Free Blood of Denebria (Star Sojourner Book 4) by Jean Kilczer

back for you. They wouldn't turn around the ship.”
    “No. You couldn't have gone back for me.”
    “I have been worried in my liver for you.” He leaned on the side of the tent and it began to fold inward.
    “Huff! Don't!” I yelled as poles creaked and snapped from his heavy weight. The tent crashed down and settled around me and Joe. I threw my hands over my head and yelled as a pole landed across my cot.
    “That stupid son of a bitch!” Joe shouted from somewhere beneath the collapsed roof.
    “What happened?” I heard Bat yell, then the sound of running feet. “Is it the BEMs?”
    “Sorry am I!” Huff cried. “I will favor you my last candy bar, Jules Terran.”
    “I'm going to take that candy bar,” Joe squeezed out, “and shove it up that idiot's ass!”
    I heard Chancey yell from somewhere in the deep shadows outside, and the sound of a body thudding into the ground.
    “You dumb crotemunger!” Reika said. “You just stepped on my backpack. The Land Warrior computer's in there!”
    I lowered my head to my hand, there in the dark, with the tent draped over me. Joe was crawling around, trying to find the flap. Huff was gone. Probably hiding out somewhere. Chancey was arguing with Reika about leaving her backpack in the path. Only aloof Wolfie remained somewhere apart from the circus.
    I sighed. This was the team that had to infiltrate enemy lines and steal their prize possession.
    “Surrender is not an option,” Joe said and strapped on his stingler. As a former W-CIA counter-terrorist captain, Joe naturally became our new platoon leader. “We're just canned goods to the BEMs.”
    We all nodded. When said and done, a quick shot to the head is preferable to being eaten alive.
    “Let's go.” Joe glanced around at the team. “Luck.”
    “Luck,” we murmured and climbed into the two vehicles.
    We had waited out the day in camp, making preparations for our raid. Reika and Wolfie showed us the workings of the Ground and Air Warrior systems, with helmet displays, computer capabilities, mechanical beetles that could fly above the enemy with 360° cameras and relay their positions, a ground sensor on wheels that could check out a structure or an area before we entered, and right itself, if need be, and rifles that could shoot around corners. “Putting eyes into the enemy,” Reika had explained with a grin. Chancey was close to drooling, but there were no spare units for us. In fact, the captured systems from the two dead platoon members were now in BEM hands.
    It was nightfall as we drove onto sandy terrain and headed north, toward the BEMs' front lines. The cold desert air was conducive to keeping us awake. I zippered my jacket and lifted the turtleneck around my ears. The smell of ground cover was bitter, but not unpleasant.
    Huff squirmed on the flat metal seat, with holes for BEM tentacles, in the rear of the vehicle as we bounced over dunes. I smiled and patted his arm.
    “My liver is glad for your recovery, my Jules friend.” He rubbed his wet nose against my head. It made me shiver, but I laughed.
    Huff is a simple soul in many ways, but he comes from a predatory bear-like Vegan ancestry, and is ferocious in battle, capable of ripping an enemy apart with bare teeth and claws.
    I sighed and stared out the window. Two moons played tag among the crystal dome of stars in the clear desert air. Somewhere, a night hunter howled and was answered by his pack. We were hunters ourselves, in search of the enemy-held SPS unit that could prevent a war or bring it to the enemies' doorstep. We called our mission Operation Ceti, compliments of Chancey, who drove the vehicle.
    Joe sat beside him.
    Reika, Wolfie, and Bat rode in their armored truck behind us. We traveled dark, and stayed off the stone road, with only the moons to light a path between brittle shrubs and rocky crevices. Dried branches cracked beneath our metal wheels. Small creatures scurried away as we surprised a world that had never known the