And in the back slopes, there was something interesting going on. Two quargs in heavy infantry armour moved gently along the ridge of the nearest hill, bypassing me on my right. There were another two on the left, and in front of me, distracting my attention, the combat robot was constantly bustling around, it kept popping out of hiding and shooting at me. The Small Dragon pilot wasn’t afraid of my gun, because from that distance it could only scratch the paint on his armor, well, maybe leave some small dents. Well, that was not a luxury fly-car. Scars like that are true decorations for a war machine.

There was an urgent need to resolve the problem of this bypass. Having fired my gun at random, not to hit someone or make the quargs hide, but to show them that I’m here and I’m not gone, I moved back and left. I moved pretty hard so I could get in the way of the couple of enemies that tried to bypass me, but keep out of their sight. I wasn’t going to kill them, I had another job to do. I need to slow down my pursuers, so I’ll hold them back. The bullet from a sniper rifle of my caliber, when hit in the limb, causes a serious wound, even if the enemy is in a heavy infantry space suit. After the shooting, I hid immediately, and watched the result with the help of the „cockroach”.

The result met my expectations. The unharmed quarg tried to pull the wounded from the battlefield, constantly staring and at any second expecting a new bullet from the invisible sniper. But the sniper kept quiet. I still didn’t shoot when the aggrieved couple got help from two more infantrymen under the cover of that Small Dragon with the slightly scratched paint on the armor. I was wondering where they were taking the wounded. They arrived here by something.

Using some specialized device, the quargs quickly placed the injured on the back of the robot, and the machine ran over the hill without losing any time. My „cockroaches” could not see that far, so I decided to risk the flying drone. I gave the miniature flyer an order to escort the robot, ordering it to keep a max distance from the target.

In the absence of the robot, the enemy infantry did not attack and kept quiet. I knew it wasn’t for long. I didn’t think they had their dropship far away, because they came at us pretty fast after our drone reached the rendezvous point. So I used the pause to break off the enemy and to get to the rendezvous point that I’d assigned to my flying scout.

The quarg dropship was within fifteen minutes of a careful and slow march. My opponents lost me and now they were probably trying to figure out where I got to, and where the main group went. According to my orders, I’ve been truthfully dragging the quargs up and down the hills for an hour. I was supposed to get back to the squadron, but it wasn’t my plan, at least now. I knew perfectly well that if I left now, I’d be at a dead end again. The power in the suit accumulators will soon be depleted. It wouldnʼt gonna be enough for a 400-kilometer walk in the desert. So, whatʼs next? To try to get out on foot, unarmed, and in just overalls? No. It’s better to risk doing something now.

I got to the dropship when the quargs were still shaking the hills and ravines in search of the missing enemy scouts. The robot ran to the aid of its infantry a long time ago, leaving the wounded in the care of the pilot and another quarg in the armor, who was assigned to the dropship apparently for security. Now the pilot was fiddling with the suit of the wounded quarg lying on the dropped ramp of the ship, and the guard was standing there, looking around.

Two dry clicks of my sniper rifle shots scattered across the hilly plain. The enemies sank down on the ground like weak puppets, but the signal of the attack on the dropship must have gone to the main group of quargs. Of course, I was hoping that my jammer wouldn’t let that signal get through, but the distance from which I fired did not let me be entirely certain, especially considering the fact that my position was not between the dropship and the main enemy forces, but on the side, otherwise I just wouldn’t see the target.

I ran without saving energy and squeezing maximum speed out of my gear. Every second could have been crucial. I didn’t kill the wounded quarg, just shoved him off the ramp with the pilot’s body and dived into the shadowy insides of the quarg dropship. I almost fell over a body in a space suit. That was a human space suite. Anton Gnezdoff was lying on the side of the ship and showed no sign of life. I saw a ragged hole in the chest plate of his armor, it looked like he was hit by a large shard. But the private was alive although unconscious. I couldn’t afford to look into his condition now and jumped further to the cockpit.

With the completion of operation at Luyten-5, I had quite a lot of time on my way back to Ganymede. Jeff and I had something to do. Remembering my adventures in a terribly uncomfortable quarg techʼs suit, I decided to throw away everything that had nothing to do with hacking enemy machines out of this suit. We mercilessly dismantled the armor, the weapons, the positioning and sighting system, the scanners and even the exoskeleton itself. So, as a result, it turned out to be a pretty compact device, which, if you wanted to, could be easily installed inside our human, heavy infantry space suit. And, of course, as I gathered up my equipment for this trip, I hadn’t forgotten about this device. The challenge was something else. I’ve never tried to hack a flying quarg machine, and all my knowledge of it was theoretical. But there was no other way, especially in light of the discovery of wounded Anton in the dropship.

I activated the equipment. Lucky for me, the dropship didn’t hide any surprises compared to combat robots. It was protected far worse than the Mammoths and even the Small Dragons, so, eight minutes later, I had the enemy machine in my hands. Except I’ve never flown one of these before. In a previous life, I did well piloting a small troop transport Cuirassier, in this life I piloted our dropship. But I’ve never had a quarg flying machine in my hands before. It was required to take immediate action, so I plunged without doubt into a mad picture, which the enemy vehicle’s targeting and navigation system projected on my helmetʼs visor. For taking off like this, our pilot instructor would have killed me if I were there, then he’d bring me back to life by means of a mighty kick in the ass and would kill me again. He would repeat the procedure until the necessary pedagogical effect was achieved.

