SENJO – FIRST SQUAD – REACHING THE SOURCE OF THE SCRAMBLER SIGNAL<br/><br/>As First Squad moved south through the dense greenery I was near the rear of the column which was spread out in a long tactical formation, several metres between each marine, enough distance to not catch more than one soldier in a burst of fire or mine blast, close enough to keep visual contact and give fire support. On the march I had no function but to carry the heavy sentry-gun drums and use my sharp senses to observe the world we were passing through.<br/><br/>The terraforming of LV-6329 had begun fifteen years ago, but studying the jungle around us, the trees and plants gave the impression of being older. Of course the resources of Weyland-Yutani would be sufficient to install atmosphere changer units that would accelerate plant growth relative to Earth normal rates. I marveled at the company's ability to deploy equipment and resources to such a degree, being able to practically mould the universe around it into the shape it desired. My programming told me that somewhere in the heart of W-Y's board of controlling officers must be a powerful desire to compensate for something. A lonely ineffectual childhood possibly. A small sexual organ perhaps. The things that drive humans provide endless material for study.<br/><br/>Such are the thoughts that run through my head when little data input is available.<br/><br/>While the squad moved along the trail Lance Corporal Beneke was so noisily crumpling for us through the living wall, I stepped carefully and slowly with the two bulky guns, searching out the optimum foothold for each pace and avoiding plants that crossed the trail or those freshly broken ones the Lance Corporal has left across the path.<br/><br/>I moved silently. Not a sound, although given the decibels being generated a couple of tens of metres ahead of me, there was little need for caution.<br/><br/>In my position towards the rear of the formation I could not see the clearing initially but the squad halted and fanned out like… like a thick cake mixture being poured in a slender stream from a bowl and landing on a flat surface to form a pool around it's centre. I put my head briefly on one side and found myself fascinated at the internal imagery and analogies that constantly seeking comparisons from prior data generates.<br/><br/>At Private DeSilva's warning shout I instantly dropped the guns and had my rifle unslung, going down onto one knee behind cover and looking… up. I looked up. Already my instincts towards this place filtered by previous experiences were causing me to adjust my tactical priorities. The enemy was not necessarily around us on the two-dimensional plane of the ground. He functioned in three dimensions. The rooftops of Los Angeles slum tenements 450 years ago, the upper catwalks and roof-space ventilation ducts of colony outposts, the treetops of an alien jungle on the far quadrant of the galaxy.<br/><br/>From where I was crouching I saw the raw red meat of the skinned bodies, hung up by vines around their ankles. Again my database fed back to me a similar incident of bodies reported dragged up to high places and hung upside down. The LAPD files had records of similar processes. Why did they do this? My internal records lacked an answer.<br/><br/>Then the firing and shouting broke out, somewhere within fifteen metres to my right. I swung in that direction, placing the threat to my front only to hear a sound I had not expected to hear in the wild. I had recordings of these devices in my database. A plasma weapon, electrically powered by extreme high frequency oscillations to ionize a gas layer in the core of the weapon and then project it at speed as a pulse or bolt of intense energy. I had data covering such devices built in laboratory environments but the power required to run them demanded extensive arrays of super-conducting power cells. A building was needed to house them. For a portable device to be practical you would need an intense lightweight power source such as a fusion reactor. It was technology beyond human ability even now, hundreds of years after we became aware of the theoretical potential.<br/><br/>To convey in written language such a sound requires this:<em>CHAUUUOHM-SSSSSP!</em>with the sizzle ending being terminated sharply as the high frequency emitter is closed.<br/><br/>Sergeant O'Shay loudly gave orders. They did not include me and setting up the sentries here would not be tactically wise. Instead, I carefully scanned the jungle to my left front as a long jet of yellow flame shot from Private Sakuraba's flamer gun, igniting the jungle in a narrow arc. As the greenery sizzled and crackled and popped and recoiled from the heat I thought I saw an outline. It appeared visually as though someone had taken a segment of jungle and polished it until it shone in cut-out form then shifted it a few centimeters so that what you thought you were looking at was actually displaced a little away, bending the light around it. It was a figure, large, humanoid and bulky wearing some form of head covering like an angular helmet.<br/><br/>I watched the shape as it moved. I released the safety on my rifle and tracked the shape but did not shoot. Not yet. I was gathering data.