Ocho had watched Sayle do it the first time and then Sayle had straightened and looked at the platoon and said, “That’s how we do, from now on.” And Ocho had looked at the dying boy with his bloody stumps and he’d seen the future, right there.

That was him.

Not that day, and maybe not the next, but eventually, it would all come boomeranging back at him. Fates coming howling in like a banshee. And sure enough, now everyone did it. Now you always made sure your new recruits killed their own when they got tossed back.

It taught you a lesson, Sayle said: Don’t let them catch your maggot ass.

Ocho pushed past the other troops and the girls, past the smell of coywolv roasting and headed down to the canals.

He didn’t have any place to go. Wasn’t even sure what he wanted, but he needed to think and with the R & R, he was going to take the time.

There was something that he’d been thinking about a lot, ever since the run-in with the 999.

The gun was banging away on them all the time, now.

They’d tightened security to keep spotters from getting deep in again like that. But it meant they needed to worry about more than a company of soldiers actually pushing the territory. Now a couple cross-kissers could sneak in and find a barracks tower and start raining death in on them. And that made Ocho start thinking about the endgame.

A pair of patrol soldiers called out to him. He held up his hands, careful not to make any moves while they came over. For a second he was afraid that he’d forgotten the call signs—but then they came to mind.

“Charlie Sweet Bogey.”

Tomorrow it would be something else. The call signs were coming down from above, changing fast and furious. They needed to keep switching up to keep out any more infiltrators. The order came straight from the Colonel.

Ocho doubted it would last. The Colonel would need something better to identify his own. Ocho couldn’t even get out to his own boys without almost getting his ass shot off.

It made it almost impossible, really. How were they supposed to let farmers in if they were looking for someone with a tiny little radio? They were used to looking for guns, but if it was just spotters now…

He made it to the company HQ, and checked in on the soldiers. He had downtime, but still, he couldn’t help checking in.

“About time,” someone said.

Ocho looked over at the boys. “Why?”

“Got something.”

“Another spotter?”

“You mean forward observer.”

“Right.” FO was the new term. Forward observers. Handed down from the Colonel, also. Stern had gone to war college. He knew about forward observers. Just no one expected to have to actually fight them.