by Peter Telep
It had been explained to him during boot camp that individuals falling at the standard rate of seventeen feet per second will hit the ground with the same force as if they had jumped freely from a height of ten feet. Cooper tried to factor in his now faster descent and the fact that he wasn't going to hit earth but a much harder layer of rock and ice. He tried to do that, but math had always pissed him off at the training facility. He had trouble working a basic calculator, yet, ironically, understood the principles of aerodynamics required of any Marine Corps pilot.
He did know that when he hit the ground, it was going to hurt.
And he winced as his boots made impact. A shock raced up his legs and tore into his spine. He bent his knees, slipped on the ice, and fell on his belly. The parachute whipped over him and began to drag him forward. He fumbled for the clips on his harness and popped them, detaching the chute. He ground to a halt, his face covered with snow. He cleared his eyes and spat.
SOP was to gather the chute and camouflage it, but the nylon dome escaped over a hill and vanished. "Ah, screw it," he muttered. Then he rose, brushed himself off, and took a look around.
Nice place. Gives you the feel of the holidays. Makes you want to eat peppermint candy. Makes you want to beat your head against a rock for being stupid enough to come here. Because that's all you're going to find: rocks. And snow. And ice. Lots of it, he thought.
After switching frequencies on his digital compass, he picked up the signal from his rucksack. It had parachuted in and landed about a half klick southeast. Cooper breathed a small sigh of relief. If his luggage was lost here, it wasn't like the Corps would overnight it to him with an apology and a coupon for discount airfare. He drew a pistol from his waist and started off for the supplies.
"I wonder how long it took them to make the air breathable? Probably a long time. They dismantled the processor like ten years ago, 'Phousse said." He breathed through his nose. "Smells pretty good, like that one winter in Philly when we had the big storm. But I don't like seeing my own breath. Makes me think I'm smoking or something." He forged on, feeling cold and vulnerable, and after a few moments, he wondered if he would ever speak with another living soul again. "Man, I wish I could open a comlink. It's this not knowing that's driving me nuts."
Ahead lay a white slope freckled with small outcroppings. Movement at the slope's base drew Cooper's attention, and he spotted his rucksack. The pack's minichute, which was supposed to automatically detach on impact, had remained on the sack and now, catching the wind, it seemingly waved Cooper over. Equipment problems were the last thing he had expected, and he assumed the others had shared that thought. Thankfully, the rucksack was so heavy that the chute had not been able to drag it anywhere, otherwise Cooper might have been chasing it across the ice. That would have been a perfect video to send to the brass: our professional soldiers in action, fitted with the finest equipment money can buy—when they can get their hands on it.
After holstering his pistol, Cooper dropped to his knees before the sack and unclipped the chute. He slid his M-590 rifle from the pack's attached pouch and slapped a clip home. With a groan, he slipped on the sack, then consulted his compass. The DZ lay about a klick away. He trudged off, alternating his gaze between the course ahead and the platinum-colored sky. He guessed that Chig fighters were on patrol, so he wouldn't stray far from cover.
* * *
As Cooper ascended the slope, he began to hear the others' voices.
"I don't know where the hell he is. No signal from his PLB. Then again, it could be getting cut off by the solar disturbances or the chemical McQueen told us about," Damphousse said.
"You have to find him," Shane said.
"I don't know how you expect me to do that."
"Well, we're not leaving him," Wang said.
Reaching the crest of the slope, Cooper looked down on an uneven sheet of dark volcanic rock dappled here and there with snow. Wang, Damphousse, Shane, and Teddy were hunkered down in a loose circle, their helmets off, their hair being whipped by the wind. The absence of Nathan made the conversation immediately clear.
"Bulldog!" Cooper shouted to identify himself. "Chesty!" Shane called back.
Cooper hurried down the slope and fought for breath as he reached them. "What do we know about him? Did he land? We can't locate him, that it?"
"I ran an IRTS while descending, and I did pick up countermeasures in his last known trajectory," Shane said. "But that's all we know."
Cooper pointed at the slopes to his right. "So we go out and we look for him."
