In front of his eyes, his helmet, the power to it now enabled, glowed in a panorama of virtual reality, displaying his environment in a user-selected palette of shades and colors that rendered the differences between dark and light, rain and smoke, completely immaterial. While the virtual reality systems, tied into sophisticated suit sensors and able to receive external inputs from other suits or vehicles – even ships – did not have limitless range in a tactical environment, they gave the human soldier a distinct edge against a Kreelan opponent. When the suits were available.
But even that technology, Reza added silently and with a note of personal pride, was not equal in battle to a Kreelan warrior priestess… or priest.
He examined the projected drop zone again, just to confirm that what he held in his memory was perfect, for when they reached Quantico’s surface they probably would not have the advantages of the space armor indefinitely, and he refused to rely on the computerized battlefield intelligence systems. The general plan was to make the initial landing and assault, and then hold a critique of the operation, while armorers prepared the suits for the next class cycling through. From there on in, the trainees would fight their mock battles with the kind of basic armor that Jodi had used on Rutan, and which was the mainstay of Marine personal armor everywhere.
“This should be a lot easier than the last one,” Eustus commented, tapping into Reza’s view of the terrain. The drop zone was in an area of rolling hills, dotted with tree groves and covered with knee-high scrub, and promised few landing injuries, although it left little in the way of cover for the attackers. “Landing in that rocky stuff last time really stunk.”
Reza nodded grimly. There had been fourteen injuries, two of them serious, in their previous landing in the training area’s desert zone, a wasteland of sharp, irregular granite rock formations that had been a literal hell to jump into and then fight out of. Reza’s battalion had lost nearly two-thirds of its strength – on paper – by the time the administrative critique was given. It had not been a glowing one.
In only a few more minutes, the appointed time had arrived. “Prepare for drop,” Nicole announced from the flight deck. An illuminated bar that ran the length of the cargo compartment suddenly turned red. “Two minutes.”
Unlike many ships and atmospheric craft, Marine dropships had no designated jump- or loadmaster. That was the responsibility of the senior man in the jump group. There was simply too little room aboard to spare.
“Stand up!” Reza bellowed as he moved aft toward the jump doors that had now cycled open. Beyond the eerie blue sheen of the force fields that kept the air in the compartment from exploding into the vacuum beyond, Reza could see the cloud-shrouded outline of the target continent. A blinking red cursor in his helmet visor informed him of the drop zone’s exact location in the middle of an enormous expanse of green vegetation.
The men and women of his group unharnessed themselves and checked over their equipment and themselves one last time. Once they had stepped through either of the two doors at the rear of the compartment, they would not get another chance before they hit the ground. And mistakes made now could make that one long, hard step.
“Sound off!” Reza barked.
“First squad, ready!”
“Second squad, ready!”
“Third squad, ready!”
“Heavy weapons, ready!”
Eustus nodded inside his helmet, the movement invisible to anyone outside. “That’s it then,” he said.
“Reza,” he heard Nicole’s voice one more time on the platoon command channel, “thirty seconds…” She paused. “And please, mon ami,” she said quietly, “be careful.”
“Roger,” he replied. “And I will.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Eustus’s lighthearted voice broke in. “I’ll keep his butt out of trouble.”
The flight status strip above their heads turned from a mournful red to a brilliant green.
“Go!”
In twos, the Marine trainees shuffled out the doors and fell into the infinite void of space.
“There they go,” murmured Jodi as she saw dozens of new blips appear on her sensors. Normally, the countermeasures devices on all the ships and the suits themselves would be active, trying to erase their signature from any electronic or thermal detectors. But even here at Quantico, some small compromise was made for safety. Each suit had a beacon built into it to make finding the trainees easy. The only combat jump Jodi had ever made was when she ejected over Rutan, and that had been enough. “Bon voyage, guys.”
“Cut the chatter, pilot,” Thorella snapped from the seat behind her. “Come to course three three two mark eight seven and reduce your throttle to station-keeping. I want to stay close to them during descent.”
“Sure thing, Markus,” she replied casually. While he was the acting group coordinator, he did not outrank her. She was senior to him in time in grade, and it amused her to goad him by addressing him on a first name basis.
Sergeant Major Aquino remained silent.
Reza maneuvered slightly to his left to get a better view of his platoon’s dispersal. A series of four wedges representing each of the squads under his command was spread over a few kilometers now, with one squad ahead of him and the rest behind. Eustus, the platoon sergeant, was between the third and last – heavy weapons – squads. Behind and above his own silently falling formation, five hundred and twelve other figures in space armor floated and jetted about as they sought to reach their individual falling stations within the battalion’s designated thousand cubic kilometer maneuver zone.
For once, Reza was thankful for the computers that calculated where everyone should be on the way down. Exo-atmospheric drops were always a challenge in geometry: extra distance between individuals and units was better when they were still high up, to keep losses to a minimum in case the enemy brought any heavy weapons to bear on them. But later, as they entered the atmosphere – if there was one – and neared the ground, their formation needed to tighten up considerably if they were to maintain vital unit integrity. A combat unit that landed together and intact could fight. One that did not was nothing more than meat waiting for the Kreelans’ swords.