Prologue

“Kay, what’s up with the signal?” The Lieutenant gave a question that was of interest to everyone.

Shefferson has already been fiddling silently for two minutes with the direction-finder which he took out of his backpack, but, to all appearances, he hasn’t yet managed to achieve significant results worthy to be reported to his commander.

“I’m not getting anywhere. The quargs produce jamming, and their interference generator is not so far away, so they are blocking everything completely. With this much counteraction, we’ll hear the beacon at a distance of 500 meters at the best.”

The dropship made its turbines howl while pulling slowly from the ground and flew to the east above the hills towards the territory controlled by our troops. The plan was for it to find a safe place and wait for us to signal, and if thereʼs no signal within six hours, it has to arrive at a predetermined rendezvous point.

However, it didn’t work out. A bright flare and a noisy explosion right behind the hills, just 300 meters away informed us unequivocally that we no longer had transport to return to the base.

“Let’s go! Quick! ” The Lieutenant jumped up and and giving us an example ran to the nearest gorge between the sandy hills covered with burnt grass. Here and there hills were replaced by barkhans, the desert lay very close by.

Sergeant Ivan Kelt, deputy commander and our pathfinder, went ahead on the watch. I and the second universal commando, Private Gnezdoff, became flank security guards, and now we made our way almost along the top of the hills, trying to keep our heads down while carefully lifting the sensors of scanners just above the ridge. So far, no one’s been bothering us, but the tension has literally been in the air. The presence of the enemy was felt almost physically.

For half an hour we’ve been moving like this, trying to get away from the dropship crash site, and at the same time crossing the search area almost in the middle. The sense of imminent danger had eased slightly, and the Lieutenant gave the squad the signal to stop.

“Kay, let out your dragonflies, ʼcause we walk like we’re blind. It won’t take long to run into quargs.”

Shefferson pulled three small cylinder containers from the backpack, pressed the ends slightly in certain places, and dropped them into the air one by one. Containers turned out to be compact unmanned aerial vehicles. They unfolded like baby transformer toys, easily spread their thin wings and were hovering over the squad while quietly buzzing. Shefferson operated them with his helmet, at least I saw no special device in his hands.

The dragonflies flew in three directions, straight ahead and to the right and left at 45 degrees. We kept going, but almost immediately Kay stopped us. One of the dragonflies came across the remains of the scoutsʼ fly-car hit by quargs.

We didn’t move to the fly-car crash site. There was a high probability of an ambush there. Lieutenant with Shefferson went over the dragonfly camera footage. The information was distressing. The bodies of the four scouts lay not far from the wreckage of a smoking vehicle like broken dolls. There were eight guys who went out on a mission, which means there were at best four survivors. That is, if no one was left inside the demolished fly-car or died before. But the beacon didn’t work from here, or the dragonfly would have picked up itʼs signal. So someone managed to get away from the crash site. If only we knew in which direction.

The scanner built into my outfit was ringing the alarm. I’ve adjusted the different tone of the alert to different types of potential hazards and now, without even looking at the information appearing before my eyes, I already knew it was a quarg small recon drone. Single shot of my automatic gun echoed loud down the ravine and the wreckage of a small flying machine swept the hillsides. But we were undeniably discovered, and now the group is going to be hunted down and we haven’t even found any surviving scouts yet.

“Anton, you go a hundred meters down the ravine and stay here. Take the enemy away northeast. Go to the rendezvous point yourself, ” the Lieutenant assigned task to the universal commando Gnezdoff. “The rest follow me.”

“The dragonfly that came to the site of the fly-car’s fall is lost,” reported Shefferson. “Where to redirect the others, Commander?”

“Let’s have them look west. That’s where we’re going.”

“Got it. Doin’ it.”

Still, there’s a reason I spent a couple of days poking around with scanners and EW stations in the Academy tech area. And our tech Jeff was a big help. Results were not long in coming.

“Lieutenant, Sir, I’m picking up a beacon signal. Giving you the bearing.”

“Kay, can you confirm the Cadet’s information?” the Lieutenant turned to the regular communication specialist.

“Not yet, Commander. My direction-finder is silent.”

“Weʼre changing course. Ivan, take to the right, 15.”

“Yes, Sir.”

We went up a little higher and forward 40 meters.

“There’s a signal,” Shefferson reported with mistrustful surprise. “Cadet, what kind of scanner do you have in your gear?”

“Standard infantry scanner. But I’ve adjusted it a bit, and I’ve got a good tech, he helped me.”

“You’ve got a tech? What rank is he in?”

“A week ago he was a warrant officer. Now he is Lieutenant.”

“The warrant officer was given the rank of lieutenant? No school?”

“Put aside that blether,” the Lieutenant’s raised his voice on us.

“Yes, Sir,” Kay and I answered together.

We arrived at the beacon about 20 minutes later. It took us a while to find it. The beacon operated in short pulse mode at floating frequency. To hear it and to take its bearings, you had to know exactly what you were looking for. But again, the lack of a fixed signal made it difficult to find the beacon.

There were two scouts, a sergeant and a corporal, the latter was seriously injured when their fly-car fell. In the same time, he could really walk – exoskeleton is good for that.

