch to decaf."

"I'll pretend that you didn't say that.", Weitzel said coldly, "Can I use your phone?"

"No 900 numbers."

"Done."

Weitzel pulled the phone receiver out of the cradle in Agala's workstation and dialed a familiar number in a flash. The phone rang once before it was audibly snatched off the cradle on the other end.

"IFD Section Four, Captain Shire."

"You're getting slow on the draw, Gary- it's Anne.", Weitzel said to her subordinate, "I'm down here with Paul-."

"Flight Ops?"

"No, the apostle- yes, Flight Ops. Our bird is on station and will be done laying out its initial pattern by around 1600. Do we have staff in place to catch the data flow and process it?"

"Already working.", Shire said.

"We haven't gotten anything yet, Gary."

"Not from the UAV.", Shire replied in a smug, better-informed-than-you voice, "But you also wanted Big Ears intercepts monitored-."

Weitzel parked her rear on the corner of Agala's workstation though she knew it mildly annoyed him, "We got something?"

"Yes and no.", Shire said, "Got a signal with the same characteristics- priority band, triple encryption, wouldn't register on E.T.&T-."

"Yeah, and?", Weitzel said, her voice clearly excited, "I'm about to pee myself here."

"Not on my desk, you don't.", Agala said, steadily working at some technical element of the flight program that Weitzel was unfamiliar with.

Shire continued after a dramatic pause, "Yeah, well this one was inbound. We don't have a monologue, Anne, we've got a conversation going on."

Weitzel really did have to pee now, and it wasn't just the coffee anymore.

"Oh, Ephraim has got to hear this-."

The Amazon River Basin

"I count thirty-seven.", Corporal Inid "Doc" Lancing, 4th Rangers, Echo Company, 3rd Platoon, 2nd Squad, said, "Six of `em, kids, El-Tee."

Every platoon had a medic, and inevitably the handle of "Doc" was hung on them. Doc Lancing was no different in this respect, and like all RDF Army medics, and REF Corpsmen, she had the dual task of providing first-line medical treatment to the soldiers in her assigned unit while at the same time providing a sometimes much-needed olive branch to the often skeptical civilian populations in remote areas in the form of similar service. The large medic's kit she carried contained the drugs, instruments, and implements needed to do everything from treatment of gunshot and laser wounds, to obstetrics, to even some types of veterinary care of domesticated animals- and almost everything in between. What procedures she was unfamiliar with from her extensive training or that were not available on the medic's database she could access through her PICS, she could be talked through by an appropriate specialist via the same system- relaying real-time video to the rear and receiving instruction with visual aide by the same.

The thirty-seven people of whom she spoke were beyond any assistance that she, or anyone barring The Almighty could offer- and as medics sometimes mused sardonically, He didn't make house-calls.

The thirty-seven lay in a shallow, pit grave, mostly face-down, and had been covered when 3rd Platoon had found them by a thin layer of red clay earth. Finding the mass grave had not been difficult, one only had to follow one's nose to the smell of rot that had penetrated into the jungle and had spread an unspoken, unsettled feeling amongst the Rangers.

"I guess it's too much to hope for that they all died of natural causes.", Whilite said to Lancing.

The medic could have just as well not responded- by the time she and three "volunteers" had turned over the fourth body to spill off the earth it was clear that they would not find a "natural" death amongst them. Torsos of some of the dead had been tattered by flechette to the point that Whilite was surprised that they remained "intact". Other bodies had limbs gnawed and burned away; some were missing parts of heads. Of the adult corpses, Whilite found the most disturbing to be those that could be seen to have been shot cleanly through the center body mass with laser weapons. Very professional, as military marksmanship went.

Whilite tried to notice as little as possible about what had put the six smallest bodies into the ground.

Still, gallows humor being marginally better than none at all, she replied, "Yeah, all of `em- they stopped breathing."

"Swell.", Whilite said, grateful as the light wind changed direction just enough to carry some of the stench away.

"Lieutenant.", Staff Sergeant Byerly said, soliciting Whilite's attention, "Sweep's complete, sir. There are a few things you need to see-."

Whilite would have taken almost any excuse to leave the graveside, so he was quick to join Byerly in a purposeful stroll through the flattened encampment. Like Byerly, he found himself carrying his M-35 lowered at the muzzle from the shoulder, but a raise and trigger pull away from the ready instead of slung over his shoulder. Perhaps it was the prevailing feeling of the place and the situation that warranted being on guard, or perhaps that in some way Whilite was hoping that whomever had done such "professional" work on unarmed civilians might want to come back and have a go at it with those capable of putting up a fight.

Byerly stopped next to a heap of shredded plywood and plastic that had once been a makeshift shack the size of a medium-large tool shed. She squatted along the edge of the pile, tracing over some of it with the muzzle of her rifle. Whilite noticed that the debris had many areas where it did not lay as flatly as others, or as some of the shack heaps around it. It had been rummaged through apparently.

"I figure that not everyone who lived here is in that pit, Lieutenant.", Byerly said, "Looks like people came back looking for things- what they could carry easily, I'd guess, and then split. Maybe forty or so-."

Whilite allowed himself to see beyond the wreckage and into its surroundings. There were numerous sets of individual footprints- and Whilite speculated that Byerly, having made survey of the entire camp could have easily accounted for a rough number of forty people scavenging through what remained of their homes.

"Got it.", Whilite said, "Any insight on who did this or why?"

Byerly's expression contorted in disgust as she said, "Yeah, that. This way-."

Whilite followed Byerly again, this time over some of the heaps of collapsed shacks toward the rectangular structures that remained intact. The camp opened up somewhat nearer to these structures, and Whilite's ranking sergeant led him into the center of a flat, open area of weed patched red dirt.

She stopped by a footprint in the earth, motioning over its outline with her own toes. The print was well defined in shape and with a distinctive, aggressive tread pattern.

"Field boots, Lieutenant.", Byerly said, voicing the obvious, "Standard issue, Army of the Southern Cross. There's a lot of `em around in this general area- figure near a company's strength- maybe a little less. Over here's how they came in-."

Whilite followed Byerly a dozen paces to where the earth had been indented repeatedly, dozens of times. Each concave depression was of a width and had the tell-tale tread grooves of tires.

"Those are tires on a chopper.", Byerly said, "By the space `tween `em, I'd say Lakota slicks. That's a no-brainer. What I can't figure is this-."

Byerly moved two meters to her right to stand atop another feature pressed into the clay. The pattern was not nearly as deep as the tire indentations of the utility helicopters, and it resembled grids of squares laid over one another repeatedly.

"Cargo nets?", Whilite suggested, "Cargo nets slung under the Lakotas, I'm guessing?"

Byerly nodded, "Sure, that's what I was thinking too."

Whilite ran through the accumulated pieces verbally, "Okay- so, the ASC shoots the hell out of the place, flies in with choppers to drop off assault troops to mop up, and carry off what?"

Byerly nodded toward the rectangular buildings, "Foot traffic says that whatever it was, it was in there. They're empty now, all of `em, and by empty I mean clean as whistle. Look, El-Tee, I've got nothing to base it off of, but I don't think we have to stretch far to figure out what was getting flown out."

Whilite had suspected, but given the growing signs of ASC involvement in the massacre here, he had wanted to find evidence against it. He was finding none though.

"Drugs?"

"Yeah, I think that's a safe bet, sir.", Byerly said, "Why is a better question, but given what we've seen here- the who is fairly clear. Hell, they didn't even try that hard to cover their tracks. Makes you wonder how many times this performance has been repeated."

"I don't want to wonder.", Whilite said honestly, "Get video on everything, and quick. I want to be on the hump in ten minutes, Sergeant."

"Yes sir, Lieutenant."

Brasilia

Not a word had been exchanged between Zentraedi and human since the Army of the Southern Cross party had entered the room.

There had not been any verbal exchange, but the glares from Yeshta on his side of the table, and from the subordinates that Colonel Lowe had elected to bring into the meeting were every bit as fierce and lethal as any full-blown firefight.

With the exception of their first meeting , over two years before now, neither Lowe nor his associates had appeared in ASC uniform, and for obvious reasons. Today, Lowe maintained that tradition with his lieutenants and he dressed well in civilian attire. Even the guards Lowe had brought with him were in non-military attire, though the bulges beneath their coats were unmistakable as weapons. This did not trouble Yeshta, as his own guards behind him made an equally feeble attempt to conceal their arms.

Lowe, late in middle age and hanging, to Yeshta's way of thinking, on the cusp of not physically being able to carry out the kinds of orders he gave on a regular basis and merely having to content himself with giving them, sat without ceremony opposite his Zentraedi counterpart. Unlike Yeshta who had Fral, Sub-Commander Dornian's former lieutenant, to his right- Lowe brought no subordinate to the table.

The ASC Colonel's expression was serious, unapologetic, despite the volatile subjects that would have to be broached at the table.

"Let's just have it out then.", Lowe said bluntly.

There had been a time when Yeshta was still becoming accustomed with the micronian language of English when the meaning of such turns of phrase would have confused him. Yeshta had long since become familiar with the odd language, its quirks, and most of all the relaxed method in which Lowe used it.

"You have violated our agreement.", Yeshta said, keeping a tight lid and seal on the anger he felt boiling within him. Now was not the moment for anything but signs of discontented diplomacy.

"We have maintained control of your labor population in The Control Zone and we have limited what raiding activity that is under my scope of control to facilities and operations that are not critical to the ASC-. And you do this-."

The "this" did not have to be elaborated upon, Lowe knew it and made no attempt to pretend that he did not. The "this" after all, was still smoldering in The Control Zone as result of direct air strikes.

"I have not violated our agreement, Yeshta.", Lowe corrected, "I've only altered it. Had the agreement been violated- you would know it because all three of the cruisers you are working so hard to repair would have been destroyed, and not just one."

Yeshta fought down the urge to reach across the table and pull Lowe's head free of his puny micronian body, a feat that would not have been exceedingly difficult for the Zentraedi to do given his superior strength. Of course, Lowe's guards would be obliged to respond. The urge would have to be subdued; action was not yet at hand.

Lowe continued, "The simple fact, Yeshta, is that your progress is too rapid. My superiors feel that a setback was needed to keep our need for each other as mutual and equitable. The decision was not at my level."

"I'm certain though that you did everything in your power to persuade your superiors that their course of action was unnecessary.", Yeshta said with blatant incredulity.

"I don't have a say in those matters, and I wasn't asked.", Lowe said, "I am instructed to tell you that barring targets that will be identified for you on which you can consider yourself free to conduct- reprisals- and save face in the eyes of your men, you should consider your actions carefully. I have been instructed to advise you to adhere to your end of our agreement, and that if you do so, there will be no further attacks on your cruisers or your men."

Yeshta did not attempt to mask his skepticism, "And I have your word on that?"

"You do.", Lowe said, "You also have little alternative, I remind you. You may be providing us with the means of administrating our interests in The Control Zone, but we provide your men with weapons, food, supplies and materials you need to conduct repairs of your vessels, as well as much technical insight that speeds the process along. You stand to lose much more by walking away than we do."

Yeshta grunted in contempt, "And this could not have been conveyed through negotiation? We have no interest in your world, we only want to be free of it. Still, you treat us like a threat."

Lowe placed his hands on the table before him, "We know you want your freedom from Earth, and that's eventually what you will have exactly- and not a moment too soon. Until that moment, you will have to come to grips with the fact that our needs, like our position, are superior to yours. There is no negotiation. You'd be wise to remember that. Also, remember that many of your warriors are only loyal to you because they see you standing in opposition to us. If it were to become common knowledge amongst them that you have been working with us all this time- that support might just dissolve under your feet. Do what's best for your cause, Yeshta. Do what's best for everyone. Accept what's happened, make your gestures of revenge to keep your people unified behind you, and carry on."

"I see your point.", Yeshta admitted, "Though there is more to our relationship than you've said, Lowe."

"And that would be?", Lowe asked, allowing Yeshta to speak the pressure out. Insolence was less costly than bloodshed, and Lowe was wise enough to know that even meeting on neutral ground on even footing as it pertained to the armed guards present, bloodshed was not completely out of the realm of possibilities.

"Don't think of me as simple because I didn't foresee your treachery.", Yeshta warned, "And as I am not simple, don't think that I don't see that you have no advantage over me that I do not have equally against you. You use Zentraedi to maintain your agricultural efforts in The Control Zone because you lack the military strength to do so while keeping the truly rogue Zentraedi from overrunning your population centers. And if you think I am frightened by the possibility of my warriors discovering that I've made arrangements with you to secure the supplies needed to rid ourselves of this world, then it is no more fear than you have of the micronian population finding out the same."

Lowe warned sternly, "I think you're starting to walk a dangerous path, Yeshta."

Yeshta replied sharply, "No more dangerous than relying on an agreement with those who cannot be trusted to uphold their end of it. You're gambling that without our agreement, I cannot survive. Have you stopped to consider whether you can? If we are so reliant on you to sustain ourselves, then why did your masters send you so quickly to me?"

"Consider what you're doing carefully, Yeshta.", Lowe warned again, "Open conflict will have dire consequences."

"I will consider my actions very carefully.", Yeshta said, unperturbed, "Tell your masters to consider theirs. You will also go back to them, messenger, and tell them I will have a reply in full in a short time. Let them consider what they have without our agreement in place."

Lowe rose from the table feeling that he had not accomplished all that he had been sent to do. It had been a risk of Operation Back Step, and one that he had truthfully had no say in. Had he been asked, had a recommendation been solicited, he would have advised those from whom he took orders that Yeshta would have reacted in this way.

Realistically, how could he not?

