Guerilla

 

DEDICATION

For Michael Kent, PhD, who opened doors for me at academia and watched my back during the zombie invasion at the gun range!

 

CONTENTS

 

ONE

X Point

Southwest of Makaum City

Loki 19 (Makaum—­colloquial)

0313 Hours Zulu Time

C
overed in perspiration from the thick humidity caused by the surrounding jungle vegetation and Makaum's normal tropical heat index, Master Sergeant Frank Sage crept down into the valley toward his mission objective. Truth be told, not all of the perspiration was from the mugginess. The grim awareness that he could be discovered by Phrenorian security measures at any minute and end up DOA the second after kept his nerves wound tight.

If he ended up KIA on this op, Sage figured Colonel Halladay would have the answer they were looking for concerning the secret base the Sting-­Tails had built despite treaty limitations between the Terran Alliance and the Phrenorian Empire. The Phrenorians were supposed to be restricted to an ambassadorial detail and some trade explorations. Charlie Company was there to help police the planet.

Of course, no Terran expected the Phrenorians to honor those treaties except when it was convenient. Evidently, convenience was no longer a factor on Makaum. The Sting-­Tails had changed the rules of engagement without notifying anyone. Colonel Halladay hadn't wanted to proceed until the reports from the local scouting band had been confirmed.

That was Sage's mission. He'd said yes instantly because he was on Makaum under protest. He'd wanted a reassignment to the front lines of the Phrenorian War.

Now the Sting-­Tails had a base, one that had been missed up until a few days ago.

An ovoid ebony Phrenorian drone zipped through the night sky, almost invisible against the deep velvet even though the unmanned aerial vehicle was nearly two meters across and a meter deep. The spy device's profile momentarily blurred the crisp whiteness of the stars and one of Makaum's five moons as it stopped to hover just above treetop level. Stationary now, it looked like a black hole in the starlit night.

Ahead of Sage, Jahup leaned into the inky shadow of a
wock
tree. The tree's fragrant blossoms thickened the humid air with the sour sweetness of decay. The pale, alabaster flowers only opened at night and were large enough to encompass both of Sage's fists together. Flurries of
neerts
, mothlike creatures that ranged from a fingertip in length to ten times that in adults, fed on the nectar. They also glowed in the dark, which presented a potential hazard for Sage and his partner because they could be skylined against a mass of the
neerts
.

Jahup hadn't spoken in the last hour since they'd entered the red perimeter zone Sage had designated. The young Makaum scout took orders well. Lean and wiry, he moved as silently as a falling leaf despite the verdant undergrowth beneath the towering trees that insisted on making Sage's progress difficult.

The tree trunk, almost three meters in diameter, provided adequate shelter for Sage as well as Jahup, and the Terran sergeant settled in against the rough bark adjacent to the young Makaum scout. That way they each had a field of view that overlapped. They weren't safe, but they were as safe as they could be under the circumstances.

Though he'd only known Jahup for less than two Terran months, Sage had no qualms about putting his life in the young man's hands. Jahup had proven himself as a warrior during the battle against DawnStar. Having grown up on Makaum, Jahup was as much a part of the tropical planet as any nocturnal creature in the jungle around them.

Jahup glanced at Sage, and the sergeant knew the young man was assessing him. Both of them knew Jahup was putting himself at risk more than Sage. Jahup could have done the recon much easier alone than with Sage because his jungle skillset was sharper. But the young scout wasn't knowledgeable about Phrenorian battle weapons. Sage was there for the military looksee.

Frowning slightly, Jahup looked away from Sage. The sergeant knew his companion wasn't happy with the Terran's abilities in the jungle. Compared to Jahup, Sage moved like a wildebeest in a china closet. The dissatisfaction showed in the narrowing of Jahup's dark hazel eyes and his tight-­lipped mouth. He'd tied his long dark hair back. Oil created from a mixture of crushed
aldu
ants and
polst
berries and smeared over his exposed flesh broke up his light green skin color. It also served to scare away bloodsucking insects.

