The constant humor in Harlequin's voice had been dimmed. "Bull, everyone's hooked. Start the drag." Almost immediately after Harlequin cut his transmission, the loads on both cables began moving away from the damaged aircraft and toward the rescue bird. Harlequin braced himself on the Hawk’s hull and made his way over to his team leader. With his left-hand glove and both his boots planted against the outer skin of the aircraft, Harlequin reached with his right hand to his left forearm and twisted the comm’s selector switch to the team's internal channel. “Boss, blow it in place or is it dragging as well?"
Reaver held up a hand, tapped the side of his helmet with two fingers, then pointed back toward their Hawk, signaling that he was on closed comms with the pilots of the Angel flight. Less than thirty seconds later, Reaver twisted his selector switch to the team's channel. “We start our crawl back, and once everyone is on board, Angel will be taking care of the bent bird. She burns here in the void." Flipping his selector switch back to open comms, Reaver's next words went over the aircraft's net. “Angel, Feathers are en-route."
Breaking the connection, Reaver turned so that his head aimed in the direction of their tether’s anchor point; bending at his knees and with a swift shift of his ankles to disengage the magnetic locks, he pushed off forcefully from the now empty Hawk.
The pilot's acknowledgment finished as Harlequin skipped his body across the breached doorway and copied Reaver's movements to launch himself after his fellow Marine. Hand over hand to keep their tethers taut and to guide their flight, the two Marines made their way methodically through the vacuum of space separating the two aircraft.
Opposite their delivery to the damaged Hawk, which had been like a leap into the abyss, their return felt more akin to an ascent from the depths of an ocean devoid of any life, where the greatest predator was the soulless vacuum outside the skin of their vacsuits, waiting to steal the air from their lungs in one violent rush. Reaver concentrated on taking deep breaths and ignoring the void around him. If he let his thoughts drift and get away from him, he’d be running the risk of a “vac break,” a form of dementia that had ended the career of some of the toughest Marines Reaver knew. The Marines and sailors who worked day after day in the void underwent constant training and skills upkeep to ensure the cases of vac break stayed low. That training allowed Reaver and Harlequin to make the transit from the damaged aircraft to the Angel flight in only twice the amount of time it had taken for them to make the first trip.
The female crewmember who had attached their tethers and anchor cables stood in the door to pull the two Marines in. Reaver held to the ideal that the leader was first in and last out, so he waved Harlequin ahead of him. As the tethers pulled Reaver into the cabin, he unhooked and guided himself out of the way of the crew. The pods and Cubes hauled in were stacked in the center of the cabin floor with cargo netting stretched over the stack. Safer to leave the pods alone until they were in the med-bay, where the docs and nurses could pop the seals and deal with whatever lay waiting inside.
Reaver and Harlequin strapped themselves into their respective seats. Meanwhile, Bull, assisted by the two crewmembers, freed the tethers from the hoists set into the ceiling. The two crewmembers flung the shorn ends of the tethers out of the open clamshell door and into the void. Bull hefted the drag cables and coiled them tightly before strapping them to the floor between the stacked Cubes and the pilots’ compartment. Shifting his added bulk carefully through the Hawk’s crew compartment, Bull made his way toward where Reaver and Harlequin sat. Maglocking his boots to the floor, Bull lowered himself as if sitting and the Skeleton took his weight, providing a secure and comfortable ‘seat’ for the ride back to the Fury’s Fire.
The female crewmember climbed back into her station on the right side of the aircraft while the other crewmember ensured the clamshell hatches had closed and sealed correctly. The crewmember’s tenor voice came over the internal communication net as he returned to his station on the left side of the cabin. “Cabin sealed. Crew, pax, mission equipment secure. Clear for Ox."
The lead pilot's voice answered, and the vibrations of the engines spinning back to full power shuddered through the Hawk’s cabin and rattled the bodies of the crew and Marines. “Negative on Ox. Burned too much fuel to breathe normal, stay suited ‘til we're home."
The two crewmembers turned from their stations to look to the rear of the cabin and the Marines. From their seats where they were as securely strapped in as they had been on the trip from the cruiser, Reaver, Bull, and Harlequin gave a thumbs-up. The crewmembers then turned back to their stations, and the voice of the right-side crewman came over the radio. “Cabin copies, remain suited."