Lowe would have stipulated however that Yeshta, after all was said and done, would have to come to the conclusion that it was in his best interest to allow the blow of Back Step to go unanswered, except for the purely superficial display of striking back at ASC sanctioned targets, of course. This would have been Lowe's input, had his input been sought. Though something had changed in Yeshta, or perhaps it was Lowe's- and his superiors'- miscalculation.

Now Lowe was not so sure, and he would have to report so.

"We'll speak again.", Lowe said, signaling non-verbally to his guards that it was time to leave, "Hopefully on agreeable terms."

"I do hope your masters will take my message seriously, Lowe.", Yeshta said.

Lowe left the room with his guards at a cautious speed. He was greatly concerned, but not panicked- and he did not want to appear panicked to the Zentraedi. Zentraedi were at the core of their being, predators, and to a predator panic smelled of weakness.

Lowe was at the center of his four guards, passing guards posted by Yeshta and picking up more of his own as they made their way out through the back halls of the low-rise office toward the street. As Lowe pondered all that had transpired, his guards were busily at work on their concealed radios arranging to have the motorcade of four armored, but otherwise unmarked civilian land rovers meet them at the street.

"This is not going to go well.", Lowe thought aloud as he reached the lobby and saw his vehicles pulling into place at the curb.

He meant the words in both the senses that his chain was not going to receive well the thought that Yeshta had not just capitulated as they had been certain he would. Moreover, they would not react well to the ambiguous promise Yeshta had made of another "message" in the future. A threat, no doubt- and as such, one that would have to be replied to in kind. Certainly, it benefited no one to escalate the situation.

Lowe realized as he got into the rear seat of his armored rover that whatever was decided, it was going to be his mess to sort out and make happen.

The burdens of duty.

The guard to Lowe's left in the seat beside him was adjusting the sub-machinegun under his coat when the colonel noticed the shattering of the plate glass window at street level in a building across the street. The guard did not react, having not seen it, and did not have time. Lowe had no time to react either, only feeling a shout of warning build in his throat as the shattered window's frame vanished in the puff of white smoke that accompanied the launch of an anti-tank rocket- probably one furnished by the ASC.

Yeshta remained quietly seated as the three powerful, rapid explosions that had sent Fral springing to his feet and sending his chair flying out behind him were followed by a final fourth.

As loose objects in the room stopped rattling and the soft and muffled tinkle of breaking and falling glass subsided from the street side of the building in which the meeting had been held, the inevitable screams of the collaterally wounded and the horrified began to rise and join with one another.

Yeshta stood, gathering himself with tempered haste. It was prudent to leave quickly. If Lowe had supporting units in the area, the chance of escaping them dwindled with every second that the shock of the ambush was allowed to wear off.

Fral's eyes were wide, the comprehension of what this ambush- unknown even as an option to him until this very moment- meant. He knew that there would be no going back, but found himself speaking as though there was hope of some course other than conflict.

"How are we to send messages?"

Yeshta paused before replying, "I believe we just did."

Salvador, Brazil

Thank the merciful Lord for air conditioning-.

Winters was actually thankful for the mercy found in the merging of chemical coolants, electrical compressors and coils, and an air circulation system as it applied to the interior of the ASC land rover.

As it was with his head now fully engaged in relentless acts of vengeance against him for the previous night's drinking, Winters was in constant misery. The ride, over unpaved and pot-holed mud roads- though less than four kilometers- had jostled a body constantly that screamed for only sedentary peace and quiet. Had the air in the cab not been maintained at a relatively cool and comfortable level, Winters was sure that he would have already passed into a state of agony.

The appearance of dwellings outside of what loosely passed for the "town" of Salvador- mostly cracked-stucco clad structures that looked as though they could have dated back to Brazil's original Portuguese conquerors- was of some consolation to him. The ride was almost over. Though it would mean entering the heat again, he would not be subjected to the bounce and sway of motorized travel. At the very least, if needs be, he could retreat to a private place to get violently ill. Probably not the lingering image that the RDF-AF would want him to leave with the locals of an officer, but certainly preferable to emptying whatever remained in his stomach on either himself or Dalton who sat to his left.

"You dead yet, Jack?", Mumuni asked from the rear-most bench seat in the rover.

The senior RDF officer and her XO had voluntarily piled into the rear, ceding the seats with the quickest ability to exit the vehicle to Winters and Dalton. A calculated sacrifice of one comfort for another.

"I must not be", Winters replied, "The hurt hasn't stopped yet."

"Can't handle your liquor, eh?", asked Mathias, half-turning in the front passenger seat.

Dalton laughed, though not so loudly as to rouse the demon now quieting down between his own temples, "Oh, he can handle his liquor-. When he gets into mine, and yours, and yours-. Then there's trouble."

Mathias laughed as though he had forgotten the purpose for why they were headed into this local speck of civilization, and as though Wang was not being chilled in the ASC morgue like a large, cold-cut party platter.

Winters decided that if it was unavoidable to get sick- he was going to do it on Mathias. In the rover, it would be easy to explain. Outside, more difficuLt Winters would manage it though.

The party had grown with the word of Wang's death spreading through the Vigilantes and the Knight Hawks. The 801st Attack Wing out of Nellis had felt a connection with Wang by virtue of being RDF and sharing a common uniform- though their grief was not as acutely felt as by the fighter squadrons from Edwards. It could be argued that they, in the aftermath of Back Step, had to concentrate on the preparations required to move an entire wing back to its home base of operations. Of course, the Knight Hawks and Vigilantes could have argued the same.

The fighter pilots knew and silently accepted as things requiring acceptance did by custom that to the 801st, Wang was just an unfortunate casualty of war. He had been a face they had seen perhaps a half dozen times prior to and following Back Step, and little more.

The Vigilantes and Knight Hawks, though bearing up with quiet fortitude, could not shake the young S-3's memory off so easily. His had been the humor that had sent them off on many missions and had greeted them with concern upon their return to base. Wang had listened to their stories, taking both professional and personal interest, of patrols of The Outlands. He'd also shown equal interest in stories of girlfriends, wives, and children.

As Dalton might have said in his simple Mid-West American way, he was just a "good guy"- and now he was gone.

The pilots of the two Valkyrie squadrons needed to get off of base for their own good. That had turned a trip requiring a single land rover into one requiring a convoy of ten.

Mathias had griped that the town of Salvador would run for cover with the appearance of such a force, but had relented wisely to Mumuni's reply of silence and harsh looks. She was exceedingly good at that, Winters knew from personal experience.

Whether it was in Mumuni's head, or Winters' thoughts alone- there was a second imperative to get the pilots off of Salvador Base. If he had not been privately and unfoundedly certain of it before, something in Mathias's forced easy-go-lucky attitude made him certain of it now- the ASC was somehow responsible. For his part, Winters wanted his pilots nowhere near ASC personnel, and if the best he could do was to get them (minus four who had remained on post to watch the squadrons' aircraft) into the local toilet of a town- then that was what was best to do.

The application of the rover's brakes caused the vehicle to lurch, which caused Winters' stomach to in turn. Despite the great temptation to do so, he did not spill his stomach contents on Mathias.

"Last stop.", Mathias said, "Everyone pick a buddy to stay with."

Winters wasn't certain how much of Mathias's last comment was jest and how much was serious. Getting out of the rover, Winters realized that Salvador- the town of Salvador- was little more than a cyst of habitation along a glorified mule path in the jungle. The breadth of the town appeared to be little more than a back alley and two rickety structures deep to either side of the "road" that ended flush with the edge of the jungle.

Flies and gnats immediately began to swarm as thick as the humid heat and the smell of mud and dung- some of it probably from domesticated animals. As Winters felt himself being studied from behind doorways that lacked doors and paneless windows, he wondered if maybe staying in the modern confines of Salvador Base would have been as bad or as detrimental as he'd been making it out to himself to be.

"I meant what I said.", Mathias said as though to answer Winters' questions to himself, "You're twenty-five meters from some bad-ass bush- and I don't mean the kind you pay for by the hour. Someone can snatch you real quiet and you'll never be seen again. Don't let your people stray far. I'm going to find this carpenter so we can do business and get the hell home."

"Do that.", Mumuni said as she eased her way out of the rover onto the filth-infused road of drying mud.

Mathias's warning was without need as the pilots who were getting out of their rovers quickly congregated around their commanding officers. There was less to see in the town than they had expected, and what they had expected was little. Also, there was the added discomfort that with the departure of Mathias into one of the back alleys between two squat, mud-brick structures, the town's people began to appear.

At first, there were quick glimpses stolen from inside darkened doorways- mostly by children. When no ASC troops were visible, outside of those behind the wheels of the rovers in the convoy, and when the RDF officers could clearly be seen to carry only holstered sidearms- the emergence began and built upon itself.

"Christ be merciful-.", said Preacher, three paces from Winters, saying enough in the way of a request to avoid the danger of blasphemy.

In several forms the sentiment was repeated, the pilots collectively understood what had prompted Maj. Wayne's plea.

Men, women, and children- all sunken-eyed, and ashen in complexion emerged on legs that were thicker at the knee joints than through any other visible portion of the limb. Open sores of tropical diseases stood untreated for exploration by flies as lips drew back over toothless and swollen gums to murmur in unfamiliar tongues a jumble of meaningless syllables.

"Jesus Christ-.", Mumuni repeated, recoiling slightly from the nearly skeletal hand of a child whose gender was indiscernible as though she was retreating from death itself. Her words were not quite the full request for mercy that Preacher Wayne had made, but Winters knew that it was implied by the speaker if not heard by the Son.

Dalton, to Winters' right simply made a gagging noise that he managed to stifle, though there was no stopping the reflex tears that had already wetted his cheeks.

"Oh, shit- Jack. What the hell is going on around here?"

Winters shook his head. He was nauseous, though for another reason now as the smell of sickness choked him. He had seen starvation before- anyone who had survived the Zentraedi Holocaust had. He had just not seen it so prevalent so recently.

"Where's all the fucking food?!"

Winters heard the voice only distantly through shock-numbed ears. It had been one of the pilots, though he couldn't tell if the speaker had been Knight Hawk or Vigilante. It didn't matter. The question was all that mattered.

"Freddy", Winters said vacantly, "We're, what?- five, six kliks away from a base designated as a supply distribution center-. Where the hell is all the food?"

"This explains it."

Winters was regaining his senses and didn't have to look to recognize Cruz for his voice.

"Explains what, Maverick?"

"The girl, Jack.", Cruz began, then realizing he needed to backtrack a little further, began again, "This girl from the party last night. I woke up and she was raiding my escape kit this morning. Didn't touch the morphine or any of the drugs, just made off like a bandit with the food. This shit didn't happen overnight, or between supply flights, Jack- look around-."

Winters didn't have to look far or wide to see clear signs of long term hardship. Starvation and sickness of this magnitude was achieved over months.

"What girl?", Dalton asked, going off the main subject, "Jesus, Cruz- your dick's gonna rot right off one of these days, you know that?"

"Hey!"

The bellow came as loud as a shotgun blast and scattered the civilians encircling the pilots with a similar effect. Retreating on pipe-cleaner legs, many shrank away back into the dark holes of their crumbling homes while the braver of them only removed themselves from the immediate proximity of the RDF officers.

Mathias, the owner of the booming voice, had reappeared unnoticed and was only now lowering his arms from the raised position that gave him the appearance of an animated, thick-bodied scarecrow.

"Fuckin' beggars, I tell ya-.", Mathias muttered with the same level of concern and disgust that one would expect from a man who had just put his new shoe into a fresh coil of dog dirt.

Floored, Winters gawked at Mathias and asked (he wanted to demand, but the appalling site of the locals had taken the wind too much out of his sails for the words to come out as anything more than a question), "Mathias, where's all the food and medicine we escorted in? This place looks like bloody Auschwitz on a crash diet!"

Mathias stopped in his tracks with an expression that half-led Winters to believe he'd then ask- Who farted?- but instead the ASC lieutenant colonel replied, "What, you thought you were gonna drop off some cans of Spam and granola bars, `n this shit was gonna go away overnight? What the fuck world are you livin' in, Winters?- and will you send me a postcard from there? Our distribution area covers thousands of square kilometers with hundreds of thousands of people living in it- not to mention the dittos we gotta feed. How far do you think two supply drops a month goes? You're in the sticks, bucky- take it in."

Winters realized that he'd been put on his heels more than he'd originally thought, because he found himself retreating from Mathias in this duel. He knew he'd hate himself for it later, but he'd been disarmed.

"Christ, I didn't know."

"Yeah?", Mathias replied- sensing like a raptor an easy kill, "Well, now you know. If you wanna give someone shit, give it to the UE Lower Council, or the RDF chain- `cause I can only hand out what I'm given to hand out."

Winters now felt sheepish- and there was a whole flock around him. As bare bones as Edwards, and Edwards City for that matter, often was- there were at least always meager supplies to be had. This area of the world was beyond bare bones- it was bare, broken bones- absolutely primeval- and Winters felt revulsion with himself that he'd become so insulated from it.

Still-.

Winters shook it off. His head was in no condition to do anything as laborious as think.

Mathias thumbed in the direction from which he had come, "So I found the carpenter guy-. Are we getting Wang a box, or do we send him home wrapped like an MRE burrito?"

"Yeah.", Winters managed, then turning to Dalton, said, "Freddy, keep the chaps rounded up. Mumuni and I will handle this-."

"Sure thing, Jack.", Dalton said, lighting a cigarette.

The smell of smoke dampened the stench of starvation and poverty somewhat, and Winters would have killed for a fag. From many causes, he could feel the shakes rampaging through his hands and he wasn't sure he'd be able to hold one though.

More though, he didn't want others to see it.

RDF Regional Training Center 32,

Falkirk, Scotland

The pool of black water beneath the line crossing of The Tangle looked colder today than it had the day before to Recruit Trainee Andy Johnson as it gaped for him like a toothless mouth three meters beneath his swinging feet.