The carnivorous ants were nearly as long as a man's hand. A swarm of them could strip an adult down to bare bones in a matter of minutes. Luckily the
aldu
lived in hills and rotted trees far from civilized areas. The ants would eat mammals—­a rarity because the Makaum ­people were the planet's only mammals, descendants of a generation starship that had crashlanded on the planet hundreds of years ago—­but preferred to prey on the world's insect, reptile, and fish species, and lived apart from Makaum City and outlying villages.

Collecting the ants to make the camouflage oil was dangerous. Sage respected Jahup and his hunting companions for the danger they had faced in doing so.

The Makaum scout wore clothing made of spider silk, thin and wispy, and dyed green so dark it was almost black. The coloration was intentionally broken in an irregular pattern with slightly lighter patches of green. The survivors of the generation ship crash had quickly learned to stay alive on the hostile planet. Sage didn't think the camo ability of the Army's combat suits could offer a better disguise than the spider silk.

Sage wore the same clothing and oil, but he felt naked and vulnerable without his combat suit and weapons. His skin was darker than Jahup's, a gift from his South-­American mother, as was the crow's-­wing black hair. He got his height and broad shoulders from his father, a career military man whose family had Norwegian roots.

Breathing shallowly, Sage counted the passing seconds, estimating the drone's speed at somewhere near twenty klicks per hour. He glanced briefly at the device as it continued tangent to their hiding spot. Something had alerted it. The slight throbbing noise made by the baffled engine created sound waves that registered as a slight pressure against Sage's eardrums rather than a truly audible event. Someone unfamiliar with it wouldn't have known what it was.

The noise reminded Sage of an owl's swooping passage on Terra. He'd been born and raised there, and his soldier father had trained him to hunt in the wilderness and survive on the land at an early age. Abruptly, the drone halted and changed direction, flitting toward Sage and Jahup's position. Moving slower now, the drone's engine noise beat more harshly against Sage's eardrums. He opened his mouth and swallowed hard to equalize pressure.

His right hand drifted up to the hilt of the long knife, or short sword—­he had heard the weapon described as both—­sheathed over his right shoulder. The Makaum warriors called the weapon an
etess
, and blacksmiths beat them out on anvils in the sprawl's marketplace
.

Blade work wasn't something the Terran Army focused on in combat, but the skill wasn't overlooked because Phrenorians gloried in hand to pincer combat when the chance arose. Sage had an affinity for long knives, but he didn't want to have to use it. For a second, he mentally cursed the Phrenorians and the drone, then stopped because that was wasted effort. If the drone had picked them up on its sensors, cursing was no defense.

Unfortunately, the long knife was the only weapon Sage had carried along on the excursion. Nothing else, including tech, had been possible to bring. The security system around the Phrenorian base would detect a Roley gauss rifle or a Birkeland coilgun because the near-­AI was programmed to seek out tech. Even the Smith and Wesson .500 Magnum pistol Sage habitually carried as a backup to the energy-­based weaponry would be detectable because of the offworld metallurgy.

Wearing an AKTIVsuit anywhere near the Phrenorian base was out of the question. During his twenty years as a Terran Army soldier, Sage hadn't often walked into a hot zone without the armor, enhanced senses, and stepped-­up speed and strength afforded by the Armored-­Kinetic-­Tactical-­Intelligence-­Vestment suit. He missed the 360-­degree HUD most, but he felt confident in his own and Jahup's abilities to spot danger while they were in the jungle. Sage just didn't like giving up that edge. The young Makaum scout had managed to get into the area, discover the Phrenorian base, and get out again without getting caught.

So far, they hadn't been caught tonight.

Maybe. As a sergeant, Sage had been trained to consider all the ways an engagement could turn, good and bad. The possibility remained that the Phrenorians had noticed Jahup and his hunting band and had intentionally let them go, knowing they were going to report the base to the Terran military forces at Fort York.

The base could be a suck, just a plant to make the Terran Military waste time, energy, and resources while the Phrenorians hid assets elsewhere. Or it could be used as a political chit if Terran forces attacked it. Even though the base wasn't supposed to exist, any aggression on Charlie Company's part wouldn't sit well with the Makaum ­people.

