Intrepid

The photo showed the road twisting around a ridge close to a heavily dug-up area between the road and the swamp. If that batch of ground was as hard as most of this planet's worked-over ground was, those dugouts were ready-made fighting holes.

The place must have been dug up a while back. New trees, shrubs, and ferns covered the ground pretty well. It would be easy to hide people in those ditches. ''I'll have Thorpe give us thermal images of this area every pass.''

''His thermal images haven't done us a lot of good so far,'' Zhukov pointed out. ''No hint as to where that Longknife girl is up north. No nothing about that swamp we got ambushed in. I swear, I could have done better with a blind man's cane.''

''Maybe he'll get lucky. Maybe we'll get lucky,'' Cortez said, staring off at the distant trees. And thinking.

Fact, we got ambushed but good. Fact, highly accurate fire. Rapid fire. But come to think about it, not a lot of automatic fire. No, what had let the air out of his trucks' tires had been single shots. Rock and roll would have shredded the rubber and put holes all around the trucks' fenders. It also would have put holes in troops standing nearby.

No excess holes in the trucks. None in the troops.

Very good shooting.

And no thermal heat sources for Thorpe to spot from orbit.

Who could shoot that fast, that straight, and had battle suits that didn't give off a heat signature?

''God …'' Cortez started, then noticed the look the wounded psalm singer gave him. For peace in his command he swallowed what he'd intended to say and finished with, ''bless.''

''Amen,'' the member of the Lord's Ever Victorious Host appended.

Major Zhukov pursed his lips. ''U.S. Marines,'' he whispered.

''With thermal battle suits,'' Cortez finished.

''Damn,'' said the wounded psalm singer.

29

Kris was glad to see Jack's rig being waved in by her scout troop. They motored up and down the breaks that were the prelude to the hills ahead. At the bottom of many of the low, rolling hills were small streams, fed by the distant mountains. The sun had been up for only an hour, but it was already hot.

Jack reported with a salute and a smile. ''Good to see you again, Princess. You've got quite a following,'' the Marine captain said, taking in the lines of trucks behind her.

Kris returned the salute. ''Where are your troops?''

Jack glanced over his shoulder at only three trucks. ''I didn't see much use in bringing them back and forth. They're out ahead of you, digging holes in the croplands. It's not going to be a lot of fun walking in their footsteps.''

Kris gave over to her captain any doubts she still had. He might be a short-timer in the Corps, but he'd been a long time looking after her hide.

''Oh, I passed that zoo you sent forward. Lot of unhappy campers. And not just the pigs and goats,'' he chuckled.

Kris shook her head. ''They're all just looking for a fight. And not a second's thought for the butcher bill.''

''The butcher's bill is never in the vids,'' Jack said.

''And if these young fools don't pay it a bit of mind, they're going to run when the first penny comes due,'' Kris said. Just once she'd like to lead a real command with trained troops.

No, she had done that finally, and they'd all been just as eager for the first shot. But none had run at the first casualty. Marines wouldn't think of doing that. The locals she had strung out behind her might be another matter entirely.

''The Wasp's about due over the horizon. Let's see what Drago has to show us,'' Kris said, changing the topic.

Captain Drago greeted them cheerfully, as someone might who'd slept in his own bed and eaten in his own wardroom. Kris tried not to grumble; her quarters for the night had been a hayloft in a barn. Her breakfast, a canteen of water and a half loaf of the hard bread they made from the roughly ground grain of the perennial grass they were driving over.

There was a reason she had joined the Navy.

It took Chief Beni a moment to organize his sensor feeds into a coherent picture and download it to Kris. ''Colonel Cortez appears to have spent the night at the end of that causeway and is just now moving north.''

Jack ran his fingers over the orbital image. ''He's deploying his light infantry for flankers and a van. His heavy infantry is holding his center with these carts. Looks like he's using his hostages for mules. And has them in front.''

''You booby-trapping the road?'' Kris asked.

''Nope, but plenty of holes around it. Should be rough on the van and the flankers.'' An update of the image came through. The picture Nelly projected on the back wall of the truck they rode in wavered and settled down.

''Oh, look at that,'' Jack chortled, pointing at the far right of the van troops. ''Looks like someone's down and drawing a crowd. I think we just broke a leg.''