by Peter Telep
Go or stay. The risks, the guilt, all of it seemed equal. What does a court-martial really mean when all of your friends are dead?
"West, report status of LIDAR and guidance system," the colonel ordered.
Wishing he had a little more time to justify the lie to himself, Nathan cleared his throat and, with mock excitement, said, "LIDAR rebooting! Guidance system on line." Both of those inoperative panels stared dumbly back at him, and if they had mouths, they would have whispered, "You're making a big mistake, West. We can't help you."
Caught off guard, the colonel stammered, "Then, all right, uh, adjust position and AOD."
"Copy, Wolfpack Six. Will be returning to formation in two mikes." And at least that part wasn't a lie.
The com panel beeped. Intership com requested on secure frequency. Nathan switched channels. "West."
"I'm struggling with this as much as you are, Nathan," Shane said. "You're still seat-of-the-pants, right?"
"No, I'm nominal." He thought about who he was talking to and sighed. "Sorry, Shane. Yeah, I'm still blind."
"I don't want to lose you for this Op, but is it worth it?"
"Listen. I have an idea. I'm gonna set FS sensors to lock onto your thruster wash. I'll trail far behind you, be the last to insert. If I keep course steady, with sensors detecting the most amount of your residue , chances are I'll be walking in your footsteps. Just keep throwing me your velocity so I can keep the gap constant. And don't inform the others. McQueen's monitoring the other freq."
"Too late," Cooper rang in. "This is a conference call."
"Get off the channel, Hawkes."
"I'm gone," he responded.
"How's my position now?" Nathan asked Shane.
"You're in formation, one degree to six."
"And correcting for that degree," Nathan said, adjusting the joystick.
"Position and velocity on track," Shane told him. "Hold her steady."
Thinking he would have a look at the traffic ahead, Nathan switched to forward view. Bulldog's Belly filled half the screen. Squinting from the change in light, he began counting the sentry satellites on the dark side of the planet. The sentries were about four times the size of his AP-V, cylindrical, spiked with antennae, and equipped with omni-directional laser cannons that tended not to miss. He stopped counting the satellites at seventeen, and not because he had ran out of them. He estimated that about forty hung in the squadron's AOA, and all were within lethal range. The five-eight would insert between four or five of them and tiptoe by.
"Coming up on burn point," Shane said. "Vanessa, we're going to alter file formation. You're point. Hawkes, you're behind her. Wang behind Hawkes, and Mister 404 behind Wang. I'm dropping back with West." As a single line of torpedoes, the squadron would inject itself into Bulldog's ionosphere. Nathan waited impatiently for Shane to give the command to shift formation. When it came, he almost missed it.
He let his AP-V drift, back behind the squadron, then he brought her up and flipped up a trio of toggles to engage the FS sensors. Data scrolled quickly across a tiny screen to his upper left. "On your six, Shane. Velocity?"
"Seven-point-two-one-six-five and holding."
He regarded his forward view. Shane's thrusters glowed a brilliant blue in the distance. As the squadron altered course two degrees to port, he saw the rest of the AP-Vs, an odd train of missiles delivering their human cargo.
"Burn point in twenty seconds. Thrusters to snapshot velocity, ten-point-five," Shane said.
Nathan realized that if he had any intentions left of turning back, he had better act on them within the next twenty seconds. Once his velocity shot up to over ten times its present rate to slip by the sentries, he would be committed. He asked himself repeatedly if he thought he could pull off the insertion. He thought about the consequences of failure. He knew there was only one way to beat the doubts, and that was to awaken the demon inside. Live with the decision. Get mad at it. Kill the guilt and go forward. With a finger poised on the thruster firing control, he stared intently at the on-board clock and awaited the order.
Shane counted off the remaining five seconds, and over her voice, Damphousse shouted, "Starboard sentry bearing three-seven-one bringing cannons to bear. I think we—"
Her message was lost in the roar of Nathan's thrusters as they shoved him down into his harness with a force even a veteran pilot would respect.
"It's lining up for a shot," Damphousse screamed.
"Stay on course!" Shane told her.
