Haze wiped at the river of sweat that was running into his eyes with one arm, and then tried to refocus his vision more finely on the jungle terrain around him. He scanned the area before him over the top of the open sights of his pulse rifle, looking for the slightest sign or hint of the enemy, but saw nothing but the never-ending bluish-green foliage surrounding the barely perceptible trail before him.
"Anything?" Satuur asked in a tone hushed to just above an audible whisper. The older private was squatted down just a few drenc behind Haze, guarding his back as the pair walked the point position for the rest of their unit.
Haze didn't bother verbally replying, and only slightly shook his head in answer. He endeavored to probe deeper into the bush with his eyes and tried to make it reveal its secrets to him by sheer willpower alone, looking for any possible ambush sites he might have been missing.
"Where the frell is that scout? We haven't seen him since we left our last camp five arns ago" Satuur hissed next in a slightly louder voice. "Our eemas are exposed way the hezmana out here."
Haze broke off his surveillance of the surrounding countryside to toss a quick irritated glare at the other man. He mouthed, "shut up" at the other. The Corporal didn't need the older man to remind him they were out more than a quarter of a metra away from the main body of the unit, more than a quarter of a metra away from relative safety and help of their comrades. The only other friendly supposedly somewhere out there with them was Tessen Korr, and like Satuur had just complained, the unusual mercenary scout had not been seen since the patrol started.
The younger Corporal was however fairly certain that if Satuur didn't keep quiet, that his constant griping was going to give them, and their current vulnerability, away to the enemy.
Satuur shot him back a sour look in repayment for the reproachful glare, but he remained silent for the moment in any case.
Haze brought his attention back to the pathway in front of them, and began to slowly creep forward again. He felt more than heard the older Private move along behind him. Satuur might be a royal pain in the eema, but the man could move through the bush just as silently as any of the best troopers.
The younger Corporal and his partner traveled another tenth of a metra down the trail they were patrolling without incident. Haze paused for a few microts to scan a new area, and when he thought it was safe, he took several small steps forward in a combat crouch again.
As usual, Satuur moved up to his former place and took up a guard position, only this time there was a slight rattling of leaves that didn't fit in with either man's movement, at nearly the same instant Satuur suddenly grunted more loudly than was safe or wise to do on purpose, given their current whereabouts in enemy territory. Haze heard the underlying sound of something hard striking flesh under it all.
"Sappers!" Haze half-thought and half-muttered out loud as his training made him reacted. He spun back the way he had come, back toward his teammate and only lifeline, just in time to see Satuur hit the ground hard.
Just to the side of the fallen man, Haze could now make out a heavily camouflaged form bringing a equally well-camouflaged weapon up to bear down on him. The barrel of the rifle looking swollen and fat with a pulse suppressor that was designed to hush the weapon's discharge. In the masked enemy's hands, it was strange to him at the moment how the relatively small bore of the pulse rifle's suppression system still looked as large as a frag cannon while it was pointed at him.
Small arm or cannon… he was still going to be just as dead in a microt either way.
His own rifle was automatically tracking toward the threat, but it still had a long way to travel as he brought it around his body to face what was behind him.
The young soldier already knew without a doubt that he was going to be too late. There was no way he could win this race.
He doubly cursed himself as he caught additional movement out of the corner of his eyes and heard more bushes shaking as another form stepped out of the foliage to the side and just in front of him.
A second sapper chose just that moment to leave his or her concealment as Haze was swinging his own weapon around, and was moving in to outflank him!
"Frell!" he snarled and began to bear down on his weapon's trigger anyway. Maybe he might be able to take the sapper who had taken out Satuur with him, before either of the soldiers managed to kill him.
At the very least, his unsuppressed weapon's fire would alert the rest of the unit behind him that an ambush awaited them somewhere ahead on the trail.
Something made an angry buzz as it passed close to his ear, but he couldn't afford to pay much attention to something that was probably only an insect… considering he was going to be too busy dying in the next few microts.
He vaguely remembered hearing a wet thunk from somewhere behind him, just as the eyes of sapper standing over Satuur abruptly widened in what seemed to be surprise. Then he suddenly changed the direction he was pointing his rifle in, whipping it away from Haze and off to his right, the muzzle climbing high toward the branches of the trees around them.
