Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [7]
‘Chief?’ Fermindor interrupted her thoughts.
‘Yes,’ Kley said, getting to her feet and picking up her field pack. ‘It’s time to move on if we’re going to find the drop zone before dark.’
‘I thought we were going to wait for them,’ Sozerdor said.
‘Or wait for the up-signal from the ship at least.’ This from Monly, who smiled slightly and showed no sign of moving.
‘We can mark the trail so they’ll have no trouble catching up with us,’ Fermindor said. He was already adjusting the straps on his own much larger pack and hefting it around on his back to make it more comfortable.
‘Isn’t it possible that will give our position away?’ Monly asked, pointedly directing the question at Kley.
Belay got to his feet and brushed leaf litter and jungle mud from his fatigues. ‘Only if he was behind us and was looking for us,’ he said.
Kley couldn’t resist adding, her voice heavy with irony,
‘Whereas we’re looking for him, and he’s in front of us.’
‘As far as we know,’ Monly said evenly. ‘Which isn’t very far without the electronics, is it?’
Sozerdor said, ‘I still think we should wait. It’s better not to split your strength when things aren’t going to plan.’
‘It’s not up for discussion,’ Kley snapped. ‘We’re moving on. Come on, get on your feet. Let’s go.’ Even as she said it and they got up and began picking up their packs she knew the tone was wrong. She’d been to enough training lectures to know that was not the way to keep a team motivated and functioning at optimum efficiency. And it shouldn’t have been necessary. This group profiled as the best available for a straight pursuit-and-capture mission such as this. ‘Available’
was the operative word here, but she’d been shown the psych numbers the computer had put together and they were good enough for this to have been flagged as ‘a crack team of investigators’ on the interworld news links. And they were led by an experienced and talented young officer in Chief Investigator Serian Kley – she’d liked that, although it was a distortion. She wasn’t young enough to be young and she’d been given a team-leader assignment too late for it to count, except against her if she made a mistake. Monly was the talented young officer. She almost wished she could hand over to him and see him fall on his smug young face, but she’d worked and waited for this chance, this half-chance, at promotion, and it was hers to use or lose.
‘We’re losing the initiative hanging around here,’
Fermindor remarked.
Kley found she was grateful for the tacit support. ‘All right,’
she said, trying to sound firm and inclusive, ‘I’ll take the spot.
Fermindor, you’re rear cover. Make sure the trail is clearly marked. Sozerdor, you’re left sight, Belay right. Don’t let’s miss anything. We know where he put down, we know we can find it in the dark if necessary. But don’t let’s make it necessary.’
Monly waited patiently for his instructions. If he was discomfited by being left out, which was what she intended him to feel, he was too well schooled to show it and his face was a study of calm confidence. ‘Monly, you’re backup,’ she said finally. ‘If I miss something or make a mistake I expect you to report it –’ and she allowed a fractional pause before finishing – ‘to me.’
‘Rely on it, Chief Investigator,’ he said.
When everyone had their kit strapped on and was in position they set off once again in a loose column following the line of march calculated when the full resources of the ship had been available. All the leadership decisions Kley had taken so far had been reasonable, based on her assessment of the circumstances.
Unfortunately she had no real idea of what those circumstances were. She was ignorant of how dangerous the fugitive they were chasing actually was and she was unaware that above the canopy of the trees winged predators were drifting on the rising currents