"Project it onto the screen back there," Cacliocos commanded, stabbing a thumb over his shoulder; Corporal Jackson''s fingers danced furiously across the smooth surface, flicking forward and backtracking through a multitude of menus faster than Betelgeuse'' could catch. It was about ten seconds of wrangling with the software''s byzantine architecture before the Corporal''s agile movements ceased, following which he turned and looked expectantly at Cacliocos.


    But the officer had already wheeled around to face the troop compartment; he called Entuban''s attention to the front, indicating the other terminal screen fitted into the metal siding right of the aperture, the screen directly adjacent to where Betelgeuse had been sitting.


    "Staff, you see this?" Cacliocos said, pointing over Betelgeuse to the seismogram charting pinprick jitters across time. The rest of the troop appeared to be stirring from their brief slumber, and Betelgeuse watched Voke jolt himself awake, in so doing inadvertently jostling Edith with his shoulder; Edith jerked upward with a loud blubber, drawing as she did so the attention of most of the Jegorichians, her face turning red as a tomato.


    Skull-faced Belekov, who hadn''t so much as said a single word since the standoff with Cacliocos, narrowed his eyes at the blushing Edith, a latent hostility rolling off of his person. Gelam, it appeared, had swapped places with the long-armed Smit sometime over the course of the past few hours, and was now sitting to Douglas'' right. Smit sat to Belekov''s left, and to Belekov''s other side a rather morose expression was pasted onto the face of broad-shouldered Nano.


    There were tensions here that Betelgeuse felt unequal to.


    "What are we looking for, sir?" Entuban inquired, twisting his own neck and causing a popping sound that was concerning in its loudness. He wagged his shoulders in an effort to relieve a building tension borne of the cramped confines of the troop compartment, to no evident avail.


    "Mining activity. I''m given to think that—"


    The APC comms crackled to life, interrupting Cacliocos, and Hrodwulf''s voice could be heard soliciting for acknowledgment.


    "Lower the volume on that," Cacliocos instructed the v-com, before turning back to regard Entuban. "See these plateauing sections? They''re separated from the ambient seismic activity. I am thinking that it''s drilling or some kind of excavation op."


    Entuban squinted, his brows furrowing deeply. "… It may be that it is subsidence or subsidence-causing activity. Maybe leftovers from the Chime''s fuck-shit back in main tunnel. There will not be any mining crews, sir—this zone is prohibited to randos. Requisition Orders are not allowing anyone but Ninsei to mine, and the muster orders were clear that the whole AOP was evacuated by the Ninsei crews. That is meaning nobody but us Allied Forces and Chimes anywhere near LR."


    "Yes, perhaps," Cacliocos nodded, his eyes glinting with a terrible sharpness. "But think where we are. We cut from the main tunnels to the capillaries and followed that TAF Granger down southeast. After that we navigated hard south because of that cave-ins Point APC reported. Jackson, bring up the AOP, gridmap one."


    The terminal flashed and the seismogram was substituted for a particolored map. The gridmap, Betelgeuse quickly realized, appeared to encapsulate the whole chunk of land spanning Saltilla, Liberation''s Reach, and another settlement labelled ''Arroyo''. He followed with his eyes a dotted splash of blue labeled ''MVMT'' which cut across the Amate Range and connected Saltilla to Liberation''s Reach.


    "Zoom into the gridsquares between seven-zero and eight-zero easting, and five-zero to seven-zero northing," Cacliocos instructed, and the map was magnified about the designated topography south of Liberation''s Reach.


    "We don''t have subterranean blueprints, so I''ve been stuck tracing our movement on the overland map. Our last transmitted position was here," Cacliocos jabbed at the screen, indicating a small, blue semicircle more than a hundred kilometers south of Liberation''s Reach. "This was before the jammers cut satellite and comms, shortly after disembarkation in the main-tunnel-way. That is, after the Chimerae had been engaged."


    "We never got any signal after that?" Entuban asked, flexing his fingers.


    "No. So, we were here in the main tunnel-way, then capillary southeast, then cave-in here, forcing us into the capillary hard-south," Cacliocos said, punctuating his explication of each phase of the movement with precise jabs of his finger. "We only managed to find a southeasterly tunnel hereabouts an hour back. Look at the general area. Look where we are."


    "That''s…" Entuban was squinting.


    "It''s Elluhada, the Strata Basin," Thete folded her arms, prosthetic eye oscillating in place. "See, Saltilla is approximately east of us. If sir is right, we''ve gone too far south. The Strata Basin lies above us… which means we''re close to their settlements."


    "Bejana," Belekov spat an unwelcome interjection, folding his arms across a chest pushed out in a peacock-jut.


    "Hey, I remember that name from the Infoments!" Douglas piped up. "Aren''t they the indigenous guys?"


    "You know nothing," Belekov hissed, staring daggers at the grinning mono-armed man.


    "Yeah, yeah, try me, brah," Douglas chortled, meeting Belekov''s glare with a cheeky grin which only served to inflame the latter further.


    "Fool, you are more like those half-intelligent morlocks than you think," Belekov rasped.


