"I'll take it," Mosovich said, throwing the rope over his shoulder. "Sister, on rappel."
"Okay," Sister Mary said without demur. If the sergeant major said he could hold the rope, he would hold the rope. She took it and slipped it around her body. "I'm going to cross right away."
"Oh, yeah," Mosovich agreed. "And hit the stream. But wait there."
"Roger," she said, dropping over the cliff. Her descent, again, was fast and smooth. When she hit the road she crossed quickly, grabbed one of the saplings on the edge of the bank and dropped out of sight into the streambed.
"Nichols," Mosovich said. "And take the Barrett. Mueller, gimme a hand."
Both of them bracing were able to support Nichols and his massive load. The weight caused the sniper to drop far faster than he had probably preferred, but he made it to the road and crossed quickly, dropping out of sight on the far side. There was a faint cry that reached their perch over the chuckle of the river and the two NCOs traded glances and a shrug.
"You sure you can support me, Jake?" Mueller asked. "I could go last."
"Sorry man, I'd rather trust myself," Mosovich said. "I can handle it. 'He ain't heavy . . .' "
"Right," said Mueller with a laugh. He dropped over the side of the ledge, but was careful to catch his weight on as many footholds as he could find in the eroded cliff. At the bottom he threw the rope aside and darted across the road.
Which left only Mosovich. Jake looked at the tree he was supposed to depend upon, the eroded hillside and the woods across the way. "What a screwed up situation," he muttered. Then he coiled up the rope, tucked it in his rucksack, turned around and dropped off the ledge.
The technique was another picked up in too many years of risking his life. On a cliff like this, with outcroppings, brush and trees sticking out all over, it was barely possible to slow yourself by catching various items on the way down. It was not a matter of stopping, that was going to happen suddenly at the bottom, but just slowing yourself enough that you didn't break anything.
It was not the sort of technique that anyone but mountain troops used, and then only in extremis, because it was so stupidly dangerous. But, Mosovich thought, that's my life all over. There were two things uppermost in his mind on the short descent. One was that if he dug in too hard, it would leave a path a blind normal would notice. So he couldn't slow himself the way he would have preferred, placing both hands and feet into the slope and "dragging down." The other thing that was uppermost in his mind was that, at the speed he was going, if one of these damned white pine saplings jammed him in the groin there weren't going to be any more little Mosoviches.
The cliff flattened out a bit at the bottom from runoff and caught one foot sending him into a backwards roll. He tucked into it and fetched up, hard, against a rock fallen at some previous time. But all the pieces were in place and nothing appeared to be broken. So it was clearly time to cross the road.
He trotted across and grabbed one of the saplings on the edge to swing down on. He was going to drop directly into the streambed and that was damned near as dangerous as going down the slope; the rounded and slimy rocks of the stream would turn an ankle sideways in a heartbeat and with all the gear they were carrying that would mean a broken tibia just as fast.
He slipped down the slope and looked at the team huddled against the streambank. "Everybody golden?"
"No," Nichols gasped out.
"He broke both ankles jumping off the bank, smaj," Sister Mary said, putting a splint in place.
"Well, Stanley," said Mueller leaning back until his head was in the stream. "Isn't this a fine mess you've gotten us into."
CHAPTER 12
Near Seed, GA, United States, Sol III
0825 EDT Monday September 14, 2009 ad
Lying in a freezing cold mountain stream was not one of Jake Mosovich's favorite pastimes. And doing it next to a troop with two broken ankles wasn't adding to the experience any a'tall.
"Jesus, I'm sorry about this smaj," Nichols gasped. Sister Mary had used a neural stunner to deaden the ankles, but it still wasn't going to feel all that good and the cold water obviously wasn't improving the sniper's shock; his face was a pasty gray.
"I didn't figure you did it on purpose, Nichols," Mosovich whispered. "Shit happens."
So far there had been no sign of the Posleen on this side of the mountain, but crossing the stream with a busted up sniper and all their gear was not going to go fast and a patrol could be along any time.
There were basically two choices: take off like jackrabbits, hoping to make it across the stream and the mercifully narrow open area on the other side, or find a hide along the streambed and hope the Posleen eventually gave up and figured that the team had moved on.
Of course, there was a third option.
"Okay," Mosovich said. "Change of plan. Again. Mueller, move up the stream. Look for a better hide, someplace we can stash Nichols, you and Sister Mary. Nichols; we're going to put you under with Hiberzine. Moving you is going to tear up your legs something fierce. This way if they're bad enough, Sister Mary can just tie 'em off and forget about them."
"I can make it, sarge," Nichols said, shivering with cold.
"Can it, you idiot," Mueller said. He looked at Nichols under lowered brows. "If we don't put you under, your own body is going to put you down before the day is out. This is not a good way to grow old, Jake."
"What is?" the sergeant major said, starting to strip his combat harness. When he started pulling off Nichols' harness, the sniper grunted.
"You've got to be joking, right?" the specialist said, rolling over so the sergeant major could yank the harness, with its pouches of .50 caliber magazines, out from under him. Nichols was not as large as Mueller by any stretch of the imagination, but he made Mosovich look like a shrimp.
"No, I'm not," Mosovich said, folding up the bipod on the sniper rifle and submerging it in the water. "I was humping a Barrett when you weren't even a gleam in your daddy's eye." He looked over at Mueller. "Go to ground while I raise a ruckus. When the Posleen pull their patrols off wait a bit then hump buddy-boy out of here. Head for Unicoi; I'll lead 'em off to the southwest."
"Okay," Mueller said. "Have fun."
"Oh, yeah," the sergeant major said, submerging in the icy water until only his mouth and nose were exposed. "Never better."
* * *
Mosovich was shivering from the cold, but he hardly noticed. The current was strong as it pushed him downstream over rocks and occasional rapids and he floated backwards on his stomach, hauling the Barrett behind him and moving slowly and carefully from one bit of cover to the next. The river was full of old snags and boulders, fallen limbs and natural dams so there was more than enough concealment to be had and the river actually had passed under the road without his being detected.
He was lying on his belly behind a long fallen white pine, getting ready to move over a set of falls, when he saw the first Posleen patrol. It was better than two miles downstream from the team's crossing, but moving up the highway in the general direction. Mosovich froze when he realized it was being led by a God King. The indications were that at anything under a hundred yards the God King sensors could detect humans no matter what; they certainly had done so one time to him on Barwhon. But in this case the group of about three hundred passed on oblivious, no more than twenty meters from where his ghillie clad body crouched.
After that he was a little less circumspect since he had a particular point he wanted to make and not much time. The team was, apparently, not spotted by those Posleen, but it was only a matter of time before they would be detected. Unless, that was, the Posties had something better to worry about.