Profiteer

You can be nostalgic for anything if you’re far enough removed from it.

 

And Ivor’s memories of Styx were as far removed from present reality as they could get. Because of his brush with the wrong end of a wormhole, a decade-long chunk of his memory just didn’t happen as far as the rest of the universe was concerned.

 

Even if the universe didn’t accept it, that decade was still credited to his body’s account. He was twenty years older than he’d been on Styx, and he wasn’t up to lugging heavy marines in full armor uphill through dense woods.

 

Slowly, he stopped hyperventilating and felt his muscles unkink.

 

Once he could move without pain, he decided to lighten his burden. Nothing in the plan called for him to take the armor, too. He was just supposed to restrain the comatose marine. He walked over to her.

 

The name-tag read Hougland.

 

“Pleased to meet you, miss.” He told her as he felt for the emergency release on the suit. Triggering it would scrag the armor, but it needed to be there for medical access in field conditions. He groped around until he found the trigger.

 

“Forgive the imposition, but I just can’t carry all this.”

 

He hit the release and multiple hisses announced the separation of the seams on the armor. He picked up Hougland’s chest piece and looked for a suitable place to ditch her armor. A few meters away he saw a deadfall that seemed to fit the bill. He picked up a few more pieces and walked over to the pile of old wood and began to dig a suitable hole for the armor.

 

He was in the midst of digging when he noticed a red light flashing on the inside of one of the leg pieces he had brought over.

 

He picked it up and examined it more closely.

 

The flashing light was the last of a series on the side of a small rectangular box that would fit snugly on the inner thigh. A sick feeling washed over Ivor when he saw it.

 

This box, and things like it, went by a number of names—hardwire lightning, express, black speed—all of which meant the same thing; military biological augmentation via drugs and electronic hardware that hyped metabolism, recovery times, and reflexes to screaming high levels. The cost to the body using such things— skyrocketing blood pressure, burned out neurons, not to mention addiction—was so high that it was insane to use the things outside of combat.

 

If the marines out there were wired with this, then they were expecting to be attacked.

 

Ivor was about to run for the bolt-hole to warn Tetsami and the rest of the team about the set up when the second thought hit him.

 

Maxed recovery time.

 

Ivor turned and ducked just in time to avoid decapitation by the branch Hougland was swinging. He hadn’t heard her approach, and he was very glad that Mosasa had taken her weapons.

 

Hougland swung again and Ivor scrambled back, over the uncertain footing of the deadfall. He felt a breeze as a meter-long chunk of wood the diameter of his thigh swept by his face.

 

We took her weapons, but why am I unarmed?

 

Ivor backed over the precarious footing as the marine, clad only in briefs and a sweat-stained T-shirt, advanced on him.

 

Because we thought the driver didn’t need any, idiot.

 

“Do you think,” he said, nearly slipping on a loose branch, “that we could talk this out?”

 

Another swing. Not lethal, she was just testing the range. Ivor was beginning to feel that all this was a bit much. He glanced behind him and saw that he was backing toward the lip of a ravine.

 

The ground shifted beneath him, and he felt his right foot sliding downward. He still had Hougland’s thigh armor in his right hand. “Corporal Hougland, I’m sure we can come to some accommodation before permanent violence is done.”

 

A look of extreme distaste crossed her face. “I’m a marine, old man!” she shouted at him. She stepped forward and swung a skull-cracking arc at his head.

 

Apparently negotiation was not an option.

 

Ivor swung up his arm to block the blow with the thigh-piece from Hougland’s armor. The two met with a crack and Hougland looked surprised.

 

“All my age means, girl, is I’ve got a dozen years combat experience on you.”

 

Ivor kicked out with his right foot, spraying deadwood shrapnel at Hougland. She fell back, still holding on to her club, and Ivor had to make a complicated hopping dance to keep his footing as he stumbled down the front of the deadfall.

 

By the time Ivor was on solid ground again, Hougland had gotten up and was brandishing her log at him.

 

“You realize—”

 

She interrupted him with a sweep that he had to parry.

 

“—that this is pointless. This whole operation is in other hands now.”

 

Sweep, block.

 

“Whatever happens, it’ll be over before either of us can do anything.”

 

A lie, but who was counting?

 

She pulled an obvious feint—however well someone’s trained, a log is still an unsubtle weapon—and lunged to slam him in the groin. Ivor danced aside.