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The adventures of Alpha Company, Second Battalion continue apace with word of a new transfer. The animal soldiers of the company become closer to their human counterparts -- in some cases quite a bit closer -- and see action for the first time...

In the second chapter of Steel and Fire and Stone_, things become a little bit more heated. We see the company doing stuff for the first time in the real world, both in training and beyond. Chanatja gets 'ambushed' by a well-meaning human soldier, and the novel's fourth and final narrator is introduced, an Ibizan hound working at a corporation on an unnamed planet. As before, share and enjoy, and as always please chime in with criticism and feedback!_

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

Steel and Fire and Stone, by Rob Baird -- Ch. 2, "The paragon of animals"

---

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel; in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

-- Hamlet (Act II, scene ii)

The command mech's full name, Denel Swartrenoster 6.3 Block II, was stenciled inside the engine bay. On the nose, though, was painted the vehicle's emblem -- a strange-looking mythical creature from Earth's past called a 'black rhinoceros' -- and it was this that Tindall ran his fingers over affectionately.

He hadn't seen a real 6.3 before, but discovered that the simulators had rendered it with relative fidelity. Squat and heavy, the mech looked something like a metal pillbug. Only the boxy heatsinks at the stern gave it a sense of direction.

It had no weapons save for the cylindrical turret of the Advanced Point Engagement Cannon, which was designed to take out missiles and aircraft and could not scratch even the Swartrenoster's own armor. The real armament of the mech was the quantity of antennas and sensors that bristled from it at all angles.

It was one of many; indeed, he could not be entirely certain that this one was his own. The cargo hold of the CSS Allen C. Glover was packed full of vehicles -- the whole of the 49th Armored. The last of them had been loaded on their transorbital ferrying barges only a few hours before.

"Well, if it isn't Captain Tindall..."

He turned at the voice and, when he saw who it was, laughed warmly. "Hey! Shelly!"

Captain Shelly Gilbert had fought alongside him in the 12th Armored; he had not followed her progress since. "I heard they'd been getting desperate, but I never thought it was quite that bad..."

"Pretty much. They got you too, though?"

"B Company, 1st Battalion," she confirmed, and then turned to the man next to her, who by his rank appeared to be the company's first sergeant. "Mayer, this is Captain Tindall. Arnie and I go back a long way. I hear he runs CODA's Humane Society now..."

"My reputation proceeds me," Tindall grumbled.

The sergeant, whose prematurely greying hair topped a boyish face, raised an eyebrow. "I don't quite follow, sir."

"I have a special company in 2nd Battalion. It's composed almost entirely of OTHs." Mayer looked at him blankly. "Uh, other-than-humans."

"Moreaus?"

"That's right."

"Huh." The man seemed more curious than anything else. "I served with one of those once."

This took Shelly by surprise, too: "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Six or seven years ago, now, in Operation HERALD -- Task Force Yankee Five-Five. It would've been... ah, a couple years before you guys showed up there?"

"Mayer used to be espatier," Shelly clarified. "Before he got some sense knocked into him."

"How was it?" Arnold asked.

"The operation or the moreau, sir?"

"The latter."

Mayer shrugged. "I don't remember, exactly. They seemed competent -- maybe a bit quirky. But I mean, Christ... no offense, sir, 'cause I'm sure you're good to your men, but we kind of treat them like shit. You'd have to be insane or a real glutton for punishment to sign up for more of it."

"Well, I've got a company full. I'm not sure they're quite so resentful as all that. We let them serve, at least, right?"

"Yes," the man agreed. "But only against the Kingdom, so, you know, take that as you will..."

Now it was Tindall's turn to be slightly confused. "What do you mean?"

"You haven't heard?" When Tindall shook his head, Mayer pursed his lips, frowning slightly. "The Kingdom is notoriously... aggressive, where moreaus are concerned. They tend to regard their existence as an affront to nature, which I guess might be true. And they tend to regard their owners as slavers -- which definitely is."

This fact had made Arnold uncomfortable for some time. There were, after all, certain implications in how CODA had assembled the OTH company. They had opened their ranks only when the situation had become desperate enough, and Tindall's complete segregation suggested handily that neither he nor his unit was really viewed as equal. "Fair enough..."

"Before the war, the rumors were they wouldn't trade with companies that used moreaus extensively. And you know what happened when they took the Honeywell campus on Bekatra..."

He did not. Shelly Gilbert did not seem to be familiar, either, from her expression. Arnold knew, vaguely, that the Kingdom had gone after a few isolated corporate outposts in the months before the declaration of outright war. "Refresh my memory?"

"When they besieged the campus, the Kingdom offered Honeywell a deal. If they were willing to give up their rights to the property, they could keep all their employees and equipment. It was a big campus in a strategic location, but, you know, they couldn't hold it, so..."

"So they agreed?"

"Right," Mayer nodded curtly. "So the Kingdom charters a big intersun cargo ship and takes the campus apart. They dismantle the mainframes, the comm relays, the accelerators, the rapid prototypers..." he ticked each off on his fingers -- and when he was out, he paused, and looked to Shelly and Arnold in turn. "Then they dismantle the moreaus, too. Every one of them gets a club to the head, and the Kingdom ships Honeywell a container with five hundred and twenty pelts."

"Jesus Christ..." Shelly breathed.

"We weren't going to go to war over a property crime, you know? So I heard that the Confed Congress told Honeywell they had to deal with it, and then slipped them some compensation under the table. It didn't matter, because the Kingdom officially declared war six months later. But... that's what we're up against."

"Why the hell would they throw us into that, then?" Arnold asked -- unsettled equally by Mayer's story and the thought of what he was being asked to lead into battle. "They've painted a goddamned bullseye on us."

Mayer shrugged. "But you can see what they've done, can't you, sir? If your fuzzies haven't already heard stories like that, you better believe they'll hear them in the very first dispatch from high command -- you know, for their own enlightenment. Educational stuff." His voice had a dry cynicism. "I'll bet it gets them good and riled."

"And reminds them who the bad guys are, of course, in case they got any crazy ideas about... what did you say, sergeant? How we treat them like shit? Good god." Tindall shuddered: "You looking for a change of pace, Shelly? You want to trade?"

"'Fraid I'm not quite that stupid, Arnie," she said, and shook her head lightly. "Hell of an adventure you've got yourself into."

"Wasn't my idea, exactly, you know."

"Well, you're committed now."

Tindall said nothing. They ended the conversation in banal pleasantries a minute later, but he still felt a slight, unsettled chill, and when they left the cargo hold of the Glover felt very empty indeed.

He asked Wayne Eisenberg to investigate the rumors, and to prepare the soldiers of the company, but most of it seemed to be urban legend. It wasn't profitable to dwell; instead, he tried to focus on the readiness of his men -- and the coming deployment, looming large before them. When Colonel Moulden called a sudden readiness meeting, he spent the morning writing up an honest assessment, and was mostly cheered by it.

"Good morning, everybody. I hope you're nicely settled in?" Heads nodded around the table. "Excellent. Aapo tells me we're at over 95% readiness on personnel -- just a few illnesses. We should've had tactical briefings for you already, and I'm sorry we haven't been able to do that, but our plans have changed a little bit."

The nodding heads turned into somewhat more alarmed glances, and Aapo Ketterer found the need to speak up: "It's actually better than you think. We've been reassigned -- all things considered that's probably for the best."

Vallis Carignan, a tall man with a regal bearing -- his family still owned vineyards in Bordeaux -- raised his hand questioningly. "All things considered, sir?"

"The battalion is still untried. It's better for us to get some more training -- and some larger-unit exercises, for that matter. I think we're not yet ready."

Vallis bristled. Tindall had heard that Carignan's Bravo Company had been transferred whole from a line unit on Nova Galatia. By now, the gallic warrior must've been itching to return: "Due respect, sir, but that's a matter of opinion."

"Of course," Colonel Moulden agreed. "But it wasn't our decision, either. The plan, originally, was that we would be deployed to the Iris System. But CODA increasingly believes that system to be a lost cause. We don't have the men or the materiel to hold it."

Redfire produced some of the purest silicon in the universe. It had been under Confederate control for nearly eighty years. "We're pulling out of Iris?" Tindall asked, sure -- and hoping -- that he had misheard.

"We're trying to negotiate safe passage for the civilians, but... yes." Ketterer's admission was subdued. "We still have a substantial presence on one of the moons, but Redfire itself is effectively under a blockade, and we don't have the fleet resources to organize a breakout."

"Then..."

"General Riley believes it's only a matter of weeks until he'll be compelled to surrender the planet." Moulden's words had a forced strength to them. "At that point we have two options. Either we fight a lengthy guerrilla war, with the accompanying reprisals directed at the civilian population... or we give it up completely and avoid the collateral damage. Either way, one more brigade wouldn't make a difference."

"Instead, we'll be headed to Kaltrig. You're familiar with it?"

Carignan and Tindall nodded, but the other two captains shook their heads, and Ketterer snapped his fingers to start a rotating holographic display on the table before them. Kaltrig was a rocky planet in the Ankara System, settled relatively recently. It was cold, still, and the air was relatively thin -- the equivalent of two thousand meters of elevation on Earth.

"It's not a pleasant place for everyone, on account of the weather, although I'm told it has a striking beauty," Aapo said with a smile. Major Ketterer was Finnish, and Tindall supposed he knew enough of cold to be a suitable judge. "But nobody goes there to sightsee. It has massive proven reserves of Kurchatovite."

"Starship fuel, right?"

"Close, Vallis. Not directly, but it's the key precursor in antimatter production. Everybody's got a stake on Kaltrig. The UN's there, Marathi's there, the Kingdom's there -- hell, there's three or four mafia families playing Lost Dutchman on that rock. And us, of course. Two Confederate mining corporations have extensive operations on one of the smaller continents. Naturally, they share that continent with the Kingdom."

Aapo zoomed the hologram in, and summoned up a political map of the island. Two thirds of it was shaded in the proud bronze of the Confederacy; the remainder was Kingdom red. The terrain itself was flat, and covered in a mottled green. Ketterer clarified that much of the land was forested with new pine.

"Both corporations are up on their dues, so we have to at least pretend that we care about them. Now, CODA is assigning four Aegis batteries to the continent, which ought to keep the corpies safe from anything short of the Second Coming. But until those arrive, they want to reinforce the garrison. For those of you collecting all the trading cards, that's General Mosely's 15th, consisting of the 17th, 63rd, and 78th Light Infantry and the 84th Armored."

