Baen Books Free Stories 2017

by Baen Books

  Captain J. C. Merderet, USMC, had never heard anything as flat-out suicidal nuts as she had in the last twenty minutes, and she wasn't sure if her thinking that it just might work was evidence of audacity or mental illness. Preoccupied with that thought, she nearly collided with Major Tony Colloredo, the cohort executive officer.

  "So what do you say, J. C., quite a mission, eh?" he said. "Can your company handle its part?"

  "Should go just like we drilled, sir."

  Colloredo's eyes flicked to the taller Ed Ka'uhane following behind her. "You agree with that, First Sergeant?"

  "Yes, sir," he answered. "Just like the drills."

  He nodded and didn’t bother to ask Lieutenant Gunderson, her company executive officer. "J. C., I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Abisogun Boniface, a feed head from Pan-African Infonet, assigned to us from the Nigerian pool." Colloredo gestured to a man in a nonmilitary brown shipsuit standing behind him, who stepped forward. He looked at J.C. directly but not the way many civilian embeds did, not as a challenge.

  Feed head: a reporter who filed video feed with the news networks. J. C. looked the Nigerian over—tall and slender, very dark, so dark his skin shone with blue highlights instead of bronze, gentle eyes but without fear. That could mean brave or foolish, and J. C.'s money was on foolish.

  "Mr. Boniface will be embedded with your company, Captain. He has a bio-recorder implant, so everything he sees and hears gets recorded. I would be careful about telling any off-color jokes."

  "Mr. Boniface," she said by way of greeting and shook his hand. Firm grip. "We're going to be a little busy down there on the ground at first, but as soon as we have a secure perimeter I'll let cohort HQ know and they can arrange your transportation down to the surface."

  The journalist frowned and turned to Colloredo.

  "Major, my distribution service had a clear commitment from—"

  Nodding in agreement, Colloredo held up his had to stop him. "Yes, I know." He turned to J. C. with another grin. "Captain, I am afraid I was not clear on the arrangement. Mr. Boniface is dropping with your assault wave."

  "In a personal reentry capsule? The hell you say, sir."

  Colloredo's smile got bigger. "Mr. Boniface has completed the Nigerian Navy's Special Boat Service meteoric insertion course at . . . where was that again, sir?"

  "Apapa," Boniface answered, his face now an emotionless mask. He probably knew when he was being made light of. In his line of work, it must come with the territory.

  "This is an order, Major?" J. C. asked for the record, although she knew the answer.

  "This is an order, Captain," Colloredo confirmed, "straight from Brigade." That must be his way of ducking responsibility for the decision, which wasn't as stand-up as he usually was, especially as he seemed to be enjoying it so much.

  "Navy's not gonna like reworking their drop capsule dispersion pattern, no sir."

  "The Navy has not finalized the pattern yet. Besides, since when do you care what squids like or do not like?" He turned to the journalist. "Mr. Boniface, I do not think the captain sees the value of a feed head along on the drop. As for me, I think if we are going to make history, it would be good to have vid records of it, but then Captain Merderet does not really appreciate many of the finer things in life."

  "Big talk," J. C. said, "for someone come from South Mex—San Squalido or something like that, ain't it?"

  Major Antonio Carlos Rivera Colloredo turned back to her and his smile softened, became friendly. "Most would prefer it to Bayou Bunghole, Louisiana."

  "Well, that ain't setting the bar real high," she said. "Don't worry, chère, I'll try to keep your feed head alive long enough to take flattering pictures of y'all when you get there, make you look like the conquering hero."

  "I will keep my good side to him," Colloredo said.

  "You ain't got a good side." She held out her hand. "Tony, you watch that long first step, you.".

  "You too, J. C.," Colloredo said as they shook hands.

  *****

  Twenty minutes later, J. C. climbed up onto the impromptu stage made from pushed-together composite ammo cases. Her four lieutenants and four command NCOs stood behind her, and the one hundred twenty enlisted personnel of Delta Company, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Meteoric Insertion Capable (MEU-MIC), stood before her in six ranks of khaki shipsuits. Actually, there were more than that today: another dozen Marines from Headquarters Company who would be attached for the mission, and the eight Navy medtechs spread through the ranks in blue shipsuits, still called corpsmen because of who they served with. Because the assembly area was a broad section of Peleliu's large habitat wheel, whose spin provided the equivalent of one gravity, the ranks seemed to rise up slightly to either side. The company came to attention.

