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wounds.
Lir looked at the other I&R soldiers, but said nothing. There wasn't any need.
Jil Mahim was bloody to the elbows, and her operating gown looked like she'd been swimming in gore.
"No go," she said, pulling a sheet over a man's face. "He's gone."
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The gurney was hastily trundled away. Mahim had time to stretch, wish she could have a drink, wish she
was a lowly enlisted swine back with I&R, when the casualties only came one or two at a time, and
another gurney was pushed in front of her. Male, some kind of flier, flameproofs already cut open.
Bad, she thought.Chest wound& sucking, somebody
put a compress over that, good. Some intestinal damage. Heavy bleeding. Probably not going to make
it.
She looked, impersonally, up at the casualty's face, recognized him as the man's eyes opened.
"Jill,"AltRad Dref, onetime I&R Grierson pilot, said. "Or am I dead?"
"You're not dead," Mahim said.
"Good. I saw those Larries coming& didn't want them to get me& got to the cupola gun& guess
somebody dragged me out& not a bad way to go, now, here, out of the dirt. Not much pain. Not much
at all, unless I breathe." Dref smiled beatifically. "Letter in my pouch& see my people get it, 'kay?"
Mahim was bending over him.
"Goddammit, you coward son of a bitch, you aren't gonna die!"
Dref just smiled on.
"Breathe, you gutless bastard," Mahim snarled. "Anybody can give up and die! Breathe, I'm telling you,
or I'll dig my thumb in your guts!"
Dref's smile vanished. He sucked in air, grimaced.
"Hurts."
"Damned right it hurts," Mahim said. "It means you're still frigging alive! Breathe again!"
Dref obeyed.
"Respirator," Mahim called. "Now, goddammit! Over here! Breathe again, you sorry sack of shit!"
Again air came in painfully, went out.
The respirator was there, and Mahim's fingers moved over Dref's body quickly, connecting sensors,
pumps, stabbing a hollow probe through his rib cage into a lung.
"Keep breathing," she ordered. "This box is just gonna help a little. Breathe, or as the life spirit's my
goddamned witness I'll tear up your pissyassed sniveling little letter home to Momma, and nobody'll even
know where you died!"
Again Dref's chest moved, and once more.
"Come on, dickhead! You can do better than that! Breathe!"
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Rad Dref lived, and was flying a Zhukov again within the year.
A soldier heard a sound, booted the door open, and flipped a grenade into the shanty. It went off, and
the soldier heard the wail of a baby, then the tears of another child.
He forced himself to look inside, vomited, then started shouting for a medic.
"You know that goddamned Redruth's palace is like a damnedhoumwarren," Maev Stiofan said.
Njangu didn't know exactly what ahoumwas, figured it out by context.
"I only learned about half of it," she went on. "Even Protector's Own weren't trusted a lot. But one thing
I do know: Redruth's last hidey-hole isn't where you think it'd be, in the cellars. There's this passageway
that we guarded that went somewhere. Nobody without the highest clearance his top aides, a few
Letters, some unit commanders, not me, went through those doors."
"You remember where it is?"
"Surely," Maev said.
"Don't go and get killed on me 'til we get closer to that palace," Njangu said. "That might be interesting
skinny, if things work out like they maybe are gonna."
"I don't like open land," Monique Lir whispered to Darod Montagna, peering out of a bomb crater
toward the large, ornate building across the sweeping grounds that'd once been lawns. "Gimme a nice,
crooked alley, anytime."
" 'Kay," Darod said. "I'll take the lead this time."
"Hell you will," Lir said. "I'll take Second Troop in a big fat wave. You gimme fire support when they try
to level our heinies."
" 'Kay. Go."
Monique came to a crouch.
"Second Troop! Off your dead asses and on your dying feet! Let's go!"
The forty surviving Second Troop members came up in crouches and, waiting for the sky to fall, darted
forward to the next cover.
Darod checked her sniper-modified blaster, took a deep breath.
"First Troop! In a rush!"
The rest of I&R zigged up, went on line with Second. Darod, panting hard, flopped behind a downed
tree next to Lir.
"Why in hell," she said, "have they got us fighting like line slime?"
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" 'Cause," Lir said, "they're running low on people with death wishes. Happens to I&R in every war. We
start as elite, then they decide we're good enough to be line fillers, and then we get wiped out."
"Thanks for the history lesson," Montagna said. "But this is too easy," she said. "I really think "
The artillery barrage came down, rounds crashing in a wave, on and on, endlessly. Montagna had her
helmet buried in the dirt, trying to crawl up into it, when impossibly, she heard the incoming supersonic
whine of the shell that was meant for her.
The shell hit on the other side of the tree, ten meters distant, and sent both officers tumbling.
Montagna realized with some surprise that she was still alive, lifted her head, opened an eye. Vision was
blurred, and she wiped a hand across her face, and cleared blood away. She saw Monique Lir lying very
still a few meters away.
"Sunnuvabitch," she managed. She'd always thought Lir was immortal.
Darod realized she didn't hurt that badly, and looked down at herself. Her camouflage uniform was
dark-stained to her waist. Her hands came up, checked her breasts. They were still there. She cautiously
ran fingers over her face. It hurt, but she didn't find any new holes. Shrapnel wounds, that was all,
assuming she didn't have a big painless hole somewhere else.
FirstTwegHuran was flat, next to her.
"You've got the company," Montagna managed. "How bad're we hit?"
"Not too. Three down, not moving, counting the boss. Maybe four wounded."
"Go take the frigging objective for me," Montagna said. "Anybody who can wiggle can give covering
fire."
"But you're "
"The medics'll be here when they're here," Montagna snapped. "You know the orders. Now move out!"
"Yes'm."
Montagna, feeling shock finger her system, pushed it away. She found a syrette in a pouch, shot half of it
in her thigh, rolled over on her stomach as Huran shouted orders.
Lying almost next to her was her blaster. She dragged it over by the sling, found it didn't appear to be
damaged. Montagna rolled into a shallow trench, winced in pain, and peered through the weapon's scope
at the monolith ahead of them.
Nothing& nothing& nobody moving over there& oh there we are, down on the ground. Nope, not
good enough to be the eye in the sky& go high& goddamned stone statues, wonder what this frigging
place used to be& hard to make out if those are stones, or real people& ho-ho, gotcha, you sneaky
little bastard, she thought, seeing a glint of light from an upper tower window that moved.There's my
artillery spotter.
"Huran!" she shouted.
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