This caught the attention of one of the other captains, Emilio Kuo. "That's a planetary security division, isn't it? They put a whole PIG on this rock?"

The Colonial Defense Authority, along with the Confederacy's other military companies, was expected to secure the assets of the various corporations and organizations that made up the Confederacy. But with more than two billion people spread across sixty planets, CODA tended to prioritize mobility over all else.

This was the role of the Suppression Teams, who travelled in small ships that were cleared to jump right next to planets, and could put a police squad anywhere in the Confederacy in six hours. That was the role of the Rapid Reaction Task Forces, which could deploy two battalions of espatier anywhere in the galaxy in ten days or less.

And it was the role of the space-mobile armored units like Tindall's, even if they required the merchant marine to move all their equipment. CODA's mission was always to land, accomplish whatever task had been asked of it, and then leave again.

Only the most important sites got a full division to guard them: the Type XII Guard and Sustainment Division (Autonomous) was a major investment, and CODA did not deploy them lightly. "More than a PIG, actually," Ketterer said with a nod. He, like nearly everyone who was not part of a Type XII unit, used the colloquial term -- Planetary Infantry Garrison. "They've attached the 112th Orbital Infantry and two independent battalions."

"That's a lot of men for two mining corps, sir," Tindall pointed out. "How hot is this place?"

Lucy Moulden, not Major Ketterer, answered him. "Not particularly, at the moment. The word is that opposition should be disorganized, and resistance ought to be minimal. But if you thought losing Redfire would hurt, Kaltrig might force us to the bargaining table. For our part, we'll be expected to take over some patrol duties from Mosely. That should free up enough men for us to start thinking about going on the offensive."

"Us?"

Moulden chuckled. "I'll try to get you a spot, Vallis."

*

It was a great irony, Chanatja decided, that space travel involved so much waiting. The jumpdrive itself permitted instantaneous travel -- but it was dangerous to jump close to a gravity well, and interstellar law meant that the Allen C. Glover had entered the Ankara system nearly eight million kilometers away from the planet of Kaltrig that was to be their destination.

The new constellations they could see from the portholes were sufficiently novel only for a few hours; then they were back to pacing the metal decks, and losing themselves in the training simulations, and burning off nervous energy in too-serious games of table tennis.

At least the exercises were getting smoother. Chanatja was not a friend, per se, of their new sergeant, but Tamara Szanto was far, far better than Staff Sergeant Wilson had been. She was distant, and did not seem interested in a particularly close relationship with her charges -- but she was competent, too, and he at least trusted that they were not being completely led astray.

"What do you think combat's going to be like?" Astra's chubby face made the young muskrat look even younger, an effect enhanced by the naiveté of her questions. "Real combat, I mean."

Ajay Six-Five laughed, and grinned a fanged grin. "Ours to make the most of," he suggested. Chanatja thought that the leopard, more than others, was becoming enthralled by the prospect of humanity. He had even started drinking copious amounts of coffee, like the humans did -- although his was decaffeinated. "And a chance to make us have respects, for once. It's our element."

"Our element?"

"We're predators, aren't we?" Chanatja asked.

"Yes, predators," Ajay echoed. "Chanatja here is being a killer to the core -- are you not, janhuta?"

The white shepherd turned, looking tiredly at Ajay. "Hata," he corrected with a grunt. "Janhata means 'my brother.' Janhuta means 'my haircut.'" Astra giggled softly.

The leopard just shrugged. "Maybe you are that, too."

"I don't think he could hurt a fly. Could you, Chanla?" Astra and Ajay knew just enough about the dog to know that he preferred Dogspeak to English, and just enough Dogspeak to butcher every attempt they made at it. Chanla was a child's diminutive of his name.

But he took it in stride. "We'll have to see, won't we?"

"Chanatja will have a surprise or two for us, little mouse. He has a temper."

"Ah," Astra's smile was fondly teasing. "His bark is worse than his bite."

Ajay's eyes met the dog's own, and Chanatja held the gaze for a few seconds -- too long, long enough for the leopard to get a glimpse of what lay beneath. For a moment the levity ebbed: "Perhaps," was all Ajay said to the muskrat.

The shepherd excused himself, and went to fetch a glass of water. In truth, some of the questions did make him uncomfortable. He had taken a life before, and despite the circumstances, and all the rationalizations he had been able to concoct, this left him ill at ease. He could not even remember the nightmares, after he awoke from them, only that they jolted him to panicked consciousness, panting raggedly at the ceiling and clutching the sheets with desperate tightness.

In the waking hours, after those unsettled dreams, he worried at the edges of his crises, and never seemed to get any closer to unraveling them. Some days he almost wished that he had never left the corporation that was willing to shelter him. Freedom was precious, and he had done precious little to deserve it.

"Hey." A voice startled him, and he turned. "You okay there?" The questioner was a human sergeant, though not one he'd worked with before. He thought he'd seen her in the support section.

"I'm fine, yes." He spoke carefully. To his continuing dismay, he still found himself slightly self-conscious at the awkward accent of his English.

"Distracted?"

"Just..." He fished around for a suitable lie. "Trying to figure out what's coming, on the drop. That's all."

"Your first time?"

The corporation had taught him a series of scripts, so that he wouldn't embarrass them in front of a client. He could explain a market analytics whitepaper with something bordering on eloquence, or argue the advantages of a particular business-software module with the servile competency expected by high-ranking CEOs. Beyond this, he had only a few lines of conversational dialogue, memorized by rote. Answering the sergeant took a few seconds, and all he managed was a simple "yes."

"It'll be my seventh. This is pretty much friendly territory, though, so it'll be easy. Almost exciting, really. If you're into, you know, orbital skydiving or anything like that. You like skydiving?"

"I don't know. I've never done it."

The sergeant nodded. "You know, you do seem a little nervous. Even here. I'm not bothering you, right?"

He chose not to answer this directly. "My English is not very good."

She smiled at him. Humans thought it a reassuring gesture, but seeing the flat white teeth always set him ill at-ease. "It sounds fine, actually. You should relax a little."

Chanatja did not know why she was continuing the conversation. Occasionally humans did take some interest in the moreaus -- as though they were zoo specimens, or curios in a carnival sideshow, put up for examination. "Not the words," he tried to clarify. "Humans have a particular... social protocol."

"Nakaths don't?"

Ah, he decided. So you're one of them. Rarer were humans who knew enough of moreaus to have taken a strange, paternal liking to them. Using, even incorrectly, the name that the canine moreaus of the GeneMark Corporation had adopted for themselves was a giveaway.

It was not a particularly informed fondness, and Chanatja did not understand its source. Some humans found juvenile moreaus, particularly when they could be dressed up in suitably whimsical clothing, quaintly appealing. More, he suspected, sought the respect humans enjoyed as gods who had created the creatures.

"Nakathja tend to be more direct. There is little... smalltalk."

She leaned back against the water cooler to look at him. "No idle conversation?"

"There is idle conversation, yes. But it is generally descriptive. Recounting a particularly intriguing sunset, or the sound of crickets, could occupy two of us for some minutes if both parties are interested. If we do not have anything to say, however, we do not feel compelled to fill the vacuum with speech. And if we desire something from the other, we are very frank."

The human grinned once again. "So, what, you meet a nice-looking nakath in a bar and just... 'hey, what do you say we fuck?' -- is that it?"

Blinking, the white shepherd halted for a moment. "Well. We don't meet each other in bars, as a rule." And after all, most of the human need for smalltalk was manifestly self-inflicted, and bound up in the byzantine, irrational rules of their social order. "But I suppose."

"Well, that's simple, at least," she agreed. She poured herself another cup of water, and when he faltered, took his and filled it as well. "You must like the company, then."

"Yes. I do."

"The support section is almost all human, you know? I mean, I think two of the mechanics aren't, but the logistics guys and the medics? I don't interact with OTHs very often. You prefer that term? Is nakath better?"

"If they are nakath," he said. His voice was somewhat curt, although she did not seem to have picked up on this. "In general I would prefer to be addressed by my name, not my species."

"Which is?"

"Chanatja."

"Nice to meet you." She held out a hand for him to shake, and -- transferring the cup of water that was all he'd really wanted to the other paw -- he did so. "I'm Sergeant Martin. Carla," she amended. "What do you do here? I think I've seen you on a Jackal, right?"

"I'm a gunner, yes."

"You know how to clear a fault from a Mk IV Spider?"

Officially, the AN/MLQ-30 Mk IV had a complicated acronym explaining its function, which was to identify and jam enemy guidance systems. In practice, its long radial antennae and purpose had seen it branded "spider sense," for reasons Chanatja could not begin to imagine.

He had accepted the offer to look at the thing, if for no other reason than it provided a means of extricating himself from the conversation in the ship's mess hall. The Spider in question was located atop one of the company's Rheinmetall Tarvos supply trucks, and the walk to the loading bay was blessedly free of additional conversation.

With the gravity drive off, the Tarvos looked awkwardly short, and the way that the antigravity skirt around the edges pressed flush into the deck of the ship gave the curious impression that the vehicle was slowly melting. But it made it easier to climb up, and he pulled himself onto the roof to take a closer look at the "spider sense." The unit itself appeared to be intact -- the stress of daily use had nicked the protective shielding, but not conspicuously so.

He could see nothing wrong, so he followed Carla into the cockpit of the big truck, waiting as she powered on the systems. Finally she pointed to a screen flashing a yellow cautionary note. "See? Uh. 'Err. 53 (ECM FAIL)' -- just started doing that when I went through preflight a couple hours back."

"Error 53 is a generic BIT failure for attached equipment." The buttons in his Rooijakkal had been resurfaced to make it easier to hit them with his claw-tipped fingers; these had not, which was cause for a little frustration, but soon enough he had brought up the results of the Built-In Test. "Huh."

"Huh?" Carla leaned over, almost uncomfortably close. "Bad threat ID value in DB node 0."

He tapped a claw lightly against the frame of the screen. "Maybe the database is corrupt? How old is the card?"

"Card?"

"They should've given you a threat data card, yes."

"We were in a civilian area before."

Chanatja felt around below the control panel -- it had not been designed for moreaus; his claws caught on various protrusions uncomfortably. "The MLQ-30 has to be preprogrammed for the systems in its environment. Forty or fifty, generally. You can get that wirelessly over JTIDS, but there's also..." he found the card, which did not seem to have been seated properly, popping it out of its slot and holding it out for her inspection. "There's also a data card that slides into place underneath the system panel. That has your backup data."