For the second day now, Andy at the starting end of the horizontal line obstacle, had convinced himself that the ease with which he could crank out thirty pull-ups (under and over-handed, thank you very much) meant that he could speed across the line with upper body strength alone. Much less like Spiderman than a fly caught in a spider's web, he again found himself hanging at the middle of the slack line, the Scottish cold and damp setting into his fingers, and his arms starting to burn from his own weight.

The worst of it all was who stood on the far-side platform.

"Oh, we're in it again, aren't we Striker?", O'Shae called from the safety of a wood plank platform, "Don'a learn any faster than ye have ta! I swear by Jesus, Mary, an' Joseph that if it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna get ya ta use that dense block on your shoulders ye calls a head!"

On the line to Andy's left, Cedric inch-wormed by followed by Cattermole to his right a moment later.

O'Shae hooted with sadistic glee, "Oh, fer God's sake boy-o! What kinda shadow are ye? Beckham's got the right idea! Hell, AUNT MOGGIE's got the right idea, `n he's a daft cunt! So, are ye gonna crawl or swim, boy-o? Ole O'Shae'll be waitin' here dry as a camel's cunny in either case!"

Andy gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the line from which he was hanging. He could feel the burn of the hemp sinking into his skin, but was determined that unless his fingers tore free at the knuckles, he was not letting go.

Getting his feet into a sway was not difficult- they were already in motion. With his body like a pendulum, he exerted effort at the extreme end of each swing, getting his legs higher with successive efforts. As his oblique abdominal muscles began to burn, he could almost get his boot over the line. As they felt as though they would tear and that he'd end up swimming again in front of the platoon, Andy hooked first his left boot over the line and then his right over the left.

"Good, lad!", O'Shae called.

Encouragement again- Andy nearly lost his grip.

"Now worm it over!"

Lift, push, pull.

Andy moved half a meter up the line.

Lift, push, pull.

A half meter closer.

Lift, push, pull.

A half meter closer- and the platform was almost in reach.

Lift, push, pull- and swing your legs out-.

Solid footing had never felt so good to Andy as it did at that moment.

"Now there's a lad!", O'Shae said, hastening Andy on with a pat to the back and a gentle boot to the rump, "Now get on, ye got a schedule ta keep!"

Four minutes, thirty seconds.

The previous day, during the formal introduction between Training Platoon 6045 and "The Tangle"- made with much pomp and circumstance by O'Shae- this had been the time identified as the maximum time allowable to negotiate the course.

Andy had completed the final fifteen meters, a tire run of double-stacked rover tire treads that forced even the taller recruits to bring their knees up to nearly mid-chest as they hobbled along, at five minutes nineteen seconds. The line crawl had cost him precious time that he had not been able to make up- it had just taken too much out of him. Fortunately, Andy did not have the distinction of coming across the line last- or even in the last ten.

Recruit Trainee Pamela Dunn had been in the final ten, much to her misfortune. The shame of arriving to the end of the course so late in the exercise was not foremost on her mind though as she was soaked and soiled from first a spill into the mud from the ascending, horizonntal logs, and then from slipping from the rope line into the pool that had nearly had Andy. Andy was sure that he knew how it had happened to her. Slipping from the parallel ascending logs was easy with the heavy morning dew. Once in the mud, or more specifically, out of it- there was no escaping the chill. Dunn was by no definition, "frail", but being slighter of build Andy was sure that the cold had numbed her more quickly than it would have he, and had contributed to her fall to the pool.

So he speculated.

O'Shae had been very forgiving for the poor time showing though. Training Platoon 6045 had only been made to run ten laps of the course for failing to make time. By the fifth lap, the sun was high enough that the morning dew and haze were beginning to burn away, so for Andy- the run wasn't so bad. For Andy.

By 1030hrs, as the platoon settled in within a lecture hall for classroom instruction following cool-down calisthenics- Pamela Dunn was shivering violently in the chair next to Andy that she had happened into. As the lights were dimmed and then extinguished for a video on military command and control structure, Dunn's teeth were chattering as to sound like a Morse key on the striker pad.

No sooner had the lights gone out than Dunn's shoulder pressed into Andy's, creating a cold, damp connection between them, even through the drier sweatshirt top that Andy wore.

"Cold?", Andy whispered. The training sergeant supervising the lecture hall was across the room and down at floor level. With three rows times ten seats between them, Andy was certain that the sergeant would not hear him.

But, cold? What the hell kind of stupid question was that? Of course she's bloody cold.

"No, love- I was going to ask you to crack the window-.", Dunn stuttered in the dark, "Of course I'm cold!"

"Well, you're going to shake that bloody seat apart.", Andy replied.

"Only another eight hours to the day- I may survive yet."

From the moment Andy had posed the first, stupid question, he had known what he had wanted to do-. This was the moment to act or come across as a complete wank.

"Here-.", Andy said, shimmying his sweatshirt up to his armpits, and then with great care slipping first his arms and then his head out of the garment. He pressed the mostly dry shirt into Dunn's lap.

Dunn's voice was terrified, though still hinted strongly that she wanted to take him up on the offer, "Put that on, or O'Shae'll skin us both!"

"You put it on, or you'll come out of your own skin like a garden snake."

"I'm wearing a sweatshirt already."

"Take it off."

"How?"

"Don't they teach you girls these bloody things at summer camp? Like I did."

Dunn's arms vanished out of her sleeves as she said quietly, "That's our braziers we learn to get out of at summer camp."

"Whatever.", Andy said as Dunn's sweatshirt came off to give him a quick glimpse of perked nipples under a damp cotton T-shirt by the flickering light of the holographic viewscreen at the front of the room.

"I think you just wanted to get me out of my clothes.", Dunn said as her head appeared through the neck hole of Andy's sweatshirt, followed by her arms through the sleeves. Her shivers quickly subsided to minor tremors.

"Don't flatter yourself.", Andy replied, admitting only to himself that she wasn't far off the mark.

Pamela's hand found his in the dark and gave it a quick squeeze, "Glad you liked the show. Thanks."

Andy let the conversation die. No need to press his luck.

Damn hormones.

The Amazon River Basin

"-And that would be this area in here, sir.", Sergeant Major MacDonald said squatting next to Captain Nguyen in the Echo Company command post. The ranking NCO indicated an area on the ruggedized C2 laptop's COP map to which a recent intel dispatch had referred. Sorted out of hundreds of such dispatches issued at the theater level by Nguyen's customized commander's "watch board" application, the same dispatch had been forwarded to him by the 4th Rangers operational staff as its subject had the potential to have a direct impact on Nguyen's mission.

An impromptu Army of the Southern Cross operation, under the provisions of the Joint Operational Initiative: Gemini, and with RDF-AF support had conducted the day before a crushingly successful strike on a Zentraedi cruiser under repair and its supporting rogue Zentraedi facilities deep within The Control Zone. This was of obvious interest to Nguyen, whose Echo Company was also "deep" within The Control Zone- so much so that Nguyen was of the belief that it had been the ASC operation in question that had overflown his 3rd Platoon the previous morning.

The dispatch from RDF-Army Intelligence was concise. The strike was expected to produce aftershocks throughout the entire Control Zone- elevated levels of rogue Zentraedi hostility against military posts and civilian habitations alike. The dispatch had made vague hints that Zentraedi retaliations may have already begun- though this was unconfirmed speculation. Regardless, what the dispatch expressed explicitly was that within the area of The Control Zone that was also Echo Company's AO, that elevated levels of Zentraedi and therefore, as to counter it, ASC activity were to be expected.

So died the hopes of a "routine" execution of a covert LRRP/SOG operation.

"Operational plan still has us pinwheeling counterclockwise through this sector today, sir.", MacDonald continued, spelling out the implications of the dispatch to his superior as they pertained to Echo Company. It was a formality really, as Nguyen knew well the implications having as many years of operational experience in The Control Zone as MacDonald, and most of them with him. Still, open communications led to open minds as Nguyen was fond of saying, and the two seasoned Rangers had never failed to benefit from open discussion.

"We've got 1st Platoon to the southwest of the red zone, here- and they'll be opening the distance with it further southwest. Not so much luck for the 3rd, though. They'll be bumping the line all day today and tomorrow- if we don't divert them"

Nguyen nodded, saying quietly with some concern, "Our new second lieutenant's platoon. What's your feeling on this, Mac?"

MacDonald's response was quick, but thoughtful, "He's a Ranger, and an officer, Captain. Not everyone gets the luxury of easing into the job of command. I got some time with him back at Conrad though- he seems steady enough. Besides, he's got Byerly to keep him pointed in the right direction."

Nguyen nodded, his confidence in the 3rd Platoon's ranking NCO well-established, "Good sergeants make the difference."

"Sergeants make the Army happen, sir.", MacDonald said, not ashamed to show moderated pride in the Army NCO corps.

"We will still be certain to express a need for caution to Lieutenant Whilite when he checks in.", Nguyen decided, "I would also like you to get on the God phone with Regiment and make sure that provisions are made for air support and emergency extraction of our northern units if it should become necessary. Establish logical extraction points at, shall we say- six kilometer intervals?- along their projected paths."

"Yes sir.", MacDonald said, "They'll squawk over it, but I'll pull some strings and get our people covered."

Nguyen nodded his approval, "Good man, Mac. There is also the possibility we have not discussed. We could order 1st Platoon to redirect northeast and conduct 3rd Platoon's sweep from the opposite direction-. 3rd Platoon could make a hard march south across their right flank and fill the gap for the 1st-. My inclination is to say, no- but I would like to hear yours."

"Yours is mine, Captain.", MacDonald said, "Whilite just drew the short straw today. You don't get hard if you don't learn to muscle through. That, and with the AO likely to be destabilizing- hell, it's likely to cause as many problems as it could potentially avoid. I say keep `em all on assigned task, sir."

"I agree.", Nguyen said, "Go and contact Regiment before we start to receive mid-day reports."

"Yes sir.", MacDonald complied.

Nguyen closed partially the screen of the C2 laptop less to conserve power (enough power cells had been packed to power Manhattan, almost) or prevent eyes from seeing what the screen held than to provide a mental buffer to the commander. Taking care of one's self was at least as important as taking care of one's unit, so training had instructed.

In this mindset, Nguyen retrieved from his nearby rucksack an MRE pack which he deftly sliced open with a pocket knife to sort through the contents. Once, in a film he had seen a character open a pack with his teeth. Bad production quality for whichever studio-. A common joke, and probably not one that was completely unfounded was that the outer plastic wrapping of the MRE pack could be layered under body armor to supplement the protection offered. Opening an MRE with one's teeth was at best ill-advised.

The entrée packs (in this case, "Beef Enchiladas with Sauce") were somewhat easier to open, having an "easy tear" tab that sometimes was. Some in military service argued that even with an easier means of access, the contents of the entrée pack were not worth the effort. Nguyen found most of the 100-plus varieties of entrees to be palatable if not good. In any case, the captain often thought that those who shot off their mouths at the quality of the food would have been wise to consider the millions in the world who would give much to experience the culinary displeasures of MREs.

Eating at the moment was merely an act of self-maintenance. He had eaten last at just after 0400, and once mid-day sit-reps began to come in there would not be time again until much later. Now was Nguyen's window of opportunity.

Much more important, and what Nguyen had actually been looking forward to with this window of opportunity was the opening of an envelope that had come to him just before Echo Company had set out on LRRP/SOG.

Penned in familiar script on the envelope, Nguyen did not even have to read the name on the reverse side to know it was from his eldest son, Khoa, who had just received his first billet as a second lieutenant with the RDF Army Corps of Engineers.

While email was certainly a speedier form of communication, Nguyen had ingrained the greater sentimental value he felt toward the penned word in all four of his children. The price paid from time to time was that he had to wait for letters to traverse the reviving UE Postal Service to reach him. Still, there was something special about opening an envelope and reading a letter handwritten in Khoa's carefully penned Vietnamese characters.

Dear Father-

It is my great joy and privilege to write to you on the occasion of my arrival at Fort Roosevelt, north of the Panama Canal Zone. As you have often told me, the military moves quickly when needs demand. I flatter myself to think that the needs of the military demanded me to receive orders to join the 72nd Heavy Construction Battalion here at Fort RooseveLt There is little else to explain how within the span of twenty-four hours I could go from having only my commission and engineer certification in hand to actually reporting to post here in Central America.

As you know, no doubt, the Corps of Engineers is at work on no less than twelve major projects to not only repair and expand upon the Panama Canal, but to construct RDF base facilities in the region to support and defend the canal project. I cannot help but feel personally linked to this work as I believe that construction of these facilities and restoration of commercial and military shipping traffic through the Panama Canal will in some way support the activities of you and your men in the field.

I have sent a letter also to my mother and siblings, allowing them to know that I have arrived safely and am working with a competent and proactive unit. I will continue to write them, as I do you, in hopes that my constant communication will in some way assuage Mother's sense of separation from you as you are not always as free to communicate. I did have occasion to speak to Mother shortly before my departure and she expressed both that she was proud of us despite our absence, and that she understood the importance of what we both were involved in. Confidentially, I know that she would prefer to have us both closer to home- but as always she dignifies herself in self-denial of her desires and the voicing of them for our benefit and the benefit of others. I am sure you are well familiar with this trait of my mother, but I write of it because this is the first time I have experienced it from a perspective that you must know all too well.

As of yet, I have only had the briefest of opportunities to meet my unit, but they strike me as hard-working and dedicated. I am certain that we will do well together. We have not yet received an assignment, but I understand that one will be coming soon. Given the nature of the unit and the background of my engineer's training, I suspect but cannot speak to the likelihood of being assigned to the construction of the new canal lock system. I have great hopes and enthusiasm for this work though and will let you know what I can when I know.

