Dean Folan dismounted behind her, leaving Will Danza sitting on his horse, keeping watch from his elevated vantage point.
All three of them were dressed identically, wearing a superstrength olive-green one-piece anti-projectile suit, covered with
an outer insulation layer to diffuse beam weapons. The lightweight armour fitted perfectly, with an inner sponge layer to
protect the skin. Thermal-shunt fibres woven into the fabric kept body temperature to a pre-set norm, which was a real blessing
on Lalonde. If they were struck by a projectile slug the micro-valency generators around her waist would activate, solidifying
the fabric instantly, distributing the impact, preventing the wearer’s body from being pulped by automatic fire. (Jenny’s
only regret was that it didn’t protect her from saddle sores.) The body armour was complemented by a shell-helmet which fitted
with the same tight precision as the suit. It gave them all an insect appearance, with its wide goggle lenses and a small
central V-shaped air-filter vent. The collar had a ring of optical sensors which could be accessed through neural nanonics,
giving them a rear-view capability. They could even survive underwater for half an hour with its oxygen-recycling capacity.
The stream was muddy, its stones slimed with algae, none of which seemed to bother the horses. Jenny watched them lapping
it up, and requested a drink from her shell-helmet. She sucked ice-cold orange juice from the nipple as she reviewed their
location with help from the inertial guidance block.
When Dean and Will swapped position she datavised the armour suit’s communications block to open a scrambled channel to Murphy
Hewlett. The ESA team had split up from the Confederation Navy Marines after leaving the
Isakore
. Acting separately they thought they stood a better chance of intercepting one of the sequestrated colonists.
“We’re eight kilometres from Oconto,” she said. “No hostiles or locals encountered so far.”
“Same with us,” the marine lieutenant answered. “We’re six kilometres south of you, and there’s nobody in this jungle but
us chickens. If Oconto’s supervisor did lead fifty people in pursuit of the Ivets, he didn’t come this way. There’s a small
savannah which starts about fifteen kilometres away, there are about a hundred homesteads out there. We’ll try them.”
Static warbled down the channel. Jenny automatically checked her electronic warfare suite, which reported zero activity. Must
be atmospherics.
“OK. We’re going to keep closing on the village and hope we find someone before we reach it,” she datavised.
“Roger. I suggest we make half-hourly check-ins from now on. There isn’t…” His signal dissolved into rowdy static.
“Hell! Dean, Will, we’re being jammed.”
Dean consulted his own electronic warfare block. “No activity detected,” he said.
Jenny steadied her horse and put her foot in the stirrup, swinging a leg over the saddle. Will was mounting hastily beside
her. All three of them scanned the surrounding jungle. Dean’s horse snickered nervously. Jenny tugged at the reins to keep
hers from twisting about.
“They’re out there,” Will said in a level tone.
“Where?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t know, but they’re watching us. I can feel it. They don’t like us.”
Jenny bit down on the obvious retort. Soldier superstitions were hardly appropriate right now, yet Will had more direct combat
experience than her. A quick hardware status check showed that only the communications block was affected so far. Her electronic
warfare block remained stubbornly silent.
“All right,” she said. “The one thing we don’t want to do is run into a whole bunch of them. The Edenists said they were most
powerful in groups. Let’s move out, and see if we can get outside this jamming zone. We ought to be able to move faster than
them.”
“Which way?” Dean asked.
“I still want to try and reach the village. But I don’t think a direct route is advisable now. We’ll head south-west, and
curve back towards Oconto. Any questions? No. Lead off then, Dean.”
They splashed over the stream, the horses seemingly eager to be on the move again. Will Danza had pulled his thermal induction
pulse carbine from its saddle holster; now it was cradled in the crook of his right arm, pointing upwards. The datavised information
from its targeting processor formed a quiet buzz at the back of his mind. He didn’t even notice it at a conscious level, it
was as much a part of the moment as the easy rhythm of the horse or the bright sunlight, making him whole.
