Free The Ramal Extraction by Steve Perry Page B

to hike in.”
    “If you get tired, Ah can carry you,” Gunny said.
    “You think?”
    “Sure, dried-up old husk like you? No problem.”
    He smiled at her. “On your back?”
    “Never mind, Ah rescind my offer.”
    “Zoom, one centimeter to five meters.
    “No vehicles parked where we can see them at the lodge, and there doesn’t seem to be any heat sig when we peep at it with IR, but if you look closely at that dirt road—full zoom—you’ll see that there is fan splash to the sides, see? And wheel tracks, too. Weather history says it rained there six days ago, four centimeters total, which is enough to have washed away fan or tire marks, so somebody drove to or from the place on that road since it rained.”
    She looked around. “Anybody want to offer any suggestions on our approach?”
    Nobody did; they knew how it had to go: Treetop-hugging flight to a spot far enough away to avoid being detected but close enough to get there on foot. Stay in the forest as much as possible to keep from being spotted visually by surveillance flights, some kind of bollixer to screw up DLIR or MS gear on aircraft sensors or ground sensornet, for however long it took to hike to the place. Avoid the soldiers on either side, figure out a way to breach the lodge, find the girl, and collect her without getting her or themselves killed.
    Oh, and stay off the XTJC’s scopes, while they were at it. Because they sure as shit would meddle with it, just in case CFI
might
possibly break some law, and there were some going to be bent and busted on an operation like this, so they had a point.
    They’d need a local, a guide who knew the terrain. Maps were fine, but never the territory, and what looked like an easy walk from a spycam might be a complete impossibility for a soldier on foot.
    Still, this was what they did, and they were good at it. Set it up properly and turn it loose, and they could make it run.
    “So, let’s lay it out,” Jo said.

    “This here is Singh,” Gunny said, “a private in the Rajah’s Army who grew up near the border where we are going. The Rajah has lent him to us for a while.”
    Wink guessed that Singh was about nineteen, if that. Either he was using depil, or didn’t need it, because he didn’t have any facial hair, as most of the older troops here seemed to have. Fresh. Still wet from the morning’s dew, but the Rajah sent him.
    Jo said, “Welcome aboard, Singh. You know the territory around Lake Om?”
    “Yes, Captain, sah, I was born in Vishnu Village, in the North Reach. I lived there until I joined the Honored Rajah’s Army six months ago.”
    “Combat experience?” Jo asked.
    “No, Captain, sah, not as yet. Eighty-eight hours sim-training.”
    “Well, with any luck, we won’t see any action on this mission. In and out fast and clean.”
    The boy’s smile seemed to falter a hair, and Wink figured the kid would love to see it blow up so he could shoot some enemies. Young soldiers had a lot of expectations and fantasies about how it would be and what they would do and feel. Invariably wrong, those expectations.
    “We will be fielding a small strike team,” Jo continued. “Half a dozen plus yourself. We’ll be hiking, and we will want to get as close as we can by air without being detected, and stay out of sight until we achieve our objective. We need your knowledge to make this go like we want.”
    “I understand, Captain, sah.”
    Jo grinned. “Just call me Jo, it will make things easier. We are less formal than regular military.”
    “Yes, Jo, sah.”
    Wink grinned at that one.
    Jo said, “You’ll stay with Gunny until we take off, she’ll acquaint you with our procedures, which might be a little different than what you are used to.”
    Wink smiled bigger at that. There was an understatement. If the kid got used to how they did things, it would ruin him for any kind of regular army. And, of course, the real reason he had to stay with Gunny was for security. The Rajah might have