Two dozen MMUs began thrusting out into space. They went slow, using their tieback to the Hallibrand’s sensors to find their way in the cloud. Rocks and lumps of ice smaller than a man, were ignored. What they wanted were the bigger pieces, to which two or three troops could cling and appear as if they were part of the whole—at least to a cursory sensor sweep. An in-depth examination would give them away. But Zuri was depending on the Nauties to have all eyes on Hallibrand over the next ninety minutes. Giving the admiral a chance to slip in quiet, and do what Commodore Urrl thought could not be done.
Chapter 28
Garsina Oswight stirred awake with a shock. Though her gee hammock was comfortable, she felt a distinct desire to throw herself out of it. The nights since they’d rounded the second jovian planet—and begun their journey to the terrestrial worlds of the inner system—had been rough on her. Too many times, she’d startled herself out of sleep, her heart pounding furiously at the feeling of sudden, imminent destruction.
Unlike the majordomo, Garsina had never faced battle. Nor death. Until joining the expedition to Uxmal’s system, she’d never confronted any significant danger of which she was aware. Her father—and Axabrast—had seen to that. But now? Whatever Garsina and her allies could do to Nautilan’s forces, so too could Nautilan’s forces do to Garsina. There was nothing magical about being a member of a First Family. As her father had said so well, he had been lucky to avoid the fates of his siblings—both of whom had died in war.
Would Garsina join their ranks? A memory in the Oswight Family tapestry? Such morose questions kept her increasingly occupied as the detachment neared its objective.
Preparations for landing on Uxmal were proceeding according to Lieutenant Commander Antagean’s and Captain Fazal’s plans. Roughly half of the drop modules on each starliner had been stripped of their descent retros, so that those retros could be jury-fitted to the drop modules which remained. It wasn’t exactly a designer-approved modification, but the DSOD and TGO personnel working on the problem had assured her that with double the number of descent thrust pods—outboard of the module proper—each module could be dropped toward Uxmal without its parent starliner needing to decelerate to orbital-insertion velocity. The modules themselves would perform the deceleration, while the starliners did one more slingshot around Uxmal, and headed to the heart of Uxmal’s system.
By the time both sets of outboard descent thrusters had been used up, each module would theoretically be going slow enough for the inboard planetary-descent rockets to kick in, braking them from reentry speeds down to a gentle meter-per-second rate, which would allow the modules’ landing bags—already inflated—to absorb the impact on dry land.
Assuming all of the drop modules did fall over dry land. Being sure of their deceleration sequence—and the potential for mathematical error—kept Antagean’s DSOD aerospace personnel, and the TGO drop specialists, very busy. Even a minor variation in thrust, speed, or trajectory could have disastrous consequences. Drop modules landing far out to sea would have no way of reaching shore. They were dependent on someone else to come tow them in. Drop modules landing too far inland would be separated from their companions by hundreds of kilometers—with no way to quickly make up the distance. It would take days or even weeks of marching to regroup with those personnel who arrived successfully at the target.
Drop modules which experienced a thruster failure…
No, Garsina didn’t want to think about that. Imagining her drop module falling helplessly at hundreds or even thousands of kilometers per hour, to smash flat on contact, merely sent her shivering back to her suite, with a renewed feeling of doom in her heart.
“I don’t have any magic cures for the jitters,” Axabrast said one morning, as he watched her come weary eyed into the starliner’s galley. She barely poked at her food, while Elvin pounded down two full gee trays worth of hot breakfast, followed by a full gee mug of hot coffee.
“I know,” she said glumly. “Elvin, how did…how did you just make yourself forget about it, in the days and hours before you had to do something dangerous?”
“TGO and DSOD training usually keeps a young lad too busy to fret,” the majordomo said, pausing between sips. “When you’re up to your ass in battle prep and drop planning, you literally can’t slow down long enough to think about any of it. And by the time you do slow down, you’re already strapped into your drop module with your mates, all of whom are every bit as scared as you are, so you make fun of yourselves. Laughter can make anything seem easier.”
