Scene 7-XI

“Jansen? This is Carthill. We’ve been requested to join you down there; can I get your co-ordinates?”

“Yeah, uh, gimme a second… Okay, co-ordinates.”

“Thanks. How’s it going?”

“Messily. Bastards landed and stormed whatever cities they could reach, and the air support we were able to give fell massively short. We’ve been ordered to pull back and wait for re-enforcements, AKA you guys, before going in and smashing them to pieces, and Mokyn’s paying the price.”

“I heard there’s trouble with fires?”

“Among other things, but yeah; apparently they don’t know much about bush fires, because more than one has gotten way out of their control; they had to pick up and move at least three camps.”

“So you have good intell, I take it?”

“Yeah, a couple ships were docked when they hit, men in town or at meetings, and they were the first things destroyed, so their crews are hiding out and passing information, and we’re taking turns running recon passes.”

“Do you not have any fires out there? Or waters, even, I guess.”

“Apparently not. Not sure how much good it would do at this point, some of these things are beyond belief.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I’ve had enough fucking surprises for a few years, I think.”

“Either way, the WO on one of the ships accompanying us is fire, so we’ll see what he can do.”

“Yeah.”

“If nothing else, Sam could drop a rainstorm on them; recently all he’s been able to do is tie Ptok down, I think he’s getting kind of antsy, and that would be a good place for him to channel that excess energy, as opposed to throwing some random rock out at sea into its very own ice age.”

“…Seriously?”

“Unfortunately.”

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Scene 7-XI

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