Brazil 7
He lined up the crosshair on the red blur in the sea of green and yellow with the joystick.
"Just like a video game." He muttered, his finger on the trigger button.
There had been more than a few incidences of team members vaporizing overly curious local inhabitants. Lance Johnson, in Africa, had been sacked because it happened much too frequently. What the hell, disintegrate a few monkeys, a few natives, what's the difference? It got world press coverage though, when he bagged himself an anthropologist trying to score some medicine for a measles outbreak.
He switched from thermal to night vision but the foliage was too thick to see the figure. He'd just have to wait and see if it came closer. It appeared to be heading towards one of the audio stations and would soon trigger the standard warning in all of the languages common to the area.
George Watanabe wasn't especially worried. The force dome enclosing the hover where he sat and the small encampment surrounding it, was proof against anything they'd meet in the Brazilian rainforest. The remote controlled beam weapon, mounted atop the generator mast, made the odds extremely one-sided.
He was one of the expedition samplers. Each member of the team had multiple duties, including this security watch. The Analyst/Communicator performed the watch during the day while they went about their routine tasks. The rest of the team took turns pulling the duty during the night. His sampling team partner, Sid Croft, was sleeping. The other sampling team, Herve and Bella Swanson, was probably going at it in their tent right now. Scanning the remotes, he saw lights in the common tent. Cezary Tchornov, the Team Leader and Jose Bonilla, the Analyst, were watching satellite feeds or playing Go.
It was a good entry-level position for a Geologist, just graduated from University of Hawaii. The periods away from the island were amply rewarded, giving him the credit for his condo in Waipahu and the upkeep on the young dancer he was living with. He would have made more money if he had gone to one of the colonies, but his susceptibility to low-gravity sickness had prevented that. It also would have meant no more surfing at Sunset, though he heard the big waves on Oceana would make suitable substitutes.
They expected to be here for two weeks, barring unforeseen circumstances, collecting samples, doing preliminary analysis, and sending the results back to the corporation Geologists for further compiling. He liked the work. Wandering around remote places, armed, equipped with navigation and sampling gear, made him feel like an explorer.
A console alarmed flashed, indicating the audio warning had been tripped. He located the remote and increased the gain on that pickup. At first he heard nothing, then there was a rustling and he heard sobbing.
"Who's there?" Pause. "Is anyone there?" a woman's voice said in English. "Somebody help me." Then nothing.
He switched back to thermal and panned towards the audio remote. There was the figure, unmoving, near the remote. He tried hailing from the remote but got no response so he decided to beep Cezary to let him decide what to do.
"What's up?" the Pole asked, after George had let him into the hover.
"There's somebody out by remote 3. It's a woman, speaking English. Sounds like she's in trouble." George pointed out the figure on the console screen. "She didn't respond when I tried to talk to her." He replayed the audio feed.
"She's lying down." Cezary said, looking at the screen. "I guess I'll take Jose and go have a look." He went over to the equipment rack and pulled out two sidearms, comms gear, night vision, and rummaged around for the medical bag.
"Keep in touch and track us on thermal." George let him out and resealed the hover.