Father, I will ask you to please forgive me the brevity of this letter as I am writing it before our commanding officer's 1500 staff meeting. I will write more later in hopes of giving you more news.

I pass on the love of your Wife and my Mother, and that of your three children- my siblings, as well as myself. May our ancestors watch over you and your Rangers and give you safe passage.

Your loving son, as ever.

Khoa

Captain Duc Ho Nguyen smiled briefly to himself, remembering his first command as a second lieutenant with pride and knowing the feeling his eldest son was experiencing. He also mused briefly, knowing that for whatever reason the Corps of Engineers was a faster track of promotion than Special Forces, that one day in the not-too-distant future he might find himself saluting his own son. That was fine though.

Nguyen was glad to have read that Khoa had already written his mother who had vehemently opposed his entry into the Service, though her protests were more felt in their silent intensity than heard. Khoa's correspondence would do much to ease her worries, especially if he focused on the relatively safe and secure nature of the Panama Canal Zone- and on the non-combat related duties he was involved in there.

Nguyen vividly remembered his wife's joy at Khoa's proclamation that his goal in life was to be an engineer, followed by the distress and despair a week later when he further asserted that he would first like to enter the profession as a member of the Corps of Engineers. Fa, the loving and dedicated mother of his four children, had always been accepting of Duc's military career- though accepting never went quite as far as understanding. Nguyen suspected that she saw all uniforms as being the same, and as such expected Khoa's receipt of an officer's commission as meaning the same as the life his career had forced him to live- particularly frequent periods of sparse communication.

Hopefully Khoa's letters would soon let her see that the situation with her son would be different than with her husband. Duc knew that she had already sacrificed much for him- she did not need to be asked to give more.

A Ranger's life asked a lot of the entire family. Nguyen reflected on this as he folded his son's letter, returned it to its envelope, and slipped it into a shirt pocket to read again later. His quiet moment was nearly at an end, and soon he would be dealing with the responsibilities of command again.

ASC Salvador Base

"Ganyet, Nigel-.", Major General Butler said via secure com-link to the two ranking Valkyrie pilots deployed to Salvador, "-I can't tell you how sorry I am to hear about Wang. He's going to be missed in Operations here, I can assure you."

Unimpressed, Winters replied bitterly, "Well, send that to Hallmark for printing and let's get a copy to his mother."

Mumuni jabbed Winters sharply in the thigh with a finger below the line of sight provided to Butler by the CT-1's communication suite camera. Winters took the not-so-subtle hint and allowed Mumuni to do the talking for the forward-deployed units, as was proper given her superior rank.

"Thank you, sir.", Mumuni said, "Though we have to report to you that we feel the circumstances of Major Wang's death are- suspicious."

"Suspicious?", repeated Butler, "How do you mean, suspicious?"

"Suspicious meaning that the clear, visible evidence that Jack and I have seen don't support the story that the ASC is trying to feed us.", Mumuni said trying to sound unbiased, "That, and there are other things."

"Such as?"

"Jack-.", Mumuni said, prompting Winters to field the response to that question.

Winters was quick to speak, "He wasn't specific, but one of General Braddock's men was feeling me out to see if I'd be agreeable to seeing something shuttled back home. The something in question was to be handled discretely, but that's all I got out of him before I put the kibosh on the idea. –Oh, with the exception that there was a lot of money in it for me if I played along. Draw what conclusions you like from that."

Butler ran a thumb across the deep, fret-spawned wrinkles in his brow, saying exasperated, "I really need this right now."

"Does that mean we can come home now?", Winters asked.

Butler shook his head, "No, this means that you had better circle the wagons where you are. Operation Back Step has really stirred up the entire region. I've been on the phone with General Hume three times this morning, and he's telling me to brace you for the possibility- the real possibility- of extending your deployment at Salvador."

Winters retreated back from the console as though he'd seen a snake crawling from it, "You're having us on, right?"

Butler shook his head, "No, I'm not. It gets better too. We could be deploying most of the Wing from Edwards and the Wing from China Lake. The Navy is moving three carriers into the area, and availability inquiries are going out as far as Incirlik to see what additional Air Force units can be pulled into The Control Zone."

Mumuni was rubbing her own head now lamenting, Winters believed, the part she had played in bringing them to where they were now, "Good God, is it that bad?"

"Not yet, but the best minds are working on it.", Butler said, "Case in point- UENN went to ASC PR for a comment on the escalating violence in the region, and they didn't get a response to their call. The only thing scarier than hearing the ASC discuss violence in The Control Zone- which generally adds up to meet force with force- is to not hear them talking at all."

"So, we're in the fertilizer then?", Winters asked.

"To your necks.", Butler said.

"Even if they killed Wang?", Mumuni asked bleakly.

Butler's expression darkened, "Do you know that they did?"

"No, but we have our suspicions.", Mumuni replied.

Butler's expression showed no signs of lightening as he asked, "Is there more that I'm not hearing from you? If there is, you'd better spill it now or I'm making the transfer there permanent."

Winters, always the believer in karmic entropy, answered as directly as he could by the facts he had available.

"It may be related to Wang, and it may not, but during the combat sortie my flight hit some targets that were not identified in any of the operational briefings- and to boot they just didn't feel right. We also had our data recorder discs confiscated as soon as we were wheels down, and we haven't seen them since. Wang was very on edge about it last night, the last time any of us saw him alive. There are just a lot of odd things going on around here that we can't account for."

Butler's expression now changed to something akin to being coldly indifferent- though Winters knew him well enough to see through that mask that he was likely wearing to compel his subordinates into distasteful but necessary action.

"Here it is, you two.", Butler said firmly, "The whole ball of yarn is beginning to unravel around you down there. SOUTHCOM is screaming to have everything including the Polish cavalry rushed in to help stabilize the region, and the other COCOMs are scrambling to make it happen. There's going to be no getting you out of there in the near future, and even if we had jurisdiction to do so, there'd be no time or resources to deploy and support a CIS unit to investigate your allegations. In short, Colonels, for the foreseeable future, it's your bed- you'd better decide how much you want to crap in it."

"What about Wang?", Winters asked.

"Nothing to be done right now.", Butler said, "I promise, we'll follow up later as much as we can, but for now, I'd concentrate on the people you have who are still alive. Wang will still be dead later, I assure you. I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don't. Suck it up and keep your people moving forward. If I can get you moved to an RDF base, I'll do my best to make it happen- but assume that you're going to be right there for a while. In the meantime, I've got teleconference with Lieutenant General Hume and Major General Norris from China Lake to discuss our support capabilities. I'll contact you again at 1800, your time to let you know what direction things are going in. Until then, try to stay out of trouble. Butler out."

The screen darkened for a moment and then was replaced by a field of blue with the NORAMWEST seal at the center.

Winters looked to Mumuni, "You know, we really need to stop using this phone box- this circuit only seems to carry bad news."

"Play nice, Jack.", Mumuni said gravely.

"I always play nice.", Winters said with a fraction of the sincerity that Mumuni was looking for in his response.

Her next words were sharper, expressing explicitly that she was not speaking as Ganyet Mumuni, friend, but as Colonel Ganyet Mumuni, superior officer.

"I'm serious, Jack- the shots you're swapping with Mathias, they end now. I don't want your people or mine interacting with the ASC any more than is operationally necessary, and that includes the pissing contest that you've got going with that jerk. If we're stuck here, we'll go to briefings, fly missions, give our input if we're asked, and if we're talked to, answer yes sir and no sir. I want no more ripples in the water."

Winters gaped at Mumuni, not recognizing where the surrender was coming from in a woman who normally would stand toe to toe with anyone on any issue, and usually prevail.

"Ripples in the water? Ganyet, Wang is dead, is that a ripple in the bloody water?"

"Wang is dead, and that's a real shame.", Mumuni said bluntly, "So, what are you going to do- play Scotland Yard when you're not dropping bombs? And let's say you do find a smoking gun- what then? What are you going to do about it? Are you going to march into Braddock's office and tell him that you know some of his people are murderers before you roll in to the rack he's providing you to sleep? Is that the plan, Jack?"

Winters shook his head in disgust, "When did you lose your spine?"

Mumuni shot back, "When did you lose what was at the top of yours?"

"Fine- it's your call, Colonel."

Mumuni stood suddenly, an intimidating sight despite her diminutive size, "Goddamn right, it's my call, Lieutenant Colonel Winters! Don't forget it!"

Mumuni opened the door at the rear of the CT-1's cockpit to leave and found both squadron XOs standing on the other side, saucer-eyed like children hearing their parents fight for the first time.

The walk, practically a climb, down the crew ladder of the CT-1 was the second for Winters and Dalton and with a familiar, though more acute emotional heaviness associated with it. Neither Dalton nor Drake had needed to ask their respective commanding officers what the outcome of the com-link discussion with General Butler had been- the sum had been readily clear on the two officers' faces. Furthermore, both Mumuni and Winters had the expressions and the non-verbals that said to their XOs that it was best to allow them a few moments to depressurize before attempting any kind of meaningful communication.

The tense silence while descending the switchback series of ladders from the CT-1's flight deck made Dalton wish that the frenzied unloading activities that had made the first trip, several days before, so distracting were still ongoing. The unloading was long since completed though, and the cavernous cargo bay of the transport only served now to echo the sound of boots on aluminum steps as the pilots descended. Dalton at least had the good sense to hand forward his pack of cigarettes to Winters (per usual, Winters had none of his own) which the CO took in silence before handing the pack forward to Mumuni who similarly accepted it. It was good to see a gesture of peace offered and accepted from Dalton's point of view- though tempting as it was to pose the burning questions, he knew it was better to let the two speak of their own accord.

"So, Freddy-.", Winters said as the reached the cargo deck second to Mumuni, "How would you like an extended holiday here in sunny Brazil?"

Dalton received his pack of cigarettes, light two, from Mumuni whose facial expression only confirmed that Winters' question wasn't a feeble attempt at bad humor.

"Oh, you're shittin' me-!", Dalton spat.

Mumuni was grateful that someone had the abandon to speak what she was feeling, "You're his favorite turd- he wouldn't shit you."

Mumuni's favorite, signature response to that particular turn of phrase wasn't enough to offset the weight of Winters' message.

Drake asked, "How long are we here?"

Mumuni shook her head, "Can't say, don't know."

"Assume a while.", Winters said, "Something about Operation Back Step upsetting the natives or something. Raise your hand if you didn't see that one coming."

"But here?", Mumuni's XO, Drake asked, "I know you told Arnie about Wang-."

"He may be able to get us posted to an RDF base.", Mumuni offered unconvincingly, "But for the time being we've traded desert views for tropical vegetation, and Arnie made it clear that that was that."

"Yeah?", Drake replied, "Well, consider this my official protest to my superior that I feel that this posting is an unduly hazardous one for the RDF personnel under your command, Colonel."

"Noted.", Mumuni said, embracing for a moment the formality and then dispensing with it, "And it won't mean a damn thing if I pass it up the chain because stabilizing this area of The Control Zone is priority one, superseding all others. For what its worth though, General Butler agreed that a lot of things going on around here didn't seem on the level."

"And he advised us to-?", Dalton asked.

"Keep our heads low, do our jobs, and get the bloody hell out as quickly as we could.", Winters said, "Wang and the inquiries about him, if there are any, will have to wait."

Dalton lit a cigarette for himself, "Christ- they're gonna just bury that kid when they bury him."

"I want to tear some new ones too.", Winters admitted, "It's going to have to wait though."

"Listen to Jack.", Mumuni advised both executive officers, neither of whom appeared to be buying into the course of action being set for them, "For once he's being reasonable. We need to keep our people focused, and we need to do our jobs or we may be buying more wooden boxes to send home. I don't want that, and neither do you."

"Of course not.", Dalton agreed, "It's just that- aw shit! Think of the Devil and he shall appear-."

The meaning of Dalton's last statement was not lost for long on the other pilots.

Lt Col. Mathias reached the top of the CT-1's cargo loading ramp under the close supervision of Maj. Goodson, its pilot. Goodson had not been privileged to the fighter pilots' suspicions about all things related to Mathias, though the unusually high level of interest that the ASC had shown his flight of transports had been enough to warrant elevated concern in him of anyone in that uniform. The plastic crate Mathias carried probably did not do much to ease those concerns- though having had several discussions on the subject with Mathias, Winters suspected strongly what the crate contained.

"I've got your recorder discs.", Mathias said simply and without apology, as though returning a garden hose to its owner a day late, "No harm, no foul, eh?"

Dalton accepted the crate from Mathias hastily, but not rudely- eager as Faust may have been had the opportunity come to get back from Mephistopheles what he'd lost in their dealings.

"I guess you've heard then?", Mathias said, reading the tension in the pilots.

"A few follow-on sorties", Winters said, playing to be unperturbed and not succeeding, "I suspect the chaps will appreciate the trigger time."

"Better to mend some cracks in the dike than deal with a flood.", Mathias consoled, sounding equally concerned as Winters had unperturbed, "Anyways-. Got those back as soon as I could for you. Figured you'd need `em."

Winters allowed the obvious to slide that numerous requests for the discs had been made to deaf or indifferent ears- not the least of which by Wang.

Wang.

Winters felt his blood beginning to heat again, but found himself in better control than he could have managed hours before.

Dalton on the other hand was not afraid to probe the closing wound, "So we know what to tell the S-3 staff, how many of these did Wang get through?"

"What?", Mathias asked, caught off-guard by the question.

"Did Wang have a chance to review any of these?", Dalton asked more directly, "Our AAR is already well overdue- if we can give our S-3s any leg-up in getting their reports in order, we should. Did Wang review any of these at the JOC?"

