Rulaine almost grinned. “Same strategy applies for the next pair: me and Wu. Trent, you bring up the rear; you’re big enough to need that whole damned hatchway for yourself.”
“Mom always said I was larger than life.”
“And she was right. So: the exit. It’s going to be too fast, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We don’t have sufficiently reliable flight control to slow, make the drop zone, and then get the ship clear for some hope of a safe landing. We can do any two of those things, but not all three.”
Peter Wu rubbed his hands together very slowly. “So just how fast are we going to exit?”
“Probably about three hundred seventy kilometers per hour.”
Trent looked at his own and then everyone else’s armor and double load of ammo. “We’re pretty heavy for that fast an exit. Hope the lines and straps all hold when the chutes deploy.”
Rulaine nodded. “That’s the worry. You’ve got to work to reduce your airspeed as much as possible before you pull the cord. How many times have you jumped from this altitude before?”
Tygg and O’Garran held up three fingers, Trent one. Wu just sat, stared, and commented, “And as I understand it, we’re jumping into a jungle?”
“More like scattered woods. There’ll be places to put down, and these HALO rigs have maneuver packs. And don’t forget the attitude control rockets we scavenged from the emergency reentry kits. You’ve got a lot of resources for correcting your landing point.”
“We may need those same resource just to hit the LZ,” Tygg pointed out. “Since Karam can’t take a chance banking and spending thrust, we won’t be following up along the river, but flying across it at a right angle. That, plus our speed, is going to make it difficult to come down close enough to each other and close enough to the bad guys to get in the fight effectively. Or at all.”
Rulaine nodded. “Which we’ve gone over plenty of times. So remember: keep an eye on everyone else and the key terrain features of the drop zone.” Which we could use about now, Karam. “If you don’t land within a few klicks of that site, you won’t be able to—”
The intercom crackled before Karam’s voice blared out of it. “Major, guys, listen up: you are at the two-minute mark.”
“My chrono is running.” Rulaine motioned for the others to rise. For sake of irony, he added. “Flight Officer, I’m waiting for a visual in my HUD, marked with a drop-zone guidon.”
“Sure, and I’ll make sure tac-air is standing by, thirty seconds out, along with a squadron of winged unicorns. Now that we’ve got those delusions behind us, here’s what I can give you: when you straighten out from your exit, you want to look for the river. Once you’ve sighted that, look for a silted-up tributary that winds into the river from the west. The opposition just put down a little upstream, or south, of that position. If you can’t see the old streambed right away, look north for a downriver section where rocky ridges start to hem in the river. Track back upriver five clicks from there and you’ll see the dried-up tributary. It’s the only contiguous clear path in the foliage other than the river itself.”
“Thanks, Karam. Just count down—”
“I’m not done. I didn’t want to have to do this, but I’m going to dip the thrusters to near zero right before you jump. That means I have to engage sprint mode about fifteen seconds after you clear the hull.”
“Gotta make up for the lost altitude and speed?”
“Afraid so, Major. You’ll be clear of the thruster wash, but everyone on the ground is going to know something just passed overhead. Sorry, but if I don’t hit that juice—”
“Then you go nose first into the turf and vaporize: I get it.” Sprint mode, the equivalent of afterburners on amphetamines, was the desperate move that they’d been trying to avoid. Not only would it attract unwanted attention, but it dramatically increased the chances of the power plant or cooling system burning out. And because it was unsafe to maneuver the corvette at all with the hull damage, Karam had been unable to use a tight serpentine deorbit to shed velocity, which also could have increased Puller’s nonexistent loiter time over the drop zone. In short, it would require extreme precision to both avoid scattering the five jumping grunts across the landscape and to prevent the ship from coming apart.
Rulaine motioned for Tygg and O’Garran to stand in front of the hatch. “Lanyards,” he ordered. They all secured themselves to mooring points on the interior of the airlock. “You detach when you go. Karam, how are we doing on time?”
“We’re fresh out, Major. Counting down from eleven, ten, nine—”
“Hatch open, Flight Officer.”
The aft airlock’s outer hatch, an iris valve, cycled open. The howling roar of the air and the scalloping in-draft staggered them. Between the twin plumes of air-shimmer trailed by Puller’s super-heated thruster bells, they spied dense vegetation, clouds, and flat, drifting sheets of airborne spores.
“—four, three—”
“First pair: detach.”
“—one, and mark!”
“Go!”
And so they did.
* * *
Jesel waved his arm in a circle. Suzruzh and Pehthrum detached from their squads, joined him behind a low rise formed by several fallen trunks, most of which were markedly different from those of the more common trees shaped like cones and umbrellas. “Any contacts reported?”
His two lieutenants shook their heads. “Visibility worsens fifty meters ahead. The scouts did not probe too far into the forested thickets, there,” Suzruzh explained. “As per your orders.”
“How much further to that old streambed, beyond?”
Pehthrum checked the extremely basic Aboriginal data monocle that was furnished with each Jufeng battle rifle. “Another two hundred meters, Jesel.”
Suzruzh shrugged. “We must expect that they will make their primary defense from the other side of that open terrain.”
“Yes,” Jesel agreed, “but they may site snipers in the thickets we must traverse before arriving there.”
“If they have persons trained in combat,” Suzruzh amended, “that could slow us further, inflict a few casualties. But they cannot stand long before our numbers. I predict they would inflict a casualty or two and flee. Back across the former riverbed.”
Jesel nodded. “I concur. Now, what of the scout you sent to examine the launch site of the enemy missiles?”
“He returned, reported that the area seemed to be under enemy observation, or possibly, that it was a habitation for arboreal creatures. He could not determine which.”
Pehthrum shrugged. “That is because the Slaasriithi hardly seem different from half of the animals we have glimpsed swinging between the trees: same basic size and shape, same biothermals.”
Suzruzh nodded. “The scout did report finding four stationary launcher stands in the small clearing. He describes their manufacture as being unfamiliar, very possibly Slaasriithi.”
“Which makes sense,” Jesel concluded. “It is extremely unlikely that such missiles were sent along with this group of mewling Aboriginal diplomats.” He rose. “We have no need to change our strategy, simply to accelerate it. I will, however, not bring my triads along right behind yours, Suzruzh. I shall be offset inland, to your rear left flank.”
“You are thinking of sweeping around their probable center by going through that remote launch zone?”
“I wish to be in the position to exploit such an opportunity, but also to follow in behind you. Pehthrum, you shall move swiftly along the river until you make contact. If you believe you have the possibility of breaking through quickly, use everything at your disposal to do so. Suzruzh, when you hear gunfire or Aboriginal screaming from the riverbank, probe your front briskly.”