“Sir, yes, sir!”
“Good. Training will commence at 1400 hours. Acting platoon leader Findlay will be in charge. Dismissed.”
Raynor looked left, saw his friend scowl, and grinned. Tychus might not be much of a strategist, but he was a natural leader, and the perfect person to lead the raid on KIC-36. Even if he was going to bitch about the responsibility twenty-five hours a day! The next couple of weeks would be interesting.
Tychus stood up and eyed the faces around him. “So what are you people waiting for? An engraved invitation? Get your butts in gear… . We have work to do.” Preparations had begun.
Camp Crash, as it soon came to be known, was located about ten miles southwest of Fort Howe. It consisted of two hills, with an old gravel pit centered between them, and a couple of ramshackle buildings off to one side. And, because the STM platoon had been given its own dropship to train with, they could travel to and from Camp Crash in a matter of minutes.
As training day three dawned, and the platoon prepared to board the Sweetie Pie, Tychus gave them his version of a pep talk. “You people are pathetic,” he began. “The plan is to jump out of the dropship and land on your feet, not your heads! Control is the key… . So quit screwing around.”
They had heard it all before. Control was the key. But how to accomplish it? Piloting the Thunderstrike armor during carefully monitored training exercises was one thing, but controlling it under combat conditions was something else, and only a third of the platoon’s thirty-five soldiers were any good at it.
Unfortunately Raynor wasn’t one of them, and as he boarded the Sweetie Pie it felt as though ball bearings were rolling around in the pit of his stomach. He was among those who had crashed the day before, which forced Feek to stay up all night repairing Raynor’s CMC-230-XE.
The truth was that “flying” one of the hardskins took as much skill as piloting an Avenger. So how many 230-XEs could the Confederacy realistically put into service? Not very damned many, not in Raynor’s opinion anyway, because it would be too expensive and time consuming.
The dropship took off and began to climb. Raynor was nervous, but Tychus was there to comfort him. “Try not to embarrass me again,” the noncom said, as he stopped in front of Raynor. “You looked ridiculous yesterday. If you’re determined to kill yourself,” he growled, “the least you could do is wait for the actual mission, and dive headfirst into a missile turret! Then I could put you in for a medal. Your parents would like that.” He produced a cheerless, fake smile, and was gone half a second later. Having spread his own special brand of joy, Tychus moved on to speak with the next team member.
A few minutes later the ship reached 8,000 feet, turned toward the southwest, and began the first run of what promised to be a long day. Both of the side doors and the specially rigged floor hatch were open, so the dropship’s slipstream was buffeting the soldier who was acting as jump master. Protected as he was by the CMC-230-XE, Raynor barely noticed the breeze as he lined up behind a private named Pauley. She was one of the “naturals,” a person with a natural affinity for Thunderstrike armor, and showed no signs of hesitation as she fell through the hatch and disappeared.
Raynor, who had been careful to skip breakfast, felt slightly nauseous as he took the final step into nothingness. He wanted to piss, his heart was thumping in his ears, and he was short of breath. He couldn’t see the target as the CMC-230 plunged toward the surface below. Not directly, because the only way to look down would be to bend at the waist, a move that would send him spinning out of control. But he could see the gravel pit via tiny cameras built into his boots.
His target was Hill Bravo, which was a quarter mile to the right, meaning it would be necessary to steer himself in that direction. A scary prospect, since things were going well so far, and any action he took could result in disaster.
But Raynor had no choice. Not if he was to land on target. An AGR-14 gauss rifle was clamped to his chest. That left him free to deploy his arms as well as the computer-controlled vanes that were built into them. Having done so, Raynor shifted his weight. The result was a satisfying turn to the right, followed by a tight spiral, which he was forced to correct.
Then, just when Raynor was beginning to feel that he had the hang of the process, an unexpected burst of wind sent him tumbling out of control! His boots flipped up where his head should have been, an alarm sounded inside his helmet, and everything except the suit’s readouts became a blur. Raynor was a bullet now, speeding toward the planet’s surface, where a very symmetrical crater was about to appear.
Had the jet pack fired yet? No, and a good thing too, because that would propel him toward the ground at an even higher rate of speed. Raynor knew he would have to use his arms and body to correct his orientation relative to the ground or end up buried in it. The key was to act slowly and deliberately, even though every fiber of his body wanted to hurry, knowing that the ground was coming up at 160 miles per hour.
So Raynor straightened his body, deployed his arms the way he’d been taught to, and felt his head flip up. The gravel pit reappeared on his HUD. Tychus, who had seemingly been born knowing how to use the new suits, witnessed the move via one of the tracking cameras on the dropship. His voice filled Raynor’s helmet. “This ain’t no game, jerk weed! Save the tricks for someone who cares. Over.”
Raynor grinned as the jet pack fired, the CMC-230-XE began to slow, and Hill Bravo grew larger below him. Tychus thought he was screwing around! Doing tricks when he was supposed to concentrate on training. “Sorry about that, Sierra-Six… . I got carried away. Over.”
***
In spite of Raynor’s reasonably successful jump, not everyone fared so well, and by the time the Sweetie Pie returned to Fort Howe, Doc had not only been forced to treat various broken bones but deal with a couple of fatalities as well. Feek took the deaths especially hard. After all, he was responsible for the way the CMCs were designed.
Plus the hardskins would have to be replaced from Feek’s quickly dwindling supply of spares, while other suits were going to require major repairs, and almost all of them had at least minor problems.
So when the dropship put down, and UNN reporter Max Speer went out to meet it, Tychus was already in a pissy mood. “Look over here!” Speer said, as he pointed at a hovering cam bot. “That’s right… . Give me that ‘I’m gonna kick some ass’ look.”
Only it was more than a look. Speer saw something huge fill his field of vision as he was hauled off his feet. Tychus threw the other man over an armored shoulder, and Speer was subjected to a jarring ride as the platoon leader carried him toward the command center located nearby. The camera followed them.
Sentries stared in open-mouthed amazement as Tychus brushed past them, ducked under the top of the doorway, and pounded up the stairs to the point where he was forced to duck again. Then he was in the waiting room on his way to the office beyond.
A lieutenant was sitting in Vanderspool’s guest chair, and she uttered a surprised shriek as an armored giant barged into the room and dumped what she assumed to be a dead body on the base commander’s desk. “I brought you a spy, sir,” Tychus rumbled, as Speer rolled onto his feet. “Look!” Tychus said as he plucked the cam bot out of the air. “The bastard has been taking pictures of us!”