Nathan saw how the sentry was tracking Damphousse's AP-V, but it didn't open fire. Probably couldn't get a bead on her. The jamming software must be working, he thought.
After a cry of relief, Damphousse said, "And I'm past the nasty boy!"
"Make that two down and four to go," Cooper said.
Wang released his patented "Hoo-yah!" which conveyed his slipping unscathed past the sentry.
"Entering ionosphere," the silicate said. "Captain Vansen. I have you and Lieutenant West on my scope. You're in the pipe and looking good."
Repeatedly switching between starboard, forward, and port views, Nathan picked up something to port, a flash of light that, upon a second look, turned out to be another sentry bringing cannons to bear. "Woke up one to port."
"Got 'em," Shane said. "Like to feed it a Fox One for breakfast instead of turning tail. It's got no lock."
With his attention focused on the second sentry, Nathan realized he wasn't keeping an eye on the FS sensor screen. One glance, and the lightning of the situation struck him.
Shane confirmed his fear. "Nathan, you're off track! Two degrees starboard, four degrees low!"
"C'mon, c'mon," he muttered as he studied the amount of residue in his path and tried to increase those numbers on the data bar. But everything he did seemed to decrease the amount.
"You're continuing off track, West!"
"Captain Vansen," the silicate called. "Starboard sentry is locked onto Lieutenant West. Cannons primed."
"Come on, Nathan!" Shane cried.
"I'm trying. I'm trying!"
A proximity alarm went off, and Nathan knew that anything getting close to the AP-V at this point sure as hell wasn't friendly.
Before he could pull up the incoming on his screen, a double impact rocked the AP-V. Though he could tell that the shots had only glanced his hull, the craft still shook like a car doing fifty with a flat tire. The cockpit lights flickered. The FS sensor screen died. Another salvo of alien fire flashed on the view screen. Then another.
"They're raining heavy on West!" Cooper shouted.
"Nathan, evade!" Shane said.
"To where?" he asked. "I don't even know what's working in here." He did a once-over of his panels. The hull had been hit but, according to the auto-diagnostic, it had thankfully not been compromised. He hoped the readout wasn't a lie because as the program attempted to scan the LIDAR and guidance system, it began to print a jumbled string of characters.
"Damage report?"
"Bad," he answered Shane tersely. "Gimme a sec." The ship continued to vibrate, and Nathan could barely keep his grip on the joystick. He tossed a quick glance to the view screen. "I can finish insertion. And hey, Shane. You wanna laugh? Check my AOD. I got a feeling I'm back on track."
He imagined Shane smiling as she said, "I can't believe it, but you are."
"For how long I don't know. FS sensor screen's out. Now I'm really gonna do this seat-of-the-pants."
"I'm your mirror," Shane said.
The whirling stars depicted by the forward view told Nathan he was now in a roll. The cockpit lights finally surrendered, and, in the glow of the three screens still functioning, he checked the status on the nose shield: nominal. He was set to enter the planet's atmosphere. Too bad he was strapped into a lemon sold to the Corps by a pot-bellied man wearing a pseudo-silk tie. He hoped the brass had at least negotiated a good financing deal on the AP-V. He would hate to discover that the military had wasted money.
"Silver
Bullet Four, entering ionosphere," Damphousse said. "Com blackout in about a mike. Semper Fi! See you on the snow."
"Hey, this is for everyone," Shane began. "Bug eyes while making your drop. Our buddies may know we're coming."
"In which case we'll be trying to run a demolitions Op with the enemy fortifying their position. Wonderful. How can this mission get any worse?" Cooper asked.
"I can name a hundred ways, Hawkes," Shane said. "Now shuddup and get your butt on planet."
"Aye-aye."
The skipchatter fell off into a silence that, after a few moments, became unnerving. Nathan tried to call Shane, but she had already entered com blackout. He pulled up the ejection checklist on his screen and finished reading it a few seconds before gravity returned in its usual bad mood. As he entered Bulldog's atmosphere, the expected heat began to build, and along with it, the characteristic rumble of a craft unequipped with Endo/Exo technology. The dampening shields on his Hammerhead made entering and exiting a planet's atmosphere a routine job for Egghead, but piloting the AP-V was proving to be anything but drinking microbrew on the beach.