The lead pilot's voice came back over the radio. “Weapons free. Target Raider Two-One. Burn it." The radio clicked off with an eerie solemnity, as the pilot cleared the destruction of his bird's sister.
The crewman at the left side station adjusted his screen, and the red glow of a targeting display reflected from the faceplate of his vacsuit. The only indication that any ordinance had been fired from the Hawk came in the form of the crew member's announcement of. “Lava bomb away."
The rumble of the engines changed; a screaming roar through the Marines’ boots and seats and into their bones as the pilots launched the Hawk away from the doomed aircraft out their left door. The roar subsided into a growl as the aircraft steadied and picked up speed, the left side crew member counting down the distance to impact of the round with the damaged Hawk. “Five hundred meters." A pause and the time between distances seemed to stretch on forever. “Three hundred meters." Another pause. “One hundred meters." Almost immediately after he had completed his last transmission, the crewmember came back over the radio. “Good hit, good flash. No traceable debris, target is clean." Silence fell over the cabin, and the red tinge to the lights of the left side crewman's station returned to the green of standard flight operations.
Reaver closed his eyes and did his best to relax. The straight-backed position the vacsuit forced him into combined with the weight of his helmet made it difficult to get comfortable, but it was a poor Marine that didn't take any chance they could to catch a few seconds of sleep. The adage was drilled into every Marine's head during boot. "Never stand when you can sit. Never sit when you can lay down. Never be awake when you can sleep."
The combat nap, taken by Reaver and the other two Marines of his Recon team, had the additional effect of seeming to hasten their flight time back to Fury’s Fire. The change in the vibration of the engines roused the Marines to full consciousness moments before the lead pilot's voice came over the internal radio. "We're cleared straight into the hangar, shields down in thirty seconds."
Reaver and Harlequin shifted in their seats and loosened their straps a fraction; the return to gravity would press them tighter into the seats the second they came into the hangar. The pilots would have timed their clearance through the shield to ensure it was down the shortest amount of time required. As soon as the Hawk landed, a medical team would be standing by to recover the pods and Cube. The cabin brightened noticeably as the aircraft entered the Fire's hangar, and the return of gravity on his body signaled to Reaver that the shield had been raised and the hangar bay doors closed. With gravity again acting on the Hawk and its occupants, Reaver could feel the aircraft's nose pitch up, slowing the bird rapidly, followed by the controlled descent and slight jar as the pilots planted the Hawk on the deck, all five struts down at the same moment.
Before the struts of the Hawk had fully settled the bird into place, the crew was moving, popping their straps and slapping the door controls to cycle them open. A twist of their own strap locks had Reaver and Harlequin rising smoothly from their seats and exiting the Hawk, Reaver out the left door while Harlequin exited through the right. Only after they cleared the aircraft did the two Marines remove their helmets and gloves, taking deep breaths to draw cleaner air than they had been breathing into their lungs. Reaver moved to the front of the aircraft and around to
the right side, joining Harlequin and distancing himself from the deck handlers. The handlers arrived in a deck-cart, a squat, six-wheeled truck known for its versatility and flexibility in configuration. The truck the deck handlers were using had been set up to carry pods and Cubes and would be used to rush the crew and passengers of the now destroyed Hawk to one of the three medical decks aboard the Fury’s Fire. From inside the Hawk's cabin, Bull put the added strength from the Skeleton to use unloading the Cube first and then the survival pods onto a conveyor run from the back of the deck-cart to the edge of the Hawk's door to transfer the patients to the truck for transport. Once the last pod had been loaded and secured, the conveyor belt slid back into its storage compartment beneath the bed of the truck. Two handlers climbed into the cab of the cart while the other two secured a hard-shell cover over the back of the truck before stepping onto the running boards on either side of the cart. A slap from the two running board occupants on the top of the cart echoed through the bay, and the driver put the pedal down, launching the deck-cart from a dead stop to screaming across the hangar floor at a breakneck speed.
With the cabin clear of the Cubes and gear, the Hawk's crew assisted Bull out of the Skeleton, then set to repacking the pieces of the Skeleton into its compartment. Tethers and cables would be inspected, cleaned, and replaced if needed before being repacked, all before the Hawk launched on its next mission.
