Looking like some neoclassical sculpture come to life, Artus Romlar stood nude in the creek, washing off sweat. The sun was newly up, the air cool, but he'd just finished thirty minutes of stretching and gymnastics, and fifteen more of close combat drill forms.
Romlar's belt radio chirped at him, and he went to where it lay atop his neatly folded clothes beside the creek. "This is Romlar."
"Artus, this is Jorrie. We just got the pulse from today's supply drop. Bressenhem's on his way to his scout to go check it out."
"Good. Thanks."
The daily supply shipment from Iryala usually outgated at about sunup, on a hover truck. The general area used had numerous glades and small meadows to outgate into. When he was down, the driver moved his truck under cover, then took directional reads on regular Klestronu and Lonyer City radio sources to triangulate his location, and set his radio for a two-degree transmission beam in the direction of a relay. The relay location had been specified in the previous evening's regimental report, teleported to Iryala via LUF 2's gate. The regiment's comm center, part of the regimental computer, would receive the truck driver's message pulse and extrude the outgate's coordinates on several navigation tabs. One for the navcomp in a scout and the others for combat personnel (cum cargo) carriers.
A scout would go check out the location and any possible dangers. Assuming all was clear, the carriers would follow, to pick up cargo and driver. The truck would be abandoned and its driver ported back to Iryala.
Romlar brushed water from his body, dressed, and hiked up the hill to his command tent. His executive officer, Jorrie Renhaus, and their sergeant major were eating breakfast out of ration cartons, using a crate as a table. "The female reporter left some cubes off to port back," said Renhaus. "Showing the assault yesterday. We played the video cube on the computer. Very good stuff. I'm glad you decided she could stay; it'll be good publicity."
Romlar opened a ration carton. "If she wants to stay, why not. She went through hell getting here. And we couldn't port her back without Lotta spending a lot of time working on her first."
Renhaus grinned. "Which reminds me: I've got an idea about the teleport the Klestroni captured. Leak word to them what it really is, and how to use it. Teleport someone into their base camp, so they'll take it seriously. And give them the coordinates for Iryala, for Landfall. Then they'll teleport a regiment there, figuring to capture the government, and the marines will land helpless and dying from teleport shock."
Romlar looked up from the fruit juice he was mixing, and cocked an eyebrow. "Jorrie, are you serious?"
Renhaus laughed. "No. But it's a funny thing to imagine. Actually, let the Klestroni know what the teleport is, and they'll take it and run for home. If they have any sense at all, which they must have."
Romlar nodded absently. Renhaus's weird humor had reminded him of a problem they'd talked about earlier; the risk of a cadet or trooper being taken alive and giving up the information that the regiment had been teleported. Then the Klestroni'd probably suspect what the thing was that they'd captured.
Apparently it also reminded Renhaus of the problem. "What if the troopers were told to say they'd arrived by ship?" he said. "Say a ship with some sort of invisibility device; call it a cloak. Landed in the prairie tundra and they'd flown north in combat personnel carriers? Or if it was a cadet, he could say the troopers had come by personnel carrier, he didn't know where from. And they could say that the teleport is a device sent for the execution of any high-ranking Klestronu prisoners we might take. They're considered 'criminals responsible for the invasion of a Confederation resource world.'
"Presumably the port's on the default setting, right? So if they try it on someone, it'll execute him sure enough, very unpleasantly. Unless they try it on the prisoner, in which case it won't appear to have done anything."
Romlar looked thoughtfully at his EO. "Jorrie, write up that idea in the form of an order to be read to the regiment. And one for the cadets. I don't know whether one of them could get away with lying under instrumented interrogation—they probably couldn't—but if someone gets caught, he can try."