“Move it, people!” the Sergeant was shouting. The barracks began to fill with the sound of lockers banging open and shut. “On your feet, on the grinder, full kit, combat loadout. Five minutes. We’re burning time, people.”
Will unlocked and raised the base of his bunk. His uniform lay inside. He snapped it on quickly, then pulled on his socks and boots. On impulse, he stuffed an extra pair of clean, dry socks into his outermost pocket. A visible bulge like that would never pass inspection, but Will didn’t think he needed to worry about passing inspection right now.
He closed his locker and left the bunkroom. Once out in the corridor, he joined a stream of other soldiers heading down the passageway to the left, where the armory door stood open. The tight press of so many individuals all heading in the same direction with single-minded intent reminded him of a raft of migratory eels running upstream at spawning time. Eels died when they reached the spawning-beds… maybe that wasn’t such a good thing to be thinking about right now, after all.
Inside the armory, the Gauss rifles waited in their racks.
“Elliot, William A.,” Will said to the armorer as he came up. “Four-nine-one-zero-seven.”
“Here’s your weapon, Elliot,” the armorer said. “Down the passage, draw your charge and your spares.”
“Don’t you want me to sign—”
“No, move it. Next! Pick it up, people!”
Will took his Gauss rifle and held it at trail arms as he walked quickly down the passageway. He didn’t know yet what was happening, but he had a feeling it was serious. This was the first time he hadn’t been required first to sign for his rifle and then inspect it under the armorer’s gaze.
Ahead of him, boxes stacked on one side of the corridor were filled with the metal slugs fired by the infantry’s Thunderstroke Gauss rifles. A Sergeant stood by the open crates.
“Pick up your load. Keep moving,” the Sergeant said.
Will grabbed up the slugs and power packs and stuffed them into the pockets of his battle fatigues. He was halfway down the steps to the parade ground before he realized that he’d automatically stowed the material in the standard pockets and the standard configurations that had been drilled into him in boot camp. Now he understood the reason for that drill, and for how it had been reinforced at the time by the voices of Sergeants in his ears and by the push-ups meted out for the smallest deviation from the standard.
He was trotting, no hint of weariness now, despite the hour. Even in boot camp, everyone had known that sooner or later there was going to be trouble—where from, though, was another question, and one that recruits weren’t expected to have an answer to.
Probably because nobody else had an answer, either, Will thought as he found his place on the paved strip where the scout/sniper platoon mustered. But it looked like they were going to get one now.
Jock Gordon was already there on the strip, a big man standing easy. He was the youngest son from a farm family in the grain and dairy country to the northeast, and had joined the Regiment because he’d grown bored with working on land that was already divided up among his three older brothers.
Will took position beside Jock. A moment later Lexa McIntosh fell in beside them.
“What’s the word?” Lexa asked. She was a hell-raiser from the Kearny outback, gypsy-dark and barely tall enough to make the recruiters’ minimum, but a dead shot with any weapon she could lift high enough to aim. As one of the unit’s expert marksmen, she carried a Starfire ER laser rifle instead of a Thunderstroke Gauss.
“You know as much as I do,” Jock said back. “One minute there I am, dreaming of home and the love of a good woman—”
“And I’m not good enough? I like that, I do.”
“—a good woman who won’t come after me with a combat knife the first time she thinks I’m looking at someone else, and the next moment I’m out the door with a pack on my back and a rifle in my hand.”
Their questions were answered a moment later. A Sergeant climbed to the top of a truck and shouted, “Company, ten-SHUN!”
Instantly, the Highlanders stopped talking and snapped to attention.
“Listen up,” the Sergeant said. “Here’s what I know. About two hours ago the Steel Wolves brought their DropShips into the Northwind system. Now, maybe the Wolves came here to drink tea and have a friendly chat, but if they didn’t, then we’re going to kick their sorry asses off our planet. By squads, mount up. We’re moving out.”
He pointed to the truck at the head of the column behind him. “First company, Platoon A, squads one, two, and three get in truck one. Make sure your safeties are on. Go, go, go.”
He continued down the list, naming the squads and packing them into the trucks. As each truck filled, it pulled away and started down the road.
“And to think that I joined up because the judge said ‘Three years with the Regiment, girl, or four in jail,’” Lexa said. “If I’d had any sense, I’d have told him, ‘jail,’ and still be asleep in my bed tonight.”
“If the Steel Wolves are coming, jail won’t be any safer,” Will replied. “At least this way you’ll get to fight back.”
Then their unit was called: “Scout/snipers, Unit Four, mount up. Move it, people. We don’t have all day.”
“Nor all night, either,” Jock Gordon said as he swung himself over the side of the truck, the last of their platoon to climb aboard. His words were covered by the sound of heavy engines moving from an idle to a roaring full power. The truck lurched, and they were on their way.
Will looked at his watch. Less than a quarter hour ago, he’d been asleep. Now he was on his way to war.
25
The Fort
City of Tara, Northwind
June, 3133; local summer
“The DropShips are down.”
Tara Campbell knew that she must have slept at least occasionally during the almost two weeks it had taken for the Steel Wolves to make it from the jump point to Northwind’s planetary surface. She wasn’t wearing the tartan bedroom slippers anymore, for one thing, although she couldn’t remember either going back to her quarters or changing uniforms. What rest she’d gotten, however, hadn’t come often enough or lasted long enough to keep the weariness out of her voice.
She didn’t even want to contemplate what she looked like. Michael Griffin and Ezekiel Crow hadn’t gotten any more sleep than she had, and in the dim light of the Combat Information Center—illuminated at the moment only by a map display showing the entire continent of New Lanark—both men appeared drawn and haggard. The pale light made the circles under their eyes seem even deeper.
“It was bound to come to this eventually,” Crow said. “The Senate and the Exarch knew it. Their only questions were who would attack and when—and whether Northwind could stand against the assault.”
“They’ll find out soon enough what the Highlanders are made of,” Tara told him.
“Flesh and blood,” Colonel Griffin said. He was pacing again, his hands clasped behind his back. “Entirely too much of which will have to be spilled, no matter what happens.”
“Do we know yet if it’s Radick who’s brought the Wolves to this party?” Crow asked.
“They’ve been canny with their message traffic,” Griffin said. “What little chatter we’ve managed to intercept doesn’t refer to the Galaxy Commander by name, only by rank.”
Tara shook her head. “That’s not like Kal Radick. He likes his Bloodname too much to keep quiet about it.”
“How sure are you of that?” Griffin asked.