Elizabeth Alexander
Oct 1st, 2005, 01:39:50 AM
Major Elizabeth Alexander paused, helmet tucked under her arm, to wipe the sweat from her face. It was only 10:00 in the morning, and already the heat and humidity were punishing in the backwater hellholes of Kalikutta. "I don't know how the natives stand it," she thought to herself, waiting for the Royal Hereditary God-and-Ruler to see her.
Not only the heat - but the Fungus! Smity in the Maintenance Pool had sworn up and down that he could NOT keep the filters free from the Black Mould that was slowly choking the small detachment's external filters.
Any anti-Bios, had to be kept for the troops. She had lost half of her already small group in the three months they had been on-planet, drop-chuted from a dying ship. Now she was the only officer left. The casualties to the unit were worse than anything the Rebels had ever inflicted on them, men and women choking and dying as their filters, and then their lungs, became breeding grounds for the planet's virulent fungii.
Those she commanded had considered themselves fortunate - she was known as a "lucky" commander. That had seemed to have been bourn out when the unit was catapulted free of the dying "Veranna" , to land on this forsaken rock. She was "lucky"..... except her men and women were dying................ leaving her the only truly healthy one.
Not only the heat - but the Fungus! Smity in the Maintenance Pool had sworn up and down that he could NOT keep the filters free from the Black Mould that was slowly choking the small detachment's external filters.
Any anti-Bios, had to be kept for the troops. She had lost half of her already small group in the three months they had been on-planet, drop-chuted from a dying ship. Now she was the only officer left. The casualties to the unit were worse than anything the Rebels had ever inflicted on them, men and women choking and dying as their filters, and then their lungs, became breeding grounds for the planet's virulent fungii.
Those she commanded had considered themselves fortunate - she was known as a "lucky" commander. That had seemed to have been bourn out when the unit was catapulted free of the dying "Veranna" , to land on this forsaken rock. She was "lucky"..... except her men and women were dying................ leaving her the only truly healthy one.