She took the card, looking at it, and then handed it back. "Why not program it with everything?"

The shepherd's voice became muffled as he leaned forward against the control panel to slide the card back into place, feeling the sharp twinge of exposed metal catching on his fur and fingers. It had been built for humans, with human anatomy; his fingerpads were far less sensitive, and it made things difficult. "If you take all the systems, and all the possible search permutations, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of guidance systems you might encounter. The system has to identify it before it can respond." He shoved the card firmly into place, feeling it click, and then settled back in the copilot's chair, starting the BIT again. "Best case scenario, search time only goes up as the log of the database size. But if you have a missile coming at you, you want to spend as little time as possible."

"I've never actually seen it used," she admitted. "Fortunately. It looks like it works now, though." The threat identification display glowed a soft green.

"Yes," Chanatja agreed. "If you always had a JTIDS or a UDL connection before, you might not have noticed anything. In the future, just check to make sure the card is in place. It's not conveniently located, so it's easy to mess that up."

Carla nodded. "I'll make a note of that." Then she grinned: "See, your English isn't so bad."

"Being able to effectively communicate technical matters was of particular importance, for my designers. They made sure I could do it well."

"Well," the human laughed, "I'm certainly grateful for your effective communication." Then she tilted her head, glancing downwards. "Did you hurt yourself?"

He followed her gaze, to where a thin line of red snaked down from his wrist to collect between the pads of his fingers. "I must have cut myself on the panel," he said, shrugging. "It's hard to see down there." The cut was not painful; he flexed his paw, trying to get a better look at the wound.

Carla reached over, taking his wrist lightly in her hand and pulling it closer. "Well, it doesn't look very deep," she muttered. "What is this, anyway?" She rubbed over the calloused pad at his wrist with her thumb.

"It's called a carpal pad. I don't know what's for, on dogs. For me, it just gets caught on things."

"Poor guy. You want to go to the infirmary?"

She had not yet let his arm go, but the shepherd couldn't decide which answer was most likely to accomplish this. "No," he decided. "It's fine. I'll be fine."

"Sorry you hurt yourself on my account," Carla said.

"It's nothing."

"If you say so," she conceded, and her thumb moved from the pad to the fur on his forearm just above it. "You're really soft. That also your designers' idea?"

"I suppose." His voice was growing clipped again; it was taking longer to plan his replies.

If she noticed, Carla didn't seem to mind. All her focus now appeared to be on his arm, and while she released the grip at his wrist, it was only to stroke with splayed fingers down through his thick, cream-colored pelt. "Good choice."

Chanatja said nothing. He did not especially like being petted in this fashion. Partly, this was because he did not care for being touched by humans. Mostly, however, it was because the touch was pleasant, and slightly soothing, and he did not like having to admit this.

Carla slid closer to him. The leftmost bench seat in the Tarvos' cockpit was designed for two people to sit comfortably; instead, she edged her way next to the shepherd, leaning lightly against his side. Her perfume had been faint before, even to his nose; now it filled his muzzle thoroughly. "You know, I really did appreciate your help," she murmured. She was still petting him, her fingers dark against the white of his arm.

"You're welcome?" He shifted a little, so that, at least, he could face her directly if he turned his muzzle.

She grinned. "When they told us what they were going to do with the company, a lot of people were really skeptical. Me, I figured... it was like a new opportunity, right?"

"Opportunity for what?"

Carla shrugged nonchalantly. "Ah, you know. I've always been kind of curious about you guys. Since a long way back." He felt her other hand come to rest on his knee, and when he did not say anything she slowly began to move it upwards. Her fingers were soft, and warm; he couldn't help giving a thumping wag of his tail. "Right," she giggled. "Just wondering if it's true what they say about wolves..."

"I'm not a wolf," he managed.

Carla smirked, and, with her hand firmly between his thighs, gave him a quick squeeze. "Close enough," she said. "Come on, Chanatja, let's investigate that..."

"Well, I'm..."

"Off duty. So am I, and..." Even with human teeth her grin bordered on predatory. She folded her warm hand about his crotch in a kneading grope, and then let him go, reaching behind her to pull open the door to the truck's cargo area. "Nobody'll bother us back here."

The shepherd found himself caught between his lingering reservations and the smoldering call of his own biology. For her part, Carla did not seem inclined to give him a say. She slipped through the open hatch, and, mindful of his wrist, took his paw and tugged firmly. He grunted his surrender, following her, and she laughed -- taking the sound as a growl, and tapping his nose firmly with her other hand:

"Bad dog."

A bench seat ran the length of the cargo area, on either side. It was lightly padded, and Carla chose the expedient of using the shepherd instead -- pressing him up against the wall and then guiding him to sprawl on his back. Then she straddled him, leaning forward to rest her nose on his. Her body was close. Soft. Enticing, even if he didn't like admitting it...

Then she lifted up a little, rolling to one side against the wall of the Tarvos, and his ears caught the sound of a zipper opening. He slid his paws down, over the supple curve of the human's back, and discovered that by the time he got there nothing covered her hips. He didn't seem to be moving fast enough -- her fingers were tugging at the button of his own pants already, and when she had unfastened it she shoved them down roughly.

Her fingers were soft and skillful, and he growled without meaning to as he felt the insistent warmth stroking the velvety fur that sheathed his stiffening erection. "What do we have here?" she teased right along with her fingers, squeezing the bare flesh that started to protrude forth. "Mm. That's a good boy..."

Carla's soft, husky voice filled the shepherd's perked ear as she stroked at him until she was satisfied. His breath rasped, chest hitching with it -- it was impossible to fight off the pleasure smoldering in his loins. When his hips bucked up against her hand, guided entirely by reflex, she giggled and let go.

She swung her leg back over him, lowering herself closer, her hands at his shoulders. The tip of his throbbing length nudged firmly against the bare, smooth skin of her thigh. Then she pushed herself back, and down, and in one fluid movement he felt himself surrounded in slick, clinging, wet heat. The woman above him gasped a sharp "oh, god!" -- and sharp fingernails dug into his upper arms.

Chanatja closed his eyes, using his paws to guide her rocking body as she started to move above him. She rolled her hips fluidly, lifting up until he had almost slipped from her, then smoothly taking him again, burying him to the hilt in the sodden, slick warmth of her folds.

Soon she was bucking fiercely, driving herself onto him. He held himself still for her, even though -- human or not -- it was getting harder to resist his own carnal desires. The taut muscles of her thighs quivered, tensing, and her chest heaved with panting breath. Then she froze, his pulsing member thrust halfway into her, and let out an almost canine whimper. He felt her squeezing him snugly, gripping his shaft, and he lifted up to fill her completely as she climaxed around him.

Her body trembled and she ground herself into his hips, soaking the fur of his crotch with her wetness, and she gasped a few more times as the shocks worked their way through her. A minute later she started to move again, a half-centimeter at a time, little squirming twitches of her pelvis against his own. He growled in pleasure, and the shepherd's paws at her waist were tense with his restraint -- but then, unable to help himself, he jerked a bit, pushing up into her, and she moaned lewdly.

That was enough for him. Holding her still with his strong grip he started to buck in earnest, thrusting swiftly up and into her as though she were any other dog. Carla shuddered and moaned encouragingly. She was so tight, so warm and inviting as he spread her with his shaft, that he couldn't help himself -- pounding into her with a feral, urgent roughness.

The swelling bulb at the base of his shaft pushed hard at her lips, slipping with a wet squelch past lips that were less and less yielding with every thrust. "Good boy," the human woman gasped in a heady whisper; he pinned his ears, gripped her tightly, and buried himself to the hilt.

Now he tried to pull back, and the knot tugged sharply; she clung about his member snugly, hot and wet and -- fuck, he couldn't hold it off any longer. His claws dug in, holding her possessively still, and he let the pleasure take him, his seed spurting hotly deep inside the human. Distantly he heard her moan; felt her clench tightly around him again, but now there was nothing but the raw, primal need to fill her, and his hips worked until he suddenly had no strength, and was slumping back to the hard bench beneath, drained.

The fog that had descended lifted slowly, and he came back to his senses to find Carla grinning at him, her fingers stroking at his whiskers. "Hey, puppy."

"Hello."

"Y'enjoy yourself? It felt like it..."

Chanatja felt a little cold; he disliked the abandon that took him in those moments, as though he had no control over his own body, his own faculties. But what was the use of explaining that? "Mm."

"You said you're not a wolf? You act like a wolf."

"I'm a white shepherd," he mumbled. "Patents..."

"What?" She reached out to tease his ear. He flicked it reflexively, and this so pleased her that she did it a few more times.

"You can patent DNA," he explained wearily. "Somebody else holds the patent on wolves. GeneMark's held an exclusive right to make Border collies for three centuries. Same with Trimurti and those 2C tabby cats." He was tired, and mumbling. "GM couldn't make wolves, so they made me."

"Good choice." She curled up against his chest, toying with his ear some more. "So, wait. You can patent DNA?"

"Yeah."

"Did you just violate trademark law by giving it to me?" She grinned, and when he didn't answer snickered at the joke.

He was not as enthused. "No."

"Well, good. I might tell people you were a wolf, though. In case they haven't heard of white shepherds..."

He raised his eyebrow. "Tell people?"

Carla laughed, and shrugged. "You know, when I'm sharing it. Too good to keep to myself..."

"Sharing?" He was not particularly mollified.

She kissed the cold, wet tip of his nose. "Hush, puppy. Kidding."

"Alright..." When he had shrunk enough to withdraw without causing her discomfort he did so, and she shuddered and sighed. She tugged her pants back up, and he did the same, sitting up carefully against the side of the Tarvos. His muscles were still weak.

"Gonna get changed, puppy," she said, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle. "See you later, huh? Got a whole patrol left..."

Chanatja stayed in the Tarvos after she'd departed, feeling a little ill. The truck was thick with their scent, filling his muzzle. He ran his claws over the metal supports, trying to figure out what had happened. Had he known what was coming? When? When she first started talking to him? But he had gone along with it anyway.

He was tempted to blame Carla; humans knew that they could take advantage of moreaus, and how, and how best to make them feel like nothing whatsoever had transpired. But then... then, he had gone along, and even -- in the grip of biological impulse -- enjoyed it. The dog sighed, and cursed himself for his weaknesses in the dead, deaf silence.

