The Trilisk Supersedure by Michael McCloskey Page B

the way he had come.
From an open spot in the vegetation, he glanced southward. An assault machine
walked toward him from a half kilometer away. It stood three meters tall, with
four arms and four legs. It moved with a clumsier gait than that of his smaller
scouts, though it was more intimidating. Each arm of the machine held weapons
trained in his direction.
    Magnus
ran. He took long strides over the red rock, hopping here and there to cross
sharp spots. Though he had activated the cloaking sphere, he could still see
himself normally.
    After
half a minute he slowed down. The cloak seemed to be working, since he didn’t
detect any more fire incoming. He retraced his steps by the various buildings
along the north side of the ruins. After he had traveled over a kilometer from
the encounter, he slowed further.
    Magnus
returned to careful thought. His situation was like a virtual nightmare
scenario. Yet it had to be real.
    It’s
not as crazy as it feels. Parts of the UED had to have escaped. I guess I just
thought they would have disbanded by now. But this is the frontier: rife with
gangs and rogue corporations. It would be better to stay in a big, heavily
armed group and find new means of sustenance.
    Magnus
had never had a flashback, but now he thought he must know what one felt like.
Seeing those uniforms again after all this time brought it back. Most of the
men in those dark gray uniforms and military skinsuits he had seen in the war
had been dead, killed by space force assault robots. They had taken a few
survivors prisoner here and there for mind probe specialists to interrogate.
Magnus had done his part, though now he thought maybe he had been young and
stupid to follow the orders. Maybe the men and women of United Earth Defiance
had been on the better side. If he had it to do over again…
    Magnus
chafed at the lack of communications. The UED force was jamming them. It had to
be it: they wouldn’t want anyone reporting their presence to the space force.
The Clacker must have scared the shit out of them. But now they were
moving out, which meant they were coming to silence the explorers.
    We have
to cut our losses and get the hell off this planet.
    He
retreated quickly back the way he had come. The battle machine must not have
been able to follow him, since he heard no more loud retorts from projectile
launches. He knew such a machine had to be able to outpace a man, at least on
clear terrain. The question was, would they rapidly reacquire him if the cloak
ran out of power?
    After
an hour of moving through the ruins, Magnus realized something had gone wrong.
Nothing looked familiar. At first he had thought he was only a bit off his
previous course, and the many buildings did start to look the same after a
while. But his intuition told him he had not come this way before.
    I’m off
course. I don’t…ah. The cloak.
    Somehow
the cloaking device must have confused his link’s mapper. The device was
supposed to work through a combination of compass, accelerometer, and even
incorporate the things Magnus saw. Normally it could even ping base camp or a
ship in orbit for verification. But the first two, at least, must have
interacted poorly with the alien cloaker. And the last one would be impossible
due to the jamming. He had heard of stranger things happening. But the key now
was what to do about it. Presumably he could deactivate the cloak, at least
long enough to let his link get its bearings.
    Magnus
hid in a caved-in Konuan ruin and deactivated the cloak. He tried to contact
Shiny again, but there was no response. His compass reading showed he had been
moving north. He made a note of the correct direction, which now would be
southeast instead of just east. Taking a rough guess at where he really was,
Magnus told his link where he wanted to go. If he left the cloak off, maybe it
could get him there.
    Damn! A
huge waste of time when we can’t afford it.
    The
shadows within the hovel deepened. Night was