Andromeda's War (Legion of the Damned Book 3) by William C. Dietz

Author:William C. Dietz [Dietz, William C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER: 9

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

The Little Prince

Standard year 1943

PLANET SAVAS

Empress Ophelia was alive! That was the good news for everyone except McKee. Because it had been her fervent hope that the bitch was dead. The announcement came the day after the team landed and just before they were about to head out. With the exception of those who had guard duty, the rest of Special Ops Team One-Five were gathered around the flat-topped rock on which Major Remy stood.

“I have some good news for you,” Remy said, as he eyed the faces around him. “The empress is alive. We know that because a tiny locator beacon was inserted under the skin behind her left ear roughly nine months ago. At the time it was seen as a precaution that would help authorities find Ophelia in the unlikely event that she was abducted. The existence of the implant is classified because if assassins knew about it, they could use the signal to track her movements. In any case, the beacon is programmed to fail if she’s killed and, since we are receiving a strong signal, it’s safe to conclude that she’s still alive.”

The announcement prompted applause, lots of positive comments, and an immediate improvement in morale for everyone except McKee. Remy smiled and nodded. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that she’s more than three hundred miles northeast of here . . . So a long hike lies ahead of us.”

Now, three days later, they were forty-five miles into the journey that Remy had warned them about, and a cloud of insects was swirling around McKee’s head as she elbowed her way forward. Sergeant Roy Feng was next to her, while Bartov and the rest of the squad were concealed in a ravine a hundred yards to the rear.

The legionnaires wormed their way up over a rise and paused so that McKee could use her binoculars. There was a ragged-looking tree line in front of them, and McKee knew that she was looking at a peninsula of equatorial jungle that jutted out into what their maps called the Great Pandu Desert. The battle between the jungle and the desert had been under way for a long time. Given enough rain, the green stuff would hurry to colonize new territory. Then, when a dry spell came along, the desert would recover the ground it had lost.

In any case, Remy was eager to reach Ophelia as soon as possible. And in order to do that, it would be necessary for the company to push its way through two fingers of jungle before committing itself to the desert for the balance of the journey. Having fought in the Big Green on Orlo II, McKee knew what they would be in for once they entered the forest. The overarching canopy would block a lot of the sunlight. Animals they’d never seen before would scamper through the branches over their heads—and there would be frequent bouts of rain.

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