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[Arnold J Rimmer]

The APC came to a halt outside the city hospital with the squeal of badly-maintained brake discs. A door in the rear opened, and a single, svelte form was pushed out of it. She blinked in the morning sun. "Thanks for the ride." Somehow, the sarcasm didn't carry well over the breeze.

She sniffed, noting the lingering ash in the air, the burned buildings and gutted vehicles. In a fair display of efficiency by the Combine military, there were few to no bodies left on the streets to rot and spread disease. An occupation, then, not a mere invasion, she thought.

She hoped her message would bear fruit soon. But there would be a minimum lead time, thanks to the time it took to charge an FTL drive. The message she sent might be near instantaneous, but the people she was hoping would answer it would take some time to arrive. Three weeks? A month? And in the mean time they had to fight what could well be the entire military complex of the Combine.

Shouldering the foyer doors open, she was met by a municipal guard who eyed her crisp jumpsuit.

"Civilians only."

Looking down, she sighed. "I'm not military," she replied, truthfully, while twisting her face into one of distress and remembered pain. Tears prickled the corners of her eyes. "I was interrogated by the invaders and they took my clothes and when they let me go this is all they would give me and-"

"Okay, Jesus. Nurse!" barked the guard, backing off.

A tired-looking medic made his way over; he'd probably been awake for most of the last few days. Even the foyer was busy with injured people awaiting triage - and she could see beds lining the walls of the corridor leading deeper into the hospital. "ID?" he didn't summon th eeffort to look up from his clipboard.

"They took everything..."

He sighed, suppressing a yawn and waving her to the front desk. "Here."

She pressed her thumb onto the little scanner, watching his face as he read the screen. All tiredness was suddenly banished from his face and his eyes opened wide. "Uh, right this way, ma'am."

They left the puzzled-looking guard behind in the lobby. She was led to a private room off the main corridor.

"I need something to flush out whatever pharmaceuticals the Kuritists filled me with. I could also do with some painkillers. Anti-inflammatories, nothing that'll make me groggy."

"Well, ma'am, those are incredibly expensive medications, and... um..." he quailed under the look she levelled at him. "... and I will find a doctor to sign off on those right away."

As the door closed behind the nurse, she sat on the edge of the bed and rested. Even sitting in the back of the APC on the way here, along what felt like the longest possible route between the space port and the hospital, she hadn't been able to relax. It was possible that it was a hangover from her interrogation - keep the subject on edge, unable to wind down, unable to gather a resistance. The edges of her vision were still cloudy, and there was a buzz in her ears that she was unable to shake.

Every banged door in the hospital startled her, though she wouldn't jump while she could help it.

A pair of voices approached down the hall. "... does she think she is? She had what credentials, exactly? No, don't bother, I don't even care. She can't just come in here and-" From the direction, it sounded as if the nurse had steered the doctor towards the front desk where she'd thumbed in. The doctor's voice approached again, getting louder, then quieter as it passed the door and disappeared back down a corridor. "I've got a f***ing hospital full of actual patients to treat. F***ing nerve of some..."

The door clicked open, and the nurse reappeared. "I have a prescription. Doc said this should do as a restorative?" he offered the slip of paper for her to read. She made a show of reading the short list of nigh-unprononouncable names before handing it back.

"Just get me the pills. And do you have any clothes?"

"Uh, 'fraid not. We don't keep a stock..."

"What about your morgue?"

"What?"

"They had clothes when they arrived, right?"

"Ye- oh. Really? I mean, the families usually want their effects back..."

"I'll stop by there after you get back from the clinic."

"I must protest-"

Another No. 2 Glare. "Listen, Nurse, uh-" she checked his lapel, "Jenkins. It's not savoury. I'm sure you'll have more than one angry family on your hands once next-of-kin decide you didn't do quite enough to save Nancy or Joe or whoever. Misplacing a set of clothes really isn't going to register on that scale."

The medic backed out of the room without another word, but the look on his face spoke volumes. Doesn't matter, he'll do as I say. The judgement arrived without emotion; a mere expression of fact.

A few minutes later, he came back with a couple of small pill bottles. "These two should help remove any existing drugs in your system. Take them before this one," he said, holding up a third bottle. "They're your painkillers. Up to three a day. Flush-drugs; take the lot at once."