*

Corinna Benjamin stood motionless in a sea of activity, bodies rushing hurriedly around her. She studied the thin computer in her right paw, swiping with a thumb through long lines of checklists. "Bob, what's the word?"

The Rooijakkals was at a crouch, close to eye level, and Silverberg leaned out of an open hatch, making a noncommittal gesture with his paw. "Close, boss. I've got startup errors on the power governing system. None of the switches will stay... uh. Switched. But once we get that..."

Frowning, the thylacine scratched at her muzzle. "Are the stabilizers working?"

As a biped, the Jackal was agile, but not particularly stable, and depended heavily on complicated computer systems to regulate its movement. Silverberg gestured at one of the boxes attached to the struts on the kneeling mech's left leg. "Well, the gyros are powered, but the stabilizers don't seem to be talking to the computer. That whole panel is red."

"And the ADC?" The articulation directing computer was directly responsible for actuating all of the artificial muscles in the Jackal's frame. "All good?"

"Overvolt on the left channel, but it's... I don't know. I think it's okay, boss."

"Bugger." Growling, Corinna set the computer down on the Rooijakkals' knee and pulled herself up so that she could stare into the cockpit. "You have any breakers tripped?"

Silverberg craned his head to look at the fusebox, and then shook his head. "No?"

Still, she had a sneaking suspicion... "Feel for the primary system routing junction. It's, uh... next to the... the..." The dog was looking at her expectantly. "The flashy... blinky... doovalacky, the one that monitors the engines."

"Oh, that? Gonna have to reach." Silverberg grunted, and turned about in his chair, his back to her as he felt down along the side panels of the cockpit. "What am I looking for?"

"You feel a buzzing, right along the wall?"

"Yeah?"

"Ah, fuckin' hell," she muttered under her breath. "You're not supposed to, Bob. Shut the whole thing down. You'll have to pull the panel."

"What?" Silverberg's folded ears drew back; the startup procedure was tedious, and not particularly simple. "The whole thing?"

"Thank the brain trust at Procurement. Bloody useless cunts," she added, sotto voce, and stretched herself across the dog to flip the main power switches off. As lights began to wink out on the control panels, she settled back, arms crossed over the rim of the cockpit. "One of your capacitors is busted. CODA buys a lot of cheap ones. These, if they take too much voltage, they can wind up shorting against the frame of the junction box."

Silverberg looked forlornly around the darkened cockpit. "So they need to be replaced."

"It's a drop-in, don't worry. Anyway, you got off easy. Fingerpads don't conduct well. I first heard about the cap problem when one of the guys in my old unit carked it."

"Did what?"

She drew a finger across her throat, to emphasize her meaning. Silverberg's eyes widened, and she laughed. "Yeah. So count your blessings, you tin-arsed bastard."

He did not seem particularly inclined, but before he could comment the ship's intercom switched on. "Mornin', y'all -- captain here. We are going to condition two for debarkation. Section heads, report readiness and stand by for crosscheck from terminal ops. T-minus: forty-five minutes." A holographic clock appeared along the wall of the cargo deck, counting down in big red numbers.

"Get goin', yeah?" Corinna nudged Silverberg, and then hopped down, picking up her computer again. There was something to the energy and anticipation of the men around her that was practically infectious; she smiled to herself, padding over to the next mech. This one was already standing, but the boarding ladder was extended and she climbed up a few rungs. "Sergeant Bester?"

The Rottweiler didn't even bother looking over, focused as he was on the lights of the panel before him. "Almost ready. Main power's good; system's good... ADC's responding beautifully. CTRS is in tolerance... just set the RSM and..." he leaned up to an overhead panel, turning one of the dials there and pressing the button next to it. A cold, clear voice came through the intercom:

"Warning! Reactor temperature critical! A nuclear meltdown is in progress. Warning! Reactor temperature critical! A nuclear" -- Bester released the button, and the voice stopped.

"If I never hear that for real," Corinna shivered, "it'll be too soon."

"Agreed." The dog's greying muzzle turned in a grin. "But it means the warning system is working, at least."

She handed him her computer over the edge of the cockpit and waited, resting her muzzle on the edge. "No other problems?"

Bester paged through the screens and, finding what he was looking for, starting tapping checkboxes -- signing off the Jackal's "green slip" that cleared it for operations. "No problems," he repeated, and handed the computer back. "Started up just like in training."

"Good." Corinna grinned, and then pushed back from the boarding latter, dropping a full meter down to the deck and catching herself with a sprightly hop. The activity around her had not halted, nor even slowed perceptibly, and she picked her way through the current to find Lieutenant Bishop conferring with Les Zula, the platoon sergeant. Both looked up at her approach, and she held out the thin computer for their inspection. "Section's good. Two green mechs, one yellow."

"Why?"

"Bad motion computer, ma'am. We can get it swapped up here, but..." She looked over at the wall, where the clock was counting down from 38 minutes. "It'll have to be rechecked on the ground. But it can be bypassed in an emergency, so..."

"So yellow it is. Well, it couldn't all go smoothly." Ellie Bishop sighed, and pressed her thumb to the computer, adding her biometric signature to the document. "Alright, sergeant. Get your men to the lighter. I'll see you on the ground."

"Yes, ma'am." Corinna nodded crisply, and ducked away to leave Zula and Bishop together.

Silverberg was late in coming, and grumbled when he arrived, but he was the last of the ten of them, and she felt a hint of pride creeping into her smile as she looked over the lot. They had all come a long way over the previous weeks, and the long hours spent training in the Allen C. Glover's simulators.

"Attention," the intercom sounded again. "Offload board is green and we are cleared for orbital sequencing. Ferry doors will close in ten minutes. Been a pleasure havin' y'all aboard, folks."

The Allen C. Glover, nearly three kilometers long, had never touched an atmosphere and never would. Instead, each company was assigned their own lighter, a ferry designed for transatmospheric operations. Somewhere behind them, the forty vehicles of Alpha Company, Second Battalion had been magnetically secured to the deck plating.

"Please take your seats and fasten your safety belts in preparation for launch and orbital insertion," a cool, professional voice came over the intercom. "At this time, please switch off all electronics and do not energize or radiate any equipment without prior authorization for the duration of the descent."

They sat in comfortable chairs, big and yielding enough that they might've come from someone's living room. Only the five-point harness gave away their true function; Corinna strapped herself in, and then turned to find Suresh Two-Theta fidgeting with his restraints.

"Nervous?"

"Never done this before. I'm straight out of basic, practically."

She laughed, reaching over to pat the fidgeting canine reassuringly. The fennec's ears swept back, and she gave him a wink. "Nothing to worry about. This'll be easy. It's nothing like you'd expect."

"What do you mean?"

"Did ya ever see that multo when it came out, 'bout two years back. Ah... hell. What's his name? That action bloke, Dave Hayes, he were in it."

"Red Gold? Yeah, I saw it."

"Helluva flick," Corinna smiled at the recollection. "You remember the dropship scene?" Suresh nodded, and she smirked. "Well, first of all, that was tame. On a high-class drop in the real world, their ships'll pull three or four gee, constant, all through the descent. Then, at the end, they flip, just like that." She pantomimed this with her paw, a jerking motion that made the fennec's ears flick. "Use inertia to fling the poor bastards out."

"I've heard. It seems... um. Dramatic."

"But they're different. Espatier" -- she knew, and did not care, that she was butchering the pronunciation -- "only drop with their own armor. It'll stop a rock, sure, or a handgun, but not much more'n that. And all they got for movements is their suits, and the rockets in 'em. It ain't much."

"Alright..."

"Now, us? We know how to throw a party. Bring our own trucks, equipment, all that stuff. A Jackal weighs almost ninety tons. You really think they're gonna trust the magnetic holdbacks to keep 'em in place at four gee?"

Indeed, the lighter pushed away from the heavy gunmetal frame of the Allen C. Glover with a soft jolt, and the burn of the rockets was barely more noticeable. The pilot came on the radio again, announcing a flight time of three hours to the surface, and by the time a well-dressed young woman came through the cabin, offering tea and biscuits, Suresh seemed mostly reassured.

For her own part, Corinna was slightly more worried about the planet itself. They were landing at sunrise; the horizon was well lit already, and the snowy ground beneath them burned orange as they sank through the atmosphere. Somewhere beyond the wastes lay their enemy.

Driving the Tarvos, the prospect of combat had been distant and not a little exciting. Now, though... now, the brief said that they would be in a war zone. Now, they would be expected to go out on patrol, and failure would be more dramatic than could be fixed by a simple reset of the simulation.

The tension was unmistakeable; when the stewardess came back through to collect their trays, there was no conversation, no polite banter with the woman. She caught the apprehensive glances towards the window, and the ground, drawing ever closer.

When the lighter touched down, gently, the cargo doors and the hatchway to the hold opened simultaneously. A gust of cold wind swept up and through their ranks -- Captain Tindall was already up, shouting orders. Ellie Bishop paused, took one last look forward into the cabin, then turned:

"Alright, let's move! Get your Jackals powered and ready to roll -- sooner we can get them parked, the sooner we can get inside."

Corinna's own Rooijakkals was tied down near the edge of the bay, and would be one of the first to move. She pulled herself into the cockpit; Bester was already scanning the checklist in front of him, flipping switches to start the big machine up.

The canopy was still open; outside, she could hear the rush of conversation. Captain Tindall had met someone at the edge of the lighter's loading ramp. "Sergeant Abeyta, sir. Welcome to Fort Seward."

"At ease, sergeant. Where do we put everything?"

"Your vehicles can go in Hangar 6-Echo, sir. Crew barracks is right next door. Officer quarters are in an apartment complex the mining corp operates. I can show you the way."

"Thanks."

"Uh. And these, sir? What about these things?"

"Sergeant?"

Abeyta, Corinna saw, was gesturing up into the cargo hold, where the soldiers were busy readying their mechs. "The animals, sir. They with the company?"

"They are the company, sergeant."

"Really?"

"Really. Watch yourself, sergeant, you look like you're thinking something inappropriate."

"It's just..."

"I tell you what, I'll find my own way to the apartments. Why don't you hitch a ride with that mech there, show 'em where the hangar is."

Abeyta paused, and then saluted uncertainly. "Yes, sir." A moment later he was at the left foot of Corinna's Jackal, staring upwards. "Uh..." Bester pulled a lever to open the rear door -- there was room for a fifth person in the mech, between Suresh and Stennis -- but still he paused.

