by Tom Julian
Breacher, Breacher, Breacher
“Breacher, breacher, breacher, I made you out of clay and when you’re locked and suited a breacher gets to play.” Major Gray tip-toed through the barracks, voice barely a whisper. He looked over the men asleep in their bunks. Some stirred, knowing what was next. Some stubbornly clung to their sheets, eyes shut tight. Gray repeated the verse a little louder, stepping between the bunk beds. He leaned in closer to the weaker ones, the ones he hoped would wash out. “Breacher, breacher, breacher…”
Shinning a flashlight at the end bunk, Gray saw Lieutenant Timberwolf Velez already sitting up in his bed. He pulled on his socks and raised a cocky eyebrow. Gray shook his head. He pretended to be disgusted with Timberwolf, but the man scared the hell out of him and he liked him for it. Breachers, the “Belly Busters” men of the 1st Lightning Division, needed to be scary bastards. Timberwolf was scary because when he was operating, he seemed to be some place else. Behind his eyes, he was detached – just gone.
One bunk over from Timberwolf, Michael Solandro still dozed peacefully, his eyes fluttering and what almost looked like a smile at the corner of his lips. Where Timberwolf was pure aggression, Solandro was cohesion. A watchful eye that had the backs of his squad mates while everyone else operated. The best rig-operator Gray had ever seen. He was Timberwolf’s counterweight in the unit and when they weren’t sparring or jawboning each other, they worked together like two gears.
Gray stepped back to the center of the barracks, ice cream scooper in one hand and a cymbal in the other. He smashed them together with an ungodly clang, over and over. As he did that, the gunnery sergeants rushed in, throwing bang grenades and flicking the lights on and off like a strobe. “On your feet your worthless piles of meat… Get up and rig up you bastards… move, move, move!” They screamed right in to the faces of the men as they stumbled to their feet.
Gray watched some of them tumble over themselves and drop gear. Somebody smashed his head on the bunk above him. Dripping blood from his brow, two sergeants hauled him away. Back in the corner, Timberwolf calmly picked his teeth in a mirror; then pulled his assault rig from its rack. Gray watched him calmly and quickly put on his pressurized fighting armor, clamping the seals perfectly. He confidently calibrated and turned on his life-support lines without rechecking.
Outside, two drop-lifters flew by low, their engines screaming and shining spotlights down, dazing anyone stupid enough to look up. The men struggled outside, some still suiting up as they ambled out the door. Timberwolf came near last, but he was perfectly prepared. His helmet down, his rifle leveled correctly for boarding. He naturally clomped along, comfortable with letting the servos in the suit do most of the running for him. Solandro was last and he sealed up the barracks behind them.
Gray grabbed Timberwolf’s arm as he went past. “You make your teeth pretty, asshole?” Timberwolf grinned, showing Gray his pearly whites and Gray released him. Yeah, that was the kind of man that scared Gray. That was the kind of man that Gray went out of his way to keep track of.
Bessie
Gray trotted after the men as they peeled off to their assigned drop-lifters. There was an A-squad and a B-squad – it had nothing to do with their proficiency, just which drop-lifter they loaded up to. Gray didn’t tell his Breachers that though. He’d tell A-squad that the tough S-O-Bs were in B-squad and vice-versa. “Come on, don’t keep Maggie May and Bessie waiting. You got to love those two whales!”
Maggie May and Bessie were the names of the drop-lifters. They sat clamped to hooks as big as anchors, loading planks down and engines blasting downward. Gray was riding with B-squad today and he clapped each man on the back of his fighting suit as they loaded in.
Solandro was last – assigned to pull the plank up. He worked the crank manually and locked it in to place. Gray pulled on his helmet and locked in to the center chair in the belly of Bessie. He would fully suit up later past the asteroid belt. He faced backwards and could see B-squad fully suited up on both sides of the drop-lifter, eight men total. “Hang on!” Gray gave a signal to the pilots and Bessie hurtled in to the air. The men whooped and hollered over the comm channel. Everything was business and precise down to the millimeter except this. When you’re locked in, computer controlling your lift and speeding up to space at 3,000 MPH with the inertial dampers screaming – there’s nothing to do but let it out and tell the universe you’re coming. Even the pilots hollered. The tradition was to give your enemies a warning to get out of the way.
