Fireteam Delta, J. Halpin [online e book reading .txt] 📗

more likely to get eaten by something than to die from infection at this point, if that helps,” Summers answered without a hint of sarcasm.

Logan just stared at the man, trying to decide if that was good news or not.

“Hey, you’re the one who asked for no bullshit,” Summers said.

“All right. Fair enough.”

Summers smiled in response. He saw Nowak leaning over the Humvee to hear. They’d been wanting to ask Logan a few questions, and now was as good a time as any.

“Since you’re feeling so chatty, think you’d mind answering a few questions?”

“You want to know about the 63rd?”

“More or less.”

“I can’t tell you much. Brass just sends us in to guard the civilians. All I know is that this place is dangerous,” Logan said after a moment. That was about as helpful as Summers was expecting.

“Is it true there’s another one in Nevada?” Nowak called down.

Logan looked up. “No idea. I know we got some experienced people transferred to our detail. So, they had to come from somewhere.” He paused. “Look, they’re big on the ‘need-to-know basis’ crap. If I’m going to be honest, this here was my first trip to this world. And no one talked with us rookies about it.”

“Great. Anything useful you can tell us?” Cortez called over.

“My job was to watch Asle. You want to know more about this place, ask her. Best thing I can tell you is how the general likes his coffee.”

Another wave of pain must have hit the man. He closed his eyes in a look that screamed frustration and general anger at the world itself.

“All right, fine. Do you know if the forests are usually this dead? Either of you?” Summers asked. He tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but his patience was wearing thin.

“No. Something ate everything,” Asle replied helpfully. “Or something kill,” she added.

“Same thing that killed those people, the skeen things?”

She shrugged in response. Great. She knew how to shrug.

Summers stood. “I’ll be back before night for your pain meds. If you can soldier through for now, we can ration them for sleep.”

“Thanks. For everything. Seriously, man. But could it kill you to avoid some of the bumps tomorrow?”

“I’ll think about it,” Summers said as he turned, heading back to work on the tent.

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Summers swerved to avoid a fallen tree. He heard a curse rise up from the back but chose to ignore it. You just couldn’t please everyone. It had been two days since Logan woke up. He was doing a lot better, which was good because they were lower than he’d expected on morphine.

“Hold up,” Nowak said. He had a pair of binoculars in his hand, leaning out the window.

“What is it, Sarge?” Summers asked. He had one hand on the butt of his rifle. If Nowak saw the kind of trouble bullets wouldn’t put down, their job was to lead it away from the Humvee—in part to make sure it didn’t charge the jeep and blow them all to hell, but mostly to buy Cortez time to grab something big enough to kill it.

“Two o’clock. I think I see a road,” Nowak answered after a beat.

“You sure?”

“No, so start driving.”

It was a road. An overgrown, poorly maintained dirt road, but it was definitely man-made. Or elf-made. Whatever.

“You know what this means?” Cortez asked.

“Yeah. There’s a town nearby,” Nowak answered.

“Do we want to risk meeting the locals?” Summers gave Asle a quick glance. “How do you think they’d react to people like us, Asle?”

Asle shrugged. She was getting a lot of use out of that. “Don’t know. People different.”

“You think they would attack us?” Logan asked. Asle seemed to consider that for a long moment.

“No. Asle talk good.” She nodded as if that solved the matter.

“We appreciate it,” Logan said, smiling down at the girl.

“What do you think, Sarge. We going to risk it?” Summers looked to Nowak. They’d been grilling Asle about what her people were like for the last few days. They typically only dealt with arrows, poison, and spears, so they’d imagined some kind of medieval or even tribal society. If it came to it, they’d probably be able to handle any problems that came up, but that wasn’t something he’d be looking forward to.

Monsters were one thing. People were another. He’d killed people during his deployment, sure, but that didn’t make it a pleasant experience.

Nowak turned to Asle. “If we meet people, do you think they’d trade for food and supplies?”

Asle thought about it. “Yes. Guns good.”

Nowak held up a hand. “Not guns. I don’t want to start handing out weapons. Like, clothes. Or MREs. Maybe some of the medicine we have.”

“Guns best,” Asle finally answered.

“I agree with the kid, guns best. But I’d also prefer not arming someone who might come back to bite us in the ass,” Cortez said.

Nowak said, “I think it’s worth trying. Any objections?”

There were none.

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The road was a welcome change for just about everyone in the Humvee. It may have only been dirt, but their progress became markedly faster. Not having to dodge rocks, debris, and the occasional horizontal tree meant they had to backtrack far less often.

It wasn’t long before they came upon some kind of town. They saw the spiked wooden fence from a distance, with only a few of what they could assume were homes rising above it. Their roofs were curved, and as they got closer, it seemed like they ran straight into the ground.

“What’s the plan? We wait out here until they get a welcoming committee together?” Summers asked.

“That’s about the speed of it,” Nowak answered.

And so, they waited. And waited. And waited some more. About two hours after they had parked their big