The dropship was wobbling from side to side. I almost hit the nearest hill but only slightly grazed it and raised a cloud of sand. Nevertheless, I was flying. It was a good thing no one’s tried to shoot me yet. The machine I was flying was an easy target now.

At first I just flew away. Having realized that I can already, somehow or other, manage horizontal flight and careful maneuvering, I turned my attention to weapons. There were no thermobaric rocket launching containers that are so dear to the heart of any human commando. Instead, quargs suspended under one of the short wings an additional high-speed aircraft gun, and under the other wing – an air-to-air missile launcher with a laser-optical guidance system, which is used to follow the target manually. Looked like that was who shot on our planes and the dropship. Judging by the amount of missiles used up, I’d say it was so. The quargs knew we’d send a rescue team for the scouts. They flew in early, picked up a position, disguised the dropship, turned on the EW station, and quietly waited for guests. It was a perfectly sensible decision. But an evil brigadier general showed up and ruined the party. At least, let’s hope so.

I was no longer interested in the group of quargs running around the hills. I remembered there was still one missile left in the Small Dragon’s backpack, and at my level of piloting, meeting that missile didn’t seem like a good idea. I bypassed the threatened area along a wide arc, pressing the dropship belly against the hills, and even sometimes diving into the most spacious gorges. By my calculations, I’ve already beat Lieutenant Egorov’s team by ten kilometers. I didn’t risk arriving to them on an enemy dropship. They could just begin shooting before they can figure it out. Having landed the capricious machine in a small hollow, I went to the landing bay and squatted down in front of Anton. The quargs didn’t deactivate his suit. That’s all that kept the Private alive. The embedded first aid kit was doing what it could, but its prognosis was getting more and more threatening. If Gnezdoff isn’t in the hospital within the next five hours, there’s no way to save him. Which means we probably won’t have time to land in our control zone and call for help. I’m gonna have to brazenly fly the enemy machine right onto the runway of the special forcesʼ base. I donʼt think Iʼd be welcome…

I caught the beacon signal two hours later. I couldn’t waste time any more, so I took the dropship in the air.

* * *

A group that had already lost two people was moving east pretty vigorously. But it was OK just for now. There was still power left in the accumulators for another five hours. Lieutenant Egorov’s mood was getting worse by the minute. He didn’t see a real way out and led the group forward out of sheer stubbornness. Kay Shefferson raised his hand, urging the group to stop.

“Commander, I’ve picked up a drone, a human one. But this is not my dragonfly, it’s something else.”

Soon they saw the device. It slowly approached, circled the group with a slight buzzing and withdrew behind the ridge of the nearest hill.

“John, look what it is,” ordered Alexey.

The sniper went up the hill, raised an optical scanner over its ridge, and then he went straight down to the squad.

“There’s a quarg dropship, Commander. It’s on the ground, the ramp is open, and near it stands our Cadet in his ‘barn’ with guns. He waved at me.”

“Are you not overheated, John? Send me the file.”

When the Lieutenant started playing it, he looked for a few seconds into the image projected onto the helmet visor, then silently slapped the sniper on the shoulder, made a sign to the subordinates to follow and climbed the hill.

* * *

Major Weber was pulled from the table by the howl of an air-raid warning.

“Duty Officer, report!” ordered the Major via communicator.

“An enemy dropship has entered the control zone.”

“Alone? No cover?”

“That’s right. Altitude is one kilometer. It flies slowly. Doesn’t maneuver. It makes an ideal target.”

“Wait, Lieutenant. Something’s wrong here. I’ve never noticed quarg suicidal tendencies before.”

“It could be a diversion, or it could be a simulator.”

“Put the battalion on combat alert. Make air defence equipment fully operational. The dropship can launch missiles from ten kilometers. How far is it now?”

“105. If it doesn’t change speed, it’ll enter the firing range in fifteen minutes.”

“Call the interceptors.”

“Yes, Sir!… Major, Sir! There’s a signal from the dropship! It’s unstable yet. I can’t make it out. But the coding is ours.”

“What the hell?.. Turn it on me.”

The Major’s office was filled with cracking noise through which sometimes incoherent pieces of words burst. But with each passing minute, the distance decreased and the quality of the communication improved.

“…ship calls… …ber Dropship… Major Weber. …tenant Egorov’s group returns from mis… Pri… seriously wounded. Request emergency evacuation to hospi… ”

“Scheißer! Don’t shoot!” shouted the Major via communicator. “Call back the interceptors! Get medics and emergency crew on the runway right away. ”

* * *

“Major, Sir, have you sent Cadet Lavroff back to Academy?”

“Yes, I have, Lieutenant. He earned the low-level combat experience he needed in one mission abundantly. His practice ended there, so the Cadet left. And he took the dropship with him as a legal trophy. I didn’t mind. ”

“That’s a pity, I had no time to talk to him. You have introduced me to the promotion. I’d be happy to give him my group, with a completely calm conscience. When he finishes his studies, naturally.”

“You’re still a rookie, Lieutenant,” Webber laughed so hard, “Haven’t you read his file?”

“At first, there was no time,” Lieutenant was embarrassed, “And then there was no need. It just became clear what a man was worth.”

“Would you at least look out of curiosity,” squeezed the Major out of laughter, “Who did you want to offer the group to? This Cadet of yours had been commanding a Heavy Commando Brigade for a month on the quargs-occupied Luyten-5. Generals are certainly waiting for him to graduate from the Academy, the Generals with such shoulder straps that you and I are very far away. Well, Lieutenant. It’s been a long time since I’ve had this much fun.”