"Call for fire, Lieutenant Connors?" suggested his AID.

"Do it," he answered, while cursing himself, I should have thought of that first. "And show me platoon status."

The AID used a laser in the suit's helmet to paint a chart directly on Connors' retina. He'd started movement with thirty-seven men. It pained him to see seven of those men marked in black, dead or so badly wounded that they were out of the fight. Under the circumstances, they were almost certainly dead.

He keyed his attention on one particular marker on the chart. "Show me detail on Staff Sergeant Duncan."

Instantly, that chart was replaced with another showing vital statistics and a record summary for one of Connors' squad leaders. He didn't need the record summary; he knew his men. The statistics were something else again.

Shit, Duncan's on overload.

It took an experienced eye to see it. The first clue was the soldier's silhouette projected by the AID. Duncan should have been prone or at least behind some kind of cover. He wasn't; he had taken one knee and was trading shots with the Posleen, burst for burst. That was all well and good against normals; they were usually lightly armed. But doesn't the idiot see the goddamned HVMs coming in?

It got worse on closer examination. Adrenaline was up, but that was normal. The brain activity was skewed though.

"AID, query. Analyze record: Staff Sergeant Robert Duncan. Correlate for 'combat fatigue' also known sometimes as 'nervous hysteria.' "

AIDs thought very quickly, if not generally creatively.

"Duncan is overdue for a breakdown, Lieutenant," the AID answered. "He has forty-four days continuous combat — without rest — now. He has over three hundred days in total. He's stopped eating and has less than four hours sleep in the last ninety-six. Loss of important comrades over the past eighteen months approaches one hundred percent. He hasn't been laid lately, either."