"Well, come on," the Rottweiler beckoned. "It's cold out there; I want to get buttoned."

Abeyta, stepped in, and took a careful seat, pulling the hatch closed behind him. "Thanks?"

"No problem." Stennis grinned; the tawny cougar was muscular and imposing, but he waved obligingly at the empty seat. "Anyway, we don't bite." Corinna shot him a glance, and he coughed. "Much."

*

None of the orientation process, Corinna thought, was particularly onerous. Out in the field, CODA seemed less inclined to its various acts of pointless idiocy. Even better, if the corporate types were skeptical of the new soldiers, they were at least grateful to have someone guarding them at all.

All in all it had gone well, and now -- three days was just enough to start to acclimate to the cold and the thin air -- they were ready for their first live training exercise. Her section had finished the pre-mission checklists early, and Suresh and Stennis slipped into the relative warmth of the crew compartment.

Corinna stayed outside, admiring the intricate machinery of the big walker. Its edges were rough and unfinished -- a testament to brute force rather than elegance. The blunt, menacing wedge of the Rooijakkals' body gleamed a dull gunmetal grey, ominous as a thunderhead. The skin itself could change color; in the field, the active camouflage would make them nearly invisible to the eye.

Not, however, to the ear: two massive heatsinks gripped the rear of the mech's frame, and when the cooling fans were active they roared angrily at any hapless listener. Corinna was not short, and she could've stood up easily in the heatsink shrouds -- but rumor was that the fans were powerful enough to suck people right through the grille, and she was not about to put the urban legend to the test.

All the cooling was necessary, of course, and in any case the heatsinks could be shut off in battle to mask the thermal signature of the beast's nuclear reactor. Now, the hum of the idling fans was enough to remind her of how much more capable this was than her old Tarvos, and how much more deadly.

Its legs were thick and stocky, but Corinna had seen enough footage to know how much power was packed into the artificial muscles. It could pivot on a dime -- leap tens of meters into the vertical -- run a hundred and seventy kilometers an hour. She patted a strut affectionately.

"It ain't like a horse." Bester's voice was graveled and deep, and something in his manner reminded Corinna strongly of the mech itself. "You don't got to feed it sugar and hay, neither."

"Just wanted to pay some respects, that's all."

"Hell of a damn machine," the Rottweiler grinned, and then brought out a pack of cigarettes, tapping it against his paw before pulling one free to examine it. "You want one?"

"No. Thanks." Bester nodded, lighting the cigarette and drawing in a slow breath, so that the tip glowed brighter, pulsing like a heartbeat. "Why do you?"

He let the smoke out through his nose. "Habit? I mean, shitty habit, but... khasiyan arkasja sølurkozha," he shrugged, without bothering to translate the proverb. "Back in the company barracks, the smell was horrible. And when somebody bought it, they never scrubbed their scent right -- just put some disinfectant over it. It was like a mix of... chemicals and ghosts." Bester made a face.

"I thought they did something for that."

"Yeah." He took another slow drag, his eyes dulling with the memory. "Some, like, nasal anaesthetic. Never really worked, though. My handler was a smoker. He got me into this. Anyway it deadened enough of the smell, you know?"

"Sweet as," she muttered.

"Ah, I guess. He was a good guy, actually. After I bought my liberty deed, he was... you know, sad to see me go. He gave me a cigar -- real Elamite tobacco. Said I'd know when it was time..." Holding the cigarette between his teeth, Bester pulled a metal cylinder from his pocket, turning it so that the dings and scuffs caught the light. "Haven't yet."

"How'd you get here?"

"Same way you did. I was a Tarvos driver. Before that I worked out of Menlo, on Earth. I don't know if you were ever a corporate dog?"

"Never a dog at all."

He chuckled. "Right. Well. Sometimes we get weird ideas. I was partnered with a very peculiar 392, uh... 392G-FOR. He --"

"You knew Eddie Forster back at Menlo?"

Bester lifted a tan eyebrow. "Yeah. He was big on independence and 'getting out'; making our name in the world. He's still an accountant, he's just doing it freelance these days."

"I know. We worked in the same auzzo unit for awhile, a few years back. Still doing it?"

The Rottweiler nodded, and then shook his head with a snort. "It's his calling. But at the time, he got me and a couple others to buy out our contracts. He went private sector, the others went... well, underworld, and I enlisted. Coasted as a driver for a few years -- not the cargo trucks, the recovery vehicles. Saw fighting at Tikal -- well, the cleanup, anyway... decided it was time to get out or get serious. Tikal was bush league stuff anyway."

"You optimistic about this?"

She watched the cigarette dwindle with this long, contemplative inhalation, the point burning closer and closer to his fingers. He held his breath a few seconds longer before answering. "Well, we've got spunk, how's that? What do you think, sergeant?" The hangar intercom had clicked on, telling them all to get in their vehicles; Bester put the cigarette out against the calloused pad of his left paw, waiting for her answer.

Corinna grinned. "Ah, she'll be right."

"Let's see." He gave her a wink, and then pulled himself up into the cockpit; she followed, and then the boarding ladder retracted into its stowed position. "Alright. Main power to combat... reactor scram to combat... PAWS... active." He flipped the switch for the Pilot Awareness System deliberately, and then pulled the canopy closed. "Suresh, Stennis: ready?"

"Born ready. Give me five left and then five right to calibrate the gun stabilizers." The mech's body swung slightly back and forth. "Got it. Guns are ready."

"Systems ready," Suresh agreed.

Corinna clipped her headset on and felt for the microphone. "Kia ora, this is Sigrun. Message. This is our first time out, so we've got a basic navigation and gunnery exercise. Column formation and follow me -- Durandal will be taking us to the range at quebec golf 320, 996. Sigrun out."

She watched as Bester flexed his fingers, and then took hold of the Rooijakkals' controls. The mech pushed smoothly forward; the sound of the fans had dampened to a comforting hum. Once they were clear of the hangar, they moved faster -- an easy, loping stride, with the big metal feet absorbing the footfalls of the massive ninety-ton walker.

At eighty kilometers an hour, the range was only thirty minutes away. At first, Corinna busied herself by looking at her map holograms -- then, satisfied, she looked through the reinforced cockpit windows instead. The ground swept cleanly past, and she marveled at how different -- and how much more exciting -- it was than any of the simulators.

They were coming up to a river -- twenty meters across, roaring white water splashing between the ice that fringed steep banks. "Brace," Bester growled to them. She took the handholds in her paws. Bester twisted his controls easily, as though born to them: the mech sprung into the air with an animal's living grace, and they landed on the far bank with ten meters to spare behind them, already running again.

The range itself was flat and lifeless, an unbroken canvas of fresh snow. Durandal ordered them to space out, and then informed them that targets had been hidden in the distance. "Points for each one you find. But take your time -- figure out the firing solutions first, then pull the trigger. Don't shoot unless you are one hundred percent guaranteed."

Turning off her command overview, Corinna glanced around the cockpit. Stennis was carefully sweeping his sensors back and forth, looking for any irregularities in the distance. Suddenly he paused, and Corinna grinned as she caught the cougar's tail lashing for a moment. "Possible contact at 095, range 7600."

Suresh flipped down a visor over his eyes, and lights flickered behind it as he joined in the search. "Got it. Low IR signature. Could be biologic. About caribou size, but, uh..." He turned a dial on his control panel. "Caribou don't emit microwaves."

"What do you say, Bester?" Corinna asked.

"Let's take it out," the dog nodded.

"You have a solution?"

Receiving no immediate answer, she leaned over to watch Stennis work. He had centered a circular target marker over their quarry; it flashed to indicate that the computer knew what he was trying to hit. At the moment the marker was an irritated red, and wider than their target. The diameter showed the area in which the fire computer estimated a round was likely to land. It was rotating lazily clockwise -- this meant the error was decreasing, and circle shrunk slowly. "Having some trouble here."

The thylacine glanced back to her own controls, and swiped her finger across her computer screen, bringing up the firing checklists. They were supposed to be second-nature, but no one in the section had any experience with the Rooijakkals in real life. "Left and right stabilizers?"

"On."

"Fire computer?"

"On."

"SRS mode?"

"Uh..." Stennis's finger wandered over the control panel next to him, lightly tapping buttons. "Ah, got it. Spatial reference system is... okay. Already set it to the main computer."

"Laser?"

"Shit," Stennis grumbled, and she heard the click of a toggle switch. He tried again: this time, with the laser rangefinder active, the circle spun quickly, and when it had become a tiny dot it glowed green. "Ready."

Bester dropped the mech smoothly to its knees, spreading them to anchor the heavy walker to the ground beneath. "Shoot."

Stennis kept his right paw on the cannon control stick, reaching out with his left to turn the cannon selector dial to "SALVO," so that both of the Jackal's guns would fire at once. She didn't see him pull the trigger -- but she heard the thunderous crack! of the railguns, and the bucking shudder of the mech. Bester used the recoil to guide the Rooijakkals back to its feet, springing away in a quick evasive maneuver.

"Hit," Stennis laughed, and gave Corinna and Bester a thumbs-up. "Hell of a rush."

"Good on ya," the thylacine grinned, patting him on the shoulder. "Next target?"

There were plenty. The Denel walker had forty-eight rounds, twenty-four for each gun, and they went through them quickly. By the last round, Corinna timed Stennis at only twelve seconds from acquisition to destruction.

"Altai 1-6, this is Sigrun," Bester said, over their radio. "We are winchester, requesting rearming at grid quebec golf 3225, 9975. Over."

"Altai 1-6 to Sigrun; we don't have anything for you. Call Sergeant Martin at Altai 1-2 with priority three. Out."

Corinna spun her map around idly, listening to the conversation. "Altai 1-2, this is Sigrun. Request rearming with three. Over."

"Sigrun, this is Altai 1-2, squawk 6223 and ident. Over."

Bester snorted. "6223 and ident, Sigrun, over." He pushed one of his buttons with an irritated sigh.

"This is Altai 1-2. I have you at grid quebec golf 3225, 9975. Gotta hit Skoll north of you first, then I'll circle back. ETA, 2-5 minutes. Over."

Growling, Bester snapped his paw to call up a map of the area. "This is Sigrun. Altai 1-2, you're like, a klick and a half west of us. Skoll is almost twelve kilometers out of your way. Can you help us out first? Over."

Altai 1-2 didn't seem particularly swayed by the logic of the appeal; her voice was light and easy: "Negative, Sigrun. Over."