    "Stop it. That is enough of that, Belekov," Entuban scoffed, his eyes twinkling with less reproach than mirth. "My geography is bad, but if it is indeed the Strata Basin, and if there is indeed drilling, then it is very likely Bejana—one of their mobile mining settlements."


    Cacliocos'' lips were set in a straight line. They are like thieves, Betelgeuse heard Gelam whisper over-loud to an attentive Douglas, they love to steal and doubly-love to be filthy. It is their nature to be evil, incestuous, godless—you will never meet more untrustworthy creatures.


    "Sir, we have very little oxygen left," Entuban continued, talking over Gelam''s failure of an attempt at discretion. "No more than half a day left. I think our choice is made for us."


    Cacliocos gave no indication that he heard. The rest of the Jegorichians were shifting around uncomfortably, hyper-aware of that Sword of Damocles looming abovehead.


    "Sir?" Corporal Jackson called from the front. "Sergeant Granger needs you on the line urgently. He''s sent someone… to wave at us from outside."


    Cacliocos and Betelgeuse turned and looked out the windshield, finding a dark-haired, sharp-nosed man bearing the rank of Private and waving his hands at them from the outside. The word ''DUMB'' was stamped across his chest.


    "Robbie Birch," Betelgeuse sounded, recognizing another one of his batchmates.


    "What? Cromagnon Bob?" Douglas called, scrambling up from his seat and extricating himself from Gelam''s avid, attentive and overly-descriptive vituperation against the Bejana. "Fucker''s alive!" he exclaimed, staring over Betelgeuse'' shoulder and raising his arm and giving the only middle finger he had.


    "The glass is tinted, Douglas," Voke called from his seat, sighing but also cocking a half-grin at Douglas'' antics. Douglas laughed and took Betelgeuse'' seat beside a squinting Edith, smirking as he did so and as Thete rolled her eyes at him.


    "Turn up the comms, Jackson," Cacliocos said, and the static grew in volume until it sounded like heavy rain.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "Sergeant Granger, Subaltern Cacliocos speaking. Call your guy off."


    "—Cacliocos, I rogered your speculation that these were Bejana. Did you not hear my follow-up?" Hrodwulf questioned, his voice taking on a hard edge.


    "I was having an internal conferral, Sergeant. But we are agreed that these are likely Bejana. It is also likely that we have come across a mobile mining settlement."


    Outside the windshield Robert lowered his arms and rolled his eyes, then turned and stalked out of the cone of light and melted away into the darkness.


    "A settlement? If that''s true… then it is excellent news." Chattering swelled and died on the other side.


    "I am also advising that we should make an offer," Cacliocos continued. "We have enough fuel to trade."


    Whispers that were loud enough to be heard though not audible enough to be comprehended filtered through the comms.


    "... That will depend on how many people they have," Hrodwulf said, after several seconds of silence.


    A vein pulsed at Cacliocos'' temple. "Sergeant Granger, I must stress the importance of avoiding combat. It will risk our already depleted oxygen stores. The Bejana''s unique physiology allow them to withstand long periods of naked breathing without deleterious effect. Firstly, this puts us at a clear disadvantage in any combat situation, and secondly, the Bejana may not carry adequate stores of oxygen to justify our expropriation."


    "You might be forgetting that oxygen is not our only concern, Cacliocos. We need water and we hardly have any rations left. Well, in any case we will proceed apace and attempt to make contact—"


    "Hold on, Sergeant Granger," Cacliocos called.


    Silence.


    "Sergeant Granger!"


    He received in response only silence and the sound of soldiers shifting restlessly in place.


    <hr>


    They resumed their trundling trek and shortly came to a fork in the tunnel-way. Ensconced in the APC leading the movement column, Hrodwulf decided, unilaterally, to take the left fork eastward, toward the source of the seismic disturbances.


    Betelgeuse stayed by Cacliocos side and kept a silent watch out the APC windshield. The outer dark was pitch-black and faceless as an abyss. There was nothing to do but read and re-read the license plate of the next APC in the column—9P2071PDF—and Betelgeuse sounded this collection of letters and numbers to himself a million times for want of a better thing to do.


    It was less than a half-hour since their conferral with Hrodwulf, when Betelgeuse found, to his mute amazement, that the darkness of the tunnel-way was receding. Where once was shadow, now a soft, greenish hue intruded upon the horizon; and as they traveled the wan glows mixed together with blues and reds and glittering diamond-whites, until the tunnel-way was made a universe of shimmering stars fashioned of fluorescent lichens.


    The world was revealed, and Betelegeuse could see all the way to the ceiling and the sides of the tunnel. It was a smaller space, nothing like the broad scale of the main tunnel-way they had previously done battle in. The ceiling stretched perhaps ten or eleven stories, and he estimated the sides of the tunnel no more than four hundred meters to either side of the APC.


    And he saw, as they forged deeper, a single structure hove into view somewhere near the ceiling. It stuck out like a mushroom from the sheer rock face, and as they neared it started to look distinctly man-made, with smooth and angular sides that seemed to vibrate in place. The tunnel was starting to widen, and monolithic ovoos of rock were deposited all over the floor of that space.