The pilots' canopies came swinging open, and the pilots dragged themselves from their seats, both immediately bracing their hands in the small of their backs and stretching to loosen the knots and pressure caused by the aircraft's vibrations. Free of his suit, at last, Bull pulled the Recon team's rucksacks from the storage compartment and slung them two-handed from the cabin to land with a solid thud on the hangar floor. After the Marines stripped off their vacsuits, re-donned their well-used combat uniforms and hardside boots, and had started folding down their vacsuits for storage in their rucks, a second deck-cart arrived.
Four Army enlisted climbed from the back of the truck. A quick conversation occurred between the newly arrived enlisted and one of the pilots, ending with the pilot waving his fellow pilot and the Hawk's crew over to him while the four enlisted began the process of tying the Hawk down and performing the required post-flight maintenance. After a few brief words with the pilots, the Hawk's original crewmembers secured their flight bags and equipment from their flight stations and carried them to the deck-cart. The female crewmember climbed up into the open bed of the back of the cart while the second handed the bags and gear up to her before climbing in himself.
After speaking with the crew, the pilot walked over to Reaver and his team of Marines, and Reaver straightened as he neared while Harlequin and Bull continued to pack down their vacsuits into their rucks. The pilot was a Chief Warrant Officer Three, as told by the three black squares laid into a small silver rectangle sewn onto a hook and loop patch over his left breast. Just below the rank insignia was embroidered a silver shield backed by outstretched wings that swept up and over the top of the shield; above that, a gold star rested, surrounded by a silver laurel wreath. Below the wings, where Naval pilots would have stitched their call-sign, the pilot's last name was embroidered into the patch, 'Thames.' Reaver had heard it remarked that the Army held it as a point of pride that their aircraft and unit received credit for the actions they took, rather than the pilots who were simply along for the ride. The pilot's cheeks showed the stubble common at the end of a duty day that had greatly surpassed what was standard, though his eyes were still alert with a gaze missing nothing.
When he spoke, Reaver recognized his voice as that of the lead pilot from the radio traffic. “Next shift is taking care of tying the bird down and the post-flight. My guys are gonna catch a ride to the lifts if you want to hitch with them. Mr. Dobbs and I are going to stay with the bird until she's fueled. Good flying with you, boys, and good hop on the rescue call." Without waiting for any response, Thames turned and walked back to the other pilot, and the two were soon engrossed in their own conversation.
Harlequin piped up as Reaver turned back to his team. “Personable, ain’t he?" His gaze flicked toward the two pilots so there would be no doubt as to who was talking about as he slung his ruck over his shoulder by a single strap.
Bull shook his head while shouldering his ruck and the Ogre, and the three men walked toward the waiting deck-cart. “In and around the birds most of them are like that. The only place you'll see a Warrant anything but business is in a bar or on R and R." Bull dropped his ruck from his shoulder then hefted it into the back of the truck with ease; then stepped out of the way as Harlequin, with a grunt, swung his ruck up toward the lip of the truck. A muttered curse fell out of Harlequin’s mouth as the ruck smacked the lip of the truck bed and swung back. Still grumbling, Harlequin heaved the ruck a second time and managed to get it into the truck. The rifle slung across his chest never hit the vehicle.
“Looks like you need some more PT, Marine,” Reaver commented as he tossed his own ruck into the back of the truck.
“Can’t smoke a rock,” Harlequin answered as the three Marines climbed in and lowered themselves into sitting positions on the floor of the bed, the Ogre resting beside Bull while Reaver and Harlequin kept their weapons slung.
“The Hell you can,” Bull replied as he reclined against his rucksack and the two crewmembers of the Hawk slapped the back wall of the cab.
The driver of this cart obviously wasn't in as much of a hurry as the driver of the last, the cart beginning its forward motion at a much more controlled pace. Harlequin spoke, continuing their conversation. “They can stay business all the time. I prefer the job be fun."
Reaver cracked a smile, the first his team had seen since they had received the initial mission for the planet's surface, three weeks ago. “Fun's nice. For now, I'll settle for a hot shower and a decent meal."