Mathias shook his head, "Don't see how he could have. He was last in the JOC right after we returned from Back Step- the discs were collected on the flight line by our staff-. I think your people are just going to have to start from scratch, sorry."

Dalton adjusted the moderate weight of the crate in his arms, causing the cartridges to rattle against one another, "Yep, I'm sure you are."

"Down, Freddy.", Winters said, surprising himself- by God, Mumuni was actually right- for once he was being the voice of reason.

Mathias let the comment go.

"If you need anything-."

"You'll be the first to hear.", Mumuni assured him, sounding somewhat more sincere than Dalton may have had he given the response.

Mathias gazed around the empty cargo bay of the CT-1 and shook his head, "Well, at any rate- these birds'll be flying home soon. Looks like we're going to need the tarmac space for ships with teeth. That's the way it looks. Seems a shame to send `em home empty, eh Winters? A real waste."

Winters, not too hung over to clearly get the drift of what Mathias was implying, responded, "Well, if you'd like to make a formal transport request- I'm sure Goodson could point you in the direction of the correct channels."

"Naw, just talkin'.", Mathias said, "I guess once they're gone though, you'll be discovering all of the amenities of Salvador."

"How's that?", asked Mumuni.

"Phones for one.", Mathias laughed, "We do have secure lines you can use to call home. You come running over here every time you need to contact your chain. We're going to end up thinking that you don't trust us or something."

"Why run up your bill?", Winters asked, keenly aware that Mathias was sniffing them out. Whether Mumuni was conscious of it, Winters wasn't sure, but for himself he had no doubt.

"Good point.", Mathias allowed. He was backing off now, and Winters was ready to let him go.

"Like I said-."

"Anything we need, got it.", Mumuni said, completing the thought.

Mathias scuttled back down the ramp in his burly man's gait and disappeared out of the sight of the pilots inside of the cargo bay- though Maj. Goodson continued to watch him for some time from the foot of the ramp.

"Any question now?", Winters asked of Mathias in general.

"Oh, he's a rat- at least.", Drake said, "Jesus, do we really have to fly with that guy again?"

"Just watch your six.", Dalton advised, answering the question in a round-about way. He shook the box of disc cartridges, causing them to rattle, "And speaking of watching-."

"I'm right there with you, Freddy.", Winters agreed, "And I want you to see too, Ganyet-. Have a look at these targets of opportunity and tell me that I'm not the only one that is seeing something not quite kosher."

Mumuni looked back at the ladders they had just descended, following them with her gaze all the way back up to the transport's flight deck.

"Up there?"

Winters laughed, understanding what she meant and not relishing the thought of a second climb in one day, "No- I suppose not. We'll come up with a Plan B with fewer stairs"

"Forward thinking, Colonel Winters."

"Thank you, Colonel Mumuni."

RDF Intelligence Annex, RDF Headquarters,

Yellowstone City

CDR Weitzel knocked twice sharply on the IFD Division Chief's office door as she leaned in. As usual, Colonel Shioah was awash with preoccupation in the task on the computer screen before him and would not have known of Weitzel's presence had it not been for the rap of her knuckles.

"You wanted to see me, Ephraim?"

Shiloah motioned the senior analyst into his office and directed her with the same fluid motion toward a seat.

As Weitzel sat, her enthusiasm got the best of her and she bubbled over with the news that would have brought her to the CO's office independent of his summons.

"Ephraim, Big Ears intercepted a signal inbound identical to our outbound signal in encryption and frequency. Something is going on between someone in The Control Zone and someone off-world-."

Shiloah silenced the REF commander with a simple motion of his hand that put her into listening mode, "Anne, DARO wants its bird back."

Weitzel felt the small hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand up, and was surprised to not feel her jaw in her lap as it dropped, "-Want their bird back?! They can't have it!"

Shiloah's expression was shocked for a split-second, but softened and turned into the kind of laugh brought on by such a surprise. He was joined the following moment by Weitzel who felt a moment's chagrin for having made such a declaration.

"Well if you say so, Anne-.", Shiloah said, his laughs subsiding with a diminished rise and fall of his thin chest under his uniform shirt, "Give an old man a little credit and a moment to speak, why don't you?"

Weitzel found herself no longer laughing, but still feeling the shock of what had caused the outburst. Shiloah's mannerisms told her that he had some good news to offer, but it was not to be nearly as good as what she had anticipated to have had offered to her by the time she left the small office.

"Sorry."

Shiloah continued, "There's been a significant elevation in Zentraedi activity in The Control Zone, Anne-. DARO doesn't have the resources to support all of the air reconnaissance requests it's receiving. Our tasking is lower on the priority list than most because of immediacy issues. But-."

Weitzel leaned anxiously forward, "I was hoping there was a but."

"But I've bought you seventy-two hours."

"Ephraim, I could kiss you-."

Shiloah elaborated, "That seventy-two hours is concrete and non-negotiable, Anne, understand that. At seventy-two hours and one second, your UAV is on its way to its new tasking even if you come across God hand-writing himself the missing Commandments."

"I understand.", Weitzel said, "What about the Big Ears?"

Shiloah shrugged, "For now, electronic listening isn't in as high demand as live video. We get to keep that time as long as we have the staff to process the output."

"I'll staple Shire to his desk.", Weitzel offered.

"Not while I'm up for Supervisor of the Year, you don't.- We'll have the Big Ears, and if we should happen upon promising coordinates, we may be able to swindle some imagery out of the photo-reconnaissance satellite handlers- no promises though. And that's about it."

Weitzel took it all in, nodding slowly and continuously. Together, it all might be enough.

"Ephraim, I appreciate everything that you've done, of course, but you have to keep fighting for resources for this- it's important, I can feel it."

"I got that sense.", Shiloah said, then pointed out what Weitzel was clearly unaware of in her state, "You're about to fall off the edge of your chair."

Weitzel repositioned herself without a word on the subject, saying instead, "We have a two-way conversation going on, Ephraim. I can't give you the substance of what's being said yet, but I can prove almost conclusively that there's intentional communication."

Shiloah nodded, "And I believe you, Anne. The problem is that the people who make the decisions on who gets the resources available are being handed tangible threats that require monitoring. We just have a thought-provoking theory founded on some interesting facts."

Weitzel's nodding that had continued through Shiloah's remarks was now one of understanding, "I know, I know. Still, we have to hold on to this."

Shiloah paused thoughtfully, and then said, "Well, you have seventy-two hours to gather up what you can from the UAV, Anne. After that, I would suggest taking what you have in hand and make the best sense you can of it. Until The Control Zone cools down a little, we're not going to get much in the way of assistance from DARO or the rest of the operational divisions for that matter. If you can put together a good case though- we're more likely to get the help we need after the storm."

Weitzel could feel the invisible noose of time tightening already, "I just hope it's not after this storm, Ephraim."

Brasilia

From about three seconds after Lilith had answered her phone, Oakes and Gyle had gotten the sense that she was taking the call that was the hinge on which their whole purpose in Brasilia was hung.

That suspicion grew stronger as her posture and expression changed- her eyes darting about in thought as a voice that wasn't even a whisper to the ASC sniper team spoke to her over a secure, scrambled line. Her excitement became so intense that the two men found themselves feeling it as well- a rising tingle in the skin that caused the breathing and the heart to want to race. Like Lilith though, they retained control outwardly.

"I've got it.", Lilith said finally, "Thanks."

The ICA agent snapped the folding phone shut and returned it to her pocket. She remained silent as her face showed her to be working something out in her mind.

"Well?", Oakes asked.

Like a volunteer from the audience brought out of a trance by a sideshow hypnotist, Lilith seemed to snap back into the world occupied by her two companions.

"How would the two of you like to apply a little of that training you work at so hard?"

Gyle felt a grin creep across his face and did nothing to fight it.

"Where and when?"

"The where is going to be Plaza Internacional", Lilith replied, "The when- I don't know, but it can't be too long. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Yeshta, you bastard- you just can't help but rattle that saber of yours, can you?!"

"You sound sold, and that's good enough for me", Oakes said to Lilith who had dropped onto the couch in the small living room at the end opposite Gyle, "But how do we know that it's going to be Plaza Internacional?"

Lilith divulged some of the details of her conversation to the sniper team, explaining, "Supplies just arrived at four of the largest plazas in the city for speaking scaffolds to be buiLt Yeshta tipped his hat though- he must be feeling a little paranoid-. The supplies that arrived at Plaza Internacional included thick Plexiglas panes and framing. He's expecting someone to take a shot at him. I just don't think he's expecting the firepower you boys are going to bring to bear-."

"How thick of Plexiglas are we talking here?", Oakes asked, his tone deeply troubled.

Lilith glanced over at the two men and found her own level of concern rising. Both men were now as deep in thought as she had been a moment before.

"You guys aren't filling me with confidence like I thought you would. What's the problem? I saw that monster you shoot blow a manhole cover in half."

"Sure-.", Gyle laughed as though Lilith was overlooking the obvious, "And I can crack manhole covers in half from now until Kingdom come if that's what makes you happy- but hitting a guy behind dense Plexiglas is a different story. We don't know how thick it is, if it's a uniform density-. Let's not even talk about the shooting angle-."

"English please?", Lilith requested.

"Look", explained Oakes, "As far as a heavy, high velocity round is concerned, Plexiglas- plastic- is a fluid. If it's Plexiglas that's been manufactured to be bulletproof, it could be multi-density- which could make it really fluid fluid. That throws the ballistic characteristics of the round all off. Assuming the bullet penetrates the Plexiglas, it could come out on the other side at a forty-five degree angle from its point of entry. That's assuming a head-on shot, zero angle on target. If we're making an oblique shot to the face of the glass- hell, the round could just zing off into the universe. I'm glad that we've got a fix on where he'll be, but we still might not be able to take him out."

Lilith shook her head and began to quiver in her agitated state of disbelief, "No way, no FUCKING way!"

Oakes was cautious- Lilith would regain her composure in a moment, but he didn't want a further blow-up to draw the attention of neighbors to the apartment and in doing so to them.

"Sorry, we can do some pretty nifty shit, but we can't alter physics."

Lilith was on her feet now, pacing. Oakes could see her working the surge of energy off. She was flustered, but thinking. The situation was still under control.

"Okay, okay-. We just have an obstacle to overcome here-. One last little piece. One last little piece and we can get him. I just need to think it out. Think-."

ASC Salvador Base

"Lyle, if you can't get the video to work, will you at least crank up the AC?"

Lt Col. Dalton's request, though griping was not unwarranted. The "Glamour" VC-33 cargo plane was designed primarily for the transport of small to medium sized cargo loads over mid-range hauls- and not for the excessive comfort of its flight crew. The VTOL capable cargo aircraft was certainly never intended to be a den of comfort when sitting at rest on a tarmac at near equatorial latitudes. Combined with the number crammed into a confined space, the modest air conditioning system labored for little effect.

"It's up ta tha stops.", Lyle said, half explaining, half apologizing as he toiled at the computer work station in the small partitioned space just aft of the cockpit and forward of the cargo bay, "Think cool thoughts `n give `er a minute to work."

The plane captain moused through a series of drop-down and pop-up menus looking for the application he sought. The general purpose work station was connected via the VC-33's communication equipment to the RDF InfoLink system, and was aboard the cargo plane to serve (among other things) as an information resource when the Glamour was forward deployed in a support role as it was here at Salvador. Being support personnel, Lyle had of course qualified on the use of the system and its application- some time ago- but had made little use of the common work stations or the InfoLink network since. His business was the maintenance and support of Valkyries, and in that role he needed little informational support outside of what he carried between his ears. He could have recited- in principle if not by word- the documented procedures for anything covered in the maintenance manuals, and could have hand-sketched the diagrams as well.

Interfacing with InfoLink was a chore of recalling mostly unused knowledge, and in applications that were outside of Lyle's normal scope of work.

Lieutenant Stern though, S-3 and Major Wang's second-in-command for all practical purposes, was well accustomed to negotiating the GUI menu maze.

Sweating profusely in the cramped space he served with the commanding and executive officers of Vigilante and Knight Hawk Squadrons, as well as Winters' section from A Flight, the S-3 finally was about to snap with the NCO.

"Damnit, Sergeant- just let me get in there!"

Lyle's hands moved more frenziedly over the console's roller mouse as a man whose masculinity was being challenged by way of his ability to operate technology.

"Ah got `er.", Lyle said, with real promise in his voice that he was on the cusp of a breakthrough in his struggle with the work station.

The video viewer application opened on the left of the two flat-panel screens to the work station. Lyle bobbed his head slightly, like a male wild turkey on a strut to display his plumage.

"See-."

"Thank God.", muttered Mumuni's XO, Lt Col. Drake, "My navel popped out like a turkey timer in this oven."

Winters snorted, "And I thought you were just excited to be this close to me-."

"You wish."

Mumuni herded the proverbial cats around her back to the purpose for which they had all gathered in the VC-33.

"Lyle, let Stern drive-. I'm about to go from medium to medium-well myself."

Lyle pried himself out of the small, anchored seat and allowed the slimmer S-3 to settle in. If nothing else, it would give Stern something to occupy himself with. Mumuni didn't know the lieutenant by much more than his face, having seen him around the operations center at Edwards several times- but she could tell that the loss of Wang and his sudden succession to the role of ranking S-3 was weighing on him.

"Okay, let's watch some movies.", Stern said, holding an open-palmed hand out to Dalton who still kept possession of the box of video discs like it was The Ark of the Covenant, "Who's first?"

Dalton dug through the box and found the cartridge he was seeking, "Start at the top. Let's see some of Jack's handiwork."

"Fair enough.", agreed Stern. The S-3 accepted the cartridge, slid it into a drive slot in the work station and set the application to work.

The disc's event index menu came up immediately and Winters baffled over the volume of event markers that by name meant little to him. Knowing that Stern's familiarity with the indexing system was greater, he could still point him into the right direction though.

