Free Gray Panthers: Dixie by David Guenther Page B

signal, when he heard the rush of water from the river. He had been pushing himself because of the slight he’d felt from the lieutenant. Looking behind him, he saw that Sam looked like he felt, and he immediately regretted what he’d put her through for the sake of his pride. She smiled at him and gave a mischievous wink. Scotty smiled back and returned his attention to the front as he wiped the sweat from his face. The superman effect he’d experienced when he first arrived on Dixie as a result of the planet’s lower gravity was gone, and the heavy pack he bore was making him miserable.
    “The river is clear. We’ll cross one at a time, and after everyone is across we’ll stop to resupply on water and have a meal. Let’s try to get moving twenty minutes after that, so take care of anything you need to do. Then we’ll continue to the vehicles and be on our way,” the lieutenant whispered loudly to everyone.
    Scotty felt the frigid water against his boot-clad foot as he stepped into the river. The farther in he waded, the deeper it got, until eventually he was holding his carbine above his head and the water reached his chest. When the water started to become shallow again, he took one last opportunity to quickly dunk his head under the water and enjoy the chill.
    Lieutenant Semmes was on the bank and offered his hand to pull Scotty up the deep bank of the shore. Scotty took his hand graciously. Once up on the bank, he turned to watch as Sam started to cross the river. She had strapped her shotgun across the top of her pack and was using a walking stick to help steady herself against the river’s current. At one point she lifted the stick and jabbed it into the water ahead of her, then resumed using it to finish crossing. When she got to the riverbank she lifted her stick with effort and flipped a huge fish up onto the bank.
    “Lieutenant, do you think we would have time to cook that?” she asked as he absently held his hand out for her to grab.
    “Ma’am, I don’t want to have any fires, but I’ll clean that for you and put it on ice in the vehicle. It’ll make a nice dinner.”
    Twenty minutes later the patrol made it to the vehicles. There were five in total, and as Scotty watched the scouts remove the camouflage netting, he thought the vehicles looked like dune buggies with their bodies made of metal tubing. Each one had a roll bar with a mounted weapon. Scotty could distinguish that two of them had heavy machine guns and two had automatic grenade launchers, but he was confused as to what the last one was. He turned to Sam, nodded toward the device, and shrugged his shoulders with a questioning look on his face. “Just a laser,” she replied.
    Lieutenant Semmes divided the patrol up among the vehicles. The first and last vehicles had the two young scouts: one to man the machine gun from the back while the other drove. The second and third vehicles each had three scouts: one to drive and two to man the automatic grenade launchers. The lieutenant rode in the third vehicle. Scotty rode shotgun in the fourth vehicle and Sam manned the laser from the backseat.
    The patrol started out at a slow pace over the pristine forest land. Scotty was glad to have the pack off his back and a cool breeze in his face. Despite the danger of discovery at any time, he found himself fighting sleep. Checking back on Sam, he saw that they had given her goggles. She was strapped into the laser and bounced with every rut and patch of uneven ground they rolled over. He tried to remember how long Semmes had said the trip would take as he fought the tiredness.

Earth space
    30 October 2128
    Dixie Commander Charles Butler was notified of the ships coming out of FTL space. The ships had dropped into normal space well out of weapons range. The ships began to send a hail.
    “Unidentified ships, this is Admiral Bad of the Gray Panthers fleet. Surrender and prepare to be boarded.” The three human ships took up a line abreast formation