"Actually, Coop, if he's alive, he's over there," Damphousse said, moving his arm slightly to the right.
"He's alive," Cooper shot back. "He's one of those hard-to-kill Marines. I've seen him in a lot of furballs where I thought he was gonna buy it, and he always comes back. So what are we waitin' here for?"
"We didn't factor this into our window," Shane said. "But the hell with it. Let's find him. Coop, you, Wang, and 'Phousse fan out and take the northeast. Mister 404 and I will take northwest. Switch on your comlinks. If they work, they're nine-one-one limited. Don't let me hear skipchatter 'cause the Chiggies might hear it, too. And if you encounter the enemy, try to take 'em down quietly."
That wouldn't be a problem for Cooper. He had already run a black Op on Tigris, a sniper mission where he had silently dropped more than a dozen Chigs using only his K-bar. "Rendezvous back here?"
"Affirmative," Shane said, then eyed her watch phone. "In ninety mikes, 1950 hours."
Cooper, along with everyone else, prepared to synchronize his watch.
Shane gave the call. "Ready. Ready. Hack. Let's go." Assuming point, Cooper jogged between two snowbanks and led Wang and Damphousse on a winding course over what still wasn't good snowboarding terrain. Too many jagged outcroppings and not enough unfettered runways.
Damphousse's voice came through the tiny speaker in his ear. "Testing link."
"Copy, 'Phousse."
"Checking my line," Wang said.
"Got you, too, Wang," Cooper answered.
After about twenty mikes of continuous hiking, Cooper paused halfway up a particularly steep slope. His breath ragged, he fell back into the snow. Below him, Wang and Damphousse began to mount the hill, their boots sinking to just above the ankles. "I didn't bother reading the charts, Paul," Cooper called down. "Is there like day and night here, or what? Because time's passing and the sky looks the same to me."
Wang reached Cooper, then headed for the peak. "We're in the northern hemisphere, and this planet is tilted so far on its axis that despite its rotation, this region is permanently illuminated. Were we back on ship, I'd take you up to navigation, where they'd illustrate it for you. They've got outstanding graphics capability up there."
"No, I wouldn't wanna go," Cooper told him. "I get it. We're stuck between twilight and night."
"Don't think of it as stuck," Damphousse said, reaching Cooper, then sitting next to him. "This is my favorite time of day. It's quiet. Peaceful. People are glad to be finished with work. It's time to relax."
"No it isn't," Wang said, peering furtively over the top of the slope. "Get up here and take a look."
seven
Shane covered her nose with a gloved hand and swore over the fact that she hadn't taken her helmet. But being deep within enemy territory and on a planet with a breathable atmosphere dictated that you removed the helmet, restored a good part of your peripheral vision, and engaged the rest of your natural senses instead of relying upon the less-sensitive artificial ones produced by the environment suit. If she came within twenty feet of a Chig, she would smell it. With the helmet on, she'd probably have to be closer. So the trade-off was an icicle for a nose and hard apples for cheeks. She would use her environment suit's warmer only as a last resort since the lightweight battery's time was limited to about a standard day of constant use. Zero degrees Celsius was considered warm for experienced off-worlders and certainly warm for Marines. But Shane's San Diego blood would
argue with that.
She did, however, have a lot more than the cold weather to feel bleak about. Thirty mikes of constant searching had proven futile. Stretched out in front of her was a sea of white, dotted here and there with black or brown, its waves locked eternally in place. The image gave her the feeling that she was nothing and that it was everything. If she entered, she could not return; the landscape would possess her. She came to a stop on the crest of a hill, slid off her rucksack, and sat upon it. "Any luck picking up his PLB now?" she asked the silicate, whose face glowed blue from the palm-sized Global Positioning System he lifted to his gaze.
"Negative. I even switched channels to see if we could pick up his rucksack. Nothing there either, Captain."
"Can you pickup the PLBs of the rest of the squadron?"
"I'm reading Lieutenant Wang. Lieutenants Hawkes and Damphousse are not appearing on my screen. Solar activity could be responsible for that."
"What's Wang's twenty?"