While watching the digital altimeter roll backward toward ejection height, Nathan wondered if, perhaps, his AP-V had been sabotaged. Was there someone who didn't want him coming on the mission? Was there something he knew or was capable of that someone feared? Or was it a simple (and in wartime common) case of rushed assembly and untested equipment?
At thirty thousand feet, Nathan adjusted his O2 mask, placed a finger on the tail-stage release key, and closed his eyes. The thrusters faltered, then burned out. And three, two, one he jettisoned the tail stage of the AP-V. He looked down, knowing there was only the thin disk of polymeric floor between him and the outside. He slipped out of the AP-V harness, checked the straps on his chute pack, then swallowed and hit the ejection switch.
The hull of the ship was supposed to break away into four sections that would fan back and away from Nathan, pop little parachutes of their own, then launch an array of counter measures that would in theory confuse any Chigs who happened to be looking. As only one of multiple targets, Nathan would execute a High Altitude Low Opening drop that was not unlike the HALO he had made on planet 2063F. It had all been planned, simulated, talked about, thought about, and now executed.
But nothing happened. The AP-V remained intact and, buffeted by heavy winds, it continued to plunge toward the tundra.
Swearing aloud, Nathan fought against gravity and hit the ejection button again. No response. He beat his fist on it. Then he shifted right and left and punched the hull of what was now a high-tech casket.
He swore again, this time at himself for wasting time and not initiating emergency procedures. He turned to the hatch release panel. Are you sure you want to open the hatch? "Yes, dammit!" He brought his finger down on the button, but he remembered that the hatch opened out on hinges. Chances were that he wouldn't be able to force it open against the wind, and if he were able to do that, the hatch itself would create drag and possibly put him in an uncontrollable roll or spin. Then something Mr. Budiwan had said rang again in his ears. He scrolled through a list of options on the panel and found one to blow the hatch via tiny explosives built into the hinges and seals. He highlighted the option, engaged the sequence, and turned away from the hatch to view the altimeter: twenty-thousand feet and rolling down fast. He gripped a control panel below his center screen and tensed through the countdown.
What he expected to hear were the tiny explosions, and then the loud hum of the wind. He heard those things, all right, but they were followed by a dozen or more tiny explosions, and suddenly Nathan found himself tumbling in the air, clutching one-fourth of the AP-V's hull. He realized the ejection sequence had been triggered by blowing the hatch. At least he was no longer trapped.
However, he heard a mini-chute pop, and the hull shot up and out of his grip. The force blew him back and increased the rate of his tumble. Images of the rocky, snow-covered terrain and the metallic, twilit sky were shoved in a blender to form streaks of color and light that gave him no indication of height or direction. Nathan forced a hand to his chest and tried to read the glowing dial of his wrist altimeter. Before he got a look, he vomited. Coughing and spitting, he tore off the O2 mask and drew in a breath of Bulldog's atmosphere. The world became dark around the edges. He tried again to read his altimeter, but the dial was blurry. With no way to know when to pop his chute, he damned the whole HALO to hell and decided to turn it into a standard drop that would put him far from the designated drop zone. He jerked his rip cord.
The chute they had issued him was small, twenty feet in diameter with only twenty gores instead of the standard twenty-five, but it still propelled him upward with enough velocity to make him vomit again, and his mouth and nose burned so much from bile that his eyes watered. The boulders and snow below him spun in circles and circles and circles and into darkness.
six
"If the judge who sentenced me to service in the Marine Corps could see me now, I bet the jerk would feel guilty. My God, he'd say to himself. I didn't think they'd stuff him in a missile, then drop him in Santa's backyard to blow up an alien Coca-Cola plant. I thought he'd be marching in formations and polishing shoes and getting yelled at," Cooper said aloud to himself as he stared up at the stars framed by the round vent in his parachute.
Falling at a comfortable rate of seventeen feet per second left him ample time to contemplate just how much he despised the current Op. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he could sympathize with the twenty-first squadron. He looked to the snow. "Hey, if you guys are down there, don't worry about me, man. I won't arrest you. I'll probably join you.