“Not much to laugh about right now, I guess,” Garsina said, mentally trying to make the spork-sized bites of fruit and sausage seem more appetizing than they were. Intellectually, she knew she needed sustenance. But emotionally? Her appetite fled when she became depressed or nervous. How ironic that she should be experiencing this much dread on the eve of finally being able to walk Uxmal’s surface. She’d been so excited to come here. It was everything she’d ever wanted since she’d been a teenager. But now that she had to endure the uncertainty of the actual process of getting down to the planet—to say nothing of the danger posed by Starstate Nautilan—she found herself silently regretting the fact that she had been so eager to leave home.
“There, lass,” Elvin said, reaching across the tiny galley table, to put his hand reassuringly on her forearm—her spork poised indecisively over her tray. “Think of it this way. You’re experiencing something just like what I’ve experienced, and it didn’t kill me, right? And you’re not alone, either. Look around at the faces in this mess compartment. The lieutenant commander? He looks nervous as hell. And that Zoam Kalbi fellow? Even he’s letting the mask slip—now that things are getting real.”
“I guess that’s all true,” Garsina said. “But there’s something else, Elvin. I participated in the ad hoc weapons project Antagean gave us. You and Captain Fazal seem fine about what we did. But ever since it happened—ever since we destroyed one of the Nautilan ships—I can’t help but wonder about the people who died. What was it like? Did they feel anything? Was it quick? Was it slow? Were any of them really bad people, who deserved to die? Who am I to be their executioner?”
“’Tweren’t your hand alone in the matter,” Elvin said, squeezing her forearm, then leaning back in his seat—grip boots keeping him firmly attached where he was.
“I don’t think that makes it any less complicated,” she said.
“Sure it does,” the older man said, pleasantly disagreeing. “War is war. And war makes even decent folk do terrible things to others, who maybe also are decent? It’s not for them to decide the rightness or the wrongness of it. Oh, there’s personal honor at stake, and I am not suggestin’ ye set aside all notion of proper conduct. There’s things I’d never do in a fight—malicious, sadistic—even if I am fixin’ to kill another man. But the killin’ itself? Like a law of nature, really. All our lives, Starstate Nautilan has been murderin’ Starstate Constellar, in a slow strangle. A bit here, and a bit there, they close their hands over our throats. What choice is there, then, but for us to put a knife in their belly? Might not be enough to force them off us, before the end, but by God we can make sure they hurt for the evil that they do. Even if their little people—down at the baseline—aren’t evil in their hearts. I am quite sure some of the men and women who died in the battles I’ve been through, and who were on the other side, were just like me. Doin’ a job that needs doin’. And they paid for it with their lives.”
“You say that like it’s all so simple,” Garsina said, looking intently into her majordomo’s eyes. “As if the whole thing is a kind of game!”
“Well, lass, like my cadre sergeant screamed at me when I was new, war is a game. And everyone in it should play to win. You’re seeing the war now, lass. For the first time, up close, in your young life. It’s the kind of thing I’d not willingly show you, but now that we’re up to our necks—hint: when passing through hell, do not under any circumstances stop—the best thing to do, is just push through. Gut it out.
Maybe you die? Maybe you live. I know a lot of men who thought they’d live, and didn’t. And I know a lot of men who thought they wouldn’t, and did. It’s not anything you can control. Other than you just keep doin’ the best job you can do, in that moment, and if you’re walking and breathing in the next moment, you keep on doin’ the best job you can. Until the war gets you, and it’s over. Or you emerge on the other side—a real veteran. Whether you’re military, or not. Nobody’s going to be able to take any of this from you, lass, when you get back home. And if you keep your mind right, it’s only gonna make you stronger. See?”
Garsina considered. The older man’s firm hand remained on her forearm. The look in his unblinking blue eyes—contrasting with her eyes, which were so brown they were almost black—was as serious as she’d ever seen it. Almost too serious. But there was a small smile on his lips too. As if to say that even in the midst of the most critical moments, there was sufficient levity in the universe to maintain the candle flame of a person’s humanity.
Garsina grinned in spite of herself.
