Starfist: A World of Hurt by David Sherman; Dan Cragg

Author:David Sherman; Dan Cragg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Space Opera, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Life on Other Planets, Military, Marines, General
ISBN: 9780345460530
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2004-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Corporal Sonj and Lance Corporals Makin and Zhon flicked off their HUD displays and glanced toward where Sergeant Steffan was squirreled out of sight on the north side of the shallow depression in which the recon team lay hidden; their infra signals were muted. The recon team leader kept his HUD on and reran what he and his men had just observed. The navy's string-of-pearls had relayed scrambled visual signals to them, with infra overlay, from the quartet of disguised UAVs flying through the interdicted area they were about to enter over the ridgetop fifty meters away.

Steffan concentrated, determined not to miss anything that would help them accomplish their mission, anything that would allow them all to report back to the FIST F2, intelligence section, alive and uninjured. He watched as the first fake thrushmocker spun, lost vision, and went dead. He saw the greenish streamer slam into the second thrushmocker and kill it. He shrugged off vertigo as the first papukaija went into its defensive maneuvers, braked to look at the tree the streamer had come from, and then spun out of control itself from a blindside hit before its transmission went blank and died. None of the four UAVs had picked up anything in infra other than the subtle warmth of decaying vegetation on the forest floor. The summary of other data collected showed no movement other than the faint lines of the streamers that killed the three UAVs and another that missed the papukaija. Whoever had shot them down did it from very close proximity to the birds, none much more than ten meters from their targets.

Steffan had seen those greenish streamers before. So had Sonj and Zhon. Makin hadn't; he was one of the new men who joined 34th FIST after the return to Thorsfinni's World from Kingdom. It was the stream from Skink acid guns. Steffan took a slow, deep breath to keep from shivering; the Skink weapons were horrible, but the acid gun was the worst of them. He was glad he and his men were wearing chameleons impregnated with acid neutralizer.

Before they went over that saddle, he'd have to double-check his men to make sure none of them had exposed skin, or poor seals where acid could get inside their uniforms.

He blinked. He was assuming they'd have hot contact with the Skinks, which was the worst thing a recon Marine in this kind of situation could have--detection by the enemy on an intelligence gathering mission usually meant the mission failed.

He knew the Skinks had some sense that allowed them to detect chameleoned Marines, almost as though they could see in infrared. They couldn't see in infrared, though, he knew that. Whatever sense it was that they did have gave them a general location, not the exact position of a Marine invisible in his chameleons. But whatever that sense was, it shouldn't have recognized the disguised UAVs for what they were. Did the Skinks have new equipment, something they hadn't used on Kingdom,

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