Dire Steps Read Online Free PDF

noiseless exhalation of relief through his open mouth, Mortas had waited several minutes more before resuming his walk.
    The dirt under his boots grew firm and began to rise, pressing thin branches against his helmet, torso armor, and sleeves. The cloying tendrils of a spiderweb passed across his mouth, and the touch of the gossamer webbing sent him into a frenzy. Swinging his arms madly, his palms encountering more and more of the spider’s work, he began to twist his entire body while swiping at the exposed back of his neck, certain that the arachnid was dropping down inside his fatigue shirt.
    One of his elbows barked against the trunk of a very solid tree, and the jolting pain launched a tidal wave of muttered curses. Trying to put some distance between himself and the web, his hands spasmodically wiping off the sticky material, Mortas caught the toe of one boot on a jagged piece of deadfall. Unable to see it, he felt himself falling just as the broken end of one branch began running up his leg toward his groin. With no other choice, he lifted that leg in the air and made a clumsy hop.
    The awkward move freed him from the threat to his privates, but the blackness betrayed him and he landed on the rest of the fallen branch with all his weight on one boot. His ankle turned sideways, and he went crashing to the dirt in a cacophony of snapping wood and full-­throated swearwords.
    â€œYou all right there, buddy?” a bored voice asked, and a dull light flicked on a few feet away. Sergeant Dak had forbidden the platoon members to carry any kind of illuminants, and as platoon leader, Mortas had considered it his responsibility to follow the rules set by his right-­hand man. Looking up at the dim glow, he recognized the voice.
    â€œRinger, is that you?”
    â€œOh. Hey, El-­Tee Mortas. Lemme help you up.” Instead of grasping Mortas’s outstretched hand, Ringer’s long fingers slipped under his torso armor near his clavicle. The big man levered him into a standing position with little effort. “There we go.”
    The light clicked off, and Mortas took a moment to rearrange his uniform. Ringer was an old hand with the Orphans, but he’d missed Fractus because he’d been in the hospital.
    â€œHow’s the hearing tonight, Ringer?” That wasn’t actually the man’s name. Like so many of the combat veterans of the decades-­long war with the Sims, Ringer had sustained a lasting injury that modern medicine could not resolve. The drumming in his ears sometimes made it difficult for Ringer to detect low sounds even up close, and the platoon took pains to pair him off with soldiers with better hearing.
    â€œKind of a dull buzz, sir. I thought it was insects for a while, but I haven’t been bitten by anything, so I guess it’s me.”
    â€œWell, one of us has wandered out of his lane.”
    â€œOh, that would probably be me. I’ve done Sergeant Dak’s midnight stroll a few times, and finally found this downhill patch that runs all the way back to the barracks. I sorta zigzag around out here, but as long as I don’t go uphill anywhere, I always come out in the right spot.”
    â€œThat’s amazing.”
    â€œNot really. I never got any good with a compass, so if you take my goggles away, I’m pretty much lost.”
    â€œI suppose we could walk together, unless you want to keep wandering.” Mortas checked his azimuth, pondering Ringer’s statement about the overall downslope.
    â€œThat’d be fine, sir. We’re almost there anyway.”
    â€œReally? I thought I was still a good ­couple of miles out.”
    â€œHow long you been in the infantry, sir?” The words were spoken in such an indifferent fashion that it was impossible to take offense. “Anything under ten miles counts as almost there.”
    W hen they arrived at the edge of the tree line facing the battalion area, Mortas and Ringer were