Chapter Six
Reaver dragged fingers through his close-cropped hair and blew air sharply out from between his partly open lips, water spitting from his mouth as the hot spray of the shower cascaded over his head and down his body. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back and let the downpour impact his face, the heat and sting washing away the soap from his face and upper body while also helping to wake him up. The little things that you could take such pleasure in when you knew that every day could be your last were amazing. For many, that pleasure was sleep; for Reaver, it was a good hot shower.
Lifting his head and turning around in the stall, Reaver let his body lean forward and rested his forehead against the back wall as the water beat against his shoulders, running in tight rivers down his back. Resisting the urge to snap the shower off and return to his bed for a few more hours of sleep, Reaver stepped fully under the water before twisting the knob and cutting the flow. Dragging his towel down from where it hung over the door, Reaver dried his body off and stepped from the stall onto the towel he had laid over the bare metal floor. The mirror had been fogged over by the steam from the shower, and Reaver swiped a hand across the wet surface, clearing his reflection. The dark blue of his eyes had been a constant topic of comment from the women he had dated over the years; apparently the color spoke to them, but he didn’t see it. They were just his eyes.
Exactly eight minutes after exiting the shower, Reaver stepped out of the corner cubicle, clean shaven with the worn material of his towel secured around his waist, and into his room proper. His bed hung from the far wall, along the long axis, sheets still rumpled from what little sleep he had been able to get since returning from the hangar bay. Secured to the short wall to his right was his desk with its chair stationed beneath it. When in use the chair would be slid from under the desk on rails set into the floor. Reaver’s personal screen lay clamped to the desktop and powered down, having entered its sleep cycle after ensuring the action reports from the mission planetside and the recovery operation of Raider Two-One had been transmitted to his platoon leader.
Two steel-gray bookshe
lves set end to end opposite his desk, bracketed to the wall Each stood about a meter tall and a meter wide. Heavy glass shutters secured and protected the books that lined each shelf, the only treasures Reaver allowed himself. While technology continued its march into the future, the feel of a book in his hand was a love he had picked up from his father, just as it had been passed down to him. On bare feet, Reaver padded toward his bed, stooping down to retrieve the entertainment tablet he had been reading last night from the floor, and locking it on his desk. The words from the twentieth-century novel, Obsidian Butterfly, floated on the screen before he tapped the temptation close. Turning back to his rack, and with movements practiced day after day and year after year, he quickly made his bed, ensuring the top sheet and blanket were secured tightly with crisp forty-five-degree angles at each corner before snapping the bed against the wall in the small room. Beyond the point of being subject to barracks inspections, old habits died hard, and Reaver wouldn't hold his men to a standard that he didn't first adhere to himself.
Stepping away from his bed, Reaver moved to the single door closet hanging between his entrance to the latrine he shared with three other Staff Sergeants and the small alcove leading to the exit from his room. Reaching for the handle on the left side of the door and giving a sharp tug swung the door open then slid it along the rails, guiding it into a recessed port in the wall. The door opening triggered a switch, and an overhead light automatically illuminated the interior of the closet. A single bar crossed the width of the closet and on it hung his shipboard duty uniforms and a garment bag protecting his dress uniform. On the shelf above the bar sat a box containing his dress cover, with his parade shoes resting on top of the box, while two duty covers were positioned with their brims even with the lip of the shelf. Along the left side of the closet were storage containers for those clothes that did not require hanging. From these Reaver pulled on a light gray undershirt before taking one of the duty uniforms off a hangar. Stepping into the legs of the tan single piece suit, Reaver pulled the cloth up and shoved his arms through the sleeves. The rasp of the zipper caused his hips to instinctively drop back as it rose to about five centimeters below his collarbone, while three magnetic clasps down his sternum secured the zipper from slipping and ensured a snug fit. Everyone aboard, from the ship's captain to the commander of the Ship Marine Task Force and all those under the command of both, wore a uniform of this style. Each uniform had a specific color pattern depending on the branch that wore it; for the sailors, it was a solid dark gray, while the Marines was a solid tan, and the Army personnel wore hunter green.
Dragon Two-Zero (Fury's Fire Book 1) Page 6