"Our targets of opportunity were the last weapons releases of the mission.", Winters said to Stern, "Go to the end on the gun camera footage and we'll work backwards."

"Got it.", Stern said, selecting the last index marker and playing it, "Showtime-."

The left screen instantly began to show the streak of 55mm tracer rounds at a steep angle of attack, racing toward a neat, grid-cluster of makeshift structures standing in an opening in the jungle. The puff and flash of detonating rounds cut a path of smoke and flying debris up a row of huts, collapsing them one after the other. The clip lasted for just over three seconds, and then the screen darkened and returned to the disc menu.

"Not Oscar material, but-.", Stern began.

"And not mine either.", Winters said, cutting the S-3 off.

"What?", asked Mumuni.

"That didn't come out of my gun camera.", Winters said, "Play it again, Stern. Vice, does this look familiar?"

The clip played a second time with Vincenz, and also Rechtberg and Delaney watching carefully the record of three seconds of destruction.

Silence followed.

"No-.", Vincenz said after a moment of careful thought, "No, that doesn't look familiar. And I was on your starboard wing for all of your runs, shooting alongside you. Where are the tracers from my gun?"

Rechtberg prodded Delaney with his elbow, "Ja and that camp seems larger, and- what are you thinking, Skinny?"

Delaney shook his head negatively, showing his agreement with his wingman that something wasn't right, "Yeah, Blitz's right- I don't think the camp was that large- and it didn't strike me as that well organized. Granted, Blitz and I were doing follow-on runs for you and Vice, Jack, but lining any three structures up in one run was hard. The shells in that clip walked through four like they'd been set up for exhibition shooting or something."

"Are you sure?", Stern asked, sounding deeply concerned, "I mean you had to be doing four or five hundred knots on these passes. Maybe things looked different with the boost of adrenaline?"

"Not that different.", Vice said without hesitation.

Winters tapped the work station with his swagger stick, "This beast was on the redundant recording detail, according to Lyle."

"That's right.", Lyle chimed in, affirming the claim he had made to the squadron leaders.

"Cue up the video from my kite and let's see if it was our bad memory, or-."

Mumuni groaned, "Please God, don't let it be or"

"One second-.", Stern said going into the work station's internal memory to search for the files that had been recorded during Operation Back Step.

"So", Delaney said cautiously, "What happens when we play the clip off of InfoLink and it doesn't match the one on your flight recorder disc, Jack?"

Winters shrugged, "I'll be buggered if I know-. I'm hoping that I'm wrong, personally. I really have never wanted to be wrong so much in my life."

"Here we are.", Stern said.

The right-side screen on the work station came to life with an event index identical to the screen on the left that was being fed by the recorder cartridge.

"I'm going to roll the same marker footage from both sources simultaneously.", Stern explained as he clicked the mouse button to execute.

The first split second of rolling footage from the two sources showed clearly that they were not the same. Details as fine as the quality of light in the footage to details as gross as the fact that the encampment on the left screen was not the same as the one on the right glared in the comparison.

Mumuni put her forehead into her hand and said with a dreadful heaviness, "Oh shit, it's or-."

Winters indignation was keener, and more focused in its direction, "Those fuckers-."

"How much do you wanna bet all of our recorder files have been forged?", Delaney asked rhetorically.

"And why?", Rechtberg added, honestly confused.

Winters reminded himself that none of the other three pilots from his section had been present for the conversations between Mumuni, Drake, Dalton and himself- and he didn't feel he had the strength to bring them up to speed at that moment. It was looking though as if the moment was not far off where he was going to have to do exactly that.

"Well, let's see what that bet is worth-.", Dalton said, beginning to rifle through the box of cartridges as he responded to "Skinny" Delaney's supposition.

Winters watched the screens of the work station as Stern played bits of each event index preceding the first he had shown side to side. The S-3 would allow the video to run only long enough to determine that they were not one and the same before moving on to the next.

Dalton was still rummaging through the crate looking for one of the other A Flight, 1st Section pilots' recorder cartridge when he stopped suddenly. Winters, still absorbed in the discrepancies between what he had actually done as recorded by the VC-33, and what he had supposedly done coming from his own flight recorder and was preparing to tell Stern to finish the systematic comparison of his own gun camera footabe before moving on to the recorder he thought Dalton was about to hand over.

Dalton did not present a new recorder cartridge for viewing, but rather spoke in a tone so clearly disturbed that it pried Winters' attention away from the screens.

"Jack- Mathias said that Wang didn't get a chance to view any of these, right?"

Winters blinked at his XO, whose gaze alternated from down inside the box to up at the CO, "That's what he said. Why?"

"-And that the recorders had come right from the JOC, right?", Dalton persisted.

Winters felt his nerves go on edge the way that they would only normally do when combat was at hand in the cockpit, "Yes-. Freddy, have it out- you're giving me the creeps."

Dalton reached into the crate and when his hand came out, it held a plastic ID badge with Wang's name and photograph on it. It was the temporary ID badge the ASC staff had issued to him- to all the RDF staff- upon arriving at Salvador with the explicit instructions that it should be with them at all times.

"Well then, we have one hell of an unlikely coincidence here.", Dalton said flatly.

What all had intended to be a quick use of the VC-33 for the purposes of viewing the recovered flight recorder cartridges out of the sight of the omnipresent ASC had turned into a detailed comparison of Knight Hawk Squadron's A Flight, 1st Section's recorders against the cargo plane's records. In each case, for Winters, Vincenz, Delaney, and Rechtberg- the video for the strikes on the primary targets as outlined in the operational briefings for Back Step were matches in every detail. For each pilot though, event index markers that corresponded to the "targets of opportunity" varied greatly from one source to the other. What appeared on the flight recorder cartridges was an admirable attempt to fill the index marker files with footage of appropriate length and of targets that were similar at a glance. Under comparison with what the VC-33 had recorded through InfoLink though-.

It had taken Mumuni and Drake all of two minutes as a cooperative effort to bring the uninitiated RDF servicemen up to speed on the theories of conspiracy that the commanding officers of the two Valkyrie squadrons had been refining all day. As enlightenment had grown, morale had shrunk noticeably. Operation Back Step's "targets of opportunity", Mathias's proposition to Winters, and finally Wang- all of the pieces seemed to fall in a line lacking only the tenuous if not critical links.

"If there's anything I hate more than having a lie fed to me, it's having a bad lie fed to me.", Capt. Rechtberg said in a moment of retrospection, "How could they not think we'd notice, eh?"

Lt Stern speculated, "Maybe they didn't know we had a redundant recording system in play? Maybe they figured if the tapes were out of our hands long enough, we'd forget the little details and it would all just get reported and filed as neatly as the pieces would fit."

"Maybe that was the reason we had such a big blow-out right after the mission.", Delaney suggested, "Kill some brain cells so that memory is a little hazy."

"And if they greased the right wheels", Winters added, speaking clearly of himself, "that would smooth out any of the remaining rough spots. But it didn't because Wang wouldn't let it go. He goes over to the JOC, gets a hold of our tapes somehow, and maybe even goes so far as to compare them against what was on record on our equipment there-. They find him out- or find out that he's found them out. You can imagine what happened next. All while the rest of us were happily pissed out of our minds."

"There's still the why question.", Dalton pointed out, "Why go through all the trouble? Why dupe pilots into an attack? Why forge recorder footage? Why murder a man? Why is the important question."

"It has to be narcotics, or something related to it.", Winters said, "It's the only thing that makes any sense. Braddock and at least some of his men have a little operation going that they're lining their pockets with, and they don't want to lose it."

Mumuni made an exasperated gesture, "Good theory, Jack- only you can't prove it."

"It's a great theory, thank you.", Winters said curtly, "One that Mathias tried to bring me into on the trafficking end. He said he needed things moved discretely, remember? What else would you make such a fuss over moving quietly? Arms? Not weapons. Hell, if anything the illegal weapons trade would be coming the other way, down here. No, they're getting fat off of drugs the same way that people have been doing for damn near a century around here."

Mumuni shot back, "Fine, but you still can't prove it-. And who would you be proving it to?"

"I don't know who I'd be proving it to.", Winters replied, "Myself. There, that's a good enough answer for me. And I can prove it. Whether I'm wrong or I'm right, the answer's with those encampments we shot up. Stern, we can get the positions off of the InfoLink logs from this crate, can't we?"

"Sure.", said Stern, "The ASC was thorough enough to change your recorders' navigation logs to throw the locations off by ten or fifteen kilometers, but working from the logs onboard here- I can tell you where each round you fired landed practically."

"Good.", Winters resolved, "I'm going then. Lyle, get Marilyn ready to fly-."

"Oh no you don't.", Mumuni countered- her voice was firm and dared defiance- "Imagine for a second that you got flight clearance between here and there, which you won't get from Braddock assuming what you're saying is true. Assume that there aren't five hundred SAM and AAA batteries between here and there to blow you out of the sky. Assume all of those things and that you actually get there to find out what you're saying is true. What then? Do you expect Braddock to just shrug and say, I give up, you caught me!-? God knows what he'd do? And we're certainly not going to find out. We've got all of the evidence we need to stir up a formal inquiry when we get back to Edwards. You are not charging off on a personal crusade on this, Jack- am I clear?"

Winters looked away, "Very clear."

"Look at me and say it.", Mumuni ordered.

Winters looked at his superior evenly and said calmly, "You are very clear, Colonel Mumuni, ma'am."

"Good.", Mumuni said, "And I don't think its necessary to spin the others up either. For now, we'll just keep contact with the ASC personnel at a minimum. Dusty, you're coming with me."

Mumuni eased her way out of the crowd of pilots with her executive officer in tow headed toward the cargo ramp at the rear of the aircraft.

"Where are you going?", Winters asked.

"To see that Goodson is ready to take his transports home.", Mumuni replied, "And I may take the opportunity to have one more chat with General Butler. Stay in sight though, Jack. Maybe if the ASC doesn't see us moving around in a herd they'll think we're letting it go- all of this, that is."

"Sounds reasonable.", Winters agreed.

"We'll catch you back at the BOQs.", Mumuni said.

Winters watched the two officers depart and gave them several additional seconds of grace before turning to Lyle to say, "Get Marilyn ready to fly, armed with a full load in the gun pod and whatever you can pull together on the hard points. I want to be wheels up in thirty minutes."

Lyle's expression of shock, had it been captured on film, could have accompanied the dictionary definition of surprise in its purity, as he stammered, "But you just said-."

"I said she was very clear.", Winters corrected, "I didn't say I was going to not do it."

"If Braddock doesn't have our asses shot down, then Mumuni will shoot us for this, you know.", Dalton advised.

"A lot of us floating around in those statements, Freddy.", Winters observed.

"Yeah, I'm going with you.", Dalton said, "Better get my bird ready to fly too, Lyle."

"Ours.", Maj. Vincenz said, speaking clearly for Rechtberg and Delaney who were nodding in agreement, "Neither of them are likely to shoot five of us."

"Why not get the whole squadron involved and have ourselves a little organized insurrection?", Winters suggested dryly, "Freddy, I want you to stay here-. I'm taking my section though- I can't very well say that I need answers and then deny them the same."

"Why do I have to stay though?", Dalton asked, sounding put out by being put out.

"If something happens to me, the chaps will need you, and Mumuni will too. Nothing's going to happen though-. The last thing that Braddock and Mathias want is to have an incident they can't sweep under the rug."

Dalton laughed, "I'll etch that in stone- your tombstone to be specific. And what about him?"

Winters looked to Stern, to whom Dalton was pointing and referring to, "Are you going to be a problem in this?"

Stern laughed the contented laugh of one who found joy, or at least amusement, in anarchy, "Are you kidding? If this helps prove what happened to the Major- shit, I'll help Sergeant DeVeo load missiles for you."

"Good lad.", Winters said, slapping Stern appreciatively on the back twice on his way out of the cargo bay, "Lyle, get a move on it, would you?"

The plane captain, still looking stunned, called after the lieutenant colonel, "So- is that tha whole squadron, or-?"

RDF Regional Training Center 32,

Falkirk, Scotland

"Recruit Trainee Johnson reporting, sir.", Andy said standing at attention for a second time in as many days in front of Senior Training Sergeant O'Shae's desk.

Again, the training sergeant wore the humanizing reading spectacles as he glanced alternately back and forth between the trainee and his file jacket.

"At ease.", O'Shae said, "Take a seat, lad."

Andy settled into the same seat as the day before, only he found the "at ease" order easier to comply with in this session.

"Good marks on PT and classroom instruction today-.", O'Shae said reviewing the notes in the jacket, "Didn't go into the drink I see-."

"No sir."

"That was an observation, lad- not a question."

"Yes sir."

O'Shae closed the rigid paper jacket in his hand with an intentional snap for effect before he removed his spectacles, laying them on the desk before him, and continuing, "You're being docked three graduation points and receiving this verbal reprimand as well for being out of uniform though."

"I-.", Andy began, the shock of the unexpected reprimand loosening his tongue for the split second it took for the single syllable to escape, but he was quick to choke back the avalanche of protest that could have followed.

O'Shae had caught the slip, naturally, and his expression grew more severe though not yet showing the signs of volatility that the recruit trainees had come to know so well over the past days.

"Is there a problem, Recruit Trainee Johnson?"

"No sir."

"Think Senior Training Sergeant O'Shae is being too harsh on you?"

"No sir."

O'Shae barked his short, percussive laugh as he thumped a balled fist on Andy's closed jacket, "If y're gonna lie, lad, at least sound convincing. What was the designated uniform this morning from first assembly through lunch?"

"Exercise gear, sir.", Andy replied, finding himself less "at ease" now.

"And were you in your exercise gear from first assembly through lunch?"