Gray’s throat hurt as he turned to see the curve of Earth fading out the porthole - the coolness of the blue and white giving way to pure black. He could feel the sweet, restful weightlessness and the blood flowing past his temples. His heart raced, almost leaping from his chest. He could hear everyone’s heartbeat alarms chirping in to the red zone and then slowly all returning to green levels. All except Timberwolf’s – his monitor barely got in to yellow.
Before they could get used to the calm, Bessie pivoted her jets and the pilots made a quick countdown over the comm “five… four... three... two... one” and then they dropped the hammer again. Bessie tugged on her orbit, changing her angle. The view out of Gray’s window turned over. For a second, he was looking at the sun, the glass dimming automatically. When the engines fully kicked in a second later, the G-forces returned, though more measured than before. As they left Earth’s orbit, it felt more like a pull than a push. Out about 1,900 yards, Gray could see Maggie May keeping pace.
A few minutes later they were past the moon at their cruising speed and the inertial dampers had fully adjusted to the Gs. The cabin was weightless again. Gray pulled off his helmet and unhooked his harness, rising over the men he asked, “Which of you Belly Busters has got religion? Who’s a Believer?”
A few hands went up, some enthusiastically. “Well, tell you what. What we got here is a holy war, boys. A holy war that says we have to take out all the aliens we come across if they think they’re made in god’s image.” Gray stopped a moment to roll his eyes. The hands of the faithful started to sink. “No, no, keep those hands up! Aliens. If they’re made in god’s image… or maybe if we want to live on their world… or maybe make some money taking over a resource in their space… or somebody’s got a hard-on for ripping the tentacles off some who-the-hell-knows-what. You know, it’s all based on faith and principle.”
“You with your hands up and the rest of you, I’ll tell you who your god is.” In the back, Gray could see a wide shit-eating-grin on Timberwolf’s face through his helmet. “You worship the sun god, Ra. That’s who, you know why?” There was silence as the men sat half amused, half confused, some growing offended. “The sun is a life-giving nuclear furnace. Every second a billion nukes go off in the belly of big daddy Ra, the dick swinging sun god that warms our home and hearts.” Gray floated out over them now. “Every other unit in the Assault Corps uses plasma, bullets, lasers, tach-mines, foil web, seismics, etcetera. But nobody, and I mean god-damned nobody, gets to pop off nukes every day. You’re here to sneak up on some Tiaski hulk and drill a nuke down in to its belly and press the button. You dirty sonsabitches are special.”
At the back of the cabin now, Gray turned around. “So who’s your god?”
A moment of hesitation and then Solandro led it. “Ra!” The others repeated after him until it became a war chant, even the ones who claimed to be Believers. “Ra! Ra! Ra! Ra! Ra! Ra!”
“Well guess what?” Gray floated back to the front of the cabin and pulled a bulky container from under his seat. “Today is the real deal. No more planting flares. You get to nuke something today, sound good?” The squad, unsure if he was serious, sat silently. Gray opened up the box and showed them the nuke-package, glowing like a jewel in its case. The squad was awed. “That’s Ra for you.”
Enceladus
An hour later, out past the asteroid belt, Gray suited up as they approached Saturn. He’d monitor the operation from just outside Bessie, but he would be out there with his men
. The fighting suits were like tiny assault ships. Fully pressurized and armored, equipped with thrusters and more sensors than most full sized frigates. They packed plenty of punch as well; a standard rifle that stowed across the back, a plasma cannon gauntlet next to the left arm, grappling hooks, cutting lasers and a lot more.
The squad buzzed with excitement and the big question was - who was going to plant the nuke? Planting was a two man operation and the rest of the squad provided security in a picket configuration a few thousand yards out.