"Now, let me tell you 'bout a story I heard back in boot when they were making us do static drops. Guy named Carter told me this while I'm on the ready line. There was this French guy, I forget his name, back in the seventeen hundreds. He's the guy who figured out how to work a parachute. Dropped a dog equipped with a chute from a balloon. Now, I'm asking Carter, how the hell does the dog pull the cord? Does he have like a special cord? And he's telling me the guy probably had the dog do a static, like we were doing. Then our D.I. kicks our butts out of the plane and I'm floating down and I can't get this picture of this poor little doggie out of my mind. This poor little doggie falling and falling and falling. And he's barking, saying, Why the hell do I gotta do this? And that little doggie's me right now.
"But I know what you're sayin'. He's a big, tough Marine who's been on many an Op, and here he is feeling sorry for himself, actually comparing himself to a little doggie. What an idiot! But maybe you guys don't know how deep in the toilet this Op really is. Yeah, I know you got the same Op, but you were first team. At least you knew no one had tried it before and failed. It's not a real confidence booster, lemme tell you.
"And we also got a mystery member in our unit. Now, I'm willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but he's not makin' everyone else happy. But I gotta watch him, too. He turns out to be a bad guy, I'll level him. Not a problem.
"I guess what's really bothering me is the fact that my buddy Nathan got stuck with a malfunctioning ship, and I don't know if he's gonna make it. I know you heard we used to be enemies. He got bumped off the Tellus mission 'cause the company had to meet a quota on tank colonists. So he decided to hate me 'cause I'm a tank. I remember this fight we had on Mars. Man, I thought he was a real hotshot, and I was ready to do him in. But I was scared, too. I didn't want to admit it. And jealous. He knows how to talk to women like Shane. I still wanna kiss her again. See how it really feels when I'm not sleepy. But that ain't gonna happen."
Cooper stopped talking to himself, and the loneliness quickly returned. He couldn't wait to rejoin the squadron. This being by himself, in the AP-V and now making his descent, was enough to make his throat sore. In the past, he'd been able to simply think about things to pass the time. But after spending so many hours in close quarters with other people and nearly never being alone, he ha
d to compensate with a voice. He felt kind of stupid about it all, but, nevertheless, it helped.
"Well, it kinda looks like night down there. Chiggies are probably eating dinner about now. Hope they set an extra place." He looked right and left, wishing he could see the others. "And I hope everyone's all right." He checked his altimeter, then the digital compass on his right wrist. "Signal's good from Shane's directional beacon. I'm a little off the zone, so I'm gonna try to steer myself a little closer, get over that string of snow mounds or whatever they are. And have I mentioned how cold it is? It's like a degree above freezing. I'll probably be cracking teeth on my MREs. I should've worn a rebreather instead of letting West talk me into a mask. Damn thing didn't keep me a bit warm. Glad I chucked it."
Cooper passed stealthily over the string of mounds, and in the distance, he saw how the bellies of a few low-lying clouds were illuminated from something hidden by a patchy white wall of mountains. That something, he quickly decided, was the aqueduct. The hike to the target would make the long humps he had done during his HIST seem like strolls on a boardwalk, wearing a pair of shorts and flip-flops. You got your long hike, your rough terrain, your alien food operation to destroy. This is a lifer's dream come true, he thought. But gung ho he wasn't. He just wanted to remember if he had packed that extra pair of boots.
A small, fairly level patch of open ground lay ahead. To the east were rocky hogbacks, and to the west, a long, lazy slope that would make a perfect bunny hill for a beginning skier. Cooper hoped that he would not spot any ground perfect for snowboarding; he would just be depressed over not purchasing a board from Mank at the PX. As it was, the present surroundings were too lame for boarding. They were, however, excellent for landing.
Though the chute had been designed to control his rate of descent, reduce the effects of winds, and maintain stability, as he came within one hundred feet of the deck, a powerful downdraft came out of nowhere and struck hard. For a moment it felt as if someone had cut him loose from the chute. He dropped like a full beer bottle for twenty feet, got jerked by his lines, then descended more quickly.
