Mechwarrior: Dark Age #5: Truth and Shadows by Martin Delrio

Author:Martin Delrio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2003-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

25

Benderville

Oilfields Coast

Northwind

February 3134; dry season

The recon force set out the next morning from Benderville. The encampment began stirring into motion a couple of hours before the usual time, while the sky was dark, with only a pearly glow of coming sunrise along the inland horizon. As Sergeants, Will, Jock, and Lexa were all awake in the early-early. They stood by the supply truck drinking flash-heated tea—strong and sweet with sugar and condensed milk—from their mess cups prior to waking the rest of the infantry.

“Responsibility,” said Lexa, yawning widely, “is a bitch. Last to bed and first awake and behaving myself all the time to set a good example . . . why did I let you talk me into letting them promote me like this?”

“Because you trust me to have your best interests at heart?”

“Lemme think about it.” She paused for a moment, then shook her head. “Nah. Can’t be.”

Jock said, “It was the uniform—you couldn’t resist him in it. I could see you looking at him and drooling.”

“Go on. As if I’d take a chance on losing a perfectly good buddy that way.” She finished the last of her tea. “Must have done it out of the kindness of my heart. Somebody has to teach the new kids which end of the laser rifle the pretty red light comes out of.”

“That’d be you, all right,” said Will. He looked at his watch. “Time to wake the children up for breakfast.”

He and his fellow Sergeants began moving among the soldiers huddled in their sleeping bags. “Wakey wakey,” he chanted as he passed from one drowsing bundle to the next. “We’re burning daylight.”

The harangue was a familiar one from his days in Basic Training, though he’d never expected to find himself on the delivering end of it. Jock’s voice, coming from further off, provided a rumbling echo, punctuated by Lexa’s cheerfully obscene exhortations from over on the other side of the camp: “. . . and pull on your socks! Save it for Fort Barrett, boys, we’ve got work to do.”

After a hurried breakfast of hot tea and cold rations, the task force began to move out. The Balac Strike VTOLs went first, rising from the ground in swirls of dust to head out in the day’s search pattern, one VTOL covering inland, and one the seaward sector. As they climbed they dwindled to bright dots against the pink sky of dawn, catching the light of the rising sun like a pair of fast-moving morning stars.

The aircraft would be ranging ahead of the column, on the track suggested by last night’s encounter. Will hoped that the boy had given a fair representation of the truth. He hadn’t acted like a liar, but even the most truthful of youngsters wasn’t above shading or coloring a tale, sometimes not even on purpose.

The noise of the lifting VTOLs faded, and was replaced with the sound of other engines stirring to life: the troop trucks, the scout cars, the Joust tank, the General’s Koshi. Will saw the last of his squad onto their Shandra scouting vehicles, then mounted up himself.

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