“I guess I’ve been gazing much too much at my own belly button,” she confessed, and suddenly felt her appetite swell up from the depths of her stomach. She attacked her tray with the kind of enthusiasm she had not felt since leaving Planet Oswight.
Elvin’s teeth showed happily.
“That’s my girl,” he said. And took a healthy mouthful of coffee from his gee mug.
Packing occupied the remainder of their morning, though in truth there wasn’t much to take. Not when it came to individual luxuries. If it wasn’t food, or a tool, or a weapon, it stayed behind. Including the vast majority of the contents of Garsina’s gee chests, which remained in the starliner suite. She felt a moment of panic, when she realized that all of her many comforts—her hair brushes, combs, skin lotions, special soaps, custom blankets and pajamas, scented oils, and all the rest of it—were going away. Then she steeled herself, and pushed such thoughts from her mind. Focusing instead on the chore of loading what could be taken into her specific drop module, where Elvin, the lieutenant commander, Captain Fazal, and Zoam Kalbi were also stowing their equipment.
The drop module itself was a large, cone-shaped spacecraft, with the top of the cone mated to a docking collar which held two other cones at the waist of the starliner. There was a second collar, also with three cones attached, for a total of six on the ship. And only two of them would be detaching for deceleration. When those drop modules used up their first set of outboard thrusters—perched on the tips of pylons jutting from the cone’s sides—the second set would kick in. And when the second set had finished, all of the thrusters and their pylons would be jettisoned, so that the drop modules could enter the atmosphere with no disruption in streamlining. It was crucial for each module to remain belly-first into the blast wave of friction heat.
At a certain altitude, the ablative reentry shields on the modules’ bellies would drop away, then the inboard set of deceleration thrusters would kick in, and the landing bag would inflate—making each cone appear as if it had a huge rubber skirt sprouting from the bottom.
If at any point the drop module were to be up-ended before the heat shield could be jettisoned, it would be death for all thirty people inside.
But, having successfully landed on its bag, the module’s computer would reassure itself that the module was on solid ground, then automatically blow the sides off, with slide ramps deploying for the people on the second and third decks. In the hands of an experienced TGO platoon, a drop module could be evacuated—with all of the necessary combat stores and equipment—within five minutes.
Elvin seemed almost gleeful, as he took his seat in the narrow gee chair next to Garsina’s assigned location.
“It’s been quite a while,” he said, smiling, as he worked the buckle on the straps, clicking them into place, then releasing them, clicking them back into place, and releasing them once again.
“You are entirely too eager for what I am assured will be a bone-jarring experience,” Zoam Kalbi muttered before taking his own seat, and testing his own straps and buckle.
“Life is for living!” Elvin said proudly. “If ye can’t handle gettin’ yer blood pumpin’ now and again, why bother?”
The infotainer—whose video and audio recording glasses seldom left his face—merely stared at the majordomo before he shook his head in disbelief, puffed his cheeks out, and leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling above. Each of the three decks in the drop module was stripped of all superfluous bulkheading. Bare tubes and wiring snaked all over the place, kept immobile by metal or plastic tie-downs. The lamps were not soft either. They glared down from above with the kind of harsh, utilitarian light that was seldom used on the civilian starliner—except in crawlspaces or utility closets. The air in the module smelled different too. Aboard the starliner, the atmosphere plant had ensured that any odor from oils, fluids, machinery, or electronics was minimized. The drop module made no such accommodation. Garsina could almost taste the steel surrounding her, as well as the plastic, the rubber, and the mesh netting which secured most of their stores and equipment.
The lieutenant commander seemed awkward with the bulky armor for his zipsuit attached. Unlike Captain Fazal, who effortlessly glided about the drop module—with several of his sergeants, all checking to be sure their people and equipment were secured. This was definitely not Antagean’s area of expertise. His eyes darted about as he tried to avoid running into people, or things, and his fingers clenched the handrails as he moved.
“Fish out of water,” Elvin muttered in her ear, when he noticed.
