“I’m fine,” you snapped. “Gimme a couple of pain pills for later and let’s just get this push over with.”
“I agree,” Kara said, gesturing at me to lower your leg. “Thanks for helping, Jen. I know you don’t like blood. Can you wait with her till Gilly comes back? X’eo and I have to keep moving.”
“Of course,” I said, and placed your foot in my lap as they trotted off, keeping low. In the dust and darkness soon all that was visible was the reflective cross on the back of their jackets. The ground rumbled ominously. That wasn’t small-arms fire, let alone the broad-spray plasma arcs on either side. What else did the aliens have that our intelligence hadn’t told us about?
In the blood and antiseptic-soaked mud you squirmed for your gun, fingers running across the grimy plastic, automatically checking load and range with the feedback dots. “Oof. How’s it look?”
“Messy,” I said, “but shallow. I think Patra got a worse one in training last year, and she was fine.”
“Ugly, but fine.”
“She was ugly before.”
“Ugly like me,” you said, and laughed faintly. But you weren’t ugly, you were just you, touchy about the smallness and lightness that I loved, a little wild animal in baggy fatigues, running faster, packing more, shooting straighter than anyone else to prove that a girl from Crutas, of all planets, could make it in the corps. To prove that someone whose nickname ranged between ‘Cockroach’ and ‘Mousie’ could win a war.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Burns some. I think they’re running out of deadspray.”
“Could be.”
“Why’s the ground shaking like that, Jen? It’s not an earthquake. And it doesn’t feel like ground troops...”
“I don’t know. I hate to imagine.”
“Well, I’m glad you can feel it too. Thought maybe it was just me.” In the dark, I saw your dark eyes crinkle in amusement, moistly ringed with salt. Gilmour returned with a dirty but unbloodied boot, the nanoceramic tan rather than black. Just as I opened my mouth to rib him about it, the ground heaved rather than trembled, and he fell to his knees in the mud.
“Time to jet,” you said. “Jen, do you mind?”
“You owe me for this degradation.” I tugged the boot over your bare foot, ignoring your hiss of pain, laced it tightly, made sure to tuck in the bandage on your calf. “Private Gilmour, please assist Corporal Nemerin to verticality and draw your service weapon; we will be moving as a three-person unit until cessation of original orders.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He easily got you upright, and we disentangled, moving into the darkness along the battle lines planned the day before. Your pulse-rifle; my plasma arc and a dozen grenades; Gilly’s laser pistol and extra cells. We were a walking bomb; if anyone shot us, our drop ship would see the explosion from low orbit. I wondered what it would look like: lightning under clouds, maybe, but what colour?
I wanted to reach out as we stumbled in that nightmare landscape, the ground bucking under our boots, to put a hand under your elbow and feel the warmth of those light bones. Not to support you – you and your pride both would have been a heavy burden – just to touch you for a moment. But Gilly planted himself between us with some half-invented idea of chivalry and ploughed ahead, helmet swivelling like clockwork. Something rose from the rocks ahead of us, invisible except for the glint off its goggles; I drew smoothly and fired at the fleck of light, watched it disintegrate into green chunks.
“Very nice,” you grunted. “Have you been practicing in secret? We’ll have to have a re-match when we get back.”
“No thanks; I’m already a month behind in pay thanks to you.”
We slowed; I glanced at Gilmour in case he had seen anything, but it was you, limping heavily, the chrysanthemum odour of your sweat overpowering the smell of the antibiotic gel. As one, we looked down; an obliging flash a hundred yards away lit up your bare leg, no longer the sterile white of the bandage but soaking red, flowing easily over the cuff of your new boot, washing it clean of mud. Gilmour yelped. I held back a noise of my own. And you, you, my love...
“I’m fine. Come on.”
We destroyed a scouting party, walked through their stinking remains, caught ourselves constantly on a knee or an outstretched hand as the ground shuddered. Gilmour came within an inch of stepping into a steam-vent that opened under his boot; you yanked him back, and we stood abruptly marooned in a ring of blood, dust, steam, and glowering cracks. Expressions emerged in the dim, orange light. You looked resigned, Gilly baldly terrified.
Despite the comms ban, we heard a crackle from our sternum radios – a shock, hearing the voice of the ship after so many days. “Attention all personnel in quadrant C. The Akhjians have activated a seismic weapon in this vicinity. Do not engage further. Return to muster point Romeo, repeat, Romeo, and await pickup. You have. Seven. Minutes. And. Forty-five. Seconds.”
“How far is it?” I whispered.
You said, “Half a mile. Come on.”
I trusted your sense of direction; mine was pathetic, and Gilmour had an extremely good one that was unfortunately ninety degrees out of true on this planet. Yours was the only one I would have followed. And so we did, weaving through gaps in the vents, panting at the noxious gases they spat out. I fumbled absently for my rebreather, lost hours ago; yours was filled with blood. Gilly handed you his at once, and I hope he saw the look I gave him in the volcanic twilight.
The ship itself could not be seen, but we looked up and saw its green lights hanging against the faint silver stars still visible through the clouds of dust and steam. I cried out at its nearness.
“Corporal,” Gilly called. “Please—”
I looked back and saw that I had been walking alone; you had gone down, the saturated bandage finally peeling away to reveal the arc burn no less ravaged than the land around us, bubbling with blood and lymph. I dropped beside you. The mud was so hot I felt my skin scald at once.
“Get up,” I told you.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” I snapped, quoting the major. A smile flickered across your face, quick and dark. Your eyes were like the sky hidden above us.
“Give me your grenades. I’ll give those bastards a sendoff to remember.”
“We’ll carry you,” I said. “Gilmour.”
“Ma’am.” He reached down for you and reeled back, lip split, landing heavily on his back. I would not have thought your small fist could have carried so much force. You were licking your knuckles, face set and drawn.
“I’m not going to make it, Jen,” you said, voice miles away. As if in agreement, a six-foot crack opened up nearly at our feet, white inside rather than red, a sudden jerk of earth skywards.
“Corporal!” shouted Gilly; we heard another number, incomprehensible, through the radio. I ignored it.
“You can. You will. Look how close we are.”