"Thank you."

"Yeah, whatever. Morgue's signposted. Do what you gotta, then please leave."

As Jenkins left, she turned away from the door. There was a sink in the corner of the room. She took the half-dozen detox pills with a mouthful of water, and kept the painkillers for later. She dried her face, then went to the door and pulled it slightly ajar, long habit making her check both directions down the hall before stepping out.

A scant five minutes after that, she was in the mortuary, and picking through a bin full of discarded clothes. Most of them were torn by shrapnel or cut by paramedics, and if they weren't torn that way they were holed and bloodied. And any intact things she found were usually entirely the wrong size.

"Oh, f*** it."

Here, a blue t-shirt, a large brown stain around a hole near the shoulder. There, a faded green button-down with half the buttons missing and covered in ash. A brown leather jacket, with two neat holes between where the previous occupant's shoulder blades had been. Sturdy black cargo pants, torn at the hem and with a shredded knee. There were even some hiking boots in her size, which she immediately swapped for her flimsy plimsolls.

Anti-inflammatories safely ensconced in a jacket pocket, she headed for the nearest exit. It was time to start the next part of her process.

She slipped away into the morning light, munching on a piece of fruit she snagged from a patient's nightstand on the way out. Some member of the city's aristocracy rich enough to afford their own motorcycle, a road vehicle without any real utilitarian benefit, had left it in the hospital parking lot. A minute's work had the engine gunning.

The bike growled away to the east, heading for the outskirts, passing DCMS trucks and the first, brave citizens returning to a semblance of pre-invasion life.

A few minutes behind, a ground car with a small dragon emblem under the driver's door handle prowled along the same route.

[Arnold J Rimmer]

"This is what, the fifth one?"

"Might be seventh, actually..."

"Well s***, don't sound too certain about that, will you?"

"One conscript's quite the same as another to me, Coxy."

"You should still be able to count. And when we're outside the mess, it's 'Sergeant', corporal."

"Sorry, boss."

The two rangers held their whispered conversation under the jungle canopy, smeared with streaks of the bioluminescent sap both by design and because they were two days into their patrol. It was shortly before midnight, and the fact that they literally glowed in the dark would be terrible for camouflage if everything around them hadn't been similarly ghostly-blue. Here, anything that held a shadow stood out.

They stood over the body of a DCMS scout. Sergeant Sam "Coxy" Coxswain leaned down and cut the unit insignia from his shoulder, holding it close underneath a fungal growth to use the dim light better. The image of a metal shark, silver and red on black, grinned back at her.

"Amphigean, like the others. At least that means we've an idea what to expect."

"Sure, here. Planet's big enough for more than one regiment, Sarge."

In her ear, Coxy's radio bud crackled. "Incoming, boss. Jenner and Locust, making slow speed towards marker twelve. Straight line. Could be a rendezvous."

The ranger stuffed the unit patch into a webbing pouch, where it joined a handful of others, while she did some quick mental arithmetic. She pressed the stud on her throat mike to reply. "Received. Moving. Meet at point four, we'll set an ambush."

To Ranger McTavish's credit, there was barely a pause before the acknowledgement. "Received."

Leaving the dead scout to be cleaned away by the lizardine krakes, the sergeant and corporal slipped away into the brush. Above them, two more rangers scampered along the thicker canopy branches. Every spongy leaf they batted out of their way contributed to freshening their glowing camouflage.

"Sarge, you know that's not a truck, right?" Barnes had to raise his voice to 'conversational' to be heard over their flight through the undergrowth.

"You couldn't fit a truck through these trees, corporal."

"Point is..." the NCO paused to dodge around a thick bole. "... we don't have anything that will scratch a 'mech. Not two."

"Adapt and overcome, Barnes."

"But-"

"If those things hear us coming, corporal, I will offer you to their pilots as sacrifice."

"C'mon..."

"They're making a beeline for the main gate of the complex." They weren't, not quite, but there was always room for creative exaggeration in Coxswain's opinion. "We're stopping them."

There wasn't a further word for the next fifteen minutes of solid running.

They eventually got to point four, out breath but with some time to spare.