    More of the mushroom-structures blossomed high above them, shivering mechanically athwart their direction of travel—one to three to twenty to a hundred—clustered so close together they looked like clumps of engorged ticks, and all vibrating with a pounding, staccato loudness.


    They drove on and the wall of mushroom-structures stretched before them, continuing until they reached a bustling place flooded with intense light and heaving humanoid figures.


    The pounding sound was loudest here, where they halted their advance, but as the minutes passed the cacophony gradually softened and then faded away to dull muttering.


    "*krrshk*—Cacliocos, do you read?"


    "I read you, Sergeant Granger."


    "Some of these Bejana are congregating in front of the movement column. There''s someone in front of them, an old guy. He''s biting into one of those old-style re-breathers, it looks like. None of them have exosuits—they''re all exposed."


    "It''s the foreman," Cacliocos explained. "I said before that the Bejana have a unique physiology. They can survive the Desert air very well, because their segmented lungs sieve out most all of the C-O."


    "Noted. Please advise on the role of the foreman."


    "It is a Bejana mining-settlement. The foreman leads the resource extraction and has a say in the terms of trade."


    "Trade?"


    "They trade the materials they extract."


    "With whom?"


    Cacliocos remained silent.


    "Tell him," growled Belekov, and Cacliocos ignored him. Betelgeuse turned in time to see the normally stoic Sergeant Von Fenak shoot Belekov a glare that was equal parts frustration and resignation.


    "Belekov," Entuban intoned, "you''ve said your piece already. You best keep yourself—"


    "We cannot afford this now," Betelgeuse snapped suddenly, causing several of the Jegorichians to whip their heads around and focus their attentions upon him. He saw, out of the periphery of his vision, Edith flinch and then shrink into herself. Douglas was eating again, munching on cricket-ration number two. Entuban met his gaze, frowned, and turned his head away silently.


    "Sir," Betelgeuse said, turning back to the brooding Cacliocos. "It is imperative that we collaborate with Sergeant Granger, for the simple fact that he commands the larger force and controls most of the resources. But if you are adamant about avoiding combat, one way we can play this is to request that we be included in the contact group. As someone with subject-matter expertise, you can mediate between the Allied Forces and the Bejana."


    Cacliocos grunted and nodded, accepting the point.


    Betelgeuse let the silence ferment for several seconds longer, before raising a finger to point through the aperture toward the APC comms.


    If this heads south, survival is going to be tricky.


    But defecting to Rolf''s side has its risks as well. There''s a high likelihood that his men comprise mostly Ash grades, given how many of them hail from batch 247-B. In other words, he may have the larger force, but not necessarily a stronger one.


    Of course, Cacliocos might not know this, and it''s likely Thete doesn''t know as well.


    On the other hand, Rolf appears unaware that Cacliocos commands mostly Hollows and Whites and that Cacliocos is a Primary himself. If push comes to shove, he may too readily seek violent confrontation.


    Finally, I can surmise, following my conversation with Edith, that the other Ash grades are ignorant of the compulsion matrix. I cannot however assume Rolf''s ignorance, given his rank.


    I know nothing of compulsion matrices being used in opposition to each other, but my working assumption based on comparing Strionis and Major Storr''s usage of compulsion is that the higher one''s Incunabulum grade, the stronger one''s capacity to utilize the compulsion matrix. According to this assumption, Cacliocos'' ability to impose the compulsion would be higher than Rolf''s. This is another point against defecting.


    Betelgeuse pursed his lips and lowered his arm, seeing that Voke and Douglas were watching him attentively. Cacliocos had yet to make his move.


    The comms crackled and this time a female voice filtered tinnily through. Betelgeuse recognized, in its mellifluous tone, Norma: "CFC Myrmec speaking. Please advise, Subaltern Cacliocos. We''d like to know who trades with the Bejana."


    "… The Bejana have maintained trade relations with the Chimerae for a long time," Cacliocos transmitted. "They trade with pirates and freelancers as well, but I understand the Chimerae are their main trading partners."


    "That point is well noted, sir," Norma returned.


    "Sergeant Granger, I advise that we must make direct contact with this settlement''s foreman," Cacliocos continued. "The Bejana have their own dialect, but most converse fluently in Aluaa. It would make sense for the Jegorich Brigade to take the lead on this."


    "Standby, Cacliocos," Hrodwulf transmitted. "There is no need for you to—"


    "Hrodwulf, you seem to forget we have equal authority. Regardless, we will exit the vehicle and make contact shortly."


    Another long silence interspersed.


    Then, the comms crackled to life: "Understood. All units save for comms-personnel and casualties to disembark."


    Cacliocos turned, regarding the piecemeal remnants of the Jegorich First. His eyes sat deeply within his sockets, and the scar above his lip lent his otherwise fine countenance something savage and ugly.


    "Make ready. We disembark in two minutes."


    Here we go again.


    The onset of fatigue was starting to weigh heavily on Betelgeuse. Without thinking twice, he popped the second of his caffeine pills, closing his eyes to savor the effect which so completely cleansed his mind of its somnolence.