Andy had no desire to compound his troubles by denying what O'Shae obviously already knew, "No sir."

"Then you admit you were out of uniform?"

"Yes sir."

"Good, lad- now you're learning- O'Shae sees all at Falkirk.", the senior training sergeant reminded him, "Why were you out of uniform?"

Andy hesitated- but knowing he was cornered in an interrogation that O'Shae had likely been planning since the offense had occurred, there was nothing to do but go along for the bumpy ride, "Sir, I gave my exercise top to Recruit Trainee Dunn during classroom instruction because she was wet from a fall from The Tangle. She was cold, and I was concerned that she'd become ill."

"Joining the medical corps now, are we?"

"No sir."

"Don't you trust your training sergeants to see to the welfare of the recruit trainees under their charge?"

"I do, sir."

"But you took it upon yourself to give up gear issued to you, for your use, to Recruit Trainee Dunn?"

"Yes sir, that's correct.", said Andy knowing the feeling a bear got in the split-second of realization that came before the teeth of the steel trap set into its leg.

"Why's that?", O'Shae asked, "Because she was cold?"

"Yes sir."

"Miserable?"

"Yes sir."

"Have you, Recruit Trainee Johnson, ever considered the possibility that perhaps some of the training exercises here are designed to make you miserable, or at least miserable if you fail?"

"I had not at the time, sir."

"And did you consider that by giving Recruit Trainee Dunn your exercise top, you were undermining those training devices? That perhaps you may be hurting her further down the road because she did not receive that incentive to succeed or the ability to cope with discomfort?"

"I did not, sir."

"Can you agree that you actually have two violations against you? That you were out of uniform as well as actively undermining the training of a recruit trainee?"

"I do, sir.", Andy said, then found himself adding, "But not intentionally."

O'Shae rocked back in his chair, pressing his hands together thoughtfully. Andy had expected full-bore, verbal salvos to be raining in on him already, but to his surprise and relief, O'Shae was not in that mode.

"Intentions lad", O'Shae said, his words chosen carefully, "have meaning when you buy your ma the wrong birthday present, or when you burn the surprise dinner you were cooking for your girl on St. Valentine's Day.- Intentions mean nothing if your actions get someone hurt or killed, and that's the world you're entering into, lad. You didn't see the implications of breaking this one simple order. Consider what could have happened if the order had been something more significant. Do you see why you're being docked points?"

"I do, sir."

"Do you understand why you follow all orders?"

"I do, sir."

"Consider this your object lesson of the day.", O'Shae said, concluding the subject, "Dismissed."

"Yes sir."

Andy rose stiffly to leave, and as he was turning, O'Shae added in the same counseling tone-.

"One more thing, laddy-."

"Sir?"

"No shenanigans with that one, and you do understand what I mean, Striker. You're here to train, not court."

"Yes sir."

"Remember lad, O'Shae sees all at Falkirk."

ASC Salvador Base

The heaviness of the tropical heat landed squarely on A Flight, 1st Section of Knight Hawk Squadron as Winters led Vincenz, Rechtberg, and Delaney out of the flight prep building onto the tarmac where their Valkyrie fighters were receiving the last hurried details of preparation under Lyle's scrutiny.

Not lost on Winters in his concentration on just how he was going to realistically achieve the stunt he was leading his men on toward, was that in addition to puzzled RDF personnel standing about watching the arming of 1st Section, there were more than a handful of ASC uniforms at the outskirts of the tarmac and loitering within the shade of the other hangars' open doors. To Winters, the walk toward his fighter felt the same way that the dash to "safe base" had felt in games of tag as a small boy, with the all-over tingle and the prickling at the spine.

"Oh shit.", Vincenz said to no one in particular in a low voice, and then directed at Winters added, "Bandits, three o'clock level."

Winters glanced sideways, making every effort to not be noticeable in his looking. To his right, no more than twenty meters off and closing on he and 1st Section intently, were Mathias and two ASC MPs.

"To your kites.", Winters said to the other three pilots, quietly enough to be heard by them but not Mathias, "Wait on me to take off, and keep it under five hundred feet until we're away from the base-. Get to your planes, don't stop, let me deal with Mathias."

"Winters!", Mathias called as he got close enough to know that he could not be ignored, "What the hell are you doing?"

Vincenz, Rechtberg, and Delaney split off for their own fighters in an evenly paced scatter that Mathias and the MPs could not contain as Winters replied, "Walking."

"Walking where?", Mathias asked, "To your plane, maybe? Your plane carrying unauthorized munitions, maybe? That plane?"

Mathias was close enough for Winters to smell the vile aftershave he wore as he climbed Marilyn's retractable ladder to the cockpit.

"RDF fighters, RDF munitions-.", Winters said settling into the cockpit. He began to fasten his harnesses as he added, "I didn't realize that I needed your permission."

"Joint operational procedure-.", Mathias began, putting his hand on the ladder's shoulder-level rung to follow Winters to the cockpit.

Winters cut him short in statement and action by releasing the ladder lock, retracting it back into the fuselage and out of Mathias's grip.

"Be a chap and get me a copy of that instruction- I'm not familiar with it."

The engines of the three other Valkyries began to whine to life, and Mathias's expression went from a mixture of concern and annoyance to anger.

"Winters!- You'd better-!", Mathias began to bark, then realizing his words were not going to have an effect, drew his pistol- prompting the MPs to do the same- "Stop him!"

Winters tapped the engine start icon on the central MFD and brought the canopy down as the engines began to whir. Three pistols were pointed at him as the canopy clicked into place, at which point Winters knew he was safe from anything short of a cannon round. Mathias shook, his face reddened, and his hateful glare seemed to threaten to burn through Winters as he retreated from the rising suction of Marilyn's port engine intake.

The Valkyrie pilot couldn't resist but give a small, taunting wave as he flipped the Veritech's configuration control to Guardian mode. A downward redirection of thrust lifted the fighter on an invisible cushion sufficiently to allow the thrusters to bend forward at the knee joint and drop in their alternate function as legs. By the time the thrust vectoring nozzles touched the tarmac, spread now as feet, the Valkyrie's technological magic trick was complete and the fighter had become a fighter/robot hybrid with its arms and legs now swung out and serviceable.

Heat from the four Valkyries' engines powering up blasted Mathias and the MPs in waves as they holstered their weapons and retreated to a comfortable distance. Moments later, with the shriek and thunder of engines, the four hybrids rose into the air and vanished in single file over the hangars- headed north.

"What now, sir?", asked one of the MPs as he thumbed specks of dust out of the corner of his eyes.

"Find Colonel Mumuni and inform her that three of her pilots have gone UA with armed fighters. I'll inform General Braddock."

"Yes sir.", complied the MP, taking his subordinate with him as he headed in the direction of the base's bachelor officers quarters- the logical place to initiate the search.

Mathias found himself jogging in the direction of the helicopter hangars. He would inform General Braddock of Winters' unauthorized flight from the base- not that Braddock did not likely already know. The order and calm of the JOC had probably already gone out the window in trying to determine the nature of the unscheduled aircraft that were surely now being tracked on radar.

Mathias would give the base CO and the JOC all of the details from the hangar as a Lakota was prepped for pursuit, and authorization given to use it. The Valkyries had been heading north, and Mathias had a strong suspicion of where they were going. Braddock would give him permission to pursue- that much was certain.

What was uncertain was what he would have to do once he reached their common destination.

The Piranha River, The Amazon River Basin

Commerce was as much a part of human existence as eating, sleeping, or reproduction. So long as a human had a need that they could not fulfill themselves, it would continue to exist despite the natural forces that seemed to be put in place to impede it. And where there was commerce, there was a need for transport and money to be made at it.

Transport had been Anton Cuyan's means of income before the Zentraedi Holocaust, as it had been for his father. Navigating the snaking rivers of the impenetrable jungle's interior (most called "Piranha", at least locally) with small boat or makeshift shallow-draught barge the ferrying of goods to and from the mighty Amazon, some legal and some not, had always provided well for Cuyan. During The Dark Times, when the impossible had occurred and the winter for the first time saw the freezing of the jungle's interior rivers- Cuyan had continued to operate, using the same knowledge of the rivers and an improvised workforce of human pack mules. Then, when the long night faded and once again the jungle returned to its former self, Cuyan was still there doing what he had always done.

Passengers and customers came in more diverse skin tones these days, and the currency used in payment was not always currency, but the trade of a ferryman was the same. Best of all, with a small operation like his, Cuyan only the costs of maintaining his boat and maintaining limited partnerships when necessary with individuals like Hernando.

Cuyan's boat, Rita 4 (for lack of a better name and with Cuyan incapable of recalling exactly who the "Rita" that Rita "1" had been named for) was a lesson in minimalism and as such of little expense to maintain. Little more than wood planking lashed with wire to a steel frame welded to twin-pontoon hulls of 55-gallon steel drums, Rita 4's helm was a hand-fashioned rudder of an aluminum pole tiller with a wooden blade screwed into it. In the past month, she had gone through three engines- a gasoline burning car engine, a diesel from a pick-up truck, and finally the current power plant- a diesel tractor engine. The greatest difficulty for each had been altering the mounts that held the engine at deck level in front of the tiller, and the forming of a connection between the engine and the single propeller drive shaft. Periodically these headaches of upkeep and replacement occurred, but it was to be expected in a new world where non-standard parts and replacements were the standard.

The same could be said for "partners" like Hernando. Only Cuyan had found that the "failures" experienced with partners were somewhat more complex than the mechanical ones his flotilla of Ritas had suffered over the years. An engine for a boat had two modes- it either worked or it did not. Deck planking would either bear up under the weight of a load, or it would not. Drums comprising the hulls would hold out the water and float, or they would leak and set the barge to listing.

Partners could fail for any number of reasons and with varying degrees of consequence. There were the most common failures that Cuyan had experienced both before and after the introduction of the Zentraedi into the world mix- the partner who worked only enough to fund and bridge him between drinking or drug binges. Those partnerships were severed easily, Cuyan found, by simply pushing off into the river early in the morning following a binge night.

Then there were the partnerships that failed because of treachery. Cuyan had, over the years, also happened across the worst kind of river piracy in the form of those villains who could put on a good front, work reliably in the few tasks required in the ferryman's trade, smile at you- and contemplate nothing but the time to best cut your throat for the gain of a small barge-load of goods.

Cuyan had been forced to sever some of those partnerships as well- mostly by a .357 slug to the belly, or a knife inserted into the vital organ du jour.

It was that kind of ugly world though in the jungle, and man sometimes had to use the claws of steel he had crafted for himself to survive.

The partnership with Hernando was something different, Cuyan had come to realize. The stubby, raggedy man who looked every bit of a well-worn forty years was one of those souls who one encountered more and more frequently in the post-Holocaust years. He had survived the physical hardships, the starvation, the psychological horrors- but the light had gone out in him. They functioned physically as people much as the newest salvaged engine of the Rita 4 did- their lungs drew air for oxygen and returned carbon dioxide, their hearts pumped blood, they took in food for energy to do the tasks that filled their waking hours- but in reality, they were for all intents and purposes passing time and taking up space. Nothing was done for joy or satisfaction; nothing was avoided for dislike or aversion. They simply ambled through what passed as their lives, dulled to all around them.

Cuyan had little fear that the double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun Hernando always had at hand (and had used before in defense of Rita 4) would be used against him. He would know, he was sure, that when this partnership was over it would because Hernando simply step off the barge at a river port of call and just not return. Sadly, it would amount in sum to little more than nothing returning into nothing.

Cuyan kept partners for protection and labor. They came and went. Companionship came from the only source that had remained constant and reliable to man. Caesar, his Boxer, Pit Bull mixed mutt, had enjoyed a spot to the right of the tiller through two Ritas, and eight partners- having traveled thousands of river miles with Cuyan to the pop-pop-pop of the barges' various, improvised engines. He seemed to know the river as well as his owner, and Cuyan would not have hesitated to hand over the helm- except Caesar had no thumbs to handle a tiller.

The Piranha, as almost all the tributaries to the Amazon did within the jungle, switched back and forth in its lazy course and flow to the world's mightiest river. Coming upon one such sweeping bend as Rita 4 popped and wheezed upstream, Cuyan walked the rudder hard over to starboard to make the turn. Sluggishly at first, then at a constant rate, the stern swung to and the river- barely more than a glorified creek- opened straight more or less for another forty meters.

A sharp twinge of concern- not panic, but well-founded concern- knotted tightly in Cuyan's gut as he spotted some ten meters ahead a tree downed across most of the breadth of the river.

It was a jungle, and trees fell all the time-. But as often as Cuyan had seen such an event occur naturally, it was four fold as likely that the tree had been felled intentionally. Cuyan knew also that a tree felled intentionally across the path of a river barge could usually mean but one thing.

The master of Rita 4 drew the .357 revolver from its holster at his hip. Loaded with soft lead, magnum slugs into the rounded points of which Cuyan had cut deep crosses to maximize the tissue damage done by the bullet's mushrooming in flesh- the ferryman cocked the pistol and searched the banks for signs of ambush. Hernando had similarly thumbed back the hammers on his shotgun, readying it to sweep the bush if needed of those who had laid the snare.

Cuyan throttled back the engine to a near idle, allowing Rita 4 to drift into the slight current under her own momentum. Hernando walked the deck, fore to aft, stooping low as he peered off to port into every shadow of the brush that overhung the bank of the river. From the tiller, Cuyan did the same to starboard- seeing nothing. It was possible, he supposed, that if the tree that the barge now bumped against had indeed been brought down to entangle river traffic, then those responsible- if they were watching- were considering whether the taking of Rita 4 and her empty deck was worth the risk of being on the receiving end of the shotgun and heavy revolver. Cuyan had off-loaded what little he had been hired to ferry upstream at sandbank near an outpost some kilometers before. His trip further upriver was to seek out the generally more numerous and lucrative downstream loads. River pirates were many things, but sloppy in their calculations of profit versus peril was not one of them. Being of little value could save your life on the rivers of the Amazon.