"Why the fuck not?" Bester asked Corinna. She shrugged. "Sigrun. Altai 1-2, why not? Over."

"Altai 1-2. Skoll asked nicely. Over."

"Sigrun, this is Skoll. You gotta learn to say 'please.' Over."

Bester turned up his paws, giving a resigned sigh. "Sigrun. Altai 1-2, copy 2-5 minutes for rearm. We'll stand by. Out." Then he twisted around in his seat. "They're playing favourites," he grumbled, with narrowed eyes -- though it was hard to tell how bothered he really was.

"Who's Skoll?" she asked.

"Ah. Sergeant Ajay, Specialist Chanatja and Specialist... Specialist? PFC. PFC Astra."

"Astra's this little fat beaver thing," Suresh added, using his paws to indicate something round. "Bet Altai 1-2 just thinks she's cute."

"I'm cute," Corinna protested.

"Hey, sarge," Bester grinned. "Do that thing with your muzzle."

Grinning back, she opened her jaws -- wide, well past a hundred degrees. Then she snapped them shut. "Like that?"

"Yeah," Bester said drily. "We'll call up the stuffed animal guys right now for that one. Get it in the shops by Christmas."

"Oi!" He raised an eyebrow. "Fuck off," she laughed. She was in an increasingly good mood; Bester snickered, and settled back in his pilot's seat. "How's our temps, Stennis?"

"Ambient. Ten degrees, plus... .25? We're good."

"It's ten degrees out there?"

"Aye," Bester cut in. He reached out to pull the cockpit windows open; fresh, clean air filled the cabin. Above them the sun burned coldly, near its zenith. With the mech at low power the wind was the loudest sound, rushing over them -- four solitary beings in a white wasteland.

Ah, Corinna decided, nodding to herself. She'll be right.

*

Not all the universe was windswept chill. Warm sun filled a rolling meadow, fringed by a stand of trees whose green leaves danced in a gentle wind. Alrukhan sat with crossed legs at the edge of the wood, ears splayed contently.

The Ibizan hound wound up in the woods often. It was soothing to listen to the whisper of the wind above him, and to watch the swaying shadows, growing longer with the coming sunset. Indeed the place was nearly perfect, free of commotion and unease.

Of course, it also wasn't real.

Alrukhan's side suddenly went cold, and he awoke to find himself spinning. Before he could put out a paw to steady himself he had hit the ground, hard concrete that sent a sharp jolt up through his shoulder. "Get up, mutt. It's breakfast time."

"A moment..." His muzzle had dug painfully into the floor, and smarted fiercely.

"No -- now." A hand closed on his wrist, tugging at him, and the dog snarled reflexively. Instead of letting go, though, the grip tightened, and he was jerked roughly to his feet. "What was that?"

Now completely awake, Alrukhan splayed his ears out. "Sorry, sir." The pale hand led back up muscular arms to the broad shoulder and angry face of Lewis Keith Arrington, the barracks warden, and it wasn't worth the consequences of protesting.

"I didn't ask if you were sorry," Lewis shot back, his own voice very nearly a growl. "I asked what it was. Did you bare your teeth at me?"

"The 398E didn't mean to, sir. It's just that you startled it..."

"Do you know what the punishment is for threatening a human?" The man's hand was still clamped around his wrist.

Found properly guilty -- and really, what did that mean -- the punishment could be quite severe, indeed. "Imprisonment of 398E," Alrukhan said softly. "Revocation of its contract."

"Oh, so you do remember your code of conduct."

Alrukhan knew how it was going to play out, but the slightest hint of insubordination was likely to see him beaten, and he didn't feel like putting up with that. Instead he flattened his ears, tucked his tail, and shrunk down, averting his eyes from Lewis's stern gaze. "Sir, 398E-SIM is deeply sorry for its transgression. There is no excuse, only... it hopes it can be forgiven."

Lewis grunted, and released the dog's wrist. "Maybe. You still seem a bit feisty for your own good. Maybe you should skip breakfast."

The Ibizan's stomach was already rumbling, but he had known the way things were going. "Of course, sir," he said softly. With a sneer, and a final shake of his head, Lewis moved off. Alrukhan stared blankly at his cot for a few seconds -- then he sighed, and tucked the sheets in neatly atop it.

The next voice came in Nakath-rukhat, not English, from the collie who slept in the bunk next to his. "Sorry, Rukkich." Her muzzle turned in a sympathetic frown, and she shook her head. "You need to start getting to bed earlier."

"I know."

"Late night meeting?"

"Yeah."

"What are you always doing at those?"

He glanced towards the mess hall longingly, and then sat down cross-legged on his bunk. "Backgammon," he muttered.

She didn't press the issue. Instead, she licked his cheek and then stepped back. "I'll try to bring you something."

Alrukhan was not stupid; he had a few old pieces of food squirrelled away here and there. Casting a quick look around to make sure that Lewis wasn't watching, he found a chunk of salami and gnawed on it until the worst of the hunger pangs had ebbed.

The collie, Kirokud Hakhlanir, was right, of course. He needed to be getting more sleep -- the working day started just after dawn. But the meetings were important, and not for nothing was he called Alrukhan: "the speaker."

Kirokud pressed a handful of kibble into his paw on her return, and the Ibizan wolfed it hungrily before pulling on his work clothes. His handler, a well-dressed man who had unfounded aspirations of glory on the corporate ladder, was waiting for him in the lobby of the DEC campus.

"Morning, Simmy."

"Good morning, sir," Alrukhan said, bowing deferentially. He had known John Clinton for two years, during which time he had been called by his full name, 398E-SIM, only twice. Nor had Clinton ever settled on Alrukhan's common name, Simak. John had a broad face and a genial smile, and the folksy demeanor he affected left no room for such formalities.

"How's your day going?" he asked, leading Alrukhan through the security checkpoint and waving to the guard behind the bulletproof glass.

"Peacefully, sir." It wasn't that John didn't care -- certainly he thought he cared, Alrukhan guessed -- but it was not worth the time to explain.

"Good, good." The conference room that his handler opened with a wave of his computer-chipped hand was already half-full of other executives. "Good morning, everyone." He pulled out two seats, and settled into one, patting the other warmly. Normally moreaus were expected to stand in the presence of humans, but Clinton claimed to see no reason for this.

It was in actions such as these that he offered himself as a friend to DEC's moreaus, and, of course, it was true that Alrukhan had put up with much worse. He sat down as well, avoiding the baleful glance of the human on the other side of him.

In data-collecting mode, Akrukhan's keen brain would be filtering the conversations around him, trying to pull out the common threads for later analysis. But this was tiring, and instead he chose to disengage, letting it all wash over him for two hours of tedious presentations and arguments. Finally he heard Clinton's name called:

"John, you said you'd made some progress on your end?" He didn't remember the woman's name, only that she was Senior Vice President of Competitive Intelligence, and John seemed almost as wary of her as Alrukhan was of Lewis Keith Arrington.

John arranged his computer with impeccably straight neatness before him, and then nodded. "Right. Simmy?"

"Sir?"

"Walk through the abstract of your whitepaper."

Alrukhan wasn't certain if John was putting him on the spot to deflect any potential blame, or whether he genuinely thought the dog deserved some recognition. With a cough, the Ibizan hound flattened his ears slightly and stood. "The conclusions only?"

"Start with that."

The eyes of the room were fixed on him sharply, and he swallowed the brief convulsion of apprehension to raise his voice. "It's our belief that Nokia is intending to debut a new mainframe towards the end of the first half of this year. Analysis of the supply chain and their acquisition of Hephaestos in 2477 allows us to make some conjectures about the computer itself: it's probably a modular design based on the Vaalajarvi core, with a 256- or 512-core primary processing unit. A maximum of around a hundred petaFLOPS."

"What for?" one of the suited men asked gruffly.

Alrukhan shuffled on his feet. "I should note here that my conclusions and those of Mr. John Clinton differ slightly. I defer to Mr. Clinton, who believes that this is intended for use in meteorological or telemetric satellites -- probably in a trinary cluster of GCUs -- based on the low power consumption of the chipset. We do know that the K25 interconnect processor associated with Vallajarvi does not scale well to large networks, so unless they're planning on rearchitecting the entire topology these will probably be used in small groups."

"What do you think, dog?" the SVP of Competitive Intelligence wanted to know. She seemed skeptical, leaning forward to watch him keenly.

The Ibizan glanced sideways at his handler. "The supply chain makes it clear we're looking at more Vallajarvi deployments. The only obvious reason to go with Vallajarvi over the newer Orivesi chipset would be cost, but in small clusters mainframe power isn't a cost limiter on satellite deployment. On the other hand, I think it's significant that Orivesi also drops the dedicated signals coprocessor from the integrator chip."

"Meaning?"

"The Farijan Imperium awarded Nokia a six hundred million lira contract to develop a mobile active countermeasure system. That was two years ago; we haven't seen any results yet, but this new mainframe would be an ideal driver for such a system. It would give the Caliphate a system that's... a generation, maybe a generation and a half ahead of what AAI or CODA are fielding."

"John?"

Clinton shrugged, and waved his hand in affable dismissal. "It's possible, but I don't think it's likely. It would be an extremely capable system, yes, but profoundly overengineered. That's just not in the Imperium's style. The choice to go with Vallajarvi could be cost, but it could also be simple availability."

"Dog," she said, sharply. "If you're right, what should we do about it?"

"That's outside of my speciality, ma'am. I --"

"I asked you for an answer, not an excuse."

He licked at his muzzle. "Ah. Well. Even if we had detailed blueprints, we couldn't bring anything to market inside six months, and probably twelve. On the other hand, if we chose to act as a middleware provider, we could pitch this to the defense companies. It would give us an entrypoint we haven't had since we lost the AVEDS contract to Rafael's MLQ-30."

She grunted, and looked between John and Alrukhan for a few seconds. "Interesting. Alright, good work. John, lead with the satellite theory, but push both angles. I don't want to get caught with our pants down if it turns out they really are going for defense work."

Alrukhan had, slightly, feared some retribution for challenging his handler, but John seemed to be in a good mood and, when the meeting broke for lunch, bought the dog some human food from a shawarma vendor outside the office complex.

"You did a good job."

"Thank you, sir," the Ibizan nodded. "I didn't mean to undermine your authority, but..."

"She asked, didn't she?" John stabbed at one of his kofta, pushing it around the tzatziki with his fork. "It's good for me anyway."

