Free Glory Main by Henry V. O'Neil Page B

and so Mortas crawled over. The stars were bright enough for him to make out a lump on Trent’s heel, and when he poked it she gave off a hiss of pain.
    â€œLooks like I get blisters just like everybody else.”
    â€œYeah. Sorry about that. Nothing we can do for it.”
    â€œKeep walking on it and it’ll toughen up.” Cranther’s voice rose from the crack in the dirt. The corporal slowly sat up, adjusting the skull cap. “Human bodies can adapt to a lot of things. Walk far enough and your foot will build callus like a boot heel. Go without food long enough and your stomach will shrink. You can get used to just about anything that doesn’t kill you outright.”
    Mortas briefly considered arguing that last point, but decided against it. They needed to get moving. Movement meant getting closer to the chance of food. And a ship. Or maybe a radio of some kind that they could use to call for help.
    â€œLieutenant!” Gorman’s voice shot at him in an urgent whisper. “Something’s coming on the other side of the river.”
    The three of them lunged toward the mapmaker, landing in a tight pile facing the bridge. On the opposite bank, with a low rumble that became only slightly louder as it approached, a pair of muted lights bumped along the track. The vehicle was almost at the bridge when Mortas was finally able to make out its general shape. Some kind of mover, a cargo hauler perhaps, with two seats in front and a covered back.
    It stopped with a sigh, and one door at its front opened. The starlight was sufficient to identify him as a tall individual, two arms and two legs and carrying some sort of weapon. He appeared human in every aspect as he walked to the rear of the mover and opened a large hatch. Mortas had seen plenty of footage of captured Sims, and had heard their gibbering language on tape, but even so he was unprepared when the thing spoke.
    Sim language had so far evaded the efforts of mankind’s finest linguists and supercomputers, and he now knew why. The tall Sim uttered a stream of chirps and peeps loud enough for the group on the hill to hear clearly. The syllables seemed to bounce off of each other, and even though he understood not one of them, Mortas was almost certain the speaker was annoyed.
    The chirping brought two more Sims out of the vehicle, both of them dropping to the dirt carrying weapons. Mortas didn’t recognize the devices, having expected to see the long, skeletal rifle common to Sim infantry. These were stubby, short-­barreled things that didn’t look like they had much range to them, and the two Sims who’d emerged from the mover both hugged them to their chests as if for warmth.
    All three of them were clad in some sort of uniform that appeared gray in the darkness. The speaker was bareheaded, but the other two wore helmets and combat harnesses. The helmets were also foreign to Mortas, flimsy-­looking headgear that hugged the skull and covered the ears. The speaker gestured with an arm as he turned and walked onto the bridge, and the other two followed.
    â€œSon of a bitch, he’s posting a guard.” Cranther whispered right into Mortas’s ear. For the first time the lieutenant was aware that the four of them were so close together that they were basically a pile.
    He turned, cupping a hand over the scout’s ear and bringing his mouth close. “What are they? Never seen outfits or guns like those.”
    â€œProbably colony militia. Those guns are a generation behind what the mainline troops are slinging these days. They’re called Maulers.”
    A remembered slideshow from training, enemy weapons they might see on the battlefield. A trainer referring to one picture of a squat, ugly thing that fired a burst of low-­velocity pellets that shattered internal organs so badly that human troops referred to it as the Mauler.
    Mortas looked back down just in time to see the first Sim start back