Transport 3 is secured, Thomer said over the interLink. He had captured his bird.
There was an eight-foot climb from the floor of the kettle to the narrow catwalk that led to the cockpit door.
“Captain, I can see him in there,” the sergeant said.
“Is he coming out?” I froze.
“Standing in the doorway.”
“Think he heard me?”
“I can’t tell.” The sergeant paused, then said, “Okay, he’s moving back in.”
Transport 5 is secure.
I’ve got 6.
Seven is secure.
I climbed to the top of the ladder, walked to the door of the cockpit, and swung in, lowering my pistol into place. The pilot started to reach for his communications set, then stopped.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said.
He looked at me, nervousness and indecision showing in his expression. Despite my warning, he reached for the microphone, and I fired three shots. The first dart pierced the top of his skull, just above the temple. The second hit him in the ear. The third hit him in the base of the neck. Had they been bullets, any one of the shots would have blown his head apart.
S9s had a nice soft touch. Instead of passing through the pilot and destroying equipment, the fléchettes lodged deep in the pilot’s brain and throat. He died instantly, thin streams of blood pouring out of his wounds.
Transport 2 is secure.
I waited until I had heard from all eleven of my teams, then I added that we had captured the lead transport. I also sent the message to Warshaw. That was his signal to radio the battleships that their transports were en route.
I dragged the dead pilot out of the cockpit and tossed him into the kettle. The steady stream of blood leaking from the holes in his head reminded me of motor oil oozing from an engine.
The sergeant knelt beside the body and examined the wounds. He looked up, and said, “Nice work.”
Once we captured the transports, it only took fifteen minutes to load our Marines. We would not use stealth pistols for the next part of the mission, we would use M27s loaded with standard rounds. Each of the battleships carried a five-thousand-man crew. We’d be outnumbered ten-to-one. Long odds.
With the natural-born pilots dead or captured, we used our newly trained Marine pilots to fly the transports. Our pilots sealed the kettle doors and started toward the atmospheric locks. Once again, I found myself standing in the crush of a hundred Marines crammed into a kettle, willing myself calm as I stared into the future.
The floor shook as the sleds pulled us through the locks.
“Listen up, Marines,” I said. “This little chat is the only briefing you will get on this op. The objective of this exercise is to commandeer ourselves a trio of battleships. I don’t know what kind of resistance we will run into, but we are dealing with sailors here; I don’t expect them to put up too big a fight.
“Are you with me so far?”
Every man answered. In the Marines, officers do not ask rhetorical questions.
“Any questions?”
“Sir, who is the enemy?” asked one of my sergeants.
“The new Navy,” I said, opting for total honesty.
“New Navy, sir?” several men asked.
“The brass at Navy Headquarters wants to train their new all-natural-born navy by testing it against us.” This was true, though I had made the unauthorized decision to accelerate the process.
“Are we packing blank rounds and dummy grenades?” another man asked.
“Good guess, but dead wrong. We’re using live rounds, boys,” I said. “Tag ’em and bag ’em.”
“We can’t use live ammo on U.A. sailors.” Dozens of men said that or something like it all at once.
“This is a full-contact exercise. We use live rounds on maneuvers. Today it is man against man. In another month, they will bring their new ships out here, and we’ll get to see how nicely they play the game.
“Now listen up, drill or no drill, we are going to lose men. This is military Darwinism, boys—one side lives, and one side dies. Let’s show them what a clone force can do, hoorah.”
“I don’t belong here! I’m natural-born!” The clone who said this sounded absolutely terrified. More than a thousand other clones responded by laughing, each of them believing that he was the only natural-born enlisted man in the fleet.
We only had a minute before we would reach the battleship, and I had one more order to give. “I’m looking for the smallest body count that gets the job done,” I said. “If they surrender, take ’em alive. Otherwise, just remember, we’re doing this for the good of the Unified Authority.”
I heard a twelve-thousand-man Aye aye, sir!
We were sending four companies to board each of the three battleships. All of my company commanders and platoon leaders had their assignments. Maps of the ships and virtual beacons had been programmed into every man’s visor. If we struck quickly, we would have the element of surprise on our side. With every passing moment, the sailors on those ships would have more time to arm and defend.
Normally, as I headed into battle, I would listen in on the conversations around the kettle. This time, however, I spent the remainder of our short trip lost in thought. I wondered what the security structure would be like on the battleships. Sailors did not carry sidearms. The armory might issue pistols or M27s to sailors pulling MP duty; but for the most part, the only weapons they packed were their wits. Needless to say, that left most sailors empty-handed.
The capital ships in the U.A. Navy carried a detachment of Marines who handled ship security. As far as I knew, the Unified Authority no longer trained new Marines. That meant these ships would either have sailors carrying guns or soldiers doing the work of Marines. Neither option impressed me. As long as they let us dock …
“Captain Harris, we’re cleared to land.” My pilot had just given me the thirty-second warning.
“Okay, we’re coming in for a landing,” I said, using an open interLink frequency that all my men would hear. “The watchword on this op is speed. Hit hard, hit fast.”
We landed. Boosters hissed. Runners clanked and groaned. I moved to the rear of the ship. My Marines lined up behind me, pressing against my back. I did not need to look back to know they had their guns out and ready. I would lead the way into this battle. As the first man off the first transport, I would set the pace.
We stood in the dim light of the kettle, waiting for the heavy doors to open. Scanning the interLink, I did not find a single conversation. The motors in the kettle walls whined, and the heavy iron doors began to slide apart. Staring down the ramp, I saw technicians servicing the engines and deck-hands running errands, all unarmed and unsuspecting. They paid no attention to me as I clambered down the ramp. The men working on the engine were natural-borns. One had blond hair, two had brown. My instincts told me to shoot them, but I did not listen. I stormed down the ramp and ran past them. They did not look up at me.
“Asshole!” “Coward!” “Failure!” I muttered curses at myself as I ran across the docking bay, hating myself for not having pulled the trigger.
A couple of techs stood near the door. I wondered if I had what it took to kill anyone anymore. When had I become so timid? Why had I let those men live? If one of them so much as touched an intercom, we would all be stuck in Scrotum-Crotch forever. I hated myself.
The spatter of automatic gunfire echoed across the deck. Someone had cleaned up after my mess. I did not need to look back to know that the mechanics working on the engine were dead. My self-loathing turned to shame.
Hearing the commotion, the techs near the door finally looked up, only curiosity showing on their faces. Then they saw the parade of armor-clad Marines and reacted. One ran for the communications panel on a nearby wall, the other ran for the door. I shot them both—the man reaching for the panel first, then the sprinter. The guy heading for the door threw his arms wide when my bullets drilled into his back and neck, his head lolling back while his chest and shoulders thrust forward. He looked like a runner making a final burst to cross the finish line.