Cray found out that their new addition was made less painful by the fact she accepted that he knew how to lead and supervise soldiers in the field and wasnt one of these corporate agents who made fine armchair generals but generally knew jack shit about soldiering. He was disappointed to learn though, that Agent Chicane, or Rachael, as she preferred to be called, had virtually no combat training and was physically weak. They could really use a new gunslinger or twenty about now. But she was an expert on computer software, could hack into telecommunications channels and most importantly had the contacts to get them extracted them from this hellhole.
"Its not my job to shoot guns, if it comes down to me shooting guns then its probably too late. Now show me the Aleph transmitter, mine was destroyed when a necanthrope burned down my house."
"So you shot and killed a necanthrope in your house?"
"No I hid and then ran when it went nuts. I did shoot his pet ebon though..."
"So you do know how to use a gun?"
"No I got lucky a shot off, now give me the radio, I have to retune it to a new frequency."
"I still dont trust you enough."
"Do you want to spend the next month here or do you want off now?"
"Do you want to be turfed out into the street, you wont last 10 minutes before the skin traders find you."
Rachael seemed to wilt for a little while before glaring back at him with dark brown eyes smudged with the remains of her makeup. "I have spent the last 16 and a half months here and the last week hiding in that rat hole. If they had picked my mind over for the frequencies and who you where, dont you think that it would have happened in the last five days? Now you either let me contact high command or I will just wait here until we both get found and killed. Or I contact another group on the existing frequencies to come get me."
"I will have the technical sergeant supervise the tuning," reluctantly Cray handed over the Aleph and called over Marr.
Rachael smiled slightly, which worried him greatly.
"We could arrange for her to have a little accident sir." Gary suggested and the idea appealed to Cray but he wasnt going to allow it just yet. "No, corporal, Ive got something else in mind for insurance just in case."
The next day he found Rachael chaffing on Marr with that smart tongue of her’s and it was plain that neither appreciated each others company, but it hadn't come down to blows, yet. He didn't doubt for one minute that Marr wouldn’t kill her the moment she stepped over the line of his temper but somehow just kept reaching the limit and dancing back across the line before he snapped. If she had any common sense she would just find someone else to bait but for now the limits seemed to be tested while Marr resized the suit of Endeavour armour that had once Mack’s to fit her.
Cray only heard the last words of a conversation before it ended in tears.
"Well it didn't do the last owner much good. Get that tape measure away from me, I know the size."
"Why because they’re fake and the plastic surgeon asked you to tick the box you wanted?"
"Well its not like you’ll ever find out jarhead..."
It went quiet for a moment and that spelt trouble, Cray walked slowly around to the back of the APC to find Marr strangling Rachael with that lovely long black hair of hers. He drew the DRAUG and fired into the ground near both of them. The blast seemed to jolt Marr back to reality and he seemed suddenly ashamed and dropped her on the ground barely conscious.
"Now. Y’all listen up good ‘cause Im only going to say this once and I have four bullets in this gun to take care of any questions"
"Ma’am, our Sgt Kegan Marr here is a psychopath who has no problems with hosing down a pen full of 391 SLA POW’s with that machinegun of his when they even so much as look at him funny like. So, I suggest the both of you find some way of just getting along until we get home and you can go your separate ways. Or I can just shoot you now for endangering the lives of the section, which if I am correct, is perfectly legal under the circumstances in a military court of law."
Cray and Gary enjoyed a campsite free of anger, as their other two companions seemed to either ignore each other altogether or at least remain civil to one another if they did have to do something together.
"I would have just shot them both if I was you sir. I had you covered from the top of the stairs if you needed me."
"Well, I was kind of hoping you where about doing something like that. An’ dont worry, I was going to shoot them if they even so much as quibbled the matter."
Cray took a sip of whiskey from the bottle and handed it over to the corporal while they sat cooking the evening meal on the little campstove. "Uh, damn thats rough gear sir," Gary managed a grimace while the alcohol tore out the lining of his throat, "theres something about this place sir and its not that they wouldn't know good booze if they where swimming in it."
"What’s that Mr Thais?"
"It’s the whole place. You dont notice it at first but it starts creeping up on you after awhile."
"The effects of prolonged exposure to combat, thats what they call it anyway."
"No, its something else. Ive been in the infantry 3 years now and Ive shot and been shot at more times than I care to remember. Look at the sergeant, he’s been in the army for 6 years and he’s as strung out as ever I seen a man, only just got worse in the last two weeks now."
"I think he took Waylon’s death a little to close to heart, he was getting better up until then."
"Then theres the agent, she’s been here longer than all of us put together. You can see it in the eyes, she’s past gone, always looking about at everything and her left hand shakes real bad when you talk to her."
"Hmm, I can’t imagine it’s been easy for her here. Stick you that deep behind enemy lines with no one but yourself, a pistol, radio, no armour and here in the worst shithole this universe has ever known. They dont train people like her in so much as they build them, from the cellular level up to match the person she replaced. Sometimes even they get an ebon to stick the memories in there too and thats got to mess you up."
"She’s like a stormer?"
