stared at Cutler. “Why do you think the grezz have done so well?”
It was Cutler’s turn to shrug and stare into his cup. “I suppose you’re right.”
Zhondro mumbled in his sleep.
Cutler stretched, then exercised his droit du seigneur and claimed first dibs on the sanex.
After Cutler was gone, I turned to Kit. “If either of you actually believed what you were saying just then, I’m a duck.”
Kit just stared at me. Then Zhondro muttered in his sleep again, louder. Our company medic had said that Tassini did it because they smoked janga, which superanimated their dreams. Whatever. They all talked in their sleep.
The same night breeze that carried wobblehead stink up the dune to me also carried sleepy female murmurs. One woman seemed to yelp in her sleep, and the kid with his nightshirt pulled up looked away from his business in response.
Third Platoon’s engines were in whispermode, softer than cat farts, and the wind blew toward us. But at that moment, Red Four, jockeying forward to come on line with the other four tanks, poked its prow beyond the military crest of the dune.
The kid below leaned toward us. Maybe he couldn’t hear us, but he could see Red Four. The thermal’s magnified image showed his mouth open as he stared up in the dark. He couldn’t see us as clearly as I saw him, but he saw enough. He turned, then ran back to the tents, shouting and pointing back and up at us.
My gunner reached across the turret and tapped my bicep. “Jazen, they may not be combatants, but they’re sure as hell combatant dependents. They got a radio down there tied in to their tank column. If you don’t take the shot right now—”
Bam .
In the Sleeper, Cutler banged open the sanex door, yawned, and rolled into his bunk. He waved the lights low, pulled out his Reader, and lay bathed in its glow, absorbing bed-time stories.
Kit sidestepped past him, then closed the sanex door behind her.
Somewhere distant, something very large and un-wooglike bellowed so loudly that the Sleeper’s wall armor vibrated. Then the ground beneath the Sleeper shook, as thousands of woogs stampeded in response.
In his bunk, Zhondro thrashed beneath his sheet, muttering in Tassini.
Kit slipped out of the sanex like a shadow in the dimmed light, visible for a blink wearing thoroughly utilitarian skivvies that on her looked anything but. She vaulted herself into the rack just below the one that would be mine, like a silent gymnast, and vanished beneath the sheets.
As Cutler lay on his back in his bunk, studying his Reader, he said to me, “Big day tomorrow, Parker. Sleep well.”
Fat chance.
Fifteen
In the morning, the woogs were gone but not forgotten. The swath they ate and trampled through the trees that had surrounded us looked like twenty thousand bulldozers had wandered past. And compared to woog dung, wobblehead crap smelled like roses.
Zhondro and I broke down the night laager while Kit sat atop the Abrams’ turret with her Barrett at the ready, but after she winged the obligatory gort, nothing bigger than lemon bugs interfered. Before full light, we were rolling north again, to Kit’s Line camp.
Every kid has played holos set in a Kodiak crew compartment. However nobody born this century has seen an Abrams’ gut except museum curators. But the two vehicles don’t look all that different inside.
Neither space welcomes claustrophobes. Most of the crew volume in either tank is the roughly tubular, rotating basket inside of, and extending below, the turret. The Abrams’ crew space is larger, because it accommodates an extra, third crew member, who loads the main gun. The loader, gunner, and tank commander sit in the turret, and move with it, like diners in a revolving restaurant. The fourth crew member, the driver, reclines in a fixed, forward-facing, coffin-sized compartment in the prow.
Even a Trueborn with his feet on the Abrams’ floor can stand upright in the center of the turret, and can reach out from
It was Cutler’s turn to shrug and stare into his cup. “I suppose you’re right.”
Zhondro mumbled in his sleep.
Cutler stretched, then exercised his droit du seigneur and claimed first dibs on the sanex.
After Cutler was gone, I turned to Kit. “If either of you actually believed what you were saying just then, I’m a duck.”
Kit just stared at me. Then Zhondro muttered in his sleep again, louder. Our company medic had said that Tassini did it because they smoked janga, which superanimated their dreams. Whatever. They all talked in their sleep.
The same night breeze that carried wobblehead stink up the dune to me also carried sleepy female murmurs. One woman seemed to yelp in her sleep, and the kid with his nightshirt pulled up looked away from his business in response.
Third Platoon’s engines were in whispermode, softer than cat farts, and the wind blew toward us. But at that moment, Red Four, jockeying forward to come on line with the other four tanks, poked its prow beyond the military crest of the dune.
The kid below leaned toward us. Maybe he couldn’t hear us, but he could see Red Four. The thermal’s magnified image showed his mouth open as he stared up in the dark. He couldn’t see us as clearly as I saw him, but he saw enough. He turned, then ran back to the tents, shouting and pointing back and up at us.
My gunner reached across the turret and tapped my bicep. “Jazen, they may not be combatants, but they’re sure as hell combatant dependents. They got a radio down there tied in to their tank column. If you don’t take the shot right now—”
Bam .
In the Sleeper, Cutler banged open the sanex door, yawned, and rolled into his bunk. He waved the lights low, pulled out his Reader, and lay bathed in its glow, absorbing bed-time stories.
Kit sidestepped past him, then closed the sanex door behind her.
Somewhere distant, something very large and un-wooglike bellowed so loudly that the Sleeper’s wall armor vibrated. Then the ground beneath the Sleeper shook, as thousands of woogs stampeded in response.
In his bunk, Zhondro thrashed beneath his sheet, muttering in Tassini.
Kit slipped out of the sanex like a shadow in the dimmed light, visible for a blink wearing thoroughly utilitarian skivvies that on her looked anything but. She vaulted herself into the rack just below the one that would be mine, like a silent gymnast, and vanished beneath the sheets.
As Cutler lay on his back in his bunk, studying his Reader, he said to me, “Big day tomorrow, Parker. Sleep well.”
Fat chance.
Fifteen
In the morning, the woogs were gone but not forgotten. The swath they ate and trampled through the trees that had surrounded us looked like twenty thousand bulldozers had wandered past. And compared to woog dung, wobblehead crap smelled like roses.
Zhondro and I broke down the night laager while Kit sat atop the Abrams’ turret with her Barrett at the ready, but after she winged the obligatory gort, nothing bigger than lemon bugs interfered. Before full light, we were rolling north again, to Kit’s Line camp.
Every kid has played holos set in a Kodiak crew compartment. However nobody born this century has seen an Abrams’ gut except museum curators. But the two vehicles don’t look all that different inside.
Neither space welcomes claustrophobes. Most of the crew volume in either tank is the roughly tubular, rotating basket inside of, and extending below, the turret. The Abrams’ crew space is larger, because it accommodates an extra, third crew member, who loads the main gun. The loader, gunner, and tank commander sit in the turret, and move with it, like diners in a revolving restaurant. The fourth crew member, the driver, reclines in a fixed, forward-facing, coffin-sized compartment in the prow.
Even a Trueborn with his feet on the Abrams’ floor can stand upright in the center of the turret, and can reach out from
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