Still, something was there. Cuyan could not see it, but he could sense it. Caesar could definitely sense it, as the dog had gotten up from its bed of an old carpet scrap, to bear its teeth in growls of increasing viciousness.

Cuyan's first inclination had been to have Hernando cut the tree, mid-trunk, with a hand saw to clear a path and pass on. River pirates would have struck already if they were going to strike. As Caesar threatened the unseen threat though, as protective dogs did, Cuyan was considering that it could be better to reverse his course on the river and take the loss of profit on his hip. If this was the snare of river pirates, he'd have to negotiate it again coming down the river- and at that point he might be carrying something of interest to them. And if this was something else-.

"Hernando", Cuyan said, deciding as he spoke, "Get the pole and walk her bow around to port."

Stiffly, and robotic in both motion and compliance, Hernando lay his shotgun carefully down on the deck and in the same stoop reached for a simple wooden pole of three meters length that was useful in navigating the tighter turns of the narrow rivers.

Hernando's fingers had scarcely touched the pole when a bolt of blue energy nearly severed his head from his body at the neck, coming from above like Zeus's fury.

Cuyan's pistol arm elevated in the same snapping motion as his head to face the canopy arching over the span of the river. He had not yet seen the shooter when he felt the last sensation of his life, a sharp burning between the shoulder blades that melted and spread to a fluid iciness through his body.

Action Commander Kevtok watched the second micronian's lifeless body tumble headlong into the brown water of the river over the sights of his particle beam rifle as Lt Hyra, to his right, killed the four-legged animal on the boat's deck with a single shot through the body.

Lt Moyrt, who had taken the first shot from the sturdy branches of a tree on the river's left bank, was already scaling his way down as the other Serhot-Ran warriors rose from their concealed positions.

Kevtok gave the norghil warrior, Diharon, an incredulous look as he studied more carefully the craft that they had taken as the fruits of their ambush. The officer had seen battle debris jettisoned from airlocks that looked more capable of providing transport, and with a greater assurance of safety.

"That will get us to Brasilia?"

Diharon seemed panicked for a moment at the prospect of arousing the anger of a Te'Dak Tohl.

"Yes, Lord. I have traveled this river many times with salvage and transport parties. We can use this craft to reach a small population center where we can barter for ground transport to Brasilia. There is an encampment where we're likely to have success only a half day's journey from here."

Moyrt, with the assistance of the other male warriors who had waded into the river to join him, was in the process of turning the craft to point back down the river in the direction from which it had come. Its drive system sputtered awkwardly and a fine haze of blue-grey smoke was forming about it. It floated though, and did seem capable of carrying the small band, Kevtok speculated. As improvisation went, it was the best option Kevtok knew he was likely to find..

"What do we have to barter for ground transport?", Kevtok asked. While for purposes of immediacy, the notion of simply finding suitable land transport and taking it was appealing, but Kevtok's sense of prudence governed against it. For the moment, anonymity and the ability to appear to the micronians as just another norghil was the mode of operation that would best serve the mission. Distasteful as he found it, Kevtok was aware that he would have to rely on Diharon to dictate how best this was to be done.

Kevtok was already feeling the pressure of time slipping away, having only been on this world for a few days. His original imperative to make contact with the marooned norghil to gather intelligence for the 7th Grand Army's attack to seize Zor's Battle Fortress had been a task of great magnitude itself. The finding of The Invid Flower of Life on this world, the reporting of it to General Krymina, and her response had increased the difficulties and complexities of Kevtok's task immeasurably.

He would no longer simply be relaying critical, foundational intelligence to his chain of command, but was tasked with organizing a base of support for when the 7th Grand Army arrived. Had he had the option, Kevtok had thought for a moment that he would have declined the assignment to return to the relative simplicity of tactical operations. When that fleeting moment of reluctance had passed, and he came again to the warrior's sense that assignments were not matters subject to choice- he'd begun the effort, if only inwardly at the moment, of devising a plan of just how to accomplish this.

The norghil action commander of whom Diharon had spoken, Yeshta, was in functional command of a force of some size. Kevtok estimated that this was as good of a place to start as any. What he would do next, he was not as sure of.

He had a first step though, and as long as his warriors saw he had confidence and a plan, they would follow unquestioningly. A piece at a time, Kevtok knew, was so often how great things were achieved.

Airborne combat was an impersonal thing.

As the generalized description used and re-used to the point of cliché said, it was hours stacked upon hours of tedium and boredom punctuated with moments of abject terror. To be sure, there was terror like in all combat- as there was the odd exhilaration that came with either having Death in your pocket or he having you in his. There were the rushes, the following, almost depressive let-downs, and all of the forms of fatigue that human flesh was heir to- but it was an impersonal thing.

A target was something that you saw through the HUD, through a gun sight, or on the radar screen. A pilot knew the consequences of pulling the trigger for weapons release, but like battling ships at sea or in space- the destruction and death lacked the personal qualities that were so real to the infantry.

There were clear glimpses of living beings made dead by your actions, their bodies broken and torn. There no zing, pop, or crack of the Angel of Death fluttering in and filling the air about you- nor the screams of those it had found to claim or to slowly work on. Other than your own sweat, there was no smell that compared to smoke, the charred flesh, the spilled blood, and the beginnings of rot that saturated a battlefield. –

Until you landed on it.

Lieutenant Colonel Nigel Patrick Winters had landed on it, along with A Flight, 1st Section of the 623rd Knight Hawk Squadron- his section. The opening in the dense jungle that had once been an encampment now felt very much like an open and festering sore. The sights of battle had been blunted somewhat by the passage of time, brief as the thirty-four hours or so had been- mostly burned out heaps of rubbish, no longer even smoldering, that had been shacks at daylight the morning before. There was no din of battle with its deep boom and sharp reports- only the sound of the jungle that would soon begin to overtake and close the jungle's wound again. But there was the smell, the choking stench that would not, as the Lady had once said, be washed away by all of Neptune's multitudes.

Marilyn stood, again in the plane/robot hybrid Guardian configuration, a dozen meters off, nose dipped at the ground, bowed like a guilty thing called to answer for its actions. Vincenz, Rechtberg, and Delaney had landed their Valkyries in the same station that they had flown- and now wandered the area, witnessing the residual evidence of a crime.

Winters had not strayed far from his Valkyrie to see all that he needed to see, and had resigned himself to sitting on the ground with his knees drawn up into his chest by the decaying pile and spray of human gore that stewed in putrescence under a thick cloud of glutted black flies.

Winters had no sense of just how long he had been there when his ears had detected the distant thumping of helicopter rotor blades approaching. Perhaps it was his displayed lack of concern, or perhaps that they were feeling the same overpowering indifference that caused it that none of the other pilots had suggested or made an attempt to man their aircraft even as the single Lakota slick with ASC markings swept over the ruin before landing somewhere a short distance north.

Winters had known without tangible cause for knowing that Mathias was aboard the helicopter that had over flown him, so after several minutes it was not a surprise to him to hear the ASC pilot's voice. If there was any surprise, it was that Mathias had not opened the conversation with a pistol shot- which in truth, Winters admitted to himself he may have welcomed.

"Tell me something, Winters-.", Mathias said. He was alone, armed, but alone. Butchering A Flight, 1st Section was clearly not foremost on his mind. Butchery in the other direction skirted the outsides of Winters' though.

"You ever seen The Planet of the Apes? The good one, I mean-. The one written by the guy that did all them old Twilight Zone shows?"

"Probably.", Winters said hollowly, "Is this a prelude to flinging shit at me?"

"Sort of.", Mathias said, approaching Winters only to stop and stand in the corner of the sitting colonel's vision, "There's this great scene I love at the end when Chuck Heston's got the head monkey tied up, and he's about to make his escape to go and find out the truth of why the monkeys hate the humans so much-. And this monkey says- Don't search for it- You may not like what you find. Great advice. A little late for you, maybe, but still great advice."

"Profound. Really profound.", Winters said, then looking over at Mathias, asked, "This is all about drugs, isn't it?"

Mathias's face brightened with the amusement of one witnessing another's mistaking of a clear and obvious truth.

He gave the barking, deep-chested laugh that Winters hated more each time he heard it and replied, "Drugs? Fuck no! This is about war!"

Winters was on his feet so quickly that the blood rushed out of his head and he felt faint as he railed, "This isn't war, this is murder- you son-of-a-bitch! And you had me do it for you!"

Mathias shook his head, "I wish you'd just ask me- because you're clearly not seeing the big picture, and I'm just dying to show it to you- damn, self-righteous, limey prick! Yeah, I think you got your hands around the drug part- congrats on that, Einstein."

"What for, other than to line your own pockets?", Winters demanded, feeling his fists clenching and unclenching by themselves in the absence of his swagger stick to grasp.

"Besides a small gratuity to me and others", Mathias explained, unashamed, "it goes toward everything you've seen for the past three fucking days! Where do you think the money for the planes, the bombs, the fuel, the food, and the toilet paper comes from? What? From the scraps the UE Armed Services Appropriation Committee tosses the Southern Cross? Get real! The REF gets money to build fancy ships, and the RDF gets money to buy equipment and build bases to protect the cities in councilmen's jurisdictions- while we're down here in the shit, taking the problem by the horns. How do you figure we should get the funding for that?- bake sales?"

"So you deal in filth and murder just to keep some notion of being in the fight? Have a look around-. You're killing the people you say you're fighting for. You're the one who needs to get real.", Winters said, his voice losing its edge of anger to a colder tone.

"People are gonna die.", Mathias said, shrugging off the issue, "That's the sad fact that you RDF types don't want to admit. People are gonna die, no matter how neat and clean you like to pretend that you do things. Fewer people will die down here when the shit finally hits the fan if there's a strong human force to defend against the open sewer of dittos that's ready to spill out all over The Control Zone. That's us- which brings us back to the question of how do you pay for that dirty little buffer between the nasty Zentraedi and the blossoming flower of humanity?"

"You're out of your bloody mind, do you know that, Mathias?", Winters asked, now aware that the rest of his section had gathered nearby to witness the exchange and intervene as needed.

The two men walked a small, tight circle- facing off like Old West pistoliers vying for position and awaiting a twitch from the other to crack the tension and set the battle into full blaze.

"I'm out of my mind?", Mathias balked, "That's a visionary statement for a man wearing blinders! So, what-? It's better to have a continent swept away under a blue wave so we don't taint ourselves with a demon that's always been there and always will? That makes sense- die, but die clean. Hell, at least this way the demon works for us."

"Great-.", Winters laughed, "Remember that defense for your trial, and we'll see how it plays."

Mathias was dumbstruck for a moment, halting the slow circle, "Trial? You think there's going to be a trial? You pretend like you're the first person to connect the dots!- Everyone knows, Winters!- You're just late to the game. The RDF knows it-! The UE knows that food and medicine that it sends down here- some of it ends up in the bellies of the people who grow the shit. They know that some of it ends up in the bellies of the Zentraedi we use to keep them under thumb, and who move it in the Control Zone. The UE knows it, and they keep sending it with no investigations, no inquiries, no questions asked. The RDF knows it- and they keep flying the supplies in- just like you did. No questions asked- and do you know why? Because we shoulder the burden of doing the dirty work, of being the bad guys, and of keeping a lid on the real problem on the front lines while you build and polish your air wings and fleet. Now that's a silent nod of consent if I ever saw one."

"You're full of shit.", Winters shot back, "Should one ray of light hit this, and your tidy little sense of the world will scatter like cockroaches."

"Go ahead then.", Mathias said invitingly with a shrug, "Go right ahead. You'll see it all swept under the rug so fast, it'll tear your eyebrows off. The system is ugly- but it works. It won't work forever- but it works for now. Stand in front of a room of generals and explain how containing a half billion hostile aliens isn't worth tarnishing your soul. File the report- I'll give you the pen and paper to write it out. If I have so much to worry about, why didn't we blow you off the face of the Earth when we flew over?"

Winters felt cornered by the point and couldn't help but begin to see the cracks in the notion he held that there was a great secret being defended. It wasn't the secret being defended – it was the machine.

"And how does Wang figure into that?", Winters asked, "What did he see that I haven't that got him killed? What did he find out that scared you enough that he had to be murdered?"

"Nothing-.", Mathias said, "But we needed an insurance policy. Just because you know the truth of the whole thing, doesn't mean we want you screaming it from the hilltops."

"Killing Wang to keep me quiet?", Winters scoffed, "That makes sense."

"Who killed Wang?", Mathias asked, "That's a question you ought to ask yourself, and then ask- who can prove it? Call it the danger of using an automatic all these years- but that fucking hand cannon of yours kicks like a son-of-a-bitch! And you'd be surprised how often the slugs turn up when you least expect them. Consider it."

Winters stopped dead in his tracks as Mathias casually withdrew in the direction of the area the Lakota had landed in. He passed the other pilots of 1st Section without so much as a word or a glance, but said back to Winters over his shoulder.-

"You can find your way back to base, I'm sure- and I'd do it soon. You can never tell whose running around the jungle these days, or what they'll do. It's gonna be a mess for a while around here you know. A real mess."

Mathias heard Winters unsnap the strap to his holster and draw the .44 revolver it held. He was unconcerned apparently though, as he didn't even bother to look back as he parted with a borrowed warning.-

"Don't seek it, Winters. You might not like what you find."

Winters thumbed the cylinder release on his pistol, and spilled the contents of the chambers into his left palm.

Five heavy .44 caliber slugs, and a single spent casing.

104