Free War Games by Karl Hansen Page A

symbol was for her specialty. A duffel bag lay beside her. She stood nearly two meters tall, average height for a combrid, but weighed maybe eighty kilos—definitely on the skinny side, Her arms and legs were long and lithe. Her skin was black with antiradiation pigment granules and gleamed with protective monomer sweat. Pretty standard adaptations. Just like any other combat hybrid. But if the rumors were true, her significant adaptations would be internal. Chimeras were supposed to be a new generation of combat medic.
    I touched her shoulder.
    She turned. Ocular membranes contracted quickly, then dilated again. Jade eyes examined me dispassionately. Men used to fight wars over a face like hers. Now they had sillier reasons. I thought I was in love. But I knew better. I could recognize the beginning of a testosterone shower.
    “Lance Corporal Detrs,” I said. “A Company, Second Brigade, First Ghost Cavalry. Welcome to Titan. The Gunny sent me to fetch you to the garrison.” There was something wrong with my voice.
    “Peppardine,” she said. “Firiel Peppardine. I mean, Specialist Five Peppardine.” “She laughed, then paused. Her face became lax again.
    I recognized the name from somewhere. Of course, that might not mean anything. The Corps would give you a new name if you wanted. She might have taken a familiar one. She remained unmoving. Frogs! She probably expected me to salute or something. Noncoms fresh from the hypnotanks always did. So I didn’t salute. The sooner she learned the realities of a combat situation, the better for everyone. I slouched a little more than usual and gazed about laconically.
    She must have gotten the message, because she shrugged and shouldered her duffel bag. I led the way to the skimmer.
    Night had deepened. Fog rolled across the road like surf on a beach. During the day, logging trucks lugged cargoes of crystal trees from deep in the interior to the civilian spaceport. The trees were hauled to labs in the asteroid belt for further processing, so the elves wouldn’t have the necessary technology to process radiacrystal into war materiel. That was the theory, anyway. The Lord Generals could have saved themselves some shipping charges. The elves had the technology, anyway.
    A safe zone had been cleared a hundred meters on both sides of the roadway. Yellow light glared from pulverized crystals. A force-field crackled green fire at the margins of the safe zone. Beyond that was virgin forest glittering in the diffuse glow of Saturn-light. Laughing elves glided among trees of glass.
    More than once, the force-field had been penetrated somewhere along the hundred kilometers of road between the base and the spaceport. It had always happened at night. Elves were more devious in darkness.
    I was a little nervous as I drove the skimmer back to base. I gripped the steering handle tightly. Sometimes they managed to slip airbears through the barrier and let them wander about the road. Skimmers weren’t armored. They didn’t provide much protection from the explosion that resulted from a collision with an airbear. I kept glancing from one side of the road to the other. But I wasn’t so nervous I didn’t look at the chimera every chance I got. She was worth looking at. I hoped she’d let her cape fall open a little now that we were in the skimmer, but she didn’t play the game and kept herself demurely covered. My gaze lingered on her hands. I couldn’t help but look at them. I’d heard rumors. She had long, supple fingers. Their pads were formed into tree-frog suction cups, like those of sailors, the better to cling to polished surfaces. She didn’t have fingernails. Instead, each finger had the retractable claw of a cat. I couldn’t help but wonder if the stories told about those claws could be true.
    She must have sensed my interest, for she bared her claws quickly, then retracted them again. But before they disappeared, I saw a wet, blue gleam. Nights could be dull at a combrid