Now that Greenlight had given the word, the real frenzy broke out. Blades clattered against each other, and bullets fired into the sky. In the commotion, one Mauve was clubbed in the face by a Saber and staggered back, cursing.
Sami drew her pistol, worried that they were about to start a war on the spot. Instead, the offending Saber vanished into the morass as the clan spread out, jostling against each other. Little girls and boys carried open-topped boxes of bullets, some of them tripping and spilling their loads onto the swampy mud. Four children cooperated to carry a rocket launcher to an old woman who was probably a sarge. Sami counted only six or seven Asian Sabers, but to her amazement, one of their warriors was a man. Armed with a gnarled machine pistol and a wicked hand ax, with his long hair draped over a hideously deformed face, he assaulted Sami with a crooked-toothed sneer, then lurched off to join his comrades.
After a minute, a coherent front line formed, with a hodgepodge of weapons and a few shields in front.
"Mauves," decreed Greenlight, "join the war party. Stay with your sarges."
There was no escaping it now; Sami would be part of a raid. Boots pounded the ground, and clamor shook the jungle as the Mauves dispersed throughout the gathering army. When they settled, Sami realized with a shock that she didn't know where Say-it-Again was. She opened her mouth to call to her, then spotted her a few feet away.
"This is good," said Crusty, behind her. "We're in the middle, so the Sabers will take all the hits, but we'll be close enough to get in the thick of it. Remember that, Wedges. You never want to be out in front."
The marching order came, and the whole crowd-- Mauve and Saber, old and young-- started moving. Sami did not know where they were headed, nor did she ask. For the first time in her life, she didn't want to draw attention to herself.
Once the march settled into a rhythm, torches lit up in a few places, throwing forceful orange glare up onto the tree canopy.
"Hey," said a sharp voice behind her, "Watch it!"
Sami turned and saw a Mauve soldier who looked to be about twenty, staring fiercely down at a Saber who was two-thirds her height.
"You do that again, I'll take off your thumbs," said the Mauve. "Just watch!"
The Saber answered with a middle finger.
The Mauve erupted. "You want to lose your whole hand?"
"Hey, you!" Sami cut in. "Quit making noise. That fight isn't worth it."
"Back off!"
The Mauve reached for her rifle, and Sami realized in a cold flash that she had made a spectacle of herself.
"Stop that!" snapped a Mauve sarge, grabbing the rifle away from the soldier. "Infighting is for Sabers. You'll have plenty to shoot where we're going." The sarge aimed her accusing finger at Sami. "As for you, I don't know who you are, but don't ever give orders to someone older than you. Understand?"
"Yeah." Inwardly, Sami admonished herself for her recklessness.
A few kilometers farther, the crowd slowed and fanned out, allowing Sami to see a clearing in the trees ahead. Auras of blue diode light washed over tall grass. In a long, narrow depression, a dozen prefabricated folding shelters with blue and grey nylon walls sat rooted in the ground cover, and a pot boiled on a portable electric heating plate hooked to external, rechargeable power cells that looked long past their operational life. A few people in rough brown cloth tunics stood up, their long, dirty black hair falling in their faces. A lamp clicked on. Sami shaded her eyes.
