Infinity Squad (28 page)

The answer took a while to come, and was muddy. "They are still trying to make me eat the poisoned food."

Well don't!

"It is cold in here. And getting colder."

We'll try and sneak you some chili from dinner tonight.

"Could you not come yourself? I will be discreet..."

Is this just a trick to let you eat me again?

"No, Group of Trees. It is very cold in here. I will require much food."

But you can hold off another day or two, right?

"Is this balancing the scales for something my clan did?"

No- just give us a few days!

"I will try."

His voice was already fading in my head as I hurried back to barracks.

The vote was evenly split.

"There's nothing we can do without revealing our whole operation," Ann-Marie whispered, frowning over the table in near dark. "We have to leave him."

"Four soldiers. All unmarked clones," Zazlu whispered back. "Halon to take out the BlackShirts. I can make the gate guard look the other way at midnight."

"Yeah, let's bust him out!" Juan hissed.

"Privates can't vote," I said, then started pacing again. One of my Lieutenants was saying yes, one no. "Whose key phrases do we have? Any scientists?"

Butcher shook her head. "Flores, a hangar tech, the new assistant quartermaster and one of the women in the secretary pool who's not a clone yet."

I turned to Zaz. "Any scientists good customers of yours?"

"A few buy a steady cocaine stream. I sell their chemical equipment to other squads running stills. We can influence them, but not enough to overturn Oakley's orders." Zazlu made a fist. Which is why we have to use force."

"We can't. Oakley ordered us to go on our first joint mission with the Immortals tomorrow morning. We don't have time to plan and rest up for that..." I sighed. "We have to leave him."

"Fuck Oakley," Zazlu said. "We put off tomorrow's patrols. We take the night to plan and-"

"No. We leave him. For now."

I broke up the War Council but Zazlu still came up to me in the dark, the tension obvious in his body.

"This isn't right. We can't let Oakley have his way with Three-Spot."

"I know, Zaz, but there's nothing we can do-"

"Nothing
legal
we can do."

"Not even anything in the gray zone we can do," I countered. "You're talking about outright mutiny. We couldn't cover that up. They'd overturn this entire base trying to figure out what happened."

"Our honor as a squad demands that-"

"As the leader of this squad
I
demand that none of my men get the firing squad for mutiny! I've let you nibble around the edges of the rules, but this is too far. No."

I could almost see his tense, Iranian frown in the emergency lighting. "My nibbling has kept this squad together. Just make sure your love of following Oakley's orders doesn't break it. This is a mistake. Sir."

And that's how we left it.

SMaj Hughes barged into our barracks at five the next morning ringing his cowbell and yelling "Ready for patrol you lazy fuc-"

I turned on the lights to show that Zazlu, Juan, Butcher and I were already in full battle gear, having already gotten body armor and rifles from the armory. Ann-Marie had even drawn those cute black lines under her eyes.

"Of course we are," I said, walking out as Hughes' jaw dropped. "We were waiting for
you
."

"Maybe he stopped for coffee," Zazlu said, right behind me.

"Some folks need it in the morning," Butcher added as she followed Zaz out.

"Where's your rifle, sir?" Juan asked as he passed Hughes and shut the lights off on the still sleeping privates.

I loved my squad.

"Just four of you?" Flores sneered, looking up from the square Master Map table. "Most of the Immortals are coming."

The ten clones with murder in their eyes lined the other side of TacOps. They had only been half ready when we and Hughes had gotten to their barracks, and Hughes had let them hear it all the way here.

I shrugged. "I guess each Infinity is worth two Immortals."

"Two and a half," Zazlu said.

"Sorry, two and a half," I corrected with a smile. "Forgot about the exchange rate."

"Less people means less noise," Butcher added right before Hector was going to curse at me. "Less noise means more sneaking which means more spiders."

Even though we had disagreed last night, everyone was pulling together now to play their roles. Zazlu and I were antagonizing the Immortals to throw off their game and Butcher was the calm voice to make their outbursts seem silly. We were playing it loose and flippant like this was just another patrol even though I had no idea what would happen. And I wasn't going to give some nameless bureaucrat standing near the back wall the satisfaction of seeing me panic.

He looked like he had gotten up even earlier than us. And went to the salon. He was shaved, his hair and suit perfect and he looked rested, well fed and alert. The bastard. Maybe he never slept, just plugged into the wall every eight hours.

Even Flores now gave the bureaucrat a worried look before continuing. "Well, don't use your low numbers as an excuse for not getting any kills. A lot is riding on this patrol."

Did the bureaucrat have something on Flores too? Who the hell was this guy- evil Santa?

"We're sending you south and west of the valley," Flores continued, not looking at the suit. "To almost where the swamp starts. Ground penetrating radar shows there's an extensive cave system there, and we all know spiders live mainly in caves." He looked up, daring me to object.

I just gave him a nod. "Agreed. Go on."

"What!" Flores yelled. "What about all the god-damned webs in trees bulls-"

"Captain."

The bureaucrat had said only one word, quietly. But Flores turned ghost white, then coughed and continued.

"Okay. So. There are three separate cave systems. They each have many rooms but the three systems do not connect. Some may be flooded, some may be enemy occupied, some both. The helos will drop you here, you will approach on foot-"

"Stealthily approach," Ann-Marie said.