He made up the rear of the little procession, constantly reviewing the sensors on the back of his shell-helmet. If anyone
had asked him how he knew hostiles were nearby he would just have to shrug and say he couldn’t explain. But instinct was pulling
at him with the same irresistible impulse that pollen exerted on bees. They were here, and they were close. Whoever, or whatever,
they were.
He strained round in the saddle, upping his retinal implants’ resolution to their extreme. All he could see was the long thin
black trunks and their verdant cone island bases, outlines wavering in the heat and unstable magnification factor.
A movement.
The TIP carbine was discharging before he even thought about it, blue target graphics sliding across his vision field like
neon cell doors as he dropped the barrel in a single smooth arc. A red circle intersected the central grid square and his
neural nanonics triggered a five-hundred-shot fan pattern.
The section of jungle in the central blue square sparkled with orange motes as the induction pulses stabbed against the wood
and foliage. It lasted for two seconds.
“Down!” Will datavised. “Hostiles four o’clock.”
He was already slithering off the horse, feet landing solidly on the broad triangular creeper leaves. Dean and Jenny obeyed
automatically, rolling from their saddles to land crouched, thermal induction pulse carbines held ready. The three of them
turned smoothly, each covering a different section of jungle.
“What was it?” Jenny asked.
“Two of them, I think.” Will quickly replayed the memory. It was like a dense black shadow dashing out from behind one of
the trees, then it split into two. That was when he fired, and the image jolted. But the black shapes refused to clarify,
no matter how many discrimination programs he ran. Definitely too big for sayce, though. And they were moving towards him,
using the shaggy treebases for cover.
He felt a glow of admiration, they were good.
“What now?” he datavised. Nobody responded. “What now?” he asked loudly.
“Reconnaissance and evaluation,” said Jenny, who had just realized even short-range datavises were being disrupted. “We’re
still not out of that jamming effect.”
There was a silent orange flash above her. The top third of the tree ten metres to her left began to topple over, hinging
on a section of trunk that was mostly charred splinters. Just as it reached the horizontal, the rich green plumes at the top
caught on fire. They spluttered briefly, belching out a ring of blue-grey smoke, then the fire really caught. Two vennals
leapt out, squeaking in pain, their hides badly scorched. Before the whole length of wood crashed down, the plumes were burning
with a ferocity which matched the sun.
The horses reared up, whinnying alarm. They were pulled down by boosted muscles.
Jenny realized the animals were rapidly becoming a liability as she clung on to hers. Her neural nanonics reported the suit
sensors had detected a maser beam striking the tree, which was what snapped it. But there was no detectable follow-up energy
strike to account for the ignition.
Dean’s sensors had also detected the maser beam. He fired a fifty-shot barrage back along the line.
The fallen tree’s tip fizzled out. All that was left was a tapering core of wood and a heap of ash. Blackened ground creepers
smouldered in a wide circle around it.
“What the hell did that?” Dean asked.
“No data,” Jenny answered. “But it isn’t going to be healthy.”
Globules of vivid white fire raced up the trunks of several nearby trees like some bizarre astral liquid. Bark shrivelled
and peeled off in long strips behind them, the naked wood below roaring like a blast furnace as it caught alight. The flames
redoubled in vehemence. Jenny, Will, and Dean were surrounded by twelve huge torches of brilliant fire.
Jenny’s retinal implants struggled to cope with the vast photon flood. Her horse reared up again, fighting her, neck sweeping
from side to side in an effort to make her let go, forelegs cycling dangerously close to her head. She could see the terror
in its eyes. Foam sprayed out of its mouth to splatter her suit.
“Save the equipment,” she shouted. “We can’t hang on to the horses in this.”
Will heard the order as his horse began bucking, its hind legs kicking imaginary foes. He drove his fist into its head, catching
it between the eyes, and it froze for a second in stunned surprise, then slowly buckled, collapsing onto the ground. One of
the blazing trees gave a single creak of warning and keeled over. It slammed down on the horse’s back, breaking ribs and legs,
searing its way into the flesh. Oily smoke billowed up. Will darted forward, and tugged at the saddle straps. His suit datavised
an amber alert to his neural nanonics as the heat impact of the flames gusted against the outer layer.
