SENJO – FIRST SQUAD - EXITING DROPSHIP WRECK AND TAKING LEFT FLANK<br/><br/>Private Sakuraba was uninjured and as I worked at un-strapping the sentry guns and their ammunition bags, punching the quick release covers and slinging the ammunition back pack over my shoulder, I watched her reaction to Private Laws' death. Her eyes for a second had a look in them that I knew registered the emotion known as sadness and then in a moment her face was filled with frustration then rage. I marveled at the flow of emotions through humans. At times I wished to experience them… at others I was grateful that I could not. Now I was grateful.<br/><br/>Private DeSilva who I did not yet know was also uninjured. She was readying herself for action and looked to be about to move down the ramp also and take up a defensive position.<br/><br/>Behind me Corporal Beneke had fallen from his seat and was cut on the arm. He looked at me and called out the name of the deceased Lance Corporal Mitchell. The look on his face made me curious to understand what was passing through his mind at that moment. I stopped working and from a side pouch drew out a field dressing, holding it out to him.<br/><br/><strong>"Here,"</strong>I said calmly,<strong>"You're hurt."</strong>The big man, ignoring the proffered dressing and his wounds, at once readied his gun, cursed in the way only Corporal Beneke can curse and ran out of the ramp to begin spraying the jungle randomly with M56 fire. I put the dressing back in my pouch and continued working.<br/><br/><em>Wasting ammunition, but if it helps him deal with this…</em>I never ceased to find the human response fascinating and I knew that on one occasion on LV-1875 I had also responded with a fully human action and curse; a result of the cultural databases loaded into me and the ongoing process of assimilating data around me, assessing it and reusing it at the appropriate juncture.<br/><br/>I was ready to move out. I stopped beside the deceased Private Laws and set my sentry gun drums down.<br/><br/><strong>"Sergeant. I will take some of Private Law's equipment with your permission. His electronics pouch and laptop is useful. I believe I am the best person to make use of it. He also has demolition charges. I have capacity to carry them."</strong>It was a fully logical suggestion. With the bulky sentry-gun drums I was not useful on point or in the front line of an advance. It made complete sense to load me up with the charges to free up others to move more easily. My voice was raised over the intense chatter of Beneke's smart-gun as it defoliated the planetoid's jungle at the rear of the drop-ship. I took the satchel of explosive devices from the clip on the dead man's belt and attached it to my own webbing. As I was doing so the body shifted and I saw the glint of metal at his neck. As squad commander, Sergeant O'Shay was responsible for the IDs of the dead men and I gave him the dog-tags from Private Laws and Leftenant Rastenburg. Then I saw something else on Private Law's neck chain. Unclasping the chain I drew it from his neck. Looped onto it was a small metal device, It had a slender cylindrical shaft about ten centimeters long and a flat head that forked into two spikes, each fearsomely sharp and some three centimeters long. I had observed Private Law looking at this object on board the Mitchum seven months ago and had intended to discuss it with him. Circumstances of that mission had precluded the opportunity and I had never found out where he obtained it.<br/><br/>Even though I had seen this object just once, when Law had taken it out in the mess deck before the drop, I had seen one before, in photographs. Though I had never had the opportunity or clearance to see the original, I knew it was stored in the armoury of the Los Angeles Police Department, Seized Weapons Evidence Storage, Chamber Four, Cabinet Eleven, Drawer Seventeen.<br/><br/>I also knew from my database that it had been there since 1997, over four hundred and fifty years ago.<br/><br/>I had dwelled on these facts many times but had few answers other than the ancient history LAPD reports which were inconclusive. I had however seen a third example of this device… recently… on LV-1875…<br/><br/>Putting this train of thought aside, I nodded to the Sergeant, slipped Law's chain around my neck and collecting the sentry gun boxes again, and moved rapidly down the ramp in a crouch. At the base I turned left, dropped the drums and unslung my rifle, going down on one knee behind a tree and from within cover began sweeping the area of jungle in my sector. If the rear ramp of the disabled drop-ship was our twelve o'clock, then I was scanning from six o'clock through to ten. The jungle was variable. In some areas I could see three hundred metres, in others, no more than three. Using my software to filter out the harsh noise of the smart gun to a less distracting level I began methodically scanning the jungle, my rifle's sight to my eye. Moving in short sweeps of a few degrees each and pausing to interrogate the lush broken greenery, both at ground level and at an elevation. Since LV-1875 and the incident with the unknown alien I knew that they liked to move in high places. The old LAPD report suggested too that high buildings and rooftops were their preferred avenues of mobility; they eschewed ground travel as much as they could.<br/><br/>My eyesight was excellent and my brain as well. I looked intently and calmly. If there was anything visible out there that was not flora or natural mineral I would see it; non-natural colours, shapes, structures or motion.<br/><br/>(http://blogs.sundaymercury.net/weirdscience/rainforest-jungle_0247.JPG)