Flores made a face. "You will
stealthily
approach on foot through this path until you reach this hill, and then use your judgment on which cave system to enter first. Understand?"

I understood
his
plan. Ours was to have Butcher and Juan scout ahead and steer us away from any spiders. And hopefully into some boazelles or the edge of a lightning snake swarm, forcing us to retreat. And maybe we could get a spider cameo or something, from a long distance off.

Three-Spot? Red-Stripe has taken most of the hunters north, but would any be left near the swamp?

No response.

Make sure there are no women or children roaming around these caves I am picturing.

Nothing.

"Lieutenant?" Flores demanded. "Do you understand?"

I put on my best lazy, cocky grin. "Sounds like a plan."

I was still nervous as we got on Jinx's helo and a tech synced our implants to the same channels as the Immortals in the other two helicopters. I hated this mission- we had no good plan and literally
everything
could go wrong, with so many eyes and ears watching our every move. And I couldn't even discuss it with Zaz or Butcher now that the damned mikes on our collars were live.

Three-Spot didn't answer my prayers as we lifted off, and I went top to bottom through Red-Stripe's hunters as we passed over the valley but couldn't reach any of them. I knew spider-to-spider communication stretched almost as far as our radios, but maybe my mind wasn't calm enough or they were on the other side of the north mountains.

As we approached landing however, I did hear something.

"First to kill, first to die, first to hear the bullet's cry!"

"Immortal Squad! Immortal Squad!"

Hector's voice started again right after the chorus of his men. "Others build, others grow, we fight things that demons know!"

"Immortal Squad! Immortal Squad!"

Ann-Marie rolled her eyes. "Give me a fucking break."

Zazlu shrugged. "It does get the heart moving."

Hector was reaching a fever pitch.
"Gods cheer us! Demons fear us! Devil Dogs won't come near us!"

Hand over my mike, I talked over ten clones repeating the chorus. "I don’t know any chants. Do you guys want me to recite some Kipling to you or something?"

"Nah. That would totally kill the mood," Butcher said.

Zaz nodded. "I agree."

"What's a Kipling?"

"Shut up Juan."

"Immortal SQUAD! Immortal SQUAD! Immortal SQUAD! Immortal SQUAD!"

And then we were landing.

The Immortals sprinted out of their helos like they were taking Normandy. Since Butcher and I had been scanning the area with our binos as Jinx set down, I knew there were no threats beyond two boazelles which were bounding away from the noise of the helos. We stepped out leisurely.

It was hot and muggy this close to the swamps. And local noon was just a few hours away, and I could hear running water. Good lightning snake conditions. I caught Zazlu's eye and made a slithery gesture with my hand, then pantomimed eating it. He nodded, tucking his flamethrower away and pulled out his K-knife and a long, forked stick. Maybe we could take a few back for Three-Spot.

I sent Butcher and Juan bounding ahead, and with Zazlu literally beating the bushes for snakes, that left me walking, stealthily, alone with all ten Immortals. They did the standard cover-and-advance, crouching behind every rock and bush, using silent hand signs, rifles ready, for about a hundred yards, until they realized it made them look like complete tossers. Hector gave a motion with his hand and then the Immortals just walked down the path like I was.

A path? And it was the double path that spiders made. I started getting more nervous.

"Nervous?" Hector laughed.

"Indigestion," I said, patting my stomach. "It's hard to eat in the mess hall with all those skulls we put up staring at us."

"Fuck off."

"Maybe we should just knife him and say the spiders did it," Hector's Intelligence Lieutenant Samson said, drawing half his blade. "No one would know."

"Put that
knife
away,
Samson
," I said, loudly and clearly into my throat mike.

The wolf-eyed clone just grinned at me. "I bet we could probably cut his balls off before his girlfriend could skip back here to save him."

"Lieutenant Hector," Hughes' voice rang in our ears. "Civilians are listening to this channel- control your men!"

I made a face at Hector like he had just been called to the principal's office and he cursed under his breath and made a sign to his second in command. "Not now, Samson."

I winked at the sneering Samson. "Good puppy. Now follow me." Then turned and gave my back to him with much more confidence than I felt. I barely managed to keep my knees from shaking, expecting to feel the knife plunge into my back at any second.

But it didn't. And it had been the bureaucrat- undoubtedly the 'civilian' listening next to Hughes- that had saved me. Maybe he was useful after all.

Ann-Marie and Juan kept ranging ahead, Zazlu in the bushes to the side, and I continued forward with 10 murderous clones at my back. I didn't attempt to make small talk.

I did, however, keep calling out to any spider in Red-Stripe's clan whose name I knew.

After two miles of walking through in the hot, sticky plains, a timid little voice burst into my head. "You are Bunches of Trees?"

Yes- who is this?

"I am green-shell-two-dots. We played tag. Blue-Wave is using me to pass you a message."

Where is he?

"In our village. He is the strongest hunter left. He cannot leave. But I was chasing snakes and heard you calling his name. He has a message."

Okay. Go ahead.

"I'm going to cut off your balls one day, faggot," Samson whispered into my ear, cupping his hand over his mike. "Trust me."

I just gave his statement a goofy smile, because I was straining so hard to hear the young spider's reply. My reaction actually freaked Samson out more than his words did me, and he backed off, giving me a strange look.