The Assault by Brian Falkner Page B

all came down to this. Could he and his team pass themselves off as Bzadians?They had tested their disguises in POW camps, but those were artificial environments, and closely monitored. If they had got it wrong, then help was only a few seconds away.
    This was the real deal.
    The driver of the first Land Rover, a female, got out as well, and they were joined by all three soldiers from the rear vehicle. None of the aliens made any attempt to unholster their weapons, but with the spring-mounted holsters, their weapons would be in their arms in a heartbeat if required. In any case, the machine gunner on the front Land Rover—a young, nervous-looking soldier—had them well covered with the fifty-cal.
    The aliens showed interest, Chisnall thought, but no alarm. So far so good.
    “You’re a long way out,” the lieutenant said by way of a greeting, his head bobbing up and down as he talked.
    “And glad to see a set of wheels,” Chisnall said. “It’s a long walk back. I’m Chizna.” He raised a clenched fist to his shoulder in what passed for both a salute and a greeting among the enemy soldiers.
    “Yozi,” the lieutenant said, returning the salute.
    “Zabet,” Yozi’s driver said. Bzadian females—the soldiers at least—usually kept their hair short, but Zabet’s hair was long and pulled back in a ponytail. It made her look almost human.
    Yozi noticed Chisnall glancing up at the soldier on the fifty-cal and said, “Kezalu, point that thing somewhere else before it goes off.”
    The young soldier looked a little embarrassed and raised the barrel of the gun to the sky.
    “He’s new,” Yozi said, his head bobbing.
    “We all were, once,” Chisnall said.
    Yozi surprised him by laughing, a short bark. “Hah! Not Alizza.” He nodded at one of the soldiers from the second vehicle. “He was born with a coil-gun in each hand.”
    Alizza grinned, revealing a mouthful of bad teeth, and in the midst of everything, Chisnall found himself wondering why a race with the technology to travel light-years across space couldn’t sort out a little dentistry issue.
    “Looks like a lot of damage out this way,” Yozi said. He scanned the cratered landscape behind them. “The fence is gone.”
    “Perhaps a rogue missile,” Chisnall said. “It did a lot of damage. We were able to walk right through the minefield without problem.”
    “A rogue missile?” Yozi said, bobbing and shaking his head at the same time. “I can see at least three craters from here. I think it was a deliberate attack on the perimeter.”
    “It could have been,” Chisnall agreed.
    Yozi didn’t miss a thing. They would have to be especially careful around him.
    “Any sign of other scumbugz out there?” Yozi asked. “They must have attacked the perimeter for a reason. Perhaps a ground attack.”
    “No.” Chisnall shook his head. “And if there was a scumbugz army out there, we would have seen it.”
    “Where did you find these ones?” Yozi asked.
    “Just past the hill,” Chisnall said. He pointed in the direction they had traveled with a flat hand. Bzadians never pointed with a finger.
    “What were you doing out there?” Yozi asked, frowning.
    Chisnall said, “Looking for these scumbugz. We were part of a scouting party. But our rotorcraft bugged out in a big hurry just before the air raid.”
    There was a meaningful glance between Yozi and his driver. Chisnall wondered if he had said something wrong. But his worry was misplaced.
    “From Central Field?” Yozi asked.
    “Yes,” Chisnall replied, hoping that was the right answer.
    “You were lucky,” Yozi said. “The airfield was hit just after they landed.”
    “Are they okay?” Chisnall asked. He tried to inject a tone of concern into his voice.
    “The rotorcraft took a direct hit,” Yozi said. “There was nothing larger than a sierfruit left.”
    That was a small Bzadian fruit about the size of an egg.
    Chisnall looked at him for a moment, then said in a cool voice, “There