Redliners(78)

Somebody sat down beside her. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"Lock?" she said. "You want to throw the catches, you go right ahead. I'm so stiff I'll crack if I try to get the back of the gorget."

Civilians staggered by, too exhausted to notice Lock and Meyer except as obstacles in the trail. Most of them had thrown away all personal belongings except the clothes they wore and a bulging pocket or purse. The strikers were tired too, but they kept their weapons ready.

Lock loosened the catches with the forceful certainty of somebody doing a job for the first time and determined to get it right. Meyer shifted her posture so that the civilian could lift pieces of armor as she loosened them.

When Lock had worked the heaviest piece, the back-and-breast clamshell, over Meyer's right arm, she raised her visor and looked at him. His eyes were a green far more vivid than his chestnut hair.

"What are you after?" Meyer asked bluntly.

"I want you to teach me to shoot," Lock said, just as bluntly.

"Don't be fucking stupid," Meyer snapped. "I'm not training cadre."

"You can teach me the basics, how to load and fire and the theory at least of aiming," Lock said in a tone minutely harder. The iron within was beginning to crush the velvet glove. "I don't expect to become a marksman, but in the event that the savages attack again I can be something more positive than another potential victim whom you need to protect."

"I can't—" Meyer said.

"There are extra weapons now," Lock said, not raising his voice but trampling over the striker's half-formed thought without hesitation. "Those of your dead fellows. I've already spoken to Manager al-Ibrahimi. He's agreed pending approval by the military authorities."

The civilian smiled wryly at his formal phrasing. "I realize you'll have to get permission from Major Farrell," he added. "But there's no reason he shouldn't grant it."

Meyer began stuffing the pieces of armor into the pouch. She shook her head. "You'd blow your foot off or shoot somebody in the back by mistake," she said.

Lock held the mouth of the net bag open. "Not if you do your job, Striker Meyer. I don't have the correct reflexes, I understand. But I don't have the wrong ones either. I don't panic."

The second tractor was getting louder. It must be just around the nearest kink in the trail.

"That savage was holding me," Lock said. He straightened, lifting the pouch himself. "I don't need to be a crack shot to help under those circumstances. I just need a gun and the basics of how to use it."

"The bag goes on the first trailer," Meyer said. The tractor, its huge blade lifted vertically like a second roof over the cab, snarled into view.

"Striker Meyer," Lock said. "They were my wife and my daughter. It was my job to protect them and I couldn't. I should have protected them!"

"You're a fucking civilian!" Meyer said. "It was my job to protect you all, you stupid son of a bitch! Do you think I don't know how bad I fucked up?"

Meyer and Lock squeezed close to the edge of the cut as the tractor passed them. The squeal and clanking of the tracks and the high-pitched whine of the generator were overwhelming. The driver and guard were anonymous in their hard suits, but the wounded and infirm looked down from the piled trailer with gray concern.

"Yeah, I'll teach you to use a stinger," Meyer said as the trailer came abreast of them. "If the major okays it. I owe you that much."



"Holy shit," Abbado said in relief when he saw the striker waiting for them beneath the trunk of a tree knocked down when the Spook ship crashed. "I didn't think we were going to make it, snake. Even with you coaching us."

"Hey, Sarge," Blohm replied without turning around. "This tree's been dead long enough that it doesn't squirt poison, but don't touch the bark."

The tree was six feet in diameter. The upturned roots kept the bole high enough for the five strikers to walk under, but they all crouched anyway. Abbado'd left Methie behind for the knee and Glasebrook because, face it, Flea was clumsy.

While 3-3 trekked through the jungle, the scout had carefully circled the Kalendru ship. Abbado studied the fallen vessel. As usual, the first view of the objective thrilled him even though he'd gone over Blohm's images.

"Is there any way in but that crack?" Gabrilovitch asked. He seemed more uncomfortable in the jungle than the strikers of 3-3 were. Greater exposure, Abbado supposed.

Everybody's got a limit to the repetitive stress he can take. Abbado wondered how Blohm was holding up. You couldn't talk about Blohm's mental state in the terms you'd use for most people, even most strikers, of course.