Something sailed out of the jungle around them, and it took Haze a few stunned microts to realize that it was the scout. Korr was swooping down at Satuur's attacker like some camouflaged bird-of-prey. The scout's forward leg was extended and locked, his booted foot plowing into the man's throat in a perfect blade kick. The scout landed on top of the enemy soldier while his remain foot slammed into the sapper's chest an instant behind the leading one. Korr rode the trooper to the ground.
The man's silenced weapon flew from his hands as he hit the forest floor. Korr kept one foot planted at his throat as he kneeled on the soldier's chest. He then reached up and grapping the man by his chin forced his head upward at an unnatural angle.
The ambusher's neck cracked with a sickening sound, and the sapper stopped struggling as if a switch had been thrown to turn the man off.
All this seemed to happen in the blink of an eye to Haze. His soldier's instincts recovered an instant later and he spun around to see to the ambusher he knew was still behind him.
Only to find the second enemy soldier lying on the ground, his boots kicking out their last dance of life as he finished dying.
Haze looked closer, to find a huge bush knife protruding from the dead man's throat.
Then he remembered the odd buzzing he'd heard just before the scout jumped the first man.
Haze turned back to ask Korr how he managed to be there in time to catch the sappers. Instead the scout signed him to remain silent with a forefinger to his lips. The green, black, and brown war-paint disguising the mercenary's face making him look like some forest creature from hezmana.
Haze was trained well enough not to ask the mercenary why he wanted total silence. If there were sappers, the scout probably found something worse waiting for them up the trail.
Tessen Korr briefly checked Satuur, and indicated by hand signals that the Private was still alive and only unconscious for the moment.
Korr then rose up from the prone man, and walked around Haze. The Corporal made a curious note that the scout had the odd sniper rifle of his slung upside down across his back as he passed him. Most experienced soldiers, or any soldier that planned on living passed his first patrol, knew better than to carry their main weapon in such a way that it was not quickly accessible while in the enemy's backyard. This simple fact seemed to escape Korr, or it just didn't matter to him.
In the last cycle and a half of his military service, Haze had met many men, and some women, who were dangerous and deadly with just their hands and feet alone. Certainly the scout fell into that category, what he had just seen proved that, even if the stories he'd already heard from reliable friends and comrades within the company who had witnessed Korr in action hadn't already convinced him before then.
Still, not even those other dangerous soldiers he'd known would keep their weapons slung while in a hot zone. Tessen Korr did seen to march to his own drummer though. He moved around confidently through the bush as if he were surrounded by the armor a heavy tank and armed with a primed plasma cannon.
The younger man strangely got the impression from the scout's bearing the he intended to use the rifle only as a last resort in his vocation… at least for the foreseeable time being.
Korr made it to the sapper he'd killed with the thrown knife, and without ceremony, he yanked the blade free of the corpse and wiped it clean on the dead man's shirt before returning it to his thigh sheath.
The knife was fairly large and designed to be used not only for hand-to-hand combat, but also for slashing a path through jungle terrain when needed. It was common issue for every grunt out in this type of field.
Haze wondered how the scout managed to throw such a cumbersome blade with such accuracy from wherever he had been hidden.
It was something of a game with the rank and file troopers in their off time to make wagers and see who could throw the heavy blades at a stump located back at the firebase, and have it stick. A few manage to do it at a few paces; even less managed to master the technique at just slightly longer distances. In his memory, he couldn't rightly recall at the moment if he ever heard of the scout participating in the gambling. He made a mental note to himself to ask around, and if Korr did join in, Haze was going to place a few credits of his own on the strange man.
The mercenary left the body and silently moved back to the path.
Still using hand signals, Korr invited the Corporal to join him in a crouch on the trail floor. In the dirt there between them, the scout quickly sketched out the layout of a rapid-fire pulse cannon position just ahead of them, marking its distance from their current position and the approximate compliment of men manning it.
Haze nodded in understanding. The sapper team was suppose to take out the point-team without noise or sign of struggle… allowing for the rest of the unit to freely walked directly into the cannon's kill zone without a clue.
Both sides in the fight used that trick, or one just like it.
Tessen then indicate that Haze was suppose to gather up Satuur and retreat to the rest of the unit, while he saw to the removal of the ambush position.
Haze shook his head vigorously. With sign language he told the scout that Satuur would be find where he was and that the unit would come across him shortly. It would be better for Haze to accompany Korr and help take out the cannon, as it was the more important objective at the moment.
Tessen oddly enough was wearing simple plastiglass occulars meant to shade one's eyes from the brightness of the sun. He wondered how the man could see anything wearing the smoky-dark filters under the jungle canopy… but apparently the man could see just fine with them on.