Gray projected a hologram of their target in the cabin. “Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It’s got a liquid ocean under its icy surface. It’s famous for shooting geysers up in to orbit. So it’s always a winter-wonderland.” Gray flicked the hologram with his glove, showed Enceladus as it related to Saturn. “Saturn’s a damn bully. It churns up Enceladus’s core which makes enough heat to keep the ocean liquid. The gravity effects over the world are a bitch. There’s our target.” Gray zoomed in on an old derelict freighter parked in orbit. “Meet the Cairo Sunrise. She’s an old wreck. We hauled her out here last week.” Cairo Sunrise was six hundred yards of unusable metal and plastic. Over seventy-five years old, none of her components could be recycled. “Like you’ve done before with the flares on the dummy targets, you plant three-quarters back and then pull on out. We’ll watch the show from here.”
“Who’s going to plant?” Solandro asked. He was the sharpest in the squad and knew it deserved to be him.
“You and Velez. He’ll plant. You’ll cover.” The others shuffled disappointed, but Timberwolf only nodded at the honor. “Oh, and A squad’s not here. I diverted them to bumble around on Ceres and play with conventional live charges. They think they’ve got the good gig!”
Gray noticed the disappointment on the men who would be manning the picket lines. “Look, I know you all wanted to plant but… sorry I don’t give a shit. Your job’s your job. You do it right or you ship out. There’s going to be other chances to pop off nukes.” The squad straightened up at that. Gray never coddled them and men like this wouldn’t have wanted him to. “One more thing,” he took a moment to meet all their gazes. “My voice and my commands are to be obeyed as if they come down-from-the-mountain. This is the real deal. Those Tiaski hulks you’ll be up against are falling apart. They come with plasma halos that’ll fry your rigs. Anything can happen. You are vigilant or you are dead. And you do EXACTLY what I tell you today, copy?”
“Copy sir.” They said in unison.
Tough Gravity
“Cabin depressurized.” Timberwolf worked the plank and the back of Bessie cracked open, exposing the black of space. The craft turned slightly and the blue/white curve of Enceladus appeared below. The eight man squad plus Gray floated out in to the void. Gray, shot out ahead of them and stopped about a hundred yards out. “Supporting six - Ganz, Fitzmont, Chan, St. Francis, Arrowlind, Pakheart – you take the pickets. Solandro, Velez bring up the plant.” The pickets moved ahead and spread out in a V-formation that narrowed down as they got closer to the target. Below them, the hulk of Cairo Sunrise was about six-thousand yards out. The long, unimpressive freighter hung silhouetted against the brilliant white of Enceladus. The moon was pocked with dark circles where frozen eruptions had recently burst.
“Copy sir. Coming up with the plant.” Timberwolf confirmed. “Whoa, you feel that?” For a moment Timberwolf felt heavy and got the sensation he was dropping. He looked to the majestic disc of Saturn dominating the sky past Enceladus.
“Saturn’s gonna yank your chain, Velez. Don’t mind it. Watch your heads-up display.” Gray advised, as Timberwolf and Solandro passed him, holding the nuclear plant between them. It was hard even for Timberwolf not to look over at the giant world, glorious rings taking up half the sky – but he knew he had to focus. Saturn was duller in person than Timberwolf assumed it would be, a pale cream mixed with thousand mile ribbons of brown and orange.
“We’re three-thousand yards out. Passing the last picket.” Solandro announced. “Whoa! Damn!” The pair were pulled to the side violently, almost losing hold of the plant. The gravity wave was enough to almost kill their forward momentum. Solandro went to a private channel. “This is bullshit Timber. We’ve got a damned live nuke and it’s like we’re in a washing machine.”
“Let’s drink about it later. I’m focused. Clear the channel.” Timberwolf snapped back. They got back on track and closed to within a thousand yards, the expanse of Cairo Sunrise spreading out below them. Underneath her, and absurdly close, was the icy white surface of Enceladus. They passed through a puff of frozen vapor from below. The ice frosted their visors, but the heat of their rigs quickly melted it away. The freighter looked its age. Its exterior color mostly dulled down to the primer. It had too many spindly towers that jutted off the superstructure, seemingly at random. It was nothing like a sleek modern vessel. “Lots of ways to kill yourself here. I’ll give you that.” Timberwolf said.
They got within a hundred yards and Solandro illuminated their target in a red X of laser light. It was a smooth spot at the base of one of the towers. Timberwolf continued on solo at this point. He descended swiftly, making a soft contact. He placed the plant down and with a magnetic click, it was in position. Gray crackled over the comm link. “If you’ve touched down, Cairo’s sensors don’t know it. Good job.” Timberwolf turned the chunky ignition key and the plant glowed red.