“He’s in good company,” she said. “We’re not exactly taking a clipper down, are we? Once the drop module is in the atmosphere, there’s no turning back.”
“Aye,” Elvin said, and nodded his head once. “Which reminds me…”
The old man suddenly produced a gun. It was two-handled, with a grip on the barrel and a grip back by the collapsible stock. A well for magazines was apparent, as was a tubular scope for sighting. He pressed it into Garsina’s hands, with the shoulder strap floating free.
“I’m not experienced in how to use it,” she said.
“You’ve fired target rifles back home,” Elvin said. “This isn’t much different. Except, when the magazine’s inserted here, you can take up to forty shots. See that little button there? Safety. Red means fire, black means no-fire. That little lever by the thumb will allow you to pick between one shot each time the trigger is pulled, and shooting ten rounds per second for as long as the trigger is pulled. I’d recommend against that. The kick will make it so that you’re firing wild. Here’s some magazines. I already loaded them.”
Garsina tugged the bandolier from Elvin’s hands—it was heavy, based on the mass she could feel being exchanged between them.
“I don’t know that it’ll do any of us much good,” she said, “I’m probably more useful carrying things than I am fighting.”
“Just a precaution,” Elvin said. “I am sorry we don’t have more time, or I’d have put you through your paces with that weapon. Before departure. As it is, we’ll have you give it a go, once we’re down. I borrowed the rifle from one of the female TGO troops, about your size. She’s not coming on the drop with us. But this weapon should suit you.”
Elvin himself had reequipped—with his customary sidearm, which had not seen the light of day since leaving Planet Oswight. His zipsuit was much larger than Garsina’s, to contain a person who had many kilos and centimeters on her, but the sidearm’s gunbelt was clipped neatly into place, as were two bandoliers of ammunition.
“Also for precaution?” she asked.
“Aye,” he said.
“Why not a snubby rifle like mine?”
“I can one-handed quick-draw this beastie”—he placed a hand on the sidearm’s grip for emphasis—“faster than anyone on this ship. If there’s to be shootin’, I’m going to need to keep arm one pointed at the enemy, and the other arm free t
o protect you, Lady Oswight.”
Garsina blushed slightly.
“How do you know it won’t be me protecting you?” she asked, only half-jesting.
“It might come to that,” Elvin said, “but I’m gonna do my damnedest to ensure things aren’t so dire that you’re shootin’ at Nauties, with my corpse as a sandbag.”
“Sir,” Captain Fazal reported to Lieutenant Commander Antagean, “I think we’re about done here. We should take our seats too.”
“Right,” Antagean said, and got himself buckled in tight. All of them were facing in toward the center of the circular deck. Cargo-netted equipment was bunched in stacks in front of them, and they could hear activity over their heads, as the other sergeants returned to their designated gee chairs.
Once he was all strapped in, Antagean used a set of switches on his gee chair’s arm to activate intraship communications.
“Antagean to Loper,” he said.
“Copy you, sir,” the older man replied.
“We’re ready to go here. How much longer?”
“About twenty minutes from drop,” he said. “Once we’ve disengaged, you’ll be on your own reaction-control system. The module’s guidance computers should begin deceleration almost immediately, so we’re going to pull away from you fast. I’ll keep the line open until you hit the reentry blackout, sir. Hopefully all goes well.”
“Agreed,” the lieutenant commander said. Then seemed to become aware—for the first time—that Garsina had been watching him.
“Any questions about what happens from here on out, Lady?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Mister Axabrast and Captain Fazal briefed me well ahead of schedule. Though I can’t say I am too sure how my stomach is going to handle this.”
“It shouldn’t be too much different from being on a clipper,” Wyodreth said.
Elvin grunted, smiled, and shook his head.
If Lieutenant Commander Antagean was offended, he didn’t show it. The expression on his face merely remained nervous. He was fully aware of the fact that he was doing something dangerous, and for the first time as well. It wasn’t a position Garsina enjoyed any more than he did, though he seemed to be managing his discomfort by asking each of his other deckmates in turn if they had any questions or problems before the drop module disembarked.
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