Toy Soldiers by Paul Leonard

Author:Paul Leonard [Leonard, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780426204527
Google: 5CIHAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0426204522
Publisher: Virgin Pub
Published: 1995-11-14T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

When Sergeant Summerfield woke up she was no longer responsible for recruitment. She was vaguely aware that she had been, but the memory was no more coherent than that of a dream: there had been a blue box appearing out of the air, a civilian in a rumpled suit with his hands above his head. A factory, somewhere.

She shook her head. No time for dreams now. She had to get on with the new job.

She rolled out of her bunk on to the muddy concrete floor, pulled on the trousers and jacket of her new red-and-yellow uniform, then looked around the dugout that was now her command. It was small, and very basic: a single-squad hole in the ground, with three sets of bunks jammed against the crude metal blastproofing, one to each wall, and a single gas-burning stove occupying most of the remaining wall. To its left a low brick archway revealed the beginning of an upward flight of steps. A square wooden table, muddy and burn-scarred, stood in the middle of the room: there was barely space to pass between it and the bunks. A low rumble of shellfire ran through the dugout, occasionally rattling the metal sheets on the walls.

Summerfield checked on her staff. The top two bunks in her tier were occupied, the troopers sleeping in their Muddy, dull red-and-yellow uniforms. Both of them were Ogrons: good fighters, she knew, but stupid. She was going to have to do a lot of their thinking for them. She checked the other two sets of bunks, saw four more Ogrons and a couple of Biune.

‘Teddy bears,’ she muttered. ‘Slow movers. But at least they’ve got brains.’

She pulled her helmet and her rifle from their hooks on the wall across the bunk. She put the helmet on; it came down over her ears. She adjusted the chin strap, but even at the tightest notch it was still loose.

Not good enough,’ she muttered. ‘Must have a word with the costume department.’ Then she frowned, wondering why the remark seemed funny. What was a costume department?

She briefly checked her rifle, then slung it over her shoulder before starting across the dugout towards the stairway that led to the surface. Her new boots squelched in the mud, ankle-deep on the floor. Half-way across she slipped and almost fell, had to put a hand on the table to steady herself. She gazed at the bloodstains on the table for a moment, wondering what had made them, then shook her head. Whatever had happened there, it didn’t concern her.

The stairway twisted sharply to the left. There was no rail. Summerfield had to keep a hand on the rough bricks of the wall to stop herself from falling. She became aware that her boots, like her helmet, didn’t fit properly: they both flopped awkwardly, and the right one chafed her heel. She wondered in passing if the alien that made them had ever seen a human being.

Daylight became visible: a ragged entrance, part blocked by the heavy form of a Biune.

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