  "'Morning, Delta Company," she called out.

  "Good Morning Ma'am!" they thundered back.

  "Stand at ease. Good news, Delta," she said and then paused, grinning, enjoying the anticipation. "We drop in thirty-nine hours."

  "OO-RAH!" they barked.

  "Soon as we're done here, XO gonna data dump the cohort OPORD into y'all's data pads. This operation is code named Argent Lightning. Study it, get in squad and fireteam groups and talk it through. Make sure you understand your part of it, and then everyone else's, too. Combat drops been known to get . . . well, confused," she said, grinning again, and she got a good ripple of laughter at the understatement. "So wherever you come down, first priority is secure the objective where you land. Second priority is rejoin your unit. Look for a leader and follow their orders. If you can’t find a leader, you become one, you!

  "All the details are in the OPORD, but I want to give you the big picture. We talked about bunch of possible missions, but task force commander went with the absolute pick of the litter: we are conducting a full-brigade meteoric assault on T'tokl-Heem Downstation. Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in history, someone is bat-shit-crazy enough to assault a needle downstation from orbit, and that someone is us!"

  "OO-RAH!" they shouted, even louder than before.

  "Look in every manual ever written on meteoric combat insertions and you will never find a 'Lessons Learned' section on seizure of the downstation of an elevator to orbit, 'cause it never been done. But in six months, every one of them manuals gonna have to be re-writ, and folks reading 'em, when get to that 'Lesson Learned' section, they gonna see y'all's ugly faces grinning right back at 'em."

  More laughter and nods.

  "Okay, so much for the fun stuff. The drop itself ain't gonna be much fun at all. To minimize exposure to ground fire, we are going in with a straight ballistic descent, dropped from three hundred fifty kilometers, with an EDL duration of thirty-seven minutes and a max deceleration load of nine gees."

  That prompted a chorus of groans and curses.

  "Yeah, I know. I about swooned dead away myself when I heard. Fortunately, First Sergeant Ka'uhane had my smelling salts with him." That got them laughing again.

  "Brigade mission is to seize the K'tok Needle intact. I will repeat that for the benefit of Private Thibodaux: in-tact."

  Standing in the front row, Private Andre Thibodaux grinned and colored slightly, and the Marines to either side jostled him. Thibodaux was a really big man, full two meters tall and over one ten kilos, big enough to break most things, but never by accident. J. C. had never known a more graceful, coordinated man in her life.

  "I am in deadly earnest," she continued. "Anyone flies their para-wing into that needle and dings it, they can walk home. That elevator to orbit will be our lifeline, only way we get back off that rock.

  "Okay. Brigade mission: the two MIC cohorts will drop and secure the ground station and perimeter. The lateral east-west access road marked in your TACDAT as Tungsten is the boundary between the two cohorts, with the road inclusive to the southern zone. That's ours. Our cohort will secure the southern perimeter and the entire downstation complex. The other MIC cohort, Indian Army's Two-Four Gorkha, will sec
ure the zone to our north.

  "A cautionary word about our neighbors: do not call them Gurkhas. Only the Brits call them that, and I guess they got permission or something. But it's Gorkha in their language, and I am informed they'll like you more if you respect that.

  "The brigade's third cohort, Forty-Second Royal Marine Commando—"

  She was interrupted by another spontaneous "OO-RAH!" She laughed and then continued.

  "As I was saying, Forty-Two ROMAC will conduct a zero-gee powered assault through vacuum and secure the needle's orbital highstation. They will then transit down the needle in serials to reinforce the ground troops. Any questions about the brigade assault plan?

  "No? Excellent.

  "Our cohort assault plan is to drop all four line companies. Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, in platoon strength in the first wave, will secure the perimeter on the east, south, and west sides respectively. Their main bodies will follow in the second wave. Delta gets the main complex in the center, and we will all be in the first wave. Once that station is secured and operational, we'll become the cohort reserve.

