The image faded into pearly radiance, then blacked out. Manager al-Ibrahimi rose to his feet and bowed to the four strikers. Colonists turned, craned their necks and stood for a better view.
There were hundreds of them watching. Hundreds.
"Ah . . ." Abbado said. "Ah, we didn't mean to disturb anybody."
Christ, he didn't know what to say. "Come on," he muttered to Horgen. "Let's get some dinner and I'll check the guard roster with Kristal."
Their billet was nearby, a hundred square feet of sheeting where Kristal had had 3-3's excess gear dumped to await their return from patrol. The plastic heaved. Abbado looked over his shoulder. The crowd of civilians was following them.
"I'll be damned to hell," Ace repeated.
Dr. Ciler gripped Abbado's hand and shook it. "I'm so sorry about Striker Glasebrook," he said. "He was a hero. Hundreds would have died. Sergeant, you're all heroes."
"It's not like that," Abbado said, frustrated that he didn't have the words to explain. He saw a civilian give Horgen a drink from a chased silver flask that was certainly older than the Unity. Ethanol was as easy to run from the converters as starch was, but other of the colonists were offering sauces and spices.
Mary, Mother of God. The thought of a meal that didn't taste like refinery sludge . . .
"Doc, it's not like that," he repeated. "We're all in this together."
"Yes," said Ciler. "We are."
Mrs. Florescu was holding Caldwell and crying. The striker looked stunned. When they got someplace he could do it, Abbado'd write Caldwell up for that business with the guard. You couldn't eat a medal, but fuck, the Strike Force usually supplied you with enough to eat.
"I'll be damned to hell!" Matushek said with a bottle in either hand.
No, Ace, Abbado thought. We've been damned to hell. It just might be we'll find a way out after all.
Into the Fire
"The trouble with cayenne pepper," said Matushek as he rigged a pair of 4-pound rockets to balance the pair on the other hip, "is it's just as hot on your asshole as it is in the mouth."
The remainder of C41 had rearmed from the ammo trailer immediately after their battle with the natives. Abbado hadn't had the energy to do that because of the excitement when 3-3 got home. That meant they had to be up ahead of most of the others this morning. They were lead squad again.
A bulldozer started with a squeal of steam and the slowly-building thrum of the turbine flywheel. Meyer stood on the deck, putting her armor on. One of the civilian men was helping her.
Good for Essie.
Horgen was stuffing grenade magazines into the empty pockets of her bandolier. She paused. Nodding across the tailgate she murmured, "Look who's come to visit."
Abbado stepped away from the trailer. He didn't lower his visor. The sky was too dark to distinguish from the canopy, but his eyes had adapted to the light of the few lamps still lit. Caius Blohm walked toward the trailer with a kid hanging onto his pants' leg.
"Hello, Blohm," Abbado said. "Figure you've got something to say to us?"
"Nothing you don't know," Blohm said. "Nothing I haven't said to the major. I screwed up bad. I won't screw up that way again."
"Expect us to kiss you, then?" Matushek said, stepping around the trailer from the other side. His hands weren't any nearer his weapons than any striker's were at any time, but the threat was obvious.
The kid buried her face against Blohm's thigh. He caressed her dark hair. "No," he said. "I don't even expect you to let me buy you a drink when we get out of this. I just came to say it to your faces."
"Ace," Abbado said sharply. "Hop up in the trailer and see if there's another grenade launcher in the front there, will you? I'm thinking of carrying one myself."
Blohm turned. As the scout walked away, he bent and lifted the child to his shoulder. Abbado returned to the tailgate.
"Sorry, Sarge," Matushek muttered.
"No big deal," Abbado said. He had one bandolier pocket empty, so he dragged a case of stinger magazines closer. "Just remember we got a whole jungle out there to fight."
Horgen climbed to the side of the trailer and perched there, reaching into an open box of hand grenades among the jumble of miscellaneous weaponry. "Do you really want a launcher, Sarge?" she asked.
"Naw, I was never much good with one," Abbado said. "I'll take an extra pack of rockets instead."
At least twenty lasers ripped simultaneously into the encampment from the west and south. A stinking black tear zigzagged across the tarpaulin folded over the front of the trailer.
"Contact!" Abbado shouted. He knelt as he armed a rocket, then rose again to launch it into the undergrowth from which the Kalendru fire spat. Backblast whanged the side of the trailer. "Contact!"