Balls of orange flame were hurtling through the air above him, spitting greasy black liquids: vennals, fleeing and dying as
their roosts were incinerated. Small withered bodies hit the ground all around, some of them moving feebly.
Dean and Jenny were still struggling with their horses, filling the air with confused curses. Will’s suit sounded a preliminary
caution that thermal input was reaching the limit of the handling capacity. He felt the saddle strap give, and jumped backwards,
hugging the equipment packs. The suit’s outer dissipator layer glowed cherry red as it radiated away the excess heat, and
wisps of smoke rose from around his feet.
More trees were falling as the flame consumed the wood at a fantastic rate. For one nasty moment they were completely penned
in by a rippling fence made up from solid sheets of that strange lethal white flame.
Jenny salvaged her equipment packs from her horse and let go of the bridle. It raced away blindly, only to veer to one side
as another burning tree fell in its path. One of the fiery vennals landed on its back, and it charged straight into the flames,
screaming piteously. She watched it tumble over. It twitched a couple of times, trying to regain its feet, then flopped down
limply.
By now a ring of ground a hundred metres in diameter was burning, leaving just a small patch at the centre untouched. The
three of them grouped together at the middle as the last two trees went down. Now there was only the ground creepers burning,
sending up forked yellow flames and heavy blue smoke.
Jenny pulled her packs towards her and ran a systems status check. Not good. The guidance block was putting out erratic data,
and the suit’s laser rangefinder return was dubious. The hostiles’ electronic warfare field was growing stronger. And according
to her external temperature sensors, if they hadn’t been wearing suits with a thermal-dispersal layer they would have been
roasted alive by now.
She gripped the TIP carbine tighter. “As soon as the flames die down I want a sweep-scorch pattern laid down out to four hundred
metres. Fight fire with fire. They’ve shown us what they can do, now it’s our turn.”
“All right,” Will muttered happily.
Rummaging round in her packs for one of the spherical heavy duty power cells she was carrying, she plugged its coiled cable
into the butt of her carbine. The other two were doing the same thing.
“Ready?” she asked. The flames were only a couple of metres high now, the air above them swarmed with ash flakes, blotting
out the sun. “Go.”
They stood, shoulders together, forming a triangle. The TIP carbines blazed, sending out two hundred and fifty invisible deadly
shots every second. Targeting processors coordinated the sweep parameters, overlapping their fields of fire. Neural nanonics
ordered their muscles to move in precise increments, controlling the direction of the energy blitz.
A ripple of destruction roared out across the already cremated land, then started to chew its way into the vegetation beyond.
Dazzling orange stars scintillated on tree trunks and creepers, desiccating then igniting the wood and tangled cords of vine.
The initial ripple became a fully-fledged hurricane firestorm, exacerbated by the relentless push of the carbines.
“Burn, you mothers,” Will yelled jubilantly. “Burn!”
The entire jungle was on fire around them, an avalanche of flames racing outward. One again the vennals were dying in their
hundreds, plunging out of their igneous trees right into the conflagration.
Dean’s neural nanonics reported that his carbine was stuttering whenever he wiped the barrel across a certain coordinate.
He brought it back and held it. The shot rate declined to five a second.
“Shit. Jenny, they’re locking their electronic warfare into my carbine targeting processor.”
“Let me have the section,” she said.
He datavised the coordinates over—no problem with communication any more. When she aimed her own TIP carbine along the line
its output dropped off almost immediately, but her suit blocks were coming back on-line. “Jeeze, that electronic warfare of
theirs is the weirdest.”
“Want me to try?” Will asked.
“No. Finish the sweep-scorch first, we’ll deal with them in a minute.” She turned back to her section. Watching the invincible
rampart of flame cascade over the jungle had sent her heart racing wildly. The awe that she could command such fearsome power
was soaring through her veins, taking her to a dangerous high. She had to load a suppression order into her neural nanonics,
which restricted the release of natural adrenalin sharply. The sweep pattern was completed, and her flesh cooled. But she
still felt supreme.
A holocaust of flame raged a hundred and twenty metres away.