"Jesus," wheezed Barnes. "If I'd known there was going to be a PFA today I'd have worn my lighter gear." Coxy huffed (harder) with wry amusement as she caught her own breath back. They'd all modified their gear long ago to be as light and slim as possible. No sense carrying the same load as even a light infantryman when most of what they did was patrols through the jungle, scouting. They didn't even carry proper rifles, just carbines and a single magazine. Coxswain carried a sidearm too, but that accounted for all of their projectile firepower. They had two frag-satchels with them - all their 'heavy' firepower.

"McTavish."

"Go."

"Eyes?"

"Still with 'em, keeping our distance. Course unchanged. They've got... camo nets or something. ETA to point four... three minutes. Ish."

Sam frowned. Camo nets? They'd snag on every branch and vine from here to New Pontiac. There must be some reason... She shook her head, deciding to cross that bridge when they came to it. "Received."

Swiftly, they arranged themselves around the trees surrounding one of the tiny fall-clearings common to the jungle, scars from where smaller trees had been starved or strangled and then fallen. They were invisible from the air because of the canopy, and were usually transient as the undergrowth would over take each clearing as it formed within a week. Coincidence and timing meant that there was a short run of such clearings in this area; presumably, they'd missed the DCMS scouts that had found the trail recently enough, and now a probing force was checking for its viability.

The truth was that if this became a materiel passage, the clearings would stay clear and hidden under the trees, and the Dragon would have a new route through the jungle that didn't rely on the easily-trapped road.

Th-thump. Thump. Th-thump-thump. Thump. A krake called into the night, its slumber disturbed by the heavy footfalls, their rhythm syncopated because of the different strides of the two different classes. A fluorescent dragonfly zipped in front of Coxswain's face, darting away into the night.

"Get ready..." Coxy murmured into her throat mike. Clicks of static sounded in her ear bud as the team acknowledged the call without comment, to guard against eavesdropping.

The two mechs stomped closer, heading into the clearing and into the middle of their formation. There were four rangers up just under the canopy, sticking close to the trunks and shimmying round to avoid getting silhouetted against the luminescent leaves. Thermal detection wasn't worth spit for human-temperature entities in a rainforest, motion detection didn't work because everything moved, and what little metal they carried would barely register on magnetic detectors calibrated for looking for a fusion reactor's confinement superconductors; and that was ignoring the metal-rich deposits in the ground under the jungle.

What they did have, though, were microphones. They relied just as much on sound as any foot soldier.

Coxswain put two fingers in her mouth and wolf-whistled into the night, the shrill noise bouncing back from the iron-hard canopy trees all around, masking her location.

The Jenner and the Locust stopped dead. Ruby beams speared out from lidar projectors mounted on the outer armour of the two machines, sending flickering fans of light between the trees, searching for the source of the whistle. The beams snapped off as the camo nets shifted. Lumpen forms scurried from under the nets before abseiling from the 'decks' of the two war machines - four from the Jenner and two from the Locust.

They had passengers? Coxswain wondered. No wonder they were going so slowly, they'd have cooked the troops otherwise. It also answered the question of why vehicles (even 'mechs) were moving in such close terrain unsupported. They weren't.

"Canopy team go. Ground team, let's grab some more insignia."

The eight rangers burst into action. Above her, McTavish-and-friends scampered over the thick branches, angling their carbines down to try and get shots at the Kurita troops before they could find adequate cover. The first succinct bursts barked down, sending five-millimetre bullets whickering into tree roots and bursting the luminescent fungal blooms in showers of aquamarine goop. A scream echoed into the night.

The Locust's guns tracked high, and the heavy-calibre shells ripped into the canopy. Sticks and branches showered into the clearing, as well as the remains of an unfortunate krake and one of the rangers. McTavish dropped from the canopy onto the roof of the Jenner, escaping the other 'mech's aim for now. Pretty much immediately, the Jenner pilot attempted to throw him off, but he grabbed a fistful of the camo net attached to the roof of the 'mech and held on grimly. He was thankful the 'mech didn't have room to manoeuvre in the jungle, or it would probably just be a case of triggering the jump jets and waiting for the landing to shake him loose.

Coxy dived into the arena of the clearing, snapping off a quick series of shots as she sprinted. The Locust's attention was still on the heavier scout 'mech, and 'all' she had to worry about was the stomping feet of both war machines and the more immediate threat from the Kuritist ground troops. More heavy-calibre machine gun fire chattered into the canopy, and another ranger fell from the branches. A heavy mass slammed into Coxswain from one side, and they went rolling through the undergrowth, kicking and punching.