"Sir?"

"Well." He glanced around, and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. "Don't tell anyone, Simmy, but I kinda like you fuzzy little bastards." This having been shared, he leaned back, taking a bite of his lunch and letting Alrukhan muse on the revelation. "It always looks good when a handler's partners challenge the status quo. It's not useful if you guys are just slaves. Have you read Portman's Signal/Noise?"

Alrukhan was neither inclined nor permitted to read anything outside of his work material; he shook his head. "No."

"Rashid Portman is a programmer; one of the free software kibbutzniks. They use some Trimurti animals on the commune, and he has this thing about 'act multiplier versus agency multiplier.' It's like, if you use tractors to replace human labor, that's an act multiplier. He says that because you guys are so smart, you can be used to extend our thoughts -- as agency multipliers, right? So it's really great you were willing to defend your ideas. Portman's getting big in our industry..."

The dog nodded, and feigned agreement as the man rambled on. Everywhere they existed in a state of tension with their human masters; as handlers went, John was quite agreeable, but despite their long history Alrukhan remained a tool, and he rather knew that Clinton had no great concern for what happened in the barracks. Being valued was only worth so much.

John's communicator buzzed in the pocket of his suit, and he pulled it out to look at the message. "You're popular," he said, and grinned.

"Sir?"

"My boss wants to meet with you. He'll be in town two days from now. Better get your suit dry-cleaned..."

*

On the first handful of patrols, Lieutenant Bishop had been careful to remind them that contact with the enemy was not to be expected. This time, she had said nothing. Staff Sergeant Szanto, the section leader, clarified that this meant only that she no longer viewed such reassurances as necessary -- but inside the Rooijakkals they still felt the little twinges of apprehension at every aberrant signal on their screens.

Chanatja tried to tell himself that the patrols were not really any different from their live-fire exercises. Indeed, they were quite a bit less harried, and there was less to be done on them. Still, the thought that they were not alone on the continent loomed over all.

Fidgeting, he brought up a map on one of his screens. The platoon was spread out over a kilometer or so, with their section at the rear, Sergeant Benjamin's at the front, and the command mechs ambling along between them. They were to slink along the edges of Confederate territory, active sensors off, listening for hints of any unusual activity.

And finding none. He leaned over to look at Astra's waterfall displays, which were drearily blank. She glared at the intrusion, and he shook his head: "just curious."

"If something comes up, I'll tell you," the muskrat grumbled. It was folly to think that anyone could hear them through the thick armor of the Jackal's sides, but they all spoke in hushed whispers.

"How will you know if something comes up?"

"I just will?"

"Yeah? What's that?" He pointed to a dim line steadily lengthening on one of the screens.

Rolling her eyes, Astra tapped on the controls next to the spectrogram. The line brightened, growing wider, as she narrowed her focus. A few other bright spots appeared, flickering and dancing. "Low-mass biologics," she finally decided, and then raised her voice. "My god, Ajay, Chanla's right. Tally one squirrel, right 035 at about 400 meters. Should I go active?"

Chanatja growled. "You made your point."

She returned the screen to its previous display; the line faded away to nothing. "There's nobody out there, anyway."

"What would it look like if there was?"

Astra's young face furrowed with her irritation. "It's programmed in the computers. The Kingdom doesn't use walkers, they use hoverdynes. No footsteps, but we'll hear the sound of the engines easily enough. If you could be quiet for two seconds..."

"Well..."

"Sit down, specialist," Ajay sighed. "Let Astra doing her jobs."

The shepherd's computers were even less interesting than the spectrogram had been. He had access to the same visual augmentation as Ajay did -- a complicated blend of electromagnetic signals from visible light to microwaves -- but none of it was particularly interesting, or revealing. He busied himself switching between the different cameras, and found that if he zoomed all the way in, he could see the ice that sheathed the pine needles of the trees that hunched like panhandlers in the dying afternoon light. The weather had grown colder in the last few weeks, as the hemisphere tilted towards winter.

The Jackal, which could hold five people, was relatively spacious with three. Even still he felt cramped; had it not been well below freezing outside he might even have asked for permission to open one of the hatches. The patrol was a wearying grind of unresolved tension; he watched the little icons move on their map and ached for it to be over.

Fort Seward was not a hotbed of activity, but at least there was warm food there, and you could stretch your legs. Chanatja wiggled his toes, fidgeting, and lost himself so completely in the slow movement of their map that when the radio came to life he nearly yelped in surprise.

"Hati, contact left eleven."

Ajay tensed -- jerking against the controls so that the Rooijakkals shuddered sympathetically. "Astra?"

Next to Chanatja, all the bored irritation in the muskrat's face had vanished. She was staring with wide eyes. "Ah -- got it at eighty degrees. Microwave transmissions in the K-u band. Two emitters. Judging by the sweep and the PRF I'd say IRON GATE or IRON ARC radars in search mode."

"Friendly?"

Astra swallowed before answering. "No."

"Skoll, copy." When Chanatja glanced at him, he saw that the leopard was rigidly alert, his hackles up. "Two contacts, presumed hostile."

"This is Calu. Section, halt cold and stand by."

"Skoll, copy." Ajay stabbed fiercely at buttons above his head, and Chanatja heard the hiss of the emergency coolant spraying against the mech's heatsinks until the temperature was indistinguishable from that of their environment. He closed the heatsink doors with a metallic click and pulled back on the throttle. "Reactor at fifty percent," he told the others, softly. "Confirm gadgets off."

"Gadgets off," Astra whispered. They were cold, and still. With the heatsink doors shut, their reactor would stay isolated from the outside world. For a time, they could operate without radiating any heat, and with the electronics quiet -- and the active camouflage matching the Jackal's appearance to the ground beneath -- they were next to invisible.

Ajay rubbed at his short muzzle nervously. "Telling anything more about them?"

She nodded, pushing buttons quietly on her console. "They're twenty kilometers away. Headed right for us, I think." Her voice, soft as it was, shook audibly.

For his part, Chanatja's stomach had tightened into a freezing ball. He flicked through his displays, searching in the direction that Astra had indicated. Nothing. Struggling pine trees blocked his view to the right; directly ahead, a swelling, empty ridge blocked his vision. He could discern nothing in the unbroken snow. "We can't see that far..."

"What about us? Can they see us?"

"Probably not," Chanatja said -- as much for his benefit as the leopard's.

"Astra say they were in searching mode."

"Yeah," the shepherd agreed. "But radar strength goes down as the square of the distance traveled."

"So?"

Astra didn't even look up. "So the returned signal decreases in strength to the fourth power of the distance. We'll pick up that signal a long time before they get anything useful from it. And... if they're active at all it means they don't think anyone's out there to listen..."

"Or they know they have local superiority enough to give away their position," Chanatja pointed out.

The muskrat winced. "Yeah."

From his cockpit, Ajay's head was on a constant, smooth swivel, looking for moment. "Are there any other signs of activity?"

"No. Not so far. Eighteen kilometers."

Ajay took a few deep breaths, and then nudged the microphone transmit switch. "Calu, this is Skoll. If we want to pull back, we're must doing it soon. Wait too much longer and they'll be in visual range."

"This is Calu. Understood. Trying to coordinate with the other section. Stand by, Skoll."

The three exchanged glances. Chanatja shut his eyes tightly, marshaling his focus, and then switched through his camera modes once again. The rolling white snow taunted him -- blank, inviting the fantastic hallucinations born of frantic eyes. He had to work not to imagine things in the featureless expanse.

"Why are they waiting?" Astra's voice was almost a whimper. "Why won't they tell us what to do?"

"Maybe they're waiting for some supports," the leopard offered. Fort Seward had a few attack aircraft to its name, mostly short-ranged gunships, and the company had practiced with them in a major exercise the week before.

Chanatja did a few calculations in his head and decided that it would take nearly ten minutes for such air cover to arrive. By that time... "They need to move faster, then."

"Fifteen kilometers." Astra's ears were pinned flat.

On Chanatja's tactical map, lines extended from the mechs monitoring the radar signals; where the lines crossed, their enemy lay. That intersection point was drawing precipitously nearer. He rubbed his paws together, worrying the fresh scar on his carpal pad. Had it really been three weeks?

"Astra, get ready to switch our jamming equipment on. We're going --"

The radio buzzed. "Hati, tally two."

"Chanatja?"

The shepherd's eyes narrowed, and he willed something -- anything -- to appear on his screen. "Nothing. We're range-limited by terrain."

"Damn," Ajay growled. "Skoll, no joy."

"Hati. Two tanks, bearing 077 at 12.5K. Medium speed, moving southwest in column formation; 150 meters separation."

Ajay's fingers brushed over the Jackal's throttle, and he twisted around to catch Chanatja's eye. "I'm going to move forward about twenty meters up that slope. As soon as you are seeing anything..."

Turning up the gain on his sensors as far as he could, the shepherd swiveled the cameras to watch the direction the other mech had given. Ajay moved their walker with an agonizing slowness, step by careful step forward -- until they cleared the ridge and red signals blazed to life on the dog's scopes. "Got 'em." Like their Jackal, the hover tanks had adaptive camouflage that left them as white as the snow, but they cast a noticeable shadow in the remaining light of the coming evening.

"Skoll, tally." Off the radio, he dropped his voice. "Get a firing solution."

"Without going active, it's going to be hard to range them," Chanatja pointed out. "If we use the rangefinder, they'll probably pick that up."

"I've got it," Astra reassured him. "We can triangulate from the other mech. Calibrate your scope for twelve thousand, two hundred meters. I'll tell you when the first one crosses that."

He switched the targeting computers to full power, and error bars in his sights shrunk slowly. Wind data, humidity, the chill of the air and the spin of the planet beneath them fed into the rapid calculations. Chanatja dialed the range estimator to "12200" and waited.

"Three... two... one... now." Over the radio, he could hear Zeus, Hati's driver, checking in with Szanto. The marten did not sound much more sure of herself than Chanatja felt.

"Ready," he told Ajay. The leopard didn't look back, but he nodded curtly.

"Apache 6, this is Apache 3-6, message, over." The message came from Lieutenant Bishop's command mech. Chanatja checked his map quickly to see where the rest of the platoon had gone, and discovered that the other section was now four kilometers away.

"Apache 6. Send, over."

"This is Apache 3-6. Two tanks of Type 105 east of our position ten kilometers. We are not taking fire, and there are no indications of support units, but we cannot withdraw without exposing ourselves. Advise. Over."

