The wounded were even worse off. As they floated in their flight packs, they moaned endlessly. One of the sergeants bawled them out in a vicious, half-whispered snarl:

“You whining bunch of mutts, you’d think your guts had been pulled out the way you’re screeching. What are you, troopers or sniveling crybabies?”

“But Sarge,” I heard one of the troopers plead, “it’s like it’s on fire.”

“I’ve got four decorations for wounds, Sarge,” another said, “but this is killing me.”

Every centimeter of the way, as we groped through the dark forest, with the insects buzzing in angry clouds about our heads, the wounded troopers cried and begged for something to stop their pain.

Then we ran into the squad led by Lieutenant Frede, the unit’s medical officer. Her wounded were whimpering and groaning just as badly as my squad’s.

“I can’t really examine them on the move, sir,” she said to me. “Can we stop for ten minutes? And may I use a light to see their wounds properly?”

The enemy was supposed to be halfway around the planet. But what if there were other nasty surprises in this forest, like the swamp things that had tried to eat us? I glided among the trees in silence for a few moments, weighing the possibilities. Frede hovered at my side.

“All right,” I said, my mind made up. “Ten minutes. Keep the light shielded.”

I went with her as she examined the first trooper, a woman whose forearm had been cut when one of the swamp monsters punctured her armor.

The wound was crawling with tiny red ants feasting on her torn flesh. Frede jerked back with surprise as the ants, obviously bothered by the light, began burrowing into the woman’s skin. The trooper screamed, whether in pain or fright I could not tell.

I took off the armor from my own injured leg and saw that the ants were chewing away. One of the drawbacks of inhibiting pain signals is that your body can no longer warn your brain of its danger.