They however keep the Corporal from getting a read on the scout's eyes or what he was thinking, but the set jaw and deep frown the man now wore was enough to tell Haze that Korr wasn't pleased with his alternate plan.
The scout shook his head just as vigorously as Haze had, and then stubbornly pointed at Satuur and then back down the trail toward the approaching company.
Haze repeated his negative gesture, then turning toward Satuur, indicated that they could shove his body under the foliage if the scout was worried about another enemy party finding him before the unit arrived.
He turned back to Korr to again insist he was going with him… only to find the man gone!
"Son of a…" Haze murmured as he glanced around for a sign of the scout.
He found and heard nothing.
Half an arn later, Haze and a recently recover Satuur stood with the rest of the unit inside the enemy's cannon bunker. The four-man crew was dead, to the last man. Killed with a heavy bladed weapon in a very quick and efficient manner.
Satuur chewed on a med-relief stick in order to cure the slight headache he still had from the sapper ambush. He shifted the stick around in his mouth as he inspected the scene, before removing it to spit on the ground by his boot. He glanced at the sputum, and was satisfied to see that it no longer contained blood from where he'd cut the inside of his mouth.
He returned the stick to his mouth, and glanced over at Haze, catching the other man's eye right away.
"This dren ain't natural," he said so only Haze could hear the comment.
The Corporal gazed back at him in an enigmatic way.
"He saved your eema," Haze told him just as lowly. He glanced quickly around, to make sure no one else was near enough to overhear. "He saved both our eemas back there."
"Still ain't right," Satuur said.
"Just be glad he's on our side," the younger man countered.
"Is he?" Satuur asked with a lifted eyebrow, then he threw his weapon over one shoulder and walked away, leaving Haze to his own thoughts on the matter.
AcRooks somehow appeared at his elbow without him noticing a micron later.
"Admiring our spooky friend's handiwork," he asked unceremoniously.
"What? No… just thinking," Haze answered him.
AcRooks shrugged his shoulders as if it didn't matter and he was only making conversation.
"I take it Tuuri was being his usual suspicious self just a moment ago?" he asked.
"Yeah, the usual dren," Haze replied. "Not much else to give any mind to."
AcRooks smiled. "So if it's not out resident conspirator-expert… then I wager your thoughts are on something much more pleasant and alluring."
"Now what are you rambling on about?" Haze asked with real confusion.
"The serving girl, dear boy," AcRooks asked, putting on a stuffy high-class voice that was meant to be annoying. "Your thoughts are settled on our ravishing beauty of a tea server. On skin the color of alabaster fire-pearls. Hair like spun virgin Hynerian Sea-kilpt silk. Lips of the purest Sheyang Obsidian…"
"Stop it."
"Hips that could stop a man's heart in an instant."
"AcRooks…"
"Breasts that make a man dream of climbing the purest mountains…"
"AcRooks!"
"And who can blame a growing stout lad with serious innate needs such as yourself for doing so?"
"Stop it," Haze said almost shyly as he turned away from the carnage before him. For some reason it seemed like a transgression to think about the pretty half-Nebari girl in the presence of such butchery.
"Don't talk about her like that."
AcRooks gave him a look of mock surprise as he followed him out of the bunker.
"So… at last a true reaction," the other Corporal said as he came even with Haze. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"Do about what?" Haze half-snapped, coming to a halt and turning to face his friend.
"When are you going to get off your big farm-boy eema and asked to see the young lady socially?"
"I'm not!" Haze exclaimed. "I can't ask a girl like her…"
"Yada, yada, yada-fark!" AcRooks interrupted him. "Ask her before someone else does and wins her away from you, dud-round!"
Haze opened his mouth the reply, but could only stutter at his friend.
"Look," AcRooks said, "I'm your friend and mentor…"
"Mentor?" Haze sputtered, with some amusement on his face now.
"Silence, your mentor is speaking," AcRooks commanded with a warning finger. "Where was I? Oh yes… as your vastly more experienced mentor in affairs of the heart…"
Haze rolled his eyes. "You're certifiable," he said.
"It's my duty to point out to you," AcRooks continued, ignoring the interruption, "That you not only almost got your lazy eema shot off today… but almost got it ended in a very ugly way. Therefore, it would behoove you to act on your attraction to young Jaleecee before its too late. Do you want to die knowing you didn't have the mivonks to even try to impress the girl?"