"Apache 6. Roger, Apache 3-6. Wait, out."

"Eleven kilometers," Astra told them. Bishop had moved Benjamin's section to higher ground, where they could presumably provide covering fire, but Chanatja had heard nothing from them, and he suspected the patchy trees made seeing anything impossible. The radio was still silent. "Ten kilometers."

Chanatja toyed with the MASTER ARM switch beneath his thumb nervously. "When will they see us, Astra?"

"We're cold and motionless. And camouflaged. Six or seven, maybe? Five, definitely. They're at nine now."

"Warning, reactor," a cold alarm chimed.

"Temperatures are getting serious here," Ajay muttered. The alarm repeated, and he reached out to silence it. "Astra, ready jamming and APEC."

"APEC is in mode two. Gadgets standing by."

"Apache 3-6, this is Apache 6 actual. Over."

"This is Apache 3-6. Send, over."

"Confirm you have no reason to believe they have any support. Over."

"Apache 3-6. Affirmative. They look like they're alone. Over."

Chanatja glanced to Astra, who nodded gently. "No other signals. They're by themselves."

"Or it's a trap," Ajay said, his voice dark. He was looking at the temperature gauge, unwinding slowly upwards towards their immolation.

"Apache 3-6, you are directed to engage and destroy enemy armor to your east. As soon as your way is clear, move west at all available speed to link up with second platoon at rally point Crimson. Over."

A beat, while they processed the order, and then: "this is Apache 3-6. Wilco. Out."

"Seven kilometers." At Astra's call, Chanatja adjusted his rangefinder again. It was becoming easier to pick out details on the tanks -- the spinning of their cooling fans, and the slow sweep of sensor domes.

"Hati; Skoll. This is Calu. We'll need to do this quick. Skoll, you take the leader; Hati, you take the trailer. Understood?"

Ajay called over his shoulder. "You got that, Chanatja?"

The shepherd shifted his reticle so that it drifted over the tank. The machine was oddly graceful, floating a meter over the unbroken snow; the wind of its passing kicked little flakes back aloft. The glowing red circle his targeting computer painted over it was garish and ugly. "Yes."

"This is Skoll; we're ready."

"Hati. Ready."

"This is Calu. Engage on my mark. Three." Chanatja took a deep breath. Master arm switch ON. Fire selector SALVO. "Two." His teeth gritted; his eyes narrowed. Time itself was slowing -- in the moment he thought that Szanto was deliberately drawing out the agonizing countdown. "One. Mark."

Even focused as he was on the gunsight, Chanatja saw the tension in Ajay's body release itself like a powerful spring. The leopard flung the heatsink doors back open and shoved his throttles forward, past the gate marked "EMERGENCY." All their systems hummed with a powerful energy as the Jackal came to life.

At the same time, the shepherd switched the laser rangefinder on with a jerk of his finger. Just like in all the simulations, his targeting marker flickered, spinning to indicate decreasing error in its firing solution -- and then turned green. "Ready."

"Shoot."

Four seconds, no more, had passed from Calu's order. Chanatja did exactly as he had been trained, by reflex and muscle memory. His thumb squeezed the button that stabilized the linear cannons, and a nerve impulse later his index finger drew taut on the trigger.

The Colt M364 90mm linear cannon had no particular friendship with subtlety. A quarter-ton capacitor bank drew power straight from the Jackal's main reactor, then dumped it in the blink of an eye into the coils that accelerated the five kilogram penetrator to nearly a third of planetary escape velocity.

Two seconds after Chanatja pulled the trigger, both rounds struck the hoverdyne. Seventy megajoules of kinetic energy slammed into the tank's reactive armor. It absorbed some of the impact, but not enough: for the briefest moment, before the tank was ripped apart, the air inside became a thousand degrees hotter than the surface of the sun.

Chanatja did not know the physics of apocalypse -- only that the vehicle in his sights crashed to the ground in a bright, convulsive flash of light and heat. His targeting computer flashed 1/.8: by the computer's estimates, there was a 100% chance that the tank had been disabled; an 80% chance it had been completely destroyed.

He let out the breath he'd been holding in a curt bark. "Hit!"

The Jackal leapt to its feet, springing to the side as Ajay spurred it into evasive maneuvers. They hit the ground with a shudder, and the hissing roar of venting coolant spraying over the railguns.

"Hati missed," Astra was shouting, through the sudden din.

Did they? Yes. Gouts of snow and earth kicked up next to the tank, which was now slewing wildly. He tried to keep the targeting marker over it, but every time the reticle seemed ready to turn green the hoverdyne jerked again, and the solution error bar flared wide once more.

A warbling alarm went off, and he caught the jerk of Astra's head from the corner of his eye. "Fire-control radar in tracking mode."

"Do we have a solution?"

Chanatja narrowed his eyes, squinting, trying to focus on the wandering reticle. "It's harder than it looks. They're too fast for us." He set his jaw, as if willpower alone could solve the complicated mathematics.

Then the alarm in their cockpit jumped an octave -- piercing and urgent. "Missile launch!"

Ajay flung his controls to the side, and the Rooijakkals lurched at the very limits of its maneuvering software. "Jam them!"

"I'm trying to!" Astra yelped -- she was stabbing buttons on her console frantically, her eyes shot through with panic.

"Chanatja..." Ajay's voice was strained with the intensity of his concentration. "Any time now..."

The shepherd heard the chatter of the Advanced Point Engagement Cannon, and glanced up in time to see a bright flash as the first of two missiles exploded. A half-second later, there was a second burst. The shrapnel from their shredded bodies rattled over the cockpit, and he pinned his ears to the sound of violent rainfall.

"Chana..." the leopard urged.

"Yassuja," he swore. The shepherd switched the cannons off salvo mode, to better his chances of hitting something, and thumbed the button to reload them both with high-explosive rounds. In training, this took only the two seconds claimed by the user manual. Now it lasted an eternity -- but finally both ready-lights switched on. "Ready."

The Rooijakkals dropped immediately to its knees with a jarring impact; he felt his muzzle slam shut, slicing open the inside of his cheek. There was no pain -- just the cold clarity of purpose, and the sound of Ajay's snarling voice: "shoot!"

Still no green light. Chanatja took his best guess at where the tank was going and fired blindly. Their walker bucked -- the dampeners helped, but the recoil of the guns was still something like being hit with a bus traveling several hundred kilometers an hour.

The high explosive rounds struck two seconds later -- he counted it in his head, one one thousand, two one thousand. The first went wide, but the second opened up a crater just in front of the hoverdyne, and before it could swerve the tank went crashing down into it, angled front digging sharply into the snow.

The tank's engines kicked up white in an angry shroud all around it, but it hadn't reversed more than a few meters before a third explosion obliterated the top half of the hapless vehicle. Chanatja blinked at his trigger finger incomprehensibly, until it dawned on him that the other mech must've opened fire.

Astra's alarm had cut off abruptly, and now the cockpit was deathly quiet. They exchanged glances, and the muskrat was first to speak, in a drained whisper. "No signals." Chanatja nodded.

They fell silent again, so quickly that when the radio whined and cut in the sound startled them freshly. "Durandal, this is Calu. Scratch two tanks."

"Calu, Durandal. Sigrun's section is holding northwest at grid tango mike 725, 565. Rejoin formation and let's get out of here."

"Roger. Hati, Skoll," she continued over the section net. "Follow me. Sixty meters dispersion. Let's keep up the speed, though." A few seconds later, almost as an afterthought, she spoke again: "think we've had enough excitement for the moment."

"Hati, wilco," Zeus said. Ajay clicked his microphone twice to acknowledge the order, but was otherwise silent. The Rooijakkals started to move, slowly at first, and Chanatja saw that Ajay was still staring at the rising columns of smoke and flame from the tanks on the horizon.

He watched the leopard impassively, as though observing a perverse experiment. Nothing quite seemed real, and the shepherd's world reoriented itself slowly. He became aware first that his heart was pounding and his breathing was unsteady. A few seconds later, that his paw clenched the aiming controls of the guns with a painful tightness. Then the aching tension of his taut muscles. Then the salty taste of blood in his muzzle, and the throbbing pain in his cheek. He let the control stick go, leaning back in his chair.

"Flash, twelve." Astra's voice was muted; when Ajay didn't respond she raised it a little, repeating what she'd said, and he turned to look at her. "Four thousand meters."

"Friendly?"

"Yeah. IFF says it's Sigrun."

"Good," Ajay Six-Five grunted, and faced forward again. Then, as though the thoughts were connected: "How close did those missiles come to ourselves?"

"A couple seconds? We got them at the edge of the APEC's range. Couldn't have done better, Ajay."

When Chanatja thought about it now, the sound of the shrapnel striking their mech seemed magnified, far louder than it had been at the time. Ominous. Threatening. Ajay seemed to be having the same thoughts. "What if it had hit?"

Astra didn't answer. The silence was uncomfortable, and the shepherd finally broke it. "Mobility kill."

"Eh?"

"It's a light warhead, Ajay," Chanatja offered, not quite lying. "It would've taken out our systems, for sure. Have to call for recovery..."

Astra looked at him, and in the moment that passed between them he saw that she knew. And she nodded. "Yeah. Their missiles don't have the punch of a nice cannon like Chanla's. We, uh... I think we would've been okay." Then, as an afterthought, she said quietly: "Good we didn't have to find out."

By the time they crossed through the gates of Fort Seward, the adrenaline had ebbed -- he felt exhausted, and it took some effort to haul himself from the cockpit. Tamara Szanto was waiting for him. "Hey."

"Hello, sergeant."

"You're the gunner, right?" He nodded. "That was good shooting. I mean, real good -- I'll put you guys in for a bounty. One and a half kills, I think. You get that last one with a snap shot?"

"Yeah. They were evasive."

She started walking back towards the barracks, and he followed her. "Next time," she said, "try turning the stabilizers off. The targeting computer calculates its solution from the stabilized rotation values, but those damp the angular speed of the cannon barrels, right? If you turn them off, calculate, then turn them back on, you can get a solution."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hmm. Do it often enough and it'll fuck with the gyros so you'll have to cage to reset them. And," she leaned in drop her voice, grinning with the shared secret, "the maintenance guys hate it. So don't tell them, because it does overstress the motors. But it's better than being dead."

"No kidding."

She punched his shoulder. "Yeah, see? Welcome to the big leagues, specialist. Catch you at dinner?"