
One of them showed a garish swath of destruction, smashed hovertanks, bent rocket howitzers, crushed
combat bots. It started on the left at an insertion pod and terminated on the right at a huge, chiseled
NCO wearing the black beret of a DRT commando. His caricature had a heavy grav-gun in his hands, an
automatic grenade launcher over one shoulder, a light mortar over the other, knives and hatchets all over
his combat harness and a teddy bear sticking out of one pocket. It was captioned, "Excuse me, just
passing through." Another showed a drop gone horribly wrong with shattered combat armor scattered all
over it, smashed shuttles, artillery still splashing rings of dirt and small killer bots swarming everywhere.
At the center was a guy wearing major's tabs, tapping on a long-range communicator. Caption: "I love it
when a plan comes together." At that, the artwork was tame compared to pieces that drifted around the
nets and were posted on screens here and there, many of them making light of the acronym DRT . . .
"Dead Right There." Or sometimes, DRTTT: Dead Right There, There and There. Or the DiRTies.
Though few people would say that to one in a bar, unless they were very good friends. Masochism was
the prime requirement for recon in nasty territory, so DRTs could take a lot of damage. They could also
dish out their share and a bit more.
The chat dulled slightly as they start laying out their weapons and stripping them down for cleaning.
The team was filthy with mud, sweat, grime and assorted shredded greenery; the weapons were merely
dirty from use. Good troops took care of their weapons because their lives depended on them. Between
pirates, feral Posleen still romping around from the war that had almost wiped out humanity, and the new
Blob menace, these troops expected to see action at any time. The weapons were cared for because
they were the difference between life and a cold e-mail to their survivors.
The weapons' receivers were coated with a chameleon surface that assumed the colors and pattern
of anything in the vicinity. As they were laid on the table, they shifted to match, becoming all but invisible.
Ferret cursed and said, "The surface stays active damned near forever, even when there isn't enough
juice left to shoot with." He pressed the surface switch to drop the weapon to neutral gray.
Gorilla, being one of the technical specialists, said, "No, it won't last forever. It will last a while,
though. The surface is small and the environment in here doesn't take much shifting. But I wouldn't try to
get that long out of an intruder suit. Otoh, it's easier to detect."
Ferret replied, "Teach your granma to suck Posleen; 'The expert scout uses guile and deception
rather than relying on technical devices.' " Shrugging his shoulders he turned back to his weapon.
The troops' sure fingers handled the parts without effort, as they would even in the dark. The dull
coated barrels with their internal grav drivers and small bores were shoved to the middle of the table and
the receivers to the edge, in a standard layout. In the frame of these, smaller parts, trigger assemblies and
sights were set in positions personalized by years of practice. The punch guns were rather simple: an
energy unit that slid out and wasn't to be messed with and the frame. Each soldier had his or her own
favorite layout, but all were clearly the product of the same basic training. Dagger sat off at a table by
himself, his sniper rifle being cared for by hands that almost caressed it. Dagger was like that. Always
part of the team, always alone.
Thor pulled the breech of his grav-gun and stared into it while waving his glowing light ball across the
table and down to illuminate it from the bore. As he inhaled the astringent tang of burned metal wafting
from the tube, he cursed at what he saw. The main problem with the weapons was that the ammunition
they had used was substandard. The factory-recommended ammunition was depleted uranium coated
with a carbon-based witches' brew and charged with a tiny droplet of antimatter. The antimatter droplet
was released by a shot of power and then the charge was scavenged from the AM disintegration.
However, the Islendian Republic did not have the facilities to produce such sophisticated ammo, so the
grav-guns were driven off external packs and most of the rounds used were simple depleted uranium with
a graphite coat.
The problem was that at the incredibly high speeds of the rounds, the carbon and then the uranium
sublimed and coated the breech and bore of the rifle with a substance that was damned near
uranium-carbon alloy. And nearly as hard to get off . . .