(Only three more snippets, counting this one… let’s go exploring!)
“Better?” Jabber shook his head. “Too deep for me, ke. I need trees, sunlight. No sky?”
“First time I saw the sky, I panicked.” The memory was one of the few shameful moments in his admittedly short life. He’d never imagined anything so big and endless in his entire life, yet staring up at the poisonous green skies of Myrkyma, where the roiling clouds went on for as far as the eye could see, and the constant, tainted rain smacking incessantly on the windows of the launch shuttle, had caused him to grab the arm of Sergeant Buckholz to help steady himself. To his credit, the stalwart sergeant hadn’t said a word about it, nor had he brought it up once they were safely ensconced inside the transport ship which would return the entire Protectorate’s embassy staff and Legion recruiters to Mars Primus. For that alone, Tavi owed him everything. “It was too much. It took me a long time to get used to it. But now I look up and see beauty. Life. Different than what’s in Overdark.”
“Death everywhere,” Jabber stated, though he did so with a smile.
“Death everywhere,” Tavi agreed. “But still, beauty.”
“You scare me a little, tasawa. You’re not afraid of dying.”
“No,” Tavi responded with a shrug. “I’ve never been afraid of dying. Growing up, I wasn’t afraid of anything because I didn’t know I was supposed to be. Not until they came for me, the revolutionaries. The new protectors of Myrkyma. Now? I’m afraid of everything I do being meaningless. I didn’t realize it until I joined the Legion, but I don’t want to be forgotten. So . . . I want to be the best legionnaire possible. I want to matter. I want to be remembered.”
Jabber opened his mouth to respond, but Sergeant Ord’s voice cut off the discussion abruptly.
“Team Two, Ordo. I just received word from reliable sources that your civvies need to move deeper into the jungle one klick due east to look at . . . flower samples. Proceed to marked point two-five on your maps. You need to be there within seven minutes. Clock’s ticking, Team Two. Don’t dawdle along the way. Ordo out.”
“Team Two copies. Shit.” Pigeon looked at the weighted bags piled up next to the tree. “All right, you heard the sergeant. Grab your civvie and let’s haul ass.”
“This here some bullshit, tasawa,” Jabber muttered to Tavi as he scooped up his heavy bag and looked around. The bag was still perfectly positioned to make carrying his rifle uncomfortable. No matter what he did, nothing changed this. “He’s punishing us for something that was for the best of the squad, keiche? But oh, we need to be on some shit list because somebody didn’t know how to work with us. Stupid balara piece of worthless garbage. I hope his pecker falls off if he ever gets a woman.”
Tavi just shouldered his bag. Once again the CCR-95 banged painfully against his hip. The armor absorbed most of the impact, but he still felt it. The non-Newtonian fluid which was the basis of the armor’s individual cells stopped a lot, but one still felt the impacts. Lessons learned while at ACS reminded Tavi that at least he wasn’t getting shot at.
“Well, they’re not as heavy as the real civilians probably are,” Tavi pointed out. “The professor is not a small man.”
“You seen the civvies?” Krawdaddy asked.
“All five of them,” Tavi confirmed. “Their boss is some sort of professor or doctor or something. I don’t know. I thought doctors were all about medical stuff.”
“Ah. You met an academic,” Pigeon said as they tromped as fast as they could through the jungle. Around them, they could hear faint animal noises as birds and other creatures lingered in the lower branches. Tavi had to resist the urge to remove his helmet to take in the air. The canned air of the suit grew boring over time, even if it was safe for weeks on end.
“Academic?” Tavi asked as he pushed aside a branch and held it so Jabber didn’t get smacked with it when he passed. The big man, though, released it the minute he was clear and the branch slapped Vixen in the stomach.
“Sorry, tollejo. Didn’t see you there.”
“An academic,” Pigeon continued, ignoring the byplay behind him, “is usually someone who teaches at a university. Medical doctors go to school to become doctors who treat sick people, usually. Academics usually go to school to continue studying a specialization in something that is . . . hmm, how to put this? Random studies?”
“I don’t understand,” Tavi admitted.
“I’m doing a poor job of explaining this,” Pigeon stated. “Think smart guys who study obscure things, I guess.”
“Tasawa . . . them academics demand you call them doctor, but medical doctors usually want you to call them by their name, ke?”
Tavi’s head swam. The more they tried to explain, the worse it became. Fortunately for him, Vixen saved the day.
“So who else was with the academic?”
“Four people,” Tavi replied instantly. “Two men and two women. They were his assistants or something.”
“Sounds like a right pompous sort of academic, probably used to his stuffy office and not actual work,” Krawdaddy muttered as he kicked a stone. It bounced along the small game trail and rolled under a bush.
“Any of the women single?” Vixen asked, suddenly more interested than before.
“Any of them cute?” Krawdaddy pressed as he climbed over a fallen log. “Shit. Careful. Almost stepped on a nettlebush.”
“I don’t care if they’re cute,” Vixen countered. “Are they single, or about to be single, or really not caring about their relationship back home, or do you think they simply have daddy issues which need to be worked out with a young, enterprising, and rakishly good-looking legionnaire?”
“Fech! Dial it back, balara,” Jabber snapped. “Don’t go scaring the kid before he gets to the good stuff.”
An image of the professor’s younger assistant flashed through Tavi’s mind. Embarrassed, he shoved the memory away and focused on not stepping on the nettlebush. The prickly leaves were known to shoot needlelike projectiles hundreds of feet when disturbed. The HCS should protect them from the worst of it, but Tavi didn’t want to borrow trouble. “I guess they’re pretty?”
“Pretty-pretty, or good-personality pretty?” Vixen asked. Seeing Tavi’s confused look inside his helmet, he smiled. “I speak chick talk. I know things.”
Missed the previous snippets? No worries, I got you covered.
Jason Córdova 
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