Colonel Halladay hadn't wanted to take the chance that the Phrenorians had a base here and go unknowing. Sage hadn't wanted to let the opportunity slip by either. Besides that, even a fake base would possibly be ruled a treaty breach. So he was here, underequipped with a native scout half his age for reinforcement and no exfiltration waiting on him. And he had to hope nothing went sideways.

Colonel Halladay had told Sage up front that the reconnoiter mission would be off the books, unsanctioned and unsupported. Live or die, Sage and Jahup were on their own.

The drone drew closer, hovering only twenty meters away. Sage discovered he was holding his breath and made himself breathe. Getting anaerobic wasn't going to help. Oxygen was necessary no matter how the next few minutes played out. He already had a map of his exit strategy worked out in his mind. Jahup knew it too.

Having an exit strategy didn't mean it was going to work, though. All it would take was one signal from the drone and the surrounding jungle would fill with Phrenorian warriors. There would be no escape because Sage and Jahup would never reach the extraction point before the enemy net closed around them.

A sudden hum trilled through Sage's body. Long experience told him it was the reverb caused by an energy weapon discharge. If he'd been in an AKTIVsuit, the onboard near-­AI would have informed him of the occurrence. But he'd experienced attacks outside the suit as well.

The energy release from the Phrenorian weapon caused painful twinges to echo in the bionic lung Sage had received less than two weeks ago. Made of organicsim polymers coded with his DNA, the lung didn't show up on the drone's sensors. The organ operated just like Sage's original bio equipment had before it had been ruined by a laser blast while in conflict with DawnStar Corp and Velesko Kos only days ago.

Sage held himself steady, though he expected the drone's unseen energy beam to tear through the tree where he had taken cover. Instead, the gauss blast knifed into the tree canopy twenty meters above him.

A sudden shriek filled the air and Sage recognized what the noise came from before he saw the multi-­legged body tumbling limply toward the ground. At nine or ten meters across, the
kifrik
was small compared to most of the giant spiders Sage had seen. The long legs fought to grab the branches and trees, but they lacked the strength to hold on.

The
kifrik
slammed into the ground and lay sprawled. Covered in stiff, coarse hair, the creature's reddish black body almost disappeared in the darkness. Normally a
kifrik
tended to stay with its web and subsist on other insects and lizards caught in the sticky strands, but sometimes one would get curious and creep across the canopies almost soundlessly to investigate things that caught its attention.

Sage didn't know if the
kifrik
had been stalking Jahup and him, or if something else had caught its attention. The creature's presence reminded Sage that no one was safe out in the Green Hell, the Terran soldiers' nickname for Makaum.

The drone sailed over the
kifrik
, hovered for a moment to scan the dead creature, then sped away to drop back into its security route.

Releasing a tense breath, Sage mentally flagged the drone and the two others he'd noticed on his descent from the ridgeline. They'd also skirted four fixed-­point sec-­sweepers that scanned for ground approaches by climbing through the trees. The jungle provided security because of its density, but the same proliferation of trees and branches created inroads for enemies clever enough and skillful enough to use them.

With three of Makaum's moons now in the sky, some of the darkness faded. Sage pulled the spyglass from the spider silk backpack he wore and wished he had a Kozuki Digital Peeper or the AKTIVsuit's vid capabilities instead. The spyglass was a native instrument and would be undetectable because it was low-­tech.

Sage made a mental note to beef up the security around Fort York regarding low-­tech approaches. The anti-­Terran faction of the Makaum had gotten more demonstrative since the Army had started hitting the drug cartels so hot and heavy out in the jungle. Many of the locals had enjoyed the wretched excess provided by the corp-­sponsored cartels and bio-­pirates. But others had been working with the cartels and were angry over losing the illegal revenue.

Slowly, Sage scanned the Phrenorian base, barely able to suss the structure out from the jungle. Camo tech covered the polycarbonate shell and blended the building into the background, but the lines were too straight and stood out to a trained eye.

The Sting-­Tails had been clever about construction. They'd shoehorned the base into the hillside at the bottom of the valley. A swift-­running river over fifty meters across meandered through the valley, coming down off the mountain to the north in a series of plunging waterfalls that looked silver in the moonslight.