Waking up early and disassembling camp was one thing BEACON girls could do in their sleep- and many did so, since no coffee was among the remains of the supplies.
The engineers managed to cobble together a few dozen flatbed hovercarts, and the supplies were loaded on them. Everything that wasn't essential was left behind. The 119th quickly made their way down the northeast side of the mesa and began the long march to the mountain.
Fuel was limited for their jetpacks. The AEGIS combined battery power and high-efficiency kinetic capacitors to power itself through the wearer's own movement, but the jetpack ran on betavoltaic fuel. BEACON dropships had matter printers to create more fuel, but those were all destroyed. Herod had to content herself with a 25 percent full tank, only to be used in combat.
The march soon became a trudge. Nothing but desert lay northeast of the mesa. The Gawain was insulated against heat, but it always felt gross to wear it for too long as it grew stinkier and sweatier. There was no water for showers so the entire legion stank- other than Sheba, who somehow still smelled like fresh-cut flowers.
They walked in a long line, Lucifera and Tamar in the front, then Amalek's cohort, then Ruth's, then Sheba bringing up the rear. Scouts flew ahead and periodically returned with news of oncoming terrain, and it was always the same: more damn sand. Besides the reports, the legion moved in silence.
Lucifera ordered a break for midday. Some of the girls collapsed into the sand the moment the order came down. Most of the others got to work scrounging together food.
The only animal that lived in this desert was a rat-sized creature with huge ears, wrinkly skin, and thin deerlike legs. A few girls had shot one and now it was time to see how they tasted. While the scans showed the meat was safe to eat, the rat-things were mostly bone and rubber-like skin. The actual meat was greasy and tasteless. Herod, who had eaten far worse, happily devoured the small amount that was passed to her.
A group of girls had gathered around Amalek, who was drawing in the sand using a metal pole he probably salvaged from the Isaiah. "So here's the mesa," he said, drawing a big oval. "And here's us." He drew an X a few inches up and to the right. "Our first goal is... here." Several more inches to the right, another oval.
"What's that?" a bird in Amalek's cohort asked. He stared at her. "Err, what's that, colonel?"
"A lake," said Amalek, satisfied. "There's a large lake near the mountain that almost certainly serves as a water source for the residents. A distributary flows from that lake to a basin, and that forms this smaller one."
"Water means we can refill our tanks," another girl said.
"And animals! There might be game that live there. Fish or maybe aquatic mammals." The speaker, a leggy blond, shrugged. "I'd even eat one of those gigantic water scorpions they had on Radlafi. They were so crunchy."
"Water scorp- Timna, those were lobsters. We brought them from Earth. And you're supposed to take the shell off before you eat them."
"Oh." Timna shrugged. "Whoops."
Another soldier, a male with a centurion stripe on his AEGIS stepped forward. That was Haman, one of Amalek's direct reports. "Colonel, what's a lake doing in the middle of the desert?" he asked stiltedly... almost as though he had been asked to do so.
Amalek let out a loud clearing of his throat. "Glad you asked! And the answer is, it isn't. When we start walking again, the climate will begin to change, and drastically at that."
"Thank Astra," said yet another legionnaire, this one with thick curly hair the color of wax on her arm. "I've got sand in all sorts of places."
"That explains your shitty attitude, Lotan," yelled someone. "You've literally got sand in your vagina!"
"You're about to have a steel boot up yours, Eliphaz!" Lotan snapped back, albeit playfully.
Amalek sighed as the legionnaires dissolved into playful banter. "Genius is never appreciated," he said depressedly.
"How is explaining the terrain genius, ma'am?" Herod asked.
"That is only a question a non-genius would think to ask."
((AN: It's tough to be a nerd in a world of jocks.))
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BEACON- Part of the TORCH Saga
Science Fiction"IN EVERY CLIME, A SHINING SIGNAL" Herod is a woman with no past and no future. All she can do is fight, and that means she fits in perfectly in the elite 119th "Lightning" Legion as they land on an alien backwater where nothing seems to add up. Th...
