That, Reza told himself, we are not. This would be their best jump, he thought, and his blood began to sing at the devastation – simulated though it might be – they would inflict on their enemies waiting below. His comrades, while lacking many of the benefits of a martial upbringing such as his own, nonetheless would prove worthy opponents for Her Children when the time came. For a species intellectually dedicated to the pursuit of peace, humans were finely adapted for the art of making war.
The altitude display on his visor continued to unwind toward zero as they approached their target, the miniature field generators of the suits deflecting the friction heat of the upper atmosphere as they plummeted downward. With a little more than eighty kilometers of altitude to cover, and a slant range to the drop zone of about one hundred and fifty, they only had a few minutes of flight remaining.
High above, the drop ships were returning to the carrier to bring down the next battalion that was scheduled to jump. Only the group coordinator’s fighter remained with them, its rakish hull barely visible to Reza’s naked eye.
He clicked down to the platoon’s common net, listening for any idle chatter. There was none. There were only a few clipped words as people maneuvered to keep position, informing their neighbors they were moving, and where to, with their actions echoed in their helmet data displays.
Reza smiled. It was going very well. Their training was paying–
The thought was torn from his mind, as he suddenly felt crushed within his suit and a shrieking roar filled his skull. The planet rushing up at him suddenly began whirling, faster and faster, until it was nothing more than a kaleidoscope of color that alternated with the black of space and the shining stars. He heard voices calling to him on the comm link, but he could not make out the words over the roar of what he realized must be his suit’s maneuvering jets. Worse, he himself was unable to speak, the air crushed out of his lungs by the induced g-forces as he spun out of control. His arms and legs felt like they were about to rip out of their sockets as he spun around and around, faster and faster, and his vision began to narrow to a tiny tunnel, then vanished into a gray mist.
In only a few seconds, Reza blacked out.
“Reza!” Eustus cried as he watched his friend’s suit spin crazily out of control, one of its thrusters firing like a roman candle. He desperately clicked over to the emergency frequency, biting on the control so savagely he caught his tongue. A sudden taste of salty copper filled his mouth. “Mayday! Mayday!” he shouted. “This is First Platoon. Reza’s suit looks like it’s had a malfunction. He’s heading down and out of control!”
“I’ve got a lock on him, First Platoon,” Jodi’s controlled voice came back. “Moving to intercept.”
“Negative,” Thorella’s voice interjected coldly. “I’ve got over five hundred other people out here to watch over, and this ship isn’t capable of making a pickup. We don’t have suits on.”
“Then what the hell–”
Another voice, accented by his native Tagalog, broke into the conversation. “Camden, designate someone to take over your platoon and break formation forward of your group,” Sergeant Major Aquino ordered tersely. “Pilot, rendezvous with Camden as quickly as possible.”
“Roger,” she said thankfully. Fuck you, Thorella, she thought.
In about fifteen seconds she had Eustus in sight. “Now what?” she asked.
“Camden,” the sergeant major said, ignoring her, “what I have in mind is going to take some guts. Can you handle it?”
“We’re wasting time, sar-major,” Eustus replied quickly. “Let’s have it.”
Aquino nodded to himself. The boy had dedication. And a set of brass balls. “Behind the cockpit is a recess that you should be able to squeeze yourself into. It is outside the fighter’s gravity control system, so you will have to hold up to the gee’s we pull. Understood?”
“On my way.” Eustus was already jetting toward them. In a few seconds, Jodi heard him clambering over the hull behind them. “I’m here, sar-major. Let’s go.”
“Find Gard, Lieutenant Mackenzie,” Aquino ordered before he told Eustus the rest of what he planned. He did not tell either of them that his interest in Reza was far more than academic. He was an old friend and confidant of one Admiral Zhukovski, who had provided Aquino with information that someone within the cadre was going to try and kill Reza. Where he had gotten such information, he would never say. However, Aquino was almost sure it was Thorella, although there was certainly no shortage of other likely candidates. But he had no evidence. Yet.
Jodi rammed the throttles forward, momentarily forgetting that Eustus had no protection. “Shit,” she hissed to herself as Eustus yelped, and she dropped the thrust back to something she thought he might be able to handle. “Sorry, Eustus,” she said. “You still with us?”
“Barely,” he breathed, his fists clenching even harder to the recessed handholds. Had it not been for the augmented strength the suit gave to his own body, he would have been left behind the leaping fighter. That was close, he sighed to himself.
Scanning her instruments, Jodi picked out Reza’s tumbling form. “Reza,” she said over the comm link, “do you read me? We’re coming to get you. Hang on.”
Not surprisingly, he didn’t answer. Jodi bit her lip, wondering if he was even still alive. As puny as the thrusters were on those suits, they were still plenty powerful. At least it had finally burned itself out of fuel, she thought bitterly, wondering how such a thing could happen. The armored space suits the Marines used were probably the safest pieces of military hardware next to the common rock. While a thruster lighting off like that was not impossible, it was sure damn unlikely.
Behind her, Captain Markus Thorella sat silently.
The short time it took to close on Reza’s spinning form passed like hours, and their time was quickly running out. “Altitude, ten kilometers,” her ship’s computer reported in Nicole’s voice.
“I know, goddammit,” she hissed, trying to keep the fighter stable in the increasing buffeting from the atmosphere. She followed the little blip on her head-up display like a bloodhound, but she could not yet see Reza visually, and she could not go much faster for fear of losing Eustus. “C’mon, Reza,” she whispered to herself “Where the hell are you?”
There! A tiny speck became visible right off the fighter’s nose, tumbling against the backdrop of the rapidly approaching ground as Jodi dove straight down toward the planet surface.
“Got him in sight,” she said, easing the throttles forward a little more, but not too much: if she was going too fast when she reached him, her ship would overshoot, and there would not be time for a second pass before Reza hit the ground. “Stand by, Eustus.”
“Any time,” Eustus breathed. He was getting sick from being bounced around while hanging onto the fighter’s back like a parasitic insect, and his hands were beginning to cramp from holding on for dear life to the thin bar aft of the cockpit, even with the suit augmentation.
“Altitude, five thousand meters,” the computer warned. “Warning… warning,” it went on as a steady warbling tone sounded in Jodi’s headset. If she did not pull out soon, she never would.
Steady, now, she breathed to herself as she crept up on Reza’s windmilling form. Now!
“Go, Eustus!” she shouted.
Without hesitation, Eustus flung himself into the air stream screaming around the fighter, trusting that his suit’s screens would keep him from being smashed into jelly against the ship’s hull. At the same time, Jodi separated away in the opposite direction, leaving him tumbling in her wake.