Haze glowered at him for a moment.
"I hate it when you make sense," he muttered. "It just proves that there is something seriously wrong with the world then."
"I'm glad we both agree on my brilliance!" the other soldier said with a smile. "Now my suggestion is when we get back from patrol, you hit the showers, put on your best uniform – after applying a generous amount of cologne, because trust me, you need it."
Haze twisted his lips and shot AcRooks a hand signal that was less than polite. Which only made the other man grin even wider.
"Then you march right over to the mess tent," AcRooks continued, "And ask that fine young specimen of a woman to take a walk with you. Then if you don't blow that to hezmana in a hand-basket by sticking your entire foot – complete with shiny combat boot – into your oral orifice, then you can proceed to the next logical step and ask her to have dinner with you some night."
"What if she says, 'no'?" Haze asked worriedly.
"What if she says, 'yes'? AcRooks countered. "If she shoots you down, at least you'll have tried and you can stop fawning over her… and then proceed to get yourself killed out here in any glorious manner you think is fitting for a farm boy."
Haze's brow furrowed in further thought.
"What about her brother?" he asked next.
"Well," AcRooks said with a small smirk. "You could ask him to go for a walk… but I don't think he's your type."
"That's not what I meant!"
"I know. Don't worry about him. Let's just agonize over one hurtle at a time, and get your nerve up to approach the girl on a romantic level first."
"What about Korr?" Haze then brought up.
AcRooks waved that concern off also.
"The scout has firmly claimed several times in public that he has no romantic or other interest in your Jaleecee," he said. "The way lies open for you, but only if you have the courage to travel it. Can't be much more difficult than patrolling out in this goddess forsaken jungle, can it?"
"I suppose not," Haze admitted.
"Besides," AcRooks said off-handedly. "If you don't make a move for her. I just might have to do so myself. And you know how women simply cannot resist my charm and boyish good-looks."
"You're a fenik," Haze told him. "But I guess you're right. If I don't try… then I'll never know if Jaleecee will give me a chance to win her heart. If I die out here knowing I didn't try at all, it'll be worse. I'll do what you suggest as soon as we return to the base."
"That's the spirit!" AcRooks exclaimed while striking him firmly on the shoulder in a friendly and proud way. "I have taught you well, young apprentice."
Haze again rolled his eyes at his friend as they walked over to join the rest of the company as the unit gathered to form-up and move out once more.
Curiously he performed a brief search for the mercenary, but from experience he knew that it wasn't Korr's habit to stick around any target he'd engaged. He went in, killed whoever needed killing there, and moved on without waiting for the rest of the company. The unit commanders never seemed to question this practice, in fact they seemed to prefer not seeing the odd scout when out in the bush. As long as he did his job, apparently there was no reason to complain.
Unless there was some major force awaiting them that the main unit needed to know about they wouldn't see Tessen at all during the patrol. Otherwise he would rejoin them sometimes just before they entered the safety of their own lines. You would just turn around and the mercenary would suddenly be there.
Sort of like the way he suddenly disappeared from right beside him not even an arn ago.
The order was given to move out, and Haze set his feet again out on the trail way.
His thoughts were now no longer on the patrol as he put his body on automatic and walked, and they certainly were not any longer much on the strange scout known as Tessen Korr.
Instead they remained on a certain young girl with Nebari gray skin, with hair that always smelled of the sweetest herbs no matter what task she was performing… and the most brilliant smile he'd ever seen.
He found that his new upcoming personal mission upon his return to the firebase left him with a cold feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. Much colder than any patrol deep into enemy territory ever had left him with.
At the same time, he had never before been as excited as he was now at the prospect of such a daring undertaking.
He didn't know if that was a good thing or not… but the thought put a certain spring into his step that he'd never had before. It was probably a good thing that barring any further enemy action, he wouldn't be taking point again on this tour. There was probably no way now that he could keep his young mind centered on that business while thinking about Jaleecee.
He looked at AcRooks and not being able to help himself, he smiled at his friend for talking him into the brave enterprise.
AcRooks smile back knowingly, obviously glad that his friend had chosen to heed his advice.
The only further consideration the young Corporal spared the scout at all on the return trip, was the thought that Korr was somewhere out there before them, using his peculiar skills to clear their way back home.
He wished the strange mercenary all the best of luck and speed, so he could ask the girl that he dreamed of, what he had wanted to ask her for so long now… just that much sooner.