  "Our company assault plan is a miniature version of the cohort assault. Three platoons drop: First, Second, and Third on the east, south, and west sides respectively. First and Third will enter through the main vehicle loading and discharge bays. Second will enter the south side through a VIP entrance, so naturally I'll drop with them." More laughter.

  "We have one demolition squad chopped from Headquarters Company under Staff Sergeant Rodriguez to assist in entry to the complex and any secured areas inside. If you need to, y'all know how to blow a door. Rodriguez and his people know which ones not to blow. Remember, the needle is our supply line, so we want it operational as soon as we can manage. Clear and secure, that's Delta's job. Just like we've drilled, over and over.

  "Any questions?

  "Well then, laissez les bon temps rouler!"

  22 December 2133 (D Minus Three Hours)

  Aboard USS Peleliu (LAS-16), in K'tok orbit

  J. C. floated in zero gee in the long, broad drop bay of USS Peleliu, watching two dozen Marines and the twenty or so blue-uniformed bosun's mates swarm around the honeycomb pattern of drop tubes, six rows of five tubes each, each tube two meters in diameter and each one with a "black betty" suspended over it, a dull black drop capsule, lozenge-shaped, two meters in diameter and three times as long. Conveyors running to the sides and then up into the prep room held more capsules, and today the conveyors snaked out into the docking bay as well. Five hundred drop capsules took a lot of space. All of the capsules had their "plugs pulled," the bottom third removed to allow a single Marine to mount, once they were in their armor. It was a lot easier in zero gee than it would have been on the ground.

  The Nigerian journalist Boniface glided through the air and grabbed the stanchion on the bulkhead beside her.

  "Your Marines?" he asked. "I do not recognize any of them."

  "Not mine. The first serial is one squad each from Alpha and Bravo, and some decoy clusters. Once they're gone, conveyors bring in thirty more, load and drop, fire one capsule every second for eight or nine minutes, fill the sky with death, Mr. Boniface. Fill the sky with death. Our lead squad goes in the second serial, two more in the third, but they're staggered out after that, make landing easier."

  "Captain Merderet, I have interviewed over a third of the men and women in your company but none of the ones I've spoken with have ever done a combat drop from orbit. Can you tell me which ones have? I would like to get their perspective as well."

  "Well, you might see if you can talk to Staff Sergeant Wataski in Bravo Company," J. C. answered. "She not only did a combat drop, did it right here on K'tok, two years ago. Little late to be talking to her now, though. She'll be getting squared away for her drop. You might give that some thought as well."

  Boniface looked at her and she saw the surprise on his face. "Nobody in Delta Company has done a combat drop before? Not even you?"

  "Shit, fils, how many combat drops from orbit you think there been? Aside from all those Hong Kong adventure holo-vids, I mean? The Varoki have only done a half-dozen or so cohort-strength drops, and we ain't done that many. Command Sergeant Major Orsini up at brigade dropped on Nishtaka, over a dozen years ago, and he's looking at getting his second combat jump star today."

  "But I've read about special insertions, many of them."

  "Sure, a squad here or there, special operators. We ain't spooks, Mr. Boniface, we're honest grunts. Not a lot of call for dropping people in our occupation, so when something like this comes along, we're just happy for the work. Now I'm serious about getting ready. They show you how to pre-drop-check your capsule in that SBS school you went to?"

  He nodded but he seemed distracted, looking at the swarms of Marines busy in Peleliu's drop bay, some going over the drop capsules before they were lowered into the discharge tubes, others already getting into their powered armor rigs.

  "How abbreviated a course they run you through?" she asked.

  "It was not abbreviated," he said, his attention still on the Marines. "I went the full course with SBS-MIC Class Two Seventeen. It helped that I am an excellent swimmer. I would not have made it through otherwise." He turned to her. "Very good for endurance, you know. The other four journalists in the course did not complete it. Two of them could have, I think, but they simply gave up."

  "And you never give up, I suppose?"

  "Well, not so far," he said with a smile, the first she had seen from him. He nodded toward the Marines. "They act as if they've done this many times."

