Free Backshot by Dan Cragg, David Sherman

on different routes from those on which they’d gone out. Neither could they tell if the patrols they saw coming back were the same as those they saw go out, only that two hours after a patrol departed another returned about seventy-five meters counterclockwise from where a patrol had departed two hours earlier.
    “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Daly said when he had seen enough. Half a Kilometer Farther from the SLA Headquarters They were good, the Force Recon Marines. They stepped softly and kept to the hardest ground they could find; their boots made almost no imprint on the ground. Even if the SLA had trackers good enough to spot their traces, it was unlikely the one or few good enough would come across their trail, less likely they’d be looking for such slight traces. Willing just one time to make footprints, Daly faced an appropriate tree and planted his feet firmly less than a meter in front of the trunk and leaned into the tree, bracing himself against it with his hands. He was the biggest man in the squad; the heaviest and strongest, though not the tallest. Corporal Nomonon was the tallest. He climbed up Daly’s back and stood on his shoulders. Lance Corporal Wazzen scrambled up to stand on Nomonon’s shoulders. Sergeant Kindy, the smallest man in the squad, clambered to the top of the human spire and sank two anchor spikes into the tree trunk above his head. Securing himself to the anchor spikes with a short length of rope, he lifted his feet from Wazzen’s shoulders; the Marines below him collapsed their spire while Kindy affixed climbing spikes to his boots and gloves. Then he began climbing. As soon as everybody was off him, Daly squatted down and brushed away the worst marks of his footprints. Then, while Nomonon and Wazzen kept watch, he methodically picked up the chips of bark that dribbled down from Kindy’s climbing. It was a tall tree, and Kindy had to climb high to get above enough of the canopies to establish communications with a satellite. When he was finally high enough, he dropped two weighted lines, camouflaged to conceal themselves against the tree. Daly grabbed one line, removed the weight, and plugged the line into a jack in his helmet. A moment later, he was talking to the duty communications officer of the 104th Mobile Infantry Division.
    “Homeboy, this is Rover One,” he reported. “We have them.” He gave the coordinates he got from Kindy’s GPS. “They have not detected us. When can we expect you? Over.”
    “Rover One, are you positive you’ve located the quarry and that you haven’t been detected?” The comm officer sounded doubtful.
    “That’s a double affirmative, Homeboy,” Daly replied flatly.
    “How secure is your position, Rover? I’ll have to get back to you.”
    “They aren’t going to find us, but we have to go potty, so don’t take too long.” The very expressionlessness of his voice made it sound sarcastic.
    “I’ll be back, Rover. Homeboy out.”
    Daly unplugged the line to the satellite link and plugged in the other, which was connected to Kindy’s helmet jack.
    “Bad news,” he told the assistant squad leader. “We have to wait in place until the army pulls its thumb out of its ass and decides to do something.”
    “You mean I got to stay up here?”
    “With the birdies for the duration.”
    “There aren’t any birdies here.”
    “Count your blessings. No birdies means they can’t join the army in shitting on you.”
    Kindy snorted. “With my luck, the birdies would be the size of cows.”
    “So it’s a good thing there aren’t any birdies.”
    It was almost two hours before Homeboy got back to them. He sounded almost surprised that they were still in position and nothing had changed. Homeboy said a squad from the division’s recon battalion was on its way to confirm their report.
    “Recall that squad, Homeboy,” Daly snapped. “If that’s all that comes, we’ll have to save their asses, and then follow the target to tell