Reality Dysfunction - Expansion

I wonder what all this bodily offensive is doing to my implants?

Her neural nanonics were ru

There had been nothing remotely threatening, except for one sayce, since they left the Isakore , and the sayce hadn’t fancied its chances against three horses.

She could hear Dean Folan and Will Danza plodding along behind her, and wondered how they were getting on with their horses. Having the two ESA G66 Division (Tactical Combat) troops backing her up was a dose of comfort stronger than any stimulant program could provide. She had been trained in general covert fieldwork, but they had virtually been bred for it, geneering and nanonic supplements combining to make them formidable fighting machines.

Dean Folan was in his mid-thirties, a quiet ebony-ski

Will Danza fitted people’s conception of a modern-day soldier; twenty-five, tall, broad, with long, sleek muscles. He was an old Prussian warrior genotype, blond, courteous, and unsmiling. There was an almost psychic essence of danger emanating from him; you didn’t tangle with him in any tavern brawl no matter how drunk you were. Je

The nature of the jungle started to change around them. Tightly packed bushy trees gave way to tall, slender trunks with a plume of feather-fronds thirty metres overhead. A solid blanket of creepers tangled the ground, rising up to hug the lower third of the tree trunks like solid conical encrustations. It increased their visibility dramatically, but the horses had to pick their hoofs up sharply. High above their heads ve

After another forty minutes they came to a small stream. She dismounted in slow tender stages, and let her horse drink. Away in the distance she could see a herd of danderil bounding away from the trickle of softly steaming water. White clouds were rolling in from the east. It would rain in an hour, she knew.

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 i

The stream was muddy, its stones slimed with algae, none of which seemed to bother the horses. Je

When Dean and Will swapped position she datavised the armour suit’s communications block to open a scrambled cha

“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 sava

Static warbled down the cha

“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.

Je

“They’re out there,” Will said in a level tone.

“Where?” Je

“I don’t know, but they’re watching us. I can feel it. They don’t like us.”

Je

“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.