I sure as heck won't let that happen again, he thought, and behind the thought was total warrior intention.
This time the selected platoons from A and B Companies were tabbed to go first. As 2nd Platoon shuffled to its carrier, Esau noticed the brisk breeze. When they'd arrived twenty minutes earlier, it hadn't been half as strong, he was sure. They'd been told in their first lecture that for safety reasons, War House had decreed that no training jumps be made in wind stronger than 18 knots. On New Jerusalem there were no anemometers, and he had no real sense of what an 18-knot wind felt like, but it seemed to him this might be stronger.
Still, he told himself, the Masadans knew what they were doing. Aboard the floater, he felt as calm as he had that morning when he'd boarded. But this time, he knew, there would be no water-kneed paralysis. Reaching, he squeezed Jael's hand in reassurance. Eight minutes later, the jump master ordered them to stand, and they went through the drill again, Esau grinning widely. He literally dove from the exit, and with his head-down attitude, the opening shock jerked him viciously.
He hardly noticed. The night was clear, quiet, dark-peaceful!-and seemed more beautiful than any he'd ever seen before. The sky glittered with stars. The wind began oscillating him like a pendulum, and he reached the ground on the upswing, softening the landing. Then the wind in his chute was dragging him briskly on his side, and he half-twisted onto his belly, powerful arms pulling in his front risers and suspension lines, spilling the air from his canopy.
He stopped. Jerking the safety clip on his harness, he hit the release sharply, gathered chute and harness into a great wad of fabric and cords, then strode toward the headlights of the bus coming to pick them up. He felt big enough, powerful enough, to eat the world.
The next day was Sevenday; for B Company, a pass Sevenday. They slept in till 0730 and there was no morning run. After breakfast, Speaker Spieler held a religious service for the trainees. An early lunch followed, then those who wanted to-Esau and Jael among them-rode trucks in to North Fork. Since week seven, when they'd become eligible for passes, they'd spent their free afternoons in a by-the-hour room at a small hotel. With so much night training, they hadn't been visiting the water heater room much.
When they'd spent themselves, they dressed again and went outside to walk, holding hands. Old wives' summer lay on the land. The air was still, the sun soft with autumn haze, and Riverfront Park was carpeted with fallen leaves.
"What was it like for you yesterday morning?" he asked. "Jumping and all."
"Not too bad," she said, "until I started toward the door. Then I felt really scared."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Not as scared as me, I'll bet. If you hadn't helped me, I couldn't have done it. My brain was froze, and my knees were like water. I wouldn't have been any scareder with a tiger chasing me." He paused. "But as soon as I was out the door-bang! No way can I tell you how great it felt! When I got down, I wanted to go up and do it again. Right away. And last night was just as good. Maybe better, because the sky was so beautiful."
"It was, wasn't it." Jael paused. "About being scared that first time, scared of going out the door- Remember what Hosea Innis said that night, when we talked about warbots with Sergeant Hawkins?"
"Remind me."
"He said if he'd ever come across a tiger and didn't have so much as his ax, why even innocent as the Lamb of God, he'd be scared to death. Because while the soul goes to heaven, the body knows it's going to get killed and eaten." She looked up at her husband. "It was our bodies were scared. They did not want to jump out that door! And when they found out it was all right, the relief was so big, we felt really really good."
Esau nodded thoughtfully, then stopped and kissed her. "You know what?" he said. "I'm married to the wisest woman in the world."
She chuckled. "How about the prettiest?"
"That too," he answered, and kissed her again. "You know something else I really really like?" he murmured. "Better than jumping out of a floater?"
This time she laughed out loud. "Let's go back to the hotel," she said.
Over the next two weeks, each of the paraglider platoons made three free-fall jumps with parasail chutes. The first was by daylight from 4,000 feet, wearing high-altitude jump suits. The trainees needed to get used to them, and even at only 4,000 feet, these autumn days were freezing, or close to it.
Combat jumps would be at night, but the Masadans, demanding though they were, knew the value of training gradients. The trainees had been given a target to hit, a hundred-yard circle a mile from the flight path. Every jumper in 2nd Platoon came down inside the circle. And they all liked the parasails, which set them down less hard than the mass-jump chutes they'd used before. The second parasail jump was at night from 12,000 feet, their target a ring of unlit cloth panels eight miles away, invisible till they were near it. Until close in, they'd been guided by passive gravitic matrix detectors, read as a heads-up display on the faceplate of their jump helmet. They'd done it in virtual training, but needed to experience it for real.
Two missed the target, and were taken back up immediately, to try again.
Meanwhile, of course, they continued their infantry training, which was extended two weeks to accommodate the addition of paraglide and warbot training.
On the following Oneday, 2nd Platoon made its graduation jump. By then, Camp Woldemars Stenders was no longer Camp Mudhole. Or Dusthole. Deep-freeze temperatures had arrived, hardening the ground like stone.
It had already been decided to run this exercise in the subtropics. Their target would be an abandoned paddock, on an artillery range five hours by floater from Stenders. The operation was to be as realistic as feasible. There were even unwilling prisoners to be captured. Meanwhile, an enemy might very well have detected the floater, perhaps even recognized it as hostile, but would hardly connect it to the intended capture site. The floater would pass it twenty miles to the west.
Forty miles short of the jump point, the carrier had slowed to 200 mph, hopefully still fast enough not to draw suspicion. The jump would be made at the same speed. And until they were on the ground, the only electronic gear the jumpers would activate was their heads-up displays.
They had run and rerun this mission on sand tables, complete with imaginary enemy responses. But this was no sand table. Now they sat on bench seats 30,000 feet above the ground, in a nearly silent floater. Some stared at nothing, their attention inward. Some slumped, dozing. A buzzer sounded, loud and coarse, jerking them alert.
"One minute to amber!" The voice was the pilot's.
This time they had no Masadan jump master. Ensign Berg stood at one side of the exit, Sergeant Hawkins at the other. The floater arrived at the ready location. Above the door, the amber waiting light flashed on. The trainees got to their feet and did an equipment check. Static lines weren't used.
The amber light flicked off, and the green ready light came on. The double doors spread, and the two files of trainees shuffled toward them.
Exhilaration flowed through Esau Wesley; this was the life! Again the buzzer sounded, the red light flashed and the files moved, jumpers disappearing out the exit at a measured pace, one of Ensign Berg's, followed by one of Sergeant Hawkins'. Then Esau was at the lip, felt the ensign's hand slap his shoulder, and stepped out. The slipstream snatched him, then released him, and for a moment he seemed to hang suspended in the starry night. They'd been warned of the illusion. He maneuvered his arms and legs for a good opening position, then pulled his ripcord and felt the fabric feed out. There was no shock; he simply swung forward. Even the oscillation quickly damped and disappeared.