“Copy, looks good from here.” Solandro confirmed. Timberwolf turned to give him a thumbs-up, but Solandro was gone. He should have been just a hundred yards out.
“Solandro? Mike?” Timberwolf scrambled over the surface of Cairo Sunrise, trying to find an edge to look over. Out of nowhere, Solandro came right at him. He was falling actually, grabbed by a nasty gravity wave. As he was going by, Timberwolf grasped the end of his glove and they both slammed in to the superstructure hard.
Gray had it together on the comm link. “I told you Saturn wouldn’t play nice. Everybody still breathing?” The pickets called out one-by-one. “Any damage Solandro?”
“Sir, I’m going to need a touch-up.”
“I’ve got some model paint you can use. Proceed, gentlemen.” Gray said, as calmly as possible.
Timberwolf scrambled back to the plant, igniting the burners on it as Solandro went back out to his position a hundred yards back. The surface under the plant was plastic and it began to bubble almost immediately. Much quicker than he thought, the device pulled itself through the melted hull and disappeared. “It’s away, getting a visual.” Timberwolf looked down where the plant had burned through; a thin column went straight down. Below, glowing embers flitted momentarily before snuffing out.
“What the hell is that?” Solandro said over the comm.
“No gravity effects here.” Timberwolf answered.
“Not gravity. I’ve got lights all over Cairo Sunrise.”
Timberwolf looked down the superstructure, one by one the towers lit up, flickering to life. “Sir, continue observation?”
“Hell no. Come back, Timber.” Gray barked.
Just then an unmistakable vibration went through Cairo Sunrise and the whole thing moved. Timberwolf slammed in to the hull.
“Aft thrusters on Cairo are blasting!” Solandro yelled. “Orders sir?”
“Stay with your man! Pickets thin out to a single fire-brigade line a thousand yards behind Solandro. Timberwolf, you out of there?” For too long, there was no response. “Timber?”
Finally, Timberwolf responded. “Sir, I’m stuck. My arm’s magnetically stuck to the hull. I think the plant spun up a power surge.” Cairo Sunrise lurched backwards. Her thrusters were slowing her orbit around Enceladus. “Cairo’s dropping.” Timberwolf tugged as hard as he could on the superstructure, but even with the servos in his suit whining, it wouldn’t budge. Somehow, he had been unlucky enough to make contact with one of the only pieces of metal on the hull just as a flow of energy pulsed through Cairo Sunrise.
“OK, we�
�re going to kill two birds with one stone.” Gray pulled up Cairo Sunrise’s specs in his heads-up display. He flipped through the pages with the motion of his eyeball and quickly found what he needed. “You’re going to short it out, Timber. The whole ship. Your rig’s got more juice than Cairo’s whole power plant. I want you to spin up your plasma cannon at the end of your gauntlet. Get it in to deep red. Six hundred ninety percent.”
“Highland Factory max. Got that sir.”
“Set to widest disperse.” Gray instructed.
“Got it.”
“That’ll short out Cairo and you too. Your heads-up display and comm are the only things that’ll come back. You’ll have to do an emergency restart.”
Timberwolf was silent a moment. ‘Heads up display and comm’ did not include life support. That hung unspoken between them for a moment. Cairo Sunrise lurched downward and listed to starboard. Enceladus hung above Timberwolf now, growing larger every second.
“I’m spun up sir. Shooting this off now.”
“I’ve got your back, Timber.” Solandro assured.
Gray bit his lip, watching the old freighter list. In a flash, what seemed like a lightning storm covered the superstructure. Bolts jumped from tower to tower and out to the thruster pods, blowing them out. The whole thing seemed to shake from side to side before going completely dark again, silhouetting in front of Enceladus. Bits of flotsam dribbled off the hulk and started to form a knot aftward. “Timber? Timber?” Gray asked.
“I’m here sir. That was fun.”
Exhaling with relief, Gray scanned the feed from Timber’s life support. It was dark. “I don’t have your vitals here, but I assume your heartbeat’s in the red.”
“No way sir, barely yellow.”