"No, stage 2 nanotech, takes a month or so in a lab. I she’s still on our side though. Just be careful not to scare her none, it’s not easy for her here either down here in this place. We’re her only defense and she knows that now but at the same time she’s not ever going to trust anyone again after being left here that long by command. For goodness sakes dont try anything on her either."
Gary lit up a cigarette, a bad habit he’d quit 8 months ago but had recently found a renewed need for the weed to relax at night and calm his nerves while the thought.
"Nah I wont, learnt that lesson ages ago. Still, this place changes a man for the worse."
"Do you still sleep at night with a clear conscience corporal?"
"Yeah, but the things you see here ain’t never going to be forgotten."
"Then you’re still the same man who came here."
"What about you sir, if you dont mind me asking?"
"Well, I just go one week at a time. I make it through this week, then come Sunday I make plans for the next week and so on until we’re out of here. Your lucky corporal, you just get by one day at a time and dont worry about tomorrow."
Cray watched the woman go out to the water purifier and tip a bucket of dirty water into it she’d collected from a busted water main in the old train station. The machine had left it tasting like chlorine but it was a far better alternative than drinking anything the general population had to put up with, when they could get it. She moved without a sound and carefully calculated footsteps and he wouldn't have seen or noticed her unless he had been looking over there in the first place, her dark eyes narrowed as she noticed him pass a glance that way. Normally she spent her days in the APC, now that it had been cleaned out of their grime, watching the onboard TV, scanning communications and fiddling with the computer but on occasion ventured out to do her chores. Though she barely talked anymore to any of them he didn't think there was any lasting grudge about the incident 4 days ago, Sgt Marr certainly didn't seem to have taken any lingering offence his enforcement of discipline. He had his own pet project now, a manchine had crawled out of the south tunnel setting off the sensors and Gary had hit it with the HERF shutting it down. Right now he was rearming the killing machine with captured enemy weaponry and little help from Rachael reprogramming it, though she wouldn't go anywhere near it even though it was disabled. Cray didn't blame her but was glad that the pair had found something they could get along with and put their past behind them.
That was the key to their survival now and the difference between them and their enemy, discipline and professionalism would take the day rather than superior firepower or numbers. "Ive got three things to tell you lieutenant, can you go find somewhere else to be corporal." Rachael had snuck up to the pair around the campstove and Gary picked up his rations and left without a word. She watched intently until he was well out of earshot before squatting down on a nearby green plastic stool Marr had scavenged. It amazed Cray that the clothes she wore never creased, got dirty or smelled, made as they where from some fancy fabric that SLA had concocted in their labs.
"Good news, the signal has come back from command. We are to be extracted from Mort to rendezvous in orbit with a Thresher vessel in 10 days time. Our priority is to keep the equipment stolen from the LAD facility safe, intact and in our possession. I always said I’d try to get you off planet as quickly as I could Lieutenant."
"Oh I didn't doubt that you would considering your current predicament ma’am. Please go on." The smile that was beginning to form slipped away from her face and she looked downcast at her feet and didn't look at Cray.
"We have to get into orbit under our own power, they can’t get a shuttle to Mort easily and off again. I have also been asked to bring in another unit for the security of the equipment of myself. I will arrange with them a time if you pick the place."
"Getting off Mort eh? That’ll take some doing but its not impossible, now, Im not really keen on bringing in another team. For security reasons you understand."
"I dont care if you think its the most harebrained idea you've ever heard lieutenant. Your job is to follow the orders that you’ve been given to the best of your abilities, now the remaining crew running around down here are 3 privates from the 7th, second battalion who have lost their command to SLA attacks looking for you. At them moment all they have is a radio link to me and they need help urgently, this isn't my choice so dont start dumping on me if you feel its my fault."
Something of the spy’s determination and willpower had started to come to the fore now that Cray had unwittingly set something off that had offended her and he didn't really feel like matching wits with her this evening. "Ok, I’ll see that it’s done, no need to be getting testy with me."
"I’m just telling you how it is," her eyes narrowed to bare slits and she reached over, took one of Gary’s cigarettes and lit it up. "But, now for something on a personal basis. You probably think you’re a clever little fish having lasted this long down here..."
Cray recognised the tone in her voice shift down to that terribly businesses like manner and he edged forward to listen to her continue. "So Ive reprogrammed the Aleph with my own personal code that needs to be reset every 72 hours or it sends a message to high command telling them that Im probably dead and its your fault. I have full authorisation to sacrifice your lives if necessary to ensure my survival, something up until 3 days ago I never had any wish to do and probably wouldn't have done. For awhile while I was feeding you that information I even began to like this team. You have to get up a lot earlier than that to catch me out."
She hefted the blue-grey lump of MDX explosive at his feet with the radio detonators still attached and was sharp enough to notice the recognition of its origins on Cray’s face. "You aren't that smart, if I even suspect it happening again none of you will never wake up again. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"
"Perfectly clear ma’am"
Cray wasnt sure if the embarrassment of being found out matched the pain of the slap across the face he received, that was obviously personal. It had been a stupid thing to do in the first place and he mentally kicked himself for being so naive as to think that it would have worked on someone who had been on the sharp end as long as she had.