  "They have. It's just like the drills, Mr. Boniface. Just like the drills."

  Boniface left to suit up but J. C. remained for a few minutes, watching the activity of these other Marines, not wanting to face her own troopers just yet. There was still time, and if she spent too much time with them before the drop, they might see her fear. Boniface was right to wonder about all these Marines who had never done a combat drop before, but wondering wouldn’t answer anyone's questions. To find out the answer you had to go through a two-meter tube and fall three hundred and fifty kilometers under fire, and keep your shit together enough to carry out a difficult clearing operation without fucking up anything important. Then they'd find out what they were really made of.

  Just like the drills, she thought. Sure.

  22 December 2133 (D Minus Two Minutes)

  Aboard USS Peleliu (LAS-16), in K'tok orbit

  It began with a simple movement to the left, no more than a few meters. The optics in her faceplate told her the drop had started, first serial was away, and her capsule had moved on the conveyor toward now-empty drop tubes. It wasn't exactly like the drills, was it? The drills placed you in a simulated version of the drop capsule that duplicated most of the sensations of the drop itself, but not the lead-up to it, not the pauses and then short moves along the conveyor toward those gaping holes with nothing under them for three hundred and fifty kilometers except increasingly dense atmosphere and then hard, hard ground. J. C. felt herself start to sweat and turned down the temperature in her suit.

  Two minutes later she felt the capsule move "up" into the drop tube, heard the tube close behind her, and almost immediately she was slammed back into her acceleration rig. All system lights on her faceplate showed green—a clean separation—and she checked the chronometer: 0512. She felt a moment of dizziness as the capsule rotated through 180 degrees to enter the atmosphere "bottom" first. Within minutes she could feel the capsule slow, feel the gee force pushing her into the acceleration rig. She watched the monitors show the mounting exterior temperature, record the successive melting and flaking away of the ablative lower two thirds of the capsule. She watched until the deceleration crossed eight gees, forcing the oxygen from her lungs, pushing the blood into the back of her skull, starving the optic nerves in front, temporarily blinding her. She stopped thinking as well, the frontal lobes of her brain as starved of oxygen as were her eyes.

  Her drog
ue chute and then main chute must have deployed because her vision returned and her thoughts began again, although sluggishly at first, and her first sensation was pain, the ache of being slammed against her acceleration rig at 90 meters per second. Then the stimulants and pain killers, the ones designed to overcome the deceleration shock, kicked in and her attention returned. A green light flashed in the center of her field of vision three times and then a burst of sunlight replaced the black of the capsule interior.

  She fell away from the slowly descending capsule and parachute for two or three seconds and then her para-wing deployed above her, a canopy of pale gray making it almost invisible from the ground, and she saw the exterior of her combat armor's chameleon surface mimic the color. She oriented herself, saw the red, white, blue, and green top panels of the wings below her, the colors of the four companies of the cohort, and she saw the towering, impossibly endless golden cable of the needle to her left. The sun seemed to slip back below the horizon as she descended, because it was not yet dawn below. She looked down at the city sprawling away from the base of the needle, a mix of gray streets and sand-colored buildings. The faint greenish tint showed her optics had begun using thermal augmentation, and her helmet outlined her landing zone in green brackets. All of the green Delta Company para-wings she could see seemed lined up with their landing zones around the needle's base.

  The wind velocity indicator on her faceplate flickered from yellow to red. Too much headwind would keep her aloft too long. At the same time, she saw a missile track rise from the outskirts of the city and head in her direction. She applied brake and accelerator at the same time and dropped down a fast hundred meters, then eased back and went into a circular dive, flattening out before she got too close to the canopies of the wings below her.

  She lined up with the street she was due to land on, flared at two meters, came down in a slow trot and hit the release that sent her wing up and to the side before it collapsed in a heap of composite fabric. Her RAG-19 assault rifle was already in her hand and she continued her trot to get into a doorway and out of the way of whoever was coming next. Her muscles felt sluggish and weak, but the powered suit took up the slack. She turned and saw another armored Marine touch down and run out of his harness as it flopped to the side, run as lightly as a dancer, and she knew that was Andre Thibodaux.