"One-point-three-five klicks southeast, grid coordinate—"
"Forget that. He's far enough away."
"Sir?"
Shane lifted her M-590 rifle and aimed it at the silicate. "I've been thinking that we should have a little talk."
The A.I. backed a step away from her, looking cold and fearful. The living tissue covering his polymeric skeleton created a perfect illusion. "Is this why you decided I was not allowed to carry a weapon? To make it easier for you to shoot me?"
Shane stared darkly at the silicate. "What's your story?"
"My story?" The A.I.'s eyes grew wide, revealing more of his crosshairs. "You mean my assembly history?"
"You do a rather nice interpretation of fear, but you don't feel a thing." Shane rose and took a step forward, keeping her rifle trained on the A.I. "You don't think a thing. You were programmed." She took aim at a point between the silicate's eyes. "Now, what the hell are you doing on this mission?"
He lifted his palms in surrender. "I'm a demolitions expert. I've been programmed with as many specs on the alien aqueduct as long-range intelligence could gather. I am able to compute within seconds thousands of separate scenarios on how to destroy the duct, utilizing the ordnance I carry. My job is to assist members of the fifty-eighth squadron in eliminating said target."
"Not good enough," Shane said, then she took another step forward and let the muzzle of her rifle touch the silicate's forehead. "Do you have orders from Aerotech? Classified orders?"
"No, I don't. After reprogramming, I was shipped to the Francis R. Scobbe launch center, Corpus Christi, Texas. There, I boarded an MHLV for transport to Goddard. From Goddard—"
"Why would the Marine Corps request the presence of a silicate on a highly classified mission?"
The silicate frowned. "I know you don't think I feel, but that gun on my head hurts. The metal's cold, and my skin may stick to it."
Shane gritted her teeth. "Answer the question!"
"I don't have an answer. The Marine Corps has told me as much as they've told you."
"Do you have it within your capacity to lie?"
"It is possible to be programmed to lie."
"Are you lying to me now?"
"Captain Vansen, we can talk about this forever. There is no way for you to know if I'm lying. But rest assured, I will prove my loyalty to the unit."
"Are you working for the JAG office?"
Slowly, the silicate brought his hand up and touched the barrel of Shane's weapon. "I'll answer that if you'll please remove your rifle from my head."
She complied, but kept her aim true and could still easily punch a lethal hole in him. "Start talking."
Rubbing the red circle between his eyes, the A.I. said, "I am not working for the Judge Advocate General's office. I'm not sure why you ask me that question."
"I guess you're right. This is a waste of time. I might as well shoot you," Shane said, then locked and loaded the M-590. "Accidents happen. Friendly fire, et cetera, et cetera."
"You can't shoot me. You need me," the A.I. said.
"Give me one good reason why," she retorted.
"The proper placement of charges on the aqueduct is crucial to destroying it."
Shane snorted. "We can figure that out."
"The structure is reinforced at nineteen separate points, and high orbit IR scans indicate that as many as ten more exist within the duct. Without me, you don't know the points and may only damage it."
"Or we may destroy it."
"Based on the intelligence we gather together, I can compute for optimum destruction based on the design, and I can do that quickly. I've been programmed to. And may I remind you of something you said?" Abruptly, Shane heard her own voice emitted from the silicate's hidden speaker. "Sir, I don't want to sound pessimistic, but how the hell are we supposed to pull this one off? The terrain's hostile, we've never run a demolition operation this large, and we're supposed to steal our own getaway car." The A.I. pursed his lips and stared at her, a somewhat somber expression on his face. "I was in the corridor when I recorded that. Sorry. I'm just here to help."
The silicate gave new meaning to the phrase throwing words back in your face. Shane stood there, staring at the A.I., trying to read past his expression. But she couldn't because she knew that behind that expression were wires and plastic and metal and processing chips. Not truth. Did the silicate have a point? Did they really need him to blow the duct? Could she force him to turn over the data? Probably not, since that was the only thing preserving the A.I.'s "life." She hemmed. "All right, mister. You seem to pride yourself on being as human as possible. Let's say you're me. In command of this Op. You've got a squad member you've been forced to serve with, a squad member you don't know if you'll ever trust. How do you turn your back on that person?"
