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"Listen up, you grunts!" I yelled over the roar of the engines. "We're almost to our drop point! In case you've forgotten why we're taking this little joyride, I'll refresh your memory! A gang of shimmerstone hijackers is operating out of the Devil's Brewery! It's too well equipped to be local-probably a merc outfit! Our job is to find their base and wipe it! Any questions?"
"Yeah!" White Cloud grunted. "What's for lunch?"
"Your ass, if you screw up! Ski, get these yahoos ready to rock!"
"On it, Sarge!" The ex-circus strongman from Nowy Krakow was smarter than he looked, which was why he had been slotted for corporal.
I lurched back to the cockpit. Darrow was still hugging ground, but the valley had opened up into a dreary snowbound steppe. The Cat's Eye hung in the morning sky like some god's lost marble. Haven was only marginally habitable for terrestrial life around the equator; this far north it didn't even try. The temperature was sub-zero, the air was unbreathably thin, and the native flora and fauna were equally deadly.
"Bloody right!" Darrow yelled eagerly. "That, I dare say, is our target."
I followed his gaze.
If Haven was the asshole of the galaxy, the Devil's Brewery was what came out. Tidal pull from the Cat's Eye had fractured and crumpled the planet's crust, letting out some of its boiling guts. Active volcanoes mounted guard over several hundred square kilometers of lava rivers and lakes, fumaroles, geysers, and hot springs. Crevasse-shot ice and snow covered the tortured terrain, shaken by frequent quakes. Volcanic ash, rising steam and a permanent blizzard muted the crimson hell-fires.
I licked my lips in anticipation.
The transport knifed into the white-out of the blizzard. It bucked like a bronco on loco weed, and the screaming of the wind came loud and clear through the double hull. Something with the kick of a SAM slammed the transport upward. Ice or magma from an explosive eruption," Darrow explained as he veered to miss-barely-a smoking gray cone.
Fire and ice. Mix them together, and you get hell. Like a soldier's soul. I went back to the cabin. "Get them strapped in, Ski! Could get a bit-"
CRAAAAANG!
"-hairy!"
The cockpit was gone. Wind, snow and blood-red light exploded into the cabin. I jammed my arms into safety straps and braced. The cabin started tumbling. Preacher's "Now I lay me down to sleep-" and White Cloud's war cry were lost in a bedlam of crashing gear and tearing duralloy. The god who had lost his marble took his anger out on what was left of the transport: a roundhouse right, stiff uppercuts, then a flurry of jabs. The punches dribbled my head against the cabin plasteel, while the straps cut into and almost through my arms.
Then I noticed we weren't tumbling anymore. We were down.
The cabin lights were out. I gasped for breath, and the frigid air thrilled my lungs. Fumbling around, I found my helmet and put it on. The combat suit started compressing and warming the air before it got to me.
Shadowy shapes were moving and moaning happily in the red-tinted gloom. Switching on my helmet com, I growled, "Anybody have enough sense to suit up?" Silence answered me.
I found and checked out my Kalashnikov by touch, while Ski, Preacher, Toglog, White Cloud and Schmidt reported. Preacher had lost a few teeth from his wi
"Ski," I ordered, "go forward and check on Darrow."
"On it, Sarge." A dark bulk crawled through the crumpled hatchway.
A moment later Ski was back on the com. "The Brit is squashed against the rear cockpit wall. Messy."
Climbing to my feet, I a
Leaving the cabin wasn't hard; we had our choice of cracks. I led the squad out into the teeth of the blizzard. The slippery snow made standing hard and walking almost impossible. Despite my suit, the cold and the banshee howling cut to the bone, amping my pleasant glow from the crash. Everything was luridly red-lit, including us. Visibility was a handful of meters.
"Have you had a revelation as to the location of the hijackers' base, Sarge?" Preacher asked. He had gotten the nickname because he was a Harmony from Castell City, but he was an unlikely candidate for salvation. His evangelistic yack was retaliation for the squad's ribbing.
"Well, it ain't here, so let's go find it. I'll take the point-Ski, cover the rear."
"On it, Sarge."
I picked a direction, and started fighting through the blizzard. The squad was strung out behind me.
An ice-covered lava flow was the closest thing to a path available. It zigzagged between a tumbled ridge and a deep fissure. Steam and heat roared up from the fissure; I peered into it, and saw bubbling red magma. Wind-driven snow and ash hammered at me.
We passed a hole in the side of a dormant cone which was spewing pale gas. A fumarole. Spotting Schmidt swaying a bit, I dropped back and slapped the filter button on his helmet. "Stay sharp, kraut. I'm not always going to be around to wipe your ass for you."
The taciturn little New Rhinelander gave me a one-fingered gesture of thanks.
Forward progress came slowly and awkwardly. Walk. Slip and fall. Walk. Ground tremor knocks you down. Walk. A flying chunk of lava hits you. Walk. Step in a crevasse and trip . . .
"Does that lava pool over there look familiar, Sarge?" White Cloud grunted.
"No. Why?"
"I thought it might remind you of home."
"Droll. Very droll."
"Feed the squaw man some sugar," Toglog suggested.
"You cheap imitation Genghis Khan-!"
I let the squad yack. The com transmissions might attract attention, which was what I wanted.
We were in the lee of a steep slope when a sharp tremor started its white face sliding. I yelled, "Avalanche!" and scrambled to get clear. Preacher, Toglog, White Cloud and Ski made it too, but Schmidt disappeared under the pile of ash-darkened snow.
"Can't take him anywhere," I muttered. "Ski!"
"On it, Sarge." Ski went over to the snow pile. Lifting his right arm" he a
"Too small. I better throw it back." Ski brushed snow off Schmidt, and put him down.
"Move out, you yahoos!" I growled. "Before the hijackers die of old age!"
The lava flow started up a volcanic cone too steep to climb. We angled across the boulder-littered slope, then slipped and slid into a gorge with weirdly eroded rock formations. Scrawny native grass and shrubs surrounded steaming hot springs. Slogging through knee-high snow drifts, exertion put an edge on my glow. Sweat was keeping my helmet's defogger busy.
Toglog was telling one of his i
Suddenly something leaped down from a high ledge, so fast that it was a blur. Our reflex shots missed. It landed on Preacher, knocking him down.
It was a northern cousin of the cliff lion, white instead of grayish-brown, one hundred-plus kilograms of felinoid predator. Roaring like a shuttle engine, it sought Preacher's throat with its slavering jaws. Somehow he managed to get his forearm in the way. They thrashed about in a deepening hole in the snow, while the cliff lion tried to chew through Nemourlon. Preacher's Kalashnikov lay nearby.
The rest of us surrounded the pair, but nobody could get a clear shot. Preacher moaned as the powerful paws batted and raked him.