They should, from what he’d been told. The commander had told them all in the pre-mission brief that this was the space lady’s home world, and her dialect should be the best handled of the translation programs they had so far, though his suit memory also held an extensive library from the refugees as well.

One of the locals, a woman with a statuesque build and very hard eyes, nodded, her weapon not quite aimed in his direction.

That was fair. After all, his rifle wasn’t quite aimed at them.

“Who are you?” she asked him.

“Introductions will have to wait,” Bermont told her flatly, his HUD already linked to the others in the Odyssey’s assault force. “We’ve got at least another twenty of those drones inbound on our position, and frankly, I don’t think we’ve got enough firepower to hold them off.”

She and her two male companions looked around in nervous fear, but Bermont just shrugged and held up a hand.

“They’re not here yet…” he told her, knowing that the drones were currently distracted by sniper fire from all sides.

With luck, they might have time to check out the corpse of the one that he and Russell had taken down.

“What I need you to do is pack up your shit…umm…gear.” He had to backpedal and correct himself when he could tell from the look on their faces that the translator obviously flubbed the word.

Cursing wasn’t something computer programs were generally much good at translating, as a rule.

“’Cause when we move, we’ll be moving fast.”

The woman blinked, then shook her head. “We can’t jump like you…”

Bermont grinned, though they couldn’t see it. “Don’t worry about that, lady. We’ve got it covered.”

Milla Chans tore open the roof access panel by accident, completely misjudging the strength granted her by the armor, and tossed the panel away while blushing under her mirrored visor. She shook it off while moving down into the building.

The suit she wore was well equipped for communications but had nothing in its vast repertoire of com-channels, transceivers, amplifiers, and beam coms that would be picked up by the local defense forces.

And those were precisely the people who she had to get in touch with, hopefully before some misunderstanding resulted in the local militias opening fire against the soldiers from the Odyssey.

CHAPTER 22

A SIGNAL CAME IN over the command channel as Brinks examined the rooftop battle in his HUD.

“One, this is Five.”

He pushed the schematic aside for a moment, and a floating image of Lieutenant Bermont appeared.

“Five, this is One,” Major Brinks responded. “Go ahead.”

“We’ve got three locals, plus one injured, for pickup. You have a couple packs to spare?”

“One moment,” the major said, tapping into the chute control programs with a flick of his finger. “Have two inbound. ETA—forty-five seconds. I’m showing five drones approaching your immediate position. You’d better pull out.”