"I guess you don't."
"Good answer. And here's a piece of advice. Don't try to blend. You never will. Just remember, we're here to do a job. Stow the pleasantries because blowing you away is like taking a breath for me. I'm gonna risk my life and the lives of the others and believe what you're telling me is true. For now. Only because that's what the Corps is telling me to believe."
He palmed some snow out of his blond crew cut, then explained, "Captain Vansen, your mental stability and the stability of the others is important for the mission. I have only been trying to create a noncombative atmosphere."
"I almost wish you were more like the other A.I.s. Weird, funky, with a sense of black humor. You're too calm, too cool. And you sound a little mechanized."
"I can also be upset. Now that you have criticized me at length, may I say that it has been wholly selfish of you to waste time testing your paranoia on me while a Marine you are responsible for might lie out there dying."
Enraged, Shane lifted her leg and planted the sole of her boot squarely on the silicate's abdomen, knocking him onto his back and sending him rolling down the hill in a cloud of snow. At the bottom, he quickly sat up, whisked himself clean, then stood. "I was out of line, Captain. I apologize."
Shane had a hard time accepting anything from the silicate, especially an apology. But it was interesting to clobber someone and then have that person immediately apologize to you. "We're heading back. You got point."
"Of course."
Just then Shane detected a faint hum, which grew steadily louder. "Get down!"
She hit the deck, praying the aliens would buzz by and not see them. Their white environment suits and packs would help, but if the Chigs were running thermal scans, no amount of camouflage would hide them. They tended not to do that, since thermal scans cost their ships a heck of a lot of power.
After digging a little hole so that her face wouldn't touch the snow, Shane breathed into it, warming her cheeks. The hum grew louder, and then the tone shifted as the fighters streaked overhead. Slowly, she lifted her head and looked to the sky. A trio of attack planes flew in triangular formation and were headed southeast, in the direction of the others. "SB One to Silver Bullets, copy? Enemy aircr
aft in your ballpark. ETA: half a mike."
eight
Nathan couldn't move his legs. His neck felt so stiff that he feared lifting his head, so he left it hanging forward. A stinging, wind-whipped mist of snow repeatedly struck his face. His arms were outstretched as if he were being crucified, and his left hand lay gloveless, bare, and numb. He hadn't dared open his eyes. Not yet. He felt incredibly exhausted, and his mouth still tasted of something old and rotten. He fell asleep.
The wind again. Like a friend. But an enemy when it caught the snowdrifts just right. He couldn't feel his nose anymore, and somehow that made him feel warmer. Another sound. A ship. Its sails flapping, its great wooden bow rising and falling with the waves. Still another sound, a voice harsh and familiar, "WHAT IN THE NAME OF MY BELOVED CORPS ARE YOU DOING LYING ON YOUR ASS, LIEUTENANT?"
"Sir, I don't know, sir. I think I'm hurt, sir."
Then he saw a horrible sight: Sergeant Major Bougus's permanent scowl, aided by the thin slits of leathery skin that hid the NCO's eyes. And Nathan saw himself, lying on his back below the man as if Bougus had just knocked him out. A great, snow-covered plain encompassed them.
The sergeant major circled behind Nathan, then leaned over, his face upside down. He began softly, "You can tell Uncle Franky all about your little hurts when you invite him for a milk shake at the officer's club. But for now, ON YOUR FEET, MARINE!"
"Sir. I'm messed up pretty bad, sir."
Bougus's eyes grew terrifyingly wide, "OH MY GOD, BOY. WHAT'S THE MATTER? YOU GOT A DIAPER RASH? CORPS-MAN! CORPSMAN! OFFICER DOWN! OFFICER DOWN!"
"Sir, I can't move my legs, sir."
"That's 'cause you ain't mustered the will to. You have lost your esprit de corps. You have forgotten who your family is. You have abandoned your mission and become selfish. You are not squared away. You are a lazy maggot and a disgrace."