She couldn't get to her knife, but the commando could get to his. His arm drew back, and she only just managed to catch the falling knife with her forearm slamming into his wrist. "F***... you..." she snarled, forcing another roll so that she ended up on top of him.

"Think you can... do it?" her opponent taunted. "Think your guys will win?" he laughed grimly.

She punched him in the mask, hearing something pop under the plastic and being rewarded with a strangled yelp. He also drove a knee into her groin, but he didn't lose the knife. She scrabbled around for a rock, as the ground gave a bigger thump than before. She looked up, and saw one of the Locust's ankles a couple of metres away. "Oh, for-"

Coxy rained punches down on the man's skull, batting his free hand away when he tried to block and parry. Whenever he guarded his face, she hit him in the neck. When his arm came back down again, she went for his broken nose. The hum of warm myomer bundles and the groan of stressed metal came again, and Sam pushed herself off the commando and threw herself to the side as the colossal foot came down on top of the dazed DCMS soldier.

The ranger sergeant wasted no time swarming up the leg as far as the knee joint, where there was a vent for one of the 'mech's heat sinks. She was distracted by the crack of a laser as the Jenner obliterated another one of her section. How many down now? Half? How many did we kill? she wondered.

"Sarge!"

Coxswain caught the thrown satchel and ripped the fuse tab out of the charge, stuffed it into the heat vent and jumped into the loam. The Jenner and the Locust were now facing each other, though not directly; they covered each other's rear arcs to avoid being swarmed by the Marduk-native rangers.

She sprinted for the scant cover offered by a tangle of canopy roots, as the bundle of explosives detonated inside the knee of the Locust. The twenty-ton machine toppled to the side, firing its laser high and wild as it fell, before slamming into the ground atop another DCMS commando. The laser beam lanced at the torso of the Jenner, striking the missile tubes just as McTavish was about to throw his own satchel charge at the quartet of warheads.

The explosive tips detonated inside the launcher, touching off the satchel midair and throwing McTavish from the roof of the heavier 'mech and out of sight into the undergrowth just outside the clearing. The machine stopped moving, smoke billowing from the launcher assembly... perhaps the pilot was unconscious. The damage wasn't enough to put the 'mech out of action; the hum of its reactor could still be heard, and the gentle steaming hiss of its heatsinks.

Suddenly, the fight looked a lot more even, although it was dying down as the two sides battered each other into dust. The rangers had the home advantage; well used to the jungle and how to disappear in it. The Kuritists had the firepower advantage, and Coxswain wasn't even sure how many of her people were still up and about. At least one besides her - she could hear fighting behind her somewhere.

Coxy made a gargantuan effort to get moving, and was shot in the hip for her trouble. The sergeant went down again, cutting off the scream that escaped her unbidden. One-handed, she raised her carbine and emptied the remainder of the magazine into her attacker.

"Ffffffff-" she hissed, struggling upright again and hobbling on out of the clearing. She keyed her throat mic. "Disengage and... rendezvous at marker four. Fa- fade away."

She didn't know if anyone were even still receiving.

Hidden by the underbrush, Coxswain didn't see McTavish until she literally tripped over him, biting down on her shout of pain and registering the groan that came from the ranger in the dirt. It wasn't the groan of a dead lung being emptied by force - she hadn't actually stepped on him but kicked him in the leg and gone sprawling.

Funny thing about blast waves - sometimes they'd strip the clothes from your back and leave you totally unharmed. Others they'd do the opposite and pulp your organs and leave you looking untouched. In McTavish's case, it seemed to be a blend. His active camouflage cloak was shredded, as was a sleeve and half his webbing. He was bleeding from dozens of cuts on his arm and shoulder, without mention of the injuries he must have taken in his 'landing'.

"C'mon McTavish, up you get," she grunted, struggling through the logistics of trying to prop two people on one functioning leg.

"Hey, Sarge," he murmured weakly. "Showed them Combine, right?"

"Your... sense of - f*** - humour is impeccable as always, Mac. Let's go."

Good arm braced across her shoulder, Mac on her able side, the pair of rangers limped away into the night.

Edited by Arnold J Rimmer, 22 October 2016 - 03:39 AM.