“All right, so, fighters,” the Lieutenant called the scouts, “we found you, but we don’t know what’s next. We have no transport, our dropship has been knocked down by quargs. Thereʼs almost 400 kilometers in no man’s land from here to where we can signal our forces, and, more importantly, where they can safely retrieve us. There’s been a lot of quargs running around lately. Did you turn them on?”

“That’s right, Lieutenant, Sir,” said the Sergeant who introduced himself as Kimi Nukanen, “we went to their control zone and found a heavy robot deployment. Those were Mammoths of the latest model. No less than two divisions. It was in the middle of nowhere. Can you imagine how happy the command of our forces on heyn would be? That almost certainly means preparing for a ground offensive. And we, the naive ones, were waiting to be struck from space. Well, we were spotted on the exit. The quargs certainly did not wish to let such information leak. At first we got away, but we lost two of our own. We came at the fly-carʼs rendezvous point. You probably know the rest.”

“We know,” the Lieutenant nodded his head in agreement and started thinking. The subordinates waited silently for the commander’s decision.

“We go to the rendezvous point. Anton should be waiting for us there. The dropship, of course, will not come, but when we’re not back in time, they’ll send a drone. If we’re lucky, it’ll pick up and record our signal. If it can return to base after that, they’ll send a dropship, after us. Any questions?”

There were no questions.

“Then let the wounded go into the center of the column. Ivan – to the main patrol, Lavroff and Nukanen – to the sides. John, keep an eye on the rear. Kay, call off one of the dragonflies, we should save energy. For how long we’ll be here, no one knows. Go.”

Private Anton Gnezdoff never made it to the rendezvous point. Not the first day, nor the second. The drone did come, circled the dot, automatically responded that the signal had been received, and turned into a flash of bright flame from the impact of an enemy missile. And five minutes later, we were pinned down tight by a heavy infantry squad and a Small Dragon. Well, it looked like it was my turn to act.

We slowly retreated under the squeal of the shards and the roar of the Dragon’s automatic cannon constantly shooting our way out from every safe haven.

“Cadet, are you ready?” From the sound of the Lieutenant’s voice, there was doubt. He has already lost one universal commando, but Alexey was sure of Gnezdoff, and that guy must have done his job at the cost of his life. The Lieutenant didn’t know much about me, but he didn’t have any other options anyway.

“That’s right, Lieutenant, Sir. Which way to draw the enemy?”

“First, hold them here. Then lead around the rendezvous point. Give us an hour’s head start and leave. We’re gonna go east. We’ll try to get out on foot. We’ll turn on the beacon every four hours for ten minutes for you. ”

“I got it. I’m ready.”

“Good luck, Cadet. And thank you for the missile brought down. Well done.”

“Serving…”

“Put it aside, Lavroff. Squadron, follow me in the usual way. Go!”

And I was left alone.

The quargs didn’t get ahead. Either they were waiting for reinforcements or they weren’t feeling very confident, although their superiority of firepower was noticeable, even when our unit hasn’t split up yet. Now I had to play the whole group by myself.

Basically, with my equipment, I didn’t see anything impossible about it. My possession of three kinds of weapons made it possible to simulate different activities. That’s what I’ve been doing since I activated the second EW station in my spacesuit. This mode absorbed a lot of energy, but it’s become much harder to detect me with standard scanners. The Luyten-5 experience was very useful.

I fired three rounds from my automatic gun at the robot that stuck itself out in the open. I didn’t manage to penetrate it’s armor, but I spoiled his mood and forced him to hide behind a massive rock. Now it was time to change positions and wait a little bit, keeping my head down. My scanner picked up some questionable activity at the top of the hill, and I fired in a burst from the rotary machine gun on its crest without trying to hit anyone, but simply showing the enemy the presence of a shooter with a different weapon. Right after that, I stepped back and started to pick a position to work with a sniper rifle. The caliber of this rifle was, by the way, 18 millimeters, so only the Small Dragon pilot could feel relatively secure.

The alarmingly screeching scanner informed me that the quargs had launched a drone in my direction. They wanted to know where the shooters were, which was understandable. The drone was a small machine that didn’t fly fast, though it tried to hide in the folds of the area, briefly showing up from behind the rocks and the crests of the hills. It was almost a perfect target for a sniper rifle, especially if it was guided not by a man, but by computer-aided fire control. Shot, and the drone, which was broken through, fell to the ground as a pile of useless junk, but my position it marked and managed to transmit the information. The Small Dragon did not spare me a rocket, which was primarily intended to fire at air targets, but with a manual guidance, it was quite suitable for destroying enemies on the ground. My light armor was highly contraindicated to take direct hits or be in the vicinity of explosions of something heavy. So I jumped aside, made a roll and one more jump to the big rock, which took the brunt of the strike elements. I changed position once again…

I knew the quargs would soon get bored of this dance, and they would try to outflank the evil shooters. Except they’re not the only ones who can use drones, I love and respect these machines, too. On Luyten-5 I liked very much the black „cockroaches” of Captain Mbia, and I cadged three pieces from him. Little arthropod devices the size of mice have sprung up to the top of the nearest hills. Within line-of-sight range they were communicating with my suit through laser-optical channels and ignored virtually any interference. But now I saw what was going on in the back slopes of the nearest heights. I had a flying drone, too, but only one, and I decided to save it for the time being.